tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10054399557226827492024-02-21T04:06:40.017-05:00The Hunt for HenriettaThis is a place to share my experiences researching my family's genealogy. I have named it for my Great Great Grandmother, Henrietta, my most interesting ancestor who has inspired me to keep hunting so I can tell the story of my family.Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-92185789309065593152013-08-22T11:51:00.000-04:002013-08-22T11:51:52.971-04:00For Henrietta's FollowersI haven't posted in a long, long time. In fact I have put Henrietta to rest for a while. But I have another blog, recently resurrected called Suzies Musings. It's mostly a journal kind of blog, but occasionally there will be genealogical references that might interest some of Henrietta's readers. Today, August 22, 2013 I just posted one called The Name Game that has some interest for genealogists. So, here is the link: <br />
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<a href="http://suziesmusings.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-name-game.html">http://suziesmusings.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-name-game.html</a><br />
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I hope all my genealogy buddies enjoy it. Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-2399814855855066752011-10-13T00:20:00.000-04:002018-03-23T19:39:30.225-04:00The Eames MassacreMy great great grandmother Henrietta's line goes back to the 1600s in historical Sudbury, MA, town of my birth and upbringing and of zip code 01776. One of the two oldest family names from Sudbury in our tree was Eames which evolved into the name Ames. Henrietta's mother was an Ames. Many Ames ancestors are buried in Wadsworth cemetery in Sudbury not far from my grandparents. Wadsworth Cemetery is a peaceful spot I have spent a lot of time in over the years. In the middle of the cemetery is a monument, dedicated in 1852 to Captain Samuel Wadsworth and the 28 men who died during one of the last battles in King Philip's War on April 21, 1676. The obelisk was erected to honor those men who are buried beneath it. Each year on Memorial Day, members of the Wampanoag tribe decorate the monument honoring men from both sides of the conflict. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi22E7DS5mJUCsNU2krPLlUl_w-NyhWjjag5-JY_prc35npKqXhnFnEYf5M4JuPkLF0pUXM2qdS0ZF5IdxBJdppNaqVEZ6gpivIuj1ufkf3j5cNOyu9xY-E7VlGtzMbCSvi236ehfuLL9s/s1600/wadsworth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi22E7DS5mJUCsNU2krPLlUl_w-NyhWjjag5-JY_prc35npKqXhnFnEYf5M4JuPkLF0pUXM2qdS0ZF5IdxBJdppNaqVEZ6gpivIuj1ufkf3j5cNOyu9xY-E7VlGtzMbCSvi236ehfuLL9s/s1600/wadsworth.jpg" /></a>So important was the battle in Sudbury's history that the monument appears on the town's official seal. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzy0F5Q79BTp4l8_ahya8OHBI_3jmAmylEAjzIOQeNsNy9lUXa8kAE2ozciMmCid7ZsKv2derv-CDwavUr_-AlpAYzCUQkgjWM_yLFnonqu4u1ic7yla06pyIA_aae-B-B1y9GkJxGuU/s1600/town+seal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzy0F5Q79BTp4l8_ahya8OHBI_3jmAmylEAjzIOQeNsNy9lUXa8kAE2ozciMmCid7ZsKv2derv-CDwavUr_-AlpAYzCUQkgjWM_yLFnonqu4u1ic7yla06pyIA_aae-B-B1y9GkJxGuU/s1600/town+seal.jpg" /></a></div>
Six generations before Henrietta was born, Thomas Eames was born in 1618. He moved to Sudbury in the late 1660s after having emigrated here from England in 1634. He first made his home in Dedham, then in Medford and finally Cambridge before he sold his home and eight acres there and moved his family to Sudbury. Thomas leased the Pelham Farm in Sudbury for several years. Although a mason and brick maker by trade, the farm is what fed his family. Thomas had been a soldier in the Pequot Wars in 1637 and was injured "maimed in his limbs". Because of this disability he petitioned the court to allow him a land grant based on his service in that war. But his petition was denied. <br />
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Thomas Danforth, Deputy Governor at the time and a wealthy landowner in Framingham saw the petition, took pity on him and leased him some land on the side of Mt. Wayte in Framingham, just south of where he had been living in Sudbury. Here he made his home along with his second wife, the widow Mary Blandford Paddleford. Between them they had many children from each a previous marriage as well as some who were born to Thomas and Mary. <br />
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During this same period Metacomet, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, also called Philip by the English, was actively and successfully rounding up the support of surrounding tribes to drive the settlers out of the area. His father, Massasoit, had been a friend to the Pilgrims in Plymouth, but Philip did not trust the English. He rallied thousands from tribes all over to reclaim their lands and raids on outlying farms and remote settlements were a constant threat and struck fear into the hearts of all the settlers and their families. <br />
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But many of the Indians in the area were friendly with the settlers and had lived among them peacefully for years. Among these "praying Indians" was Netus, also known as 'William of Sudbury'. Netus and his family would often worship with the settlers of Sudbury and probably knew Thomas and his family quite well. <br />
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As so often seems to be the cause of conflict, misunderstandings and false accusations became common in a climate already rife with fear and before long nobody trusted anyone on either side of the situation, no matter their history. These friendly Indians who had dwelled peacefully among the English settlers were being forced from their homes by the English military who first moved them all to Natick, the town next to Framingham, forbidding them to leave the area for any reason, including hunting and fishing. Then, as if that weren't enough of a hardship to impose on them, in late October of 1675, soldiers were sent to round up all the Indians from Natick and relocate them to Deer Island in Boston Harbor. They weren't allowed to bring winter stores, nor had they shelter. Feeling betrayed and fearing that they would not survive the winter on Deer Island, a handful of these Natick Indians fled into the woods, including Netus.<br />
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Thomas' farm was miles from the next inhabited property. From all accounts there were only seven families in all of the town of Framingham at the time. His family was particularly vulnerable in such a remote area and Thomas was well aware of that. He petitioned the court to allow him to keep his two horses for his own means of escape, rather than surrendering them to the military for use in protecting the towns of Sudbury and Marlboro where he traveled regularly. "Divine Providence having cast my lot in a place both remote from neighbors, in the woods and in a place of no small danger in this day of trouble when God hath so signally (?) let loose the heathens against his people everywhere..." And in 1675, he may also have asked the court for protection because Boston sent four guards to Framingham. But when no attack came, these guards were removed in the late fall or early winter, at about the same time that Netus and a handful of Nipmucks who had escaped the forced move to Deer Island were living in the wilds of Natick and Framingham and Sudbury.<br />
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Late in January of 1676, word reached the settlers that Sudbury and the surrounding towns were going to be Philip's next area of attack. Perhaps that's why Thomas left his family, taking the horses and the wagon to Boston for supplies, ammunition and further assistance for himself and the neighboring farms.<br />
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On the morning of February 1, 1676, while Thomas was in Boston, Netus gathered a band of a dozen or so Braves and headed toward Natick where they had left corn and other winter provisions before the soldiers had come to relocate everyone. But when they arrived, the food was gone, probably taken by the area settlers to add to their own winter stores. So, Netus and his men headed toward Thomas Eames' farm, a place he was sure would have food.<br />
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Mary, Thomas' wife was making soap that morning. Her children, some from her first marriage, some from Thomas' first marriage and some of their own, were busy on the farm, perhaps performing some of the chores that their father normally would perform. Two of the children were out on the edge of the property by the well.<br />
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Netus' men approached the two and grabbed them, taking them to the cover of the woods and keeping them quiet so that they wouldn't alert the rest of the family. While one of the men, William Jackstraw, guarded the children, the others approached the home. Mary was known to be a formidable woman and witnesses say that she vowed not to be taken alive. So she threw the pot of boiling lye on the invading band of men, infuriating them. She fought with every weapon she could get her hands on, but she was no match for the strong men and she was killed along with several of her children. Netus was one of those who engaged in the actual killings, according to testimony, while others in the group begged them to just take the survivors rather than killing any more children. Although, this account may not be completely accurate because the tellers of the story were also those who had supposedly begged Netus to show some mercy hoping that they would be offered some leniency at the trial. All of the Eames farm buildings were burned to the ground, their livestock slaughtered and anything worth taking had been taken by Netus and his group or destroyed. <br />
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Although there are differing accounts, Thomas claims that his wife and nine children were killed or captured. One account reads as follows:<br />
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Mary Eames, wife killed<br />
Mary Eames, daughter, age 32, killed<br />
Zacharia Paddleford, age 18, captured and escaped<br />
Edward Paddleford, age 15, killed<br />
Thomas Eames, Jr. age 12, killed<br />
Samuel Eames, age 11, captured and escaped<br />
Margaret Eames, age 9, captured and ransomed<br />
Nathaniel Eames, age 7, captured and escaped<br />
Sara Eames, age 5, killed<br />
Lydia Eames, age 3, remained with her captors <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGfCoFo4aPa2qJ12jsd3HvvSI5f4tDYH5ch3j84kgGuk-X2oqUBBVnFD0UeZZaNxP1wz7JIkKPXYtfpTNpj_MVKQDwYTX_Ej3914SxffDrKagpqIAqXOOUEH_r4m2RtmOyDEABp7-QK_E/s1600/eames+massacre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGfCoFo4aPa2qJ12jsd3HvvSI5f4tDYH5ch3j84kgGuk-X2oqUBBVnFD0UeZZaNxP1wz7JIkKPXYtfpTNpj_MVKQDwYTX_Ej3914SxffDrKagpqIAqXOOUEH_r4m2RtmOyDEABp7-QK_E/s1600/eames+massacre.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Massacre of the Eames family.</td></tr>
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Our ancestor, John Eames, Thomas' oldest son by his first wife, was not at the farm during the attack. Perhaps he was with his father in Boston purchasing ammunition and asking for assistance. Just a year later, in 1677, destitute and in despair, Thomas Eames petitioned the court and was granted 200 acres in Framingham and Sherborn and 80 acres on the Framingham Sudbury line, and another 200 acres of Indian land near his original home in Sudbury for the losses that he incurred. Thomas never came back to the Framingham area, living instead in Sherborn where he became a Selectman. He died suddenly in 1680. <br />
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A month after the massacre, Netus was killed in a battle where he led 300 men in an attack at Sudbury near Marlboro. Three of the Indians that took part in the Eames massacre were hanged after standing trial, including those who testified to begging Netus to be merciful. Netus' wife and the wife of another chief said to have been involved, were sold into slavery.<br />
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HERE STOOD THE HOME OF <br />
THOMAS EAMES, <br />
BURNED BY THE INDIANS IN <br />
KING PHILIP'S WAR FEB. 1 1676. <br />
HIS WIFE AND FIVE CHILDREN <br />
WERE SLAIN AND FOUR CARRIED <br />
INTO CAPTIVITY </div>
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THIS MEMORIAL <br />
IS PLACED BY HIS DESCENDANTS <br />
A.D. 1900 </div>
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I wonder how this story came down through the generations? Did Henrietta's mother tell her about it when she was a little girl, sitting by the fire, maybe in a house on the land Thomas had been granted? Was it spoken about at all? Were they forever a fearful family, generations later? Did they marvel at Mary Eames's courage or curse her for provoking the savagery by resisting and injuring her attackers? Would their lives have been spared had she just given them some food? We can't answer those questions, but, it is certainly a fascinating story. It answers the question for me as to how the Eames family decided to settle in Sudbury. <br />
The Ames "cousins" I knew as a girl were Ruth Ames, a large woman who was a spinster lady my grandmother's age. She taught me piano when I was eight years old at her big old upright piano that was covered with tall piles of music books and sheet music. I was always afraid it was going to topple over on top of me when she sat down next to me to play, her huge upper arms bouncing up and down as she banged on the keys. She was a very sweet woman but I don't remember what she looked like. I was just eight years old and because of their proximity to my line of sight, I remember her arms more than her face. Her mother Julia lived there as well but I only saw her once or twice. She was very old. They lived in an old farm house in the middle of what once was an apple orchard, surrounded by apple trees that bloomed every spring. The home was on the Sudbury-Framingham line, probably on land granted to Thomas Eames almost 300 years before. I wonder if Ruth ever knew the story?Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-27567343563577234522011-08-11T18:06:00.007-04:002011-08-12T09:16:27.445-04:00Here's to Good Olde YarmouthAs I sit down to write today's post I haven't a clue what's going to be written. Ordinarily I have an idea, usually inspired by something I have discovered while researching the half dozen or so family trees I work on regularly. But the past two weeks have been a little busier than most this summer and I haven't been doing much research nor have I found any one thing "large" enough to turn into an entire post. And the truth is that once I start writing, I have no control over what I tell you all, anyway. It just lands on the page and at times I am surprised at what I get. So, for today, I thought I'd just start writing and see what washes ashore, so to speak.<br />
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I am winding down my stay on Cape Cod where I feel compelled to do research on Ed's family tree. One side of his family descends from the immigrant John Crowe who came from England in the 1630s via Charlestown. The 11 generations of ancestors that came before Ed, not only compels me but makes me feel somewhat obligated to write about them while I am here in this old historic little town. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2PQ1xc9Aeblp_6aGAXooWa5zP0ac40yiaKTtGkL4XDnlnmycS_shSMCtlqwModHnAhnphjDZ0gjqCwNo-j-uVpA1pljKfJl2TSuTDFo__7k1nDSBCZbO7dCWj3bVDAw8zzN1IoCUYAdw/s1600/bassriverbridge2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2PQ1xc9Aeblp_6aGAXooWa5zP0ac40yiaKTtGkL4XDnlnmycS_shSMCtlqwModHnAhnphjDZ0gjqCwNo-j-uVpA1pljKfJl2TSuTDFo__7k1nDSBCZbO7dCWj3bVDAw8zzN1IoCUYAdw/s320/bassriverbridge2.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bass River Bridge courtesy Descendants of Yarmouth FB page</td></tr>
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The Crow (Crowell) family in England is believed to have come from Kent, then moved to Wales before the immigrant John Crowe (Crowell) came to Charlestown in about 1635. One account I read said they were descendants of Sir Sackville Crowell. (I just stuck that little tidbit in there because I thought the name was funny.) John's wife, Elishua was here even before John arrived because her name appears in the church records at Charlestown in 1634 and she bought a house there from Mr. William Jennings that same year. So, evidently, John sent her ahead to work with the Realtor. Both John and Elishua were born in 1592. After 4 years, John sold the home in Charlestown and they moved to Old Plymouth Colony. They had 5 children, among them John and Thomas, who were among the first of any to be born in Yarmouth. <br />
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John and two others, Messrs. Thacher and Howes, went to Yarmouth, when Governor Bradford and the Old Colony Court granted them land there, known as Mattacheese at the time. These three were the land committee given the task of surveying, mapping and extinguishing the Native American titles, as Governor Bradford was still in the process of purchasing the land from them. Then, they were to divide the land up among inhabitants according to their estate and "quality". But, you can't please all of the people all of the time and there were jealousies and arguments among those who received the apportioned land making it necessary for Governor Bradford to step in. He added four more men to the committee and he assigned an objective party to mediate the whole fiasco: one Miles Standish.<br />
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Miles, always the diplomat and certainly a well respected fellow, cleared up the differences, or at least quieted the whiners and brought peace to the early families who lived there, although the whole issue wasn't completely put to rest for a good 10 years. Probably not unlike today's political debates and municipal machinations. Having retired from municipal government, the motto is always "Things take time."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Main Street -courtesy Descendants of Yarmouth FB Page</td></tr>
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Meanwhile, John and Elishua's son Thomas, who was Ed's 8th great grandfather was growing up in Bass Ponds, later to be called Crow Town and what is now West Dennis. (Dennis didn't break off from Yarmouth until 150 years later.) Thomas married Agnes and they had two sons, one called John and one called Thomas, just to make things more confusing for the genealogists that were to be tearing out their hair 375 years later. <br />
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John of Bass Ponds married Sara O'Kellia, another name that changed with time. Crowe was changed to Crowell about the 3rd generation from what most documents show, but in many documents they would make a note that this was an alias for Crow. Even when they spelled it as Crowell, for many years, it was pronounced Crow. The name O'Kellia went back and forth between O'Kellia and Kelly, settling down as Kelly sometime along the way. There are many Kelly families in Yarmouth's history. John and Sara Crowell had eight little Crowells, among them, of course were a John and a Thomas. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Descendants of Yarmouth FB page</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
This latest John Crowell married Experience Higgins from Eastham. He would be the last of the Johns and Thomases in Ed's line. They had five children, one of whom was Abner, Ed's 5th great grandfather whom I have mentioned before as to having perished aboard a British Prison Ship in Newport Harbor. I have found one account that says Abner's father John also perished with him, although John would have been 83 at the time and I am not sure he would have been on board any ship at that age. That deserves a little more research at some time in the future. <br />
<br />
So, on down the tree we go as Abner married a girl named Sara O'Kellia. Sound familiar? Abner's grandmother was also named Sara O'Kellia. Now we know he didn't marry his grandmother, but believe me it caused me to double and triple check the records when I saw that name come up again. Sara and Abner had 8 children before she died, leaving Abner to remarry months before his demise. You may remember in an earlier post that Abner married the Widow Ruth Hinckley Nickerson whose husband had been murdered at sea by a cousin. They had that one son, Simeon who I have also written about. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_ZQ-3rYlYuXzK697cQ-_rnh4ZUguK8eYgyKaJBttWio8yjrniE66UIbfqc6ZeYl24ertvgUb-Avwy57E28l4YcyjUTT6b6tkeKdf_9SznyJchXWc2X_LxABbET6A0v2N7L5pz5z3Gqg/s1600/windmill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_ZQ-3rYlYuXzK697cQ-_rnh4ZUguK8eYgyKaJBttWio8yjrniE66UIbfqc6ZeYl24ertvgUb-Avwy57E28l4YcyjUTT6b6tkeKdf_9SznyJchXWc2X_LxABbET6A0v2N7L5pz5z3Gqg/s320/windmill.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
The son of Abner and Sara who would be Ed's fourth great grandfather was Judah. He married Rhoda Philips of Harwich. Judah was, like all of his forefathers, a lifelong resident of Yarmouth. By the time Judah's son Heman had a family in Yarmouth there were 16 Crowell families in the little Cape Cod town. They all had lots of children and many of them married people who had the same last name. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijSfjoh5J5wSXIt2AdvMceFxqXHolBMWY1ErZX2uwEjcMWzC9wuGw8akF0Tm26In4AGbTESaixDjh0tNNfxol-ldlDiDb9HNDteGc0R9wI8ieFkWQY83eitFDb2wUWL5oEJqkfeldLyXY/s1600/clarenceKaren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijSfjoh5J5wSXIt2AdvMceFxqXHolBMWY1ErZX2uwEjcMWzC9wuGw8akF0Tm26In4AGbTESaixDjh0tNNfxol-ldlDiDb9HNDteGc0R9wI8ieFkWQY83eitFDb2wUWL5oEJqkfeldLyXY/s320/clarenceKaren.jpg" width="240px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clarence Crowell 1869-1949</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Another Heman came along in Ed's tree and then Clarence, Ed's great grandfather;<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wvO_CCUl1y6vBByhsZ3BC1zRYWIb-6Q1_ovYefNC_SgmnWOzD-xiS8TYT_ggvwC-3s5yFWas2hKvkwnemERMxrDW4uvv10yoAQ088gyPSq3V4oRChB_RgCRG7cDtzt8JN3zh9tC5X08/s1600/Uriah+1917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wvO_CCUl1y6vBByhsZ3BC1zRYWIb-6Q1_ovYefNC_SgmnWOzD-xiS8TYT_ggvwC-3s5yFWas2hKvkwnemERMxrDW4uvv10yoAQ088gyPSq3V4oRChB_RgCRG7cDtzt8JN3zh9tC5X08/s320/Uriah+1917.jpg" width="173px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uriah Benedict Fisk Crowell 1892-1977</td></tr>
</tbody></table>followed by Uriah, his grandfather;<br />
<br />
and Ed's mother, Phyllis was born in 1922. There was a brother Edmond who died young and produced no heirs. So, the Crowell name in this line did not continue. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMaijiWcIW4_obctSWi0BxpBBPKFBLzXZjk9_0k1vrohpGcNJWERt4sPgjIueium81QaXmy9ab_Xn5B3Z9rXzIXtNcKObNP5f-vj2D7IGqhtrZWz9Jv2mligWwaKTDxWMqm5-itoXsBOI/s1600/Phyllis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMaijiWcIW4_obctSWi0BxpBBPKFBLzXZjk9_0k1vrohpGcNJWERt4sPgjIueium81QaXmy9ab_Xn5B3Z9rXzIXtNcKObNP5f-vj2D7IGqhtrZWz9Jv2mligWwaKTDxWMqm5-itoXsBOI/s320/Phyllis.jpg" width="240px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phyllis Crowell Eaton 1922-1993</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKOOXmUvFOo80pLJ20YX19_oxaY_xLT4YKa70bEEcxlljxILtRkBvffJ0R5_sgtqsLwo_zq_bZ-SSrKL2Rue-u9MWSzrOXC8p_4ntfuvF9eI4jDrNWHyeHvBTHQvDN2NvHaDve5SmpAIs/s1600/Karen+and+Gail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKOOXmUvFOo80pLJ20YX19_oxaY_xLT4YKa70bEEcxlljxILtRkBvffJ0R5_sgtqsLwo_zq_bZ-SSrKL2Rue-u9MWSzrOXC8p_4ntfuvF9eI4jDrNWHyeHvBTHQvDN2NvHaDve5SmpAIs/s200/Karen+and+Gail.jpg" width="200px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ed's older sisters Karen (1945-1992) and Gail (c1946-1947) whom I never met.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Ed and his siblings are the 11th generation descending from the Crowell immigrant, all who lived here. Ed's sister and her children, generation 12, are the only ones still living here now. We are just summer folk. Ed's niece's Joanna's significant other is a member of the Crowell family from Harwich, another Cape Cod town down the road a piece. I haven't gone back to figure out where his tree and hers split but we could probably find it without too much trouble. Chances are, though, they are related in more than one branch.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5A6XY9W_8cwI5r_NqfeR2sBjLobmDbgxsCAkNgyXQd4_VxMAf8WQL69-pBPRF7shGrUwBA5RFd8-ZeQbTTBrE_Y8u_NztOMjo4ogKo5TGbpiD2GkuOjJumeSJgteHiv9BOh_hZTmGOFY/s1600/EatonSiblings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5A6XY9W_8cwI5r_NqfeR2sBjLobmDbgxsCAkNgyXQd4_VxMAf8WQL69-pBPRF7shGrUwBA5RFd8-ZeQbTTBrE_Y8u_NztOMjo4ogKo5TGbpiD2GkuOjJumeSJgteHiv9BOh_hZTmGOFY/s320/EatonSiblings.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ed and his siblings 2009<br />
Carlene (1960-2010) Bob, Ed and Kathy</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
It really is fairly unique to find a situation anywhere in the country where so many families who began a town remained there for almost 375 years. But the Cape is the next thing to being an island, a remote location causing its inhabitants to refer to any other place as "off Cape". Separated by the Cape Cod Canal from the "mainland" it really is very much like a little island and provides an interesting provincial feel despite the millions of folks who visit here each year, crowding the roads and beaches.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ed and I have had a 'discussion' over the past few years as to where we will be "planted" when our time comes. I have roots in Sudbury where I grew up, where my ancestors came and left and came back again over a few centuries, but nothing like Ed's family who never left. And Sudbury is where I always thought I'd be buried one day, perhaps in Wadsworth Cemetery the resting place for my mother and my grandparents and great grandmother and my fourth great grandparents. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLuFegJPfNRZR0KLzFRTl7qC8yijIOAMlIlIX2CWGmUok1uxeSzMKH7Gtm6eH14sx4jJnmBuu16hYmj8d-GyRwpQhD9t6UCYPcl75J1Mmkqbh7mWjDOyOKg69_laxMYuOwNhmwNN_XAiE/s1600/Hall+Stone.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLuFegJPfNRZR0KLzFRTl7qC8yijIOAMlIlIX2CWGmUok1uxeSzMKH7Gtm6eH14sx4jJnmBuu16hYmj8d-GyRwpQhD9t6UCYPcl75J1Mmkqbh7mWjDOyOKg69_laxMYuOwNhmwNN_XAiE/s320/Hall+Stone.JPG" width="320px" /></a></div>I always thought that was where I belonged. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTueRxtpad3sqFaDGAKJyhxXMoWv2_DTQ_HbpYsoAwBCzB-a_HYK8AmLxzek9disZ88Gb5JyRX1AjGOEQUIgQjoVCEoPzG31cuFrNlpLgmiRJ8GR9DusN-RMeVNgbZWtxiLgIcXm9Jzw/s1600/Crowell+Headstone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTueRxtpad3sqFaDGAKJyhxXMoWv2_DTQ_HbpYsoAwBCzB-a_HYK8AmLxzek9disZ88Gb5JyRX1AjGOEQUIgQjoVCEoPzG31cuFrNlpLgmiRJ8GR9DusN-RMeVNgbZWtxiLgIcXm9Jzw/s320/Crowell+Headstone.jpg" width="239px" /></a></div>But, Ed wants to go to Pine Grove, the little cemetery in South Yarmouth, just this side of Bass River, the place where some of his ancestors rest and a place I've become more familiar with over the years, visiting often and exploring the older stones for names I've found in Ed's ancestry. A friend of ours, John Sears who I have mentioned before is the consummate expert on local history here in Yarmouth and someone who has helped me to really get the feel of this old town. His family on both sides goes back as far as you can go here in Yarmouth and Dennis next door. Both his paternal Sears line and his maternal Baker line are legendary around here, the names appearing on street signs and schools and the like everywhere you look. John can point out all along Old Main Street where different ancestors of his once made their homes, all of them surrounding his own home. He is fascinating to talk with and I enjoy telling him about some of the interesting stories I've found doing my Cape Cod family research. He always has more to add to what I find.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghz_DNzR852YOFBbqPzkcg7efo95MC97EPx4tMX3n8JwXexXPyy-a2j-9TN__lAnZ1wxb4QRMuBPFbybPkPzXat8NkaBx9Rv8BS8JaNHqKBlm2u-DKXzxSF7nZTzRldS4RZ07Fi-xYp7c/s1600/pinegrove+sears.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghz_DNzR852YOFBbqPzkcg7efo95MC97EPx4tMX3n8JwXexXPyy-a2j-9TN__lAnZ1wxb4QRMuBPFbybPkPzXat8NkaBx9Rv8BS8JaNHqKBlm2u-DKXzxSF7nZTzRldS4RZ07Fi-xYp7c/s200/pinegrove+sears.jpg" width="149px" /></a></div><br />
John has his place all picked out and ready there in Pine Grove and it's just a short walk from where Ed and I would be if we end up there with Ed's grandparents and great grandparents. John and I have talked about it when he was conducting a little cemetery tour for me one day a couple of weeks ago. If I do end up there with Ed, John said he'd come over from his spot and visit and that we were welcome to do the same. Maybe we'll invite Ed's sister Kathy and her husband George over. They'd be just a short walk in the other direction from John's place. We could play cards or just kick back and talk over old times. And I am sure John will introduce us to others there. I guess if I know some of the neighbors it might just be a nice place to end up some day. <br />
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Reworking that old Harvard Toast about Boston Brahmins, completely tongue in cheek, I might add...<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>And here's to good olde Yarmouth,</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Home of the gull and the Cod,</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Where the Crowells speak only to the Sears's</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>And the Sears's speak only to God!</strong></em><br />
<br />
<strong><em>or Bakers, or Halletts or Chases or Howes, or...</em></strong> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_BwD3mm6RPNoRiIstC50MowdM7zduFUZ95N5_5Rdp0bnSzkm-zhlCv4kXNUSrbO2JNT7_3ToepyQU2PpWbsrE2VVynAg0zqZFFVpsRTknOGXu5T-TqqfClv9mTI393a-M1ndPWl2rUc/s1600/gull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_BwD3mm6RPNoRiIstC50MowdM7zduFUZ95N5_5Rdp0bnSzkm-zhlCv4kXNUSrbO2JNT7_3ToepyQU2PpWbsrE2VVynAg0zqZFFVpsRTknOGXu5T-TqqfClv9mTI393a-M1ndPWl2rUc/s200/gull.jpg" width="200px" /></a></div><br />
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Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-87198389916269979172011-07-28T12:05:00.012-04:002011-07-28T18:58:41.751-04:00Carved in StoneSince last week I have spent quite a lot of time doing research here on Cape Cod with more than the usual amount of time on my hands. I wasn't always successful in my searches, but I thought I'd share with you what I was looking for and what I did, or didn't find just to give you a taste of what we genealogy driven people experience regularly. <br />
<br />
Some of you will remember the two-parter about Ruth Hinckley Nickerson Crowell Phinney and her two husbands killed at sea. You may also remember that in the same story, I talked about her son Simeon, who went to sea as a young lad and came back a ship's captain who started the Baptist Church in Bass River. Well, because that church is around the corner from where I live here in the summer, I thought I'd go see if I could find any of these characters from our story. And I did! <br />
<br />
I found Simeon, and his wife Charlotte, buried there right next to the church. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibBbHWDzqKjpe86Qy5GCzkY97dEepQvzAa4WDChKyTQHDU_cW5fol4-siYsoPqE9-yC1oFdQXSDZGFbWYYqcMJuKVJhJbR878gxuNSBRtkGOjgfdFwcRT7Wbbb9W1r-rLdes8wzzQ_TVk/s1600/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibBbHWDzqKjpe86Qy5GCzkY97dEepQvzAa4WDChKyTQHDU_cW5fol4-siYsoPqE9-yC1oFdQXSDZGFbWYYqcMJuKVJhJbR878gxuNSBRtkGOjgfdFwcRT7Wbbb9W1r-rLdes8wzzQ_TVk/s320/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+007.jpg" t$="true" width="223px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simeon died in 1848 at the age of 70</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Although I have been to this cemetery on a hunting expedition before, until I wrote Ruth's story, I had no idea who Simeon was and would not have made any special note of his being there. But it is fitting that the first minister of the Bass River Community Baptist is buried so close to his beloved little church.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8s2eSJg2KKoEcr6FAHufWFflVq6nHsvLcyfyTL792_2dMzEDQ18i6bBl4WXI3MpFZH3sri-4sgWkTIWG8oxIOMqeBRpLJ14I7ugaYn3o8g1yOYSHn6lOoFTj1MK4ISfiU12CAmvu-L8U/s1600/cbc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8s2eSJg2KKoEcr6FAHufWFflVq6nHsvLcyfyTL792_2dMzEDQ18i6bBl4WXI3MpFZH3sri-4sgWkTIWG8oxIOMqeBRpLJ14I7ugaYn3o8g1yOYSHn6lOoFTj1MK4ISfiU12CAmvu-L8U/s320/cbc.jpg" width="240px" /></a><br />
<br />
And just to the right of Simeon, he buried his mother, whom he adored and for whom he sacrificed his childhood, going to sea to help ease the burden of so many mouths to feed. Right next to Simeon, lies in eternal rest, Ruth Hinckley Nickerson Crowell Phinney. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuNFZ_QQMOnWsKGJVARS8QhC2Yiwx9piiodgfwDYW5z8lLKkxwf0lvi2wLtX_4wCAMKUi6yPUwKOsSAz6tBMnvECDJ2HxguJWv3qra81g0GSeXvzj9w4IFNWiLj7xXG2nNl4n4MU0Hsw/s1600/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuNFZ_QQMOnWsKGJVARS8QhC2Yiwx9piiodgfwDYW5z8lLKkxwf0lvi2wLtX_4wCAMKUi6yPUwKOsSAz6tBMnvECDJ2HxguJWv3qra81g0GSeXvzj9w4IFNWiLj7xXG2nNl4n4MU0Hsw/s320/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+006.jpg" t$="true" width="194px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ruth, outlived husband Thomas Nickerson, murdered at sea and Abner Crowell, killed <br />
on a British Prison Ship months after they married. She was Simeon's mother. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Some of you may remember that Ed has several ancestors in his Crowell family tree whose first name was Heman, a unique name I once thought, although now I seem to come across it every time I do research in the 19th century. Ed's great great grandfather was Heman as was his great great great grandfather. While exploring that old cemetery, I found Ed's ggg grandfather Heman's headstone. I also found his ggg grandmother, Minerva.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEvSCMjK_X2qVZSf9cy1Yq79yAqrnMz3VcjeZX4CsbaxEfwbXogaadT_0GKjXahu7o0pUAoLov-xqFGzvblVb-h_6LJOZLjxJvhRSjfG4amK9RJLnWpqp6Q6ctzzu1UuIx4MOvyeqwKaM/s1600/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEvSCMjK_X2qVZSf9cy1Yq79yAqrnMz3VcjeZX4CsbaxEfwbXogaadT_0GKjXahu7o0pUAoLov-xqFGzvblVb-h_6LJOZLjxJvhRSjfG4amK9RJLnWpqp6Q6ctzzu1UuIx4MOvyeqwKaM/s320/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+003.jpg" t$="true" width="239px" /></a></div>Heman and Minerva are buried right next to each other. Minerva, whose maiden name was also Crowell, making things a little complicated was a cousin of some degree. I guess there were lots of Crowells on the Cape back then and probably not too many eligible mates who weren't in some way related. Minerva whose name is spelled MEnIrva on her gravestone, died in 1878 at the age of 75, outliving Heman by many years. I have confirmed from several different documents and histories that the date of her death is accurate. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMx4BO5Cvtngvn9NyktINsBDmf4Kl-KRWDe_1coQewqcDL5VX7n0YRuaq5v6yJlqvxf6ftDuh0NFgWGKIjXSsjsBA_-YfSMXjSnXLygh8b9bqgWAtKibL1C-ldgJM07pFa71cfoCjXGLc/s1600/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMx4BO5Cvtngvn9NyktINsBDmf4Kl-KRWDe_1coQewqcDL5VX7n0YRuaq5v6yJlqvxf6ftDuh0NFgWGKIjXSsjsBA_-YfSMXjSnXLygh8b9bqgWAtKibL1C-ldgJM07pFa71cfoCjXGLc/s320/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+004.jpg" t$="true" width="239px" /></a></div>However, Heman's grave which shows that his age at death was just 40, confirming what I had already found, the date of his death shows as August 15, 1835 which was not what I had at all. So, now I had to find out what was correct. I knew that this date was suspect for the simple reason that I have more than one source document telling us that Heman and Minerva had children as late as 1842. Unless they were freezing embryos back then, something was not right. I checked and rechecked what I had on file. I knew this was the correct Heman because he was married to Minerva. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGAct65d-O8n3ap7fd4Fu-YbaZA69zWSPlfRks0Xc6d9u7Q-DJN6VFg78aZu2iDr6voLj43L6U8rN3Cn8UkZASb5vcF0Ni-spV4EDGfdSFniIo5JxwrXWO6Om_gFi_7QFAXj3CMLhOCuQ/s1600/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGAct65d-O8n3ap7fd4Fu-YbaZA69zWSPlfRks0Xc6d9u7Q-DJN6VFg78aZu2iDr6voLj43L6U8rN3Cn8UkZASb5vcF0Ni-spV4EDGfdSFniIo5JxwrXWO6Om_gFi_7QFAXj3CMLhOCuQ/s320/Baptist+Cemetery+South+Yarmouth+002.jpg" t$="true" width="239px" /></a></div>Minerva's parents, Vinney and Experience Crowell, (also a Crowell before she married Vinney. What?!?) are buried right nearby, so I have the correct Minerva, wife of Heman. <br />
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And so, one discovery of a headstone created another mystery and uncovered conflicting information that I had to iron out. My records showed that Heman died at the age of 40 in 1842. I have his birth record dated 1802; I have his marriage record to Minerva; I have the birth records of their children, including those born after 1835, the date on his headstone. <br />
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On the official death record from the town register, it says he died at "about age 45" on August 31, 1842 of consumption. Heman was a seaman, so the fact that this record identifies him as a Mariner is one more piece of evidence that this was the Heman who died in 1842, although they were a little off on guessing his age. I also found a transcript of a newspaper announcing his death in the "Yarmouth Register" It simply says, Heman Crowell, age 40 on September 15, 1842. The headstone says he died August 15, 1835 at the age of 40. So, sometime between August 15 and September 15 1842, 40 year old Heman Crowell died. <br />
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The explanation for the error on the headstone is most likely that both his headstone and Minerva's stone were erected at the same time in 1878 when she died. From someone's memory, perhaps Ed's gg grandfather, they carved the date into the stone, left there to baffle genealogists for hundreds of years to come. <br />
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From another side of the family, I spent many hours trying to determine some background on Ed's own grandmother, Josephine Eaton. This woman was someone he and his cousins and siblings knew, who died just over 30 years ago and yet she remains the "Henrietta" of his family. Not that she met a sad demise, but that she is such a mysterious figure. <br />
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Josephine was born in Ireland in 1886. We knew she came from Kilkenny and that she lived Bridgewater when she met and married Ed's grandfather Orin, who lived in Middleborough. So that was a help as well. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilvPn0-4FC-ngPXvi4bksMenSLr0XAiPrXjpV3IRwf_KkgNcrmDxzR-L36ytNWkTYUKfmJ5kEpsLzOj1pQ6SvQ8fiD5-zdmsxtuB63SeCKjfg7XO7HLZxL3VIr_-zWO77GQ3uBNop_OhE/s1600/1910+slice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilvPn0-4FC-ngPXvi4bksMenSLr0XAiPrXjpV3IRwf_KkgNcrmDxzR-L36ytNWkTYUKfmJ5kEpsLzOj1pQ6SvQ8fiD5-zdmsxtuB63SeCKjfg7XO7HLZxL3VIr_-zWO77GQ3uBNop_OhE/s1600/1910+slice.jpg" t$="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1910 Census</td></tr>
</tbody></table>In 1910, the newlywed couple of Orin and Josephine are found in Middleborough, he shoe trimmer. Notice that her name is Johanna, something her family only found out in the late 70s when a great granddaughter was born, named Joanna. Josephine casually mentioned that this was her name when she was in Ireland, although her family had only known her as Josephine all those years. This record clearly shows that she and her parents were all born in Ireland and that she immigrated in 1899. Sounds like it should be easy to find her immigration record, right? <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDyZ2DciZORO8tlAHUFoMJqiLjrWHyRVf4cntj1xcB0rq0scOCfz_D4rEqZuUWk4hpbuWQPgk3g_nu5_Y67fF6wDbJ2HY3n3tRjMiDI1mgmuu8jLzgT8yCaT1NqUnyyL4dkCsemlgHVA/s1600/1920+Slice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgDyZ2DciZORO8tlAHUFoMJqiLjrWHyRVf4cntj1xcB0rq0scOCfz_D4rEqZuUWk4hpbuWQPgk3g_nu5_Y67fF6wDbJ2HY3n3tRjMiDI1mgmuu8jLzgT8yCaT1NqUnyyL4dkCsemlgHVA/s1600/1920+Slice.jpg" t$="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1920 Census</td></tr>
</tbody></table>In 1920, we have Orin and now Josephine, still in Middleborough. The immigration information, however, shows that she immigrated in 1907 and was naturalized in 1908. Okay, so which date do I go after? 1899 or 1907? Hmmm....<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVgRuuO99vOd9L-P_HSnEMtroFUZyIHDlhbM1W7kRoDoGyufjPG4NcuVVkJ4ovyPlvwljaYAbGZI8ZZLJNXWA4U-hhUyNYHZhdSZVaq2t2dwkndzoHFLT2NLhPH51kgIk3RzWK9Zsybs/s1600/1930+Slice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVgRuuO99vOd9L-P_HSnEMtroFUZyIHDlhbM1W7kRoDoGyufjPG4NcuVVkJ4ovyPlvwljaYAbGZI8ZZLJNXWA4U-hhUyNYHZhdSZVaq2t2dwkndzoHFLT2NLhPH51kgIk3RzWK9Zsybs/s1600/1930+Slice.jpg" t$="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1930 Census</td></tr>
</tbody></table>But in 1930, now the family has moved to Cape Cod and that she immigrated in 1904 and was an alien, never having become a naturalized citizen.<br />
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So, folks, my search for Johannah/Josephine's roots have just begun. I have family anecdotes to pursue but no real dates to go by. And the Irish records are terrible to work with, if in fact they even exist. We have several family members working on this mystery and someday we may actually find out how she became orphaned and when she arrived here. We know her mother and father's names from marriage records in Bridgewater and Middleborough, although her maiden name is spelled Shay in one town and Shea in the other. Her mother's maiden name is listed as Tobin in one town record and Tobey in another. So, you can see, Josephine is a real mystery on par with Henrietta. <br />
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In my family tree, I have been doing a little research on my great Aunt Charlotte Willett. I knew Aunt Lottie, as I called her, when she was married to my Uncle Frank. We loved Uncle Frank and Aunt Lottie, who were both singularly unique personalities in our family's history. Lottie was my grandmother's younger sister, a twin to her sister Edith. But one thing I always knew about Lottie which intrigued me as a little girl, easily taken in by any romantic story, was that she had been married as a much younger woman to a man who fell victim in some way to the stock market crash in 1929 and left Aunt Lottie a young widow. I never knew anything else about this fellow except that his name was Jim McNair and that she was heartbroken when he died. So, I went looking in Census records to find them as a couple in New York City around the time of the market crash, October of 1929. I don't know why exactly, but I wanted to know more. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4nIQCrFVXdrGPqKZfEibdeNfBtyXqDqCYTGaffb96hLS1gdVKSzqxou565kHkV1PogWYGj_PD_nTANSsapbAnFxzZ-AW29-5BB6Up17LwK4-O3VNcANlHnllhOJeagAf1ew_pG4vdG9g/s1600/Lottie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4nIQCrFVXdrGPqKZfEibdeNfBtyXqDqCYTGaffb96hLS1gdVKSzqxou565kHkV1PogWYGj_PD_nTANSsapbAnFxzZ-AW29-5BB6Up17LwK4-O3VNcANlHnllhOJeagAf1ew_pG4vdG9g/s400/Lottie.jpg" t$="true" width="266px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aunt Lottie c. 1936</td></tr>
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I never found a census record when they lived together. The first thing I found was a record of a trip they took from New York to Quebec and Halifax, a two day cruise in August of 1928 aboard the SS Shawnee. Maybe a honeymoon? I like to think so. From that record I found out that his name was James Taylor McNair and that he was ten years her senior, they lived on 63rd Street. Later I found that he was actually 12 years her senior, perhaps not completely truthful about his age for fear his bride would think the age difference too much to overcome. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlHRkJUoBE81E8nKPdoOOdpAzoxw-hkHwgYDGWiLR4iLnvMELuImzliIvPiEGj22dvCFFcGeZ1bXmuH4hFLMj2UuWN4ajjEj7Akb-sQxW8ebs04CsCJNdpxisGqUH2jRticbUFCQ3rUM/s1600/slice+cruise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlHRkJUoBE81E8nKPdoOOdpAzoxw-hkHwgYDGWiLR4iLnvMELuImzliIvPiEGj22dvCFFcGeZ1bXmuH4hFLMj2UuWN4ajjEj7Akb-sQxW8ebs04CsCJNdpxisGqUH2jRticbUFCQ3rUM/s1600/slice+cruise.jpg" t$="true" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-b0DBUSNUnxmcPxcrkzOCvXJiMfur7KHQs42oP0PBd9BDSSOD08GNP-PUqRvgV_by7G3nGhCYHXbDQcMHKFowXyTTmFBpqRBsFtLZbly7lPKowo-Mk18G1jl1S0RE_47k3qqoBhXChA/s1600/charlotte+cruise+with+jim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-b0DBUSNUnxmcPxcrkzOCvXJiMfur7KHQs42oP0PBd9BDSSOD08GNP-PUqRvgV_by7G3nGhCYHXbDQcMHKFowXyTTmFBpqRBsFtLZbly7lPKowo-Mk18G1jl1S0RE_47k3qqoBhXChA/s200/charlotte+cruise+with+jim.jpg" t$="true" width="173px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Passenger list from the SS Shawnee Aug 18-20, 1928</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Like I said, I looked for a census record, but found none. From there, I looked for a marriage record, but found none. I looked for a directory listing, but found none. I looked in old newspaper articles, and I did find one. As I scrolled down the page, I felt a little bit of hope that this would be a mistake, but it wasn't. For at the very bottom of the column, the last person listed was James Taylor McNair, beloved husband of Charlotte, who died suddenly in April of 1930. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlyAdUSF4-J6OzSq7T42L8Aork3GRhDkkPEpmH8QhjCu2MhIWQrGd2dRcLk8426WBTbXWoolaZx38l6_i3138n_WQBnttP6j9FcFPbl8yXZn8XAjkHiOXXTHthimrthgMG-pfN364emJE/s1600/james+mcnair+obit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlyAdUSF4-J6OzSq7T42L8Aork3GRhDkkPEpmH8QhjCu2MhIWQrGd2dRcLk8426WBTbXWoolaZx38l6_i3138n_WQBnttP6j9FcFPbl8yXZn8XAjkHiOXXTHthimrthgMG-pfN364emJE/s1600/james+mcnair+obit.jpg" t$="true" /></a></div><br />
It's funny how when you look for people you start to feel something for them. Although he passed away 80 years ago and I knew that he had, I was caught up in the story, a romantic one I knew from childhood, one that I wanted to end differently. But, it was just as I knew it would be. Yet, from that newspaper article I found that James, had children from a previous marriage, something I never knew before. I found he was in the automobile business, an executive of some sort. His parents were Scottish and his mother was Harriet, for whom his daughter was named. His son was the third James Taylor McNair, his father also shared that name with him. In this search, he became more real than ever and I still would like to know more about their life together, albeit so brief. <br />
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Charlotte, curiously is listed as single and was living with her mother and younger brother in the 1930 census that was taken 10 days before James passed away. Was he hospitalized for a while maybe? We don't know how he died. I remember thinking as a child that he'd jumped out a window, like the stories we'd all heard about after the stock market crashed in 1929. Then I remember hearing that maybe his heart gave out as a result of losing everything. But I am not sure what happened, really. <span style="font-size: x-large;">*</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div> Lots of mysteries were uncovered this past week. Some solved, and some leading to more mysteries. It's often like that when researching genealogy. And even when we think we know the story, or even when it's carved in stone, like Heman's headstone, it's not always the way things were.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">*</span>Epilogue:<br />
After my brother read this post, he sent me an email adding more information about Jim McNair. I don't think I'd ever heard this story, but now we know how he died. Still a sad tale. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">From my brother, Chuck:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Here's what I remember being told about Jim McNair, all, or most, comes from Gram --</em><br />
<em>He was a handsome man who owned a Cadillac dealership, the only one in New York City at the time.</em></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="133px" src="http://www.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://chalkhillmedia.org/ntrccca/images/1928%2520Packard.jpg&sa=X&ei=rZoxToHaBsjm0QGqteDfCw&ved=0CAQQ8wc4Cw&usg=AFQjCNFZ98eBlm6M3kNwd8ubKCLrUXPu_w" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="200px" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This could have been one of the cars Jim McNair sold back in those days.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span id="role_document" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"></span><em> He had many wealthy clients, including the Rockefellers. He was a social friend of several of these wealthy clients and was quite well off himself. I was told he visited the Rockefellers at their Hudson Valley estate, Kykuit several times which must have impressed Gram. He, along with other well heeled young men of his acquaintance, invested heavily in the stock market and did very well for some years. When the market crashed, he lost everything, likely overly leveraged. His health deteriorated rapidly, his hair turned white "overnight", and he died of a stroke.</em></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-53750232303820818682011-07-21T10:19:00.003-04:002011-07-21T14:08:00.776-04:00Tea at the White HouseOn Tuesday of this week, I purchased a subscription to an online searchable data base of newspaper archives. I thought I'd fiddle around with it some and looked up this ancestor or that, without much luck. It was fun snooping around the old articles in places where our ancestors lived and it will give me lots of help with background and historical information when I write future Henrietta posts.<br />
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I found some newspaper articles my grandfather, Leslie C. Hall (Henrietta's grandson) had written for the Acton Beacon in the 50s and 60s. It was a local newspaper that covered several area towns. He wrote some articles about the history in Sudbury, a colonial village established in 1639 and my home town. I think that's how I became so interested in history. But he also wrote articles about what was going on around him in the small farming community on the verge of a large population explosion.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzKIdJdVvt9O1mR_Ok9c5t8vd2n5O1eSWSEBl4dCKauUtFoFsk8lUPwVk_bPIMTmTu2zG-2GFT0kF2l2ycU2XXH7LaZ0KdgQy5KqqT_a_Rmvb-2Z8MdNcu2Xf_Iw1fYZ5-Wz3R9pfUgFg/s1600/LeslieC.Hall_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzKIdJdVvt9O1mR_Ok9c5t8vd2n5O1eSWSEBl4dCKauUtFoFsk8lUPwVk_bPIMTmTu2zG-2GFT0kF2l2ycU2XXH7LaZ0KdgQy5KqqT_a_Rmvb-2Z8MdNcu2Xf_Iw1fYZ5-Wz3R9pfUgFg/s320/LeslieC.Hall_1.jpg" t$="true" width="247px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leslie Hall, my Grandfather</td></tr>
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His column, which he called "Hi Neighbors" featured stories about the people in Sudbury, their goings on with the grange, the churches and other community organizations and events. In one article, he collaborated with a Ms. Lilly Nelson who helped him out because he was suffering from an "inflamed eye". Ms Nelson is listed as collaborator on several other articles I found, so they may have decided to share the byline some time in the early part of the column, although I hadn't remembered hearing about that until I found it online. <br />
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The exploration of the newspaper data base and an invitation to a "tea" in Sudbury that I received this summer gave me today's Henrietta inspiration. As I write this I haven't yet attended it, but I will post it the day after, adding a few finishing touches and post "tea" remarks. This tea was offered as an item in my old church's service auction last spring. The hostess, Alexandra, an old friend advertised it as a "British Tea" and it was to be given for 6-8 guests. My sister Becky and good friend Melinda purchased the event with the idea that I would be here to join in with the fun.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alexandra's House</td></tr>
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You might be wondering what on earth this all has to do with my Henrietta blog, but behind what promises to be a delightful afternoon of teacakes and extended pinkies, was the fact that the home in which this tea is to be held is the home in which I lived from infancy until I was about 3 years old, right next door to my grandparents at the time my grandfather was penning his column.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Grandfather, Grandmother and Uncle Alan c 1950</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Seeing the house will be interesting, but I am not sure if I will "feel" anything for this house because I know it has changed so much. I have seen photos of the interior after it has been beautifully restored. My friend Alexandra bought it about a year or so ago.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVeq8v71BPmqdulJr_AdZJ_eFqQlRM1LQci3K6TeK_BO-wylSEfjmMyPMOd2M9HA0wkgdJJOX1PgXA2lmZKPEsKPZ_NDyBbAQDKfhlD6qW7DnmLIQElYR6_-OEXe1E7PauXoCZ0l8JxpI/s1600/IMG_0119.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" m$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVeq8v71BPmqdulJr_AdZJ_eFqQlRM1LQci3K6TeK_BO-wylSEfjmMyPMOd2M9HA0wkgdJJOX1PgXA2lmZKPEsKPZ_NDyBbAQDKfhlD6qW7DnmLIQElYR6_-OEXe1E7PauXoCZ0l8JxpI/s320/IMG_0119.JPG" width="320px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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It's a beautiful antique home, built in 1830, once the main house for a huge farm in Sudbury. But, before I see it in its new incarnation, I thought I should write down what I do remember from more than half a century ago, lest the new memory mingles with the old. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The White House" late 1940s</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>I have memories of this home, vague and fragmented, but strong. I remember the hurricane whose wind sent a tree branch through the kitchen window as I ate my breakfast and Mom and Ginny Baldwin, the upstairs neighbor sat at the table with me. I remember the glass from the broken window cutting my mother's ankle and the dash across the driveway to my grandmother's house, poodle skirts flying as my mother carried me and Ginny Baldwin carried my brother Chuck through the storm. I remember it as if it happened yesterday, Chuck's cowboy hat flew off and Ginny ran after it, braving the storm to save what was probably my 4 year old brother's favorite possession, spinning along the ground on its edge, like a red felt wheel. I don't remember if she caught it, I just remember her trying. I remember how much I loved Ginny. I don't remember what she looked like, just that I liked being in her company. I do remember it being a treat to go upstairs to Ginny's and I can see myself in my mind's eye playing with little cars on her linoleum floor, cars that probably belonged to her son Stevie. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The White House-View from my grandmother's house.<br />
Behind the garage is that 'dark dirt-floored' room. The outbuilding<br />
with the bees is in the foreground.</td></tr>
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I don't remember the bedroom we slept in but I remember having a recurring nightmare there in which a Woolie Dog, half dog, half lion, would put a ladder up against our window and steal us away in the night. My brother Chuck and I shared the same villainous Woolie Dog character in our dreams. I remember light coming through kitchen window curtains and the wooden high chair where I sat to eat my meals. I remember the bay window where the kitchen table sat, the same window shattered by the tree branch in the hurricane. I remember the dark area between the garage and the kitchen, with an unfinished dirt floor and no lights that we could reach. It was dark in there even on the brightest of summer days. I have a vague memory of a plank from the outside door over to the kitchen door. If I did it just right, I could step up up over the threshold, and hang onto the doorjamb with one hand, then swing into the darkness to the plank and up onto the kitchen step without letting my bare feet touch the dirt floor, and anything else that waited in the darkness there. My feet were always bare then.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My grandparents escort my great grandmother into their home<br />
The White house in the background 1959</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Over the years we always referred to it as "the white house" because it was painted white, and later we thought it was funny when we told people we used to live in 'the white house'. Like a classmate at a reunion, it's gray now, but the face I remember from childhood is still there and recognizable if I look closely. It was just down the street from the new house we moved to when I was 3, and right next to my grandmother's house. It was a constant in my neighborhood travels, a landmark that spoke to us when we were older and we'd ride by on our bikes or pass on foot. It said "I remember YOU!" every time. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjHIRzS_p-Q3g8cgdHrV16SmdSWNMWm5E5l4H3Dnxsm9Gi7q4ws3HN9fWsWAdA8bRywECQILM5g0aUYN9zjOBZbMECL0eXw5IempELxBSoqc0zqk2cGd9QdoGhsbNkSfO1_STmGtPz728/s1600/IMG_0116.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" m$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjHIRzS_p-Q3g8cgdHrV16SmdSWNMWm5E5l4H3Dnxsm9Gi7q4ws3HN9fWsWAdA8bRywECQILM5g0aUYN9zjOBZbMECL0eXw5IempELxBSoqc0zqk2cGd9QdoGhsbNkSfO1_STmGtPz728/s320/IMG_0116.JPG" width="320px" /></a></div>It loomed from atop a slight grassy hill on which it sat, looking down onto unpaved King Philip Road as though it was royalty itself. Tippy, who was Aunt Marian's big German shepherd dog lived across the street and he and my Grandmother's English setter, Duchess, would lie stretched out, sleeping like the dead in the middle of the cool dirt road on hot summer days. People had to drive around them in order to pass by. In the front yard, hundred year old maples provided shade keeping the grass cool under our feet, their roots lying partly above ground, like long ropey legs stretched out into our path, playfully waiting for us to trip if we didn't watch our step. A worn granite rectangle served as a step up to the front door, which I can't remember ever using. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Porch was removed at some point.</td></tr>
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There were tall lilac bushes along the sunny side of the house, untrimmed and drooping out and over the stone and dirt driveway, smoothly rutted where the wheels of the cars rolled, grass growing in the middle, large puddles in the same spots whenever there was a big rain. An ancient rubble stonewall ran down to the road, separating the yard from Mr. Bonnazoli's huge vegetable garden. His wife, Ida, was the kindest woman my grandmother ever met, she told me once.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ida and Al Bonnazoli. <br />
Ida, the kindest woman my grandmother ever met. </td></tr>
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There were bees in some of the old out-buildings in the back yard, that I didn't like playing near. Someone once had a workshop there. We knew that because there were rusty screw tops of jars nailed into the bottom of a wood shelf, their glass bodies that had once hung below and held nuts and bolts and nails and brads, had long since been broken and were nowhere to be found. I know what they were because my dad had the same jar tops nailed above his workbench in a later house. But the bees kept us from going into that old place that might have been a chicken coop at one time. An old gray wagon wheel, leaning against the white clapboards comes to mind but I'm not sure if I remember that from a painting my mother had, or if there really was a wheel there. There were more lilacs and multitudes of hostas and orange tiger lilies growing together in a crowd along the stone foundation in the back. An old well was in the center of the yard and we weren't allowed to go near it. I steered clear of it but it is that well which comes to mind whenever I hear the nursery rhyme "Ding Dong Dell, Pussy in the Well." <br />
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My grandmother's house, the 'red house', sat further up the drive past the long red barn that we never went into. I think her house had once been the milk house, although not in my lifetime. It had clean white trim and its brick foundation was painted white, too. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In front of my grandmother's house, red with white trim, once the Milk house.<br />
My brother is the baby held by my Dad. My Dad's family and my mother's family<br />
together in 1951. I was just about to be born. Duchess, the English setter is in the foreground.</td></tr>
</tbody></table> Gram's was the house that I loved the most, that little red house. It represented a haven in a storm on more than one level, I guess. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQt3Agv6_FQRmxUAUailPbWO64163DmpAOhNXK9dP0ViDKuPGqb3IEC8QLy6orV-iZbHE5OGRjtfu6yammuiDfqXYEDWEOPwqbRk6Jcjl6UD9czHDQ0W7lWSK14rW-9lrcQg2JQpBF0tE/s1600/Gram+and+Me.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" m$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQt3Agv6_FQRmxUAUailPbWO64163DmpAOhNXK9dP0ViDKuPGqb3IEC8QLy6orV-iZbHE5OGRjtfu6yammuiDfqXYEDWEOPwqbRk6Jcjl6UD9czHDQ0W7lWSK14rW-9lrcQg2JQpBF0tE/s320/Gram+and+Me.bmp" width="228px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My grandmother and me, when I still lived in the white house, c1954. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>But "the white house" is also central to a story of which I don't have any memory, but is part of my own family history. I look at it with a sort of detached curiosity now, as though it happened to someone else. Yet, it is my history and you all know how I love those stories of one's personal history. This house is where my history began and it was in this house where a vaporizer, attached to an infant's crib ran out of water in the middle of a cold February night in 1952 and caught the baby's world on fire.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Like I said, I have no personal memory of it, I was just five months old, the exact age that my granddaughter Lily is today. Looking at Lily gives me some perspecitve on how little I was and what my parents and grandparents must have experienced. A miracle really, that I have no recollection of it and that I survived at all. And I have heard the stories countless times, the stories not just about a tragic accident, but the stories about the little town that rallied around a young family and a baby when all seemed so lost. These are the stories that made Sudbury so much more to me than just the town in which I grew up.<br />
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Over the years they told me stories of the telephone operator, Gladys Tighe, a dear friend of my grandmother's who would pass along reports to all the townspeople who were interested in knowing my condition during those weeks of hospitalization. The Chief of police, John McGovern would tell the story of how he drove me to Waltham hospital in 7 minutes, and that he'd never forgotten that trip, although I think that might be an exaggeration in the time the trip took. He told that story as long as I knew him, and how ironic that the first house I ever bought would be right next door to his.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifgWHCx4G03nc4jdnar5_THHpEZu7hYCV050xtjzvWPQFCKDpyNh7JcRXNkkJ0QmLOOHxWWITUYJIai5euOD_5iI-4E3wWqkjLzBSRfb2cQkjfZGvkV7Ea_TQMxQAK2Y0JE81NZJhbJOg/s1600/clyde+barber+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifgWHCx4G03nc4jdnar5_THHpEZu7hYCV050xtjzvWPQFCKDpyNh7JcRXNkkJ0QmLOOHxWWITUYJIai5euOD_5iI-4E3wWqkjLzBSRfb2cQkjfZGvkV7Ea_TQMxQAK2Y0JE81NZJhbJOg/s320/clyde+barber+1.jpg" t$="true" width="248px" /></a></div>The story of Clyde Barber, the local rubbish man and the subject of a Reader's Digest "My Most Unforgettable Character" article, dragging away the charred crib with tears in his eyes stays with me. I remember him, the gruffest of men, with the softest of hearts. My Godmother, Maryellen, leaving her nursing job to stay with me night and day. I remember hearing about the support of the church and so many townspeople, when nobody knew if the baby would survive.<br />
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The MacLeans were a well loved couple in town who would run young couples dances on Friday nights in the town hall. My parents often told me how touched they were that these folks once ran a benefit dance to help raise money to pay the doctor's bills. Such a special community it was back then. Maybe it was because the town was only about one quarter of the size that it is today and still populated by folks who grew up there, as had their ancestors for generations before. Now, we are so scattered, it's hard to feel so attached to a place I think. <br />
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But with that deep attachment to Sudbury still firmly in place, as I was hunting through the newspaper archives on the eve of going to tea at "the white house" I found an article and I think it's rather remarkable that I found it just now. On April 24, 1952 in the column called Hi Neighbors, written by Ms. Lillie Nelson in collaboration with my grandfather there was the following excerpt:<br />
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<div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">DEAR HEARTS AND GENTLE</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">PEOPLE IN MY HOME TOWN"</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">was sung last Saturday evening</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">by Dick Whelpley at the Donation</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">Dance that the Couples' Club</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">worked so hard </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">for the benefit of little Suzanne</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">Hall. We were all as deeply touched</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">as he, to think.that so many</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">would rally to help this little child</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">who has known so much pain in</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">so brief a span of life.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">We will say only that the</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">Couples' Club wish to thank everyone</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">for the generous response, and</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">to thank those who contributed,</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">including Dave Bentley's orchestra.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">(Lillie Nelson says that this organization</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">is not far from a baby</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">itself, but it took on a very worthwhile</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">project. Good Luck in the</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">future.)</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">I knew Dick Whelpley, the singer who they talked about in the article. I remember him singing in church many times, a tall thin man with a remarkable tenor voice. I've known his daughters and his wife as long as I can remember. He rests now in Wadsworth Cemetery, just across the lane from where my mother is buried. A bench marks his grave and there are musical notes carved into the granite. </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">The story I told today is self-centered, I guess. But I tell it because stories from days gone by, even as recent as during my own life time, give a sense of how things really were. I don't know how many people who live in Sudbury remember Dick Whelpley or the dance for "Suzanne" or Chief McGovern and the MacLeans. But, there are a few still. I just hope they tell their stories when given the chance. </span></div><div align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlfAOV3x_TBvPviKHrRBNrRC9-YyLz_WlfiHcAZggbcOk_M7u75p59fLfu5BLetjfbzlvvliXqqojkU5tXkJLqLtD5cX61x_kFrKcTMLrpNFu6QQ9qll6n3865eaZCyJGPjMpGpvZeL1w/s1600/IMG_0111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" m$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlfAOV3x_TBvPviKHrRBNrRC9-YyLz_WlfiHcAZggbcOk_M7u75p59fLfu5BLetjfbzlvvliXqqojkU5tXkJLqLtD5cX61x_kFrKcTMLrpNFu6QQ9qll6n3865eaZCyJGPjMpGpvZeL1w/s320/IMG_0111.JPG" width="320px" /></a></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">Epilogue.</span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">We had a fabulous time at the tea. I will post some photos on my <a href="http://www.suziesmusings.blogspot.com/">http://www.suziesmusings.blogspot.com/</a> tomorrow for "Feel Good Friday". The "white house", now gray is just beautiful inside, but the rooms were not as I remembered. Now a single family home, the steep stairway upstairs to where the Baldwins lived seemed a little familiar, although they now lead to bedrooms and a lovely area for Alexandra's chaise. The dark room between the garage and the kitchen now has a floor and is their laundry room and mudroom. The well is still out back in the yard and there are lilac bushes that I know were there when I once ran bare-footed in the grass. </span><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><div align="left"><em></em></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-65153707092256479852011-07-07T11:04:00.002-04:002011-07-07T11:12:42.778-04:00The Story of Ruth...(Well, sort of) Part IIWhen I left off last week, I was telling the tale of Ruth Hinckley Nickerson Crowell, twice widowed. She was the second wife of Ed's 5th great grandfather, Abner Crowell, who died aboard a British prison ship during the revolution. <br />
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To recap a little bit, Ruth had an overwhelming task before her when Abner died. She had the responsibility of raising 4 of her own children and 4 or 5 more stepchildren from Abner. And then a son was born from Ruth and Abner's union after Abner's death. That child was Simeon went to sea as a boy; became a ship's captain; returned home starting a saltworks and began a Baptist church where he served as it's first minister. Although that's a really nice ending to a sad tale, like I said, that's not THE story I wanted to tell. <br />
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Ruth's first husband, Thomas Nickerson IV, died at sea before their son Thomas the V was born. So Ruth had two different sons from two different husbands who would never know their fathers because they both died at sea. These two were but 6 years apart in age. But,as sad as that is, and as tough a life as Ruth and the children had after losing Abner, and despite the fact that Ruth is central to each of these separate stories, hers is not really THE story I wanted to tell you either, hence the disclaimer in the title of this two-parter.<br />
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These stories are each interesting on their own. However, when trying to find out a little more about Ruth, her story led me to the story of her first husband, Thomas Nickerson IV. That, my friends, is where I found the most interesting of all the stories surrounding poor Ruth.<br />
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Thomas Nickerson was a member of a very prolific Cape Cod family. There were Nickersons in virtually every town on the Cape in the earliest of settlements. Thomas IV was the son of Thomas III and Dorcas Sparrow, both from Chatham, MA just a couple of towns south of Yarmouth where Ruth lived with Abner Crowell after remarrying as a widow. Thomas the III was a farmer in Chatham, but his father had been a mariner. Thomas IV took after his grandfather and became the captain of the fishing schooner Abigail.<br />
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From all accounts, Ruth and Thomas IV were happy young newlyweds in Chatham in 1765. He was 22 and she was 21. Soon after they married they started a family, first Myrick was born, then David and Isaac. All these sons further added to the already large numbers of those with that surname on Cape Cod. Life was no doubt hard, given the times and the climate, but it was probably as good as it got back then on salty old Cape Cod. <br />
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Thomas IV, as I mentioned, was a sea captain and the master of the schooner Abigail out of Chatham by the time he was 28. He made a living as a fisherman, bringing his catch to Boston and other ports along the coast and up and down the Cape. Thomas, his brother Sparrow Nickerson and their sister Phebe's husband Elisha Newcomb made up the fishing vessel's small crew. Another crewmember, new to the sea, was 13 year old William Kent, and although I haven't been able to verify it, I suspect he was also a relative as the name Kent appears often in the Nickerson genealogy I have seen.<br />
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The crew of Abigail would fish the Massachusetts waters at a time when the Sons of Liberty were just coming into their own all over the Colonies. Rumblings by the Colonials over British taxation on tea and the Stamp Act which taxed every piece of paper used in the Colonies from ship's records to newspapers to playing cards. The King, imposing his will on these independent souls was wearing thin throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony after enduring it for so many years. The Cape was no exception, indeed, the inhabitants of Cape Cod included some of he oldest immigrant families in the Colonies, and they had independence in their blood and in their bones.<br />
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One practice in particular that set the pre-revolutionary Cape Codders' blood to boiling was 'impressment'. This was the law of the land at the time and it allowed the King to send out "press gangs" to kidnap British and Americans of sea-going age and force them on to a ship and at the threat of death, coerce them into serving as part of the British Navy. Whenever there was war brewing or a need to build up their navy, these press gangs would become active and go after the townsmen from all over the Colonies. In addition to many thousands of Americans, the British also commandeered American vessels. They did this at sea or on shore, wherever they could find able-bodied men, preferably experienced seamen. The Cape, with its many sailors and vessels was of particular interest to the British and these press gangs. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBpTo6iHTnxukzK9SefX9nyvSfV_aoW_DLQLXE1wsr7Aym_r7yOspPQ2K4lM4PhHy1q0vzsTGVr5NOGhja_wZ5U_ZkkN_CO-UFVoEnsq-HPVQuTKEquh2F5wJRdMjjMelZkHyM8ffZAoo/s1600/impressment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBpTo6iHTnxukzK9SefX9nyvSfV_aoW_DLQLXE1wsr7Aym_r7yOspPQ2K4lM4PhHy1q0vzsTGVr5NOGhja_wZ5U_ZkkN_CO-UFVoEnsq-HPVQuTKEquh2F5wJRdMjjMelZkHyM8ffZAoo/s320/impressment.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
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Thomas IV and his crew, braved the rough waters and tricky tides off the coast of New England, but also were on the lookout for the pirates and press gangs that were just as much of a threat to their lives and livelihood as any storm that might blow across the bay.<br />
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One November day, Ruth's husband Thomas and his crew set sail from Boston Harbor on his schooner Abigail returning to Chatham. This particular day, a cousin, Ansel Nickerson, was on board needing transportation from Boston back to Chatham to get "his cloathes". In the wee hours of the next morning a Topsail Schooner was spotted not far from Abigail. A boat was launched from this unidentified ship containing a few men who rowed along side and boarded Abigail. The men questioned its crew and passenger. The boat left, but soon 3 more boats returned, this time full of armed men. <br />
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Before the men could board her, fearing this was a press gang about to kidnap him, Ansel swung himself with rope over the 'traffarill' (the stern of the boat) and hung there, listening to the exchange between his cousins and the gang who had boarded the ship. Immediately following the boarding of the Abigail, a violent struggle broke out. Ansel could hear the sounds of Thomas and his crew being slaughtered as steel struck bone and their screams were audible over the rest of the crashing sounds. He heard them fling them over the side into the sea, one after the other, food for the fishes. <br />
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Ansel hung there, in the ropes, terrified, keeping his eyes on the railing above for fear he would be discovered. He heard loud laughter and angry retorts and the crashing of the chests that held cargo being transported from Boston to the Cape and other property belonging to the crew. After smashing the barrel of rum that had been aboard and the subsequent arguing over the drink as the pirates partook of it, Ansel heard young William shouting for help, as he was being carried away into one of the waiting boats, as one of the scoundrels proclaimed they were taking him "to make punch" for them. <br />
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After a while, the commotion subsided as all but one of the boats left Abigail and returned to their own ship. A few of the men, the leaders of the expedition, remained aboard, discussing whether or not to set fire to the Abigail and sink her. But, instead of burning her, to Ansel's relief, they decided to leave her sails up, scuttle her and let her sail out to sea on her own.<br />
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About 10 o'clock the next morning, Sunday November 15, 1722, Captain Doane from Chatham spotted Abigail sailing between Chatham and Nantucket, flying a distress flag. When Captain Doane boarded Abigail, he found a terrified Ansel, who described the events of the earlier hours as I have just related them. <br />
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Captain Doane and his crew brought the Abigail and Ansel to Chatham and then told the story he'd heard to Justice of the Peace Bacon, from Barnstable, who then sent a report to Governor Hutchinson in Boston. A ship was sent to find the "pirates" but nothing was found. There were many inconsistencies in Ansel's story, and the Governor found it all incredible. A warrant for his arrest was issued, and Ansel, who was found to have been wandering in parts unknown, was hunted down and sent to jail on the charge of murder on the high seas and piracy.<br />
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Ansel was questioned by the Governor and a panel of justices after which a trial was ordered for June. Some of the inconsistencies in Ansel's story were that there was a substantial sum of money on board as the crew had collected it's pay for the preceding year while in Boston and it was contained in the chests, while Ansel claimed there had been a small amount of money. Although the rum was smashed and broken into, there were stores of beef and other food these pirates did not take. The panel thought it would be impossible for Ansel to hang there on the ropes over the stern as long as he did and why hadn't the men searched for him, having first boarded the ship and undoubtedly counted the passenger and crew? Other suspicious elements of the story were that nobody else had seen this mystery ship, nor had any other ships been boarded. And in none of Captain Doane's testimony, had he described any blood smeared decks. <br />
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Even his defense attorney made some notes of the inconsistencies of his story. Ansel was the only one spared. He as alone on board, covered with blood. On the other hand, the flying of the distress signal was inconsistent with criminal behavior. Ansel said his reason to be on board was because he needed to get his clothes in Chatham and that it would be too costly to travel by land seemed hard to believe. Ansel said the money box was missing from the hold, yet he also said he hadn't been in the hold. <br />
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More notes from his own lawyer's records: <em>Incredibility that there should have been a Pirate Vessell. The boats could not board. The rum hadn't been carried off, and still in the stores were fresh Meat, Butter, Cyder, Roots. The Pirates must have trod in the blood, and left the Marks in Cabin, hold, but none were found. Where was the Prisoner for fear of Impress. Hanging on the Stern. Is it possible he should have hung there a Minute? Why did not they discover him, when on the deck and when they came under the Stern. The Paint clean, not bruised nor broke.</em><br />
<div class="p"><em>If the Prisoner guilty would not every appearance have been as they were.</em></div><div class="p"><em>Liquor, Cyder and Rum in the Pail, and the <span class="unclear">[Cantien<b>?</b>]</span> he gave, shews they were made drunk and then butch<span class="unclear">[ere]</span>d.</em></div><div class="p"><em>Conduct after he came ashore—wandering God knows where. No Account can be given of him. An opportunity to bring <span class="cancelled"><it></span> ashore, the Money.</em></div><div class="p"><em>Confident he should be discharged.</em></div><div class="p"><em>Went a little Way, felt poorly, when he came back. The Witnesses say he could not go on board the Vessell then, but he might go where the Money was hid.</em></div><div class="p"><em>All Night absent going to his Grandfathers. He pretended he was lost.</em></div><div class="p"><em>Went to the Hay Yard to the End of the Stack, to get hay for his Horse.</em></div>Yet, after all of these notes his lawyer writes: <br />
<em>Altogether presumptive. </em><br />
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A trial was held after several delays, in August of 1773, and despite the court's accusations and defense counsel's questions, Ansel was acquitted. <br />
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His lawyer admitted that he did "not know the basis of the acquittal" but thought it was due to the lack of direct evidence. According to his defense counsel, "Nickerson lived many years, and behaved well." He didn't seem very grateful to his lawyer. "His comments before and after the trial were less than gracious." Defense counsel later reported that “He had nothing to give me, but his promissory Note, for a very moderate Fee. But I have heard nothing from him, nor received any Thing for his note, which has been lost with many other Notes and Accounts to a large Amount, in the distraction of the times and my Absence from my Business.” <br />
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Some say Ansel went on to live in the area and fought against the British in the Revolutionary war. He died in the West Indies. Some say he was convicted of murder and hanged in the Antilles. Others say that while he lay dying on the Island of Martinique he confessed to the murders aboard Abigail. <br />
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The IOU that Ansel wrote to his lawyer was found. It was dated 30 July 1773, for £6 13s. 4d. It was found too late to enforce payment, and still remains, unreceipted, in the files of Ansel's attorney,<br />
John Adams. <br />
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<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-JQKAQAAIAAJ&dq=impressment%20john%20adams&pg=PP10&ci=50%2C104%2C885%2C1257&source=bookclip"><img src="http://books.google.com/books?id=-JQKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PP10&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2ExZ6UeXybImiiOfswHARikudqoQ&ci=50%2C104%2C885%2C1257&edge=0" /></a><br />
From John Adams' Diary:<br />
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<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-JQKAQAAIAAJ&dq=impressment%20john%20adams&pg=PA224&ci=164%2C628%2C781%2C228&source=bookclip"><img src="http://books.google.com/books?id=-JQKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA224&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2hH9C7bQaaHi4_d-iVx_-REjMgww&ci=164%2C628%2C781%2C228&edge=0" /></a><br />
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So, that's the incredible story I found while looking for Ruth Hinckley Nickerson Crowell Phinney's roots. Her first husband, Thomas Nickerson IV, killed at sea either by a band of French pirates or by his own cousin for the contents of a ship's chest. Ruth nor Thomas are in Ed's direct line. But, this is where I was led. For me, it's not always the story from my own tree that tugs at me and grabs my curiosity, although it is fun when that happens. The wonderful thing is that there are fabulous, intriguing stories in the trees surrounding our own. And it's a very large forest!Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-26112490178007687882011-06-24T00:21:00.005-04:002011-06-24T17:04:39.369-04:00The Story of Ruth...Well, Sort Of ( Part I)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>I am here on Cape Cod writing today's blog entry, specifically South Yarmouth, MA. This is where Ed's maternal grandfather Uriah Crowell, and his family come from. The Crowells are one of the original families in Yarmouth. Ed's 5th great grandfather, Abner Crowell, died aboard a British Prison Ship in Newport Harbor during the Revolution. I have mentioned that story in an earlier Henrietta post.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxYy7C80wOyiUfwFL7nEUwaXLJsKto_DlNWWW4_kfUfUoj7WdQvLjEQ4uPmNzOToYxYRu33nV7bFY940xjx_KLZbswt-56_roTN_ylxBlLKwI7GGhgtaR2iUqLeGJQiu0gmFZgR__bhqg/s1600/prisonsh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxYy7C80wOyiUfwFL7nEUwaXLJsKto_DlNWWW4_kfUfUoj7WdQvLjEQ4uPmNzOToYxYRu33nV7bFY940xjx_KLZbswt-56_roTN_ylxBlLKwI7GGhgtaR2iUqLeGJQiu0gmFZgR__bhqg/s320/prisonsh.jpg" width="241px" /></a></div> <br />
<div align="center" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHZRf7Aph_KL7jt9vfERK-5xeK30OZSc32qYp5L75raU2j26-W-T2yFSTxEygJVSjQAlS_T5H_Lq_IrFv0vqq7sRnPKute1SDtA2RrR4ifz3hGOPElaBcmn5ZX2ONvMGhbi43t1l9sCo/s1600/jersey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="1px" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHZRf7Aph_KL7jt9vfERK-5xeK30OZSc32qYp5L75raU2j26-W-T2yFSTxEygJVSjQAlS_T5H_Lq_IrFv0vqq7sRnPKute1SDtA2RrR4ifz3hGOPElaBcmn5ZX2ONvMGhbi43t1l9sCo/s320/jersey.jpg" width="1px" /></a></div>During the Revolution, the British used ships as floating prisons. These ships were packed tightly with American patriots captured and held there in chains below decks in the worst conditions imaginable. When France allied with the Colonials, they positioned these ships directly in the mouth of Newport Harbor and sunk them, one after the other, blocking access to the harbor. On one ship, the Grand Duke, Ed's 5th great grandfather, Abner Crowell, was being held prisoner. He died at sea, just one of scores of others in these prison ships, on the 8th of February 1778.<br />
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Abner was 51 years old and the father of 8 children by his first wife Sara O'Kellia at the time of his death. Sara had died three years before, leaving Abner to care for the four or five of the youngest children still living at home. The youngest of all of them, Judah, was Ed's 4th great grandfather. He was just 9 when news of his father's death was received in Yarmouth. Abner's martyrdom on the prison ship is a captivating story, but that's not my focus today. <br />
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Judah, now an orphan, was at home living with his step mother, Ruth Nickerson Crowell. Abner had remarried less than a year before he was killed. His new wife was a widow and also a mother of four young children of her own when she married Abner. Her youngest was just 4 and her oldest 10. When Ruth became widowed for the second time, she was left destitute caring for her four and another four or five of Abner's children still at home. And Ruth was pregnant with Abner's child. She gave birth to her son Simeon Crowell 4 months after Abner was killed. Judah was 9 years old and an orphan living with a step mother he barely knew, sharing shelter, clothing and food with 9 others. His stepmother had all she could handle to raise her own children, not to mention all his older brothers and sisters, and soon another little baby would be born, too. One wonders was there any time at all for young Judah? The life he must have led would probably break most of us. <br />
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But today's story is not about Judah's survival, either. In fact, my original intent was to write about Simeon, Ruth and Abner's only child. His was quite a story, worthy of a blog, to be sure. I found out at the local library yesterday that Simeon Crowell, born months after the death of a father he never knew, was totally devoted to his mother and wanted to do what he could to make her life easier. As a little boy of just 10 years old, he did the only thing he could think of to lessen his mother's burden. He went to sea. As a mother, I am not sure how that would have eased my burden, but I suppose just one less mouth to feed would have made a difference for poor Ruth. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh00SBDWyj8xUVvZhsh3BaP4zoY4ax4zty20RR0tGW0QUHtyQldkR-oL_N3Ujr3Uk0yOJxu4Izk5URXxtudHydSf4pgFn_8E8ffyK9njl4V9kNEA-n1o4Y3BDauJYtriqJCE7aMn9kiifU/s1600/simeon+crowell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="1px" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh00SBDWyj8xUVvZhsh3BaP4zoY4ax4zty20RR0tGW0QUHtyQldkR-oL_N3Ujr3Uk0yOJxu4Izk5URXxtudHydSf4pgFn_8E8ffyK9njl4V9kNEA-n1o4Y3BDauJYtriqJCE7aMn9kiifU/s320/simeon+crowell.jpg" width="1px" /></a><br />
Simeon was 26 years at sea before he returned a well respected Captain in his own right. His mother was still married to her third husband,Gershom Phinney, whom she had married three years before Simeon left. Ruth was 61 and before Simeon left she and Gershom had a boy, Gershom III. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtysQqe9cjfyBoGNddIii-8UzsX8g0BY-KgpdBlZEmnv6sEtqla_d0fcf5B8bEmqMhO5noykeHkaGHf3Vkb1DKeckkFOIxCQ3xGLIP9ypflx7rbJTHs8Fv3H46n13IBiomBhIzgUZE1A/s1600/simcrowell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtysQqe9cjfyBoGNddIii-8UzsX8g0BY-KgpdBlZEmnv6sEtqla_d0fcf5B8bEmqMhO5noykeHkaGHf3Vkb1DKeckkFOIxCQ3xGLIP9ypflx7rbJTHs8Fv3H46n13IBiomBhIzgUZE1A/s320/simcrowell.jpg" width="252px" /></a></div><br />
Simeon, married and started a saltworks business in Yarmouth. During his world travels as a ship captain, he had seen and heard many things, but something he heard at a church spoke directly to him. He brought that message back with him and in 1824 he started The Bass River Community Baptist Church, which was just around the corner from where we stay in South Yarmouth. He donated the land the church sat on and became their first minister. Sometimes called the "Lord's Barn" it was described by a local resident this way: "it was quite high in the walls; was shingled roof and sides; had no steeple or belfry of any sort and was innocent of paint, both within and without".<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8s2eSJg2KKoEcr6FAHufWFflVq6nHsvLcyfyTL792_2dMzEDQ18i6bBl4WXI3MpFZH3sri-4sgWkTIWG8oxIOMqeBRpLJ14I7ugaYn3o8g1yOYSHn6lOoFTj1MK4ISfiU12CAmvu-L8U/s1600/cbc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8s2eSJg2KKoEcr6FAHufWFflVq6nHsvLcyfyTL792_2dMzEDQ18i6bBl4WXI3MpFZH3sri-4sgWkTIWG8oxIOMqeBRpLJ14I7ugaYn3o8g1yOYSHn6lOoFTj1MK4ISfiU12CAmvu-L8U/s320/cbc.jpg" width="240px" /></a></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEXWIUatHtgSeKf-9c2z2bg4VbHs8FeXAcnv-vg-6MbC85vrGBtQFx4PrWmVjIyLtBdOPMGDJe4isfFKcUKeH11asbLtdS4t6JY847F6lfSQn87TWY3cosVg0S6vwS1YiiCoCS7HXDK0/s1600/baptist+church.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="1px" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEXWIUatHtgSeKf-9c2z2bg4VbHs8FeXAcnv-vg-6MbC85vrGBtQFx4PrWmVjIyLtBdOPMGDJe4isfFKcUKeH11asbLtdS4t6JY847F6lfSQn87TWY3cosVg0S6vwS1YiiCoCS7HXDK0/s320/baptist+church.jpg" width="1px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bass River Community Baptist Church today</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div> It was a crude structure, but was a vast improvement over having the meetings in various homes of congregants. And, true to the Baptist tradition, the early members of the church, when the weather permitted, were immersed in Bass River. Simeon's mother would live until she was almost 80, outliving her third husband. She is buried in the cemetery behind Simeon's church. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ruth Hinckley Nickerson Crowell Phinney's grave.</td></tr>
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Like I said, the story today was supposed to be about Simeon, and he was an interesting guy who survived hard times and turned his life into a testament to the belief that life is what you make of it, no matter what you're handed. He was a survivor, something I see over and over in Ed's family tree. But something else came to light when I went to find out who Ruth Nickerson Crowell was before she was a Nickerson or a Crowell. Who was this woman who was left with all of these children, some of them her own and some belonging to a husband she lived with for only a few months before his sad demise? I was very curious about her. <br />
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I found out that she was baptised Ruth Hinckley in 1743. She would have been about 34 years old when she married Abner. Her first husband, Thomas Nickerson IV, had died when she had three sons of his, and one on the way, born months after he died...at sea.<br />
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And that, my friends, is where the really interesting story was found. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">But, you'll have to wait until next time for that story. So, stay tuned... </div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-15594717486860145212011-06-16T08:58:00.011-04:002011-06-17T14:25:16.352-04:00The Death ListWhen I was doing some of the research for my last story about my Civil War ancestor Uncle Salem Judson Tiffany who lost his life in Andersonville Prison, I happened upon another story. It's a story about a man who as far as I know had no connection to my family tree, but whose life story so intrigued me, I had to write about him. Although he was no relation, he and Uncle Salem did cross paths. <br />
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I grew up being pretty savvy about the Revolutionary War, living in Massachusetts. But I know very little about the Civil War. So, please forgive me if you already heard this story. And from the number of blogs out there about this particular person, I have a feeling he is well-known to many. I first learned about this man's story when corresponding with a fellow named Kevin Frye who lives near Andersonville and is an expert on the subject. I wrote to him some months back when I first found out about Salem. Kevin will take anybody on a free, behind the scenes private tour of the Andersonville site, with his golf cart providing transportation for 5 people. He will bring you to the grave(s) of your ancestors and will do it all for the asking, plus any tips you might find appropriate, he added. Some day I may just take Mr. Frye up on his offer as I would really like to visit Andersonville and find Uncle Salem's grave.<br />
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First in Kevin's email to me, and then again when I was doing research for last week's blog, I came across this fellow's story. <br />
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In Terryville, Connecticut, about 40 miles from Coventry where my Uncle Salem was born, a family by the name of Atwater lived. The father, Henry, made his living as a stone mason, but was also a school teacher and the local Justice of the Peace. He was a well-respected member of the little town and expected his children to earn their own respectable places in society. The third born of eight, his son Dorence, was a quick learner and as a young teenager of thirteen was already working as a clerk in a local store and in the post office.<br />
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But, war had broken out in the 1860s and Dor was eager to serve. At barely 16 years old he went off to war without consent of his parents. Lying about his age, he enlisted with the 2nd Connecticut. He became a regimental clerk for his unit, but while on horseback delivering a dispatch to his general, just a few days after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, Dorence was taken prisoner by the enemy. In his coat pocket he had the letter he had just received advising him of his mother's death. How distraught he must have been, such a young boy, far from home, having just learned of his mother's passing and now in the hands of the enemy. <br />
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At first Dorence was held at Bell Isle Prison where he became quite ill with diarrhea and scurvy. After a short time, they moved him from that prison to Richmond where, at the recommendation of his Union adjutant, also a prisoner, he was assigned by his captors as clerk for various projects including keeping track of the funds taken from Union soldiers and keeping an account of the supplies purchased by the US Government for the Union Soldiers who were, like him, sick and suffering in rebel prisons.<br />
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In February of 1864 he was sent to Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia to the newly opened prison there. He was one of the first batch of prisoners sent there to suffer. Still sick with scurvy and various life-threatening conditions prevalent in these prison camps, once again because of his experience as a clerk, Dorence was assigned the detail of assisting the prison surgeon in recording the deaths of the Union captives. In large numbers these soldiers died from scurvy, dysentery, starvation, exposure and wounds from battle and were buried in large trenches by the scores. <br />
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Although now just 19, Dorence had the experience as a clerk to know the value of records, especially in this situation. His assignment was to make the list for the prison officials. He was also to make one copy for Richmond, the Confederate Capital and one for the Union Army, which he suspected would never be delivered. So weakened by his suffering, at times he had to hold his right hand with his left in order to steady his pen. But Dor felt a compelling need to get this information to the families of these men and to Washington. He wanted to honor them and make certain that the sacrifice he knew they made would be made known to all. So, Dor set out to make a fourth copy, a secret copy of these "death rolls". He carefully recorded their names, the date and cause of their deaths, making note of where they were buried, hiding his own pages among the official record. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho66dAZQWcKZF3YpLZBVsVlMRkJs4JKwwaIyxcduhgZKTOJsgPzy4h7NaOLeAjSONO-dcRTI0RS3KvHkZIHwHWYq97ILNTuGPBYpdV1-dJMFf1WaNGkWuGNBxNNY8jgOZPY6ZpM2nRr6E/s1600/trenches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho66dAZQWcKZF3YpLZBVsVlMRkJs4JKwwaIyxcduhgZKTOJsgPzy4h7NaOLeAjSONO-dcRTI0RS3KvHkZIHwHWYq97ILNTuGPBYpdV1-dJMFf1WaNGkWuGNBxNNY8jgOZPY6ZpM2nRr6E/s1600/trenches.jpg" t8="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andersonville's dead were buried in trenches, one after the other. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>They closed Andersonville Prison in a little less than a year after it received its first prisoners. Dorence was transfered to a South Carolina prison. He concealed his secret record and took it with him when he left. He was one of the first prisoners to be exchanged and he found himself in March of 1865, after being captive for 22 months, in Annapolis. His sad list, a 24 page document on which he had recorded the deaths of over 13,000 men had successfully been smuggled out with him.<br />
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Dorence went home to Terrytown, CT, sick and dying of Diphtheria. He was still just a boy of 20 when his widowed father nursed him back to health in the family home. All he could think about was how was he going to get the information he had recorded to these families who had no way of knowing the fate of these brave souls, nor of their final resting place. Perhaps that's what kept him going and gave him the strength to survive when so many others had not.<br />
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And so it was there at Andersonville where Dorence and my great grand uncle Salem's paths crossed. It was this record that made it possible for Kevin Frye, the Andersonville expert, to identify his grave for me when I wrote to him. As Salem was taken to the prison hospital and later pronounced dead on September 1, 1864, Dorence was there to record the event on the list. Perhaps he knew Salem, having also been born in Connecticut. Maybe they exchanged stories of home and Dorence may have comforted Salem as he drew his last miserable breath in the hellish place.<br />
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This young hero who took it on his own to honor these men and provide some answers to those who waited at home did not have an easy time of it, however. I am not really a believer in the "no good deed goes unpunished" theory, but in this case it really was the way things went. <br />
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After reading the story of the "death list" in a newspaper, someone in the War Department in Washington, requested that Dorence send them the list. He refused, wanting to personally fulfill the promise he had made to himself and these men, which was to let these thousands of families know what became of their loved ones. Not yet fully recovered from diphtheria, Dorence was ordered to Washington, and to bring his list with him. He was forced to sell his list to them for the purpose of copying it for $300. Dorence understood the price was for the right to copy it, not for the list itself, which would be returned to him when the War Department had completed its project. Dorence was also given a position as a clerk to assist in the project.<br />
Unfortunately, his superiors and the Secretary of War was not of the same mind as Dorence had believed them to be and they refused to return the list to Dorence after the copy had been completed. Ignoring his repeated requests, Dorence was then ordered by the Secretary of War to go to Andersonville with 40 or so others to mark the graves, using the copy they had made and his own list, not to mention his personal knowledge of the whereabouts of the over 13,000 graves. Clara Barton was among those who were there and would become a lifelong friend and supporter of Dorence. Dorence was invaluable to the group, pinpointing the exact locations of the trenches and matching up the men with the wooden markers they were preparing. However, Dorence, with the sole purpose of ending the suspense and anguish of the families and friends of the Andersonville dead, took his list while he was there and refused to return it. He admitted to taking it, saying that a man can take what is his wherever he finds it, and that the law allows for it. <br />
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A court martial followed charging him with two counts: 'conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline' and 'larceny'. The procedure must have felt like such betrayal to young Dorence. The frustration and anguish he must have felt as one witness after the other testified and hearing that he was accused of stealing something that he felt belonged to him must have been overwhelming for such a young patriot. And the sentence that was handed down was a dishonorable discharge, a fine of $300 and 18 months of hard labor in Auburn prison in New York until the list was returned. He was taken from Washington to Auburn in irons. I am still not sure of the Government's motive in not wanting Dorence to publish his list. In testimony one of the reasons was that they felt Dorence would profit by publishing it. But, it is unclear to me whether this was the real reason for the refusal of the Government to return his list or if it was just some sort of character flaw in the Captain in charge. <br />
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He served there two months of hard labor before he was released, reportedly because the Secretary of War was worried about an investigation that various newspapers around the country had threatened. Among these newspapers was the New York Tribune. Dorence promptly went to work and alphabetized and organized his list and had 25,000 copies printed. The Tribune published it and put it on newsstands before the government knew what was happening. Dorence was able to finally do what he had set out to do and he shared the information with the families and the entire country. In an introduction, written by Dorence, he explained to the families why it took so long for him to get this to them and recounts the events that took place surrounding the recovery of what he felt was his property. I have just copied an excerpt here. While you read this, try to picture that Dorence Atwater was just 21 years old when he wrote this, still sick and weak from his captivity and mistreatment by both the South and the North. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>THE DEAD AT ANDERSONVILLE</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong> Introduction by Dorence Atwater </strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>To the Surviving Relatives and Friends of the Martyred Dead at Andersonville</strong> <strong>Ga </strong></div><br />
<em>THIS record was originally copied for you because I feared that neither you nor the Government of the United States would ever otherwise learn the fate of your loved ones whom I saw daily dying before me. I could do nothing for them but I resolved that I would at least try and let you sometime know when and how they died. This at least I am now able to do. So many conflicting rumors have been in circulation in regard to these rolls and myself that I deem it prudent to give a brief statement of my entire connection with this DEATH REGISTER and to show how and why it was so long withheld from you...</em><br />
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<em>...The appalling mortality was such that I suspected that it was the design of the Rebel Government to kill and maim our prisoners by exposure and starvation so that they would forever be totally unfit for military service and that they withheld these facts. Accordingly the latter part of August 1864 I began to secretly copy the entire list of our dead which I succeeded in doing and brought it safely through the lines with me in 1865. </em><br />
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<em>Arriving at Camp Parole at Md I learned that I could not get a furlough on account my term of service having expired some seven months before. I wrote to the Secretary of War asking for a furlough of days for the purpose of having my DEATH REGISTER for the relief of the many thousand anxious in regard to fate of their dead. Before an answer could have returned I received a furlough from the commandant of the camp. I then went my home in Terryville Conn where I was taken sick the next day after my arrival which confined me for three weeks.</em><br />
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<em>On the 12th of April I received a telegram from the War Department requesting to come immediately to Washington and bring my rolls and if were found acceptable I should be suitably rewarded... </em><br />
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<em>...I was convicted and sentenced as follows To be dishonorably discharged from the United States service with loss of all pay and allowances now due; to pay a fine of three hundred dollars to be confined at hard labor for the period of eighteen months at such place as the Secretary of War may direct; to furnish to the War Department the property specified in the second specification as the property stolen from Captain JM Moore; and stand committed at hard labor until the said fine is paid and the said stolen property is furnished to the War Department.</em><br />
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<em>On the 26th day of September I arrived at Auburn State prison New York where I remained over two months at hard labor when I was released under a general pardon of the President of the United States.</em><br />
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<em>I reached New Haven Conn on the following day and learned that the record had not been furnished you. I immediately set about preparing it for publication and have arranged to have it printed and placed within your reach at the cost of the labor of printing and material, having no means by which to defray these expenses myself. I regret that you have waited so long for information of so much interest to you.</em><br />
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<em>DORENCE ATWATER </em><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDglkqOMkKt7rJzHWySlx89H_x0iB_Q6WdusPRBuClNoYX4xZfJXHA9OMF6caqFSrqWldWO5lhnd7gzyHI-syaLwjnKkQcsv_VYKl2T3unTa-4zd4JZN9X5m0d0M25ZSeuu9qS6apwT1k/s1600/youngdorence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDglkqOMkKt7rJzHWySlx89H_x0iB_Q6WdusPRBuClNoYX4xZfJXHA9OMF6caqFSrqWldWO5lhnd7gzyHI-syaLwjnKkQcsv_VYKl2T3unTa-4zd4JZN9X5m0d0M25ZSeuu9qS6apwT1k/s1600/youngdorence.jpg" t8="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Dorence Atwater</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
The government never restored his pension, but at the age of 23, he was given a consulship in the Seychelles Islands, which was chosen because it was thought to be good for his health. But, the climate was not good for Dorence, still suffering residual effects from his prison days. So he was given a consulship in Tahiti where the climate was indeed healing for him. <br />
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</div>He married a Tahitian princess named Moetia (Moe) Salmon, who was educated in Europe. <br />
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He prospered as a businessman with a shipping line and a pearl business. He worked with lepers and the impoverished and was well-loved by the Tahitians. Known by some in the State as the Angel of Andersonville, the Tahitians called himTupuuataroa, or "Wise Man". Dor and Moe also had a home on Market Street in San Francisco. However, in the great earthquake of 1906, the home was destroyed, along with it the original "death list". They lived in the hotel Normandie in San Francisco after that, his health making it impossible for him to withstand the voyage back to his beloved Tahiti. <br />
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Dorence died in San Francisco in 1910 at the age of 65. Moe accompanied his body back to Tahiti two years later after funds to transport it there were raised. There to greet the funeral procession was every person on the Island. <br />
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He was the first non-royal to be given a royal funeral in Tahiti. His wife died in 1935. She was 87. Dorence is buried beneath a 7,000 lb stone. On one side is carved “Tupuuataroa” (Wise Man). On the other, “He builded better than he knew that one day he might awake in surprise to found he had wrought a monument more enduring than brass.”<br />
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Of the more than 13,000 men who died and were buried at Andersonville, there are but 400 not identified. All of us who have ancestors buried there owe some gratitude to the Angel of Andersonville, Wise Man Dorence Atwater. Without the remarkable foresight of a Connecticut teenager a century and a half ago, we may never have known what happened to Salem Judson Tiffany and so many others. Thank you, Dor.Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-61029600098469927892011-06-01T23:47:00.005-04:002011-06-02T15:26:44.685-04:00Uncle Salem's Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>This past week we remembered those killed while in service to our country. Memorial Day to so many is just a long weekend, thanks to legislation in 1971 that changed the day we observe it from May 30 to the last Monday in May. But the first observance of Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day, was in 1868, when an order was issued, setting aside the 30th of May to honor those lost in the War of the Rebellion, both north and south. <br />
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<em>The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit...</em><br />
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<em>...Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan. </em><br />
<em>-</em><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">From General Order No. 11 by General John A. Logan, Commander In Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic. </span></em><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KMiI4KVYyi02CLYFKkzYP3p6pMT0NhmDpkqKZwH6OtB_7lZKN62rn9OQJsrgzXh8piAm878BWb9e7JZa8_HNrthzRAQCfwvAcwh9k9jm8OlVJo_x-5OqyIKkINRqA-J8ymxaJ8rBX2w/s1600/John-Logan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KMiI4KVYyi02CLYFKkzYP3p6pMT0NhmDpkqKZwH6OtB_7lZKN62rn9OQJsrgzXh8piAm878BWb9e7JZa8_HNrthzRAQCfwvAcwh9k9jm8OlVJo_x-5OqyIKkINRqA-J8ymxaJ8rBX2w/s320/John-Logan.jpg" t8="true" width="199px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General and Senator John A Logan</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
Although decorating the graves of their fallen loved ones was something the 'ladies of the south' had been doing on their own since the war broke out, this declaration was an act of reconciliation between the north and the south, recognizing the loss on both sides of the cause when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI3-JRbArK5m-kc09WPQ6JkhMXx17p7ZBClzCAiAcwjWizwyu-NT46JooXxUp4_EhZZcdcJ8ptTM2Qr660ecQVBnoAWDdb2jPZk-IfMM6omugOl1eUh-a-Klsqa-vTo2yrWEZqv81S5Wk/s1600/memdaygrave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI3-JRbArK5m-kc09WPQ6JkhMXx17p7ZBClzCAiAcwjWizwyu-NT46JooXxUp4_EhZZcdcJ8ptTM2Qr660ecQVBnoAWDdb2jPZk-IfMM6omugOl1eUh-a-Klsqa-vTo2yrWEZqv81S5Wk/s320/memdaygrave.jpg" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">This is something my grandparents' and parents' generations did unfailingly when I was growing up. The Memorial Day Committee in my home town always had the local Boy and Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls place a geranium on every Veteran's grave, marked with a small American Flag. But I never knew until just now that decorating the graves was anything more than a nice tradition or just making sure that the graves look nice for the Memorial Day services that take place in the cemeteries every year. I had no idea that to decorate a grave, to garland it with the "choicest flowers of spring time" was written into the order that designated the holiday. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7DDbsRebE-58p5AUbEtmiCtyK7XX3B1IxbZuwvFcHVw7-p3l2cQ7udyF9T1pw4_zhATxmAuMsTvJPx3g7a-_sdN-l5A2vtYaF2KPLjTPTBTMM4D7qK_sVfzt3ILQcb7LtoGQzsIAmylM/s1600/memorial_day_arlington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7DDbsRebE-58p5AUbEtmiCtyK7XX3B1IxbZuwvFcHVw7-p3l2cQ7udyF9T1pw4_zhATxmAuMsTvJPx3g7a-_sdN-l5A2vtYaF2KPLjTPTBTMM4D7qK_sVfzt3ILQcb7LtoGQzsIAmylM/s320/memorial_day_arlington.jpg" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></div>The first state to recognize it as a holiday was New York and by 1890, all the northern states had adopted it. But the southern states refused to recognize this date and held their own Decoration Days to honor their fallen Confederate soldiers. The south finally joined the rest of the nation after World War I when the holiday was changed to honor all Americans killed in any war rather than just the Civil War dead.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgszf5PTw3yQt7JaLfYsAKTZdbx7oyEfW0qzOvA0wm5oiNebGrziWZKvNYsOo5q3tAJYKvUVy96tKBzlYKyvtTIXKLTJmAB-VIcjkhQq6IthyprHkDDnyMipe9tuFBXFyZReGHHJZgIVAY/s1600/Decoration+Day+1899.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgszf5PTw3yQt7JaLfYsAKTZdbx7oyEfW0qzOvA0wm5oiNebGrziWZKvNYsOo5q3tAJYKvUVy96tKBzlYKyvtTIXKLTJmAB-VIcjkhQq6IthyprHkDDnyMipe9tuFBXFyZReGHHJZgIVAY/s320/Decoration+Day+1899.bmp" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Decoration Day 1899 Illinois</td></tr>
</tbody></table>However, today there are still southern states that commemorate Decoration Day for the Confederate war dead, on other dates in January, April and May, in addition to recognizing Memorial Day. Tennessee and Louisiana honor their Confederate casualties on June 3, the birth date of Jefferson Davis. <br />
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One of my ancestors, Salem Judson Tiffany, the brother of my great great grandfather Harlan Tiffany, was a private in the 34th Massachusetts Infantry. Salem was born in Connecticut but grew up in Southbridge, Massachusetts. The 34th was made up of men and boys from the western part of the state where Southbridge is located. <br />
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In August of 1862, at 25 years old, Salem who made a living as a weaver, still lived with his parents in Southbridge. He was the oldest of five children. Salem enlisted when the call went out along with about 1,000 other young men from the area who were assigned to the 34th Massachusetts Infantry. They left immediately for Virginia. The 34th stayed in Virginia and Washington DC for some months before they set out for various campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley during the spring of 1864.<br />
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In New Market VA, a battle was brewing. The Union Army had arrived there early on Sunday morning, May 15, 1864 to face the enemy. About 5,000 other troops joined the 670 men from the 34th who were there that fateful day.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Meanwhile, the south, with similar numbers present, had conscripted young cadets from the nearby Virginia Military Institute (VMI) knowing they may need the additional men. It was common to empty the colleges and universities in the south of their able-bodied young men when battles were waged nearby. The young cadets from 14 -18, numbering more than 200, were divided into 4 different battalions, all of them eager to engage in battle. Little did they know how celebrated they would be when it was over. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW8M3iW67n-p_vOf12ce4KU0idgiiJTayA27IXJfEWH3I2U_1VsiwOgaItZ0oHePdIHwNIcaLqtHnOjMKuPpE4paR8nFx60ikLqSV0diYAEgEqEbkIFjXtP1e3uWdtYFA6qvtWXrs05sM/s1600/vmi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW8M3iW67n-p_vOf12ce4KU0idgiiJTayA27IXJfEWH3I2U_1VsiwOgaItZ0oHePdIHwNIcaLqtHnOjMKuPpE4paR8nFx60ikLqSV0diYAEgEqEbkIFjXtP1e3uWdtYFA6qvtWXrs05sM/s320/vmi.jpg" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Virginia Military Institute (VMI)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Heavy rain poured down on New Market,Virginia, leaving deep, thick mud everywhere on the field of the farm where the battle took place. It would come to be known as the "Field of Lost Shoes". As the south and the north advanced toward each other, clearly the Union soldiers were confused by what ensued and from what some say were vague and confusing orders given by Major General Franz Sigel. </div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAGzxQZlu5_66XGSV6-91mzgYhk-n892uQa_9ul87BCt0yppiMbtmhy1GKNQy2ekQT2igpm4bOrrfINDxxFEwGzXyZGxRKfmyC5Fa6-JoPVrkVJq16rV4P1XoooL7gJkQNExexO5kbFs/s1600/field+of+lost+shoes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAGzxQZlu5_66XGSV6-91mzgYhk-n892uQa_9ul87BCt0yppiMbtmhy1GKNQy2ekQT2igpm4bOrrfINDxxFEwGzXyZGxRKfmyC5Fa6-JoPVrkVJq16rV4P1XoooL7gJkQNExexO5kbFs/s320/field+of+lost+shoes.jpg" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Field of Lost Shoes</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>In Sigel's own words:<br />
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<em>"Our skirmishers began to fall back, and fire was opened by Snow's battery on our right. I ordered the 34th Massachusetts to kneel down and deliver their fire by file as soon as the enemy came near enough to make it effective. A very severe conflict now followed at short range, the enemy charging repeatedly and with great determination against our line of infantry and the batteries, and being repulsed by the coolness and bravery of the 34th Massachusetts, 1st West Virginia, and 54th Pennsylvania, and the batteries. </em><br />
<em>The smoke from the infantry fire on the left and the batteries on the right became so dense that I could not distinguish friend from foe. </em><br />
<em>There was an interruption of a few minutes, when the enemy's lines recoiled, and our men cheered; then the fire began again and lasted about thirty minutes; the enemy again charged, this time especially against our batteries; he came so near that Lieutenant Ephraim Chalfant of Carlin's battery rode up to me and said that he could not hold his position. I immediately ordered two companies of the 12th West Virginia to advance and protect the pieces, but to my surprise there was no disposition to advance; in fact, in spite of entreaties and reproaches, the men could not be moved an inch. At this moment Major Meysenburg of my staff came up to me, and, to save the guns, I determined to make a countercharge of the whole right wing, and requested him to transmit the order to Colonel Thoburn, who was not far from me toward the left. Bayonets were fixed and the charge was made in splendid style, but the enemy rallied, received our line with a destructive fire, and forced it back to its position. Before the charge was made, our extreme left wing had given way; two pieces of Von Kleiser's battery fell into the enemy's hands, and a part of his forces moved against the left and rear of Thoburn's brigade. When Thoburn's regiments came back, strewing the ground with their killed and wounded, the enemy, close on their heels, now again turned against the batteries on the right, filling the air with their high-pitched yells. I saw that the battery would be lost, as men and horses were falling."</em><br />
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The 34th Massachusetts were the first to face the enemy and engage in battle of gunfire and bayonets in that battle. When the order was given for them to retreat, they were bringing up the rear and would not be able to get out of harm's way. The 4 battalions of cadets were right there in the thick of it, positioned closest to the 34th. In their youthful fervor they became a mighty foe. These young cadets did major damage to the 34th, and many Massachusetts sons were killed or wounded and then taken captive by the cadets and the Confederate Veterans they fought beside. Ten of the cadets died that day. They are remembered each year in a reenactment at New Market and at VMI.<br />
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And, among the wounded Union Soldiers that day was 27 year old Private Salem Judson Marsh. Wounded in his left shoulder, he was taken prisoner and brought to Andersonville Prison in Georgia. There, with quite a few others from his little town in Massachusetts, he lived in horrendous conditions of starvation, infection, and no shelter from the elements. This prison had just opened a few months before Salem was captured. It was designed to hold 10,000 men. It held 45,000. There was one small stream that ran through the middle of the open stockade which was called Sweetwater Branch. It was used for drinking, bathing and sewage. Men were dying of infection and dysentery at the rate of 100 per day. By the time the prison was closed in 1865, 13,000 men had died while imprisoned there.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjojac1ansWjSRIAZ4tU_1bT8A93HDNxQIhPqBB8gRbk8F0n-RHB817lLP4k10kw9xKdsDFQss8N9R2X3X9Bz4T57uIHksSE8APFCSyRudTphtNdorRHZf-CtkouryVNPJ-P3QbiK9e74/s1600/Andersonville_prisom_0172454.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjojac1ansWjSRIAZ4tU_1bT8A93HDNxQIhPqBB8gRbk8F0n-RHB817lLP4k10kw9xKdsDFQss8N9R2X3X9Bz4T57uIHksSE8APFCSyRudTphtNdorRHZf-CtkouryVNPJ-P3QbiK9e74/s320/Andersonville_prisom_0172454.jpg" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVnyYG-6G6iY0KDB4hp563Fr_7EqhYH_SCOAl_Bk8g4XlYMA3kgm3IU0h5_qMWUBsmgrUlYiuWnSiTt2bKQjdZt5JkIMjmH9D3MNvf7qo6ow5nVM5MYCJV0xtcsMYJD_65OSpiyIzYNV0/s1600/Monument+Ancersonville.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVnyYG-6G6iY0KDB4hp563Fr_7EqhYH_SCOAl_Bk8g4XlYMA3kgm3IU0h5_qMWUBsmgrUlYiuWnSiTt2bKQjdZt5JkIMjmH9D3MNvf7qo6ow5nVM5MYCJV0xtcsMYJD_65OSpiyIzYNV0/s320/Monument+Ancersonville.jpg" t8="true" width="211px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument at Andersonville for Massachusetts Soldiers</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Salem succumbed to his suffering on September 1, 1864. He is buried in grave #7468 at Andersonville National Cemetery. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1O1ZOdYUZEqlKmaxsu2vVADmztgmLPU1R5U2gG_IJFXfB0HrPCUwyPEfeEJTMZQHj5mRlNISzuBhZhDkbFGD5rTBvdlnBMeMuOSLaf3cNiAwgCe9lK2ZckIpWCeQEEnYfuWXuiYjKvE/s1600/AndersonvilleInformationSalemTiffany.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1O1ZOdYUZEqlKmaxsu2vVADmztgmLPU1R5U2gG_IJFXfB0HrPCUwyPEfeEJTMZQHj5mRlNISzuBhZhDkbFGD5rTBvdlnBMeMuOSLaf3cNiAwgCe9lK2ZckIpWCeQEEnYfuWXuiYjKvE/s320/AndersonvilleInformationSalemTiffany.jpg" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Salem Judson Tiffany's Grave #7468 next row, far left, outside of photo. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
When Salem's parents back in Massachusetts were told about his death, I can only imagine their heartbreak. His younger brother Edwin, had reenlisted, perhaps to avenge his brother's death, leaving his parents to worry that Salem wouldn't be the only son they would lose before it was over. I am sure the fact that so many of their neighbors and friends had also lost their sons and loved ones was little consolation. <br />
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In one report I read, of the 400 men that little Southbridge, Massachusetts sent to this war, 39 were killed. At least 10 of them died at Andersonville. The losses in Massachusetts alone totaled nearly 14,000 men during the War of the Rebellion. 100 years later during the Viet Nam war, my town, probably 3 times the size of 1860s Southbridge by then, lost just one man to that war. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts lost 1,323 soldiers in Viet Nam. It puts those numbers into perspective. <br />
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It must have been a very sad and somber Memorial Day, that first one observed in Southbridge. Younger brother Edwin was there to commemmorate it with his parents, much to their great relief. He survived multiple enlistments and lived a long life, marrying and having children of his own. His son, Carroll, was a favorite cousin of my great grandmother's. I have correspondence between them and I met Carroll on a couple of occasions, funerals I believe. But at the time I had no idea that his father had gone through so much anguish over losing his older and much adored brother. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlFz6KLZUQ4lVbo4uOFtHo3JRwkM93nwOgbfQY7Oh-QQL_7r0sCGEXEJXvYc0aJHYsHRTwUw1nDjJzdYVioumpC6nkCamlL6pSLcks4i0TTCOlOxHrEoKqex1kyFoL1bbBZ1dcjVo-SE/s1600/solomon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlFz6KLZUQ4lVbo4uOFtHo3JRwkM93nwOgbfQY7Oh-QQL_7r0sCGEXEJXvYc0aJHYsHRTwUw1nDjJzdYVioumpC6nkCamlL6pSLcks4i0TTCOlOxHrEoKqex1kyFoL1bbBZ1dcjVo-SE/s320/solomon.JPG" t8="true" width="299px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Paternal gggGrandfather Solomon Davis Grave <br />
Wadsworth Cemetery in Sudbury, MA</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I had ancestors from several branches of my tree who served in the Civil War. Salem is the only one I know of who did not survive it, although several were injured. It was an horrific war and the more I learn about it, the more horrific it seems.<br />
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Now when I see someone lovingly tending to a grave, brushing away the dirt from the stone, leaving a potted geranium or planting flowers near the flag marking any Veteran's grave, I will remember that there is so much more to the gesture than I once thought.Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-17314832943345165642011-05-26T02:29:00.004-04:002011-05-26T20:40:17.183-04:00The Inn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisq26ODARgI1Yzi_vy4AfcS0gfG7bCOgv1Y2NWEgIe3zRoXTo_QV21hhULx0QNrSx0SwoKZY4UT_EtwAiUb2l45EyAv-aK94RQbbfUGPTQvqSyqhYC_apwAzNH_pEqf-PU5aetxWGi95E/s1600/1212_11_4---Longfellow-s-Wayside-Inn--Sudbury--Massachusetts--USA_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisq26ODARgI1Yzi_vy4AfcS0gfG7bCOgv1Y2NWEgIe3zRoXTo_QV21hhULx0QNrSx0SwoKZY4UT_EtwAiUb2l45EyAv-aK94RQbbfUGPTQvqSyqhYC_apwAzNH_pEqf-PU5aetxWGi95E/s320/1212_11_4---Longfellow-s-Wayside-Inn--Sudbury--Massachusetts--USA_web.jpg" t8="true" width="320px" /></a></div> <br />
<div style="text-align: left;"></div> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">As I was researching my paternal family tree, I was delighted to find out that one of my earliest Sudbury, Massachusetts ancestors was the original innkeeper at Longfellow's Wayside Inn, a place that played an important role in my childhood and on into my adulthood. It was a place where my family and most people who lived in town would gather to mark special occasions in their lives. Hardly a birthday nor graduation celebration would go by without a visit to the Inn. This is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, continually operating inns in the US. It was made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his "Tales from a Wayside Inn" An excerpt:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">"As ancient is this hostelry, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">As any in the land may be, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Built in the old Colonial day,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When men lived in a grander way, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">With ampler hospitality."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Today an extremely popular restaurant and an historic landmark known by folks all over the US, spending the night there is a memorable event. There is no TV but lots and lots of history and a warm and comfortable environment filled with antiquity, along with a surprise for all overnight guests, a hunt of sorts. But, you have to stay there to discover it. I won't be a spoiler here, but let's just say, you will have plenty to keep your mind occupied in spite of there being no television in the room. The rooms are few, so it is a special treat to be able to make a reservation there. <br />
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The familiar smell of the woodsmoke permeates the old wood beams and walls. The mouth watering smell of good hot American food like roast beef and baked potatoes fill the dining rooms on any given evening. In the winter, the crackle and occasional sparks from the fires in the huge walkin fireplaces, bounce onto the hearths. In the summer, fireflies can be seen sparkling in the rose garden and by the wooden bridge that covers the brook nearby, as people stroll around the grounds, imagining a time gone by. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">But perhaps all isn't peaceful and serene all the time, as it was recently featured in an episode of Ghost Adventures. It is rumored that Jerusha How's ghost still walks the halls of the Inn, although I saw no such evidence during my stay. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My ancestor was David How. Through his youngest son Ezekiel's line and then on through Ezekiel's youngest child, Jane How Eames, runs our family tree. The How family left a long and interesting family history behind. Certainly deserving of more than a few lines here, perhaps one day I will do a lengthy post about the Inn's history and the innkeepers. The strong emotional feelings I have always felt for this Inn may have had more to do with the ancestral connection not yet discovered and less to do with the award winning chicken pot pie, or fresh hot corn muffins, made from corn milled at the grist mill down the street that are served at every meal or that yummy Jerusha Peach salad that I have loved ever since I was a kid. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Today I am including a short poem. A poet always wants her readers to "get" her poem, so just to give you a little bit of a back story, in this one I used the metaphor of an inn to illustrate the genealogy hunt I enjoy so much, the hunt that all started with Henrietta of the blog. The inn in the poem is not our Wayside Inn, but it certainly inspired the idea.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The Inn<br />
by</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Suzanne Hall Eaton<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My journey led me by an inn, an ancient looming ghost,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Near brook and wood and field I knew, yet I felt that I was lost. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This way I come most every day, the brook I cross is there.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The creaking bridge remembers me and the brief exchange we share.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">But this old inn, I don’t recall ever seeing it before;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Mystified and unafraid I approach the weighty door.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">A gentle push is all it takes, it gives in as if to say: </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Come in. You’ll find your truths are here”; the hearth-fire lights the way.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Along the hallways, left and right are doors, each like the next,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Secured and locked tight from inside protecting every guest.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Whispering at a door I ask “What secrets do you keep?” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">But no response comes from within, so deeply do they sleep.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Peeking through the keyhole, the mystery unfolds</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Just enough to feed the need to know what secret that room holds. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">There must be some connection between these guests and me;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Some Master plan has brought me to this Ancient Hostelry<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">To find the key, unbolt the doors and share the truths revealed; </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Then rest awhile at this old inn, near brook and wood and field. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
May 26, 2011</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-65953130732069517462011-05-19T08:48:00.001-04:002011-05-19T08:59:56.977-04:00Twenty Six Habits of Highly Successful People?In a small stationary box, the size of a 4 x6 note card I found a piece of paper, torn from an old ledger book, columns in faded red ink ignored by the writer. Folded over and over to fit inside the little box, the page is creased but quite legible. Written in fountain pen ink in my maternal great, great, great grandmother's hand is the following: <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXxGcA34ibfRvXlzOtdKBDoDbFuMOqIoDL9E5wyzGZ9mt04trLHoqWQ5a8ZDZTLbV__bKQOc3KrJH8eozSkhlNLLVGPRS_22riZzEJmZaPbOk1Ii0QdCv9km7ubzLefp5VJzPYa_sA_Zk/s1600/Alphabet+for+Success+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXxGcA34ibfRvXlzOtdKBDoDbFuMOqIoDL9E5wyzGZ9mt04trLHoqWQ5a8ZDZTLbV__bKQOc3KrJH8eozSkhlNLLVGPRS_22riZzEJmZaPbOk1Ii0QdCv9km7ubzLefp5VJzPYa_sA_Zk/s640/Alphabet+for+Success+001.jpg" width="497px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here is the transcription of Lorena Pelsue Hyde Berry Grammer's, (or Gramma Grammer, as we have come to know her, page: </div><ul><li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Attend carefully to details of your business</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Be prompt in all things.</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Consider well, then decide positively</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Dare to do right, fear to do wrong</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Endure trials patiently</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Fight life’s battles bravely, manfully</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Go not into the Society of the Vicious</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Hold integrity Sacred</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Injure not another’s reputation nor business</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Join hands only with the virtuous</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Keep your mind from evil thoughts </div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Lie not for any consideration</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Make few acquaintances*</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Never try to appear what you are not</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Observe good manners</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Pay your debts promptly</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Question not the veracity of a friend</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Respect the counsel of your parents</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Sacrifice money rather than principal</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Touch not, taste not, handle not intoxicating drinks.</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Use your leisure time for improvement</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Venture not upon the threshold of wrong</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Watch carefully over you passions</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Xtend to everyone a kindly salutation</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Yield not to discouragement</div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Zealously labor for the right </div></li>
<ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“And Success is Certain.” </div></li>
</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">It took me a little time to figure out that this was an A-Z list of rules to live by, with a little poetic license taken with the letter X. There was nothing identifying where this came from, where she may have read it or if she had composed it herself. I looked through the book of newspaper clippings I have belonging to her, her daughter and granddaughter, but found nothing there that would help me find the origin of the piece. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Clearly, it impressed her, or she wouldn't have taken the time to write it all out, nor would she have kept it with her other correspondence. In fact, it may have been mailed to her daughter or granddaughter, to whom she wrote frequently, who was the one who actually decided to keep it with other written keepsakes. Most of the letters in the little box are written by Gramma Grammer to my great, great grandmother and to my great grandmother, who kept them always. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">From her letters, I am sure she was the kind of woman who made every effort to follow these twenty six 'suggestions'. I have no doubt that she observed 'good manners' and I bet that she 'never touched, tasted or handled intoxicating drinks'. But I did wonder about it and so I went to Google-my favorite research tool of them all. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Sure enough, I did get some hits. Nothing too specific, and I had to keep digging deeper into the hits I did get to find anything of interest. I determined that the list had a title: "Alphabet for Success". The first place I found it published, was in "The Home Comfort Cookbook" published by the Ladies' Sewing Circle of the Congregational Church of Shirley, MA in 1908. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwOu5-tZRAP987ZIGnK9Jf9qilGTCmo-PBPGrCMjjPYFEEQPA30nHHgdBiy1zgILblfGGnXRcF_kOML_hWkUtlhUEsdARyvmm5rWSZpGQGwOUtEPRzH55fzvwU6cVmOlImLgNDjZPf3Eg/s1600/LAdies+Cookbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwOu5-tZRAP987ZIGnK9Jf9qilGTCmo-PBPGrCMjjPYFEEQPA30nHHgdBiy1zgILblfGGnXRcF_kOML_hWkUtlhUEsdARyvmm5rWSZpGQGwOUtEPRzH55fzvwU6cVmOlImLgNDjZPf3Eg/s320/LAdies+Cookbook.jpg" width="213px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">In the cookbook, immediately following the 'Alphabet for Success', and preceding the table of weights and measures, was the following related verse: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">"With weights and measures just and true,</div><div style="text-align: center;">With stoves of even heat;</div><div style="text-align: center;">Well buttered tins and quiet nerves,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Success will be complete."</div><div align="center" style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfx2harQQ3octscAp8W1LDp966vG8Y8OjA69VEe-tCYC9H2KLv-vuWKkruDQFmb0Lx8l_4Sg5ioUidpkZVdUMPC7_yIgl2HGkfJFP3AotOojKsawBV7TTCgmCVj3Lhc3u8LbaoETj_Pow/s1600/Ladiescookbook+poem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="468px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfx2harQQ3octscAp8W1LDp966vG8Y8OjA69VEe-tCYC9H2KLv-vuWKkruDQFmb0Lx8l_4Sg5ioUidpkZVdUMPC7_yIgl2HGkfJFP3AotOojKsawBV7TTCgmCVj3Lhc3u8LbaoETj_Pow/s640/Ladiescookbook+poem.jpg" width="640px" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Unfortunately, neither piece was attributed to any particular author. As far as I know, Gramma Grammer didn't have any connection with the Congo Church in Shirley, and I wasn't sure that was really the earliest it may have appeared. Based on the clarity of Gramma Grammer's penmanship, it was most likely written earlier in her life when her hand was steadier. In 1908 she was already 74. So, I kept looking.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The next appearance of the list that I found was in something called The Washington Newsletter, A Monthly Magazine of Divine Healing. In this magazine in 1904 an article entitled Alphabet of Success, prefaced the list with the following: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">The following alphabet is printed on a neat card and hung </div><div style="text-align: center;">up in coffee taverns and places of resort and business</div><div style="text-align: center;"> in Great Britain:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">This magazine's editor and publisher was Oliver Corwin Sabin, self-appointed Bishop of the Evangelical Christian Science Church, which he founded. I learned the following about Bishop Sabin from this obituary published in 1914.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5yPBadpTPaNyIjjGhZ4XtVZInnFck1fm-HXxjhVHF4pvWfoQjtjLcagmYG9-lUjesB7n6VrQqCFtoNTmPoLuEU5rdR7oK6rQK5OCLv7I2WK3u-VuoJ-aQPuAGd9ye_VAwiUBQ60U-pZA/s1600/Sabin+Obit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5yPBadpTPaNyIjjGhZ4XtVZInnFck1fm-HXxjhVHF4pvWfoQjtjLcagmYG9-lUjesB7n6VrQqCFtoNTmPoLuEU5rdR7oK6rQK5OCLv7I2WK3u-VuoJ-aQPuAGd9ye_VAwiUBQ60U-pZA/s400/Sabin+Obit.jpg" width="266px" /></a></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="left" style="text-align: left;">This gave me a little bit of interesting info on the departed Bishop, but nothing more about the Alphabet for Success. The Bishop gave no credit to any author, either. </div><div align="left" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div align="left" style="text-align: left;">Going back further chronologically, the next reference to the Alphabet that I found was dated May of 1904 when it was printed in a magazine called "<span id="btAsinTitle">Salesmanship: Magazine for All Who Sell Or Have to Do With the Selling End of Business." </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXrAV77y6HD7OrH7pyLrUA06C_M4iwKhUofd5ZsY91M1n5luutsBGedW8bZ48uvwoNwTy6XSKFJ83T1vD0KLYjZWJNjAuxXcZZ8Io-zNvtKJ8r82n3ZuZ8KOFDk4C1JKD0n2DGQuV80k/s1600/salesmanship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWXrAV77y6HD7OrH7pyLrUA06C_M4iwKhUofd5ZsY91M1n5luutsBGedW8bZ48uvwoNwTy6XSKFJ83T1vD0KLYjZWJNjAuxXcZZ8Io-zNvtKJ8r82n3ZuZ8KOFDk4C1JKD0n2DGQuV80k/s320/salesmanship.jpg" width="223px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the April 1904 issue, for just $1.00 you could buy 12 issueds of the magazine AND a certificate making you eligible for a chances to enter into a contest with cash prizes amounting to $75,000. All you have to do to win is guess the number of paid attendees to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There are some interesting articles in the issue I looked at covering everything from the evils of tipping to the idea of the saleswoman, something new on the scene in 1904, primarily relegated to retail rather than the door-to-door variety. Here is one quote from that article that I thought was interesting: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><em>"But how about the saleswoman? How many of them look forward to a successful business career? What is their life's goal? There is but one answer to this: marriage and a happy home, and they would not be women and have it otherwise. This may suggest to some a solution of the perplexing problem of how to bring this branch of our business nearer to perfection. It is a matter of deep concern and regret that we must recognize as a fact that many of them show a want of appreciation of the requirements and necessary qualifications of their position, want of attention to details and in many cases the partial disregard of established rules and regulations may with all fairness be attributed to the conviction that their present position is after all only temporary, that the necessity of work will cease sooner or later and therefore any effort at advancement is not worth while."</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For the first time, there was a reference to where this alphabet came from. Ironically, the editor wrote : "The Alphabet for Success" was recently printed in the Ladies' Home Journal." I think that's kind of interesting. </div><div align="left" style="text-align: left;">I found another reference to the list, also attributing it to the Ladies' Home Journal. In the Peirce School Alumni Journal dated May of 1903, it was also reprinted. The Pierce School was founded in Philadelphia in 1865 particularly for returning Civil War vets who were finding it hard to find employment in the post war years. It was founded to retrain these adult veterans when they returned from the war. Today it is a "private, four-year, specialized institution providing practical, leading-edge curricula to primarily working adult learners." I'd say the Alphabet for Success was probably well received by the alums in 1903.</div><div align="left" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpQTY0CWUgiZmJWnhZrPAJSDADW2H1MLlhLIUlBGgzAXGXYWN9Niv_MECPxjpTqhqzRhQxTcwBZ0ybyLSj5cmfjUii4VnnxL6kXkJOrlMwwS5VyjwpmSqYDxXcPJ3ROWPtVEBGPhvjuZA/s1600/Pierce+College.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpQTY0CWUgiZmJWnhZrPAJSDADW2H1MLlhLIUlBGgzAXGXYWN9Niv_MECPxjpTqhqzRhQxTcwBZ0ybyLSj5cmfjUii4VnnxL6kXkJOrlMwwS5VyjwpmSqYDxXcPJ3ROWPtVEBGPhvjuZA/s320/Pierce+College.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Still, I was trying to find the very earliest appearance of the Alphabet, strictly to satisfy my curiosity. Now I knew it came from the Ladies' Home Journal before appearing in the Alumni Journal and the Salesmanship Magazine. The earliest date I had so far was 1903. I found one more reference to the "Alphabet", in what I think is the most interesting of all publications I came across. I found it printed in an issue dated January 1901 in a publication called "Our Paper". </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"Our Paper" was published by the inmates of the Massachusetts Reformatory in Concord, MA from 1884-1947. The superintendent was the editor but the inmates provided the written articles. It included articles reprinted from other publications as well as original articles. They would write articles about local life, local baseball league standings, visiting preachers to area churches, letters to the editor, some of which are quite interesting; political speeches and races; accounts of fairs and shop openings, and so forth. Letters to the editor were written by inmates and people outside of the prison who were regular readers. Some regular readers were inmates' family members and friends, but subscriptions to the paper were also sold to the townspeople in West Concord. One of the letters I read congratulated the talented prison choir, comparing it to some of the best choirs around Boston. Evidently, people came to the prison on Sundays to participate in the services held there. Another letter was written by a "graduate" of the prison who wrote that he was about to enter college. Some of the articles were about world news and some were about historical look-backs at various events. There seemed to have been a lot of interest in the building of new roads around town. Were they interested because they might end up working on them or because they may find a new way "out of town" some day? Hmmmmm.. There are random bits and pieces of deaths in other parts of the country, no explanation as to what connection the deceased may or may not have to the inmates or the prison. Some funny stories and just about anything they can find to fill up the space. All in all, it was a kind of interesting find during this little investigation. <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5oFRAAAAYAAJ&dq=our%20paper%20concord%20reformatory&pg=PP6#v=onepage&q=editor&f=false">Click here for a link to an issue of Our Paper </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I didn't find out if The Ladies' Home Journal attributed the Alphabet for Success to "Our Paper". "Our Paper didn't attribute it to the Ladies' Home Journal. I don't know how many inmates followed these guidelines an became successful in their later lives, but there may have been some. And, I don't know if Lorena Pelsue <strong>Hyde</strong> Berry Grammar ever read the Concord Prison's Newspaper. However, there is a reference to one Mrs. E. R. Hyde who was a regular reader of "Our Paper". She sent poetry in to them for them to publish from time to time. I haven't been able to determine if this Mrs. Hyde was any relation to our Hyde family, or to Lorena specifically, but, I'm just saying...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Actually, my best guess is that Gramma Grammer probably read it herself in the Ladies' Home Journal sometime in 1901, or in a reprint in her local newspaper about that same time. It seems to have been a popular list of guidelines for a successful life that appeal to folks with widely disparate interests. These were just a few of the references found on-line. There were references to this list in other publications all through the 1920s, into the 1960s and right up through to today on someone's Facebook page. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This seems like a long list, yet I think we all strive to follow <em>almost</em> all of these guidelines in our lives. I don't know if success is certain, however, But for the most part, it's advice well-taken that has stood the test of time. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Personally, I think the guidelines for successful baking will be easier for me to follow. I always carefully measure my ingredients and my tins are always well-buttered. But I may have to work on the quiet nerves thing. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">*The actual entry for the letter "M" reads "<em>Make few special acquaintances</em>" in all the publications I have found. Gramma Grammer's handwritten page leaves off the word '<em>special'</em>. </div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-76552691238122298942011-05-14T10:37:00.003-04:002011-05-14T11:06:00.332-04:00If You're Fond of Sand Dunes and Salty Air...Cape Cod is a uniquely shaped peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic. Often compared to an arm, in Thoreau's <strong><em>Cape Cod</em></strong> nobody does it better:<br />
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<em>"Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow or crazy bone at Cape Mallebarre*; the wrist at Truro and the sandy fist at Provincetown- behind which the State stands on her guard with her back to the Green Mountains, and her feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her Bay,-boxing with northeast storms and ever and anon heaving up her Atlantic adversary from the lap of earth,-ready to thrust forward her other fist which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann." </em><br />
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I spend my summers in South Yarmouth on the Cape, which is just about midway on the humerus, about the bicep area. As a child the first summer vacation I ever remember was in Yarmouth, off Lewis Street, turning at the big white Congregational Church off Rte. 28. We rented various cottages in the area until my parents bought our very own little cottage in the neighboring town of Dennisport, on a perfectly straight, unpaved street, lined with cottages one right after the other. Leading directly down to the beach, it was just a short walk, taken hundreds maybe thousands of times over the years that we spent there. It was Uncle Rolf Road-number 13 and 1/2, the 1/2 having been added by the Triskaidekephobian former owners. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHWo6OcPkrrN3SJSsdNuHYU-dWldlPIre7GtvDkX-CBqEUuE5Rcchwpo6IfWJaMjujXhXP-tyqQ6aqPeupDBt7RT1q0u6dwwEi5PMbNR1FSbtc8uplYSZ-E9Ndsx64aa9miqPXQNvqig/s1600/UncleRolfRd.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHWo6OcPkrrN3SJSsdNuHYU-dWldlPIre7GtvDkX-CBqEUuE5Rcchwpo6IfWJaMjujXhXP-tyqQ6aqPeupDBt7RT1q0u6dwwEi5PMbNR1FSbtc8uplYSZ-E9Ndsx64aa9miqPXQNvqig/s320/UncleRolfRd.JPG" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">13 and 1/2 Uncle Rolf Road</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QBE-A-rK88W55ZSO05bCZy7xZ1-vhScmgxVGxVspt1KRc3iO3N4768poto-tTt73Rt-YWrFgTz-HpoaqKEPPpz4yOk9t1qv5gj7Y8VPtLIpmi2oSpz9ukv2huhTm2dasChyk9M6hkYw/s1600/uncrolf.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QBE-A-rK88W55ZSO05bCZy7xZ1-vhScmgxVGxVspt1KRc3iO3N4768poto-tTt73Rt-YWrFgTz-HpoaqKEPPpz4yOk9t1qv5gj7Y8VPtLIpmi2oSpz9ukv2huhTm2dasChyk9M6hkYw/s320/uncrolf.JPG" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is our cottage on Uncle Rolf Rd., Now number 77. The white clapboards with light green trim<br />
has been replaced by natural wood shakes. But, everything else looks pretty much the same.<br />
The road is still unpaved.</td></tr>
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I was never happier as a kid than when we were on the Cape. The beach, the sun, the sand, the salty air. We had a large group of friends, many of whom returned to their family's favorite rentals year after year on Uncle Rolf Road. We would forever identify certain weeks of the summer as belonging to this family or that family. As a young teen-aged girl I was lucky to have a brother only a year older than me who introduced me to some cute boys during the summers as well as off-season. We became particularly close friends with some of the 'townies' during our off season weekends, in fact, some 40 years later I married one of them! But that's another story. <br />
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All day we'd spend at the beach, leaving only to walk to Caroline's store for a Coke or the latest issue of Mad Magazine or Teen Idol. We'd walk the beach, we'd walk to the store, we'd walk to our friends' cottages. We walked and walked and walked everywhere. At night, we'd walk to the Tastee Tower of Pizza in Shad Hole or hang out behind Bastian's 5 and 10 at the miniature golf place where they also sold ice cream. We would hang around until they chased us away and we'd just move the group to the next spot. The boys might give a little macho lip to the grownups who had told us to move along, but it was part of the routine and it became expected, something to laugh about, more fuel to the "them against us" generation gap mentality of the 60s. We'd walk back to Uncle Rolf Road and gather on our porch and listen to records or maybe walk further down the street, toward the beach and all sit on the wooden fence under the streetlight, listening to the cicadas and the constant ocean, always there as the backdrop to whatever we did and wherever we walked.<br />
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My husband Ed and his family are Yarmouth natives, although he lived in Dennisport when I met him. But his mother's family, the Crowells, go back to the Mayflower and as far back as there are records for Yarmouth. Ed's sister still lives in Bass River, a part of Yarmouth, where I now spend my summers. <br />
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When I was looking through some of my family photos, I came across a photo from back in the 30s, or maybe even the late 20s. Handwriting on the face of this photo identify my great grandparents, May Budd and Leslie J. Hall, who lived in New York City at the time. Also in the picture is my great grand Aunt Lillian Goodnow. Lill was Leslie's sister who lived in Sudbury, MA with her husband Howard, who may have taken the picture. (For you regular readers, Leslie and Lillian were two of Henrietta's children.) <br />
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In addition to identifying the people in the photo, in the same person's hand are written the words "Yarmouth Mass". When I first saw this photo a few years ago, I was shocked because as far as I knew, we were the first in our immediate family to spend time on the Cape. My grandparents never spoke about going there and didn't seem very familiar with the Cape when we spoke about it, nor did any of my Aunts, Uncles or Cousins. But here I have proof that my great grandparents at least visited there at some point 80 or 90 years ago. <br />
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I was so curious about this photo that I decided to send it to a friend of mine, John Sears. John is a good friend of Ed's sister and her husband and he and I have had many very interesting discussions about Yarmouth's history and the local genealogy. He knows everything about the area and I was pretty sure he'd have some idea about the buildings in the background. Sure enough, he did. He suggested that this was probably the Methodist Camp-meeting Grounds. I hadn't ever heard of the place, nor had I any idea where it is located in Yarmouth. I set the photo aside and went on to other research and stories. <br />
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But, this photo kept coming up to the top of the pile and finally, I decided to spend a little time with it. On Ed's behalf, some time ago I joined a group on Facebook called "Descendants of the Settlers of Yarmouth, Massachusetts". I posted the photo there a few days ago and asked if anyone could confirm John's identification of the Camp-meeting grounds. Sure enough, four different members of the Facebook group all agreed with John. One even gave me directions so I will be able to go find the spot this summer. And, another person is going to identify the exact cottage in the photo for us.<br />
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Having answered the question about where the picture was taken, I wanted to know more about this place known as the Methodist Camp-Meeting Grounds and so I set out to see what I could find.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The "Methodist Camp-Meeting" was a "happening" that took place every year in grounds selected by the Camp-Meeting Association in the area. These meetings took place all over the country beginning in the early 19th century. It was a place where people thirsting for a "religious" experience that was out of the ordinary, something different and more intense than the weekly services in the white-steepled houses of worship to which these New Englanders of puritan heritage were accustomed. Folks from miles away would gather for a week or ten days, listening to preachers, joining in hymn singing, praying, weeping converting while enjoying the experience of camping with their families and church associates. These Camp-meetings became wildly popular all over the country. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Prior to settling at the Yarmouth site, this particular Camp-meeting began in Welfleet in 1819, the first on Cape Cod. Then it moved to Provincetown and Eastham before finally moving to Yarmouth in 1863, when the railroad line came to town. Also about the same time, another Camp-meeting was underway on Martha's Vineyard, an island off the Cape. This Camp-meeting was very successful and most people who visit the Vineyard today are familiar with the Oak Bluffs location. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhtfI9W5hyA6K9LYtPPClb0NBTGB2bpcPiSmMm-PYr6B4z_wEd93vt9ie9XDFafLrazXP0CFGG3siSk0ZD8wZyaRpwH2vqCrV9SNSVpZD7_r4xKHpXxQhVce0CEsDmQEuFqfL6H2PSKgk/s1600/thoreau-at-cap-cod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhtfI9W5hyA6K9LYtPPClb0NBTGB2bpcPiSmMm-PYr6B4z_wEd93vt9ie9XDFafLrazXP0CFGG3siSk0ZD8wZyaRpwH2vqCrV9SNSVpZD7_r4xKHpXxQhVce0CEsDmQEuFqfL6H2PSKgk/s200/thoreau-at-cap-cod.jpg" width="200px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry David Thoreau</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">However, when Thoreau was on the Cape he came across the Eastham Camp-meeting grounds, a couple of decades before the Camp-Meeting was moved to Yarmouth. Thoreau wrote the following about what he had seen:<br />
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</div><em>"It is fenced and the frames of the tents are at all times to be seen interspersed among the oaks. They have an oven and a pump and at all times keep all their kitchen utensils and tent coverings and furniture in a permanent building on the spot.They select a time for their meetings when the moon is full. A man is appointed to clear out the pump a week beforehand, while the ministers are clearing their throats; but probably the latter do not always deliver as pure a stream as the former. </em><br />
<em>I saw the heaps of clam shells left under the tables, where they had in previous summers and, supposed of course, that that was the work of the unconverted or the backsliders and scoffers. It looked as if a camp meeting must be a singular combination of a prayer meeting and a picnic."</em><br />
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(Thoreau really did have a sense of humor.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In the early years, the attendees would sleep in huge communal tents, with the men on one side and the women on the other, separated by a curtain drawn between them. As the years went on, these large communal tents fell out of favor and were replaced with smaller individual tents. By the time they moved to Yarmouth, there were about 175 family tents and 40 "society" tents that would accommodate church groups from visiting churches. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjII7ovpm3IgD41nDyf-A5HuVD-sU2xWoOGMRyVaIqsXn7-KEF6ySwjW3JrTISZ-CB3TfVXQRw3agwv-1I1j5SmxIkax_LnsoOdr8-u2ZcHa3yVA0idSzjfncHEFuk1m18AkyMnxmeB1yo/s1600/Methodist_camp_meeting_%25281819_engraving%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjII7ovpm3IgD41nDyf-A5HuVD-sU2xWoOGMRyVaIqsXn7-KEF6ySwjW3JrTISZ-CB3TfVXQRw3agwv-1I1j5SmxIkax_LnsoOdr8-u2ZcHa3yVA0idSzjfncHEFuk1m18AkyMnxmeB1yo/s320/Methodist_camp_meeting_%25281819_engraving%2529.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
They'd bring their whole families, from little babies to the elderly, or come in groups from churches, bringing food and provisions for ten days for everyone in their party. Trunks and baggage filled with all of their needs must have been heavy and difficult to carry. The railroad allowed people from off Cape to attend more easily attracting crowds of thousands where before the railroad it was just the locals who would attend. The railroad opened the Cape up to everyone. <br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><em>"Getting to the old Eastham camp ground on <place w:st="on">Cape Cod</place>, for example, required an effort of biblical proportions. Parishioners took a carriage to the Old Colony road to <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Barnstable</city></place>, transferred to the ferry to Eastham,. Rowed ashore until the boat ran aground in the tidal flats, hoisted their clothes, books , cooking gear, and elderly relatives onto an amphibious wagon, and splashed to shore through three feet of water until they reached solid ground, at which point they unloaded their baggage and walked a mile to the grove. When the steel rail came to <place w:st="on">Cape Cod</place>…They needed only to unload their bags at the railroad station, where guests enjoyed the services of a stationmaster, a ticket window, a waiting room, a telegraph operator a baggage master, and a large baggage room. From the station, visitors walked only a few hundred yards to their tents or cottages.” </em></div><br />
From <span style="font-size: small;"><em>The Chautauqua moment: Protestants, progressives, and the culture of modern liberalism </em><span class="addmd">By Andrew Chamberlin Rieser</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtZBQxcLbo57hrKOytNhHoiKyWZ2v1L4W5KxkYKo2ltyJ8Zfv6vqjjW55twhgPo_o_fVjgyGNkHmP5fHDBz6eGGNrXE2W5NTWdWjFhWSmOFzKq4DkyZIXVZEgJwz5NUFADxTrFDBYg4o/s1600/vineyard+family+tent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtZBQxcLbo57hrKOytNhHoiKyWZ2v1L4W5KxkYKo2ltyJ8Zfv6vqjjW55twhgPo_o_fVjgyGNkHmP5fHDBz6eGGNrXE2W5NTWdWjFhWSmOFzKq4DkyZIXVZEgJwz5NUFADxTrFDBYg4o/s320/vineyard+family+tent.jpg" width="316px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A family tent at Martha's Vineyard Camp-meeting Grounds<br />
(from A City in the Woods by Ellen Weiss)</td></tr>
</tbody></table> In the mid 1870s, replacing the tents, little permanent cottages were built to house the participants. These permanent little buildings, with gingerbread trim and arched windows may have been the beginning of the custom of renting cottages for a vacation on the Cape because the grounds no longer closed before or after the Camp-Meeting each year. Instead, they'd rent out the cottages to individuals and groups, some associated with churches, some not at all. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2crzUKginSFqigeZAqjlrsqI5Z5zVXhsWPp24Lf8xiTniaPNkADSMHGtawQr6ptqHkeVqLkoD5QIH29G7OPzyfV0uCXEwR2eZGVMlt9vAhg1P8Xo-jzf1tT1ehodUmZdZd6i-PkYGaQ0/s1600/226649_152582MethodistCampgrounds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2crzUKginSFqigeZAqjlrsqI5Z5zVXhsWPp24Lf8xiTniaPNkADSMHGtawQr6ptqHkeVqLkoD5QIH29G7OPzyfV0uCXEwR2eZGVMlt9vAhg1P8Xo-jzf1tT1ehodUmZdZd6i-PkYGaQ0/s1600/226649_152582MethodistCampgrounds.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yarmouth Camp-meeting cottage.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWcaN1oCMq5GSW__Ch8SzSHOon-6Y9QrkW4Ro10NbACtqs0r8vmhpBMZVv9l6beZB96kEiFSrypPD6Zbg8AfBihr8L853fvxcwhvth7iLLD9qVNZvxHtBq8PFI-AlP1vUuggO_g0JvsuY/s1600/vineyard+cottages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWcaN1oCMq5GSW__Ch8SzSHOon-6Y9QrkW4Ro10NbACtqs0r8vmhpBMZVv9l6beZB96kEiFSrypPD6Zbg8AfBihr8L853fvxcwhvth7iLLD9qVNZvxHtBq8PFI-AlP1vUuggO_g0JvsuY/s320/vineyard+cottages.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cottages at Camp-meeting Grounds Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard 1859<br />
(City in the Woods by Ellen Weiss)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjslM8yZbbv0uIOe88AtoxfInQ9g__7Ort6OVLwRjA233rJH-RkCa9G2MYES1g1RH6HKoIA065sIezx1XagVLiEzCJ5xESadAVPZNEck-3cEkM2SvFzjJa5aFiKJki7lwfcOLIUMLa0Rm8/s1600/oakbluffs+today.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjslM8yZbbv0uIOe88AtoxfInQ9g__7Ort6OVLwRjA233rJH-RkCa9G2MYES1g1RH6HKoIA065sIezx1XagVLiEzCJ5xESadAVPZNEck-3cEkM2SvFzjJa5aFiKJki7lwfcOLIUMLa0Rm8/s320/oakbluffs+today.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oak Bluffs Martha's Vineyard Camp-meeting Cottages Today</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">There was also a huge wooden tabernacle constructed at the Yarmouth Camp-Meeting Grounds that held 1,500 people. The large services were held here. </div> <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">Becoming Cape Cod by James O'Connell</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEuVVdu_ZqLtc55BTxQH1aqd4wtBMEe8a5MfJgYonlQKdZJZQk2yUwiSdGrvo2Y1Dit59ydhzX-lIjfMc5FSfDRlNcZsQiqGwSbkyRhd0thvrKyFAEH99UiwPiM7Vc8cj3ZR4X1B8wwvY/s1600/tabernacle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEuVVdu_ZqLtc55BTxQH1aqd4wtBMEe8a5MfJgYonlQKdZJZQk2yUwiSdGrvo2Y1Dit59ydhzX-lIjfMc5FSfDRlNcZsQiqGwSbkyRhd0thvrKyFAEH99UiwPiM7Vc8cj3ZR4X1B8wwvY/s320/tabernacle.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Interior of Yarmouth Tabernacle<br />
Becoming Cape Cod by James O'Connell</td></tr>
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The prayer meetings at the beginning of the day were followed by services in the tabernacle. Hymn Sings were a staple and Camp-meetings inspired hymnals made up of hymns written for these Camp-meetings. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiavN8uNxjIiMqorgdIQaKMQfCcJJZtEf0hKyTgpAk1483rLfDwiXlHcxbnyT25b9QZDQhJSesJNHNttxeTXUOd2dcpJZr_AVwGM_-61aemv3znVMFT9CcwRncj83LCJmHqDF_b411guOc/s1600/hymn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="98px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiavN8uNxjIiMqorgdIQaKMQfCcJJZtEf0hKyTgpAk1483rLfDwiXlHcxbnyT25b9QZDQhJSesJNHNttxeTXUOd2dcpJZr_AVwGM_-61aemv3znVMFT9CcwRncj83LCJmHqDF_b411guOc/s200/hymn.jpg" width="200px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Then, during the day I imagine it was a little like the fairs and festivals that they have all over the Cape these days. The crowds would move along, stopping to listen to various preachers in tents pitched in a circle among the trees, similar to the booths today's crafters set up at today's fairs. The families might stop and learn some new hymns in one tent, then stroll on to the next where they might sample some oyster soup or clam chowder or a piece of saltwater taffy for the children. </div> In an August 1864 article in the New York Times, the writer tells us that there was a tent with a barber and another with a dentist at the Yarmouth Camp-meeting. And on Thursdays, the "outsiders" and "roughs" from Boston and other cities would arrive for the weekend. I wonder Lady May and Great Grandfather Leslie were considered "roughs". Probably not. <br />
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When the bell would ring at various times during the day everyone would go to the Tabernacle and seated on the wooden chairs and benches they'd listen for hours to the preachers who had become well-known to them. Like the keynote speakers at a convention today, attendees would look forward to these special guest speakers. Moans and cries of Amen and Glory to God would ring out from the crowd of people, some so filled with the 'spirit' they couldn't contain themselves. Although difficult for me to imagine, these otherwise straitlaced, reserved New Englanders would be so fired up they'd actually engage in public displays of faith and emotion. Who knew?<br />
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At night, after supper, they'd all gather at the tabernacle for evening services; and when the benediction had been said and the last hymn had been sung, they'd head in small groups to their society tents for prayer meetings to close the day. The families would then walk back to their own cottages and tents, fireflies punctuating the salty August air, fathers carrying the littlest sleeping children in their arms past dying campfires; the older ones skipping on ahead with a final burst of energy for the day, their faces pink from the sun and full of the 'spirit' and ready to climb into their beds. Can someone give me an Amen? <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Though some Camp-Meetings still survive today, including the one on the Vineyard, the Methodist Camp-Meeting in Yarmouth lasted from 1863 until 1939. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqChyphenhyphenH0AFXEMyQa6MxjTdL8A4Ctudimb1C30wEiTLOcfTI9rQcIVsP8zV88ZrdAtw-OHQ6V9Cj6tIL1KqcGc4eeSp34b-8_YhOrnmEuwmWIFLyx4gqKzL5bqMKt1Wynpbq5JNs5op6TqM/s1600/MayBuddHall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqChyphenhyphenH0AFXEMyQa6MxjTdL8A4Ctudimb1C30wEiTLOcfTI9rQcIVsP8zV88ZrdAtw-OHQ6V9Cj6tIL1KqcGc4eeSp34b-8_YhOrnmEuwmWIFLyx4gqKzL5bqMKt1Wynpbq5JNs5op6TqM/s200/MayBuddHall.JPG" width="133px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lady May, <br />
My great Grandmother</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNOe5sqezV3U0jvhFw-P47gt6mSuUsa2zdrWDNwlWstgaL5j_fWEJE5b9GqfW85bjIilw_YwIKGG3IdbAu2upML8BRIVhGvW7-oFAoUwCa0Sv2QGUYEgFjSEnHNKdNpTfwmNTlyW58dh4/s1600/LeslieJHall1930s.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNOe5sqezV3U0jvhFw-P47gt6mSuUsa2zdrWDNwlWstgaL5j_fWEJE5b9GqfW85bjIilw_YwIKGG3IdbAu2upML8BRIVhGvW7-oFAoUwCa0Sv2QGUYEgFjSEnHNKdNpTfwmNTlyW58dh4/s200/LeslieJHall1930s.JPG" width="133px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leslie J.<br />
My great Grandfather</td></tr>
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">My great grandparents may have just been there for a vacation from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. Although they were members of the Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. So they were religious folk and active in their congregations. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So I can't know for sure if they were <em>Pilgrims</em> who had traveled many miles to attend the Camp-Meeting, but if they were, well then, I guess Ed isn't the only one in the family with ancestors who were <em>Pilgrims</em> on Cape Cod! </div><br />
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*Today Cape Mallebarre is known as Chatham<br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-12915065693282457072011-05-05T16:42:00.002-04:002011-05-05T16:43:30.766-04:00Here's to Unknown Parts<div style="text-align: left;">I have been a little preoccupied with the 'present' this week, planning and running a yard sale with Ed and having our house on the market and holding an open house kept me busy. So, I haven't spent much time in the 'past' researching ancestors in my tree. Because of that I don't have any story about my ancestors for Henrietta this week.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div align="left">Instead, I picked up that little scrapbook of newspaper clippings I have, which I have told you about before and I found an article that piqued my curiosity. </div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9zcsiRJsPLb2KeJ4-ZG4dhVkwb2PhQb9MioPlpQOIU3ul3bhUI7Hx6pwD53OoreYs-O9fhWsOHRw_WKhF6AfiMJudkZb0-Sdq_yyw9MrHu1e28-7yee0rZLs4iQte0d3BjQfb8Oc3pEM/s1600/Picture+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9zcsiRJsPLb2KeJ4-ZG4dhVkwb2PhQb9MioPlpQOIU3ul3bhUI7Hx6pwD53OoreYs-O9fhWsOHRw_WKhF6AfiMJudkZb0-Sdq_yyw9MrHu1e28-7yee0rZLs4iQte0d3BjQfb8Oc3pEM/s320/Picture+3.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maggie is always a helpful assistant when I am working on Henrietta. Here she fetches the scrapbook.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr_EmzASqVtlRgtoIMODdoRrUCekyA9LcrHGTeg6KvYSkHWqF2tzTl7dnSqBUWoYjjOl4yTJnIbjtZAlu4AiKaS1Seyua-dSZ7zDWrakP7UY0UiqyMpSogznOaRkZxx-PTVOmGGSq_D50/s1600/southbridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr_EmzASqVtlRgtoIMODdoRrUCekyA9LcrHGTeg6KvYSkHWqF2tzTl7dnSqBUWoYjjOl4yTJnIbjtZAlu4AiKaS1Seyua-dSZ7zDWrakP7UY0UiqyMpSogznOaRkZxx-PTVOmGGSq_D50/s320/southbridge.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Southbridge </td></tr>
</tbody></table>This scrapbook is filled with articles, mostly obituaries, primarily from the town of Southbridge, MA where my maternal grandmother's family lived. <br />
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This is the article that caught my attention:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"> <em><strong>Leaves For Unknown Parts</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;">_________________</div><br />
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<em>Hayes J. Brackett, a well known citizen of Southbridge and for many years a trusted employee at the A. O. factory, has taken his departure from Southbridge, and has left for a distant part of the world unknown even to his most intimate friends. Every effort to find where he intended to make his future habitation was made in vain before he set forth on his journey. This is a step he has been contemplating for a long time, so it is rumored, and a fair opportunity presenting itself he availed himself of it. It is said that he wishes to forget Southbridge and hence has made no arrangements, so far as known, for correspondence with any local person whatsoever. The fact that he severed his connection with the American Optical Company, where he was held in highest esteem, did not become generally known until today, the first intimation to the public being made through the columns of this paper. </em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>Mr. Brackett is a native of Southbridge and has always lived here. In recent years he has done more or less travelling for the American Optical Company. </em><br />
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<em>All surmises as to the part of the world he is headed for are of equal value. He did not state where he was going, nor leave any hint, beyond the fact that it is far distant from Southbridge, and there among new scenes and new faces he hopes to pass the rest of his earthly days. His affairs here he has left as they are, and whatever becomes of them will be of little concern to him. He just simply reached that attitude of mind which compelled him to get out of this environment, and beginning life anew elsewhere he expects to find contentment and even happiness. He left in good spirits, nothing at all depressed with the thought that he was taking a long, perhaps eternal farewell of the scenes which have been familiar to him from his infancy. </em><br />
<em></em>Two notes, written by two different pens at different times, are added at the bottom of the article in my great great grandmother’s hand: <br />
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1st note<em>: </em><br />
<em>Mch 1st 1913</em><br />
<em>Left Saturday</em><br />
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2nd note:<br />
<em>Returned Feb 20th 1914 </em><br />
<em>5 o’clock PM car from Worcester</em><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1vdptEfbUovzXZN6BK98DNqENS2NGxnbbxTTWg323QSlEY9toUuIBfWI2eEMVajkobyXwprJ4SvuwZrIUjpunsLZsyzbjKfn45MrzYAE7RInVyxDWYilDGlknLokJREgyYm4tdyLyKc/s1600/Unknown+Parts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1vdptEfbUovzXZN6BK98DNqENS2NGxnbbxTTWg323QSlEY9toUuIBfWI2eEMVajkobyXwprJ4SvuwZrIUjpunsLZsyzbjKfn45MrzYAE7RInVyxDWYilDGlknLokJREgyYm4tdyLyKc/s320/Unknown+Parts.jpg" width="291px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is the article, on the left side of the page.<br />
Notice handwritten notes at bottom.<br />
You can click on it to enlarge it. </td></tr>
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The title of the article was intriguing, of course, but as I read it, I wondered if the person writing it didn't have some inside information. Was it written by someone who knew Hayes J. Brackett well or just by a journalist who wanted to be an investigative reporter in the worst way. It sounds as if the writer knows even more than he's willing to reveal. I am sure it was a big story in the little town. Maybe the reporter was covering for him. Perhaps they were old classmates. Hayes didn't make any secret that he was leaving, apparently, but he didn't tell anyone where he was going, either. The writer makes it seem as though Hayes was setting off on an exciting adventure, a cast-your-fate-to-the-wind sort of life for which circumstances made him more than ready. And, I might even think, reading between the lines, that the writer was just a bit envious. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHjiyXq6irn-J4wy9P2_jLbeZfpLbrEeHJt-c1iguGGWjONj1RirUvSEtMfrPXPQwzXW9M2QSo5Dga2luvxH1eFA6QkNRT1yV5Zd_RXNDXdX4Y1-EQuSMkcPZ5-k1gjRWdDacGJedvG3M/s1600/american+optical.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHjiyXq6irn-J4wy9P2_jLbeZfpLbrEeHJt-c1iguGGWjONj1RirUvSEtMfrPXPQwzXW9M2QSo5Dga2luvxH1eFA6QkNRT1yV5Zd_RXNDXdX4Y1-EQuSMkcPZ5-k1gjRWdDacGJedvG3M/s320/american+optical.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">American Otpical Company</td></tr>
</tbody></table>So, curious as always, I did a little research on old Hayes Brackett. Although I didn't find any ancestors we shared in common, my great great grandfather Harlan Tiffany and his son-in-law, my great grandfather James Lonsdale Paige, were both employed as executives for American Optical and were probably quite well acquainted with Mr. Brackett. They might have even known more about his plans than the article divulged. I can only assume that great great grandmother was just as curious as I was when she read the article, clipped it out and pasted it into the scrapbook. Maybe while she waited for the mystery to play out she did some digging of her own. I'd like to think she did, just for fun, polling the locals and grilling her husband and son-in-law about the incident. But even if she didn't, the fact that she went back to write the note when Hayes returned indicates to me that it remained on her mind the whole year he was away. <br />
<br />
I was able to find out a few things using the 21st century tools I have to work with. Hayes Jurien Brackett was born in Southbridge on September 16, 1876. He had a twin brother named Haven Darling Brackett. In 1880 three year old Haven and Hayes were living in Southbridge with their parents, Fannie and George. Fannie and George certainly came up with some interesting names for their twins. This family were neighbors of my great great grandparents at the time, living only a few doors down on the same street. And I just know that great great grandmother was itching to find out all about what was going on with her neighbor's son when she heard about it. <br />
<br />
Hayes was married to Marian W. Bickerstaffe, another Southbridge native, on Halloween in 1898. A year later, daughter Marjorie Viola was born. They were in their early twenties when they married. Hayes was a spectacle maker at American Optical then, having been out of work a while that year, he was glad to have his job. Marian was at home with the baby and an elderly Aunt of Hayes' whose name was Tamison Darling Bainbridge also lived with the young family. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately, their marriage didn't last. As early as 1907 Marian and Hayes are living apart. In 1910 when daughter Marjorie was just 10 years old, Hayes is renting a room in a boarding house, alone. He had by then become a travelling salesmen for American Optical Co. He told the census taker that he was still married and had been for 11 years. Marian, on the other hand was renting a house on Dresser St. in downtown Southbridge which she was sharing with her daughter Marjorie and Marian's older brother John Bickerstaffe. John moved in to help her out. He worked at the American Optical Company, too, and probably knew Hayes fairly well. Marjorie was making ends meet by working as a salesclerk in a local dry goods store. <br />
<br />
When this article appeared, I bet it became the topic of discussion over tea when the ladies of the neighborhood got together. The whole town, at least fellow employees and their wives, were probably shaking their heads, and saying that they knew it was just a matter of time. The men in town may have been wishing at some level they could also just drop their responsibilities and head for "Unknown Parts". But, fortunately for their families, just Hayes headed there. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAKDtmbbPThAgW8kCCQxZro_pVjJeCCAkpXbaBP4l_D8M-PU_CdAhg-im7i0Fx_jBIF8g60wLYUYK3qNmzSQn0w1cR0_GrmUqjc9byW0I7HmhA4vJm3D-7DLTVsc0XyLg6pOjWhmN2isQ/s1600/salesman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAKDtmbbPThAgW8kCCQxZro_pVjJeCCAkpXbaBP4l_D8M-PU_CdAhg-im7i0Fx_jBIF8g60wLYUYK3qNmzSQn0w1cR0_GrmUqjc9byW0I7HmhA4vJm3D-7DLTVsc0XyLg6pOjWhmN2isQ/s320/salesman.jpg" width="220px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just a random salesman's photo I found. <br />
Could be Hayes. You never know! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>A travelling salesmen might have had a reputation then, deserved or not and who knows who everyone blamed for the disapearance and disollution of the marriage. Brackett was an old family in this town and tongues were sure to be wagging. They didn't have All My Children or General Hospital to keep them occupied back then. I am thinking this may well have been how my grandmother learned to love her "stories" when they television finally provided her with afternoon entertainment. <br />
<br />
As I was looking for records on Hayes, in 1920 I found his twin brother Haven Darling Brackett living with a wife named Marian, in Worcester. When I found out that his wife was Marian, I was just a little suspicious that the boys had shared more than a birthday, but no, it was just a coincidence that Haven also chose a bride named Marian. <br />
<br />
Haven was easier to track as he was a much more public figure. He graduated from Harvard and became a professor of Greek and Latin at Clark University. He was a member of many academic organizations and received several honors that show up in various educational publications. Professor Haven Darling Brackett travelled extensively and I found several records of passage for him on ships to and from Europe about the time Hayes disappeared. I was hoping to find him accompanying his brother on one of these voyages but did not. <br />
<br />
In 1920 Hayes resurfaces in the Southbridge census records, once again a travelling salesman with American Optical. They must have welcomed him home and back to his former position when he returned in 1914 after a year-long absence. My guess is that the good old boys who ran the company might have been living vicariously through Hayes' exploits way out there in "Unknown Parts" and what better way to hear all about it than to take him back into the fold. By this time Hayes has a new wife whose name is Ada, although I never found a divorce record for Marian and Hayes. <br />
<br />
Ada and Hayes lived in the neighboring town of Charlton in 1930, presumably a happy couple. They had no children. I found no record of his first wife Marian or his daughter Marjorie after 1910 and what happened to them is still a mystery to me. But I did find Haven and his wife Marian and Hayes and his wife Ada all buried in the cemetery in Charlton. Haven and Marian died in 1956 and 1963, respectively. Hayes died in 1962 and Ada outlived him. <br />
<br />
My great grandmother's notes written at the end of the article indicate that Hayes was living in "Unknown Parts" just under a year. I wonder if there was some intention on Hayes' part to establish a case for abandonment so that Marian could file for divorce and get out of the marriage gracefully. Could it be that Hayes was planning his marriage to Ada? Or was the whole idea Marian's who would later leave for "Unknown Parts" herself, remarry and get on with her life? <br />
<br />
<br />
There is one more record that I found of some interest. In 1915 I found Hayes returning from Bermuda on the ship The SS Bermudian. The record indicates that he is married, but I don't find him travelling with anyone specifically. However, the records aren't always accurate. And, Bermuda makes a fine spot for a honeymoon, don't you think? <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">____________________</div><br />
I love to find information about my ancestors because I feel that connection to them and to the past. But it's also fun to pull out a character from some random newspaper article like I did with Hayes Jurien Brackett and see what we can find out about them, making even a stranger seem more real. Just to follow that thread, one clue leading to the next is really fun for me. It's like solving a puzzle and once I get started, it's tough to stop. It's like I have been saying all along, it's all about the <em><strong>HUNT</strong></em>. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">_______________________</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-73946766688902109802011-04-27T23:09:00.001-04:002015-01-02T16:06:41.515-05:00Something Worth Knowing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A couple of weeks ago I made an exciting discovery, uncovering another son of our earliest Willett ancestor, Ebenezer Willett, 1798-1863. Samuel Willett was heretofore unknown to either myself or my genealogist friend and distant Willett cousin, Joyce. I found him using a database I hadn't seen before called New York'sTown Clerk's Registers of Men Who served in the Civil War. This is the only record I have found that clearly states the names of the parents of the veterans as well as the regiments in which they served and other various bits of information. <br />
<br />
After I shared the information with Joyce, she went digging further and found some other information about our newly found uncle, including an obituary for Samuel's daughter Isabelle in The Schenectedy NY Gazette on October 31, 1934. This led me to today's story, which I consider one of the most interesting stories I've found to date. Here is an excerpt from that obituary: <br />
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<i>Isabelle Willett Bardin, 83, daughter of the late Samuel Willett, Civil war Veteran who was body guard for President Grant....</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdm_wUHT4oNHFKZ3PkR6163eTb_WgZ077VL8WUYicYFj8F5rfLCi9fufV1lcpvjxp3g-QJc_7QvfFo4Dg9Al95QqvodDshBjKMWS3rs20uLSu6KAKmqNPrRkbc4uZse4PNyOcTcGnQO0/s1600/grant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdm_wUHT4oNHFKZ3PkR6163eTb_WgZ077VL8WUYicYFj8F5rfLCi9fufV1lcpvjxp3g-QJc_7QvfFo4Dg9Al95QqvodDshBjKMWS3rs20uLSu6KAKmqNPrRkbc4uZse4PNyOcTcGnQO0/s320/grant.jpg" height="320px" i8="true" width="240px" /></a></div>
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As soon as I read that I knew there was a story there somewhere, and as it turns out, boy, was I right about that. <br />
<br />
<br />
Samuel Willett, son of Ebenezer and Nellie Langdon Willett was born in 1820 New York City. He was married first to Elizabeth Bond. Their two children were Caroline and Ebenezer. Soon after Ebenezer was born, Elizabeth must have died, although we are still researching that. We think this is the case because in 1850 Samuel has a new wife named Isabelle. He and Isabelle would have 2 daughters, Ida and Isabelle. <br />
<br />
Samuel was a bootcutter by trade. He lived with Isabella and his children in the town of Argyle, NY in Washington County which is north and east of Albany, near the Vermont border. While he was living there, the Civil war broke out. Samuel lost his father, Ebenezer, in 1863 and in December of that year he enlisted with the Union Army and was mustered out with in a few weeks. Six days after he enlisted, his young son Ebenezer also enlisted. Together they would serve with the 16th New York Heavy Artillery, H Company. <br />
<br />
Left behind with his wife Isabelle, were daughter Caroline, now a young woman of 20, her sisters Isabelle 10 years old and Ida, just a baby. The men of the family had left them behind to fend for themselves keeping the home fires burning while hoping they'd return safely. And, so they did. I didn't find any heroic accounts of Sam's military career during the war and in August of 1865 they were both mustered out as privates and returned to the family, continuing their lives. But it wouldn't be the last time Samuel left his family behind.<br />
<br />
After the war, Samuel and Isabelle moved around some, residing in Troy, Albany and a couple of other towns in that area. Samuel continued to work as a boot maker and Isabelle continued to raise her daughters. The war was in the past and became a memory in New York, as time went on. Sam became an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization for Union veterans. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLPblNWLuUBUgu2NX-6885Fi9U4DEcZybXZvvU3Yt3u8I6C8mvRhjY9vs06rz0yRd9kCxkE4A0g0wrilDwiv18fOvrF8De25wTKpwnhxracQEy-QnH7DL4vIwivwt-3A_SMkEcYGack_A/s1600/220px-Gar_medal.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLPblNWLuUBUgu2NX-6885Fi9U4DEcZybXZvvU3Yt3u8I6C8mvRhjY9vs06rz0yRd9kCxkE4A0g0wrilDwiv18fOvrF8De25wTKpwnhxracQEy-QnH7DL4vIwivwt-3A_SMkEcYGack_A/s320/220px-Gar_medal.bmp" height="320px" i8="true" width="172px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GAR Medal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"The great captain of the Union's salvation", as General Ulysses S. Grant was sometimes called, was elected president and served two terms from 1869 to 1877. His wasn’t the most successful presidency according to what I have read. His cabinet appointments were questionable and corruption was rampant in his administration. Although he had his loyal supporters, many of whom served under him in the war, his bid for a third term was lost and Garfield won the nomination. Grant went on a world tour where he was greeted by many with adoration and by all accounts enjoyed himself after a difficult two terms. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOR7bBsbUu0_Qen8TBgsFfibol43o0DYyKTjA6geZse8wHAk9OnccfxSDxSyStzpKcJr1LdXySVlSYLkvuJLUJY7PVDdfkhEmt0o-_OYAQQqXu5XlkfH5jdwnh49Ex5BUoI75IaoVgak/s1600/healthier+Grant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOR7bBsbUu0_Qen8TBgsFfibol43o0DYyKTjA6geZse8wHAk9OnccfxSDxSyStzpKcJr1LdXySVlSYLkvuJLUJY7PVDdfkhEmt0o-_OYAQQqXu5XlkfH5jdwnh49Ex5BUoI75IaoVgak/s320/healthier+Grant.jpg" height="320px" i8="true" width="201px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">President Grant</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Grant moved his family to New York City upon returning from his world tour and entered into business with his son and another businessman named Ferdinand Ward. However, he wasn't any better at choosing business partners than he was at choosing his cabinet, because Ferdinand had been running a Ponzi scheme and in 1884 the brokerage firm of Grant and Ward failed. Ferdinand was arrested and sent to jail. Grant’s fortune was gone. <br />
<br />
That same year, in the fall, General Grant was diagnosed with throat cancer. Depressed, without fortune he agreed to write his memoirs in order to make some money to replenish the family coffers. Samuel Clemens would be his publisher. <br />
<br />
He began writing his memoirs in late 1884. But his health deteriorated rapidly and his physician, Dr. Douglas, knew that the heat of the city that summer would be too much for the ailing former president. He found speaking difficult and he was weakened and in great pain. The doctor took advantage of an offer made by his friends the Drexels who had a cottage available for the General in Saratoga on Mt. MacGregor. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguvqX1XCz8-qpCFQUKJk7g7STT4V3t3lj1DcO1Q9rO-PZqEsggFIPWK8ASBjSGHXwb70DIjeOOiW4wWTSn9lqKVbrwI187JboINqw5Y8I6rQFpgAOlH1f13QWN9nHK0pAylINDayx-OuY/s1600/grantscottage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguvqX1XCz8-qpCFQUKJk7g7STT4V3t3lj1DcO1Q9rO-PZqEsggFIPWK8ASBjSGHXwb70DIjeOOiW4wWTSn9lqKVbrwI187JboINqw5Y8I6rQFpgAOlH1f13QWN9nHK0pAylINDayx-OuY/s1600/grantscottage.jpg" i8="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drexel Cottage</td></tr>
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This move to Mt. McGregor was covered with daily reports in all of the newspapers of the day. There are day by day accounts of the General’s daily activities and updates on his health that began on the day of his arrival. <br />
<br />
On June 16, 1885 according to the New York Times, ‘General and Mrs. Grant arrived at the <br />
Drexel Cottage on Mt. McGregor along with his eldest son Colonel Frederick Dent Grant, his wife and 2 children Julia and US Grant, 3<sup>rd</sup>; Mrs. Nellie Grant Sartoris, the General’s daughter; Jessie Root Grant, his youngest son, with his wife and daughter Nellie. Dr. Douglas, Mr. Dawson, General Grant’s stenographer; Harrison Terrell, his colored valet and Henry McSweeney his nurse.’ <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5NBgYwZPypLI339D_fj9R3zk801T8j_hd7y7RqchgtuzuCHP6s97TPjg7xa0FbQ-J4LNjgFaKLk9RYw2sJR4v9FK2AaEDlzOFFovXSRAyKNp3liYppwlH57shqqHSgMMJZdwiKKSNEZM/s1600/UlyssesGrantfamily.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5NBgYwZPypLI339D_fj9R3zk801T8j_hd7y7RqchgtuzuCHP6s97TPjg7xa0FbQ-J4LNjgFaKLk9RYw2sJR4v9FK2AaEDlzOFFovXSRAyKNp3liYppwlH57shqqHSgMMJZdwiKKSNEZM/s320/UlyssesGrantfamily.jpg" height="201px" i8="true" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grant and his family on the porch of Drexel Cottage 1865</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The Times goes on to report:<br />
<br />
“A tent was pitched this afternoon near the building, which will be occupied during the General’s stay by a veteran who has offered to do guard duty for his old Commander.” <br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From the book “The Captain Departs” by Thomas Pitkin and John Simon</i><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“When the train arrived at the little platform…there was a hospital cot waiting for the General, but Grant ignored this and started walking up the hill toward the Drexel Cottage. He tottered only a little way, however, passing under an arch which welcomed “Our Hero” and let himself be carried in a rattan chair. He walked up the steps of the cottage with the sole assistance of his cane…After resting a while on the porch, where Mrs. Drexel was to receive him, he went inside and Harrison changed his clothes. He came out again in top hat and black coat and sat for hours until the mosquitoes drove him in. Sam Willett, an Albany G.A.R. veteran mounted guard before his door, telling reporters that he would stay on duty until the general left the mountains.”</i><br />
<br />
Sam Willett had left his family again to serve the General. I don’t know if this was a hardship for the family. Surely with Sam away, no boots would be made or sold to the town folk. Certainly he would be needed at home. Isabella in her early 60s now would need him there to help her. His children were gone from the house by then, except for Ida who was just about 20. She probably had no memory of the first time her father went off to serve his country. But Sam had a loyalty to this man that was not to be equaled. Perhaps he viewed him as a sort of father figure, having lost his father just before he left for the war. Or, perhaps he knew him personally. <br />
<br />
On June 30, 1885 The Albany Evening Journal reports:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ_jLQTy5hQVI1E0EOVC76Q6yjJy04CF0OrpMo47ZfYbRRN73CwIeJY3Dr8v878-fbR0wXXZflvigxK6bslF1aFl9KOkr__y3Ln6B_0rF7WVm5JONdrWkqYwfyAa6Z7W6pU12yfq09zzc/s1600/36683.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ_jLQTy5hQVI1E0EOVC76Q6yjJy04CF0OrpMo47ZfYbRRN73CwIeJY3Dr8v878-fbR0wXXZflvigxK6bslF1aFl9KOkr__y3Ln6B_0rF7WVm5JONdrWkqYwfyAa6Z7W6pU12yfq09zzc/s1600/36683.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General Grant in the field.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Something Worth Knowing</i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Comrade Samuel Willett of Albany who guards General Grant’s cottage is every inch a soldier. He sleeps in a tent which the general manager…has had pitched about two rods from the cottage. Comrade Willett is a sturdy, thick set man, with bright blue eyes. His hair is grizzled and his face is smoothly shaven. “The first time I saw General Grant” Comrade Willett said to the Journal representative today,</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“was at Williams Wharf, Virginia and he taught me somethin’ worth knowing” ejaculated the old soldier as his ample breast heaved with pride. I enlisted with the Sixteenth Heavy Artillery, Company H, which left Troy, NY in December of 1863. The next spring, while I was doing fatigue duty helpin’ loadin’ black oats, three bushels to a bag, General Grant walked quietly down alongside of us. The boys began a’cheerin’ and I jined in. ‘Twas mighty hard work, shoulderin’ them oats the way we were doin’ it.”</i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How to Shoulder a Bag of Oats</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">General Grant looked at us a while and finally said “Boys,</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’ll show you how to shoulder a bag of oats without so much trouble. And he explained to the officer in charge of the work that by having two men place the bags on the shoulders of the men who carried the bags up the hill they’d get there with less effort. After that, twas only boys’ play to carry the bags. I’d go to war today if I got a chance. I’ve done all kinds of guard duty. The doggondest worst thing I ever guarded was ten Army mules. They would kick and fight an’ bray all night. The smallest thing I ever guarded was 15 cents worth of old crude iron bits.” Comrade Willett is positive General Grant is the ‘greatest general in the world’. “Well, he kin out-flank and out-general the best of ‘em” is one of Willett’s favorite expressions when referring to Grant’s ability. Mr. Willett is hale and hearty and 66 years of age. He is proud of his charge. At General Grant’s request, he does not wear an Army uniform.”</i><br />
<br />
In another article in the Evening Journal, the reporter writes: <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guard’s Rheumatism is Gone</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Comrade Samuel Willett of Albany who guards the cottage occupied by General Grant has suffered from rheumatism for many years. He says the “air” at Mt. MacGregor is curing him. “This is just the place for the old hero,” ejaculated Comrade Willett today, “and it’s just the place for me, too. If I get rid of this rheumatism, I’ll be as spry as I was nigh on 20 years ago when I enlisted in the Army."</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Sightseers and reporters made the trip up the mountain daily by bus or train hoping to catch a glimpse of the family and the General. <br />
<br />
From the book “The Captain Departs”:<br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now and then Grant, sitting on the porch on sunny afternoons, writing or reading the newspapers, would look up and nod or wave his hand. Sam Willett, the G.A.R. veteran who had constituted himself Grant’s guard and had pitched a tent behind the cottage, spent part of his time playing with the Grant grandchildren and Dr. Douglas’s two little girls, and the rest keeping unwanted visitors away. Usually no one attempted to reach the porch, but he posted himself at the foot of the steps to prevent it.”</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Dignitaries and friends made the trip to visit the General when he was first at the cottage. Samuel Clemens visited numerous times, assisting him with his memoirs, although it was said that Grant was such a gifted writer that there was almost no editing to be done. But, General Grant faded quickly while he was occupying the Drexel Cottage that summer. Each day his activities became more and more difficult and his voice became lower and lower. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKvF2IISlqDuQOtNMUjkHieLBQ15u-PY4yD0iinAEL9_zE3gC-Mt24pp4GEUAgnEWLKezwM6R-w0qWUBq4yOwlzpRqsde712kQDahLQzPWh7yvbojujnytCLBLGfGCwRAH9gKQlB4QMgo/s1600/Lastphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKvF2IISlqDuQOtNMUjkHieLBQ15u-PY4yD0iinAEL9_zE3gC-Mt24pp4GEUAgnEWLKezwM6R-w0qWUBq4yOwlzpRqsde712kQDahLQzPWh7yvbojujnytCLBLGfGCwRAH9gKQlB4QMgo/s320/Lastphoto.jpg" height="320px" i8="true" width="278px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last photo of Grant on the porch of the cottage.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
General grant finished his memoirs on July 19<sup>th </sup>when Samuel Clemens read what he’d written those past few days and declared it completed. Seeing how his friend’s health had deteriorated helped him make that decision . The General asked that his book be read aloud to him, but he took a turn for the worse and that request was never honored. From that day on he was in horrible pain, able to communicate only by writing on a pad of paper he kept with him, if he could summon the energy to scribble a note. His family remained near him and tried to persuade him to eat, but he could not. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWXGpg_bXNcOyANLOPp0MUN2WFkcVfIoXZWOH2XpoTRiy-6-SZJti6GuAwFe90rTDUufftH3WEr4wHzjeCSorNGCnqnJkv-K7VeCB_DKYnd1mlteqHF1yj916seAAizsT2crFh2_gL3lU/s1600/SamWillett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWXGpg_bXNcOyANLOPp0MUN2WFkcVfIoXZWOH2XpoTRiy-6-SZJti6GuAwFe90rTDUufftH3WEr4wHzjeCSorNGCnqnJkv-K7VeCB_DKYnd1mlteqHF1yj916seAAizsT2crFh2_gL3lU/s1600/SamWillett.jpg" height="197" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sam Willett courtesy of the Grant Cottage State Site.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
While Sam kept guard outside, on the 23<sup>rd</sup> of July, early in the morning while the grandchildren still slept, the General passed away, with his wife and children at his bedside. How sad Sam must have been at the news. The sobs he heard from within the cottage as the General’s wife grieved must have tugged at the old soldier’s heart. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How he had loved his old Commander. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUX_GhVDiwQ2HuU7bXI6LUVIVqd8YxS6q8nkByXOyg6Mjv9QCSAvRFJrr1069n0o_OJ-6rlZm_1NKp6c3V5GcoeOQOrlGi8Xnh_L1N9LCM7ov52t68VUiKItzTzclwMTmM41sAwgCVsgg/s1600/deathmask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUX_GhVDiwQ2HuU7bXI6LUVIVqd8YxS6q8nkByXOyg6Mjv9QCSAvRFJrr1069n0o_OJ-6rlZm_1NKp6c3V5GcoeOQOrlGi8Xnh_L1N9LCM7ov52t68VUiKItzTzclwMTmM41sAwgCVsgg/s1600/deathmask.jpg" i8="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grant's Death mask</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The undertaker was called for and he prepared the body for burial while it was laid out on the kitchen table in the cottage. An artist was called to make a death mask. The family had decided to delay moving his body from the mountain until funeral arrangements could be made. The decision whether to bury him in New York or in Washington hadn't yet been made and it would take time to decide and then prepare his burial place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<h2>
NEW YORK TIMES<br />
July 29, 1885</h2>
<br />
<h3 align="center">
<b>ULYSSES S. GRANT IN HIS COFFIN. HIS BODY RESTING AS IF IN PEACEFUL SLUMBER.</b></h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The electric lamp under the flag-draped canopy in the cottage parlor cast a soft light upon the body of General Grant in his coffin. It lies as if in peaceful sleep. The arms cross the breast in natural repose. Only the wasted hands recall his pain. The face is calm. It shows no signs of where the disease crept. There is fullness in the outline and nothing of the death pallor. The hair is combed so that the gray scarcely appears. Bunches of white are in the beard, but it is trimmed as of old. The lips are speaking lips, slightly parted, yet with no space between them. Death has made the face younger by ten years. The body is clothed in broadcloth. Above the buttons of the Prince Albert coat a gold stud glistens. There is a plain gold ring on the little finger of his left hand. The stud and the ring are the only jewelry. White stockings show above the tops of patent leather slippers.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div>
As the days went by, <i>“Another fine Sunday came and with it trainloads of visitors, some of whom hoped to get into the Grant cottage, but most of whom were content to walk buy or gather on a nearby knoll. The family remained in seclusion, except that in the afternoon they were joined by reverend Dr. Newman and Mrs. Newman for devotional services.</i><br />
<br />
<i>In the rear of the cottage, screened from public view, the veteran Willett amused the children. He had constituted himself the children’s playman, and protector. There were still three of them at the cottage: “Colonel Fred’s little boy, aged four, named after his grandfather; Julia, his sister, nine, pretty and demure; Nellie, Jesse Grant’s little girl, a bright pretty child of three.” The old soldier, who had served three years under Grant, had become quite expert in the handling of children. He had rigged up for them swings and a croquet ground, a summerhouse thatched with boughs and leaves, “and there they play every day.”</i> From The Captain Departs<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA2M7R1dOUrlpkxOVciCvk7EBZZQ9_gpIhoESrluC1aTHPXhxNCTi8DYb22otxfkCziQ-nsB1B3WEcHFYcIZHDw9Ra6YlXlBd5-mhdT7vdrR4aGURIgoRQYEvdqA4ZYlkem42v4kOqXPU/s1600/GTNY02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA2M7R1dOUrlpkxOVciCvk7EBZZQ9_gpIhoESrluC1aTHPXhxNCTi8DYb22otxfkCziQ-nsB1B3WEcHFYcIZHDw9Ra6YlXlBd5-mhdT7vdrR4aGURIgoRQYEvdqA4ZYlkem42v4kOqXPU/s320/GTNY02.jpg" height="239px" i8="true" width="320px" /></a></div>
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The General's body was placed on a train at the little platform at Mount MacGregor. Samuel Willett, is sure to have been there, escorting his beloved General to the train. Standing at attention, perhaps saluting his Commander one last time, he stood watching the train until it was no longer in sight. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijTZ9eoM5EAKmYr-62YMAGpkE3cZz8iZuMkDLR-1YZMBcbkbLjfoaTMdqjTtRrdiUisGIjDx4cF2Xg7_bH_XkQkekCkZXxG-G8o7CgEYPQkaCMCY1g9SL1PrrNxpw-RO_X2IZpr4ilTdM/s1600/SamWillett+croppeed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijTZ9eoM5EAKmYr-62YMAGpkE3cZz8iZuMkDLR-1YZMBcbkbLjfoaTMdqjTtRrdiUisGIjDx4cF2Xg7_bH_XkQkekCkZXxG-G8o7CgEYPQkaCMCY1g9SL1PrrNxpw-RO_X2IZpr4ilTdM/s1600/SamWillett+croppeed.jpg" height="320" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SamWillett 1885</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
<a href="http://www.empirenet.com/~ulysses/">Ulysses S. Grant Home Page</a><br />
<a href="http://www.grantcottage.org/">The Grant Cottage</a><br />
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5VCXWN5Y650C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+captain+departs&hl=en&ei=EmC4TYDcBobi0QG6rfDlDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">Excerpts from The Captain Departs</a>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-62609550647040260502011-04-21T12:37:00.008-04:002011-04-22T07:04:32.300-04:00Coincidence: 1. The state or fact of occupying the same relative position or area in spaceGenealogy is filled with coincidences and serendipitous discoveries. One of the stranger coincidences in my ancestral journey has to do with two families named Brown. <br />
<br />
In 1870, there was a tiny little village in Massachusetts called Whitinsville. It is still there today, but as it was then and is now, Whitinsville (pronounced White-ins-vill) is not a town, but what is called a Census Designated Place. By definition that means it is an area where there is a concentration of people living, as if a town, but it isn't incorporated and there is no separate local municipal government. Whitinsville is officially a part of the town of Northbridge. <br />
<br />
Northbridge was originally inhabited by the Nipmuc tribe. It was once part of neighboring Mendon and then later part of Uxbridge, before it became a separate town in 1772. Being locate on the Mumford River, it was ideal for the textile mills that sprung up in the area, providing jobs that attracted European immigrants and locals to the area. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcliCWkBX_536gqyH7PZUAHlvJNLwDmwwLFShI5Dd4VnnW32S8SsCNiS88gX5yTEkxTHcFNZM_gFErNSluaoszRdf_wS4ITxv-DldTBhCmkl25Q0vlBS8PEkKtRtW4IE0Pnzkyk86QMug/s1600/johnwhitin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcliCWkBX_536gqyH7PZUAHlvJNLwDmwwLFShI5Dd4VnnW32S8SsCNiS88gX5yTEkxTHcFNZM_gFErNSluaoszRdf_wS4ITxv-DldTBhCmkl25Q0vlBS8PEkKtRtW4IE0Pnzkyk86QMug/s320/johnwhitin.jpg" width="182px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Whitin, the patriarch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Whitinsville was named for The Whitins (a variation if Whiting) who were a successful family in the area, first manufacturing farm tools, like hoes and shovels. Once the Mumford River's energy was harnessed, they built a cotton mill. This mill was large, utilizing 1,500 spindles at a time. Soon, the sons of the family became frustrated with the crude tools and machinery available to the industry and began to develop their own patented equipment in their machine shop and became the largest producer of textile spindles in the area. So successful was this family, that by the turn of the century, they owned and operated five cotton mills in town, a machine works and a huge foundry.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCoQG1wDuy1B2K3urrFlboKMkP35-obxfcYP-W-EQ82BUs6t6NV8nG8zG5XXsF3cWHExzoLch0XbK_1PsLkCHxT63vzbdC25BVctOiNfptIZO5AlwFnZFdPiCJ2xpAZACzQvOlgdoRk0M/s1600/The_Whitin_Machine_Works_Whitinsville_MA_1901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCoQG1wDuy1B2K3urrFlboKMkP35-obxfcYP-W-EQ82BUs6t6NV8nG8zG5XXsF3cWHExzoLch0XbK_1PsLkCHxT63vzbdC25BVctOiNfptIZO5AlwFnZFdPiCJ2xpAZACzQvOlgdoRk0M/s1600/The_Whitin_Machine_Works_Whitinsville_MA_1901.jpg" /></a></div>Although there were many mills and other industries in Whitinsville, the entire town of Northbridge, in 1870 had a population of only about 2,600 people. Although I don't have the exact population of Whitinsville at the time, we can be reasonably certain that the population was measured by the hundreds rather than the thousands.<br />
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In the mid 1800s, Alexander Brown immigrated from Ireland to Whitinsville as a young boy. Alexander's bride Ann, was also born in Ireland. In 1870, Alexander and Ann are a young couple living in Whitinsville and Alexander is a Dresser Tender, which is a job in the cotton mill tending the thread on the spindles. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNq1IoWQMSKkhtRfDnzWGi23F9TQPSyxOuiBsCikAQJ-RJwjRgPcMp70iQ6BANRQhL03w7QP_5UVFvaBEs8oM2_7Kj2PwCWYxSBp_hrEIMPU0Q9V6R7H5HqARB-QLYD79gW5DFvzJPRAw/s1600/6_northbridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNq1IoWQMSKkhtRfDnzWGi23F9TQPSyxOuiBsCikAQJ-RJwjRgPcMp70iQ6BANRQhL03w7QP_5UVFvaBEs8oM2_7Kj2PwCWYxSBp_hrEIMPU0Q9V6R7H5HqARB-QLYD79gW5DFvzJPRAw/s320/6_northbridge.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
Meanwhile, another fellow also named Brown, Andrew Brown that is, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, not at all far from Whitinsville. Andrew married Almira, also from Rhode Island. They moved to Chicago for a short time in the 1860s after Andrew returned from the war. There, a son Ethelbert was born in 1868. When Ethelbert was just 2 they had moved back to the Northeast and settled in Whitinsville where I found them in the 1870 census as well. Andrew was a boot maker.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftmmebW6AhDNT94Kk_6cvNj_5-HujxeWbITRvV-f3QvYLKi0fH0ccdAEPFf9HHBNli-RCt4_E3qEcmL0FF-WshlVUWnE_xWV5YtupRFVO7d21PYC0e0vOvFILGRUDUekLOcGhFy4WaG4/s1600/Whitinsville+pub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftmmebW6AhDNT94Kk_6cvNj_5-HujxeWbITRvV-f3QvYLKi0fH0ccdAEPFf9HHBNli-RCt4_E3qEcmL0FF-WshlVUWnE_xWV5YtupRFVO7d21PYC0e0vOvFILGRUDUekLOcGhFy4WaG4/s320/Whitinsville+pub.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Black Eagle Tavern, Whitinsville</td></tr>
</tbody></table>For a few years around 1870 these two Brown families probably interacted in the little village. Perhaps Andrew and Alex met at the local tavern and tried to figure out if any of their family members were related. Ethelbert, Andrew's son was two years old in 1870. In 1872, Alex had a son also named Alexander. Maybe they talked about their sons and compared notes about their wives. Perhaps their wives became friends. They may have exchanged recipes or met in the local butcher shop or sat together at the Friday night socials.<br />
<br />
Andrew and Almira moved back to Providence by 1880, where they raised Ethelbert. Ethelbert met a gal named Margaret Hines and they would have a daughter Hortense. Hortense had a sister Mildred Brown and they grew up in the Franklin area, about 20 miles south of Whitinsville. Hortense Gertrude Brown Locke was my first husband's grandmother, my sons' great grandmother. She lived to be 106, to date my sons' longest lived relative.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Alexander and Ann Brown, moved from Whitinsville, also about 1880, to Sutton, MA which is also about 10 miles north of Whitinsville. Their son Alexander met and married Alice Moore. They raised their two girls named Anna Brown and Mildred Brown in Sutton. Anna Frances Brown Crowell is my husband Ed's grandmother. Anna's sister, Mildred ALice Brown Kelliher, was my husband's longest lived relative who died in 2002 at the age of 104.<br />
<br />
I am not sure what this coincidence means, really. Let's just say that it was a big confusing tangle when I discovered these two Brown families while I was researching my children's (and ex-husband's) families and Ed's ancestry. For a time I was thinking they may have been related, but not so. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLt4w57TMabUKeu3l794YWdyPb1BL2LAHSHd8L2BKN_FhcXqc4sub3k0dGLYtxd9cNMQR9zzHYdF4SbznEwHR9RX2ejR6d3_vOt3mqvBdFpz3hn65ol1dLYqaDQJhnyTjbzzxeziFef4o/s1600/cottonmill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLt4w57TMabUKeu3l794YWdyPb1BL2LAHSHd8L2BKN_FhcXqc4sub3k0dGLYtxd9cNMQR9zzHYdF4SbznEwHR9RX2ejR6d3_vOt3mqvBdFpz3hn65ol1dLYqaDQJhnyTjbzzxeziFef4o/s320/cottonmill.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div>These two unrelated Brown families who both lived in 1870s Whitinsville produced the longest lived family members in the two separate family trees that I've been researching, which was kind of interesting.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSBoxSEx0SMvA7jmRfAvAmFhrs8-BhV7ciQe8NYJgNuuPFRt9hjlah6Fv6S_JJqPo3OGEm_saNm-8_FSuZDnlQhUc37-onMxY3bFjqJ989PpnWXlqq73Y_SDUBvZxHSHT5c9kGSdMqfeQ/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSBoxSEx0SMvA7jmRfAvAmFhrs8-BhV7ciQe8NYJgNuuPFRt9hjlah6Fv6S_JJqPo3OGEm_saNm-8_FSuZDnlQhUc37-onMxY3bFjqJ989PpnWXlqq73Y_SDUBvZxHSHT5c9kGSdMqfeQ/s320/untitled.bmp" width="320px" /></a></div>Both families also included women named Mildred Brown. I don't know if I will ever find another link between these families. I suppose it's possible. For now, for these two Brown families, the only link I can find so far is me! A hundred years after Andrew and Alexander both made Whitinsville, Massachusetts their home, I would end up married twice. First. I was married to the great great grandson of Andrew Brown. And now, I am married to the great great grandson of Alexander Brown. Go figure! <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEKqbdzeTs2cnsOpuuIrHnBwpZu_bkhLNILowhrIOImuUSniNFzYcjwB0V5nKnP86OZUKWBLiT0Z4AIz_-UuN6hg_FVvDQ2SHxENdlaStaeYh9pv_12w6cczOyCSduyvhYOZce41V0Rw/s1600/charlie_brown-5354.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEKqbdzeTs2cnsOpuuIrHnBwpZu_bkhLNILowhrIOImuUSniNFzYcjwB0V5nKnP86OZUKWBLiT0Z4AIz_-UuN6hg_FVvDQ2SHxENdlaStaeYh9pv_12w6cczOyCSduyvhYOZce41V0Rw/s320/charlie_brown-5354.jpg" width="171px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charles Brown, possibly a common ancestor?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>You never know who you might meet up with along these journeys.Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-53580944462180080322011-04-14T13:17:00.003-04:002011-04-14T13:47:07.767-04:00The Incident at Pullin Point<em>Preface: Patten was my paternal great grandmother's maiden name. Josephine lived in New York City where my grandmother was also born, and for years I thought that the Pattens were an old New York family. However, Josephine was only the second generation to be born in New York. Her people actually came from Massachusetts, specifically Malden and Chelsea, once part of Boston. </em><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"> The Incident At Pullin Point</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> It was a cold blustery Sunday, the day after Christmas in 1751, when the ship The Bumper, having sailed from London, struck rocks at Pullin Point Beach. Captain Nicholas Cussens and all but one member of the crew made their way safely to shore.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Captain Cussens, being a Bostonian, hired local men whom he knew to board The Bumper and help unload the cargo and salvage what they could from the crippled vessel. Among those who boarded her were Benjamin Prat, Samuel Tuttle, Jr., Thomas Patten, Bartholomew Flagg, Ebenezer Bootman, John Brintnall, Jabez Burdett, Nathan Cheever, Edward Watts, Joseph Prat, David Sargent, Saml. Floyd, Ebenezer Prat, and Nathan Lewis. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Mr. Tewksbury, also from town, was willing to allow the sails and rigging that had been removed, to be stored in his barn until the Captain had decided what to do with it. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> But the locals didn't remove everything from the Bumper that day. Crewmember John Scalley, who had been left alone, hidden below, had been sick for ten days prior to the shipwreck. He was alive when the ship had struck that day. He was not carried off when the crew escaped to safety, nor were his fellow shipmates allowed to go back the next morning for him in order to get him medical help, in spite of their pleas. Instead, Captain Cussens ordered them to stay on shore and wait for his orders which would come later in the day. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> That night, on the Captain's orders the Mate, the Boatswain and others went back to the ship under the cover of darkness. They were ordered to remove Scalley's corpse, if indeed he had died, and they were to bury it in the rocks beneath the ship so that no one would find it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> The body of John Scalley was discovered, but not until January 13th after an investigation had been launched by Selectmen. It was suspected that it was The Bumper that brought smallpox to town shortly after it was 'cast away on Pullin Point Beach'. Upon questioning the crew, the story unfolded of the cruel manner in which Captain Cussens left Scalley alone to die and that with full knowledge he caused townsmen whom he knew had not had "the Distemper" to board the ship where Scalley remained and to handle and store infected equipment and cargo that would carry the smallpox throughout the town.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Meanwhile, the widow Brintnall who was also the schoolteacher in town, having likely survived the smallpox in an earlier time, did offer her home to those who had been stricken, where she would allow them to stay. The Selectmen voted to supply the sick with nurses, attendants and other necessaries, and to do so in a way to prevent, if possible, the further spreading of the disease. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Another ship's captain from the area suggested that the sails and other equipment be buried or aired, but the Selectmen felt it was more dangerous to move them and voted to leave them where they were stowed. Mr. Tewksbury, however, had more than a little concern with his family going in and out of the barn in which the sails were housed. Eventually the Selectmen relented and allowed them to be removed and brought to the beach and buried. Later, everything from the ship would all be removed to a nearby island, in the hopes of making Chelsea safer still. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> In May of 1752, the Selectmen of Chelsea voted to prosecute Captain Nicholas Cussens. From the indictment: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"...at Chelsea aforesaid Inhumanly And Wickedly cause and procure Benjamin Prat, Samuel Tuttle junr, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Thos Patten,</span> Bartholomew Flagg, Ebenezer Bootman, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">John Brintnal,</span> Jabez Burdet, Nathan Cheever, Edward Watts, Joseph Prat, David Sargent, Samll Floyd, Ebenezer Prat, and Nathan Lewis whom he the said Nicholas then knew had not been visited with the small pox but were Liable to take and recieve the same to go on Board the said Ship and to handle and remove the said Goods so infected as aforesaid out of ye said Ship and that the said Benjamin Prat, Samuel Tuttle Junr, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Thomas Patten</span>, Bartholomew Flagg, Ebenezer Bootman, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">John Brintnal</span>, Jabez Burdett, Nathan Cheever, Edward Watts & Joseph Prat by so going on board the said Ship and removing the Goods aforesaid Did then and there take and receive the Infection aforesaid and thereupon soon after fell sick of the Disease aforesaid and thereof ye said Benjamin Prat, Samuel Tuttle junr, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Thomas Patten</span> and Bartholomew Flagg afterwards at Chelsea aforesaid <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Died</span> ..."</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUMVehxu_42KycjmGy5SbTU7jbnaYsEcrEPuKHsiHObUF4V9rLoRtwA4izE9TGNYChrvJn3CTNwc4gaO5aBi0ckfrZcNUdRUeaDs4F0UxwDxNeM21y5hdacDoZNIfSu9DQwFZ9kY75jBU/s1600/MapChelsea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUMVehxu_42KycjmGy5SbTU7jbnaYsEcrEPuKHsiHObUF4V9rLoRtwA4izE9TGNYChrvJn3CTNwc4gaO5aBi0ckfrZcNUdRUeaDs4F0UxwDxNeM21y5hdacDoZNIfSu9DQwFZ9kY75jBU/s640/MapChelsea.jpg" width="468" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In 1739 the Brintnall Families are in Chelsea but the Pattens hadn't yet come from Malden. Note if you enlarge the map you can see Pullen Point which today is Winthrop Massachusetts, just off Hog Island</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <span style="color: blue;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> My fifth great grandfather, Thomas Patten, perished in January 1752 after unloading the ship The Bumper on December 26. Also, lost were his 7year old daughter Jemima, and his wife's grandmother, Phebe Smith Brintnall. One account I read said that as the result of this shipwreck, of the 15,000 or so inhabitants of Boston, including Chelsea, 5,998 people became infected. The widow Brintnall who took in the sick during the epidemic was Thomas's mother-in-law, Deborah Mellins Brintnall. She lived for another 36 years. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> There was a passionate debate going on when smallpox hit Chelsea, not for the first time. Epidemics were frequent throughout the Colonial era and the debate had been started in 1721 when Dr. Boylston from Boston and Reverend Cotton Mather had been proponents of inoculating people after having learned that they were doing so in Europe. Inoculations required that people were infected with smallpox, causing a milder form of the disease which made them immune to future exposure. The two worked together on perfecting the procedure in Boston. Dr. Boylston experimented by inoculating two of his slaves and his own son, all three surviving. But, it was controversial on many levels and Clergy and politicians were both for it and against it. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> Some questioned whether it was wise to be infecting people with a milder case of smallpox and exposing all others who hadn't been inoculated. And, should the state be forcing inoculations? But there were religious questions, too. Was this not interfering with God's plan? The debate would rage on, some getting inoculated, some not, more epidemics would come and go all over the colonies. Finally, almost 50 years later, Jenner discovered that injecting cowpox was a safer and effective way to prevent smallpox. (trivia tid bit: the word vaccine comes from the root vacca the latin word for cow)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> People fled their homes, their towns, their states to avoid smallpox back then. In 1752, almost 2,000 people left the greater Boston/Chelsea area. Perhaps that's how the Pattens wound up in New York. Thomas's son John, was just 2 when his father died. John was the first of the Pattens in our line to live in New York, where he died in 1828. Great great great great great grandfather Thomas Patten died almost 200 years before I was born. And still, it was a painful discovery. It is just by chance or fate or Divine plan that The Bumper and her nefarious Captain Cussens "cast away" on Pullin Point <em>after</em> my 4th great grandfather John was born and not before; and that baby John Patten was able to survive the deadly epidemic. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"> And because he did, the family survived the Incident at Pullin Point, and probably more equally dramatic moments in history just waiting for me to discover. I hope you'll be there with me when I do! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Read more about the 1752 Smallpox epidemic at Chelsea by clicking <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=BQwpAAAAYAAJ&dq=smallpox%20chelsea&pg=PA395#v=onepage&q=smallpox%20chelsea&f=false">HERE</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-88602982794067271372011-04-07T11:29:00.004-04:002011-04-07T11:51:50.214-04:00'Dorothy, Close your eyes. Click your heels together three times and think to yourself, 'there's no place like Holmes.'<strong></strong><br />
<h1><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: small;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">My Willett branch is said to have descended from Thomas Willett, the first Mayor of New York. To date, I have yet to find that direct link, but every once in a while I read a little more about Thomas just in case he does in fact turn out to be the immigrant ancestor I have been looking for. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69GTXcPKcK6Hg1AJY4U_njoZPc_6dT7dy8OvR15TRb_dImodxYTti7NHWjnRzsFan_LnLxQjR9Dl73yMqOo86RPxqWMLWHh1sx2_sHk1S_-6LEPQHTyMKgs7XbZ5tfEqmd15l4Ew13XQ/s1600/ThomasWillett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69GTXcPKcK6Hg1AJY4U_njoZPc_6dT7dy8OvR15TRb_dImodxYTti7NHWjnRzsFan_LnLxQjR9Dl73yMqOo86RPxqWMLWHh1sx2_sHk1S_-6LEPQHTyMKgs7XbZ5tfEqmd15l4Ew13XQ/s320/ThomasWillett.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Thomas was born in Leydon, Holland in 1610. His parents were members of the Leydon Congregation who had fled England for the Netherlands seeking religious freedom. In 1629, Thomas left his family behind and at the age of 19 set sail as a passenger on the Mayflower. It wasn't the Mayflower we are familiar with that came here 9 years earlier, carrying the pilgrims who settled in Plymouth. From what I have read there were 20 ships named the Mayflower in 1629, when Thomas made his voyage. He arrived at Salem, MA and took another boat to Plymouth where he would make quite a name for himself. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">There's a huge amount written about Thomas, and if I prove he his our ancestor I will definitely delve deeply into that research. In addition to eventually becoming the first Mayor of New York, this young immigrant was a VIP in Plymouth, succeeding Myles Standish as Captain of the Militia, being appointed as assistant Governor and most importantly for his future, was early on put in charge of trading posts in Maine which positioned him for trading with the Indians as well as with the Dutch in New Amsterdam (NY), thanks to his knowledge of the language. He soon traded with ship owners, becoming an owner of a fleet of ships himself, and he owned large tracts of land in New York, Swansea, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">An interesting little fact that I hadn't ever heard before came to light recently. Thomas Willett married Mary Browne, daughter of John Browne from Plymouth. Several generations later, through their daughter, Esther Willett Flynt, Thomas and Mary's great granddaughter Dorothy Quincy was born in 1709. Dorothy is the subject of a poem written in 1871 by her great grandson Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCkOwJrT3jyOSvK3W1I4GvnYgBA1UmkWDT58BX_KXYrOmCPPrh3v9awoeVWU_-FpnX4OimED_I59e_eaQfu4baaR0maljcVgoKaExY3z4vZ7xH1g_MlhcNjPbNyTI4izv583eb5NLWDlw/s1600/oliver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCkOwJrT3jyOSvK3W1I4GvnYgBA1UmkWDT58BX_KXYrOmCPPrh3v9awoeVWU_-FpnX4OimED_I59e_eaQfu4baaR0maljcVgoKaExY3z4vZ7xH1g_MlhcNjPbNyTI4izv583eb5NLWDlw/s320/oliver.jpg" width="244" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. 1809-1894</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Oliver never met Dorothy. She died 47 years before he was born. But, like me, he knew he owed his life to his great grandmother and all of his ancestors who came before him. Her decision to say "yes" allowed him to "be". It's a humbling thing when we first realize that personal and private or even seemingly trivial decisions we make everyday may somehow determine the course of history. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Young Oliver saw a portrait of a young Dorothy Quincy hanging on the wall of his grandmother's Cambridge home. Whenever he visited her there, near the "three-hilled rebel town" of Boston, he must have studied it, and it inspired him to write the poem "Dorothy Q: A Family Portrait. Through that portrait and family stories passed down to him he got to know her. It's exactly what I do, getting to know my ancestors through pictures or bits of stories and news clippings and the documents, etc. It just makes me smile to think of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Physician, poet, writer, coiner of the terms anesthesia and Boston Brahmin, friend to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, writer of Old Ironsides and father of the Associate Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., thinking about his ancestors as I do mine. And it's certainly fun to think that there may come a time when I can put a common ancestor, Thomas, up there in our tree as well. I will certainly let you know if I ever do make that connection. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDZznxmm5eCw2GUn_jBauAHqxmN0cosnmj3HAQPGRpZ1MoMYHXCYeVLGa7eZ-GlAB9TAUfdXvgY7kTTNl1tw1ezaRAwYUn1PtLEobFpPrpsuEnf6nDOt5g4ExXRRXQ_fifY5t0SmGN6Y/s1600/dorothy+q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDZznxmm5eCw2GUn_jBauAHqxmN0cosnmj3HAQPGRpZ1MoMYHXCYeVLGa7eZ-GlAB9TAUfdXvgY7kTTNl1tw1ezaRAwYUn1PtLEobFpPrpsuEnf6nDOt5g4ExXRRXQ_fifY5t0SmGN6Y/s1600/dorothy+q.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dorothy Quincy Jackson</td></tr>
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</div></span>Dorothy Q: A FAMILY PORTRAIT </h1><h2>By Oliver Wendell Holmes </h2><h3>1871 </h3><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><br />
<pre></pre><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza01">GRANDMOTHER's</a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line01">mother:</a> her age, I guess,<br />
Thirteen summers, or something less;<br />
Girlish bust, but womanly air;<br />
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line05">Lips</a> that lover has never kissed;<br />
Taper fingers and slender wrist;<br />
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;<br />
So they painted the little maid.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza02">On</a> her hand a parrot green<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line10">Sits</a> unmoving and broods serene.<br />
Hold up the canvas full in view,--<br />
Look! there's a rent the light shines through,<br />
Dark with a century's fringe of dust,--<br />
That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust!<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line15">Such</a> is the tale the lady old,<br />
Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza03">Who</a> the painter was none may tell,--<br />
One whose best was not over well;<br />
Hard and dry, it must be confessed,<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line20">Fist</a> as a rose that has long been pressed;<br />
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,<br />
Dainty colors of red and white,<br />
And in her slender shape are seen<br />
Hint and promise of stately mien.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza04">Look</a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line25">not</a> on her with eyes of scorn,--<br />
Dorothy Q. was a lady born!<br />
Ay! since the galloping Normans came,<br />
England's annals have known her name;<br />
And still to the three-hilled rebel town<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line30">Dear</a> is that ancient name's renown,<br />
For many a civic wreath they won,<br />
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza05">O</a> Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.!<br />
Strange is the gift that I owe to you;<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line35">Such</a> a gift as never a king<br />
Save to daughter or son might bring,--<br />
All my tenure of heart and hand,<br />
All my title to house and land;<br />
Mother and sister and child and wife<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line40">And</a> joy and sorrow and death and life!<br />
What if a hundred years ago<br />
Those close-shut lips had answered NO,<br />
When forth the tremulous question came<br />
That cost the maiden her Norman name,<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line45">And</a> under the folds that look so still<br />
The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill?<br />
Should I be I, or would it be<br />
One tenth another, to nine tenths me?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza06">Soft</a> is the breath of a maiden's YES:<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line50">Not</a> the light gossamer stirs with less;<br />
But never a cable that holds so fast<br />
Through all the battles of wave and blast,<br />
And never an echo of speech or song<br />
That lives in the babbling air so long!<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line55">There</a> were tones in the voice that whispered then<br />
You may hear to-day in a hundred men.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza07">O</a> lady and lover, how faint and far<br />
Your images hover,-- and here we are,<br />
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,--<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line60">Edward's</a> and Dorothy's-- all their own,--<br />
A goodly record for Time to show<br />
Of a syllable spoken so long ago!--<br />
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive<br />
For the tender whisper that bade me live?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="stanza08">It</a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line65">shall</a> be a blessing, my little maid!<br />
I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade,<br />
And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame,<br />
And gild with a rhyme your household name;<br />
So you shall smile on us brave and bright<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="line70">As</a> first you greeted the morning's light,<br />
And live untroubled by woes and fears<br />
Through a second youth of a hundred years.<br />
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<a href="http://www.masshist.org/online/gallery/doc-viewer.php?pid=16&item_id=565">Click here to read about the painting that inspired Oliver Wendel Holmes' poem</a>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-39506997841603369502011-03-31T13:36:00.001-04:002011-03-31T13:36:21.181-04:00"More" Members of our TreeI use Ancestry.com just about everyday, searching, discovering, confirming all sorts of facts and information about our family history. One of the fun options they have included in their website helps you link your own family tree with famous people's trees. It completely depends on information people have entered there. All of the information hasn't been confirmed, but it's a great place to get hints and clues that can later be proven with source documentation. <br />
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In a previous blog, I wrote about a "devil" of an ancestor, Uncle Thaxter Underwood from the deviled ham company. Well, not only is there a devil in our tree, we also have a saint! According to Ancestry.com my most <em>direct</em> famous ancestor is my 14th great grandfather Saint Thomas More, the heavenly patron saint of statesmen and politicians.<br />
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I hate to admit I knew very little about him until I read a little for this post. There are Thomas More fans and Websites all over the Internet. I had heard of him, of course, but apparently didn't listen too carefully in class that day. I did know that was the name of the church where my son Bill and his bride Kim were married in New Hampshire a couple of years ago. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO_dHZUxS8Xd57xJZP3ILEBVQmL06LFzMpy-aLzzk0NIJo6yUtXGfJqYbgZbtQ8L2ADe5sICYj_6fci4b4IxNBuByZcOVAsTDXmfubhd8QZfLGT9Jg_OwFg8vTj62bpnsfk_BdhN1-J38/s1600/stthosmoreparish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO_dHZUxS8Xd57xJZP3ILEBVQmL06LFzMpy-aLzzk0NIJo6yUtXGfJqYbgZbtQ8L2ADe5sICYj_6fci4b4IxNBuByZcOVAsTDXmfubhd8QZfLGT9Jg_OwFg8vTj62bpnsfk_BdhN1-J38/s1600/stthosmoreparish.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Thomas More Parish Durham, NH</td></tr>
</tbody></table>But, most of you probably know more about Sir Thomas than I do, so I'll just tell you a little of what I found out. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_cAbDFZ14DDOgaBO5iQiwG-sAO1MnU8vDyDRaEY6a97C0xhP0amZKZYwpv87YOAIvDr1MhIS7YEFYETdN-siB0h3gY6veP1Akcha2ABn8lGklH3w45TYsLl0au8tzlUojUqFhgHi5PJw/s1600/St_+Thomas+More.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_cAbDFZ14DDOgaBO5iQiwG-sAO1MnU8vDyDRaEY6a97C0xhP0amZKZYwpv87YOAIvDr1MhIS7YEFYETdN-siB0h3gY6veP1Akcha2ABn8lGklH3w45TYsLl0au8tzlUojUqFhgHi5PJw/s1600/St_+Thomas+More.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ggggggggggggggGrandpa Sir Thomas More</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Thomas More was born in England in 1478. He had a highly developed sense of humor at a very early age and he was a very quick study in Latin and in Greek. He was educated in law and became a lawyer, a judge, was knighted and became very chummy with King Henry VIII. He was an Undersheriff, Lord Chancelor and served the King in several other highly respected offices.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhrGu-34ILybyEtEgv3kSUv2UHJhVh9rpheKB935yjsSXYIS_9v5vyaB9dBrDlhHSvxDp3ie2yaPHx4WNqEddCHdGX4AtGJ3uPoh-omiTEAXQqUff69u5ZBA9YUb1GEcR3VadynQ7DO8/s1600/henry-viii-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhrGu-34ILybyEtEgv3kSUv2UHJhVh9rpheKB935yjsSXYIS_9v5vyaB9dBrDlhHSvxDp3ie2yaPHx4WNqEddCHdGX4AtGJ3uPoh-omiTEAXQqUff69u5ZBA9YUb1GEcR3VadynQ7DO8/s320/henry-viii-3.jpg" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry VIII</td></tr>
</tbody></table>He toyed with the idea of becoming a monk, but really wanted to be married, so he rejected that idea. Good thing or there may have never been any descendants, including me! He wore a hairshirt most of his adult life, anyway.<br />
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He was busy with the law and the various offices he held, but he always found time to write and continued to do so throughout his life. He coined the word "utopia" and wrote many, many important books, essays and poems.<br />
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Sir Thomas was an opponent of the Protestant Reformation, defending the Catholic Church against Martin Luther's complaints while Henry VIII was trying to separate from the church at the same time. That period was really confusing for the church and when Thomas refused to sign a letter asking the Pope to annul Henry's marriage to one of the Catherines, it did not make the King happy. Then, Sir Thomas denied to agree that the King had supremecy over the church and that was the final straw that broke the back of the friendship he had enjoyed with Henry.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYeW0gVhUNOtwslMLv50Y8KOTeANTBd8rlCf79o6fnlMWKq4_T_C0BHMYk5uo7SHrSVcgg7WhKGB-XBMPZRo09HOAehoeo_BC_rsP2XcGdGsB9A6OS2ZluesgHzbtXrOqbdO9fG-GCS4/s1600/henrywives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYeW0gVhUNOtwslMLv50Y8KOTeANTBd8rlCf79o6fnlMWKq4_T_C0BHMYk5uo7SHrSVcgg7WhKGB-XBMPZRo09HOAehoeo_BC_rsP2XcGdGsB9A6OS2ZluesgHzbtXrOqbdO9fG-GCS4/s320/henrywives.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry and his wives</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Making a very long story shorter, Thomas was tried and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the usual punishment for treason. But, Henry, feeling a little sentimental about his old friend, commuted his sentence to execution by decapitation. Nice of him, don't you think? One of his sons was John, is mentioned as having witnessed his father's procession from sentencing back to the Tower of London. "His children were waiting for him close by the Tower itself. John More knelt down in the street, and, weeping, asked for his father's blessing." There were several accounts of his last words during the last hours of his life where he made humorous remarks in spite of his impending execution. <br />
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<span style="font-family: book antiqua;">"When he came to the Scaffold, it seemed ready to fall, whereupon he said merrily to the Lieutenant, </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">Pray, Sir, see me safe up; and as to my coming down, let me shift for myself. </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">.. Then kneeling, he repeated the </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">Miserere Psalm </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">with much Devotion; and, rising up the Executioner asked him Forgiveness. He kissed him, and said, </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">Pick up thy Spirits, Man, and be not afraid to do thine Office; my Neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry for having thine Honesty. </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">Laying his Head upon the Block, he bid the Executioner stay till he had put his Beard aside, for that had committed no Treason. Thus he suffered with much Cheerfulness; his Head was taken off at one Blow, and was placed upon </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">London-Bridge, </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">where, having continued for some Months, and being about to be thrown into the T</span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">hames </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">to make room forothers, his Daughter </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">Margaret </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">bought it, in closed it in a Leaden Box, and kept </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">it </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">for a Relique." </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">Hall's Chron. Vol. </i><span style="font-family: book antiqua;">2. </span><i style="font-family: book antiqua;">S. 2.</i><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihje3iSuJU4MEKGtDYL18M6rZhTq5HZSbFltlm1hRDS_TC9cGaXDTtS2VJ0I7fiEAgTtHjXOAVMRNba9VO0gKLxJLFIKVhL6OtjjxoA6x72gFWfwcC-Pzkp0QhlxiNIoKXCPp84FqHQ9o/s1600/ErRH5EcWnN8BBYGEHGj11d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihje3iSuJU4MEKGtDYL18M6rZhTq5HZSbFltlm1hRDS_TC9cGaXDTtS2VJ0I7fiEAgTtHjXOAVMRNba9VO0gKLxJLFIKVhL6OtjjxoA6x72gFWfwcC-Pzkp0QhlxiNIoKXCPp84FqHQ9o/s320/ErRH5EcWnN8BBYGEHGj11d.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
After they chopped off the poor guy's head, they parboiled it and put it on a stake on London Bridge, as was the custom. His daughter later bribed someone to remove it and give it to her. They had buried his headless body in the church at the Tower of London.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzcX8ERPR_NGdtc7kzt4Tni0LvQJS37Dk9OKpFZu0DhyphenhyphenPgF-2XjqMFPnuLNl8jtamoXFf2grf7nA0BfTu5ejziIRTsxO7bEmdOqSR-YtEGoJSHBs_cQzzDPRrPDiEe94HfLXWjL55pC4/s1600/3343455127_4e394949ae.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzcX8ERPR_NGdtc7kzt4Tni0LvQJS37Dk9OKpFZu0DhyphenhyphenPgF-2XjqMFPnuLNl8jtamoXFf2grf7nA0BfTu5ejziIRTsxO7bEmdOqSR-YtEGoJSHBs_cQzzDPRrPDiEe94HfLXWjL55pC4/s320/3343455127_4e394949ae.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here Lies the Headless Body of Thomas More</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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It's been said that Margaret was buried with the head folded in her arms. Now, that's daughterly devotion. Sir Thomas was beatified and canonized by the Catholic Church about 400 years later, because of his martyrdom. John, who wept for his father in the street that day, is in our direct line. Several Johns and Thomases later, another John Moore (now with two Os) was born in 1613 in England. He is said to have become a Protestant minister and the first of that line to immigrate here from England.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIVx9BNEpFv2M9SBBPJYvygR_B44j7Qfrv1UXbyvnFU_c0zCK2jzKJy78XcnRiSUrCZzj36al6awoLTduw_EKKfhxSrf64j1YKuv3kE1oTPBHRj9pwrPo94X71QQ0XkY__bpJEb0NKMe4/s1600/thosmorefam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIVx9BNEpFv2M9SBBPJYvygR_B44j7Qfrv1UXbyvnFU_c0zCK2jzKJy78XcnRiSUrCZzj36al6awoLTduw_EKKfhxSrf64j1YKuv3kE1oTPBHRj9pwrPo94X71QQ0XkY__bpJEb0NKMe4/s320/thosmorefam.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The whole family. John stands to Thomas's left.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
After landing in Charlestown, John settled in Sudbury, MA. Some 300+ years after that, I was born and raised in that same little Massachusetts town. The funny thing is that the connection I have with Sudbury is through my father's ancestors, yet this is my mother's line. I never knew that her ancestors had any Sudbury connections before her. Small world even back then!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjggry9Uc5BIf3DII-AUvqf8QAyv_RbEExO2avrqrrRiH2KGwUfd0xYeUDcxDs8F23c4c63bY8muzbe1xYh3M8YUbx-Qypxx8n8VSkfZ33hlmDpM3FoMkYSvXWTdkkXAWcgEzPRoP_GvmU/s1600/sudby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjggry9Uc5BIf3DII-AUvqf8QAyv_RbEExO2avrqrrRiH2KGwUfd0xYeUDcxDs8F23c4c63bY8muzbe1xYh3M8YUbx-Qypxx8n8VSkfZ33hlmDpM3FoMkYSvXWTdkkXAWcgEzPRoP_GvmU/s320/sudby.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
But that line only stayed in Sudbury briefly, on their way to Canada. There are 9 more generations between John Moore the immigrant and me, and another 4 or 5 other surnames are involved. From Sudbury, the tree wound through neighboring Lexington and Weston and Woburn. Abigail Merriam, 3rd great granddaughter of immigrant John Moore, married Abraham Bradshaw from Medford. They lived in Woburn, MA before they moved to Nova Scotia some time shortly before the revolution began. Loyalists perhaps? <br />
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From there, the family moved to Prince Edward Island, where they remained for 100 years, when a Lidstone married a Waters and moved back to Woburn, MA. My grandfather was Daniel Lidstone Waters. <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGCHMcrbMF9kcKIAAjzNuUOzMv7nJLsRDUfyEhNL8vVfOGz0_uav_VxxB7OkBhX-SzI2q_a6y4BqcMOkM4qhvSGP6zLBi8rNLE4yviGDAbpXB1PPmgqwMXWEv7W5kfBGFRf6loXfc9dU/s1600/prince-edward-island-map.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGCHMcrbMF9kcKIAAjzNuUOzMv7nJLsRDUfyEhNL8vVfOGz0_uav_VxxB7OkBhX-SzI2q_a6y4BqcMOkM4qhvSGP6zLBi8rNLE4yviGDAbpXB1PPmgqwMXWEv7W5kfBGFRf6loXfc9dU/s320/prince-edward-island-map.bmp" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">It's very cool to think there may have been a saint in our tree, but after 16 generations I don't really think much of his saintliness made it through such a long filter to me. I find it even more cool to be in the same tree as a writer and someone who asked his executioner to "spare his beard" and warned him that he had a short neck.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvuvR6nLc1ztzrBdACmP8s25rejEXfvZSTPyGOSmhMfntWyVe-l7V-JdjK02NAqsN_H-VWUGWXJVSVeMXmqfPW11r8oemAQTxi3gtGOknZBwEVWKh7xVclc2S9kWoGbAVAiv7Zrl2D84Y/s1600/halo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="84" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvuvR6nLc1ztzrBdACmP8s25rejEXfvZSTPyGOSmhMfntWyVe-l7V-JdjK02NAqsN_H-VWUGWXJVSVeMXmqfPW11r8oemAQTxi3gtGOknZBwEVWKh7xVclc2S9kWoGbAVAiv7Zrl2D84Y/s200/halo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD26gCsFUSs0TAu6rWwJmICfxQzwYUNqT4jU1H4z37vIYpRKX_0BWy0QFrZjffLmCF1dKIjr8emr-aZsMPHptCCw246QRSXCl6JusTzkn2Z7NL54uYeQLU4JIR1Kss90Gd6fA71U3d9CE/s1600/sig2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD26gCsFUSs0TAu6rWwJmICfxQzwYUNqT4jU1H4z37vIYpRKX_0BWy0QFrZjffLmCF1dKIjr8emr-aZsMPHptCCw246QRSXCl6JusTzkn2Z7NL54uYeQLU4JIR1Kss90Gd6fA71U3d9CE/s1600/sig2.JPG" /></a></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-89386378720713293622011-03-24T09:48:00.003-04:002011-04-20T19:23:01.163-04:00The Newest Blossom on the Tree<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tPj_yCBxU_rkNFeSMKO1BHOeQps9vGRK-A-Ji4Nn-zRw1_3Qr3rZu4Qk-dV62c0XYjw8hlndf__208Fkhq1f4e1I0-LaZzK8EZcTfZX72oFtYOFdD9B7rNrWogrHNF72olLDIpstac0/s1600/182687_10150175320418943_796113942_8687699_7864782_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tPj_yCBxU_rkNFeSMKO1BHOeQps9vGRK-A-Ji4Nn-zRw1_3Qr3rZu4Qk-dV62c0XYjw8hlndf__208Fkhq1f4e1I0-LaZzK8EZcTfZX72oFtYOFdD9B7rNrWogrHNF72olLDIpstac0/s320/182687_10150175320418943_796113942_8687699_7864782_n.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HMNXbFvXwOOjeQf8qGmyLYJCvh3vnx21z2b0APKyFH8-mr7kuYendOA9K3CMONl-1qCzwSKdB5xCqIwy7r2U89hjbYxCsVICn-fdUv8IU_iBmn4M8fag2CmzKesTyQUOfY_preVfuQM/s1600/family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HMNXbFvXwOOjeQf8qGmyLYJCvh3vnx21z2b0APKyFH8-mr7kuYendOA9K3CMONl-1qCzwSKdB5xCqIwy7r2U89hjbYxCsVICn-fdUv8IU_iBmn4M8fag2CmzKesTyQUOfY_preVfuQM/s320/family.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">It took me nearly two weeks to write the sketchy draft I needed for my weekly genealogy blog after the visit. Ordinarily an easy thing for me to do, this time although I worked on it until 2:00 in the morning it still wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it. The characters didn’t seem so interesting to me while I wrote it as they had been before when I had decided to write about them. The blog is all about ancestors and their stories but the past isn’t where my head is since my visit with Lily. </div></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">One would think spending time with such a perfect creature would inspire me to put pen to paper but it didn’t at all, at the time. Actually, that makes some sense to me. It is so much like what happens to me when I am at the beach. </div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFatnILMYk9aSE9Gzms6YhvdglF_Q74g5zuE5GKPxKJY4-trgE1oKkOWcVi2i8xQtIdkKHXScNlT8_F9ykDKnhAwTW0KeWJ-EviXZ57gENg5aSyh_4F2cNR1MDxsvuhfAkdgmPOHQ1i5Q/s1600/IMG_0054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFatnILMYk9aSE9Gzms6YhvdglF_Q74g5zuE5GKPxKJY4-trgE1oKkOWcVi2i8xQtIdkKHXScNlT8_F9ykDKnhAwTW0KeWJ-EviXZ57gENg5aSyh_4F2cNR1MDxsvuhfAkdgmPOHQ1i5Q/s320/IMG_0054.jpg" width="239px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Staring out at the ocean, soaking up the warmth of the sun, the salt air, the sight of gulls suspended overhead by wind currents, flapping their wings but going nowhere. Timing it just right so that they hover over a particularly interesting beach blanket, abandoned by its inhabitants, I can’t stop watching. The notebook I brought with me is open but the page is blank. Looking out at the vastness of the water, reaching out to who-knows-where, you’d think I’d be able write something profound, but nothing comes, so mesmerized am I by what I see wherever I look. </div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Not until I fold up the blanket, and head home, trudging through the hot sand, so deep and loose that it seems as if the gravitational pull is doubled on <place w:st="on">Cape Cod</place> beaches, not until then does my mind start to waken again. Only after I’ve showered off the sand and salt and can no longer see or feel the ocean, except for in my mind’s eye, do I feel inspired to write about it, to reflect on its impact. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div></div></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGIWeFCCrGV4dCS2ruA2iqS7zodCffplbKa0kQvYHBIMCxIM_U1TFMdTcOrg-K6QaM3l9rCqkMzRLFvH_QpX09lSnbBHju7ySQt2kA78tPW9XeMiipfhoL8t_qTezdzyEQskszxzOY_s/s1600/Billy+and+Lily.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGIWeFCCrGV4dCS2ruA2iqS7zodCffplbKa0kQvYHBIMCxIM_U1TFMdTcOrg-K6QaM3l9rCqkMzRLFvH_QpX09lSnbBHju7ySQt2kA78tPW9XeMiipfhoL8t_qTezdzyEQskszxzOY_s/s320/Billy+and+Lily.jpg" width="214px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">And so it is with Lily. From the moment they handed her to me, the connection was made. She looked nothing like my side of the family. I couldn’t see her father in her. I didn’t see my eyes or my mother’s chin or my father’s smile. I saw only her mother and Lily's own unique self in her miniature features, and yet she was mine, too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMmpD6YFEjPeCoRLlOV4ZwwdsLJurDy8bydfEzwDO-LwY_RTjjCa0AVPZ8sfZn7n3Z-41OpRAf14yBIs5vtT3w2JN7XdDwmMMg3mod9H6tlOR6OJZ0MTEa8o6r0gpTf9_n2bvNb9ozM8Y/s1600/IMG_0030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMmpD6YFEjPeCoRLlOV4ZwwdsLJurDy8bydfEzwDO-LwY_RTjjCa0AVPZ8sfZn7n3Z-41OpRAf14yBIs5vtT3w2JN7XdDwmMMg3mod9H6tlOR6OJZ0MTEa8o6r0gpTf9_n2bvNb9ozM8Y/s200/IMG_0030.jpg" width="150px" /></a>She was perfection. Her head, perfectly shaped, the size of a small grapefruit or large apple; light brown hair, just enough, feels so smooth and soft and is so comforting just stroking it over and over with my fingers as I hold her close. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I tell her Mom and Dad that she is like a little human hot water bottle, keeping me warm as she nuzzles up against my neck, her little legs tucked up under her tummy. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Her tiny hand holding tight to my finger as all newborns will do, but her fingers are long and narrow. Maybe a piano player, I think. And her little feet are long and narrow, too. Maybe a dancer, I think. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiksi8b2ZWvilhlyX-Fep-0144VMjxlWG2OO73hK3Q3_9RybL62WOo6DYhN-L_1DgF-ram-NP02WL5P7ZiQPnz9cCYu6PxOQpoPt-LKKixcPbAI08C7NksJZo4A2kej78Xdp8q946R36EU/s1600/the+day+we+met.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiksi8b2ZWvilhlyX-Fep-0144VMjxlWG2OO73hK3Q3_9RybL62WOo6DYhN-L_1DgF-ram-NP02WL5P7ZiQPnz9cCYu6PxOQpoPt-LKKixcPbAI08C7NksJZo4A2kej78Xdp8q946R36EU/s320/the+day+we+met.jpg" width="254px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So comfortable it is to hold this child, so right it feels. Her parents are in love as am I. She is surrounded by people now who don’t ever want to put her down, eager to hold her, finding it impossible to be in the same room without wanting to touch her. We are drawn to her as if by some invisible energy or spirit. If only her whole life would be that way, surrounded by love alone. In the moment, that is all there is and I don't want to think of anything but this moment. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaokhyAyGiJWp5hNtDanSMqFZZtN9T4UzlmeluVEDKEDsk27IMsAmYVnUTAay5o-hSuMNmFUO1b5yT9akMUNnfN_l7beMpx8B7urnewTPz8iFlHeX8Sv0VlEUoieI3a4QQXj_DMupXVXU/s1600/IMG_0048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaokhyAyGiJWp5hNtDanSMqFZZtN9T4UzlmeluVEDKEDsk27IMsAmYVnUTAay5o-hSuMNmFUO1b5yT9akMUNnfN_l7beMpx8B7urnewTPz8iFlHeX8Sv0VlEUoieI3a4QQXj_DMupXVXU/s320/IMG_0048.jpg" width="240px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">We three compete for a chance to change a diaper, just to have her all to ourselves. Watching for a moment, for our turn to have her in our arms. And when it's my turn, I can’t take my eyes off her face as she smiles in sleep, having just filled her tiny belly at her mother’s breast. </div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFoYOcHrrCdMmqdAEWUmJvYZysQIgajQxLlP2MBJCeTER8AT11FlDu1Y45llrmT-Z7OOALZh5ZSt8-plzHoKbkY5p1CCEnXvTBpUJeXtcpr1slmpddgP3NZ5n6uo3qBXFPlt86hTLR37U/s1600/kbl+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFoYOcHrrCdMmqdAEWUmJvYZysQIgajQxLlP2MBJCeTER8AT11FlDu1Y45llrmT-Z7OOALZh5ZSt8-plzHoKbkY5p1CCEnXvTBpUJeXtcpr1slmpddgP3NZ5n6uo3qBXFPlt86hTLR37U/s320/kbl+blog.jpg" width="228px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Mom and Dad and baby are like a three-legged stool in the beginning-a very sturdy thing yet balanced just so as they learn to nurture and care for this new young life. Dad brings Mom her coffee and some breakfast after the first feeding of the morning. He takes his little one downstairs while Mom goes back to sleep for a while. And he has her all to himself. Later, the new little family works out the new dance, choreographing as they go. ‘Is it time to change her? Which blanket should we use? Do you want me to rock her awhile? Her belly button looks okay, don’t you think? Will you help me with her bath? When does she eat again? Should we go up to bed after this feeding or the next?’ </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZNmLhMRK7DBaj9OBniQwQo8VmhoevnVW8n1ckJhCD08YrT92y7sHPl_vjJ70kpn7DikrOYSAeD88mGBFeZK8nUcTUcsfLp_mQr6qTYVb4BXvbr8wjEWNDVUXdWUPQ64mzIl1Hb-mmbQ4/s1600/blogdaddy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZNmLhMRK7DBaj9OBniQwQo8VmhoevnVW8n1ckJhCD08YrT92y7sHPl_vjJ70kpn7DikrOYSAeD88mGBFeZK8nUcTUcsfLp_mQr6qTYVb4BXvbr8wjEWNDVUXdWUPQ64mzIl1Hb-mmbQ4/s320/blogdaddy.jpg" width="239px" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Daddy takes her on a little walk around the room, bouncing her a little harder than I would, but the change from Mom’s touch to his calms her cries and he shows her the sights in the family room like the dart board and the closet door, making them seem like wonders of the world that they are discovering together. Mom looks on and smiles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBsnsAMWKJqZJXBd-iaGY6CnY-Y1X04soF-TnspkXOUfLLcqp6gLn1DRwchlkng6BduTRipKw7q0xkQrMtf91WdWu91xhIoB0c2bhwh9JKap5wbqutjB7knZw2I6ySY0DzAihvBW_3oWc/s1600/IMG_0013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBsnsAMWKJqZJXBd-iaGY6CnY-Y1X04soF-TnspkXOUfLLcqp6gLn1DRwchlkng6BduTRipKw7q0xkQrMtf91WdWu91xhIoB0c2bhwh9JKap5wbqutjB7knZw2I6ySY0DzAihvBW_3oWc/s200/IMG_0013.jpg" width="200px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I could feel that I wasn’t always where they wanted me to be. Helpful, I suppose, but still I felt as if I was invading their space and their experience. It was a little like filming a documentary. I wanted to reach in and be part of it, yet I knew I should just observe and not insert myself in the moment, so as not to upset that natural balance. And, so I found a time to leave them alone allowing them to bask in their own light for a while. </div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">To give them a break I went to the mall and had my eyebrows threaded. It was supposed to be something that we did together, the new Mom and I, but babies don’t really care about plans their grownups make. </div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Eyebrow threading is a technique imported from <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">India. It hurts a little but it’s an interesting feeling more than it is what I'd describe as real pain. The hairs are ripped out in groups rather than singularly, as in plucking, but not all at once, either, as in waxing. The Asian girl who did the threading gave me the most soothing facial massage after it was over. I told her how wonderful it felt as she worked wonders on my forehead, eyelids and temples. In broken English she said to me “To help forget the pain.” And, so it did. </div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36m41kHZQNfd_lT5tKSF3YWPhCY478PKK7HMhSmfyyV8cOGjnAJ70sxcR4wZ1KhCqHqcU8nAkWT5DwA_lHGoQTEuK3reaBgLdig9b7CYdvhuKSwN4DOp2wk680B7nDBQGW_mv_h71VoM/s1600/IMG_0037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36m41kHZQNfd_lT5tKSF3YWPhCY478PKK7HMhSmfyyV8cOGjnAJ70sxcR4wZ1KhCqHqcU8nAkWT5DwA_lHGoQTEuK3reaBgLdig9b7CYdvhuKSwN4DOp2wk680B7nDBQGW_mv_h71VoM/s320/IMG_0037.jpg" width="239px" /></a>If only there was some such ritual, a touch of some kind to take away the very real pain of missing that baby. When I was with her, like the ocean, all I could do was look at her, mesmerized, hypnotized, warmed by her little body and the rest of the world receded into the background. Now, that I have left her I can reflect on feelings and I want to write about that. Not about ancestors I never knew. </div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">And yet, I know why I felt when I first held her that she was mine, too. I could not see her father in her, nor could I see me. She is this brand new life, a completely new being, and a clean slate upon which her story will be written. Nevertheless, she is also the embodiment of all those ancestors I write about here. She is all of us in this family tree. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90uG3hQsi1jnMrluqjwjnVJiSgkZkUJnPk4ordOGP4FXZjYLyxGjWooTWYYU6u68nxhHhHPaLYIbrCZFz0QVGfO-26uERwg_8rXoxs8nX8tmf8HCjapbMPfSn17kfqmuGnMslIo4qf5o/s1600/mallblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90uG3hQsi1jnMrluqjwjnVJiSgkZkUJnPk4ordOGP4FXZjYLyxGjWooTWYYU6u68nxhHhHPaLYIbrCZFz0QVGfO-26uERwg_8rXoxs8nX8tmf8HCjapbMPfSn17kfqmuGnMslIo4qf5o/s320/mallblog.jpg" width="214px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">She is Henrietta. She is Jessie, Rose-Marie and Kim. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">She is William and Leslie, She's Daniel. She's Jim. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">She is Scotland. She's England. She's Portugal. She's Rome.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">She's Canada. She's Sudbury. She's Manhattan. She's home.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">She is all who came before her, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">Every branch of this great tree, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">Each leaf, each bud, each blossom, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">And she's everything to me. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HKBWjQS4wRTY3ilXeky8Yc8GUZvLkUqmmaFDdWbd75-WrvIiQKKLnqa2HeYHqnzratXkj7oj0zbB996Gbg9nN5ita1qhyYg4ERqYYdQrv6BznjotNjWsaY4ll9p-94IcfZSOBj8NOeM/s1600/182271_190397390982756_100000374883498_520303_2015557_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HKBWjQS4wRTY3ilXeky8Yc8GUZvLkUqmmaFDdWbd75-WrvIiQKKLnqa2HeYHqnzratXkj7oj0zbB996Gbg9nN5ita1qhyYg4ERqYYdQrv6BznjotNjWsaY4ll9p-94IcfZSOBj8NOeM/s320/182271_190397390982756_100000374883498_520303_2015557_n.jpg" width="214px" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“I will call into the past, far back to the beginning of time and beg them to come and help me at the judgment. I will reach back and draw them into me, and they must come, for at this moment I am the whole reason they have existed at all.”</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">From the movie “The Amistad”</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-74720142657662847922011-03-17T18:03:00.336-04:002011-03-18T16:39:51.182-04:00Father calls me William, sister calls me Will, Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The Willett side of my family, my paternal grandmother's people, are still a bit of a mystery to me. Gram was exceedingly proud to be a Willett and I have felt that pride myself all my life. That's why it's been kind of difficult for me to write this story today. Ordinarily, I would just be light about finding something less than stellar in our tree. I think it's because I haven't found out too much about the Willetts yet that it was a little harder to write this one. The furthest I can go back is to my 3rd great grandfather, Ebenezer. He was born in 1798 in Babylon, NY. <br />
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They all seem to be New Yorkers, something else Gram was proud to be. Her father, George, was a New York City Policeman, his father a well respected plumber and gas-fitter. Ebenezer was a "Bayman" or a fisherman and lived on Long Island for all of his life where he raised my great, great grandfather, Marinus the plumber and six other children. Another of Ebenezer's sons, William Forte Willett, who was my great great grand uncle, also had a son whom he named William Forte Willett, Jr. Today's story is about William Willett, Jr. <br />
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William Forte Willett, Jr. was born in The Flatlands in 1869. This is a small neighborhood, now part of Brooklyn, but back then it was a farming town separate from the city, close to Jamaica Bay. In fact it was one of the oldest communities in New York, having been settled in the 1630s by the Dutch. The area was heavily Dutch which leads me to think that The Netherlands may be the place to look for our Willetts oldest roots. To give you some idea of the community of the Flatlands at the time, when William Jr was 3 years old, the directory for the town listed 87 people, 49 of them were farmers. Six worked on the water as fisherman or sailors, including William's grandfather Ebenezer. William's father was a plumber and possibly in business with my great great grandfather, Marinus. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9jrYdhBk-NEY_-fWi0gJ87UZZXSBLYXAw8z4XTx28aqAzBEiehSZaTNx4UGCIT4tv8eXADHNVuc7nFjg8De8QsG5LaV5r0kbjQawLZ7ttBF9_MY5l5Zg0Laf5S-umF2VLagxukd6UYk/s1600/The+Flatlands.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9jrYdhBk-NEY_-fWi0gJ87UZZXSBLYXAw8z4XTx28aqAzBEiehSZaTNx4UGCIT4tv8eXADHNVuc7nFjg8De8QsG5LaV5r0kbjQawLZ7ttBF9_MY5l5Zg0Laf5S-umF2VLagxukd6UYk/s320/The+Flatlands.bmp" width="320" /></a></div>William Jr. was the eldest of three children. He was eleven years older than his sister Elizabeth and eight years older than his brother, Marinus, with whom he was very close all of their lives. William Jr. attended Brooklyn public schools and went on to the University of New York where he earned a Law Degree and began practicing law in 1896. He married Marie Rebecca Van Tassel, probably of Dutch origin, although her family was from New Jersey at the time they married. They had two children, Marie and William Foster Willett.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYL1Mo-bPBbsPvCl4weA9WpOtVn4wn1FUmTVyriYycmhx0H3avLCQ11B4ajxbXXOwnso6vVHitwX-ntV1Y7DY2tKBPq218GbuSEmCE1SPCsr_6ywoDJoalHEjJW66oaDFLpNixn9fIrgI/s1600/Wm+Forte+Willett+Jr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYL1Mo-bPBbsPvCl4weA9WpOtVn4wn1FUmTVyriYycmhx0H3avLCQ11B4ajxbXXOwnso6vVHitwX-ntV1Y7DY2tKBPq218GbuSEmCE1SPCsr_6ywoDJoalHEjJW66oaDFLpNixn9fIrgI/s320/Wm+Forte+Willett+Jr.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>William Jr.'s practice became quite successful and it wasn't long before he had offices in Jamaica, Far Rockaway and Manhattan. In 1904 he ran for Congress, as a Democrat, but was defeated. He ran again in 1906 and he won that election. <br />
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He served for four years in Washington, living the high life and was found residing in an expensive Hotel in DC. The Congress Hall Hotel built in 1907 provided Exclusive accommodations for members of Congress who needed long-term housing as well as rooms for visiting dignitaries. It opened late in 1907 or early 1908. The newly elected Representative apparently wanted to be where the action was. He was listed in one article as one of a handful of folks who had already made reservations for an apartment at the new luxury spot just across the street from the capitol building, even before it was completed. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcADaBHU_WG6ZZ3YJG4I1nf-6_bUNQKQqmkpRYwnU65pJeQElQKJ9lsQW1gWHPj_tYaVoQVzhcqsISD4woQP72GVq91lnYdg05vygD7AfPk0WQWbKETTZmcZYfDdpdli5fD1ph9u_oGE/s1600/hotel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcADaBHU_WG6ZZ3YJG4I1nf-6_bUNQKQqmkpRYwnU65pJeQElQKJ9lsQW1gWHPj_tYaVoQVzhcqsISD4woQP72GVq91lnYdg05vygD7AfPk0WQWbKETTZmcZYfDdpdli5fD1ph9u_oGE/s320/hotel.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>Although he only served four years, he made two memorable speeches from the floor, both revealing his distaste for one Teddy Roosevelt. In one, which he delivered in March of 1907, he denounced the President blaming him for the financial panic of 1907. (I didn't really know there was a financial panic then, did you?)"There seems to be," he said,"a conspiracy of silence on the part of Republican members of the House on the subject of cause and effect of the panic." "Those members, he declared, were "afraid to attack the president for fear of his big stick."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFwTK30tnQJwwPqo4sdmyqCQw0MyZdXDWWvAeEG4dYyJjn64uEMnmoUuGk8w0hxfLzgodznfwltEktRsqJQXRGsr4blC5lZO9f5Z4XJsmv3H_GpOeecXVP1C5zE35RNRfCJwGgK2NLp2A/s1600/rooseveltsmile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFwTK30tnQJwwPqo4sdmyqCQw0MyZdXDWWvAeEG4dYyJjn64uEMnmoUuGk8w0hxfLzgodznfwltEktRsqJQXRGsr4blC5lZO9f5Z4XJsmv3H_GpOeecXVP1C5zE35RNRfCJwGgK2NLp2A/s200/rooseveltsmile.jpg" width="178" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">But, exponentially nasty and cutting was a speech he gave from the floor on January 18, 1909 when he attacked President Roosevelt once more, never actually using his name, but instead calling him: Gargoyle Tyrant, Horse-tender, Hay Tedder, Fountain of Billingsgate, Imitation of a King, Bogus Hero and, my favorite, Pygmy Descendant of Dutch Tradespeople. I am not sure what most of those meant, but I really liked the Pygmy Descendant of Dutch Tradespeople, especially since I believe that the Willetts and the Van Tassells, his father and mother's people, probably were Dutch Tradespeople. <br />
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So condemning and according to many, inappropriate, was this speech that the House voted to stop him from concluding it and then, voted to have it expunged from the record altogether. It is something you might want to take the time to read as it is quite eloquent, albeit pretty nasty. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">If you click on this link, <a href="http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/view.aspx?dbid=8564&path=1909.1.18.1&sid=&gskw=william+willett&cr=1">Link to HOUSE STOPS WILLETT Jan 18, 1909</a> I am hoping you can get to a copy of the story in print you can read. The article is continued on page 2 so just click the right arrow near the top of the newspaper to go to page 2. </div></div></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIZ1JflQJGKhYLNKU00iqMmL8lk9UnKZTQsY9ejTtj0O559Hc1LzelNb-PkEFJxt6iFrpaFHU6Z0UfgATZWdxKWy4hvnrxw5XiqV3q6GDLXYqWPUn5a-WHh0qDoVwQl0Gy52U8ZqmpePU/s1600/House+STops+Willett+page+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIZ1JflQJGKhYLNKU00iqMmL8lk9UnKZTQsY9ejTtj0O559Hc1LzelNb-PkEFJxt6iFrpaFHU6Z0UfgATZWdxKWy4hvnrxw5XiqV3q6GDLXYqWPUn5a-WHh0qDoVwQl0Gy52U8ZqmpePU/s640/House+STops+Willett+page+1.jpg" width="275" /></a><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So, William didn't get reelected and settled back at home to continue his legal practice back in New York. But, it wasn't long before he was once again in the news. In 1911 he was accused of buying a nomination for a supreme court judgeship in New York. The Democratic Political "Boss" at the time, one Joseph Cassidy was supposed to have received a bribe from William Jr. in order to secure this nomination. Although the nomination was made, he never received that judgeship. Instead, he was indicted for bribery and after a long court trial which was closely followed in the newspapers, poor William Jr. and Boss Curley Joe Cassidy and the poor fellow who delivered the money, were found guilty. <br />
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William Jr.'s brother, Marinus, had followed in his older brother's shoes and had also become an attorney. He was mentioned in several articles because there was some suspicion that he was involved in the crime. At one point he was sought after as a witness, a "person of interest" in modern day terms, but the prosecutor's office couldn't find him anywhere. The District Attorney was wondering what had become of him and according to others who the reporter questioned, Marinus hadn't been seen in several days. The DA said that process servers had been looking for him for three days when one article was written in January of 1911. William's defense about the $27,000 he had withdrawn from various bank accounts around town was for investing in a business deal with Marinus. But apparently Marinus was never charged and I didn't find his testimony mentioned, so I am not sure if the prosecutor's office ever found him. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisPKzylHSNVehSjzRv_ADb8lC13Fg1Hbts_D_6CmuMz4Bn83k7V9-9XN3cAUK1GYzp4-wPzhWgZwlJjfIitAZ46tWqWc55AOAWgq6Ns1g3ABAP0W3HuK9knui5P_EfoY93WCrcmEgC4Bk/s1600/Headlines+Hunting+Willetts+brother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="91" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisPKzylHSNVehSjzRv_ADb8lC13Fg1Hbts_D_6CmuMz4Bn83k7V9-9XN3cAUK1GYzp4-wPzhWgZwlJjfIitAZ46tWqWc55AOAWgq6Ns1g3ABAP0W3HuK9knui5P_EfoY93WCrcmEgC4Bk/s320/Headlines+Hunting+Willetts+brother.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKePMUYRt_IWTW99KcszPO5OePN72RK0PIxlZ1yjwD_9FwfY3yA5rY54Wd66kVyviSrafZxkLLijX3yAcO_u-QkWbyneBbVceTzOQozyqAnNQutAcibXsNDf_6YLbBmFgiGCva0GtaKC8/s1600/Joseph_Cassidy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKePMUYRt_IWTW99KcszPO5OePN72RK0PIxlZ1yjwD_9FwfY3yA5rY54Wd66kVyviSrafZxkLLijX3yAcO_u-QkWbyneBbVceTzOQozyqAnNQutAcibXsNDf_6YLbBmFgiGCva0GtaKC8/s1600/Joseph_Cassidy.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joe Cassidy</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Despite the ex-Congressman's innocent plea, William and Joe were sentenced to serve eighteen months in Sing Sing. An account of his first days in Sing Sing appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on January 15, 1914. The article is very interesting and full of details about their arrival and their lives at Sing Sing. It describes William Jr. as follows: "Willett was a sort of Beau Brummel always scrupulously careful about his personal appearance. When he entered the prison and submitted himself to be bathed and then re-clothed, he discarded a rich brown overcoat of brown Melton and a hat of the same shade...If Willett is a model prisoner, he may be permitted to act as judge or "counsel" for the Golden Rule Brotherhood, which is the prisoner's organization. The Brotherhood tries complaints in court and a prisoner acts as judge while others plead the case as attorneys before the court." </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAH9x9eZObQUhGGD9a8hzc0Y7uEvsOxWS3hejwvtr4n7cEzs7lL_qVO1WX6M-SQbGTDqSvdaJxr6ext0mMeAIF6tm97fDDO7xRSDHGjAlB8Lzgz56HvzrDxYzsLkOx2kCWFwbu2JakrXQ/s1600/First+Day+in+Jail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAH9x9eZObQUhGGD9a8hzc0Y7uEvsOxWS3hejwvtr4n7cEzs7lL_qVO1WX6M-SQbGTDqSvdaJxr6ext0mMeAIF6tm97fDDO7xRSDHGjAlB8Lzgz56HvzrDxYzsLkOx2kCWFwbu2JakrXQ/s1600/First+Day+in+Jail.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">In fact, William does finally get his judgeship, although it would be while he was in Sing Sing. There are many, many newspaper articles about William Jr. and this whole case. So much material was available it was hard for me to choose what to include here. But, I have to include one article entitled "Sing Sing "Judge" Punched by Convict" which was the story of how after sentencing an inmate to 10 days in confinement, the ex-Congressman, (the title always attached to William in these articles), was punched by the inmate, losing several teeth and landing in the hospital. On another occasion, "Judge' Willett was struck in the head by a stool while presiding over the prisoner's court. </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">Another article in 1916, the headline reads "Prisoner Strolls Around City, Tells of Willett Junket". Apparently they were bringing William between the jail at White Plains and Great Meadow Prison. He was escorted by a "keeper" Charles Stewart. It says he "enjoyed five pleasant hours" in the City one Sunday, dining and strolling about in Manhattan. He and his keeper, Mr. Stewart, dined at a hotel on 42nd Street, then wandered around for a few hours. They left for Albany on a train, taking two berths in a sleeper. They got to Albany about 5 the next morning, had breakfast at the Hotel Stanwix. Stewart explained they stopped in the capital so William could have a talk with the superintendent of prisons about his parole. They were to take the 4:45 train from Albany, but were late and had to sprint to catch it. William caught the 4:45 train to Whitehall, "but Stewart missed it because he could not sprint as fast as his prisoner." Stewart telegraphedd ahead and William "accommodatingly" returned to Albany and they left at 11:15 Monday night for Great Meadow, arriving there Tuesday morning. I guess he wasn't exactly a maximum security prisoner. </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">Then, another article accuses William Jr. of conducting business and actively trading on the stock market while in prison. Chances are that's true since once he was released, he seems to have gone on to do quite well. He became the out-of-town manager for a prominent realty auctioneer and seemed to have come out of it all fairly well. I haven't looked into what happened to Curley Joe Cassidy, but he probably landed on his feet as well. </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">From everything I have learned about William and about Boss Cassidy, William was a smart guy, but maybe not too clever. He probably got caught up in Joe Cassidy's schemes being inexperienced in politics. I suspect he got bedazzled by the power but also probably believed that it was common practice at the time, so what choice did he have if he wanted to be a judge? He was no match for the temptation that Curly Joe put in front of him. The atmosphere was ripe for making an example of these two, but particularly of Boss Cassidy. </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">In January 1914 the following appeared in the American Review of Reviews in an article about New York Graft:</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><em>"The practice of paying large sums of money to political organizations in return for nominations to judgeships had obtained so long in and about New York that it had even come to be taken by members of the bar and others as a matter of course. It is true that the money did not usually pass in such a way as to constitute an actual purchase that could be legally proven yet the large contributions to campaign funds made by judiciary candidates before and after nominating conventions placed the candidate in the position of a buyer and the political committee in the position of a trafficker in the desired nomination, District Attorney Cropsey succeeded in this particular instance in proving to the satisfaction of a jury that former Congressman William Willett paid to Joseph Cassidy the Democratic boss of Queens County in 1911 a large sum of money for the explicit and single purpose of securing a nomination to the State Supreme Court." </em></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><em>"Since the fall of John Y McKane, more than twenty years ago no boss of so high a rank as Cassidy has ever been made to serve a prison sentence. The incident carries its warning to all bosses but especially to the present leadership of Tammany Hall to whose door in the past has come many an aspiring lawyer with ambitions to grace the bench. Even more impressive is the lesson it teaches to the New York electorate. It can no longer be said that judgeships can be bought and sold with impunity or that those who are powerful in politics are beyond the law's reach."</em></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><em><br />
</em></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">All but lost in this flurry of newspaper articles was one small article that tells the story of Governor Whitman granting William Junior a full pardon in 1918. </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">In February of 1938, William Forte Willett, Jr. was found by a maid, dead in his hotel room at the age of 68. His wife was visiting their daughter and her family at the time. Their home in Woodmere, Long Island, just on the other side of Jamaica Bay from the Flatlands where he was born, was closed-up for the winter. William and Marie were living in the Hotel McAlpine in Manhatten, as was their custom during that time of year. William had just returned from a trip to Washington, although I don't know why he was there. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8knGjQ4AWpxAmxMc_CUOUAmOHuckFcy8MMYFOFZ8pGiP2fMr-2PirYr5bIMSlOhwd1Gk2EpXCfFlIjanz9BPtCWjgED7f5DoIyQs-6f1XUkjeM6ApmojiLncoYLZRHeCPDEWN_1Osf4U/s1600/willett+obit+headline.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="164" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8knGjQ4AWpxAmxMc_CUOUAmOHuckFcy8MMYFOFZ8pGiP2fMr-2PirYr5bIMSlOhwd1Gk2EpXCfFlIjanz9BPtCWjgED7f5DoIyQs-6f1XUkjeM6ApmojiLncoYLZRHeCPDEWN_1Osf4U/s320/willett+obit+headline.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">William Forte Willett, Jr. died of natural causes but his daughter, when asked to comment, said that her father's death "may have been partly due to grief over the death of his brother Marinus Willett, a well-known lawyer, on Christmas Day."</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div align="left" class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-56106553207329244812011-03-10T15:09:00.004-05:002011-03-10T15:34:58.776-05:00A Devil of an AncestorOne family member my mother spoke about on occasion was Uncle Thaxter. He was, according to my mother, a very well-known architect and someone she really respected. I never knew him but he seemed a fairly interesting fellow the way my mother talked about him, so I decided to do a little investigating. I only had my mother's stories to go by and that's where I started. <br />
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When my mother knew Uncle Thaxter, he and his wife Mabel were living in Belmont, on a large estate with beautiful gardens. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqto0LtDnKHDpZljSMNwpSOyRE_i3_VQk__pBbGKSqw_RyafHM6WS6gCDFcz9e2eKcO3UTDT95vEAjnQS0jo03ns5XhsP2jyz_dfIum9Xs2g24rbl43iioLylJEmqQmK7Ri1bF5lZSknM/s1600/BelmontEstate1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="194" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqto0LtDnKHDpZljSMNwpSOyRE_i3_VQk__pBbGKSqw_RyafHM6WS6gCDFcz9e2eKcO3UTDT95vEAjnQS0jo03ns5XhsP2jyz_dfIum9Xs2g24rbl43iioLylJEmqQmK7Ri1bF5lZSknM/s320/BelmontEstate1905.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The family Estate in Belmont</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
According to my mother's recollections, Aunt Mabel was a good friend of Mrs. Gardner, of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. She remembers going to tea at Mrs. Gardner's house once. She said that Aunt Mabel's hair was bright red, but that Mrs. Gardner's hair was even brighter red. She remembered that she had a lion as a house pet and my mother thought it was a very large dog. Somehow, Mrs. Gardner was very friendly with some circus folk and through these circus people she acquired some performing dogs for my mother's grandmother. One of the dogs was named Trixie. Trixie could walk on her hind legs, holding my great grandmother's hand for the whole length of a city block. Now that would have left an impression on me, too. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOOf3TSKWjvzW3AZqHPObKRkOyN3j7Sv2biRrSfJMKv711MnYSgUiVdZPx-xOvxIzeQblCZiRaFDJOE70iHdaEH3lvWSPtVwdaT1-pKxMpWzfumnH-Xm8zl5Mbr4oigqgXJs8d_QOKdk/s1600/IsabellaGardner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="233" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOOf3TSKWjvzW3AZqHPObKRkOyN3j7Sv2biRrSfJMKv711MnYSgUiVdZPx-xOvxIzeQblCZiRaFDJOE70iHdaEH3lvWSPtVwdaT1-pKxMpWzfumnH-Xm8zl5Mbr4oigqgXJs8d_QOKdk/s320/IsabellaGardner.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isabella Stewart Gardner</td></tr>
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Mrs. Gardner was credited with the quote: "Don't spoil a good story by telling the truth." Unfortunately, I must say that what my mother remembered, was more likely something she was told. It is unlikely she went to tea with Mrs. Gardner since Mrs. Gardner died 4 years before my mother was born. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXrXd-BtGqN3-jDlVTmVriJtCwFhMzkQ0Qzw25mHWiJV2Fdc08HDNKthHr1rNlHMBjFog1WBZ6eVWUA9oJBfJdkwq59vkwujpVxCvVBpY7G4gy7-t44lWVZemVAMIwC4Uib4Wj1vBuMQ/s1600/isabella+gardner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXrXd-BtGqN3-jDlVTmVriJtCwFhMzkQ0Qzw25mHWiJV2Fdc08HDNKthHr1rNlHMBjFog1WBZ6eVWUA9oJBfJdkwq59vkwujpVxCvVBpY7G4gy7-t44lWVZemVAMIwC4Uib4Wj1vBuMQ/s320/isabella+gardner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>But, the story of the lion has some grain of truth to it as it is one of the more well-known stories about the eccentric Mrs. Gardner. Isabella Gardner had one child who died in infancy but she and her husband raised 3 nephews so, to give my mother the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was the wife of one of those nephews who she was remembering. <br />
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Since that bit of information really didn't pan out in the investigation, I went on to the normal research of census records and the like. Not knowing much about him except his name and his profession and that he was married to Aunt Mabel, it was a bit of a challenge. How Uncle Thaxter was related to us was another mystery that I had to solve and that I thought might lead me to some answers.<br />
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My mother knew that Uncle Thaxter's wife's name was Mabel, but she did not know to which branch of the family Mabel belonged. In one census record, Mabel's middle initial was W. I made the assumption that she might have been a West, my great great grandmother's maiden name. That assumption proved to be accurate and through the census records in Southbridge I found out that there was a Mabel West born almost 20 years after my great great grandmother Clara West Paige.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn63-FYtJ50zKZM3ktvDTEU2wgFOCIG5-tEC8mDqH8A1HwQg0fsfGrlSbOo4MrB8lPfOseH2CdpIAjzNT3TKtm3Kf3mMu5_N8KNvsSjYK544kZd7wtuASCCeFiNU2OIIXUkiEgW5O6kQ4/s1600/ClaraWestPaige.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn63-FYtJ50zKZM3ktvDTEU2wgFOCIG5-tEC8mDqH8A1HwQg0fsfGrlSbOo4MrB8lPfOseH2CdpIAjzNT3TKtm3Kf3mMu5_N8KNvsSjYK544kZd7wtuASCCeFiNU2OIIXUkiEgW5O6kQ4/s320/ClaraWestPaige.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clara West Paige my GGGrandmother. </td></tr>
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They shared the same father but Mabel had a different mother. So, Uncle Thaxter was my great great grandmother's half sister's husband. Not exactly in my direct line. But, still interesting to me.<br />
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Although that mystery was solved, I wanted to know more about Uncle Thaxter. What I found out is that he was born in Boston in 1872, the son of a Boston physician and a wealthy socialite. I found out that his first name wasn't Thaxter, but rather Herbert and Thaxter was his middle name.<br />
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Uncle Thaxter was an architect of some note, as my mother remembered. He designed many public buildings and many private homes in the Boston area, but more specifically in Belmont, Mass. I found several Boston business directories listing Uncle Thaxter's architectural firm on Boylston street. He designed several municipal buildings in Belmont, including the Junior High School and the Police Station. He designed the Sacred Heart Church rectory in Malden, the Watson Memorial Chapel in Acton and many homes throughout the greater Boston area. <br />
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His uncle Loring, a landscape architect, designed the first outdoor pool in America for the community of Belmont and Uncle Thaxter designed the locker rooms and the bathhouse for the pool, pictured below. The land on which the pool was built, surrounded by a large playground, was donated by Thaxter's Uncle Henry. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7u2E7Ze3xzBQTIhnmg58QUvIcfDXm8uoz63VAbDDufDVB4t5IAX1648pVh93aNcJFer2W9yAXLsqj3fJQEOHX3XRhTRrmwfPbuo2wJhPUkMu5938ftvrPjLvORZBl5E6SytuNNIsFNQ/s1600/underwoodpool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7u2E7Ze3xzBQTIhnmg58QUvIcfDXm8uoz63VAbDDufDVB4t5IAX1648pVh93aNcJFer2W9yAXLsqj3fJQEOHX3XRhTRrmwfPbuo2wJhPUkMu5938ftvrPjLvORZBl5E6SytuNNIsFNQ/s320/underwoodpool.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The outdoor pool at Belmont</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Thaxter served on the Belmont Board of Assessors for almost 30 years and was a town meeting member for many years. He was president of the Middlesex County Assessors Association and the Massachusetts Assessors Association. He was a director of the Waverly Cooperative Bank, a charter member of the Boston City Club and several other charitable fraternal organizations. He was very active in his church as well. <br />
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At some point he became one of the most knowledgeable builders and architects of bank buildings, particularly in and around New Orleans. But he returned to the Boston area and that's where he died at the age of 77 and in his obituary in 1949 he left no children, just his wife Mabel, his sister Ethel and a niece from Peabody.<br />
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</div>Uncle Thaxter was an interesting and successful fellow, I learned, but some of his relatives really piqued my interest along the way. He came from a large family of over achievers. His sister Ethel was an accomplished artist and was known in particular for painting miniature portraits. Perhaps that was how Mabel met Mrs. Gardner, or whomever. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Mu9BSHr-7Ub3h9SF5BoOI6Joa99ET6kSss5yuzgxDkXi7oKRweFmnlx-T1j6hFbIE5Wwxf4I6GtrQwn9uzS6_8rrvjoeTBZcfWvhB1bZvfIWdmfz3P1iUoizONgXyE5i6lJKMO8iKmw/s1600/Oneof+Ethel+Underwoods+paintings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Mu9BSHr-7Ub3h9SF5BoOI6Joa99ET6kSss5yuzgxDkXi7oKRweFmnlx-T1j6hFbIE5Wwxf4I6GtrQwn9uzS6_8rrvjoeTBZcfWvhB1bZvfIWdmfz3P1iUoizONgXyE5i6lJKMO8iKmw/s1600/Oneof+Ethel+Underwoods+paintings.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of Ethel's miniatures.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Thaxter's brother George was a Boston purchasing agent and his other brother Western, was a Los Angeles Banker. Thaxter's uncle Loring, the designer of the pool, was a highly respected landscape architect who designed many large gardens in the area and around the country. He was the resident landscape architect at Vassar College and designed their Shakespeare Garden, the second oldest in the country in honor of the bard. It was built in 1916 using seeds from Shakespeare's own garden. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqrXxyR848aakOV1LQezoRVU4_97c8OY60sSovzWBd5zgSm394AYWtC9O3DW6CSjVWu3zMuiHB06MCRDPLZYg-2SKIou6wvbrXJLf3lKqDcBkWMvcdB9z2P5dD7LxQ-AiN3yNljRggjUg/s1600/4724350877_7ccfaa49df.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="244" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqrXxyR848aakOV1LQezoRVU4_97c8OY60sSovzWBd5zgSm394AYWtC9O3DW6CSjVWu3zMuiHB06MCRDPLZYg-2SKIou6wvbrXJLf3lKqDcBkWMvcdB9z2P5dD7LxQ-AiN3yNljRggjUg/s320/4724350877_7ccfaa49df.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Building the Shakespeare Garden in 1916</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjb7urzAB-Cv2enZnd-W_zBuhfJKy4RXnHcluhzibUx66zB7qjkY-p1FxkyazV8FE5Hof9y9us4_4j2enevrqjDuzlKCjLQ3ejj54KG4BvExbylL7ux6IwqDYBJj-omILCPjulErhrT0U/s1600/vassr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjb7urzAB-Cv2enZnd-W_zBuhfJKy4RXnHcluhzibUx66zB7qjkY-p1FxkyazV8FE5Hof9y9us4_4j2enevrqjDuzlKCjLQ3ejj54KG4BvExbylL7ux6IwqDYBJj-omILCPjulErhrT0U/s1600/vassr.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shakespeare Garden at Vassar today</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Loring wrote several books, mostly about gardens, featuring his own photos. Loring and his brother William Lyman, in fact, were both well-known commercial photographers. W. Lyman concentrated on nature of the northeast. A book of the photos of Thaxter's two uncles entitled "Gentlemen Photographers" is available on Amazon.com. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2PgeoFuGSarYiv4P7TZ9E_F05L5Xz8xEBgMGqvcU-uupt2YES_h4Ngc5JKXnN3t5QgOIh2R6H6ES1Yua4daxNcUvCM0QZKh7RYkxW28Ms5f7JPGrdaPNsoI4v_mmrZUZ1B1N1t-e26_I/s1600/lyman+and+loring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2PgeoFuGSarYiv4P7TZ9E_F05L5Xz8xEBgMGqvcU-uupt2YES_h4Ngc5JKXnN3t5QgOIh2R6H6ES1Yua4daxNcUvCM0QZKh7RYkxW28Ms5f7JPGrdaPNsoI4v_mmrZUZ1B1N1t-e26_I/s1600/lyman+and+loring.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">W. Lyman and Loring enjoying nature</td></tr>
</tbody></table>W. Lyman published several books as well, including "The Mosquito Nuisance and How to Deal with it";<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6NyCv1mb4HjuePJvG0m-1BhTmZ0movS2vcDs-_gipdnOQo6iAUjBW_f3Qk20AAoo3Z9oO19KAk50fIQhLYx9Yw9ujQL0d2I4p-MqLmqI2scpLpE3PVVG5R3AOQpFXMWMye1fGwxUgmjg/s1600/mosquito.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6NyCv1mb4HjuePJvG0m-1BhTmZ0movS2vcDs-_gipdnOQo6iAUjBW_f3Qk20AAoo3Z9oO19KAk50fIQhLYx9Yw9ujQL0d2I4p-MqLmqI2scpLpE3PVVG5R3AOQpFXMWMye1fGwxUgmjg/s320/mosquito.jpg" width="218" /></a></div>"Wilderness Adventures" and "Wild Brother: The Strangest of True Stories from the North Woods" published in 1921.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1Swd2YWRXyroHSNq_JKgsfkUdFrJbNTaPDnhyphenhyphenUUY6Lee549YcbF3m7tjJstEfs4RDhuMfDvEgInVYj1GoO3yCNTbz-K8DoIpRKC0TLlmhwSWS_qb6KpUwhIGfOJ3bJaeQVOrM_R64z8/s1600/Bruno+in+Belmont.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1Swd2YWRXyroHSNq_JKgsfkUdFrJbNTaPDnhyphenhyphenUUY6Lee549YcbF3m7tjJstEfs4RDhuMfDvEgInVYj1GoO3yCNTbz-K8DoIpRKC0TLlmhwSWS_qb6KpUwhIGfOJ3bJaeQVOrM_R64z8/s320/Bruno+in+Belmont.jpg" width="202" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bruno in the living room in Belmont</td></tr>
</tbody></table>This Wild Brother story is about Bruno, a bear cub found when he was just a day or two old after his mother had been killed. He was taken in by a family called the Weldons who lived in a lumber camp in northern Maine. Mrs. Weldon who had a newborn herself, actually nursed this tiny two pound bear cub along with her own child. Kind of a strange thought, but the story is quite interesting and touching as well as humorous. It includes photographs taken by Uncle Lyman. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4LIQaGSuQlaX9oDHmJGR5vXflxm1qRIcH8d-czT4nhgTULcLYtKYAAFN1Htik8FYQTzIJtMmqarcjdC1VBdYtDkzcc7HuMiaSzsBY1MXjEvM-URqt36mCT4KlgrH37OFXbIQfFj8OU0/s1600/Bruno+nursing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4LIQaGSuQlaX9oDHmJGR5vXflxm1qRIcH8d-czT4nhgTULcLYtKYAAFN1Htik8FYQTzIJtMmqarcjdC1VBdYtDkzcc7HuMiaSzsBY1MXjEvM-URqt36mCT4KlgrH37OFXbIQfFj8OU0/s320/Bruno+nursing.jpg" width="294" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Ursala and Bruno and Mrs. Weldon-nursing her cubs.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotJJp-bsslll6i-WV9KcmX3DQfMp1-y6uwNUbdCfPvMMq2mJANQjw2WmmT8jVecSctqMpX4LnTmALxx7W5FzSaE35w8Xf0A0qwwKjadIMovChA9JkCvd7Tx68VXCrbM_sS0eOLnPY1Ys/s1600/brunohug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotJJp-bsslll6i-WV9KcmX3DQfMp1-y6uwNUbdCfPvMMq2mJANQjw2WmmT8jVecSctqMpX4LnTmALxx7W5FzSaE35w8Xf0A0qwwKjadIMovChA9JkCvd7Tx68VXCrbM_sS0eOLnPY1Ys/s320/brunohug.jpg" width="207" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uncle Lyman and Bruno</td></tr>
</tbody></table>As the story unfolds, the bear, Bruno, after a few months, moves to Belmont where Thaxter and his Uncles, Aunts and cousins made their home on the family estate. The book is available in its entirety on Google Books where you can read it for free, but don't go there until you've finished reading this post because there's more to Uncle Lyman's story.<br />
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Thaxter's great grandfather William, father of nine, started a condiment company in 1822. This successful company was the source of much of the family's wealth. His son William J. carried on the family business. In turn, William Lyman, although most well known as the photographer, also was very involved in the company and took on the task of improving the process of preserving foods.<br />
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In 1836 the company had switched from storing the condiments and other foods in glass containers to using cans lined with tin because Boston glass manufacturers couldn't keep up with the demand. However, there were often problems with bulging cans and tainted food. During the civil war, Uncle Thaxter's great grandfather's company supplied much of the food to the Union Army in the field and one wonders if the food these cans contained may have caused some of the casualties of that war. <br />
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Years later, during the late 1890s, Uncle Lyman, in a forward thinking stroke of genius, approached the biology department at MIT in order to solve the problem of safely preserving foods that plagued the company since its inception. In collaboration with MIT professor Samuel Cate Prescott, Uncle Lyman spent 1895 and 1896 researching clams. With Uncle Lyman's photographic skills, he was able to capture images of microscopic bacteria that assisted in this research. What this partnership between industry and academia accomplished, aside from solving the problem for the family business, would be a breakthrough in time-temperature research changing the entire food industry. It would also lead to 'food science and technology' as a profession. William Lyman retired from the company business in 1899 and for the next 30 years, until his death in 1929, he devoted his time to the study of bacteriology at MIT and took no pay for this work. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtRd5mcJNRzcGHHHTUXOOthnKSmaITTlpnoISmKbf6A7qRODCYufp0f0GvSXYbCyaUnm0iHQcg888kJGq_np3d-1O__0Xvux7wwIbldhO4PYDjg_PHG8yqNl8Wsbm5dB5QSrUsQnBQco/s1600/lymanandprescott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="230" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtRd5mcJNRzcGHHHTUXOOthnKSmaITTlpnoISmKbf6A7qRODCYufp0f0GvSXYbCyaUnm0iHQcg888kJGq_np3d-1O__0Xvux7wwIbldhO4PYDjg_PHG8yqNl8Wsbm5dB5QSrUsQnBQco/s320/lymanandprescott.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uncle Lyman and Professor Prescott</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Although this story started out as an investigation about Uncle Thaxter, it led me down a different path toward his uncle William Lyman and the others in his family. The family food business is still prospering today. I wonder if you've guessed what the last name of this family is. The company, located in Boston developed a recipe for canning spiced ham during the Civil War. William Underwood, Thaxter's Great Grandfather was the founder of that company. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgim7g0COtJHI8akI-Wn5uEan9YPAXbAOSUubSAuo0EImrhC7GQauNPeXVav29p6O0drAPUs5u4ydVbBHwFgrSjdfciE6umEMdiKyhBwethr7dXX9u18-FbpojJumxk8yTj5r4lGTxyToA/s1600/ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgim7g0COtJHI8akI-Wn5uEan9YPAXbAOSUubSAuo0EImrhC7GQauNPeXVav29p6O0drAPUs5u4ydVbBHwFgrSjdfciE6umEMdiKyhBwethr7dXX9u18-FbpojJumxk8yTj5r4lGTxyToA/s320/ad.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>And Wm. Underwood and Company's Deviled Ham is the recipe that most of us are familiar with today.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJLR-UItEpR8shZmMCP1DjHn-0tLCWxfYgsBPez5qZwNCO704VzomV4OV5uqICxM_-UOMmDt1xZBzkh2xz87OUlSTVRUxkvEsnoFFMBMr6l1NMyyOBOJ1CFPct-uhPM7lidBtyO6BpEns/s1600/1903ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="122" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJLR-UItEpR8shZmMCP1DjHn-0tLCWxfYgsBPez5qZwNCO704VzomV4OV5uqICxM_-UOMmDt1xZBzkh2xz87OUlSTVRUxkvEsnoFFMBMr6l1NMyyOBOJ1CFPct-uhPM7lidBtyO6BpEns/s320/1903ad.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifoyzySjijHO4ujzB4qXbRP2-5bH06VpPPPzrDlIpeiWF1vNpsFA8uWf9M_n_TCsEi068yXCDTNVYrS7MaE6cNCp3Bfzkwi9wjletUrKw4R2kgJ-T2HabrWJ93TnpXfPLOGrDkKvsNqjM/s1600/devham.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="284" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifoyzySjijHO4ujzB4qXbRP2-5bH06VpPPPzrDlIpeiWF1vNpsFA8uWf9M_n_TCsEi068yXCDTNVYrS7MaE6cNCp3Bfzkwi9wjletUrKw4R2kgJ-T2HabrWJ93TnpXfPLOGrDkKvsNqjM/s320/devham.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>So, I thank Uncle H. Thaxter Underwood of Belmont, Massachusetts, architect and husband of Aunt Mabel West, friend to some woman named Mrs. Gardner, owner of circus dogs and a lion; nephew of William Lyman Underwood, the hero of this story, in my opinion, for taking me down this road.<br />
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It was a devil of an investigation that I thought would take me somewhere else entirely, but I loved ending up here!Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-79129119699374853262011-02-23T15:00:00.006-05:002011-02-25T07:59:24.073-05:00Justice for Uncle Justin?Josephine Patten was my paternal great grandmother. These Pattens, as far as I know, aren't related to General George. However, we don't know that for sure. They are in fact thought to be descended from a family whose origins are Scottish, as were the General's but our immigrant came from Somerset, England prior to the Revolution to settle in Chelsea and Malden, Massachusetts before relocating in New York City in the early 1800s.<br />
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In researching this branch of the family I have become acquainted with another genealogist in the Patten family who has been gathering information about them for years. Her name is Janet and during our first exchange of email, she told me, rather apologetically, that she had learned something about one of our ancestors that might not be welcome news. However, I assured her that it was always fun to find an interesting story, be it about a horse thief or a king. <br />
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These are the stories for which we all hope. They are the tales that usually supply us with lots of information about our ancestors. When there is a famous person or, as in this case, an infamous person up there in the branches, the low hanging fruit in the form of newspaper articles, historical accounts and family stories and the like, is much closer to the ground and with just a little shaking of the limbs, it falls at our feet where if we want we can just pluck it up and run with it. It might not be quite that easy, for there is always more research to be done and puzzles to be put together, but you get the picture. <br />
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This is the story of Uncle Justin Patten, one of Josephine's father's younger brothers, just an average guy. Justin was born in New York City in 1838, the eleventh child of 16 born to James and Sara Arden Patten. New York City at that time was in some respects a pretty dangerous place to live, at least in some neighborhoods. The Gangs of New York that Scorcese made a movie about were in full swing. The Daybreak gang, the Dead Rabbits, The Slaughterhouse Gang and more, were actively preying on citizens and the newspapers were full of stories that made for great reading and extra editions. <br />
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When Justin was just 16 years old, Logan's Bakery, a place not far from his home in the 11th ward, was robbed between 2:30 and 3:00 the morning of September 29, 1854. When the baker and some of his employees surprised the two culprits, they ran. A foot chase began, the baker and his employees yelled "Watch!", the term people shouted to alert the neighborhood and the local constabulary that something was happening. Before the The New York City Police Department was formed in 1845, for 60 or more years after the British left the city, citizen patrols kept order and upheld the laws under what was called the "Watch System". <br />
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The robbery seemed fairly benign until a patrolman, James Cahill, 50 years old with only a year on the NYPD, joined the pursuit. Austin Lake, another police officer on duty, heard shouts of "Watch!" "Stop Thief" and ran toward the shouts. Shots rang out and as he ran toward where the sounds had originated, he met three bakers who said the shots had been fired at them. He saw no one until he rounded a corner and saw a man, "clinging to a tree, alive at the time but speechless and was in the act of falling to the ground." Lake went on as quoted in the New York Times: "I recognized him as one of our police officers, James Cahill. He groaned slightly as he sank to the ground; that was all the sound he made. By this time, 3 officers arrived and brought a wagon and we brought his body to the Station House."<br />
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Officer James Cahill has been officially recognized as the first New York City Police officer to die in the line of duty. There is a memorial to him at the NYPD Museum, along with other fallen Police Officers. Some dispute the distinction, stating that at least two others had been killed in the line of duty prior to Officer Cahill, but the official record states he was the first. <br />
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Now young Justin and a friend, James Ryan, were out sitting on a bench about sun-up the morning of the robbery. When a police officer stopped to talk to them, they both ran. The officer assumed that they had something to do with the crime and soon they were both arrested and charged with the murder. Five others who were in a nearby bar, all known to the police, were also arrested, but they were released.<br />
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Justin and James, however, had differing stories as to their whereabouts earlier that morning. In fact when Ryan was shown the corpse, he was reported to have asked repeatedly, "Did I do that?" Although there were no witnesses who could say they actually saw either James or Justin, they were indicted by the grand jury for the murder of officer Cahill. They were sent to jail to await trial. The New York City Jail was referred to as the Tombs, a building modeled after the Egyptian tombs. There they would sit among the hardened criminals for six months until April of the next year,when their trial would take place.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQqXstWjn4wTiYqpzXOb72VE7P8xzj54Ro2xlPalspR5CLzDP-89PML306zDvXR8u_sq1RwLCYyjG94GhlC8Chdps-TgPBcjQZcC0Tdu02yKhRrPvPZDmPxfgttEgYMR0s4WiVGB-hsAk/s1600/the+TOmbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="304" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQqXstWjn4wTiYqpzXOb72VE7P8xzj54Ro2xlPalspR5CLzDP-89PML306zDvXR8u_sq1RwLCYyjG94GhlC8Chdps-TgPBcjQZcC0Tdu02yKhRrPvPZDmPxfgttEgYMR0s4WiVGB-hsAk/s320/the+TOmbs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Tombs</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
On March 29, 1855, just before they were to go to trial, an article appeared in the New York Times with the headline: Murderers in the Tombs. This article provided a brief profile of the worst most fearsome prisoners in the Tombs beginning with a man who "murdered an old man and then stabbed the deceased's two sons with the same dagger that pierced their father's heart"; another fellow who killed his wife by "putting arsenic in her coffee"; another man who shot someone in the head with a musket; a man who kicked his wife to death and several others awaiting their trials for their horrible deeds, all murderers. And of course, Justin and James Ryan are profiled as well. Here is the actual account.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ApByIK9TYX_4qMGxpc2CHk9lYYXxsYsivOqonhHcRi677Q6Bvx8KwDQze-OIHbL-a6ACfxXPBlitVFm59CiAcL6d9XzVOtG8Sbf9u3A1UFpzzaqOibDK_k9KQFoiazJq0l-5wbKRySE/s1600/Murderers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ApByIK9TYX_4qMGxpc2CHk9lYYXxsYsivOqonhHcRi677Q6Bvx8KwDQze-OIHbL-a6ACfxXPBlitVFm59CiAcL6d9XzVOtG8Sbf9u3A1UFpzzaqOibDK_k9KQFoiazJq0l-5wbKRySE/s320/Murderers.jpg" width="285" /></a></div><br />
The two people that Justin and James were being compared to, Nicholas Saul and William Howlett were two boys who headed up the Daybreak Gang and were said to have done so at the ages of 15 and 16. Members of the gang went by names like Slobbery Jim. Sow Madden, Cow-legged Sam McCarthy and Patsy the Barber. The rumor was that each member of the gang committed at least one murder and many robberies before the age of 16. The river front was their main target, killing crew members and robbing these vessels, usually before dawn, thus the name the Daybreak gang. They had been credited with over 40 murders. Saul and Howlett's reign of terror ended with a bloody battle after they killed the watchman on a yacht. The Daybreak boys, trying to protect their leaders, put up a good fight, but Saul and Howlett were arrested and sentence to Death in 1852. They were hanged in the yard of "The Tombs" in January of 1853. I only can assume that the police and the neighborhoods were hyper vigilant about anything that seemed to be gang related. But, the write of the article may have embellished some on just how "hardened" these two boys, Justin and James, really were. <br />
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Imagine reading that article about your 16 year old brother, or son? Well, Justin's older brother, Jefferson, a well-respected successful Machine Shop owner in New York was no doubt infuriated by what the reporter had to say about his young brother. In fact, the next day this appeared in the Times.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcUFN6HSauGwpaqhdcFNHPrUeyImk6isTglNdDihhOpEe9Sf3ff9KUBphct5aHEJ4lBpDfdkVJN0vkJ448oMs1LaKn6lbLQti_ZnkdEUwnk7OuAc5tWH2zu3AtBJ0bzUBlt2UGz88PDLM/s1600/Picture3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcUFN6HSauGwpaqhdcFNHPrUeyImk6isTglNdDihhOpEe9Sf3ff9KUBphct5aHEJ4lBpDfdkVJN0vkJ448oMs1LaKn6lbLQti_ZnkdEUwnk7OuAc5tWH2zu3AtBJ0bzUBlt2UGz88PDLM/s320/Picture3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
After a very brief trial, the judge said any evidence to personal identity was so vague and just because the boys weren't at home that night didn't justify a guilty verdict. Even the District Attorney "expressed the satisfaction with which he heard any intimation that might fall from His Honor's lips, but this case was so serious that it deserved a formal trial, although certainly he had no doubt that if he sat as a juror on the case, he would join in the verdict of acquittal." " His honor then briefly addressed the prisoners, warning them of the consequences of habits that might lead even to suspicion, and after a friendly admonition as to their future conduct, ordered them to be discharged, to the infinite satisfaction of themselves and their friends." I'd be curious to find out how they felt about all that after sitting in the Tombs all those months. <br />
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Lest anyone be wondering if Justin became a hardened criminal after all or ended up back in prison, please be assured that he did not. Justin had been a gilder by trade before all this happened and he went back to that profession. He was married within 4 years of the incident to a girl named Cecilia Selmer. They had 5 children, 3 of whom were born before he enlisted in the 73rd New York Infantry during the Civil War. When he returned to his family in 1866, he became a member of the Metropolitan City Fire Department where he received meritorious commendations on several occasions, including one incident during which he was singled out for having rescued people from a burning building. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBE_K4ZcOQq2VEAvG8ocQ0Tm82ayk8waWc1z7FSU5cqxR7ZW_W9GiLc1Nb4PrvKkzOLzC2RR-gjlcyLnZrHGxjCJGm-wzmd41G8nOMjn2TxKyVzuOiWGzKyGzQawAw9x15-fTfsCRl3fY/s1600/800px-Metropolitan_Fire_Department.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBE_K4ZcOQq2VEAvG8ocQ0Tm82ayk8waWc1z7FSU5cqxR7ZW_W9GiLc1Nb4PrvKkzOLzC2RR-gjlcyLnZrHGxjCJGm-wzmd41G8nOMjn2TxKyVzuOiWGzKyGzQawAw9x15-fTfsCRl3fY/s320/800px-Metropolitan_Fire_Department.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>After, or perhaps during the same time he served on the fire department, he got a job as a street cleaner and I am sure he did what he could to keep a roof over his family's head and food on the table. In an article that appeared in the Times in 1895 he and a veteran fireman who were dismissed from the Street Cleaning Department, filed suit in the Supreme Court to see if they had the right to discharge veterans to reduce expenses while retaining non-vets. They were discharged about 3 months before the suit but no charges had been brought against them. It was strictly a budgetary decision. Their lawyer contended that as they were veterans, they could only be dismissed for cause. I don't know what happened with that lawsuit. I have a feeling he may not have prevailed as about that same time he became disabled due to an umbilical hernia and painful varicose veins and in his application for a Civil War Veteran's pension, he stated that he was unable to work and that he nearly lost his life twice due to these maladies. He was approved and received a Civil War Veteran's pension for a few short years before he died in 1899 at the age of 61. His wife received, after his death, a widow's pension of $8 a month. She lived with her daughter and her son-in-law until her death.<br />
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I think Justin was just an average guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time; out when he shouldn't have been out; hanging around in a bad part of town, probably with the wrong characters and sowing some wild oats. From the full accounts in the newspaper, (which I'd be happy to share with you if you would like to read them,) I am not convinced that James Ryan didn't actually fire that shot, nor am I convinced that Justin was there at all. And, I wonder how all that affected him and the choices he made during the rest of his life. Yes, just an average guy: a gilder, a war veteran, street sweeper, and a hero. Not a king. Not a horse thief. But what an interesting ancestor.<br />
<br />
Josephine Patten, my great grandmother and Justin's niece, was born when Justin was on the fire department. She would grow up to marry my great grandfather George Willett, a New York City Police Officer.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3xPw1HgAix3AGKvVE59U9Dv-8ZkqM66GW8He_clGoTIorRMHIw_ZSeG8p2Qaq60SHZAsdRnyWGXjKTwbcauPlDXsb2us_bJj2sErDfAcVSOWdXpdKHdzeNO2zT5GGNX0VNQ8qF5jiqu4/s1600/badge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3xPw1HgAix3AGKvVE59U9Dv-8ZkqM66GW8He_clGoTIorRMHIw_ZSeG8p2Qaq60SHZAsdRnyWGXjKTwbcauPlDXsb2us_bJj2sErDfAcVSOWdXpdKHdzeNO2zT5GGNX0VNQ8qF5jiqu4/s1600/badge.jpg" /></a></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-10456926457136384972011-02-17T08:32:00.003-05:002011-02-17T11:36:49.539-05:00A Paige from a Love Story<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">She sits in her chair, straight backed but comfortable for her. The old wooden arm feels smooth and familiar as she runs her right hand over it, preparing herself to pick up the letter on the table next to her. In her left hand, she holds a neatly ironed handkerchief she has taken from the top drawer in her bureau. The letter that she’s kept, the letter she has read and reread so many times, and yet she still needs to prepare herself even after all these years. She knows that it will make her smile and cry and smile again when she reads it, even more than the first time she read it. How could she have know then how much it would come to mean to her as time passed? She doesn’t really need to read it at all because she could recite it word for word if asked. She can close her eyes and see the handwriting on the page, the handwriting so easily recognized as her Jim’s.</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Reaching for it now, ready, she opens the page folded in half and begins to read…</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> <span style="color: #741b47;"> </span></span><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span style="color: #741b47;">Southbridge</place></city></span></i></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">Jan 21, 1915</span></i></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhR8QgzUliHhDkHnILmjJkVFxHSjTwGpkpdmo9KkWQofVIelLtp7hiieZTu7Hlek7W_zSywQ1qYG01IfjmDBzzhsF4mNgm_P8jc1NyxRSAvV9BLDLSjfDAcp-KJIYAPiELzxAjoGlMTE/s1600/Jim+and+Ethel+Letter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhR8QgzUliHhDkHnILmjJkVFxHSjTwGpkpdmo9KkWQofVIelLtp7hiieZTu7Hlek7W_zSywQ1qYG01IfjmDBzzhsF4mNgm_P8jc1NyxRSAvV9BLDLSjfDAcp-KJIYAPiELzxAjoGlMTE/s320/Jim+and+Ethel+Letter.jpg" width="298" /></span></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">Dearest Ethel</span></i></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I will begin by answering your questions about the kidlets who have been awful good. Loraine’s eye is well and she has been out all the time for the past two days and has the roses back in her cheeks. She was so tired tonight that when she was being undressed she said “my, I will be glad when I am in bed”. Burnham is OK. But I will be glad of my regular bed-fellow. Tues. night I awoke and he had both hands in my hair pulling for all he was worth, and although I thought him asleep he spoke of it the next morning. </span></i></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">She smiles at the thought of the “kidlets”. Loraine was four and how she hated to go to bed most nights back then. And Burnham was 6, and still he loved to crawl up into bed with is Daddy. Elinor was a bright little eight year old, in charge of everything. And the baby West was just two. How she had hated to leave him for that time, how she hated leaving any of them. But, her mother had needed her at her side. She gently shook her head thinking of how simple things were then. Her children just like steps, every other year, as planned. She held her hand flat against her stomach, as she had done when she waited for them to be born, remembering that at the time, she didn’t even know little Gordon would be coming in just a year. And again she smiled at the thought of them all. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">Elinor is well as usual and said this noon that if you didn’t come home to-day she would have the “bumps.”They know the three days are up that I told them you would be gone and they don’t see why you don’t come home. The baby is fine, follows Lottie around like a little dog and she says does not make her a bit of trouble. I do not think that he has cried once since you left. Lottie has taught him to call her Lottie and about five this AM he woke up and I heard him call “Bot Lottie” but during the night he always calls “Mamma Bot”.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">I am about as usual, with a cold added and to-night brought home a bottle of cough syrup. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She always feels that catch when she reads that line. That moment of panic that is fleeting, but makes her feel, even now, that she should be doing something to fix it. And as quickly as it comes, the feeling is gone and she allows herself to breathe again and the panic is replaced with the sadness she knew would come, too. But she has a compelling need to read on, and she does. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">I have written for two seed catalogues, one which Warren Wells recommended so next week we will pick out our seeds and order. Lovetts 1915 cat. of fruits and flowers came today. We rece’d in the mail today an invitation and ticket to an art exhibit in Springfield Sat. To-night is installation of officers at K. of P. and Buckley has been trying to get me to go as he says it is just one year ago since I was last there and that I ought to go once a year but I of course would not go alone.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a piece of very bad news for you, the price of the moving pictures at Blanchards is now 20</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">¢</span> for the last three days of the week. Won't that grieve you? I am so glad mother came through her operation as well as she did and sincerely hope there will be no set-back. I was called to the long distance at 10 AM today and was almost afraid to answer, when it turned out to be Lawyer Reoutard inquiring about one of his clients I could have cursed him roundly for the scare he gave me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47; mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">When you see mother again give her my love and tell her I think of her constantly and to hurry up and get well and come home. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47; mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">Miss Bartlett has called Lottie up twice and is much excited at your long stay, wants you to call up as soon as you get home. Guess she misses her meals. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>How Jim loved to tell her news every day when he came home from work. It was always such a special time of day for her and the children when he walked through that door. And they had so many friends and places to go-all those business dinners and church functions and club meetings. But going to the Blanchard was their favorite thing to do. Although they’d been married just over 9 years then, she still felt like she had felt when they first courted and then when they were newlyweds while Jim was still in school in <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Maine</place></state>. When he’d come home, and they’d go to a show it was just their special time together. How she loved him. She glanced over to the college yearbook that she had left open on the footstool and studied his picture and read the caption. <br />
<br />
"Jim forsook home, friends and civilization in a wild desire for quiet study and education. His manner of getting the latter has been original and unique. The only bright spots in his wilderness existence have been the short glimpses of that other life caught during vacations." <br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxrkUwVAaENLkkGflmCuZKTuKfYAxZ7kq_ezNCqZEnJa2NWhLzBuGehPTVelg2lakoU9xkOZSqWltrU4rKDRvAe_p-wNqlGr_LnW77uAdY_aB5xsgNqUuZN4OGdpVRil5nqsWIQBd_74U/s1600/JAmes+UMaine+Yearbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxrkUwVAaENLkkGflmCuZKTuKfYAxZ7kq_ezNCqZEnJa2NWhLzBuGehPTVelg2lakoU9xkOZSqWltrU4rKDRvAe_p-wNqlGr_LnW77uAdY_aB5xsgNqUuZN4OGdpVRil5nqsWIQBd_74U/s200/JAmes+UMaine+Yearbook.jpg" width="126" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sRpXMbi15lFvk3BvJENW-bKMktifpw0yHpomYv_XcQdf-WbCtydQAcBU66cMXH8S9YCb4XuK6ioPfz8QCnR-aV7E1sHJWLO5lIRN8T4hQEhVCumrxS2uOZv7MezdMomapc46YYVxwjM/s1600/College+year+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sRpXMbi15lFvk3BvJENW-bKMktifpw0yHpomYv_XcQdf-WbCtydQAcBU66cMXH8S9YCb4XuK6ioPfz8QCnR-aV7E1sHJWLO5lIRN8T4hQEhVCumrxS2uOZv7MezdMomapc46YYVxwjM/s320/College+year+book.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">It always touched her to think that he loved their life together so much that it was even obvious to outsiders. When she read that caption it always made her proud. And that was always how she remembered him, young and handsome and ready for life, and so smart. The smartest man she'd ever known. How lucky she had been when he first came into her life. And she shifted her eyes to the bookshelf where that picture of him at Wells Beach sat among his books. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkU7lH6iF8Xxw4ax8LOl-c5r6PMwuaiAz2daDQdEeHvSeuBqso7OkjbdCiHiMCGjb1dCRN-Srl7b7t-LqO-2gmSVrvAgSf4f89-7DshNcUBTtshVHNF7ta6ueMszAfbJYrd4wUjl0rx6g/s1600/James+at+Wells+Beach2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkU7lH6iF8Xxw4ax8LOl-c5r6PMwuaiAz2daDQdEeHvSeuBqso7OkjbdCiHiMCGjb1dCRN-Srl7b7t-LqO-2gmSVrvAgSf4f89-7DshNcUBTtshVHNF7ta6ueMszAfbJYrd4wUjl0rx6g/s200/James+at+Wells+Beach2.jpg" width="195" /></a></div><br />
He looked so wistful and pensive. How she misses him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="color: #741b47;"> </span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">I have a good notion not to tell you how lone-some I am, but I am and want my “rib” back and if you stay longer than Monday I shall come down and kidnap you. So, you see I am not only lonesome but selfish and a little jealous and when I wake in the morning and reach out for you dear, only to find you gone, then I am really lone-some. How much a part of me you have grown to be you may not realize. But I want you back now, at once, please come. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I miss my good-bye kiss in the morning my welcoming kiss at night and those last long kisses before we go to sleep, come home to me dear. I want you. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47; mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">Dear I am probably selfish but come as soon as you can. It will be so good to have you back.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>must close now as it is ten o’clock. Give my love to grandma and the rest and with a heart full for you, dear, I am ever.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Your Jim.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #741b47;">P.S. If you need any more money telephone as soon as you get there. Telephone any-way Sat. and let me know how mother is and when you will be <u>home</u> .</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">She runs her fingertips over his signature, presses the paper to her lips, breathes in the scent, and folds the pages, placing them in her lap. With eyes closed, she leans her head back against the chair and she thinks about what might have been, even now, she thinks of what might have been.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Ethel Marsh Tiffany married James Lonsdale Paige in 1905 when he was still a college student. Jim was born in Southbridge, MA, like Ethel, but his parents moved Jim and his brothers Carl and George to Missouri and then on to Kansas when he was only 2. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">He lived there until he was 15 when Jim returned to <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Southbridge</place></city> to complete high school. He lived as a ward in an elderly aunt’s home. He was somewhat of a mechanical genius and at an early age, right out of high school, he was hired by American Optical Company, a major employer in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Southbridge, the place</place></city> where Ethel’s father had worked since he himself was a teenager. Jim alternated “periods of work for the American Optical Company with years of study at the <placetype w:st="on">University</placetype> of <placename w:st="on">Maine</placename> and the <place w:st="on"><placetype w:st="on">University</placetype> of <placename w:st="on">Pennsylvania</placename></place>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he returned with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, he quickly became the supervisor of a large department that made the lenses at American Optical, earning a very good living and enjoying a highly respected place in the society of the little town. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvs4GYd07gjKpUIMOvpmiYKjYdhXSnIGEvJTO-BRSPeajx8DX5YuAoo3p8uMiBG6FS6_yqXLqZihiXD34O4zu8SIzJMLRSKGk5pE04h16thFYR9TaoJExVcRaqmP5b0kdLZ-YMC-f1UCo/s1600/EthelMarshTiffanyclos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvs4GYd07gjKpUIMOvpmiYKjYdhXSnIGEvJTO-BRSPeajx8DX5YuAoo3p8uMiBG6FS6_yqXLqZihiXD34O4zu8SIzJMLRSKGk5pE04h16thFYR9TaoJExVcRaqmP5b0kdLZ-YMC-f1UCo/s320/EthelMarshTiffanyclos.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDYPZDv1fVh_cQc_WoQ4Vn6D4HJQU-V3rjOHrZ4M-SZd0hw_IJwZuSzPlvA6q_Wuxtn75LIMs91ezaeuGuau9QWRBZv1kr4_UgGXnhZjKOfveI93XbdLHAJtL8n8F5aWtWfNwg1vaFPVc/s1600/JamesLonsdalePaige.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDYPZDv1fVh_cQc_WoQ4Vn6D4HJQU-V3rjOHrZ4M-SZd0hw_IJwZuSzPlvA6q_Wuxtn75LIMs91ezaeuGuau9QWRBZv1kr4_UgGXnhZjKOfveI93XbdLHAJtL8n8F5aWtWfNwg1vaFPVc/s320/JamesLonsdalePaige.JPG" width="217" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In April of 1916, a year and a few months after he wrote this letter, Jim and Ethel welcomed Gordon Hastings Paige into their family, the youngest of the five. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In February of 1917, Ethel lost her father, Harlan Tiffany, with whom she was very close. She was an only child after losing her older brother when she was two. She had been the apple of her father’s eye and it was a sad day for her. But more difficult days were to come for Ethel in 1917. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Jim began to feel ill some time late in 1916 or early 1917. Although he continued to work for a while, when he began to fail so badly that he could not work, Ethel sent for his parents, who came from Kansas to be by his side. His brother George was a physician living in <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Arizona. It's likely George came to his bedside, too, perhaps before his parents came. And at some point, when it was evident that he was not winning the battle, his mother took an envelope and quickly wrote in pencil the message for a telegram to Jim's brother Carl back home in Iola <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Kansas</place></state>. And although his coworkers and friends and family all had expected that he would win that battle, he did not. In his mid 30s, Jim Paige died “at 3:55 AM, Friday July 27 at his home on Chapin Street in Southbridge, leaving a wife and five children. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtsYdvy0fruoTBIKliyLbj1Z_GtsPjkwAF2fwdm1hP_QNd_TrVO5vQVBQZbjI0eX2f1J8_HjPypAS1FS3cKlGDgb_mq-KPcMK6Cwo53PlSScLdrNa9GqEho48ji2lEQ1qUBZcLzeNEHO8/s1600/Telegram+to+Carl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtsYdvy0fruoTBIKliyLbj1Z_GtsPjkwAF2fwdm1hP_QNd_TrVO5vQVBQZbjI0eX2f1J8_HjPypAS1FS3cKlGDgb_mq-KPcMK6Cwo53PlSScLdrNa9GqEho48ji2lEQ1qUBZcLzeNEHO8/s320/Telegram+to+Carl.jpg" width="187" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carl E Paige<br />
Iola, Kansas<br />
"Yours received. Jim is calling for you. Come at once.<br />
Mother"</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Ethel kept the envelope upon which Jim's mother Clara West Paige had quickly written out the message to be wired. A curious thing to keep, until you turn it over and see the other side of it. In addition to a short grocery list, it contains a curl of littlest child Gordon’s hair which was “cut by mother when he was 10 months."<br />
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As if she had not endured enough that one year, little Gordon grew sick and died just a couple of months after his father, not yet two years old, in December of 1917.</div></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTJhnAYrSrscO8Suj54wBiW2U_IQHL3hyCtRm1JvOE8M833usWL8iUy63Wucibi3Cjuaj2fjF957LV8XY8M63F9QSd6APEkTMdy6xkMQXhQmAMOjNRdOBd48sGEXkj6HuldCuFO9lEDM4/s1600/envelope+Gordons+hair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTJhnAYrSrscO8Suj54wBiW2U_IQHL3hyCtRm1JvOE8M833usWL8iUy63Wucibi3Cjuaj2fjF957LV8XY8M63F9QSd6APEkTMdy6xkMQXhQmAMOjNRdOBd48sGEXkj6HuldCuFO9lEDM4/s320/envelope+Gordons+hair.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Ethel Tiffany Paige lived to be 90 years old. She never remarried. </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUk02sydFGokO793ch4pZGwlMfuvNAnTckoo2xt0D7X2813YhhkZ4S-5JHFE-shPJDt3fMeMTuqEcMEdDuHLkHDo-Cuv_TclkqszbbqN1k2rfZcpNr4AOsKsaHCNHxHTrfmdzBBi1ynHo/s320/Grandma+Paige+and+Corinna+1969.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Ethel Marsh Tiffany Paige and her great great granddaughter Corina</div>1969</td></tr>
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">She was my great grandmother. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Elinor, in the letter, was my grandmother. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncN228iegFecjDrFII86v-VqGLmTbcRWHmtC9k6t_sswtvxgKLwEHwTaxDPyBHbOpG77zA2eJn4R5pz0FobXSBTMy1eYOrqqif1f2yqeIdqo2JfpwI_VbNmwIlLXUqPJJESBj7K-hfSQ/s1600/Grandma+W+Me+Mom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncN228iegFecjDrFII86v-VqGLmTbcRWHmtC9k6t_sswtvxgKLwEHwTaxDPyBHbOpG77zA2eJn4R5pz0FobXSBTMy1eYOrqqif1f2yqeIdqo2JfpwI_VbNmwIlLXUqPJJESBj7K-hfSQ/s320/Grandma+W+Me+Mom.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My grandmother, Elinor, me and my mother.</td></tr>
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Great Grandma Paige always seemed stern and cool to me and I was a bit afraid to approach her when I was little. Her home in Stow, MA was neat and clean but we weren't allowed to touch anything, except one game she would get out for us to play with during our infrequent visits. It was a fishing game. Wooden dowels, painted yellow, each with a red string tied to one end and little red horseshoe shaped magnet tied to the string were the fishing poles. The fish were brightly colored metal cut outs of fish. There was a black cardboard folding octagonal enclosure that stood on the floor and we placed the fish inside it. Each fish had a number on it and that was how you accumulated points. It was sort of fun, but it seldom took up the whole visit. We had to sit still and wait for the grown ups to finish talking and that was very hard. We didn't look forward to those visits, really. And the fishing game is all I remember now. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">But I have learned so much about her just from this one letter, the only one we have from Jim. Other details about her life I have discovered through research have shown me what a vibrant young woman, she was. She was someone I would have loved to know when she was younger, and I was older. She had a superlative soprano voice which she shared with her community often and was in great demand as a soloist. She was involved in community affairs and a mother of five who ran a happy home with an involved husband. She was a loving daughter and a devoted wife who was most certainly in love with her husband as much as he was in love with her. And although she lived through so much tragedy at a very young age, I think that love must have been what sustained her all those years after. Had I only asked her about it when I had the chance. Truly a love story. Truly. </div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">I hold it true, whate'er befall;</span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">I feel it when I sorrow most;</span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> 'Tis better to have loved and lost</span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Than never to have loved at all.</span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></div><div class="meanings-body" style="margin: auto 0in auto 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Alfred Lord Tennyson</span></span></div><div class="meanings-body" style="margin: auto 0in auto 10pt; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-6578675981184147282011-02-09T23:00:00.000-05:002011-02-09T23:00:53.985-05:00Who is Gramma Grammer?When I set out to write about my ancestor, Gramma Grammer, I thought I was going to reveal something sinister based on just a couple of facts I had about her and had thought I'd write some sort of parody of Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde. But, as it turns out, although people aren't always who they seem to be, she was just a normal person whose life was long and full of ups and downs, just like the rest of us. When we piece together lives based on documents such as census records, death records, city directories and the like, it's not easy to tell who our ancestors really were. But, it can be fun, and sometimes touching, to speculate. <br />
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Some of my readers might remember that I told you about Gramma Grammer in an earlier post. She was my great great great grandmother on my mother's side. All I knew about her was that my grandmother is the one who said she used to call her Gramma Grammer, and that my mother once told me that she was pretty sure this was the woman she was told had a wooden leg. I haven't been able to confirm that yet. My mother told me that once when she and her mother were in the Woodbrook Cemetery in Woburn, where many family members are buried, she asked her mother how Lorena A. Grammer was related? Her mother replied, "Oh that one's been married so many times, we don't know who she is." ...But I do. <br />
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Gramma Grammer was born Lorena Abbie Pelsue in Stockholm, New York in 1835. Stockholm is way up in the county of St. Lawrence in the northernmost corner of New York, almost to Canada. The name Pelsue is not uncommon up there, although I hadn't ever heard it before. Lorena's parents actually came from Chelmsford, MA by way of Vermont and ended up in Stockholm, NY shortly after the little town was first founded in the early 1800s.<br />
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Lorena, the youngest of five children born to George and Pheobe (Newell) Pelsue is not living with her family in 1850, but she wasn't far away. At only 15 years old or so, she left the family home and was living with neighbors on a large farm. The owners of the farm were Franklin and Cynthia (Pelsue) Ellis. Cynthia is probably a cousin, although I am not certain. Ten years later another member of the family, one of Lorena's nephews, also lived there. This was a large farm and they had a large family so they most likely welcomed young family members to help out in the home and on the farm. It was and is a very small town and chances are people helped each other out when they needed it. <br />
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I am not sure Lorena was suited to the 'servant's' life. Within a year or so, she met and married Nathan Hyde a shoemaker from Woburn, MA. Stockholm is a long way from Woburn, so it's a puzzle how they met. Perhaps they had a mutual acquaintance or her older brother introduced them. I have a feeling there may even be a common relative somewhere, but I have yet to discover that. So often that does turn out to be the case in those days.<br />
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Whatever brought them together, Nathan and Lorena made their home in Woburn where they had five children: one son, Nathan Hastings Hyde who died as an infant and four daughters. One of those daughters was Minnie Hyde Tiffany, my great great grandmother and one of the original keepers of my genealogy scrapbook.<br />
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Nathan provided well for the family while he was alive, but he died at the age of 50 after 24 years of marriage, leaving Lorena a 42 year old widow with 4 teen aged girls to bring up. She may have found it hard to pay the bills after she lost Nathan because soon Lorena moved her family to New York City where they lived with her eldest daughter Helen, who was married to Edwin Tiffany. (Later, Helen's younger sister Minnie, would marry my great great grandfather Harlan Tiffany, Edwin's brother.)<br />
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About eight years after Nathan died, Lorena had since moved back to Massachusetts where she met a widower from Boston. His name James B. Berry, the father of two sons who was born in New Brunswick, but moved to Boston as a young man. There he became a well-respected Pianoforte Manufacturer. Lorena's daughter Minnie was an accomplished soloist and played the piano. She may have been one of James' students because he also gave piano lessons. <br />
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When all of Lorena's girls were grown and gone from the home and James' sons were also on their own. Lorena and James married and made their home in Boston, where he ran his successful business. James died after they'd been married only 6 years. Lorena must have found it very difficult to have lost him after such a short time. In 1892, the year after he died, a brief bio was written up in an industry publication:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdwFUsjy40PD9IXmmOdrU9Ngnu9Tt60u3u8IEDpnquu7F_xy21aecg0qCb5pY0e8qTCOL5wzUHE-U6gGrN4ZWxhlu7l5stgXUGzzpWVX7-ETSQC-VrhhzSGYazaPRJZI7Q8im9PFKqX5w/s1600/James+Berry+Bio2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdwFUsjy40PD9IXmmOdrU9Ngnu9Tt60u3u8IEDpnquu7F_xy21aecg0qCb5pY0e8qTCOL5wzUHE-U6gGrN4ZWxhlu7l5stgXUGzzpWVX7-ETSQC-VrhhzSGYazaPRJZI7Q8im9PFKqX5w/s640/James+Berry+Bio2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Annals of Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Organization 1795-1892<br />
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<div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">Once again, Lorena found herself a widow. This time, although she was alonea and living by herself in Woburn for a while, it was barely a year and a half after James died that she married Samuel A. Grammer in January of 1893 and became Gramma Grammer. Samuel was another widower, who lived in Woburn and was about thirteen years older than Lorena. Samuel was a prominent shoe manufacturer. Being in the same business as her first husband Nathan, they may well have been acquaintances. </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;">But, Samuel wasn't long for this world when they married. He passed away a mere 11 months later. Lorena Abby Pelsue Hyde Berry Grammer, or Gramma Grammer, now a widow for the third time at the age of 68 was most certainly feeling somewhat defeated. But, she persevered. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Lorena invited her niece Alice Hyde, and her granddaughter Elsie Tiffany to live with her over the next few years. Elsie moved out after a while when she married, but Alice stayed with her, and never married. Lorena never married again, either. Somehow she managed, living with her niece, perhaps charging rent. They moved fairly often, but always stayed in surrounding towns such as Woburn, Stoneham, Wakefield and Medford, Massachusetts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">What had made me start to think for just a minute that there might be a darker side of Lorena was when my new genealogy on-line buddy, Wayne, sent the following clipping to me. I am very still curious about it and wonder if Gramma Grammer might have been confused or desperate, or what maybe just a little bit greedy, when at 82 years old this article appeared in the Globe: </span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Boston Evening Globe, Tuesday, August 01, 1916</em></div><em></em><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>WOMAN RESTRAINED FROM COLLECTING RENTS</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Fletcher B. Hyde of Malden, now serving with the State troops on the </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Mexican border, and other heirs joined in a bill filed in the Superior </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Court today, against Lorena A. Grammer of Medford, who was the widow of </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Nathan H. Hyde, a brother of James Hyde, who died In 1873, and her three </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>daughters, seeking the appointment of Charles H. Hyde, an heir, as </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>receiver of the property left by James Hyde and to restrain Mrs. Grammer </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>from interfering with the management of the estate. Fletcher Hyde had </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>handled the property until he went to the border, and since then, it is </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>alleged, Mrs. Grammer has been collecting rents. Judge Lawton </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>restrained Mrs. Grammer from collecting rents due Aug 1 or interfering </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>with the management of the property. An order of notice returnable Aug </em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>7 has been issued.</em></div><br />
I think Lorena knew exactly what she was doing and probably felt entitled. I think this is how Lorena made ends meet. After all, she had outlived three husbands, 2 of whom had other heirs, and yet she still managed to land on her feet, wooden leg and all. The James Hyde mentioned in the article was Alice's father. Maybe she thought she had some claim to the rents since Alice was living with her? I doubt I will ever know.<br />
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Lorena lived until she was almost 85. The last home she lived in was on Winthrop Street in Medford, where she died on the 15th of October in 1919. I wonder if this was one of the properties mentioned, and if it is, maybe she won the lawsuit which allowed her to remain there. <br />
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In the scrapbook my great great grandmother Minnie kept, written next to her mother Lorena's obituary was the following:<br />
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"My dear mother died October 15, 1919. Age 85 years in just 5 days more."<br />
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I have several letters from Lorena, written to her granddaughter Ethel, my great grandmother. Ethel was a little girl when most were written. In one letter she was just turning ten and asking about her upcoming birthday. There is one written around Christmas, asking her what Ethel had written in her letter to Santa. One talked about her staying warm and cozy in her rooms and not wanting to venture out for a visit to Southbridge, where Ethel lived, until the spring. Each one was full of sweet, loving terms of endearment, addressed to My Dear little Granddaughter or My dear Ethel. There are also a few in the collection written to her daughter Minnie, all addressed similarly, "My dear daughter, My dear Minnie". And every single one was signed your loving grandma, or your loving Mamma, then very formally: L. A. Hyde or L. A. Grammer. (I don't have any L. A. Berry letters.) It struck me as very funny that she needed to identify herself, especially with her daughter, in any other way but Grandma or Mamma. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAxZWKs3tZGhNeLS2oO3XWzhyphenhyphenN37lMrUKERsm5EHC9SYF6xpfu9b1zR9o7W0s4EC1WnPxsT9ZycYqvqZjPKjHTDhCnR296b7SfyyVx1GzZT-A1o1_MmHMOLhWcSLTC2lZkSMTbn0UsLDE/s1600/LaGrammer+to+Ethel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAxZWKs3tZGhNeLS2oO3XWzhyphenhyphenN37lMrUKERsm5EHC9SYF6xpfu9b1zR9o7W0s4EC1WnPxsT9ZycYqvqZjPKjHTDhCnR296b7SfyyVx1GzZT-A1o1_MmHMOLhWcSLTC2lZkSMTbn0UsLDE/s320/LaGrammer+to+Ethel.jpg" width="295" /></a></div><br />
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So, Gramma Grammer left the world perhaps a villain to some whose rents she collected, but much loved by her daughter and granddaughter. I am not sure what I think about that little run-in with her family and the court. I like to think that she prevailed and that all went well. But, I think if we look at her whole life, and not just one small chapter, I'd say she did a pretty good job for a woman of her time, and a one legged one, at that. <br />
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She's not so much of a mystery to me any more. She rests in Woodbrook Cemetery, along side Nathan Hyde, her first husband, her sister Sophia Pelsue Shed and her husband, her baby Nathan Hastings Hyde, her daughter Helen Hyde Tiffany, her niece Elsie and her husband. And a mystery person named Lotie Hyde Grammer who died in 1875. <br />
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Do you suppose there was another Gramma Grammer?<br />
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More in the weeks to come-<br />
<br />
"A Paige From a Love Story"<br />
"A Crooked Politician?"<br />
"A Devil of an Ancestor-in-law"<br />
"An Accusation"<br />
"Seven Sisters"<br />
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</div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005439955722682749.post-25350545772004499312011-02-03T11:05:00.000-05:002011-02-03T11:05:24.811-05:00Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFDlSRvGGE2acrqRW4Uk0nUHAHKzRLeQMzhIJbTSWCfhS0KnkWlbpD8mkcqrhYDSekfIMwAMgG_5f1kuEUWC4o7FTAWDkfavGG93yUxRXm-YlSy_6xub9Nq-d71FUyj0YAuO-9_dUJMI/s1600/genealogydarth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFDlSRvGGE2acrqRW4Uk0nUHAHKzRLeQMzhIJbTSWCfhS0KnkWlbpD8mkcqrhYDSekfIMwAMgG_5f1kuEUWC4o7FTAWDkfavGG93yUxRXm-YlSy_6xub9Nq-d71FUyj0YAuO-9_dUJMI/s320/genealogydarth.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>During the hunt for our ancestors, sometimes we researchers do get lost in the history of our families and the intrigue of another time and place. For hours and hours we can find ourselves camped in front of our computers following a trail hundreds of years old. But, usually the simple demands of our everyday lives and a spouse feeling a little neglected from time to time, will interupt the hunt, bringing us back to the present and reminding us what's really important in our lives. <br />
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The thought that generations to follow may be looking at <em>our</em> lives some day should be enough to bring us back to the present and motivate us to do something really exciting and notable for those coming generations to discover. The irony of that is what I do that's most notable in my life time may well be to provide the bridge between the generations past and the generations to come with the history I dig up. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRMF1KHnz-wdjQd7Y9mpZE9iZUljT54bMWgHcA901MzsWMKCT-guPEtp2DIB1QLxPIr2Xu2FjmTo3x_vNkErcNnifmqBVy6nlYKj9pnCwNEAFpQY7bP92KmcYWNk4YeQ6RRZeIdhjvbH0/s1600/tshirt.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRMF1KHnz-wdjQd7Y9mpZE9iZUljT54bMWgHcA901MzsWMKCT-guPEtp2DIB1QLxPIr2Xu2FjmTo3x_vNkErcNnifmqBVy6nlYKj9pnCwNEAFpQY7bP92KmcYWNk4YeQ6RRZeIdhjvbH0/s200/tshirt.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br />
But folks, none of this is done in a vacuum, in spite of what my husband sometimes feels when I am secluded with old census records and out-of-print books. I do hear from some of my immediate family when I share something new about one of our ancestors here on Henrietta or through email, and that's always rewarding. It makes me feel like I am doing my job as self-appointed family historian. In addition to the family I've always known, I also hear regularly from living, breathing new family members I have met through the research done on-line. <br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"></div> <br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Most of us have heard of the theory of the Six Degrees of Separation which is just another way of saying it's a small world. Specifically, it tells us that we in this "human web" are within six steps of everyone else on the planet by mutual acquaintances or friends. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>A kind of fun offshoot is a game called the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which I think is really funny. If you don't know about it, go to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon">Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon on Wikepedia</a>. Even though the game is to get from Kevin to any actor or movie within 6 steps, the truth is, everyone who is reading this has less than Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon because my sister and brother-in-law have actually delivered furniture to Kevin Bacon and his wife in the course of their furniture delivery business. I just thought you'd like to know that. And who knows, maybe someday I will figure out how we are related. But back to the original theory.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPo2dyn6D71-mgl3_Mbcd5ySWXX4H_kBGqrPlp7XwSxaEVNV-d6DyLnHaORMsdW9d_b4mkSZA5lSCs80SbXshCyEwbK97Jz86hbddag6405Q-WfS80lRUihV3vw7i5dOrw532ij_iiUQ/s1600/kevinbac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPo2dyn6D71-mgl3_Mbcd5ySWXX4H_kBGqrPlp7XwSxaEVNV-d6DyLnHaORMsdW9d_b4mkSZA5lSCs80SbXshCyEwbK97Jz86hbddag6405Q-WfS80lRUihV3vw7i5dOrw532ij_iiUQ/s1600/kevinbac.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kevin Bacon</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaSFA5fN2du7SqbMSZNpINbAGqkW2hqt_cVsNmJBWS9QEmTSJh6_00Yih7mOKdC-hEdQhdG9EHBntMTyJGlGhbThDBVJBkGkG31E62Lv1QmmNpOlpWpnGvn1hard9X06M9tUh9HY2kd2Q/s1600/downarrow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaSFA5fN2du7SqbMSZNpINbAGqkW2hqt_cVsNmJBWS9QEmTSJh6_00Yih7mOKdC-hEdQhdG9EHBntMTyJGlGhbThDBVJBkGkG31E62Lv1QmmNpOlpWpnGvn1hard9X06M9tUh9HY2kd2Q/s1600/downarrow.jpg" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJUehj1_yMgO9nlA2frRFYdLW2ZUFMIdfcZ61v3J7Q-e2itinCRO0cm2Nuvvoy6C9WKl40KHE7DUgSzN9xsoNrf8CMhzFwerTLYZSBh81hzQQgjTIQ7o-fnp5CQjY7jyaVqXcTZLr1Mg/s1600/cscruise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJUehj1_yMgO9nlA2frRFYdLW2ZUFMIdfcZ61v3J7Q-e2itinCRO0cm2Nuvvoy6C9WKl40KHE7DUgSzN9xsoNrf8CMhzFwerTLYZSBh81hzQQgjTIQ7o-fnp5CQjY7jyaVqXcTZLr1Mg/s200/cscruise.jpg" width="166" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My sister Cindy and Bro-in-law Steve</td></tr>
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The theory of Six Degrees of Separation is proven over and over again when people on Ancestry.com are able to contact others doing research on common ancestors or surnames. So, today I just wanted to tell you a little about some of these people I have met, just in the past six months, most of whom share ancestors in my trees.<br />
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<strong>Julie</strong>-Ed's second cousin. I "met" Julie when Ed's cousin Eileen got us together. Thanks, Eileen! Julie has done a lot of research on the Eaton side and been very generous with it all. I haven't met her in person yet, but we have exchanged lots of emails, photos and information. She lives up in Massachusetts and has done all kinds of tramping through cemeteries and taken photos of headstones. My kind of gal! My hope is that we'll get to meet this summer when I am up there again. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jessie Willett Hall and me</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <strong>Joyce and Bob</strong>-Joyce contacted me when she saw my Willett family tree last June. At first when she wrote to me on Ancestry.com, I didn't think we were in the same tree at all. But, she showed me that Joyce's 4th great grandfather is my 3rd great grandfather, Ebenezer Willett. That was really so exciting to me because the Willett tree has been a fairly short one since I began my hunt. Joyce and her husband Bob are both very involved in genealogy and have given me so much advice over the past year or so since we have connected. We think that Ed may well be in Bob's family tree and we must do more research on that! Bob and Joyce live in Florida and have a summer home in the mountains in Georgia, just a couple of hours from here. Last summer we actually were able to meet them in person when they invited Ed and I to their home in Georgia. We had a lovely lunch and a really fun visit. They are now good friends and we exchange regular emails. We are hoping to see them some time this month or next here in Chattanooga! <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leslie J Hall,<br />
Henrietta's son</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmV9jn_Nr-0nTuFWu-T05VD6UjPtAtjefr2RfBIBtxJDIYTwuqhTMZj1esngsDxxPdP2uQ0BHtCqIoKImxZKB2Mgm0aLEYmcxx6c3S-BdDwsEMcg8wBWJ8POfkJg8vatJhQtWF7F-12_Y/s1600/fisherames2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmV9jn_Nr-0nTuFWu-T05VD6UjPtAtjefr2RfBIBtxJDIYTwuqhTMZj1esngsDxxPdP2uQ0BHtCqIoKImxZKB2Mgm0aLEYmcxx6c3S-BdDwsEMcg8wBWJ8POfkJg8vatJhQtWF7F-12_Y/s200/fisherames2.JPG" width="200" /></a><strong>Sherri</strong>-Sherri lives in Utah. The roots we share are the Ames and Davis family. That's really interesting to me because those are Henrietta's parents. And as you readers know, Henrietta is my motivation. Sherri and I haven't corresponded in a few months, but I know as we learn more, we'll be sharing more information in the future. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> </div> <div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lady May Budd, my great Grandmother<br />
Franklin Jay Ward and Lulu Budd Ward,<br />
May's sister.</td></tr>
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>Carollee</strong>-Carollee is my Budd cousin! I recently contacted her when I found her tree which I suspected might be the same Budd family as ours. Sure enough, my great great grandfather Samuel Budd is in her line, too. We have been exchanging lots of information. The civil war correspondence I hope to get this summer from the NY Historical Society should be of interest to us both. And, recently I sent for his pension records and they are in the process of sending that to me. I am surely going to share that with Carollee as soon as I receive it. </div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jessie and Charlotte Willett<br />
My Grandmother and her sister back row</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <strong>Karen</strong>-Karen, who lives in Georgia was a really remarkable find for me and although I haven't written to her since before Christmas, this is one person I really want to keep in touch with. After responding to my inquiry, Karen turned out to be the closest of all in terms of degrees of separation. Karen is the granddaughter of my grandmother's sister on my father's side. It is almost miraculous to me to have found someone who knew my grandmother Jessie Willett Hall's sisters personally. My great Aunts Charlotte, Millie and Edith were all in her life as well as mine and just as fascinating to her as they were to me. I remembered my grandmother talking about a wedding that she was going to in NY in the 60s and that the bride had gotten her lace in Italy. That stuck in my mind and for 40 years I wondered who that was. It was Karen! It is my hope that Karen and I can get to know each other even better soon. She's close enough in proximity that it shouldn't be too hard to arrange a nice day together. <br />
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<strong>Maryanna</strong>-When I was researching the story about Jenny Lind Lewis for my Henrietta Blog I found Maryanna on Ancestry. You can look back at the archives for January 13th posting to get the whole story. In a nutshell, this was just a story I read in one of the clippings my gggrandmother had saved. I had no idea why she saved the clipping but found the desertion of this young woman worth writing about. Maryanna helped solve the mystery of what happened to the husband and then she put me in touch with Wayne, who she thought would have more information. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0h9tEl4YC2hEyDAyeSEG2YkZMI8YwgSqcwJr212hTF0xLCER8UeMMnltPvTFP4qqqQJVYu6ngUib-QWR06ABGJzbuhrHFwZVBO9ywn9JoaoPOz5DKOrAGmqzb66cV3y4Nyo0z9sUxxmo/s1600/JennyLindLewisCloseup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0h9tEl4YC2hEyDAyeSEG2YkZMI8YwgSqcwJr212hTF0xLCER8UeMMnltPvTFP4qqqQJVYu6ngUib-QWR06ABGJzbuhrHFwZVBO9ywn9JoaoPOz5DKOrAGmqzb66cV3y4Nyo0z9sUxxmo/s200/JennyLindLewisCloseup.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jennie Lind Lewis </td></tr>
</tbody></table><strong>Wayne</strong>-Wayne made a fantastic connection for me. He identified the connection between my gggrandmother and Jenny Lind Lewis. As it turns out they are cousins. Wayne's family includes the name Pelsue which was my great great great grandmother's maiden name. We are cousins of some degree and Lorena Pelsue Hyde Berry Grammer, or Gramma Grammer, had a sister named Sophia who married a Lewis, one of Wayne's ancestors. Sophia's granddaughter was Jenny Lind Lewis Evans. She and my great grandmother were friends, second cousins and both singers. And that is why the clipping is in the scrap book. Wayne and I have continued to correspond and find out things about the Hyde family and our ancestors in common. What's even more of a coincidence is that until a few years ago, he lived in the same little town in Maine right across the street from where my uncle now lives. They may have missed each other by just a year or so. Wayne now lives in Texas and is retired military, again, like my uncle.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Josephine Patten Willett's Obit (My great grandmother)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><strong>Janet</strong>-Janet is my most recent on-line cousin. She is directly related to the Pattens, which was my great grandmother Josephine Willett's maiden name. Janet is such a warm and generous person. She has been doing research for many years and is eager to share. Her great great grandparents H. James Patten and Sarah Caroline Arden are my ggg grandparents. Janet sent me a big package of information which I received just yesterday. Thanks, Janet! I can see a blog forming around one particular item she sent me. I think she knows which one I mean, too! Janet and her husband live in Florida and has in-laws who live in the Villages, just like I do! They may even know each other! I look forward to meeting her some day soon. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bell Rock Light, Arbroath </td></tr>
</tbody></table><strong>Scotland</strong> -My connections in Scotland have to do with the Bell Rock Lighthouse and the Waters side of the family. It's been really fun corresponding with them, in particular another gal named <strong>Janet</strong> who keeps me updated on what's going on in Arbroath with the Year of the Light celebration in honor of the Lighthouse's 200th anniversary. My Ancestor was a lighthouse keeper there in the mid 19th century. Janet puts me in touch with other Scottish genealogists, as well.<br />
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And, just yesterday I received an email from my friend <strong>Debbie</strong> who lives near Abroath. I didn't meet Debbie on line but rather a few years ago on the golf course in Kissimee, of all places. I told her about our Arbroath roots and in particular the lighthouse in Arbroath when we met and she never forgot that. (She and her husband were really fun. Should I tell you that she ran into the back of my golf cart with hers? No I won't tell you that! It was very funny.) A year or more after our meeting in Kissimmee, Debbie wrote to me telling me that she thinks of me every time she drives by the light house. Yesterday, I heard from her, which was a wonderful surprise and she offered to go to some of the Year of the Light Celebrations, take some photos and even find me a little souvenir commemorating the event. Such a nice person. I do hope our paths cross again soon!<br />
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Some of these wonderful "cousins" send me email regularly and I have gotten to know them pretty well. It's always exciting to make the connection with someone who shares your 3rd great grandmother or 4th great grandfather. The people I have connected with are all so generous in sharing their research and their time. Mysteries are solved and coincidences are discovered that make the hunt even more fun. I hope that I have provided them with some helpful information, as well. <br />
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For me, these connections with folks all over the country and in Scotland, are right there with me as we share the exploration of the past together. Many of them are reading this blog now and they never know when one of their ancestors might be featured! I am sincerely thankful to all of you who help with the hunt and by providing your information and an encouraging comment here and there, as well as my loyal followers and readers. Directly and indirectly you contribute to The Hunt For Henrietta and I am always grateful for the help!<br />
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Some upcoming posts for Henrietta-<br />
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"Gramma Grammer-Jekyll or Mrs. Hyde?"<br />
"A Paige From a Love Story" a story for Valentine's Day<br />
"A Crooked Politician?"<br />
"A Devil of an Ancestor-in-law"<br />
"An Accusation"<br />
"Seven Sisters"<br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9whv5epIrExKtrmzqA02T1xJPEG_3zYyV5NWB_5co5wBxbgu0Zpl77h0BraLiBbSDqOAmel7OgFpsueRuvOrU0iKxt3FX7AS6c8DZK04KabYq0qc0WeXgebnueGFCGCEaIwduYBHSH0/s1600/RightArrow.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Suzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04240305610211674926noreply@blogger.com2