Family/History

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Family/History



Contents Introduction

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Family Trees Bernard J. Nolan Patricia Jones Nolan

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Histories Cole Whitney Gatewood Sheets Addleman Campbell McArthur McCaulley McDivi� Jones Nolan

7 21 37 59 71 85 99 113 125 135 153

Supplement

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Introduction T

2020

his compilation grew out of information I inherited with Dad’s Ancestry.com account. It was so easy to find vital records and connect family members to other trees that I was able to recreate much of his hard work of 20-some years over a ma�er of months. In general, genealogy records contain lots of names and dates, but not much context or notes of interest. Using numerous sources, I have tried to construct a picture of the various families that make up our history, looking at their origins, their work, and their spouses, siblings, and children. I’ve also done some research into their places of origin and emigration to try to understand the push and pull factors that may have inspired them to emigrate. For the most part, there is nothing unusual about why our ancestors came. Some were the third sons of the third sons of

gentry with limited options; some were religiously or politically persecuted; and some just ran out of luck with their hardscrabble lives on some rock in the North Sea. Almost everyone came with their family. Many of them became prominent citizens in their communities; most of them just worked hard and got on with things. This work is intended as a family archive. It is a compilation based on dozens of sources. I don’t claim authorship as I have borrowed freely, and without citation (although sources are listed at the end of each chapter). In some cases, the family lines are clear and very well documented (those Puritans were excellent recordkeepers!), but in some the records are missing and connections are somewhat vague. Sometimes errors have go�en enshrined in the accepted family histories. I may not have entirely sorted


out all the various Williams, but even if I have mixed up one cousin for an uncle or a grandfather, I feel confident about the overall family lines presented. This document mostly covers 11 family lines from both the Nolan/Campbell (shades of green) and Jones/ Gatewood (shades of blue) sides of the family, focusing mostly on the direct ancestors and not so much their siblings. There are a few footnotes or interludes if there was an interesting story that deserved a detour if not quite its own chapter, and longer sidebars are in the supplement. Names in bold are our direct-line ancestors. Asterisks mean the family has its own story in another chapter. Different branches of our family participated in almost every wave of European immigration that came to define the United States. The histories are in chronological order, based

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on when the ancestors first arrived in America, to illustrate how and where some of the stories overlap. (Spoiler alert: no one ever se�led in New Jersey.) My main resources were Ancestry.com, Family Search, Newspapers.com, and Dad’s notes and other family le�ers and photos, but I collected some interesting stories, photos, and documents through email exchanges with farflung cousins: Kathy Pfeffer in Kuna, ID; Chuck Spence in Home, PA; Rick Lear in Circleville, OH; Joe McCauley in Michigan; Ma� McCaulley in Bellwood, PA; Amy March in Virginia; and Felicia McCaulley in Blair Co., PA. Felicia has done DNA research to confirm much of the McCaulley history. Consider this a jumpingoff point if you’re interested in pursuing some of these stories in much more depth. —Diana Nolan


Bernard NOLAN 1930 - 2018 - 88

Bernard Joseph NOLAN

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Patricia JONES Born 1931 - 89

Patricia JONES

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Cole O

1633

ur ancestors did not come to America on the Mayflower, but they weren’t far behind, sailing for the New World just a few years later. The Coles traveled to Plymouth Colony, the second permanent English se�lement in North America.¹ Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 by se�lers including a group of religious dissenters known as the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were a small, separatist religious sect that sought freedom to practice as they wished. That led, first, to their self-imposed exile to Holland, and second, to the voyage of the Mayflower. Though theologically very similar to the Puritans who later founded the Massachuse�s Bay Colony, the Pilgrims believed that the Church of

England could not be reformed. Rather than a�empting to purify the church, they desired a total separation. Migration from England allowed the colony to grow, albeit slowly. In 1624 Plymouth’s population stood at 124. By 1637 it reached 549. In 1643 se�lers had founded nine additional towns. Compared to its neighbor Massachuse�s Bay, Plymouth Colony grew very modestly, reaching a population of only about 7,000 by 1691. However within ten years after arrival the Pilgrims’ significance was reduced to naught, since the Puritans ruled the roost. Plymouth was intended for family se�lement and commerce, not staple production or resource extraction like many other

¹ Jamestown and the Virginia Colony were established in 1607. The Massachuse�s Bay Colony was founded in 1629.

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Cole Name Origin The Cole surname is an ancient name, borne by two kings of Britain, the first of whom reigned in 125 AD. These names (Koyl, Coyll, Coil, or Coel) may indeed refer to Old King Cole of nursery rhyme fame. It is generally thought that the rhyme was based on a real person, however there are various theories as to his origin. The Cole family originated in Cornwall, southwest England. Unlike most Cel�c peoples, who favored patronymic names, the Cornish predominantly used local surnames, derived from where the original bearer lived, was born, or held land. The Cole name is derived from the Old English word coll, which means hill, and indicates that the original bearer lived near such a land form. It could also be derived from the same word coll in Middle English, meaning “swarthy, coalblack, charcoal.” h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_(name) h�ps://www.houseofnames.com/cole-family-crest

Below: Plymouth Colony 1622, Plymouth, Massachuse�s. New York Public Library Digital Collec�on.

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colonies. Small, family farms remained at the heart of Plymouth’s economy throughout its history. Life in the colony revolved around family and religion. Every person had a place and set of duties according to his or her position within

the colony and family, and was expected to live according to God’s law. *** James Cole (b. 1600) arrived in Plymouth, Massachuse�s in 1633, along with his wife Mary and their children. He was admi�ed the same year as a freeman and received a grant of land. The family were listed as passengers with the Winthrop Fleet, a group of 11 ships led by John Winthrop, funded by the Massachuse�s Bay Company which together carried between 700 and 1,000 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England dur-


ing the first period of the Great Migration (between 1620 and 1640) (see box page 23). Records from Barnstaple, Devonshire, England identify James’s wife as Mary Tibbes, whom he married in 1624, and his first two children—James (b. 1626) and Hugh (b. 1628)— were likewise baptized in Barnstaple. James and Mary Cole had two more children: John (b. 1637) and Mary (b. 1639) who were both born in Plymouth. Their house stood on a lot that became known as Cole’s Hill, but was first known as Burial Hill. The property was the first burial ground of the Pilgrims, and probably included Plymouth Rock itself. The Pilgrims buried their dead on this hill during the first winter, 1621, likely to prevent the Native Americans from realizing that their numbers had dropped by half. Despite the religious philosophy underpinning the Plymouth se�lement James Cole apparently was not a church member, practically a requirement among the early prominent se�lers who usually held leadership roles within the church. Not only did he appear to avoid church, he also obtained from the colony a license to operate a public house—one

of the first in New England—and proceeded to operate a rather rowdy tavern. This house was kept by him, and then by his son James until 1698. According to accounts of his court appearances in the public records of Plymouth, James appeared to be intelligent, respected, prominent, business-oriented, politically astute ... and notorious. He appeared numerous times in court records as either plaintiff or defendant in various actions involving business contracts and debt collections. And in 1637, James was on a list of volunteers who would serve in the Pequot war “if they be pressed.” By 1637 James’s first violation of the liquor control laws was entered into the court records. One account describes the throwing of stools and a general disturbance until early morning hours. In 1640 the court withdrew James Cole’s license to sell liquor, after which he was fined for selling it anyway. His license was not restored until 1645. James continued to operate the inn even without his liquor license. He was apparently financially successful and acted as surety on bonds at various times and loaned money. He undoubt-

Above: Plymouth Colony, Cole’s Blacksmith shop 1634 (replica), Plymouth, Massachuse�s. New York Public Library Digital Collec�on. I don’t know which Cole was the blacksmith.

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Above: Governor Bradford’s House 1621, Plymouth, Massachuse�s. New York Public Library Digital Collec�on.

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edly won the respect of the townspeople. He was elected constable in 1641/2 and again in 1644. He was also appointed highway surveyor several times beginning in 1642. James Cole and his wife continued to experience problems in operating the tavern within legal boundaries after his license was restored. James and Mary were fined for allowing drunkenness in the tavern, for selling liquor on Sunday, and for selling liquor to Natives. In 1652 one of their tavern patrons was “up all night drinking in Cole’s house” before he went out fishing and accidentally drowned. James himself was cited three times by the court for being drunk, the last time in 1671. In defense of his third offense he claimed to have an infirmity which caused

him to appear drunk, and he was not fined. He was also charged with ba�ery in 1650, but was cleared of the offense. Despite the rowdy reputation of Cole’s tavern, the court in 1653 decided to pay for his expense of operating an “ordinary,” and provided him with “necessaries” for entertaining strangers. In 1659 the court again paid Cole 10 pounds for improvements to his “ordinary.” Mary died in 1659, and in 1670 the operation of the tavern succeeded to James Jr., who was not charged the excise tax that year because he was beginning a new business. The operation of the tavern went smoothly after James Jr. took over, and there were no more fines for license and liquor violations, although one of the patrons was charged with “drinking, gameing and uncivil revelling” in 1671 when he brought a mare into Cole’s parlor. Although James Jr. was not held responsible, he was cautioned to “keep good order in his house ...” with “no revelling there.” James Sr. died sometime toward the end of the seventeenth century. He was still living in 1688, when he was described as “very aged.”


*** James’s second son Hugh Cole (b. 1628) was baptized on 29 June 1628 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England. He moved with his family at age five or six to Plymouth, Massachuse�s. The early records of Plymouth show him on a 1643 list of men able to bear arms and in 1648 an arrangement was made with his father John that, “his sonn Heugh Cole should keepe the Cowes this yeare from the middle of this instant Aprill untill the middle of November following and shall have fifty bushells of corne for his paynes.” This meant tending the cows of the townspeople—bringing them up every morning to be milked, taking them to feed, and bringing them home at night. In contrast to his parents, Hugh Cole had fewer encounters with the courts for violating the laws. He became a prominent citizen and founder of a new town, and was also a prominent church leader. Despite a later showing of good character, Hugh was fined 20 shillings when he and his soon-to-be wife were found guilty of “keeping company each with other in an undecent manner, at an unreasonable time and place, be-

fore marriage.” He married Mary Foxwell on 8 January 1654 in Plymouth. Mary’s father, Richard, had come to Plymouth with John Winthrop in 1631. Hugh and Mary had twelve children in all: James (b. 1655), Hugh (b. 1658), John (b. 1660), Martha (b. 1662), Anna (b. 1664), Ruth (b. 1666), Joseph (b. 1668), Ebenezer (b. 1671), Mary (b. 1676), Benjamin (b. 1678), Mercy (b. 1704/5), and Experience (b. c1708). Cole’s first seven children were born in Plymouth, but in 1668 he moved his family to Swansea, a town he helped to found along with his brother John. Hugh Cole led a group of 20 men who negotiated the land purchases with the Native Americans. He was an experienced surveyor, and secured for them “all the marsh and meadow land of the Ma�apoise�.” He built his own home on the west bank of the Ma�apoise� River, which was renamed Cole’s River. Active in civic affairs, Hugh was elected to many terms as Swansea selectman, or town magistrate, and also as deputy from Swansea to the Plymouth Colony General Court, which was both a judicial and legislative body. The town of Plymouth had occasionally used his skills

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King Philip’s War King Philip’s War—also known as the First Indian War, the Great Narraganse� War or Metacom’s Rebellion—took place in southern New England from 1675 to 1676. It was the Na�ve Americans' last-ditch effort to avoid recognizing English authority and stop English se�lement on their na�ve lands. The war is named a�er the Wampanoag chief Metacom, later known as Philip or King Philip, who led the fourteen-month bloody rebellion.... Metacom was the second son of Wampanoag chief Massasoit, who had nego�ated a peace treaty with the colonists at Plymouth Planta�on. But the agreement wasn’t enough to stop the colonists’ encroachment on [Na�ve] lands.... King Philip’s War is considered the bloodiest war per capita in US history. It le� several hundred colonists dead and dozens of English se�lements destroyed or heavily damaged. Thousands of [Na�ve Americans] were killed, wounded, or captured and sold into slavery or indentured servitude. The war decimated the Narraganse�, Wampanoag, and many smaller tribes and mostly ended Indian resistance in southern New England, paving the way for addi�onal English se�lements. h�ps://www.history.com/topics/ na�ve-american-history/king-philipswar

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as a surveyor, and in Swansea’s early years, the townsmen appointed him to survey the land grants made by the town to its proprietors. He was also named a surveyor of highways, where he was responsible for monitoring the condition of main roads and calling on the townsmen to do maintenance when necessary. This was one of several civic offices that Hugh occupied over the years. Records of Plymouth Colony and Bristol County describe him consistently, across several decades, as a ship’s carpenter (also his brother John’s occupation). He also served several times as a juror. Various accounts have been wri�en concerning Hugh’s relationship with the Native Americans. He was a frequent visitor to their camp and had peaceful dealings with Metacom, also known by his adopted English name as King Philip, who was the sachem (elected chief) to the Wampanoag people. Despite their friendship, Philip was charged with incivility toward Hugh in 1671. Hugh also sued King Philip for 200 pounds for breach of a land sale agreement which he later se�led. As relations with the Wampanoags, Narraganse�s, and other Native

groups deteriorated, Plymouth Colony authorities asked Hugh to report to them on the Natives’ moods and activities, which he occasionally did. Swansea, Apl. 1, 1671. Most Honorable Sirs: — Yours I have received this day whereby I perceive you desire to know what posture the Indians are in. I do not find them to continue in posture of war as they have been. I went to Mount Hope last second day on purpose to see their proceedings and was in many of their houses, but saw nothing as intending to war. But asking them of their reason of continuing together at Mt. Hope, they answered, it was to see Philip’s child buried, and I have seen some return, but the greater part of them are together. And they gave as the reason, because the wind does blow against them that they cannot go home with their canoes— not else. Rest assured I am yours to command what I am able.” In June 1675, two of Hugh’s sons were kidnapped by the Natives shortly before the outbreak of King Philip’s War. Supposedly King Philip ordered


members of his tribe to return the children to their home because Hugh had always been his friend. At the same time, he warned Hugh that he could not hold back his warriors. This allowed Hugh time to remove his family from Swansea before the Natives a�acked, but his home was one of the first burned in the raid. At the outset of the war, Hugh took his family to Portsmouth (which, along with Newport, was the only Rhode Island town spared from a�ack), where his sister Mary and her first husband, John Almy, were already living. Hugh’s family remained in Portsmouth during the war. Hugh returned to Swansea by 12 October 1676, when it was ordered that “the Selectmen Chosen 1675 shall stand for this year 1676, vizt. … Hugh Cole.” Instead of rebuilding his house on the site of the original, he located near Kickemuit River in presentday Warren, Rhode Island. He was again elected selectman and deputy and resumed his active role in town affairs. The date of Mary’s death is not known, but Hugh re-

married twice after she died: to Elizabeth Cook in 1689, and to Mary Morton in 1693. Both of his subsequent wives had been married twice before.² Hugh died in January of 1699. *** John (b. 1660) was the third son of Hugh and Mary and he was first married to Susannah Gray when he was 29 and she was 21. Like John, Susannah’s family had emigrated from England the previous generation, with some of the original se�lers in Plymouth. John and Susannah had at least six children, including Mary (b. 1689), Elizabeth (b. 1692), John Jr. (b. 1695), Susannah (b. 1696), Hannah (b. 1697), and Experience (b. 1702) who died as an infant. John was the only son. The records are a li�le confusing because his cousin John was born the same year to his uncle James. When Susannah died, John remarried, as

² It was dangerous for anyone, particularly women, to remain alone after losing a spouse. So it was not uncommon to see in the historical records that people quickly remarry, often more than once.

Above: Philip, King of Mount Hope, engraving by Paul Revere, 1772.

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his father, John, was 35 and his mother, Susannah, was 27. He was their third child, and the only son. He married Abigail Bu�s on 1 November 1715 and they had at least twelve children between 1716 and 1742.

Above: A por�on of Abigail Bu�s’s family tree to illustrate the rela�onships described in the text.

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indicated in his will where he refers to his wife Sarah. She was Sarah Cornell, the widow of Zaccheus Bu�s (more about them below). The will, dated September 22, 1742 leaves some money to his daughters and granddaughter, and to his son John Jr. “who has and does take care of me, all of the farm where I dwell in Swansea aforesaid … also all my household goods, ca�le, etc., and constitute him my executor.” When John Cole Jr. was born on 3 November 1695, in Swansea, Massachuse�s,

Detour: Bu�s and Cornell Families In a twist reminiscent of the song “I’m My Own Grandpa,” Abigail became her husband’s stepsister after his father remarried. She was the daughter of Zaccheus Bu�s and Sarah Cornell who became the second wife of John Cole Sr. Both Sarah and Zaccheus had rather colorful family histories. Sarah was the daughter of Thomas Cornell Jr. who was executed after being convicted of murdering his mother, Rebecca Briggs. There are details of this strange case in the Supplement. Sarah is also directly related to the Cornells who founded the university. Zaccheus, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Bu�s, was born in Li�le Compton, Rhode Island in 1667, and married Sarah Lake in 1688. His father Thomas had emigrated from England to join the colony around 1660. Zaccheus lived his life on the place where he was born, engaged in farming.


Not much has been preserved concerning his life, nor can much be presumed, beyond the fact that he was an industrious farmer, and like most of his neighbors at that point, a staunch Quaker. However Zaccheus Bu�s died around 1718³ and shortly thereafter, Sarah entered into a second marriage with John Cole Sr. On his mother’s side, Zaccheus was the grandson of Alice Lake who was convicted of witchcraft and hanged in Dorchester, Massachuse�s in 1651. This was some 40 years earlier than the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692–93. Alice Lake was born in England in about 1620, and had emigrated to the Massachuse�s Bay Colony as a child, se�ling in Dorchester. She was the mother of at least five children, all presumably fathered by Henry Lake. In 1651, those children would have been a girl about ten, a boy about seven, a boy about five, a child about three who likely was a boy, and an infant. In 1651, Alice Lake’s baby died. Later, she told people that she saw the baby, but most likely it was

a manifestation of grief that allowed her imagination to run wild. The Puritans believed that it was the devil coming to her in the form of her deceased child, and because of that, she was accused of being a witch and brought to trial. Like most of the women accused of witchcraft, Alice was poor. And like most of the accused, she denied being a witch. The records of her trial are lost, but she was apparently found guilty of witchcraft. Alice was given the opportunity to recant her story on the day of her execution, which might have saved her life. Instead, she said that God was punishing her because she had engaged in premarital sex, had become pregnant, and had a�empted an abortion. She had apparently carried Puritanical guilt throughout her life for having tried to cause the death of her oldest child. That child was Zaccheus’s mother Elizabeth. Alice Lake was hanged in 1651. *** Despite all this history, Abigail and John appeared to live a pre�y

³ There are inconsistent dates between Zaccheus’s death and the death of John’s first wife Susannah, but records concur about the second marriage between John and Sarah.

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Above: Join, or Die, a woodcut by Benjamin Franklin (1754), a poli�cal cartoon commentary on the disunity of the thirteen colonies during the French and Indian War, was later used to encourage the former colonies to unite for the cause of independence during the American Revolu�onary War.

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unremarkable life, remaining in Swansea, as it became part of Rhode Island and was renamed Warren. Abigail died in 1748 and John Jr. remarried; his second wife was Elizabeth Hale. John Jr. died sometime after 1768 because that year his son sold some property which included “50 acres of land partly in Swansey and partly in Warren … [and] the Easter-most half part of the Dwelling house in which my Honoured Father John Cole now dwells.” The Rhode Island census of 1774 shows John Cole Esq. living with two of his sons in Warren (as Swansea was now known). John William was born on September 12, 1742, in Swansea, the youngest child of his parents who were both 46 by then. He was first

married to Mercy Wood 19 July 1764, in Swansea,and they had four children together: Noah, Asa (b. 1766), Sarah (who died young), and Nathan. He then married Susannah Salisbury in October 1770, also in Swansea, and they had five more children together: Elizabeth, Candace, Phillip, Ichabod, and John. By now the colonies had become prosperous and began to chafe against the British rulers. After the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, young men of New England were eager to fight for their liberty. These young men were able marksmen and hunters, and they knew their lands well and were not about to lose them. Their families had worked too hard to establish these farms. The citizens were being drained by excessive taxes: the British government had levied heavy tariffs on tea, nails, cloth, and pins. All the necessities of life had to be imported from England at exorbitant prices and England ruled with a heavy hand. So New England prepared for war. In 1777, along with five of his brothers, John joined the American Revolution, fighting in Captain James Hill’s Company from


Bounty Land Grants A bounty land is a grant of land from a government as a reward to repay ci�zens for the risks and hardships they endured in the service of their country. The Revolu�onary governments offered free lands in exchange for military service, but on the presump�on that they would be victorious. They would not actually award the lands un�l the war had been concluded and the Bri�sh defeated. Such a policy not only imposed no financial constraints on the war effort but also ensured a degree of support for the Revolu�onary cause. Bounty lands were an effec�ve propaganda technique for enrolling support for the war among the ci�zenry and preven�ng them from lapsing into the Bri�sh fold when the �de of ba�le ebbed. Colonies with lots of open lands used their advantage to enlist support for the cause; there was no bounty land policy in Delaware, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or Vermont which lacked enough vacant land to support such a policy. Bounty lands were a feature, however, in Connec�cut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachuse�s, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. Virginia extended reserves for its bounty lands into Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. These states selected reserves for bounty lands in their western domains thus establishing a reliable military force that could protect se�lements from incursions by Na�ve Americans. Popula�ng the fron�er with ci�zens skilled in defense offered the best prospect in en�cing other se�lers to join them. Veterans were knowledgeable in the use of firearms and in military strategy. The state governments also realized that the revenue derived from the sale and taxa�on of vacant lands in the west was badly needed. The extension of se�lements on the fron�er would, in �me, also increase the tax rolls and contribute to the reduc�on of their Revolu�onary War debts. Bockstruck, Lloyd DeWi� “Revolu�onary War Bounty Land Grants: Reasons for Issuing Bounty Land Grants.” h�ps://www.genealogy.com/ar�cles/research/24_land.htmlv

Bristol, Rhode Island under Colonel John Dagge�.⁴ Moving to Ohio Following the war, John brought his family to Washington County, Ohio in the early days of the se�lement. Many Revolutionary War soldiers received land grants in the west in lieu of payment for their service. It is possible John came out to claim such a parcel of land, but there is no record of it. At least one of his brothers

also moved to the Ohio Valley around the same time. John first emigrated from Rhode Island to West Virginia, and then to Belpre, Ohio where he remained for two years. In 1804, the family moved up from Belpre and se�led on a farm below Vienna Island. John Cole kept a tavern on the Ohio River bank known as “The Half Way House” because it was about equal distance between Marie�a and Belpre. According to a history of the

⁴ Before a small force of patriots faced off against British troops on Lexington Green in 1775, in a deadly confrontation that would open the war for American independence, New England patriots were already confronting British troops. By March 1775, patriot firebrands in the Taunton-A�leboro area had deemed their local Tory leader a legitimate threat. When they suspected that he might have gone for a squadron of British reinforcements, local militia officials and volunteers decided on a pre-emptive strike on 9 April. Colonel John Dagge� was placed in command and led as many as 2,000 Minutemen, forcing the Tory leader to flee, and taking 29 prisoners (who were later released). No shots were fired. Ten days later, the “shot heard round the world” set off the Revolution.

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Above: View of Marie�a on the Ohio River.

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county, “There he entertained the wayfaring stranger as well as friends. He kept the custom of se�ing forth a ‘gigger’ of whiskey to his guests until he died.” He also kept the first ferry between Belpre and Marie�a. His son Asa retained the homestead. John died on 12 October, 1826, in Washington, Ohio, having lived a long life of 84 years, and was buried in Marie�a, Ohio. Asa Cole (b. 1766) was an adult with his own family when he emigrated along with his father, brother, and other family members to southern Ohio. His records are a li�le confusing because of the reuse of family names, however the Cole relationships have been well researched and documented, and lately confirmed by DNA. Asa likely

had two wives, and both appear to have been named Susannah, and he had at least five children with his second wife Susannah Southward: Thomas (b. 1789), Malachi (b. 1790), Lucretia (b. 1793), Sardis (b. 1795), and Harty (b. 1798). According to the 1790 census Asa is listed in Hoosick, Albany County (in 1791 it became Rensselaer County), New York with a household of one male over the age 16 (himself), one male under the age 16 (son Thomas), and two females. It was around the turn of the nineteenth century that they all embarked for Ohio. The History of Washington County, says that in 1799 Asa and his family “emigrated to the western frontier and locat[ed] at Wheeling, Virginia [not yet West Virginia], where for two years or thereabouts [they were] residents of the historical old block-house at that place. The father, Asa, was during this period engaged in packing salt from the Atlantic seaboard over the mountains to Wheeling for Zane, the founder of the se�lement. In the spring of 1801 the family became se�lers on Indian Wheeling Creek within the present limits of Belmont County, Ohio, and in 1806 they re-


moved to Warren Township, Washington County, where the father pursued the avocations of farming and keelboating for a number of years. He finally returned to Belmont County, where he died” the same year as his father, in 1826. *** Harty (b. 1798) was about five years old when her family came to Washington County. Typical of the historical lives of ordinary women, not much is known about her prior to her marriage. But a small detour into the life of her brother Sardis offers some insight into how her family may have come to be intertwined with the Lowrys and, eventually the Gatewoods her daughter married into. When he came of age, Sardis joined his father in the popular, lucrative occupation of keelboating. He made trips up the Ohio River to Pi�sburgh and down to Cincinnati and also engaged in navigating the Kanawha, plying between salt works on that stream and the best markets on the Ohio. He finally located on the Kanawha where he engaged in salt manufacturing and remained there until 1827. On leaving the Kanawha salt works Sardis

located at Briscoe Run in Wood County, Virginia, five miles below Marie�a; this was a locality originally se�led by Germans and a place of considerable note on the river, though seemingly without cause. When the Briscoe Run post office was established in 1838 Sardis was commissioned as the first postmaster, and held the office as long as he lived. By occupation he was a cooper, but “he combined with his trade several other kinds of employment such as there was need for in the li�le community where he dwelt. He is described as a very clever, social man, and one who, despite the rough surroundings amid which his early life was passed as a keel-boatman and a resident of the isolated salt-making

Above: Ohio was a leading state in salt produc�on. One of the most successful salt plants was in Pomeroy, Meigs County, which con�nued to produce salt un�l the 1970s. The image above is an 1875 lithograph of the Salina Saltworks.

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colony on the Kanawha, “was not only noted for his strict integrity but for a correctness of deportment and a freedom from the small vices and careless habits of life which it might naturally be supposed he would possess.” He died in the spring of 1871, “having passed through the allo�ed three score years and ten, loved and respected by all who knew him.” Harty Cole met Melvin Lowry and they married in 1822. Melvin was from

Greenup, Kentucky, downriver from where the Coles lived. Harty and Melvin farmed on Raccoon Island, in the Ohio River. Over the next 22 years, the couple had nine children, all born in Gallia County: Louise (b. 1822), Virginia (b. 1825), Amanda (b. 1828), Oscar (b. 1830), Sophronia (b. 1833), America (b. 1837), Cleopatra (b. 1838), and twins Alonzo and William (b. 1844). For more of their story and Virginia’s, see the Gatewood chapter, page 37.

Sources Anderson, Robert Charles. 1995. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volume 1. Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society. Cole, Ernest Byron. 1908. The Descendants of James Cole of Plymouth, 1633: Also a Record of the Families of Lieutenant Thomas Burnham, of Ipswich, 1635, Lieutenant Edward Winship, of Cambridge, 1635, and Simon Huntington, of Norwich, England, 1635, with a complete record of the Cole, Coole, and Cowle families of America in the revolution. New York: Grafton Press. Haynes, Stephen L. 2014. Our Immigrant Ancestors (and a Few Others), Volume 1. Minneapolis. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop_Fleet h�ps://www.geni.com/people/James-Cole-of-the-Plymouth-Colony/ 6000000007397061231 h�ps://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/before-the-shot-heardround-the-world-an-a�leboro-patriot-led-raid-against-tories/article_a47ca8ea-e7e4-597e-bb46-e7a05d8d4347.html h�ps://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2008/01/alice-lake.html Jacobs, Rita. “Our Cole Ancestors.” h�p://www.arq.net/~ljacobs/cole.html. Rixford, Elizabeth Leach. 1934. Supplement II to Three Hundred Colonial Ancestors and War Service. Rutland, VT: Tu�le Company. Washington County Historical Society. 1891. History of Washington County, Ohio 1788-1881. Marie�a, OH: H.Z. Williams and Bro. Zubrinsky, Eugene Cole. 2015. “James Cole of Plymouth, Massachuse�s, and His Descendent Hugh Cole of Plymouth and Swansea, Massachuse�s, and Benjamin Cole of Swansea.” Ojai, CA: PDF.

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Whitney J

1635

ust two years after the Coles, in April 1635, the Whitney family emigrated to Massachuse�s from London, in the ship Elizabeth and Ann, Roger Cooper, master. They were also part of the great Puritan migration to New England in the two decades from 1620 to 1640. Puritans embraced Calvinism (Reformed theology) with its opposition to ritual and an emphasis on preaching, and opposed church practices that resembled Roman Catholic ritual. They wanted to rule (through Parliament), and wanted the king to accede to their theocratic designs, but he wasn’t having it. The Puritans generally came in family groups rather than as isolated individuals and were motivated chiefly by a quest for freedom to practice their Puritan religion. Thus, the causes that led

the Whitneys to leave are familiar: the spirit of the age had already led to the “Reformation” and was developing into a struggle for civil and religious liberty under the British Constitution. During these two decades, no parliament assembled in England, and prevailing theories of right and justice were routinely violated. Taxes were assessed without legislative sanction, and without regard to custom or equality. Monopolies of trade in the necessities of life were granted to royal favorites. Knighthood— once an honor—was forced upon every man of means for the sake of the fees thereby secured. Men had to pay for ordinary personal liberty, protection of property, and the privilege of earning their daily bread. The colonists to New England were mostly

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Whitney Name Origin Whitney is a surname of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a loca�onal name from a place near Hay in Herefordshire. Recorded as “Witenie” in the Domesday Book (a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror), and as “Whyteneye” in the 1283 Charter Rolls of Herefordshire, the name was derived from the Old English hwitan (from hwit) meaning white, and eg, island, or, a piece of land surrounded by streams. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxa�on. In England this was known as the Poll Tax. Loca�onal surnames were originally given to the lord of the manor, or as a means of iden�fica�on to those who le� their place of origin to se�le elsewhere. A Coat of Arms granted to the Whitneys of Herefordshire described “a knightly family of remote an�quity, founded by one Eustace de Whitney.” Some Whitneys trace back to Plantagenet kings, but our specific line is not clear about this connec�on. h�ps://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Whitney

families with some education who were leading relatively prosperous lives in England. They were the most urban and sophisticated of their contemporaries and they had many skilled tradesman, farmers, and crafters among them. They mostly se�led in small towns for mutual support and community religious

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activities. According to some estimates, seven to 10 percent of the colonists returned to England after 1640, including about a third of the clergymen. John Whitney of Watertown, Massachuse�s, however, was not one of them. He was the progenitor of numerous descendants, who can probably be found in


Massachuse�s Bay Colony The Massachuse�s Bay Colony (1628–91) was an English se�lement on the east coast of America in the seventeenth century around the Massachuse�s Bay, the northernmost of several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachuse�s Bay. The lands of the se�lement were located in southern New England, with ini�al se�lements situated on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15 miles apart—the areas around Salem and Boston. A flo�lla of ships sailed from England beginning in April 1630, some�mes known as the Winthrop Fleet. They began arriving at Salem in June and carried more than 700 colonists. Over the next ten years, about 20,000 Puritans emigrated from England to Massachuse�s and the neighboring colonies during the Great Migra�on. Before the arrival of European colonists on the eastern shore of New England, the area around Massachuse�s Bay was the territory of several Algonquian-speaking tribes, including the Massachuse�s, Nausets, and Wampanoags. The Pennacooks occupied the Merrimack River valley to the north, and the Nipmucs, Pocumtucs, and Mahicans occupied the western lands of Massachuse�s, although some of those tribes were under tribute to the Mohawks, who were expanding aggressively from upstate New York. The total Na�ve American popula�on in 1620 has been es�mated to be 7,000. This number was significantly larger as late as 1616; in later years, contemporaneous chroniclers interviewed Na�ves who described a major pes�lence which killed as many as two-thirds of the popula�on. The land-use pa�erns of the Na�ves included plots cleared for agricultural purposes and woodland territories for hun�ng game. Land divisions among the tribes were well understood. The New England colonies were ravaged by King Philip's War (1675–76), when the Na�ves of southern New England rose up against the colonists and were decisively defeated, although at great cost in life to all concerned. The Massachuse�s fron�er was par�cularly hard hit: several communi�es in the Connec�cut and Swi� River valleys were abandoned. By the end of the war, most of the Na�ve popula�on of southern New England made peace trea�es with the colonists. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachuse�s_Bay_Colony

every county of New England, and in every State in the Union. *** John Whitney (b. 1593) was the son of Mary (Bray) and Thomas Whitney, a “gentleman” of the city of Westminster. Thomas was of a comfortable social standing and had a be�er-thanaverage education, but numerous claims to his royal descent have been disproven. It is most likely that Thomas Whitney of Westminster descends from the Cheshire Whitneys at Coole Pilate, in Acton, near Nantwich. His son John was baptized in St. Margaret’s, the parish church standing

in the shadow of the famous Westminster Abbey. In 1607 John was apprenticed to William Pring of the Old Bailey, a freeman of the Merchant Taylors Company. Pring probably dealt in cloth, since John Whitney is later listed as a tailor in Watertown deeds. The Merchant Taylors were at that time more social and political than commercial. They established a school and made it one of the best in England. They founded charities which still flourish, and in many ways were a powerful influence for the advancement of civilization. In John’s day they were easily the leading livery company. Therefore, by appren-

Opposite: Arrival of the Winthrop Colony in Boston, W.F. Halsall, 1875.

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ticing young John, his eldest surviving son, Thomas gave him a good start in life and the best advantages his means afforded. Apprentices did not “learn a trade,” as we now understand it; rather John would have “served a clerkship” in the office of a large commercial house, where he learned to be a skillful penman and neat and accurate accountant, which is later evident in many of the Watertown records. A heavy premium probably had to be paid to his master in 1607, and another one to the company when he was made “free.” When he reached his majority in 1614, John was released from his apprenticeship, and then 10 years later, he served as master of his younger brother, Robert, who had been apprenticed to him by their father. John married his wife Elinor sometime before 1619, near London, England. In all, they had nine children, however their firstborn (and only girl) died in infancy. They sent their eldest son, also John (b. 1620),¹ to the Merchant Tay-

lors’ School, too, once again affording him the finest education available to the son of a yeoman intended for business. Four more boys were born over the next dozen or so years: Richard (b. 1626), Nathaniel (b. 1627), Thomas (b. 1630), and Jonathan (b. 1634). These are the sons who are listed on the ship’s manifest when they departed for America. On that list, their ages are all understated, perhaps to avoid some sort clause in the Subsidy Act.² Indeed prior to their departure, the records of “persons permi�ed to embark” certify that: “These p'ties hereunder expressed are to be imbarqued for New England, having taken the oaths of Allegeance and Supremacie and likewise brought Certificate both from the Ministers and Justices when their abidings were latlie, of their conformitie to the Discipline and order of the Church of England, and yet they are no Subsedy Men.” The Whitneys arrived in June of 1635, and immediately se�led in Watertown,

¹ The inventor Eli Whitney (1765–1825) is directly descended from John Whitney (1621–1692), who was our ancestor Joshua’s eldest brother. ² An aid, tax, or tribute granted by parliament to the king for the urgent occasions of the kingdom, to be levied on every subject of ability, according to the value of his lands or goods. A “subsidy man” is a person liable to pay a subsidy to a lord; hence a person of means or substance.

Opposite: “A Map of the Original Allotments of Land and the Ancient Topography of Watertown" from Henry Bond's Early Se�lers of Watertown. Whitney proper�es are found around Whitney Hill in the center. Above: John Whitney’s signature.

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John Whitney’s Will This is an inventory of the estate of Mr. John Whitnie, sene, taken this 4th of June, 1673, by us whose names are hereunto subscribed. Impe Wearing Clothes A sad coleired sute coats and breeches The rest of both linin and woollen and shooes stocking hats gloves being much worne The bed wheareon he lay with all the furniture thereunto belonging Three pillows beers three sheets and three small old table clothes An old feather boulster and feather pillows a sea chest Two old chests an old trunke an old box and an old Cubbard Two old tables one forme 3 old chaires Three pewter pla�ers one basson a sacer and old great po� and old pewter bo�le and a chamber po� A brass kitle 2 brass skillets a brass skimer a warming pan a small brass morter a li�le ladell of brass An iron pot and po� hooks a tramell a iron ki�le a spit a smoothing iron and two old frying pans Three earthen vessels a great grater 2 chuny dishes a dozen of trenchers a wooden dish 3 cheese moats A small trevit a pair of tongs and a small payer of scales pound and half in waits a spindell for a wheelle and an iron bullet A churne and other lumber Four cowes Two oxen A old maer An old sadle an pillion An old paire of soops and boxes for a cart a payer of iron pins for the extree a payer of lines pins and washers A chaine a iron bar a spoone of iron an old adsc a set for a saw two wedges and an iron pin for a cart a hay crome and other old iron A grind stone with the iron to it An old haire a cart rope an old bage two old cushins Fi�y acres of land caled devident Three acres of meadow at beaver brooke with an acre and half of apland to it An acre of meadow called plaine meadow A forke and a shovell All so of Joseph UNDERWOOD William BOND Nathan FISKE

Massachuse�s, where their son Joshua (b. 1635) was born on 15 July. John Whitney was admi�ed as a freeman on 3 March 1636, and the following year was for the first time elected by his associates as one of the selectmen of the town. He held the office for many years afterward, until 1655,

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at which time he was elected town clerk. He purchased a 16-acre homestead which became the family’s permanent residence. John was of a comfortable social standing and had a be�er-than-average education. His property was in keeping with his status as a Watertown proprietor and reflected a modest amount of trading and selling. In 1641, he was appointed constable in Watertown by the General Court at their quarterly session held in Boston. At that time constables were all appointed, and, “besides the duties a�ached to the office in la�er times, they were required to collect the taxes of the town and the levies by the General Court; to pay the debts of the colony due to individuals in their respective towns; to supply the town with sealed weights and measures; to set order in those towns where no captain dwelt, and to inflict the punishments ordered by judicial authority, where there was not another appointed to do it within his own town, unless he can get another to do it.” As a badge of his office a constable was required to carry a black staff about five and a half feet long, with a tip or head five or six inches long.


Seven of the nine Whitney children—all boys—survived to adulthood (the last two were Caleb and Benjamin, both born in Watertown, in 1640 and 1643, respectively). Elinor died 11 May 1659 in Watertown, and John married a second time in September of that year. His second wife, Judah Clement, was the widow of Robert Clement. In 1668 John requested that his youngest son, Benjamin, who had

se�led in York, Maine, return to live with him on his homestead, with the assurance that it would be his after his father’s death. However, in 1671 Benjamin, with his father’s consent, conveyed his rights and obligations in this homestead to his brother Joshua, who had se�led in Groton, Massachuse�s. After the death of his father Joshua returned to Groton, though, and in 1697, he sold the old homestead. John died 1 June 1673 in

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Watertown, again a widower, at age 80 and his land and possessions (see box) were distributed among his living children. John and Elinor Whitney are probably buried in Watertown's “Old Burying Ground,” now known as the Arlington Street Cemetery. However, if they ever had grave markers, they have long since vanished or eroded, and the exact location of their graves may never be known. *** When Joshua Whitney (b. 1635) took over the homestead, he would have been about 35, and he was married to Mary Buckmaster, with whom he had three children, but only two living—Joshua and Hannah. Mary also died around that time, which may have inspired him to come back to Watertown. He met and married Abigail Tarbell in Watertown in 1672 and they had eight more children, five girls and three boys, all of whom survived. Joshua Whitney was the first of the family who was born in America. He was one of the earliest se�lers, a deacon, and original proprietor in Groton, Massachuse�s where he was elected

to serve in a number of public roles: selectman, “member of the board to arrange ma�ers pertaining to the meeting house,” constable, a tithing-man, overseer of highway, and chairman of the commi�ee to heat the meeting house. He lived in Groton, probably until it was burned by the Native Americans during King Philip’s war in the spring of 1676 (see box page 12). He served as a soldier in that war along with his son, Joshua Jr. They returned to Watertown for a few years and Joshua Sr. died in 1719. He was buried in the old burying ground in Groton. The Williams Begin William Whitney I³ (b. 1677) was the third son of Joshua and Abigail, born in 1677 in Watertown. But when he married his first wife Lydia Perham at the age of 22, he was listed as being “of Groton.” Lydia was from nearby Chelmsford, daughter of John and Lydia (Shipley) Perham. William and Lydia had three children, creatively named William II, Lydia, and Joshua. The baby Lydia did not survive childhood. On 4 April 1710, William purchased land in Killingly,

³ I’m just assigning Roman numerals to help distinguish all the Williams.

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Connecticut. But when his wife Lydia died in August 1716, in Groton, at the age of 42, she was buried in “the Old Burial Grounds, Groton.” William married a second time the following year. He had four more children with his new wife, Margaret Mirick. About 1720, they moved to Plainfield, Connecticut, where his youngest children were born, and they afterward resided. The oldest son of William and Lydia was the aforementioned William Whitney II, born in 1701.

Not much is known about him. He was born in Groton, Massachuse�s, and moved to Connecticut with his parents when quite young. Se�ling in Killingly he lived there until after his marriage, when he moved to Canaan. He was a cooper by trade, but followed farming nearly all the la�er part of his life. While residing in Killingly, in 1728, he was elected a member of the first board of surveyors. In 1723, he had married Mary Whitmore, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Waters) Whit-

Above: Nova Belgica et Anglia Nova. Willem Janszoon Blaeu, cartographer. Note: Oriented with north toward the right. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

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more of Cambridge, Massachuse�s. They had three children over the next 16 years, but with a large gap between the last two, it’s likely they lost some children or pregnancies in between. William Whitney III (b. 1725), was probably born in Killingly, though some think he might have been born in Canaan, Connecticut. When he got married in Salisbury, he was listed as “William Whitney from the east part of Connecticut.” He was a farmer. His wife was Arcoucher Dutcher, daughter of Christoffel and Gertruyd (Herty) Dutcher who were Knickerbockers (they originally spelled the name de Duyster) whose family emigrated to Ulster County, New York from Heerden, Netherlands, around 1640. William and Arcoucher (whose name was variously recorded as Arcoucher, Arconche, Angenietje, Jane, and Jannetje) had nine children over 18 years. Dutch Detour Just a small detour here to look into the background of Arcoucher Dutcher (b. 1729), which was an unexpected twist in our family history. As her surname indicates, the Dutchers were

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originally from the Netherlands and had come to America as early as the Whitneys, se�ling in New Amsterdam sometime around 1640. Arcoucher was already a fifth-generation American when she was born; her great-great grandfather, Willhelm Janszen de Duyster Van Heerden was the original immigrant. Willhelm was from Heerden, a small village in Gelderland in southeastern Holland. The family originated in Normandy under the name Duchier. During the early part of the sixteenth century they moved to Holland and the name changed to De Duyster. They may have been Huguenots, fleeing France for a more tolerant environment. The Netherlands controlled the Hudson River Valley from 1609 until 1664, but in that short time, wealthy Dutch entrepreneurs established New Netherland, a series of trading posts, towns, and forts up and down the Hudson River that laid the groundwork for towns that still exist today. They brought in farmers who became renters and established cities such as Fort Orange, the northernmost of the Dutch outposts, known


today as Albany; New York City, originally known as New Amsterdam; and New Netherland's third major se�lement, Wiltwyck, known today as Kingston, New York. Willhelm’s first wife and the mother of his children is unknown. In 1654, he was married in New York to Leentje Martens,⁴ and they se�led in Wiltwyck. They were killed by Native Americans from the Lenape tribe in 1655. The Dutcher family, now so-called, appears under the various spellings and misspellings of ye duitcher, “according to the gentlemanly ideas of orthography possessed by early clerks and later copyists. The family is singular in having retained the national ‘Dutch’ nickname as its modern designation.” As de Duyster means “Dutch,” van Heerden indicates the town they were from. Those appendages may only have been added in the new world, when Willhelm’s son Jan Wilhemszen had to distinguish himself from other

John Williamsons in the colony. His brother Roelof, whose name was more unique, did not require the tag. Jan (b. 1640) married Margrietje Cornelisse and they had nine children. In

⁴ Leentje may have been the sister of Jonas Bronck, the first European se�ler in, and lending his name to, what is now known as the Bronx. If so, they are descended from Jesper (grandfather) and Morten (father) Bronck who were Lutheran parish ministers in South Strömö, residing in Thorshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands. Leentje’s first husband, Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, was Bronck’s partner in the expedition to se�le New Netherlands and one of the original se�lers of what is now Harlem. He was killed by Lenape in 1654.

Above: Minuteman patriot of the American Revolu�on. Alex Microbe.

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Slavery in Connec�cut Slavery in Connec�cut dates as far back as the mid-1600s. Connec�cut’s growing agricultural industry fostered slavery’s expansion, and by the �me of the American Revolu�on, Connec�cut had the largest number of slaves in New England. A�er the war, new ideas about freedom and the rights of men brought about the movement to end slavery in the United States. In contrast to neighboring states, however, Connec�cut emancipated its slaves very slowly and cau�ously, claiming it wanted to ensure the process respected property rights and did not disrupt civic order. Connec�cut passed the Gradual Aboli�on Act of 1784, but this act did not emancipate any enslaved persons, only those who would be born into slavery and only a�er they reached the age of 25. This gradual process meant that slavery in Connec�cut did not officially end un�l 1848—long a�er many other Northern states had abolished the prac�ce. h�ps://connec�cuthistory.org/topicspage/slavery-and-aboli�on/

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1660 he purchased land valued at 600 guilders, which he paid in installments of grain and beavers. In 1663 he was fined for venturing outside the Kingston stockade, without a guard, in violation of the decree made after the Indian massacre of 7 June of that year. Roeloff (b. 1670) was the seventh son of Jan and Margrietje, born in Marbletown, New York. He married Jannetje Bresie of Albany in 1700. He was a pioneer in Weataug (near Salisbury, Connecticut) and recognized as a competent farmer. Records show that in 1699 he “donated wood for the support of the Dominie” and served as a “volunteer on ye Expedition against Canada” in 1711. In 1714 he lived in Dutchess County with his family and one slave. At the time of his death in 1737, he was a wealthy land owner. Margrietje lived another 12 years and their “sons showed the upward tendency which has made our country a nation of ascent, not descent.” There were nine children, six boys and three girls. Christoffel (b. 1705) was the third-born. He married Gertruyd Herty in 1726 and they had two children. Arcoucher was the oldest, born when Gertruyd was 24.

Along with his brothers, Christoffel (or Christopher) was a purchaser of original proprietary rights in Salisbury. He died in 1755 at the age of 50. *** Arcoucher married William Whitney in Salisbury in 1747 when she was 18 and he was 22. They had at least 10 children over the next 20 years. Their third child, and oldest son, was Christopher Whitney, born in 1751 in Salisbury, where he lived until he reached majority. He married Mary Ticknor, also known as Polly, at the Sharon, Connecticut, meeting house, “and with his bride was said to be the handsomest couple ever married at that place.” Soon after his marriage in December 1774 the war with Great Britain broke out, and he enlisted on his country’s behalf. After the war, with other continental soldiers, he was paid off in lands—“a grant made to the troops of the United States in the late war.” Christopher received a grant of 50 acres of land in the town of Solon, in Cortland County, New York. He probably moved there in about 1790. Christopher and Polly had four children over seven years, all born prior to the move to New York. Ru-


luff Whitney, was their second, born in the summer of 1777. As an adult, Ruluff Whitney was a large, portly man, of florid complexion, nearly six feet tall; he had blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, was a good business man, and energetic, and engaged in various enterprises. Prior to his marriage, he had lived in the township of Sidney, a province of Upper Canada, Bay Quinte where, according to a le�er of recommendation, he a�ended the school of Henry Smith, “teacher of mathematics,” for three months; in July 1798 Smith, also a department surveyor, gave him another certificate of character, stating he had “resided in the township of Sydna, county of Hastings, province of Upper Canada, and parts adjoining for a considerable time.” Ruluff then moved to the 50 acres of land in central New York which he received by deed from his father. On 17 June 1799, Ruluff was appointed first corporal in the first militia company of Solon, New York, and two years later, he was commissioned ensign of a militia company in the county of Onondaga, New York. Shortly after his marriage to Susanna Glenny in

1800, Ruluff owned a grist mill. Susanna had come to America with her parents John and Nancy (Nesbit) Glenny, from Newry in County Down, Ireland. They were proud to be Scotch-Irish and took up the land grant of their son who had died in the Revolution. Susanna was “under size, plump and with very black eyes and hair.” She was a Presbyterian all her life. Ruluff and Susanna had eight children over the next 16 years. In 1816 he became fed up with the climate of New York and decided to remove to New Orleans. This was the year after the Tambora volcano eruption that led to strange weather in the summer of 1816 (see box). This severe weather may have been one of the most important catalysts for westward movement when farmers sought more temperate climates. It also marked the beginning of standardized recordkeeping in the field of meteorology. For years Ruluff had held the position of justice of the peace or squire, so he had good prospects for se�ling in a new place. He moved his family overland to the Ohio River, and in Pi�sburgh built a keelboat with living and merchandise rooms, to carry them

Mount Tambora At the �me there was a lot of specula�on about what caused the weird weather of 1816. In the northern hemisphere that summer, global temperatures cooled by nearly 1°F leading directly or indirectly to 90,000 deaths worldwide. Some wondered if the recently invented (by Benjamin Franklin) lightning rods were preven�ng heat from rising from the earth’s core into the atmosphere. Others suggested sunspots or excessive ice in northern regions as likely causes. It wasn’t un�l 1920 that a climatologist, William Humphreys, con-

nected the cooling to a series of volcanic erup�ons during the winter of 1815, in par�cular, the erup�on of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia. The volcano ejected a cloud of fine ash and dust into the stratosphere, where it remained, insula�ng the earth from the heat and light of the sun, resul�ng in the cooling. The erup�on of Mt. Tambora was the most significant cause of this climate anomaly. There were other erup�ons in 1815, however Tambora is classified as a VEI-7 erup�on with a column 28 miles tall, eclipsing all others by at least one order of magnitude. It is believed to be the largest volcanic erup�on of the last 1,800 years. h�p://www.chestercohistorical.org/ historys-people-1816-year-withoutsummer h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 1815_erup�on_of_Mount_Tambora

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Above: Flatboat (foreground) and keelboat around Pi�sburgh, late eighteenth century.

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via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. He invested the proceeds of his sales in goods for trading on the way down. Unfortunately, the boat sank in the Ohio River during a storm and the goods were lost. So he stopped off at Pomeroy, Ohio, where he invested in coal lands. After a stay of a year or so, Ruluff loaded a boat with coal and proceeded downriver. Upon reaching Saint Louis, the family decided to se�le in Illinois, and taking his oldest son, John, Ruluff left the family in Saint Louis, took up a claim and built a cabin. When he returned to Saint

Louis, he, along with some others of the family, was taken down with yellow fever, but all recovered. However, he decided he had had enough of the south and made plans to return to New York State. On the steamboat upriver, Ruluff met a man who owned property in Portsmouth, Ohio, who “persuaded him that one of the poles of the earth came out there.” The family fortunes were at a very low ebb, but he was “so charmed with what he had heard of the town that he determined to stop there” and did so in January 1821.


He never left the town and is buried in its cemetery. Once the family was se�led in a house, Ruluff took his boys to his coal mine at Pomeroy and they brought out the first coal for sale. They continued to work there for a number of years. Ruluff was never capable of any great exertion after the yellow fever, but was able to take up various enterprises with the assistance of his sons, particularly William. He was soon owner of several desirable pieces of town property; had acquired a small piece of ground on the Scioto bo�oms for farming; had a

brickyard, and later a grocery and pork packing house. He held some small city offices after going to Portsmouth. Olive Whitney, the youngest child of Ruluff and Susanna was born around 1816 in New York, so she would have been an infant at the time of their Ohio River adventures. In 1838, when she was about 21 she married Allan C. McArthur,* from a prominent Chillicothe family, and whose father had served as Ohio’s thirteenth governor. Their story continues in the McArthur chapter, page 99.

Sources Andrews, H. Franklin. 1902. The Hamlin Family: A Genealogy of James Hamlin of Barnstable Massachuse�s. Exira, IA. Evans, Nelson W. 1903. A History of Scioto County, Ohio: Together with a Pioneer Record of Southern Ohio. Vol. 1 and II. Portsmouth, OH. Finley, Isaac J. and Rufus Putnam. 1871. Pioneer Record and Reminiscences of the Early Se�lers and Se�lement of Ross County, Ohio. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke. Griffin, Walter Kenneth. 1910. The Dutcher Family. New York: New York Genealogical and Bibliographical Record. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachuse�s_Bay_Colony h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan_migration_to_New_England_(1620%E2%80%931640) h�p://www.whitneygen.org/wrg/index.php/Main_Page New York Daughters of the American Revolution. 1930. Old Homesteads and Historic Buildings, Genealogy and Family Lore: Architectural-Pictorial-Historical Exhibition. Parsons, KS: Commercial Pub. Co. Pierce, Frederick Clifton. 1895. The Descendants of John Whitney, Who Came from London, England, to Watertown, Massachuse�s, in 1635. Chicago: Conkey/Self-published. Whitney, Mary C. 1928. Whitney, Wynn and Allied Families: Genealogical and Biographical. New York: American Historical Society.

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Gatewood G

1660

atewood is an uncommon name so it is likely that just about anyone in the United States with this name can trace their heritage back to the same couple, John and Amy Gatewood. John Gatewood (b. c1648) arrived in the Virginia colony from London, around 1660. He came with an influx of people from England who se�led the territory originally established by the Virginia Company in 1607, part of the first and longest era of immigration, lasting until the American Revolution. Those early English colonists barely survived, suffering through summer droughts and winter starvation. With the experiments of John Rolfe, the colony finally discovered a staple product—tobacco—even though King James I opposed its use, declaring it a “vile and stinking custom.”

As they began cultivating the crop, the colonists faced the problem of a lack of laborers and inability to feed themselves. The ultimate answer to the labor problem was foreshadowed in a li�le-noticed event that Rolfe described in 1619: the arrival of a Dutch man-ofwar carrying a group of captive Africans. By the end of the century, African slave labor would become the colony's economic and social foundation. A tobacco boom swept Virginia in the 1620s, further increasing the population and spreading se�lers out in search of new lands to cultivate. By 1622, English se�lements lined both banks of the James River from Hampton Roads to the present site of Richmond. At this point, Powhatan Chief Opechancanough launched a concerted effort to drive the English out by simulta-

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Gatewood Name Origin Gatewood is an English habita�onal name of uncertain origin. There are several Gatewood place names in England. One is named from the Old Norse geyt meaning a “rushing stream or spring”; a second is from the Old English word gat, or “goat”; and the etymology of the third loca�on name is unknown. One theory posits that the patronymic Gatward (in the Old English, geat_w(e)ard) designated a keeper of the gate or an official at a monastery, church, or hall. One researcher found that “the earliest reference seems to be to people living in the County of Essex at places such as Felsted near the east side of Waltham Forest. Probably the name was giving to people who hold for two or three genera�ons the office of keeper of one of the gates of the forest. The keeper of a gate was responsible for the management of some area of a forest. Then taking the name with them—in about 1400—some member of the family and his children moved north to the heathland on the borders of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk and acquired land which became known as Gatewards’ Manor.” Hanks, Patrick. 2003. Dic�onary of American Family Names. London: Oxford University Press. Uhrbrock, Richard S. 1974. “Gatewood Family of Essex County, Virginia,” Virginia Genealogical Society Quarterly (12) 2: 44–55.

Virginia Company The first Virginia Company of London was a joint-stock company chartered by King James I in 1606 to establish a colony in North America. The Crown authorized the investors to found a colony, but their primary mission may have been to explore and for�fy the coastline as a way to protect English shipping from the Spanish. The joint-stock company consisted of investors who pooled resources to fund an enterprise and, if successful, shared the profits. Using such an arrangement to fund colonial ventures proved to be a�rac�ve both to the Crown and to investors. The company's goals combined commercial, religious, and na�onal interests. A company allowed investors to distribute their losses more widely in the event of failure. This promoted innova�on by reducing individual costs and thereby encouraging more risk. A company also allowed investors to nego�ate their charter as a group, providing them more leverage and making the Crown responsible to a larger en�ty. In theory, this resulted in the Crown's being less likely to renege on its support. As a financial venture, the Virginia Company of London ul�mately failed. Yet despite many lost investments and lost lives, the English se�lement begun at Jamestown survived and the Virginia colony eventually thrived. Wolfe, Brendan. “Colonial Virginia” Available at: h�ps:// www.encyclopediavirginia.org/virginia_company_of_london#start_entry

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neously a�acking these se�lements. Despite suffering heavily, the English retaliated and soon forced the Powhatans to sue for peace. In 1646, the first Indian reservations in America were established in King William County for the surviving Powhatans. Disease, mismanagement, Indian a�acks, and factionalism in London all took a toll, though, and in 1623, the king’s Privy Council launched an investigation into the Virginia Company's finances. A year later, the company's charter was revoked and the king assumed direct control of Virginia. Heightened efforts to recruit se�lers increased the colony's population with offers of land and political authority, with incentives for both investors and se�lers. New immigrants to the colony would receive 50 acres, as well as an additional 50 for any persons whose passage they financed. This helped increase the flood of immigrants arriving in Virginia. Further fostering the colony's growth was the first substantial influx of unmarried women in 1620. Virginia's population thus grew rapidly from 1618, rising from a few hundred to


nearly 1,400 people in 1622; by 1677 there were 40,000 se�lers in the colony. John and Amy Gatewood Large numbers of people came over as indentured servants; John Gatewood was perhaps one of them. Their passage was paid by people in the colonies who needed help on the farms and in the shops. At the end of this service, usually after seven years, they were free to marry and start their own farms. John Gatewood was one of ten people named in a patent granted to Colonel John Catle� when the la�er was allo�ed 500 acres of land on the north side of the Rappahannock River, 2 June 1666. The following month, John was listed as one of the 73 people who arrived in Virginia under the sponsorship of Thomas Bu�on who was granted 3,650 acres of land on the south side of the Rappahannock. The name John Gatewood does not appear again until 1676, when he received a deed from John Grigory for 100 acres in South Farnham Parish, Rappahannock County. He bought these first 100 acres for 1,840 pounds of tobacco.

John probably started his family just after the purchase of this land, with the first of his children most likely being born before 1680. John married Amy (b. c1660) around that same time—c1678. She was probably the daughter of Catharine Peacock and Thomas McGrah¹—a planter who had come to Virginia from London, by way of the Barbados—but Amy’s origins are not clear. According to one account, Amy “must have been a woman of lovable character and one who diffused sunshine on the lives of those by whom she was surrounded in those hard pioneer days in Virginia. Besides a daughter bearing her Christian name, four grandchildren and many great-grandchildren bore the name Amy, thus showing the love and devotion the children had for their mother.” John and Amy had nine children—six sons and three daughters—who all survived to adulthood. The birth dates are estimates because of a lack of recordkeeping in the colony. The children were: John Jr. (b.

¹ In a will dated 1722, Thomas Magrah made a generous bequest to James, John, and Phillip Gatewood. Witnesses were David Sco� and Amy Baker (her second marriage was to Joseph Baker) who used the same mark “M” that she used for the will of John Gatewood.

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Slavery in Virginia In 1619 the first slaves were brought to Virginia, originally purchased by Portuguese slave traders from other Africans in Angola and then, en route to Mexico, stolen by two English corsairs. (A corsair was a merchant ship licensed by a government to a�ack certain other ships and steal their cargoes.) The cap�ves, likely Kimbundu-speaking people from the kingdom of Ndongo, arrived at Point Comfort, on the James River, late in August 1619. There, they were sold in exchange for food and some were transported to Jamestown, where they were sold again, probably into slavery. During most of the 1600s, Virginia’s labor force consisted primarily of white indentured servants and a handful of convict laborers, who in many cases were treated no be�er than slaves. Some Virginia Na�ve Americans also worked as servants or, more o�en, were enslaved. In 1661, Virginia passed its first law allowing any free person the right to own slaves and by 1705 the Virginia Colony had become a slave society. In the 1670s, the ra�o of white servants to enslaved Africans was four to one. But that changed drama�cally during the next 20 years, so that by the early 1690s the ra�o had reversed: there were now four �mes as many enslaved Africans as white servants in Virginia. On the large tobacco planta�ons, planters used them as cha�el (owned property) to replace indentured servants (who were obligated to work only for a set period of �me) as field labor, as well as to serve as household and skilled workers. As slaves, the Africans were not working by mutual agreement, nor for a limited period of �me. The labor-intensive tobacco and later co�on planta�ons of the South were dependent on slavery for profitability. In the eighteenth century, se�lers gradually moved west, as soils became depleted in the Tidewater. Planters took slaves into the Piedmont but began to develop mixed agriculture by the end of the eighteenth century. Before the abolishment of the interna�onal slave trade, 400,000 enslaved Africans were sold into America. Those individuals and their descendants transformed the lands to which they had been brought into some of the most successful colonies in the Bri�sh Empire. Through backbreaking labor, they cleared the land across the Southeast. They built vast fortunes for white people North and South—at one �me, the second-richest man in the na�on was a Rhode Island “slave trader.” Profits from black people’s stolen labor helped the young na�on pay off its war debts and financed some of the most pres�gious universi�es. Slavery was a source of growing conflict between the states as the new United States grew. Slave socie�es wanted to extend it to the west. Mass emancipa�on of all of the remaining slaves took place during the years of the American Civil War (1861–65) and immediately therea�er. Hannah-Jones, Nikole. 2019. “1619 project,” New York Times Magazine, 14 August. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Virginia

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c1679), Richard (b. c1681), Thomas (b. c1683), Frances (b. c1685), Henry (b. c1687), Amy (b. c1688), Sarah (b. c1690), William (b. c1692), and James (b. c1699). For 40 years until his death in 1706, John Gatewood was active in Rappahannock and Essex Counties (Essex was formed in 1691). He purchased multiple tracts of land, and in 1687 he served as “Surveyor of the High Wayes between White’s Run and Piscataway Creek.” He served on a jury in February 1692 where he heard testimony in a case regarding a straying mare; the outcome was not reported. The next year he was sued for “failure to deliver a consignment of tobacco” and was fined an additional 10 pounds of tobacco. When John died in 1706, he named his wife Amy and Joseph Baker his executors. John Jr. was bequeathed 100 acres, daughter Frances received one shilling. His son Richard received “the plantation I now live upon” and Thomas received 150 acres. His son Henry received 75 acres along with “one six year old stear and one cow and calf.” His daughter Amy received “4,000 pounds of tobacco, one bay mare with a blase in her face and branded on ye rear Bu� with this brand, 3.” The re-


mainder of his estate was divided equally among his wife Amy and the rest of the children, Sarah, William, and James. Two years later, Amy purchased an additional 250 acres and then in 1710 she married Joseph Baker and that tract was sold. Amy and Joseph were married for 10 years until he died, and his will had bequests for several of Amy’s children. William was willed two cows and calves. Henry was remembered with a new suit of clothes. A special provision was made in the bequest to James Gatewood who received all the land and a plantation, provided he not “debar molest or uncomode his mother from tending using or managing any portion or parcel of the sd Land during the term of her natural life.” To each of the remaining Gatewood children not otherwise mentioned, Joseph left a gold ring valued at 20 shillings. Amy and Joseph were slave owners, and Baker’s will left Joseph Gatewood (Amy’s grandson, son of John Jr.) Negroes Tom and Sue, to be held in trust until he came of age. When Amy died in 1744, her will stipulated that her granddaughter Amy would inherit “one Negro boy named Bristol and a Negro

girl called Frank” together with a tract of land, a feather bed and furniture, a cow and calf, one iron pot, and a sow and pigs. Her granddaughter Ann received “one Negro woman named Jenny and ‘her increase’ and a Negro boy called Will.” Grandson Benjamin was bequeathed “the tract of land I now live on and a Negro named Guy.” Grandson James Gatewood received two Negroes, Essie and Sarah. Henry and Dorothy Henry (b. c1687) was born in Rappahannock County and in 1714 he married his first wife Dorothy Dudley (b. 1695). Dorothy’s sister Elizabeth was married to Henry’s brother Thomas. Dorothy and Elizabeth were the daughters of Richard Dudley III (1675–1712) and Elizabeth Saxe (1665–1716). Richard was born in Virginia, but he could trace his genealogy back to the twelfth century, to King Geoffrey V “Le Bon” Plantagenet, who married Matilda, Empress of Germany (daughter of King Henry I) around 1135 (see Supplement). In 1440, John Su�on VI, became the 1st Baron Dudley, Knight of the Garter. He was an English nobleman, a diplomat, and

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Above: Map of the Rappahannock River drainage basin made using data from the Na�onal Map. Kmusser.

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councillor of King Henry VI, and the first to use the Dudley name. The barony was passed down to the firstborn son, leaving li�le to the younger brothers, which probably inspired Richard’s grandfather (a junior son) to try his luck investing in the Virginia Company or in the new colony. The many Dudley descendants se�led in Virginia, Georgia, and other parts of the southeastern United States and their story probably deserves its own book. Henry and Dorothy continued to purchase land in Virginia, presumably to raise tobacco to support their eight children. They bought additional acreage in Essex County, along the Rappahannock River, where their first five children were born: Dudley (b. c1715), Henry (b. c 1718), William (b. c1724), Peter (b. c1728), and Keziah (b. c1730). The three youngest—Dorothy (b. c1732), Larkin (b. c1736) and Richard (b. c1740)—were born in nearby King and Queen County, along the York River. Dorothy died around 1751 and Henry remarried to a widow named Tabitha Collins sometime in the mid-1750s. When Henry died, Tabitha remarried again, and after she became a widow for a third time,

she emigrated to Georgia, along with her stepsons Larkin and Richard, where she died in 1806. Clearly, the descendants of John and Amy had a certain spirit of adventure, not just in one generation, but repeatedly. They kept picking up their roots and moving into new and unse�led territory, usually in a large group of relatives and close friends moving together each time. As they spread out, many of the same surnames kept appearing together. As tobacco crops wore out the soil, Virginians began to move steadily westward in search of new land. Se�lers from the Tidewater region spilled over into the Piedmont, across the Blue Ridge, and, by the 1740s, into the Ohio country beyond, there running afoul of French ambitions for that region. William, William, and William Of all of Henry and Dorothy’s children, William (the first of many confusingly named William Gatewoods) is the one for whom there is the least information. His brother Dudley moved west to Bedford County near Roanoke, and Henry moved up to Spotsyl-


vania, near Fredericksburg. Peter, a “short, stout man,” and his family migrated to Faye�e County, Kentucky along with a traveling church, and brought the first copper still into that territory. The sisters both married and moved north and west near their brothers. William married Ann Ransom (b. 1710), a widow with five children, in Spotsylvania County. They had six more children—three boys and three girls—born in Albemarle County near Charlo�esville. Eventually the family se�led in Amherst County, just north of Lynchburg. The boys— William (again!) (b. 1743), Austin (b. 1745), and Ambrose (b. 1747) all came into their prime as the Revolutionary War was starting. A number of Gatewoods are listed as Virginia soldiers during the American Revolution: Ambrose, John, Richard, Larkin, and William Gatewood, Captain of the Essex Militia. It’s not clear whether these are direct relations or uncles and cousins, as the family reused many of the names. Captain William Gatewood may be the subject of the poem

“Gatewood’s Men” by Montgomery M. Folsom (which you can find online if you’re really interested), although that may also be an ode to a Confederate Civil War soldier. Recordkeeping got pre�y bad at this point as the new nation was forming. The first national census didn’t occur until 1790 and other vital and church records were spo�y or nonexistent. There is no information about Austin or the sisters. William and Ambrose remained in Amherst County, Virginia with their families. In 1765, when Ambrose was about 18, he married Margaret Camerrer and they had six children: James (b. 1765), Frances (b. 1866), Nancy (b. 1769), Ransom Gabriel (b. 1772), Sally (b. 1775), and Susannah (b. 1777). Together Ambrose and Margaret owned at least six properties in Amherst County. Several of this generation of Gatewoods continued their move west—Ransom and Frances and her husband ended up in Kanawha County, near Charleston, which was still part of Virginia at the time.²

² As the United States became massively divided over slavery, leading to the American Civil War (1861–65), the western regions of Virginia split with the eastern portion politically, and the two were never reconciled as a single state again. West Virginia became a state of its own in 1863.

Above: S.A. Mitchell Jr.’s 1864 map of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. This map was a revised version of Mitchell’s 1860 map of the same region to accommodate for the separa�on of Virginia and West Virginia in 1862.

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1833 Meteor Storm Started Ci�zen Science A Yale astronomer, Denison Olmsted, was awakened by neighbors on November 13, 1833, and walked into the cold November night to see a sky filled with shoo�ng stars, 72,000 or more per hour. It was the November meteor shower we now call the Leonids, but at the �me, no one knew what caused the display or where meteors came from. But because of the number of shoo�ng stars filling the heavens—20 a second—Olmsted saw clearly a pa�ern that had escaped other astronomers. Olmsted realized for the first �me that they came from one point, one he first called “the radiant.” Astronomers today s�ll use the radiant to name meteor showers: The Leonids take their name from their seeming origin in the constella�on Leo, the Lion. And the Perseids seen in early August every summer take their name from their origin in the constella�on Perseus. Olmstead wanted to know more, and he wrote to readers, in a report subsequently picked up and pooled to newspapers na�onwide: “As the cause of ‘Falling Stars’ is not understood by meteorologists, it is desirable to collect all the facts a�ending this phenomenon, stated with as much precision as possible.” Responses came pouring in from many states, along with scien�sts’ observa�ons. The responses let Olmsted make a series of scien�fic breakthroughs, ending the 2,200-year grip of Greek philosopher Aristotle on explana�ons for meteors, which he saw as bubbles of gas lo�ed high into the sky and ignited. Olmsted’s crowdsourced observa�ons showed that meteor showers were seen na�onwide and fell from space under the influence of gravity. The crowd also noted that the showers had appeared before in yearly cycles, something that had eluded scien�sts, but not European farmers, for centuries. Meteor astronomy really began with this shower. h�ps://blog.na�onalgeographic.org/2014/08/30/1833-meteor-storm-startedci�zen-science/

James married Sarah Elizabeth Shoemaker (b. 1767) in 1789 when he was 24 and she was 21. They had three children: William II³ (b. 1791), Nancy Elizabeth (b. 1797), and Wia� (b. 1800); they may also have had a daughter who died in infancy. There is no record of Sarah’s death, but it was sometime before 1850 when James was living with his son Wia� who was a farmer in Amherst County. James died sometime in the next decade, before the next census. Intermarriages among the families of James Gatewood, William Prior, and Martin Bibb created an extended family group that spanned several generations.⁴ (Of the three Gatewood children, William married his Shoemaker cousin, Elizabeth married Charles Bibb, and Wia� married Melinda Prior.) William III (b. 1791) married Catharine

³ William is the weakest link in this account. The “definitive” Gatewood genealogy by Carol Gothberg has some clear errors in the details of this family line, so my account differs somewhat. There is another contemporary William, a cousin, who ended up a sheriff in Kentucky, but I’m convinced he is not this one. Some of their details may be conflated, though. Dates of birth and death may be off by a few years. The Roman II is just to help keep them apart. ⁴ A first-person narrative wri�en by an escaped slave may bear witness to the deep interconnections of these families. The former slave, Henry Bibb, was at one time owned by a William Gatewood in Kentucky (probably the same William Gatewood mentioned above in note 3). (See: Bibb, Henry. 1849. Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, Wri�en by Himself. New York.)

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Shoemaker in Amherst County in May 1809. She appears to have been his cousin, whose father Zedekiah was William’s mother Sarah’s older brother. Catharine gave birth to 10 children, at least six of whom lived to adulthood. (Their son William H. died in infancy, but five years later they were able to name another son William A. who lived to a ripe old age and may account for some of the confusion surrounding this name.) Their eldest son was James Monroe (b. 1817), followed by Perry (b. 1821), Katherine (b. 1823), Sarah (b. 1825), Mary (b. 1827), and the aforementioned William A. (b. 1829). The family moved from the Pedlar River in Amherst County to Randolph County (just over the current West Virginia state line), arriving in 1831 in Kanawha County where their relatives had se�led some years earlier. William’s sister Elizabeth and her husband Charles Bibb also moved to Kanawha County around the same time. In 1838 Charles and Elizabeth were the first white se�lers in Faye�e County, West Virginia where they founded a town, Gatewood, named for Elizabeth. The Gatewood cemetery was

also established, in nearby Chelyan, West Virginia. Elizabeth’s uncle Ransom was the third person buried there. *** In a short sketch of his own life made shortly before he died in 1901, James recalled moving with his family, and seeing the great ice break up and flood of 1832 on the Elk River in West Virginia, as well as the “brilliant celestial phenomenon of falling stars” on 13 November 1833. A couple of years later, at age 18, James was “engaged in the lumber business, such as whipsawing boat-building and furnishing timber to the Kanawha Salines, then in its palmy days.” In the meantime, he learned the carpenter’s trade, and after about five years, James went south to Louisiana, arriving in Port Hudson (near Baton Rouge) in March of 1840. He worked there as an undertaker until 1847. During that time he married Virginia Lowry of Gallia County (on 12 October 1845); their wedding trip was a raft voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, and they spent the first two years of their marriage in Louisiana.

The Kanawha Salines The Kanawha Salines salt-producing district stretched approximately 10 miles along both sides of the Kanawha River. A�er two brothers successfully drilled for brine and erected the first furnaces in 1808, the Salines rapidly became the largest salt-making area in the United States, a posi�on it held un�l the 1830s. The salt was used for meat preserva�on in the Ohio Valley. A�er the 1830s, New York salt and foreign importa�on affected Kanawha sales, but the area retained its primacy un�l the 1850s when agricultural produc�on shi�ed westward from the Ohio Basin and other salt fields developed. Dozens of salt furnaces and salt well rigs crowded the riverbank, and tramways brought coal from mines in the nearby hills. Up to 1,500 slaves, several hundred white laborers, and a few dozen owners, overseers, and managers manned the works. Dozens of coopers, boatbuilders, well-drillers, teamsters, carpenters, and masons supported the industry. Transient river men from steamboats and flatboats combined with these residents to earn the Salines a notorious and raucous reputa�on. Travelers o�en commented on the con�nuous noise of steam engines and machinery, the almost constant presence of coal smoke, ash par�cles, and cinders, and the dismal appearance. Stealey, John Edmund III. “Kanawha Salines,” The West Virginia Encyclopedia h�ps://www.wvencyclopedia.org/ ar�cles/1129

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Post Offices Gallia County Ohio The mail was regarded as a means of dispersing informa�on and was equated with educa�ng the populous. In the early days, mail was placed in a locked portmanteau (a large leather suitcase) at each post office, and the postmaster unlocked the portmanteau and sorted through the mail for any that needed to be held there for pickup by the recipients. The remaining mail was placed back into the portmanteau and sent on to the next stop. The expense of le�ers was figured both by weight and distance and for this reason many people wrote on both sides of the paper and in two direc�ons, one perpendicular to the other. The le�ers were folded and sent without an envelope and the persons receiving the le�er paid for the service. Therefore, there were le�ers carried and the cost never paid—either the intended recipient did not come to claim the piece of mail or did come but refused (or could not afford to) pay for it. Undelivered mail was adver�sed in the local newspapers. Post offices of the nineteenth century were not necessarily in villages, towns, or ci�es. They could be in homes, mills, or stores. Some post offices served a town or village in only one township and others covered areas that crossed township (or even county) lines. Some postmasters served con�nuously for many years, others were replaced quickly and some were reappointed periodically. O�en these appointments were poli�cal. If you were a shopkeeper, miller, physician, or a jus�ce of the peace, it could be advantageous to have the local post office in your place of business or home. People came to the post office to pick up their mail, to catch up on the news (and gossip), or to find out about this community they were moving into. The prac�ce of the post office holding the mail un�l the addressee came to pick it up was standard un�l 1863 when free delivery was introduced in some ci�es. It was much later that rural free delivery (RFD) came into existence. Cri�enden, Mary. h�p://www.galliagenealogy.org/Post%20Offices/ po_beginnings.htm

Detour: Lowrys Virginia (b. 1825) was the second of nine children of Melvin Lowry and Harty Cole* who were farmers on Raccoon Island. The island, now submerged in the Ohio River, was located at the mouth of Raccoon Creek in Clay Township. Most of the islands in the Ohio River belonged to Virginia (before it ceded West Virginia) so the fact that Raccoon Island was part of Ohio indicates that at low water, the island was connected to Gallia County by land. This is no longer

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the case, as erosion and the construction of the Gallipolis Locks and Dam in 1937, which permanently raised the level of the river, led to the island's disappearance. A post office was established at a very early date upon Raccoon Island, and in 1846, around the time Virginia married James, her father Melvin served as the postmaster. Melvin was born in Greenup, Kentucky in 1800 and he se�led in Gallia County when he married Harty Cole in 1822. His father, Patrick Lowry (b. c1745) from County Armagh, Northern Ireland married Mary Melvin (b. 1761), a Sco�ish girl, and they emigrated to America right away. Arriving in New York in 1784, they traveled by boat to Greenup County, where they were landowners and served in county offices, but they died when Melvin was a young man. Melvin was a religious man, “happily converted to God and joined the M.E. church at a camp-meeting in Rome [Ohio], in the year 1838.” He was a good, kind, confiding husband, and an affectionate father, and almost universally beloved by all who knew him. Virginia’s mother Harty Cole, was the youngest daughter of Asa and


Susannah Cole.* The Coles were among the earliest se�lers of the Massachuse�s Bay Colony, arriving in America in 1633. They had arrived in Ohio around the same time as the Lowrys, migrating from New England about 1810, possibly taking up a land grant offered to Asa in exchange for his service during the American Revolution. Harty married Melvin Lowry in 1822. James and Virginia m. 1845 When James and Virginia returned to Ohio with their first-born son William (of course!), they bought land at Raccoon Island, and James tried his hand at farming and providing “boating staves, tanbark and hoop-poles to different points, a flourishing business at that time.” He continued in this business until August 1862 when he volunteered for the Union Army and served three years during the Civil War. James and Virginia had 10 children— William (b. 1846), James Madison (b. 1848), Emma (b. 1852), Kate (b. 1854), Sabina (b. 1856), Laura (b. 1859), Charles (b. 1880), Lewis (b. 1862), Edgar (b. 1866), and Nellie Virginia (b. 1868). They also lost two children to infant mortality.

According to a family story, when the Civil War broke out in 1861, “the Gatewood men all went to fight for the south and one son was ordered to stay home and take care of the women. This son ran off and fought on the northern side. After the war, a notice came to that son from his mother, ‘Don’t come home. Your father is laying for you with a gun.’” It’s unclear who this story refers to, but there was plenty of fodder in the Gatewood family. Civil War records show that many Gatewoods served in both sides of the conflict—at least 60 on the Union side and 66 for the Confederacy. On the Union side, some 25 of the Gatewoods were former slaves who served in the United States Colored Troops. James Gatewood volunteered for the Union Army in 1862. He was appointed Captain of Company G and

Above: James Monroe Gatewood and Virginia Lowry Gatewood. Gallipolis, c1895.

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put in charge of recruiting a contingent from Gallia County. His oldest son William (who was 16), was one of his recruits. (James’s brother Perry also joined the Union Army, as a sergeant in the West Virginia In-

Above: Adver�sement appearing in the Gallipolis Journal, 30 December 1880.

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fantry). James and William served in the Ohio 1st Regiment, Heavy Artillery that was organized in Portsmouth in September of 1862. William started as a private, rising to corporal before the war ended. The regiment was ordered to Kentucky to provide fortifications around Covington and Newport, then moved into Tennessee where they had railroad guard duty for most of the following year. The company took part in Gillem’s Expedition in Tennessee and Virginia, then conducted foraging expeditions⁵ in East Tennessee and North Carolina. At the end of the war, the company was involved in Stoneman’s expedition through Tennessee and Virginia, remaining in the south after the war ended until they were mustered out in July 1865.

⁵ Foraging was sanctioned by the laws and customs of war, although it was approached with some squeamishness at the beginning of the Civil War. Soldiers in both armies freely picked apples, pears, cherries, and other fruit from trees they passed while on the march, but they were less sanguine about consuming field crops because they knew that production of the la�er was directly due to the exertions of farmers and farmhands. Over time, however, the a�itudes of many soldiers toward supplementing their diet with food found on the march changed markedly. Food rations from the military commissaries of both armies were notoriously meager, of limited variety, and wretched in taste, and soldiers who had been choking down hardtack and salt pork for weeks at a time were tempted by the livestock, fruit, and vegetables that they came across in enemy territory. Formal rules and moral qualms about foraging began to erode in some parts of the Union Army as early as mid-1862 when the institutionalization of foraging within military units began gaining approval—or at least tacit acceptance—from officers. (See: Hillstrom, Kevin. “Foraging and Looting.” h�ps:// www.encyclopedia.com/history/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/ foraging-and-looting)


(James’s second son, James Madison turned 17 in 1865 and he joined the Union Army, too, just as the war ended. He served in the 195th regiment from March of that year, marching to Alexandria, Virginia where they had provost duty—a kind of military police to keep order—in the months immediately after the war ended. He was mustered out at the end of 1865, just in time for Christmas.) After the war, James (the father) returned to Gallia County and in 1868 formed a partnership with two other men to open a factory—”the first factory whistle that ever sounded in the city”—to manufacture furniture. He was “well and favorably known to everyone in the city” and was elected to the school board where he served on the textbook commi�ee in the 1870s. Ten years after the factory opened, James sold his interest in it and built a saw mill, opened as the Gatewood Lumber Company. In 1890, this mill was merged into the Gallipolis Furniture Factory, and James retired a few years on. Virginia died in 1897, two years after she and James celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Her death was “very

sudden and was a great shock to her relatives and friends, and the news was received with profound sorrow by the entire community.” According to her obituary in the Gallipolis Journal, she died at home at 5:00 o'clock in the morning of 3 May. She was 73 years old. Despite having reached that ripe old age, she “was well preserved and apparently suffered few, if any, diseases incidental to old age.” Apparently Virginia was as well as usual and retired after reading until 8:30 �.�., bidding her daughter, Nellie, good night. She had complained in the evening of “a smothering sensation,” but this did not cause her any alarm as “she had been troubled with periodic spells of heart failure, and having contracted a slight cold a�ributed that as the cause. She retired Sunday night in her usual health, apparently, but at about 5:00 o'clock she awakened Capt. Gatewood complaining of a great difficulty in breathing. He left her in care of their daughter, Nellie, and went to the drug store to procure medicine for her relief, and during his absence she expired.” She had been a faithful Christian and a member of the Methodist Church which she joined in 1853.

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Above: Fort Harney, Oregon, in 1872. Na�onal Archives.

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The paper concluded that “She was beloved by all for her noble qualities and her kind disposition and charitable nature, and her sad death is mourned by a large circle of friends. It was unheralded by the inevitable signs that preceded dissolution and was a terrible shock to the many who have known and loved her for so many years.” James lived on as a widower for four years, then shortly after celebrating his 81st birthday in 1901, he was taken ill and began gradually failing with varying conditions. Though only confined to his bed for a week, he was fully prepared for the change: “I thank the good Lord for his goodness to me, for my good health and honesty of purpose that I have been able by close a�ention to business to lay up enough to keep me in my

old age. I am satisfied with charity for all and malice toward none.” According to his obituary, James had led a Christian life for years and “he lay down to his last rest peacefully and with a well grounded faith that all was well. It is hard to surrender these fine old gentlemen to grim visage death. It seems that they, with their fine examples of virtue, probity and honor are surely needed in every community. But we can remember and revere their virtues though they sleep. Capt. Gatewood will be remembered with kindness and respect by all who knew him.” *** James Madison— Jimmy—was born on the 4th of July, 1848 in a large red brick house on the bank of Raccoon Creek in Clay Township. When he was six, his family moved to Big Creek, up the river from Crown City, Ohio where he went to school. As noted above, he joined the Union Army at the end of the Civil War, but by the time his company reached the Shenandoah Valley, the war was over and soldiers were being discharged. Jimmy served as a military police officer until he was discharged on 18 December


1865. From there he went to Columbus, and joined the reorganized army; he was then stationed at Castle Williams on Governor’s Island in New York City. According to the columnist O.O. McIntyre,⁶ although he was truly rural, Jimmy could “talk intelligently of the days when Forty-second Street and Broadway were mostly cow pasturage and pigs ran in the street in front of the old Astor House. He also spent some time in Boston, Washington and Philadelphia, with side trips to Plymouth Rock and such.” From 1866 to 1869 Jimmy served in Co. K. 23rd US Infantry; they traveled first to Panama by ship, then upriver as far as they could, portaging eight miles to the Pacific Ocean. From there they sailed on the ship America to San Francisco where they were quarantined for six weeks for cholera. Eventually they sailed on to Portland, Oregon and to Fort Vancouver,

and proceeded to construct Camp Harney.⁷ Jimmy was a captain in the army, and at one time was in the command of General George A. Custer. He was involved in skirmishes with Native Americans including the

⁶ Oscar Odd McIntyre was a New York newspaper columnist of the 1920s and 1930s. The Washington Post once described his column as “the le�er from New York read by millions because it never lost the human, homefolk flavor of a le�er from a friend.” For a quarter of a century, his daily column, “New York Day by Day,” was published in more than 500 newspapers. McIntyre was married to Maybelle Small, daughter of Jimmy’s sister Kate. ⁷ From 1867 to 1880, the US Army’s Camp Harney provided a strategic military presence in southeast Oregon that—under the auspices of protecting Euro-American mining, residents, and transportation—waged war against the Northern Paiute, Modoc, Nez Perce, Bannock, and other tribes during the Indian War era.

Above: James Madison Gatewood, Crown City, c1940.

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Ba�le of the Infernal Caverns⁶ when he served as an aide to General Crook.⁷ According to Jimmy’s obituary, “Twice wounded, he carried a mine⁸ ball in his chest to the grave.” He was engaged in carrying the mail to frontier army posts a few years before the Custer massacre on the Li�le Big Horn. He was a superb horseman in his young manhood and one of his mail routes was from Camp Harney, Oregon to Presco�, Arizona. He was discharged in 1869 but stuck with the army for a while for protection and to hunt. He told his grandson Donald Houskeeper that the Native Americans were the finest fighters and the best

horsemen in the world and would have won the war if they had had guns. After 13 years away, Jimmy came back to Crown City and he married Margaret Ann (Maggie) Sheets* in 1878. They had 10 children, with the first, Perry (b. 1879), born a year after they married. They first lived in Bay Hollow, near Crown City, but at the end of the century, Jimmy traveled back to Oregon and Washington state, and later to Texas with an eye to moving there. In the end, though, the family moved up to Big Creek where Jimmy’s father had lived, and he spent the rest of his life there, working as a farmer and raising the

⁶ The Ba�le of Infernal Caverns was a ba�le during the Snake War fought between Native Americans and the US Army (Snake Indians is a collective name given to the Northern Paiute, Bannock, and Shoshone Native American tribes.) The Native American warriors had made a fortress out of lava rocks in the Infernal Caverns of northern California near the town of Fall River Mills. From there they were able to pour a steady fire upon the soldiers commanded by Lt. Col. George Crook. Crook's men a�acked on the second day. Despite heavy casualties they managed to scale the cliffs and take the fortifications. Fighting continued into the night as the Native warriors withdrew deeper into the caverns. Crook commented, “I never wanted dynamite so bad as I did when we first took the fort and heard the diabolical and defiant yells from down in the rocks.” By the third day the Natives had fled the caverns. (See: h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ba�le_of_Infernal_Caverns) ⁷ George R. Crook was a career US Army officer, most noted for his distinguished service during the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. During the 1880s, the Apache nicknamed Crook Nantan Lupan, which means “Chief Wolf.” Above: Various types of Minié balls. The four on the right are provided with Tamisier ball grooves for aerodynamic stability. Mike Cumpston. Public domain.

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⁸ The Minié ball, or Minni ball, is a type of muzzle-loading spin-stabilized bullet for rifled muskets named after its developer, Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the French Minié rifle. It came to prominence in the Crimean War and American Civil War.


10 children. In addition to Perry, there were Virginia (b. 1881), Emma (b. 1883), Ethel (b. 1885), Olive (b. 1888), Melvin (b. 1892), Minnie (b. 1893), Major (b. 1895), Louise (b. 1899), and Arthur Paul (b. 1901). According to the columnist McIntyre, Jimmy was “one of the old-school gentlemen, aloof, dignified and unbending. To his acquaintances and neighbors he is Captain Gatewood.” Although his schooling ended when he ran off at 16 to join the army, he was a prodigious

reader, and a “notable product of self-education … with a collegiate approach to all subjects. He knows exactly what is going on in Washington and not one of the statesmen fools him with political subtleties.” He never smoked but chewed tobacco moderately since boyhood and his granddaughters recall the brown stains in his long white whiskers. They also recall how he would pour his coffee into the saucer to cool it and then slurp it from the saucer. He never used alco-

Above: The Gatewood family, c1940. (L to R) Back: Mel, Emma, Louise, Minnie, Olive, Paul. Front: Ethel, Margaret (mother), James Madison (father), Virginia, Perry.

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hol to any extent and he was “a quiet but sincere religionist … his well-thumbed Bible … opened several times a week for some readings of comforting passages and … a perfunctory grace at meals.” Jimmy was a tough old bird, and the grandchildren mostly stayed clear of him. He put on his long underwear in October and wore it all winter. When the ice cleared in the “crick” in spring, he went down and took a bath in one of the deeper holes. Jean Houskeeper recalls his “grand, general unapproachableness” and how he “sat in his rocking chair spi�ing tobacco, his shiny dome head and all those white whiskers, and a door which led into the darkened library full of books.” Her mother told her when Jimmy came back from the war he couldn’t sleep in a bed. He slept on the ground and bit by bit the spot was made softer, until he could sleep on a ma�ress and finally came inside. After a fire burned down their house in the 1932, the plan was for him to sleep in a li�le room

Top: Minnie Gatewood, c1920. Bo�om: Major Gatewood in US Army uniform, c1917.

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off the kitchen, but he set his bed up in the living room as he had never slept in a place without a fireplace. He became more mellow as he aged, and as an old man, mostly sat at on the concrete porch in a rocking chair gazing out at the river. The last few years of his long life, Jimmy developed dementia and the inherent complications. When he died at the age of 95, he was one of the last five remaining Civil War veterans in the country. *** Minnie (b. 1893) was the seventh of 10 children born to Jimmy and Maggie Gatewood. The Gatewoods believed in good education, and everyone went to school—most to college— and got good jobs. Perry,¹¹ the oldest, first married Emma Caldwell who was the mother of their 11 children (she divorced him in 1941 after years of abuse, and later became known as Grandma Gatewood, pioneer hiker of the Appalachian Trail). Perry remarried and eventually served as the mayor of Crown City. Three of Min-

¹¹ Called the “Bob Taft” of Gallia County's most southern town at one time, Perry Gatewood resembled the late Sen. Robert A. Taft not only in looks but in civic affairs as well. He served the village as mayor for three terms. He was instrumental in the growth and development of Crown City. (Gallipolis Daily Tribune, 1 March 1968)


nie’s brothers—Mel, Major, and Paul—joined the army during World War I and served overseas in France. Major was killed in October 1918 during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, one of the final Allied ba�les. The second deadliest ba�le in American history, it resulted in over 350,000 deaths, including 26,277 Americans. Major is buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial. Minnie a�ended Ohio State University (OSU) and got a degree in teaching. It took her a bit more than four years as she suffered a nervous breakdown and had to take some time off, but she graduated in 1918. She then taught high school until 1922 when she married Trimble Jones.* As a student, she lived in Columbus with her older sisters, Virginia and Emma, who were nurses in a hospital there. Her younger sister, Louise, was a�ending OSU by then, too. Once she started working, Minnie lived in boarding houses with some of the other teachers and usually walked to school. She read a lot, went to the movies, and enjoyed the dances and socials in town. She liked pre�y clothes, buying fashionable “waists” (blouses) and hats, and fabric to make

her own dresses. Pre�y and shy, she seems to have warded off a lot of potential suitors. According to a family story, there was a local “gink” (a foolish or contemptible person) pursuing her, but she was not interested. Undeterred, he asked her father for her hand in marriage and Jimmy Gatewood replied, in his strong country accent, “Ye kin have her if ye kin git her.” (The gink did not succeed.) Although she enjoyed teaching and lived near enough to her sisters to visit frequently, Minnie was really a homebody and preferred country living. (We called her Moo-Cow Grandma, to distinguish her from our other, city-living grandmother.) Trimble was at least five years her junior and had met Minnie some

Above: (L to R) Minnie, Elinor Schwab (visitor), Maggie Gatewood, Emma, and Louise, Crown City, summer 1919.

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Above: Minnie Gatewood Jones, c1960.

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years earlier, through a family connection. For one, his mother Carrie Jones (a gifted artist) had been teaching Minnie to draw and paint. Trimble finally charmed her into agreeing to marry him in 1922. Carrie wrote to her shortly before they married, saying, “... if I did not think he would be good to you and make you happy, I would not let him have you. ... I seem to be ... afraid that he might fail to make you

happy. Dad and I both think that there is only one Minnie Gatewood.” At first Minnie and Trimble lived with his parents. Carrie had wri�en to Minnie that “I want you to feel that whenever you come to us this is your home just as well as Trimble’s and you must feel at home or we would be unhappy.... I do not want my children, when they marry, [to] feel that [their] home is not the same to them.” So they stayed there for a while. They had planned on moving into a house on a farm near Columbus, but Trimble didn’t get it fixed up in a timely way and his parents loved having them home. But Minnie got tired of living with her in-laws, and left to go back to Columbus, living with her sisters when it looked like their own place would never be ready. But eventually it was and the first two of five children were born in Columbus: Jimmy (b. 1926) and Ginny (b. 1927). But once she had children, Minnie wanted to move close to her own mother again, for some help with the children. So, soon after, they moved into the Sears Roebuck home they put together on her father’s property. Minnie and Trimble quickly had three more chil-


dren: Tom (b. 1928), Carolyn (b. 1929), and Pat (b. 1931).* The family was poor, and while Minnie was a warm person, she found it difficult to be an affectionate mother. Overwhelmed by having five children in six years, and married to a man who had trouble making a living, her life was stressful. But she ran her household efficiently. Her niece Jean, recalls her running across the floor with a pail of milk and “effortlessly, not spilling a drop, she upended that pail and poured the milk into a small-necked pitcher.” And she could assess the temperature in her oven simply by sticking her hand in the door.

By the time the children were in school, Minnie went back to teaching, first as a substitute in the local schools. When her youngest Patsy was in 10th grade, the school superintendent offered Minnie a full-time teaching job which she accepted. They arranged for her to work and for Trimble to do the cooking. All he knew how to cook besides bacon and eggs was pot roast, and he usually resorted to boiling a pot of potatoes until eventually the cooking fell by the wayside. Minnie lived on the farm until she died of cancer in 1963 when she was 70. Trimble had died of emphysema in 1959 at age 59.

Sources “Death of Capt. James Gatewood.” 1901. Gallipolis Daily Tribune, 6 February. Dunkerly, Robert. 1998. “Growth and Se�lement Beyond Jamestown.” Washington, DC: National Park Service. Available at: h�ps://www.nps .gov/jame/learn/historyculture/growth-and-se�lement-beyondjamestown.htm Gothberg, Carol J. 1987. John and Amy Gatewood and Their Descendants, 16661986. Baltimore: Gateway Press. Hanks, Patrick. 2003. Dictionary of American Family Names. London: Oxford University Press. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Virginia h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Virginia h�ps://www.britannica.com/place/Virginia-state/History#ref78583 Library of Congress. “Evolution of the Virginia Colony 1611–1624.” Available at: h�p://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/colonial/virginia/ McIntyre, O.O. “Spry Is the Word for Uncle Jimmy” Uhrbrock, Richard S. 1974. “Gatewood Family of Essex County, Virginia,” Virginia Genealogical Society Quarterly (12) 2: 44–55. Wolfe, Brendan. “Colonial Virginia” Available at: h�ps://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/virginia_company_of_london#start_entry

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Sheets W

1732

hile Virginia and New England were se�led primarily by English immigrants, the Middle Colonies were se�led by Quakers, Ulster Scots, and German Palatine Protestant sects who arrived for freedom of religion and good, cheap land. The Sheets family was among those Germans who emigrated to Pennsylvania in the early-to-mid-eighteenth century. While there appears to be abundant information about the Sheets ancestors, closer examination reveals many inconsistencies and errors. Adding to the confusion is the fact that Sheets is an anglicization of various German names (Schüts, Schi�, Schee�, Schadt, etc.) and Georg (Jurg) or George was a pre�y popular name. The result is that most of the information about the original immigrant is speculative,

and Georg Sheets is the first ancestor with any clear records. *** Georg (b. 1759) was born in Pennsylvania, after his father emigrated around 1732. His mother is unknown. His father might have been Georg Ludwig Sr. from Baden-Würtemburg in the German Palatinate. He may also have been related to Johan Jacob Sheets, Minister in Crefeldt on the Rhine, who in 1683 purchased 4,000 acres of land in the new world. This is the earliest record of the Sheets name in connection with Pennsylvania. Johan Jacob was one of about a score of Palatinates who purchased large tracts of land in Pennsylvania for the purpose of establishing a German colony. They organized themselves into a company known as the Frankfurt Land Company

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Sheets Name Origin The Scheetz ancestors come from the Rhineland, an ancient region of Germany. In pre-medieval �mes, the Germans used only one name, but later they were forced by a growing popula�on to adopt hereditary surnames, in order to remain dis�nct from others using the same first name. In German, Schütz is an occupa�onal name for an archer, and in Middle High German schütze (from schützen) means “to guard or protect.” This can alterna�vely be an occupa�onal name for a watchman, from the same word in its original sense, “guard,” i.e., the warden of a piece of common land or a night watchman in a town. In more modern language, it can mean “rifleman” and refer to a private in the army. Dic�onary of American Family Names. 2013. Oxford: Oxford University Press h�ps://www.houseofnames.com/scheetz-family-crest

and came to Pennsylvania in 1683 to establish the town of Germantown (now a neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia). Johan Jacob Sheets did not come with the others and never saw the new Pastorius and the Frankfurt Land Company In April 1683 Francis D. Pastorius became the agent for an associa�on of German Quakers, called the Frankfurt Land Company. Pastorius belonged to the religious group that believed in trea�ng everyone with kindness and respect, and strived to maintain good behavior. He arrived in Philadelphia that summer, purchased 15,000 acres of land from fellow Quaker William Penn, and in the autumn established the se�lement of Germantown. He a�empted to recruit se�lers from the Dutch Mennonite and Quaker communi�es, but ul�mately did not succeed in a�rac�ng any of them to the new territory. Nevertheless, on 24 July 1683, 13 Krefeld German (Dutch-speaking) families comprised of 33 people sailed from Gravesend (London) on the Concord, arriving in Philadelphia in October of that year. They were largely poor people, weavers, who had scarcely enough money to reach the new world. The se�lers met in Pastorius’ temporary cave dwelling to choose the plots of land for their new homes. They used a lo�ery system and, shortly a�er, began building houses and preparing for the winter. The townsite of Germantown was laid out along a single village street, lots being drawn to decide the alloca�on of the several plots of land to the individual families. Pastorius so believed in Penn’s vision of a haven for religious freedom that he remained in Pennsylvania and began to write about the freedom he was experiencing in Penn’s Woods. Within the year, many more German se�lers were coming to Germantown. Pastorious’s wri�ngs may have been one of the reasons why so many decided to emigrate to the new colony. Pastorius served Germantown and the Pennsylvania Colony un�l his death. He was the se�lement’s first mayor and acted in that capacity as well as being town clerk un�l the community lost its charter in 1707. He also was a member of Pennsylvania’s assembly in 1687 and 1691. h�p://www.philaplace.org/story/1191/ h�ps://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Daniel-Pastorius#ref285524 h�ps://gameo.org/ index.php?�tle=Germantown_Mennonite_Se�lement_(Pennsylvania,_USA)

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world. When he died, his land was transferred, first to his wife, then sold to other German se�lers. Eventually, though, various sons, grandsons, cousins, and nephews braved the journey, most likely passing through Germantown before making their way to other parts of the colony and the country. So we don’t have a lot of definitive records for our Sheets relatives during this time. We do know that Georg Sheets was born about 1759 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania but moved when quite young to Augusta County, Virginia, just west of Charlo�esville. This was probably after 1763 when the close of the French and Indian War reduced problems between Native Americans and early se�lers. During the American Revolution Georg served several tours as a private in the Virginia militia. In July 1777 he first entered into the service of the United States under Captain Ma�hew Arbuckle who commanded a company of drafted militia men from Augusta County. Earlier Arbuckle had led a group that marched to Point Pleasant (where the Kanawha River meets the Ohio) on the Ohio River to defend the frontier,


remaining for four months before returning home. Then, the year Georg joined, Arbuckle was to collect troops at Fort Pi� and descend the Ohio to Point Pleasant and rendezvous with the volunteers from Botetourt and Augusta Counties, then proceed to Shawnee towns to “compel them to neutrality.” Georg Sheets’s company was undoubtedly one of those raised in Augusta, part of a contingent of newly arrived and undisciplined militia that witnessed one of their number killed and scalped by the Native Americans once they arrived in Ohio. The Virginia troops carried provisions to last for the trip to Point Pleasant but not much to spare. They found on arrival that the garrison had li�le enough for its own needs and certainly none for the newcomers. This created a certain amount of grumbling among the men who had begun to see the “difficulties a�endant on a state of war and long campaigns carried through wildernesses.” When one of their men, returning from a hunting trip, was killed by a Native American the troops rebelled, killing the Natives who were held captive in the fort, including the

Shawnee Chief Cornstalk. A few days later, when their “reinforcements” arrived from Fort Pi� (Pi�sburgh) without an army and also without provisions, they abandoned the expedition and the volunteers returned to their homes. In April of 1778, Georg was again drafted into a company under Captain Andrew Lockridge in Augusta and marched to Fort Donnelly on the Greenbrier in Virginia (now West Virginia) where they remained 21 days before returning home. Native Americans who had been unable to dislodge men from the fort at Point Pleasant, turned their a�ention to Greenbrier. However, the se�lement was warned and a regiment was assembled to meet and a�ack them on the road. Georg’s company was most likely stationed at Camp Union (present day Lewisburg) and followed

Top: Ba�le of Point Pleasant. Virginia mili�amen advance to meet Na�ve American threat. Sigurdsson. American Legion Burnpit. Bo�om: Pain�ng of Cornstalk, a�er a Smithsonian engraving by McKinney and Hall. 2011. Hal Sherman. Crea�ve Commons.

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1832 War Pension Act Pension legisla�on during the Revolu�onary War was designed to encourage enlistment and acceptance of commissions and to prevent deser�on and resigna�on. A�er the war, pensions became a form of reward for services rendered. Both during and a�er the Revolu�on, the states as well as the US government awarded pensions based on par�cipa�on in the conflict. The most liberal of the service-pension acts benefi�ng Revolu�onary War veterans was passed on 7 June 1832. The act provided that every officer or enlisted man who had served at least two years in the Con�nental Line or state troops, volunteers, or mili�a, was eligible for a pension of full pay for life. Naval and marine officers and enlisted men were also included. Veterans who had served less than two years, but not less than six months, were eligible for pensions of less than full pay. Neither the act of 1832 nor an earlier one of 1828 required applicants to demonstrate need. Under the act of 1832 money due from the last payment un�l the date of death of a pensioner could be collected by his widow or by his children. h�ps://sites.rootsweb.com/ ~fayfamily/pensions.html

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Colonel Samuel Lewis to the fight at Fort Donnelly. In August that same year Georg was drafted for a third time, into a company commanded by Captain Samuel McCutcheon, and was a�ached to the regiment that marched to Fort McIntosh in the Northwest Territory (Ohio) where they stayed at least one month. This site was selected as a good place to pursue or intercept the war parties of Native Americans who frequently raided se�lements on the opposite side of the Ohio River. In the fall they received orders to campaign against the Sandusky towns. Because of delays in assembling the thousand men General Lachlan McIntosh thought necessary for the expedition, he and his officers decided to halt when they reached the Tuscarawas and delay the campaign till the following spring. Georg’s company was probably part of the group that helped build Fort Laurens on the Tuscarawas and then left with the main body of men in December. Georg still lived in Augusta County in 1810, where he owned nearly 200 acres, but about 1814 he and his family moved from Virginia to Gallia County, Ohio, an area he was probably famil-

iar with because of his travels during the Revolution. His wife’s name is unknown, but they had a total of eight children over 25 years: Leonard (b. 1784), Joseph (b. 1788), William F. (b. 1795), Anna (b. 1797), John H. (b. 1799), George H. (b. 1810), Mary (b. 1817), Susanna (b. 1819). Because there is a large gap before the birth of his last son and daughters, there is some speculation that Georg had a second wife. His daughters Mary and Susanna were born in Gallia County, but no records exist of any wives in either location. DNA evidence links William to his father Georg, but the DNA link between William and his assumed brother George H. has not yet been established. Georg’s sons Leonard and William lived for a while in Cabell County in what is now West Virginia after the move west, so it is possible that Georg had moved his family there first before finally ending up in Guyan Township. At the time Ohio “was very thinly se�led, having no roads, mills, schools or churches. Game was very plentiful.” Georg appears on the 1820 census next door to his son John and near sons Leonard and William, and daughter


Anna Powell. He is on the cha�el tax list from 1826 through 1833, generally paying a tax on one or two horses and one or two cows. His taxes ranged from 48 to 88 cents. He applied for a pension in November 1834 under the Pension Law of 1832. Appearing on his behalf as character witnesses were William Carder, a clergyman; John Swindler, a Justice of the Peace; and Cornelius Halley, a neighbor. He was awarded a pension $31.66 to be paid semiannually and to commence 4 March 1934. He signed for his last pension check 23 Sep 1836; he did not claim the check of 4 March 1837. He probably died during this period. His sons William, John, and George H. still lived in Gallia County in 1837, but his daughter Anna had moved to Tippecanoe County, Indiana prior to 1830, and his son Leonard moved to Greene County, Indiana about 1830–33 with a land grant for his services in the War of 1812. After his death, Georg became one of 34 soldiers of the American Revolution buried in Gallia County. The Official Roster of these patriots reminds readers who “wonder at the large number of Revolutionary soldiers buried in Ohio, it

should be recalled that the present boundaries of Ohio were nearest the original colonies, and when land grants were given to the soldiers thither came the hardy New Englanders to the Western Reserve and the region of Lake Erie; sturdy Pennsylvanians crossed over into central Ohio; and the Virginian and Carolinian took up his abode in the southern part of Ohio. Here in the Northwest Territory they lived and died; they were fathers of a race who inherited the invincible courage and sterling qualities of the Revolutionary soldier and who took up the burden of founding the Nation by pressing westward.” (Need I note that this was compiled by the DAR?) The three brothers remaining in Ohio—William,

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John, and George H.—married three women from the same Henry family. William married Elizabeth (actually a half-sister)¹ in 1814 in Ca-

Above: The Ohio River running between Ohio and West Virginia. Craig S�hler, US Fish and Wildlife Service. Public Domain.

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bell, West Virginia; John married Susannah;² and George H. married Anna. The women’s parents, John and Rebecca Henry, had ar-

¹ William and Elizabeth were the great-grandparents of Emma Caldwell Gatewood (“Grandma Gatewood”) and George and Anna were the greatgrandparents of her husband Perry C. Gatewood, so Perry and Emma were third (half) cousins. In 1858, Elizabeth was declared insane and commi�ed to the Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Columbus by her youngest son Brice and his wife Nancy. The asylum was the first state-supported hospital in Ohio and the first facility for the treatment of mentally ill patients established west of the Allegheny Mountains. At the time of the judgment, and because she was deemed a danger to the community, Elizabeth was temporarily remanded to the local jail “for safe keeping” until room opened in the asylum. She died at the asylum in 1864. Her grave marker declares that she is the granddaughter of Patrick Henry of “Give me liberty or give me death” fame, but there is no evidence to support this. However, Patrick Henry was a prolific father, so who knows? ² Susannah may have been a cousin. Like the Sheetses, the Henry family is huge and with lots of family intermarriage it’s hard to tell them all apart.


rived in Ohio around the same time as the Sheetses from the same part of Virginia, and lived upriver from Gallipolis in Mason, West Virginia. George H. and Anna were married 31 August 1830 in Gallia County. The 1850 census shows George H. as a farmer with real estate valued at $100—a li�le bit smaller than most of his neighbors. Neither he nor his wife was able to read or write at the time. They lived with their children: Henry (b. 1832), James (b. 1837), Libni Picke� (b. 1838), Samuel (b. 1842), and Margaret (b. 1849). Mary was born in 1852 and Eliza in 1855, after this census report, but Margaret must have died in childhood as she does not appear on the following census of 1860. The boys worked as farm hands until they went off on their own, Samuel and James to neighboring properties. George H. died in 1870 when he was 63 and Anna 10 years later. She lived with her son James until her death in 1880. She was 67. The Baileys were another family that had emigrated from Western Virginia to Ohio, around the beginning of the nineteenth century. Henry married

Mary Jane, the oldest daughter of George and Martha Bailey, in 1854 when he was 20 and she was 19. Like his parents, Henry was illiterate and worked as a farmer. Mary Jane could read but not write but their children all a�ended school. Mary Jane gave birth to 10 children over the next 20 years: Margaret Ann (Maggie) (b. 1860) was the thirdborn, and the oldest of six sisters. When Henry was 32, he served in the Union Army during the Civil War. In September 1864, he enlisted in the 173rd Infantry. The 173rd Ohio Infantry was organized in Gallipolis, and mustered in for one year of service under the command of Colonel John R. Hurd. They left Ohio for Nashville, on 18 September, arriving there 1 October. The regiment took part in the ba�le of Nashville on 15–16 December, and then guarded prisoners until February 1865. They were mustered out in Nashville on 26 June 1865 and disbanded at Camp Dennison, Ohio in July. The regiment lost a total of 108 enlisted men during service, all as a result of disease. Henry may have lost several of his daughters to disease too, at the end of the

Union private infantry uniform, from plate 172 of the "Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies," containing illustra�ons of uniforms worn by Union and Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. 1895.

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Above: Margaret Sheets Gatewood, c1940.

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century. If the information is accurate, three of them— Moriah, Rebecca, and Marie�a—all died in 1896, when they were in their 30s. This may simply be an error, but they could also have been victims of an epidemic at that time. Another daughter, Hulda, had died in 1888. Henry lived to be 80, and he died at his home in Gallia County in 1912. Maggie married James Madison Gatewood* (Jimmy) on Christmas day in 1878 when she was 18. He

was 30 and had recently returned to Gallia County after serving as a captain in the US Army and living in the “Wild West” for more than a decade. He was still restless and considered moving back to the west—to Oregon or Washington, where he had been stationed, or even Texas— but pre�y quickly, as the children started coming, they se�led into the house on Big Creek, near Crown City, Ohio. The firstborn was Perry (b. 1879), born a year after their marriage, followed by Virginia (b. 1881), Emma (b. 1883), Ethel (b. 1885), Olive (b. 1888), Melvin (b. 1892), Minnie* (b. 1893), Major (b. 1895), Louise (b. 1899), and Arthur Paul (b. 1901). While the Sheetses never held much store in education, it was important to the Gatewoods, so all of Jimmy and Maggie’s children a�ended school and college or professional training after high school. Three of the boys—Melvin, Major, and Paul—served in the army during World War I (Paul dropping out of school and lying about his age so he could serve at age 17; after the war he completed his education). Overall, the Sheets family was well represented among


the soldiers of World War I. Maggie’s cousin Gory J. Sheets had five sons and a son-in-law serving overseas during the conflict. Three weeks before the armistice was signed, Major was killed in action during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, part of the final Allied ba�le of World War I. His brother Melvin received the following information from Major’s commanding officer in the American Expeditionary Forces: “On the night of October 21, 1918, while the Company was in reserve a li�le to the rear of the

front line, on a hill to the right of the road running between the village of Lancon and Senuc; and about two miles directly East of Grandham in the Meuse-Argonne Sector, your brother together with his tent mate was instantly killed by shrapnel from a high explosive enemy shell, which burst very near his shelter. This occured [sic] about 9 �.�. on the above mentioned date. He was buried in this vicinity and the exact map location of the grave can be secured from the Divisional

Above: Margaret Gatewood at son Major’s grave in the US military cemetery, Meuse-Argonne, France. 1931.

Gold Star Pilgrimages Through the Gold Star pilgrimages of 1930 to 1933, the US government recognized the sacrifices of the mothers and widows who chose burial in an overseas American military cemetery for their sons or husbands. During the war, the Gold Star had become a symbol for mourning the fallen. Families who lost a loved one in the service hung a Gold Star in their windows. Their female rela�ves referred to themselves as Gold Star mothers and widows, and they created several na�onal organiza�ons for collec�ve mourning and support. These groups lobbied Congress for an official government-funded pilgrimage to visit their loved ones’ graves, which the government authorized on 2 March 1929. All mothers and unremarried widows of someone buried or memorialized at an American Ba�le Monuments Commission cemetery overseas received an invita�on. Over the course of the program 6,654 women par�cipated. These pilgrims represented the diversity of the American army in World War I. However, in keeping with the Jim Crow–era segrega�on of the military at the �me, the US Army Quartermaster Corps racially segregated the pilgrimages. Black women traveled in separate groups, a decision that created much controversy. While many objected, 168 Black women s�ll par�cipated as pilgrims. Even a�er the crash of the stock market in October 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, the federal government funded the en�re pilgrimage. The Quartermaster Corps me�culously organized the program and cared for the mothers and widows. They arranged every detail of the journey and monitored the pilgrims’ physical and emo�onal health. Escorted by Army officers and nurses, the pilgrims traveled to many of the major tourist sites in the countries they visited, including the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, where they laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They subsequently traveled to the cemeteries and visited the ba�lefields and memorials in addi�on to the graves of their loved ones. Cemetery staff decorated the graves with the flags of the United States and the host country. They provided a chair for the pilgrim to sit next to the headstone and reflect. Each pilgrim received a photograph of herself at the tombstone, where she also laid a memorial wreath. ABMC. 2015. “Women and World War I Commemora�on: The Gold Star Mothers and Widows Pilgrimages, 1930-33.” Arlington, VA: American Ba�le Monuments Commission.

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Burial Officer (78 Div.) His personal effects have been forward to his Mother at Crown City, Ohio.”

Above: Maggie (center) and Jimmy (with hat) and assorted rela�ves, including granddaughters Carolyn, Ginny, and Pat (seated).

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Jimmy Gatewood would not let them bring Major’s body home; as a soldier himself, he believed a soldier should be buried where he fell. In the spring of 1931 Maggie, at age 72, made her very first trip outside of Gallia County, crossing the ocean as a Gold Star mother to place a wreath on Major’s grave. Entwined in the wreath were some fronds of

fern hand-picked by Jimmy from the cool glades where he and Major had often strolled. Maggie was known to be strict with her family. Her father had been a drinker so she was “fierce about any drinking” in the words of her granddaughter Jean. Jean recalled a story her mother (Olive) told about “Grandpa coming home lit up one night and Grandma met him at the door and told him he was sleeping in the barn that night.” She made her oldest daughter Virginia get up at 4:00 �.�. to make


the family bread every day. And once she beat Olive with a board when she came home late. Her granddaughters only really knew her when she was in her 70s and according to Jean, “she never looked young. Scrawny with that bun. She looked OLD.” However, she remained active and busy her entire life. According to Pat, “Only once in my life did I see Grandma si�ing with idle hands, and it was when the preacher had announced he would be coming around. She put on her finest dress, a lovely necklace, and sat nervously in a chair waiting. So horribly ill at ease. Otherwise, she never wasted a moment for productive activity.” Even once when she fell and broke her arm, it did not slow her down. Maggie and her daughters kept the big family and farm running. They boiled the wash in a copper boiler outdoors over a fire and all the girls and their mother together scrubbed the wash on washboards using soap Maggie made out of the ashes. She kept her milk and bu�er in crocks up on a ledge in the cool basement beneath the house. Jean used to watch her churning

bu�er in a tall, round, narrow barrel with a stick out of the top: “She rammed that stick up and down to stir the cream and make bu�er. Wow, could she go. That arm was a regular blur she moved it so fast.” Jean also recalled a few encounters between Maggie and her chickens: “Skinny Grandma was planning a chicken supper and she pursued a chicken and outran it, then with one quick twist she broke its neck and dropped it, and that chicken ran around the big circle two or three more times with its neck broken.... Another time a chicken had roosted high up in a big tree in a hole. Grandma went out and the chicken gave her the evil eye ready to drill a hole in her hand, but her hand shot in and out with an egg

Above: Maggie (center right with glasses), daughters, and grandchildren mugging with watermelon.

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before it could get its bill into her.” Pat said her grandmother Maggie was always very kind to her. Her grandsons didn’t look on her kindly at all, but they were always causing “trouble,” pulling small apples off the tree to have apple wars, for example. And Jean expressed her admiration, saying, “Anyone who could have 10 children and live through it, plus with her herb cures doctor the countryside, and raise every

child to healthy adults, organizing the work to be done and still having time for art forms like making braided rugs has me lost in admiration. So what if she lost her temper? Even that takes energy.” Maggie died in 1947, about four years after her husband. She was 86 at the time of her death at her home near Crown City. She was survived by her nine remaining children, as well as 27 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.

Sources Daughters of the American Revolution. 1929-1959. The Official Roster of the Soldiers of the American Revolution Buried in the State of Ohio. Columbus, OH: Ohio Adjutant General’s Dept. Evans and Wood, Index of revolutionary war veterans living in Gallia Co. Hale, John Peter. 1931. Trans-Allegheny Pioneers. Charleston: Kanawha Valley Publishing Company h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/173rd_Ohio_Infantry h�ps://ohiomemory.ohiohistory.org/archives/4060 h�ps://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/L4N1-5DK Kercheval, Samuel. 1883. History of the Valley of Virginia. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books. Lewis, Virgil A. 1889. History of West Virginia. Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers. McIntyre, O.O. c1940 “Spry Is the Word for Uncle Jimmy.” Syndicated Column. Withers, Alexander Sco�. 1895. Chronicles of Border Warfare, Or, A History of the Se�lement by the Whites, of North-western Virginia, and of the Indian Wars and Massacres in that Section of the State. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke Company.

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Addleman T

1752

he Germantown, Pennsylvania se�lement set off a large wave of German immigration to America. Half came as “redemptioners,” selling themselves into indentured servitude to pay back the shipping company which had advanced the cost of the transatlantic voyage. Pennsylvania became a stronghold for German immigrants, and the largest eighteenth-century German wave came from Protestant groups that lived in the same Palatinate region of western Germany as the Sheets ancestors. Our branch of the American Addlemans is presumed to have originated in nearby Lowenstein-Wertheim. There were many Addleman families in the area—not all related—indicating that they had been se�led in the region for a long time. The seeds for change had existed for a number of centuries in the German

lower classes. Germany’s highly structured society, declining culture, and the decreasing geographic boundaries through war set the stage for the later migrations. The strong motivational themes of religious freedom, property ownership, and individual achievement existed with li�le chance for realization. William Penn provided an opportunity for Germany’s lower classes when his agents proclaimed a new life was possible in a wonderful place called Pennsylvania. The peasants, or vassals, in Germany were heavily taxed and were subject to a multitude of fees for ordinary daily events. One also had to pay fees to apprentice in a trade, if he were so fortunate (and it was only men who had such opportunities). Whoever wanted to become a burgher—or towndweller—could not, as

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Addleman Name Origin The surname Addleman (there are numerous spelling varia�ons, including Edelman) is an occupa�onal surname, derived from the Old German roots adel, which means noble, and mann, which means man. The surname iden�fies the bearer as a member of the nobility, which makes this a surname of office. Our family, however, does not appear to have any noble roots. This surname is associated with Swabia, a region in the southwest of Germany where the Swabian Alps run across the region. In the first century AD, Swabia was se�led by the tribe of Sueben who came from central Germany and drove the Celts to Gaul (France). A Sueben prince was defeated by Caesar in ba�le at Mulhouse, Alsace in 58 BC. Following the end of the Roman era, the Germanic Alemans from the north and the Bajuvaren from the east entered the region between 300 and 500 AD. They were in turn defeated by the Franks under Clovis in 496. The whole kingdom eventually became known as Alemannia. The dukedom of Swabia, formed in the tenth century, was ruled by the Hohenstaufen family from 1079, un�l they died out in 1268, when the counts of Wuer�emberg took control. Two other imperial dynas�es also came from Swabia: the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns, who were the Kings of Prussia and the last German emperors un�l 1918. Today, the area is called Baden-Wür�emberg. The surname Adelmann was first found in Swabia, where the name emerged in medieval �mes as one of the notable families of the region. Chronicles men�on this family as early as 878, though the first individual to be recorded was Seyfried von Adelmannsfelden in 1236. From the thirteenth century the surname was iden�fied with the great social and economic evolu�on which made this territory a landmark contributor to the development of the na�on. Our Addleman ancestor was a penniless serf, so most likely the family took the name of the landowner where they resided. h�ps://www.houseofnames.com/adelman-family-crest

a rule, do so without becoming a vassal to the lords of the land (those who held the land by feudal tenure and imposed conditions of homage and allegiance). Burghers had a higher standing than other tenants, including the right to vote and to hold certain offices reserved for that class. Anyone, therefore, who se�led in Wertheim, was received into vassalage; and whoever emigrated had to request manumission in return for a cer-

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tain payment. Of course, there always were the people who ran away in the night and didn’t pay any fees at all. Our ancestor Hans Michael followed the rules and paid the appropriate fees before making his trip to America. *** As noted, by the mideighteenth century, our Addleman family was well established in the region, going back at least five generations. Jorg Adelmann, born around 1549, lived in Nassig and married first Margaretha (last name unknown), then Barbara Hofrichter in 1605. He married his second wife in a double wedding ceremony with his son, Alexander. Jorg was listed as having


“limited rights” in the community. He outlived Barbara, too, and died in 1618. Alexander was born to Margaretha in 1575 but she died the following year. He was 30 when he married Apollonia, the widow of Georg Gunzer, in Nassig. He was also listed as having “limited rights.” Alexander is relatively rare as first name at the time. He was probably named for his godfather, as was the custom back then. In the local dialect, he was most liked called “Sander” or “Sanderlein” (diminutive form). Veit Adelmann was the second-born son of Alexander and Apollonia, born in

1607. He married a local woman named Dorothea, and they had a daughter and a son. Viet was a burgher, so had come up in the world a bit. When he died he was reported to be a “widower and burgher here, age 70 3/4 years.” Dorothea died the same year, though, so he must not have been a widower for long. He lived a considerable life span for those days, especially when you consider that the Thirty Years War (1618–48) fell in this period, as well as extraordinarily high losses among the population from the plague and epidemics. Their son, Johann (Hans)¹ Sebastian (b. c1648) was a burgher of Sonderriet, and a farmer and a juryman.

¹ Note on the names: most of the men seem to have Johann as a first name, but used their middle names. Johann can be alternately transcribed as Hans or Americanized as John. I believe Adelmann was changed to Addleman when Hans Michael came to America.

Opposite: Map of Germany highligh�ng the Pala�nate region. Above: 2007 Panorama of Wertheim. Photo: Roland Geider.

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RELIGIOUS PASSPORT LECTORI SALUTEM

The bearer of this, the honorable John Michael Adelmann (unmarried) born of Chris�an honorable and lawfully married parents, was born at Sonderreith, County of Wertheim, Frankenland in the year of our Lord 1723, on the 15th day of December. The father is the Honorable Mar�n Adelmann residing at Sonderreith (the mother’s name is Margare�a). By Bap�sm he received the name of John Michael of John Michael Dostman, Mayor of Hessig [Nassig], and he has resolved to emigrate and seek his fortune in New England, so be with him the blessing of God and good luck, and everlas�ng health. Cer�fied by John Henning, Evangellst Minister of Wertheim at Hessig [Nassig] and Sonderreith at his recent confession. This 24 day of May 1752. CUM CERA ET MANU PPRIA

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He married Anna Barbara Adelmann (who does not appear to be related, despite the same surname) when they were both around 25 years old. Barbara was a housewife and she and Sebastian had four children. Sebastian died “of weakness and consumption and was given a Christian burial on the 9th of [May]” in 1706. Barbara outlived him another 26 years, dying “of old age” on the last day of 1732. Johann Martin was the youngest of the four children of Sebastian and Barbara. Born in 1682, he married Anna Margaretha Bauer in 1708, improving his social status with this union. This marriage to a burgher’s daughter of Wertheim is worthy of note, because it happened rather seldom in those days that a city girl married a man from the country. Even more significant is the fact that Margaretha Bauer was the daughter of a boatman. The boatmen of Wertheim traveled the Main and Rhine and got around in the world, so to speak. This may have had a certain influence on their son

Hans Michael who emigrated to America in 1752. Since Martin Adelmann had full community rights in Sonderriet, we can assume that he was an independent farmer. However not all inhabitants of the town were “full farmers” who owned full-sized farms. In the town of Höhefeld, there were many more small-scale farmers. The listing of “tenant” (inwohner) indicates a person who lives on someone else’s land; these farmers usually sought day labor and farmed only a relatively small plot of land of their own. At the age of seventy, Martin described himself as a “tenant and full burgher” and “as an old man without means,” so perhaps marrying-up didn’t quite work out as planned. *** Hans Michael Addleman was born on 15 December 1723 in the village of Sonderreit, Wertheim County, in LöwensteinWertheim, now known as Baden-Wür�emberg. He was the eighth of ten children born to Martin and Margaretha; only five lived to adulthood. At the age of 29, Hans Michael decided to emigrate to Pennsylvania. He was single, poor, and a


MANUMISSION—Staatsarchiv Wertheim

Pe��on of Mar�n Adelmann of Sonderriet to Prince Carl (Thomas) of Lowenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort (1735-1789) for permission for his unmarried son Johann Michael Adelmann to emigrate to Pennsylvania and for his release from villeinage; presented 19 May 1752. To the Most Serene Prince, His Highness Carl, the ruling prince of Lowenstein Wertheim and Rochefort etc. etc. etc. of the Holy Roman Empire, my most gracious Prince and Lord, most humble memorials and pleas from me, Mar�n Adelmann, tenant and full burgher, for the favor of release of my son Joh. Michael Adelmann, single, from villeinage. Most Serene Prince, Most Gracious Prince and Lord! To Your High Princely Serenity, it is most humbly expressed, with your most gracious permission that my, Mar�n Adelmann, subject and burgher in Sonderrith, legi�mate son Michael Adelmann from here, a single young man, wishes to move away from here with others to Pennsylvania and there to work and seek his fortune, but that he receives nothing from his father’s assets except 30 guldens as passage money, which I have received as a loan from a good friend; since he is now bound and devoted in villeinage to your High Princely Serenity, I therefore most obediently announce and thereby humbly pe��on that you will be so gracious unto me as to release my above-men�oned unmarried son, who receives nothing more, from a �resome villeinage in grace. As an old man without means, I would be comforted by this, a most gracious resolu�on and wait in deepest respect. Your High Princely Serenity’s most humble and obedient Mar�n Adelmann, tenant in Sonderrith "Extract from the Princely Government Minutes of Wertheim 19 May 1752. Mar�n Adelmann of Sonderrith most humbly requests manumission under [praes.?] on the 19th of this month, because he, a single person, would like to move away. "Resolu�on: To be released for 1 gulden 30 kreuzer. As above. Strebel. The above fee is to paid to the treasury, Wertheim, 19 May 1752. Zeiss. Clerk of Wertheim."

vassal of Prince Carl (Thomas) of LöwensteinWertheim-Rochefort (1735)—a Catholic ruler. He wanted to marry Mary Rees but could not, under these circumstances. His father petitioned the prince for his release from “villeinage” on 19 May 1752. He was given permission to leave by the Royal Löwenstein-Wertheim government after paying a tax of 1 gulden 30 kreuzers. Martin Adelmann also borrowed 30 guldens

(florens) to give to his son for the voyage. The exit tax was based upon property, so it was to one’s advantage to be single and poor. People were also considered “property” and a husband had to pay a tax on his wife and number of children. The amount paid was a good indication of one’s worth and financial status. Obviously Hans Michael Adelmann was poor, but not so poor as to be considered worthless.²

² Unlike this poor woman (unrelated): Barbara Adelmann’s father, Martin Adelmann from Hohefeld, asked on 27 May 1754 that his unmarried daughter be able to emigrate without paying the regular manumission fee. She was to be allowed to leave without fees, “that we may be rid of this worthless girl. She is as poor as a beggar, and dissolute besides. We should like to be rid of her.”

Opposite: Altar at the Staatsarchiv in Baden-Wür�emberg, Wertheim.

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inal German, this designation was der ehrsame or der ehrbare followed by the name. This meant that he was an upright man who was loyal to the sovereign. Hans Michael joined a group in Nassig (presumably headed for Wertheim) which included his godfather’s two children. As described in a book about German emigration:

Above: The Dort Packet-Boat from Ro�erdam Becalmed is an 1818 pain�ng by J.M.W. Turner, based on drawings made by him mid-September 1817. It shows a view of the harbor of Dordrecht.

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The manumission application and resolution occurred on the same day so the family must have been in good standing with the ruler. We can also surmise that Hans Michael was on good terms with his father and departed with his blessing. After demonstrating to the magistrate that he didn’t have any outstanding debts, and receiving permission to emigrate, Hans Michael departed Sonderreit, first asking his Protestant Pastor, Johann Henning, for a baptismal statement and a le�er of introduction to his future pastor. The designation “honorable” which Pastor Henning used in the birth/ baptismal certificate issued on 24 May 1752 is a stock term used widely at that time to distinguish the bourgeoisie and peasantry of good reputation. In the orig-

The journey from Wertheim to Ro�erdam was as a rule made by water. It must not, however, be imagined that one simply got aboard ship and went merrily down the valley. There were more than forty toll-stations to be passed; everywhere there was a delay, many times intentionally, in order to force the people to stay overnight and shell out their money. And when finally, after three or four weeks, the poor devils arrived in Ro�erdam, the li�le money they had with them was already gone. Or they were forced to wait so long in Ro�erdam that the people had quite reached the end of their cash and were ready to risk the journey across the wide ocean


under any conditions. The trip to Ro�erdam in 1754 cost, for every person over fourteen years of age, eight florins and 30 kreuzer; for every person under fourteen years, four florins and 15 kreuzer; for every person under four years, nothing. Hans Michael ultimately departed Ro�erdam with Captain Reuben Honor on the ship Phoenix and arrived in Philadelphia on 22 November 1752. During the voyage, he and Mary were married and their son Andrew was born aboard the ship. German immigration to

Pennsylvania had accelerated in the early 1700s, and there may have been roughly 100,000 people of German origin living in Pennsylvania at the time of Hans Michael’s immigration. Those without resources were able to immigrate if they agreed to sell themselves as indentured servants. These people would have had to endure a difficult passage with an uncertain future. In an account of his own experience around the same time, countryman Go�leib Mi�leberger³ warned of the hardships immigrants would face on their journey and in the new country.

³ Go�lieb Mi�elberger traveled to Pennsylvania from Germany in 1750 on a ship primarily filled with poorer immigrants who would become indentured servants upon arriving in Philadelphia. Mi�elberger was not a servant, and worked as a schoolmaster and organist for three years before returning to Germany in 1754.

Above: View of the Philadelphia harbor the year Hans Michael arrived.

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“... [T]his journey from the Palatinate to PA lasts from the beginning of May until the end of October, fully half a year, amid such hardships as no one is able to describe adequately.... During the voyage there is on board these ships terrible mis-

78

ery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sicknesses, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy cancer mouth-rot and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water so that many die miserably. When the ships have landed in Philadelphia … no one is permi�ed to leave them except those who pay for their passage or can give good security; the others who cannot pay must remain on board the ship until they are purchased, and are released from the ships by their purchasers.... The sale of human beings on board the ship is carried on thus: Every day Englishmen, Dutchmen, and high German people come from the city of Philadelphia … and go on board the newly arrived ship that has brought and offers for sale passengers from Europe, and select among the healthy persons such as they deem suitable for their business, and bargain with them how long they will


The Pennsylvania Dutch Pennsylvania Dutch refers to the German-speaking immigrants, many of whom were descendants of refugees who had le� religious persecu�on in the Pala�nate of the German Rhine. The devasta�on of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) and the wars between the German principali�es and France also caused some of the emigra�on of Germans to America from the Rhine area. These se�lers were a�racted to Pennsylvania by the liberal and tolerant principles of William Penn’s government. Another wave of se�lers from Germany, that eventually coalesced under the catch-all term “Pennsylvania Dutch,” arrived between 1727 and 1775; some 65,000 Germans landed in Philadelphia in that era and others landed at other ports along the eastern seaboard. In this wave, the immigrants were mostly members of the larger Lutheran and Reformed churches. The majority originated in what is today southwestern Germany, i.e., Rhineland-Pala�nate and Baden-Wür�emberg; other prominent groups were Alsa�ans, Dutch, French Huguenots (French Protestants), Moravians from Bohemia and Moravia, and Germans from Switzerland. The immigrants’ farming skills made their region of se�lement a rich agricultural area, and the intensive German farming techniques they used proved highly produc�ve. By the �me of the American Revolu�on they numbered about 100,000, nearly half of Pennsylvania’s popula�on, and generally supported the Patriot cause in the American Revolu�on. Dutch may be a corrup�on of the word Deitsch, referring in their dialect to their language and homeland, or may have been conflated with the fact that the majority sailed from the Dutch port of Ro�erdam. h�ps://www.britannica.com/topic/Pennsylvania-German h�ps://www.familytreemagazine.com/premium/pennsylvania-dutch/ h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch

serve for their passage money, for which most of them are still in debt. When they have come to an agreement, it happens that adult persons bind themselves in writing to serve three, four, five or six years ... according to their age and strength....⁴ It was the law that “... all aboard the ship, at least the males were required to swear an oath of allegiance to the province and state of PA.” This practice, as well as the requirement for a passenger list, was begun in 1727, as there was concern over the perceived loyalty of

German nationals to what was then an English Colony. When Hans Michael arrived in Philadelphia in 1752, he was indentured as a shoemaker. Once released the family moved out to Saulsbury (Salisbury) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And after a short while, he moved to West Cain Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He and Mary had three more boys—John (b. 1754), William (b. 1758), and Joseph (b. 1765). *** Andrew Addleman (b. 1752) was most likely raised near a German community,

⁴ And these were the conditions for white, European immigrants who came voluntarily!

Opposite above: Old Philadelphia courthouse, town hall, and market, 1710. Below: Hans Michael Addleman signature on the oath of allegiance.

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Warriors Mark, Pennsylvania Warriors Mark was another celebrated place for the Indians. It lies upon a flat piece of table-land, and is just the kind of a place where savages would be likely to meet to debate measures of great importance and to concoct schemes for their future movements. . . . During the Revolu�on, every �me a band of savages came into the valley one or more fresh warrior marks were put upon the trees. —U.J. Jones, Juniata Valley

Above: Surveyor’s map of Warriors Mark. Addleman property was outside of town. USGenWeb Archives. Hun�ngdon County Pennsylvania Atlas.

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possibly Philadelphia or Germantown. His mother died sometime after the youngest son, Joseph, was born in 1765. There is not much information about Andrew in his younger years but we can assume he worked on the farm with his father and a�ended school locally. He was married in or before 1773, when his oldest son, John Michael Addleman Jr., was born. His wife’s name is unknown. Andrew would have been twenty-one. He was later taxed in Saulsbury Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1779–80. During the American

Revolution, Andrew joined the Pennsylvania Militia from Saulsbury along with John Addleman and “John Addlman, Jun’r,” presumably his father and brother. “Andre A�leman” was listed in the Pennsylvania Archives dated 10 November 1781 in Captain Enoch Hasting’s Company, Seventh Class. Andrew was also listed as “Andra A�lemen” in the Second Company, First Ba�alion on an “undated delinquent return” during 1780–83. As these were common misspellings of the surname, it seems probable that this was indeed the same man.


Eventually Andrew and his family continued their move westward. His two youngest brothers stayed on their father’s Chester County farm until his death in 1814. Afterward, they emigrated to Wayne County, Indiana where they were among the original pioneers. Andrew, meanwhile, was taxed in Franklin Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania in 1789, although he was listed as having “no acres.” This changed in 1792 when he first acquired 100 acres. By 1793 he had “100 acres of land, 1 horse, and 2 ca�le.” Andrew lived on this farm with his family until he died, intestate, in 1795, at the age of 43. His unnamed wife had apparently predeceased him.⁵ Andrew had seven children, of whom the oldest was named administrator of his estate. The orphans were identified in Huntingdon County Orphans Court documents in 1795 (when they petitioned the court for guardians), as well as by the 1812 will of their grandfather, John Michael Addleman Sr. The children were John, Mary,

William, Margaret, Sarah, Andrew, and Rachel. The children’s grandfather, apparently came to their aid by purchasing 120 acres of land from his son, John Michael Addleman Jr. At the death of their grandfather, the will ordered the Huntingdon County acreage to be sold and equally divided among Andrew’s children as their inheritance. Li�le to nothing is known about Andrew’s daughters, who they married, or where they lived. The two oldest sons, John and William, continued to live in Warriors Mark Township for a number of years. *** William Addleman Sr., (b. 1779) lived in Franklin Township, Huntingdon County, at the time of his father’s death. He was taxed in Warriors Mark Township beginning in 1800. He married Martha Miller and next lived in Half Moon Township, Centre County, c1801. He and Martha had six children between 1801 and 1814. Mary “Polly” (b.

⁵ Some (including our relatives) claim that Andrew was married to Susannah Shidler, however I have been unable to find any corroboration. It’s possible, but the records I can find have incompatible dates. There was a prominent Mennonite family of Shidlers in Western Pennsylvania. Their Susannah married an Andrew Addleman, who would most likely be a cousin. But they moved to Ohio and lived out their lives there.

Above: Home of William Addleman, Hun�ngdon County, Pennsylvania.

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WILL The following is an abstract of William’s will: WILLIAM ADDLEMAN, Township of Penn, County of Clearfield, State of Penn. 1. my wife MARTHA ... the interest of $4,000 to be paid yearly ... also the interest from the sale of any property (real & personal) not men�oned be sold 2. my Daughter MARY, wife of JAMES MCDIVET ... my claim against JAMES MCDIVET … for land ... to be her Dower in full 3. my Daughter ELISABETH, wife of WILLIAM W. KELLY … the farm in Penn Twp., provided she pay $1,500 in installments of $200 per year beginning 1 Apr 1856. 4. my son WILLIAM ... the farm in Pike Twp., provided he pay $1,000 in installments of $200 per year beginning 1 Apr 1856 5. my son ANDREW ... the farm in Lawrence Twp., provided he pay $2,500 in $200 installments beginning 1 Apr 1856 6. my son JOHN’s Deceased heirs, $500 equally divided on 1 Apr 1856 7. my daughter LYDIA HAGERTY’s heirs, $500 equally divided as they come of age 8. my son SAMUEL ADDLEMAN’s heirs, $500: the son $300 at 21 and the daughter $200 at 18 9. Remaining money: Onefourth divided among the above men�oned orphaned children and the remainder equally divided among the above men�oned heirs Executors: WILLIAM & ANDREW ADDLEMAN, and ROBERT ROSS Witnesses: DAVID ROSS and A. L. DRUCKER

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1804) was the second child and oldest daughter. William’s Warriors Mark farm might have been cut in half when the new county line was formed for Centre County. This could explain why he was continuously taxed in Warriors Mark and reported to have lived in Centre County. Another theory could simply be that he owned property in both locations. This la�er theory is less probable, though, because of his young age. He probably began life as a farmer, worked as a blacksmith in Warriors Mark village soon after it was “laid out,” and ultimately acquired several pieces of land in Centre County (Half Moon and Taylor Townships), and Clearfield County (Penn, Pike, and Lawrence Townships). He moved west to Clearfield County in 1849 with several of his grown children and their families. As Clearfield County was actively involved in the logging industry, he may have acquired the properties, sold the trees, and eventually cleared the stumps for farming. He may have been one of the more “land affluent” early Addlemans through this timely acquisition of property.

William “Adelman” was in the 1850 US Census, and he worked as a farmer and lumberman while living at Penn Township, Clearfield County. He was recorded at dwelling 955, 70 years of age, with $1,000 in real estate. His wife Martha was 70 years of age and they lived with grandchildren Mary, 11, and Ephrem, 21, who was also a farmer. On 2 June 1854, William completed his will and he died less than one month later, on 28 June in Penn Township, Clearfield County. He had apparently suffered two broken legs near Curwensville, and died at the home of his a�orney. The executors were his two sons, William and Andrew, along with Robert Ross. His primary heirs were his wife (Martha), his two living sons, and his two living daughters (Mary “Polly” and Elisabeth Kelly). He left $500 to each family of his three deceased children (John, Samuel, and Lydia Hagerty). He made provisions for each living child to purchase property from him and to make annual payments to his estate. The payments plus interest would help support Martha. He also stipulated that minors would not receive their in-


heritance until they reached legal majority. The administration of the will was a long and drawn-out process which spanned 14 years, with several events highlighted here: • 12 Aug 1854—The estate was appraised and a public sale was conducted of William’s “goods and cha�ies” on 2 September 1854. • 18 Dec 1855—Andrew took James McDivi�* to court for Specific Performance of Contract. The court decreed the performance of the contract be made. • 19 Feb 1856—Robert Ross was discharged from being an executor. • 15 Jan 1863—Andrew petitioned the court to have James McDivi� pay the balance owed on his original contract of land in Half Moon Township. James was willing, but no provisions were made for completion of payment. The will’s administration raises questions about why the McDivi�s were taken to court when it appears William’s intent was to forgive the debt as Polly’s dowry. In any event, one can speculate that family emotions ran high near the end of the process.

*** Mary Addleman (b. 1804), known as Polly, was born in Warriors Mark and

Above: Polly Addleman, year unknown.

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she married James McDivi� in 1822 when they were both 18 years old. They lived on the 106 acres in Half Moon that was bequeathed by her father’s 1854 will and they had a dozen children, four of whom she outlived. Their story continues in the McDivi� chapter, page 125. “DEATH OF A NONAGENARIAN. Died at her residence in Half Moon township, on April 22nd, 1895. Mrs. MARY McDIVITT, widow of late James McDivi�. Mrs. McDivi�, daughter of Wm. and Martha Addleman, was born in Warriorsmark township, Huntingdon Co., Pa. Sept. 16, 1804, and was married to James McDivi� in 1822. To them were born twelve children, eight of whom are living, and were at her funeral. She was the

Above: Polly Addleman, 1890s.

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grandmother of eighty-six children, seventy living; ninety-three greatgrandchildren, eighty-five living, and five great-greatgrandchildren, all living. Mother McDivi� was one of the old residenters [sic] of our community, having lived in our midst for about three-fourths of a century and was one who a�racted all who came in contact with her, by her true motherly traits of character, ever having a pleasant smile and kind word for all whom she met, particularly the young. She seemed never to grow old, but kept in touch with the children of the neighborhood, and all were glad to meet grandmother McDivi�. She had rounded out a good old age, almost ninety-one years of a virtuous and useful life and was called to her reward.”

Sources Addleman, Robert P. 1991. The American Addlemans: German Immigrants to Pennsylvania. Apollo, PA: Closson Press. h�p://bobaddleman.com/johnaddleman/immigrant.html Mi�elberger, Go�lieb. 1898. Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 and Return to Germany in the Year 1754. Philadelphia: John Jos. McVey. Excerpts available at: h�p://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/40-mit.html “Obituary,” Democratic Watchman, Bellfonte, PA: 10 May 1895. Ri�er, Roy C. III. (2018) The Dustman Family of Trumbull and Mahoning Counties, Ohio. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse. Strassburger, Ralph Beaver. 1934. Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol. III. William John Hinke, ed. Norristown, PA: Pennsylvania German Society. Young, Andrew White. 1872. History of Wayne County, Indiana from its First Se�lement to the Present Time. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.


Campbell Na Caimbeulaich—Forget Not

U

1759

lster (Northern Ireland) and Scotland are divided by a narrow strait (Kintyre), and from the earliest times they shared their language and culture. There was always some movement of peoples back and forth across the twelve-mile North Channel between Scotland and the northeastern Irish coast. The Campbells were one of the families that migrated from Scotland to Ireland in great numbers, so the family name is common throughout Ireland, too, particularly Northern Ireland. The name was especially common in County Tyrone and from the 1250s onward another branch of the Sco�ish Clan Campbell also se�led in Donegal. Starting in the 1550s a wave of mercenary soldiers arrived from Scotland, including many Campbells from Argyll. In the Highlands the majority of the land is

above the timber-line, with poor grazing, or wet and rocky with harsh weather conditions. Poverty and overpopulation in their home areas drove many Scots to contract themselves out as soldiers. These fighters were known as red-shanks because they fought barelegged in kilts, mainly in Ulster and Connacht during the summer on three-month contracts. The principal movement of people from Scotland to Ulster occurred in the seventeenth century. This migration, estimated to include well over 100,000 Sco�ish Protestants, took place mainly during the 90-year period from 1607–97. The migration had been planned and encouraged by King James, who brought the Protestants to “His Majesty’s Plantation of Ulster” to form a buffer zone and strengthen royal control of the North of Ireland. This time it was the Lowland Scots who migrated,

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Campbell Name Origin The origins of the name Campbell lie in the Irish (Gaelic) language—from the Irish words for cam = crooked, and beál = mouth. The term “crooked mouth” does not refer to a physical trait, but rather a character trait, i.e., someone who lies or makes false promises. The surname Campbell was first found in Argyllshire in western Scotland. Researchers suggest that there is a joint progenitor of both the Campbell and the MacArthur clans. From 1200–1500, the Campbells were one of the most powerful clans in Scotland. They supported Robert the Bruce in his fight for Sco�sh independence from England in 1314. By the fi�eenth century, their rivals, Clan Donald, had been broken, leaving the Campbells as the central authority over the Sco�sh Highlands. The Campbell chiefs played a role in the government of Scotland from the mid-fi�eenth to the mid-eighteenth century. These machina�ons led to bad blood between the Donald and Campbell clans which reached its peak in the Glencoe Massacre of 1692 (see box, opposite). Although planned en�rely in London, the massacre was led by Campbell officers and soldiers, resul�ng in the notoriety the name s�ll retains today. h�ps://www.houseofnames.com/campbell-family-crest h�ps://www.irishcentral.com/roots/origins-ofthe-name-campbell

Illustra�on: A typical fron�er rifleman, armed with a Pennsylvania long rifle, shown cu�ng linen patches. George C. Woodbridge from George C. Neumann. 1973. Swords and Blades of the American Revolu�on, Harrisburg, PA.

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as migration of the Highlanders was deemed unwise by both King James and his principal minister of the time, Sir Francis Bacon. The Highlanders were considered too wild and unruly, possibly even more wild and unruly than the native Catholic Irish who were hostile to the English rule. Eventually, anyone with a li�le initiative left for richer lands overseas as these opened up for se�lement. The mass migration of Irish Protestants from Ulster to the American colonies began around 1718. By the time of the American Revolution, more than 100,000 Ulster immigrants had arrived in America. Most of the ScotchIrish entered the colonies through the port of Philadelphia and from there se�led in the Pennsylvania counties lying west of that city. The term “Scotch-Irish” apparently originated in mideighteenth century America to distinguish the Ulster Presbyterian emigrants of

Sco�ish ancestry from other Irish se�lers in the colonies. The greatest influx of these se�lers occurred during the time period 1717–75. During that time frame approximately one-third of the Presbyterian population of Ireland migrated to British North America. *** Ulster immigrants were often found in newly opened areas on the western edge of se�lement where they were ready to adapt to the American frontier and to cope with life in an absolute wilderness. From the beginning of their migration to Pennsylvania, the Scotch-Irish “formed


Glencoe Massacre The Glencoe Massacre took place in the Sco�sh Highlands on 13 February 1692. At least 30 members of the Clan Donald were killed by government soldiers, under the leadership of Robert Campbell. Dozens more died from exposure a�er fleeing their homes in the dead of winter with li�le to sustain them in the hills. The soldiers had been housed by the MacDonald clan for nearly two weeks; it was a common prac�ce, in lieu of paying taxes, for civilians to house soldiers. The massacre thus represented a breach of hospitality and was seen as a major affront to Sco�sh law and Highland tradi�on. Soldiers had gone into the Highlands in an a�empt to quell the Jacobite uprising. Jacobism (from a La�nized version of James) was a poli�cal movement led by James II (of England) and IV (of Scotland) to regain the throne and restore the House of Stuart to power. James had gone into exile in France following the Glorious Revolu�on of 1688, which saw William III of Orange and Mary II ascend to the throne, with the support of the Anglican church, primarily to avoid a Catholic dynasty. In France his cousin and ally, Louis XIV, offered James a palace and a pension. In 1689 James, supported by the French army, landed in Ireland and recruited a small force of Highlanders to support their efforts. The Glencoe MacDonalds had a reputa�on for lawlessness and had been used in the past to quell earlier uprisings. Nevertheless, James and his army were defeated by William’s forces in 1690, reestablishing English control. James returned to France where he died in 1701. With the defeat of James, the new English monarchs needed to secure a deal with his supporters and offered a pardon to anyone taking an oath of allegiance before January 1692. The Clan Donald chiefs were late in signing the oath—possibly a miscommunica�on, or possibly some other intrigue—and the leader of the Campbelldominated Argyll regiment sent the order for the massacre:

You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebells, the McDonalds of Glenco, and put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a speciall care that the old Fox and his sones doe upon no account escape your hands, you are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to pu� in execu�on a� fyve of the clock precisely; and by that �me, or very shortly a�er it, I’ll strive to be a� you with a stronger party: if I doe not come to you a� fyve, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the Kings speciall command, for the good & safety of the Country, that these miscreants be cu� off root and branch. See that this be pu� in execu�on without feud or favour, else you may expect to be dealt with as one not true to King nor Government, nor a man fi� to carry Commissione in the Kings service. Expec�ng you will not faill in the fullfilling hereof, as you love your selfe, I subscribe these with my hand a� Balicholis Feb. 12, 1692. For their Majes�es service (signed) R. Duncanson To Capt. Robert Campbell of Glenlyon When the massacre came to light, there was cri�cism of the Sco�sh government for “slaughter under trust,” however there was li�le sympathy for the MacDonalds; the military commander in Scotland, Viscount Teviot, wrote that “it’s not that anyone thinks the thieving tribe did not deserve to be destroyed but that it should have been done by those quartered amongst them makes a great noise.” In Scotland the massacre passed into legend and the rivalry between Campbells and MacDonalds persists to this day. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Massacre_of_Glencoe h�ps://scotlandwelcomesyou.com/glencoemassacre/ Photo: Duncanson’s wri�en orders to Capt. Campbell of Glenlyon.

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The French and Indian Wars The French and Indian War began over the specific issue of whether the upper Ohio River valley was a part of the Bri�sh Empire, and therefore open for trade and se�lement by Virginians and Pennsylvanians, or part of the French Empire. Behind this issue loomed a larger one: which na�onal culture would dominate in North America. The Na�ve Americans, once friendly, had been alienated by the treatment accorded to them, par�cularly the “Walking Purchase of 1737” [see box, page 157], and they sided with the French who promised to restore their hun�ng grounds. Pennsylvania was wholly unprepared for war. Having been ruled up to this �me by Quakers, prepara�on for war had been consistently neglected. Many Scots-Irish fron�ersman “found themselves defending not only their own farms, but the colony itself.” The war ended with the Treaty of 1763 peace conference, with the Bri�sh receiving the territories of Canada from France and Florida from Spain, thus opening the Mississippi Valley to westward expansion. h�ps://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/2028/Chapter%202%20--%20Historical%20Context.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y h�ps://www.history.com/topics/na�veamerican-history/french-and-indian-war

Charles Lukens’s land survey showing property of William Glass (right side, upside down) where Cleary Campbell and family were squa�ng.

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a cordon of defense around the non-fighting Quakers.” Here in the backcountry these men once again served as a buffer— this time between Native Americans and older, established eastern se�lements. The pioneers constituted a group of men “at once hardy and fearless, and capable of being quickly moulded into an efficient fighting force.” One of these immigrants was Cleary Campbell (b. 1740), an “infamous soldier and squa�er of the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars.” While Cleary’s exact origins are unknown, he came from Ireland when he was young, and there is no record of his family traveling with him. By the age of 19 he was serving as an ensign in William Clapham’s regiment, part of the provincial troops raised by the colonial governor to help the British fight the French and Indian

Wars (1754–63). These soldiers were recruited for a season of fighting and Cleary appears to have fought for a total of five seasons. In 1760 he joined the 18th Ba�alion (Burd’s Ba�alion) of the Pennsylvania Regiment. At the age of 21, Cleary married Anne Gamble at St. James Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The couple had four children—Allan (b. 1761), William (b. 1764), Sarah (b. 1773), and Margaret (b. 1784). When the boys were born, Cleary and Anne were living in a log cabin on the frontier, undoubtedly the original se�lers of what is now the town of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. They were squa�ing on a tract of land that had been warranted to Charles Glass and when the Deputy Surveyor-General of the Pennsylvania colony, Charles Lukens, arrived to


survey the tract in November 1769 he found Cleary and his family already there. Cleary was described as “a curious individual” as is clear from the following anecdote: John Hamilton [Early Times on the West Branch, Lock Haven Republican, 17 April 1875] in his reminiscences says that there must have been something in the character of Campbell that was not generally seen by his neighbors. What should induce him to venture ahead of the first se�lers in that remote region was a mystery, for he was regarded as the laziest man to be found. The houses of that day were cabins with one room, that served for parlor, kitchen and bed room. It was invariably the practice of Cleary Campbell, being too lazy to sit up, to throw himself down upon a bed. This habit must have drawn to it universal a�ention, as the following story will show, whether founded on fact or only as a specimen of the rough wit of backwoods civilization. As the story runs, he entered a neighbor’s house one day, and as usual threw himself down, and on a cat that lay asleep on the bed. The cat began to make piteous

cries, but there was no help for it. “Poor pussy, I pity you, but I cannot help you,” was the only remark of Cleary. However, this “lazy” portrait is a li�le hard to square in light of Cleary’s war service, frontier living, and heavy involvement in the community. He was listed as one of the Fair Play men (see box, page 90) and frequently served in official roles in the township, and appears to have been educated, as he “wrote a very plain, good hand.” In fact, Cleary was an almost constant litigant, both as plaintiff and defendant, in the Northumberland County Court from the time of his arrival there in 1769, after he was dispossessed from his place at Lock Haven. His name, along with the names of other Fair Play se�lers, appeared regularly on the Appearance Dockets of the Northumberland and Lycoming County courts. The cases usually involved land titles and personal obligations or debts. During this time, Cleary served as an assessor for the township as well as an Overseer of the Poor. During the American Revolution (1776–83), “the same fighting qualities and the same rough, hardy, outdoor life which had rendered the Scotch-Irish the recruiting

Surveying Early Se�lements John Lukens served as Surveyor General of Pennsylvania and Delaware from 1761–76, and Pennsylvania from 1781–89. William Penn’s early decisions about Pennsylvania land distribu�on gave the Land Office significant power from the beginning of se�lement. Over �me, the surveyor general became the most powerful posi�on in the land distribu�on system because his du�es were an integral part of that system. A prospec�ve se�ler made “an applica�on,” that is, a request for land, in a par�cular place. Barring any problems such as a previous applica�on for the same land, the secretary of proprietary affairs would issue a warrant for a survey of the property. The surveyor general then assigned a deputy in the appropriate district to perform the survey. A�er its comple�on, the surveyor general cer�fied the survey’s accuracy and returned a report to the secretary who could then formally grant the land. On 22 May 1769, Lukens’s son Charles was appointed Deputy Surveyor “of that part of the lands lately purchased of the Indians at Fort Stanwic ...” and he was “surveying tracts for the officers of the 1st and 2nd Ba�alions of the Pennsylvania Regiment, in pursuance of Order No. 1, 3d February, 1769, and divided among them as directed by Lieut. Wiggens, who was appointed by them to see it done.” This included the tract warranted to William Glass where Cleary Campbell was found squa�ng. h�p://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/lukens.htm

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Above: Contemporary view from the top of Bald Eagle Mountain.

ground for soldiers in the French and Indian War … found even greater play....” They were among the first supporters of American independence since they recalled being grievously oppressed by the

English. They had been considered “dissenters” by the established Church of Ireland, so were not always allowed to participate fully in the political, economic, civil, and religious life there. According to

The “Fair Play” Se�lers These were a group of Scotch-Irishmen—some 100 to 150 families—who had se�led as squa�ers outside the bounds of the Land Purchase of 1768, on the West Bank of the Susquehanna, above and below Pine Creek. They comprised “a set of hardy adventurers [who] seated themselves on this doub�ul territory, made improvements, and formed a very considerable popula�on,” beyond the jurisdic�on of the laws of the province. They established a community and a poli�cal organiza�on called the Fair Play system and held annual elec�ons that were conducted “without discrimina�on against any of the se�lers by reason of religion, na�onal origin, or property.” Conflicts, legal or otherwise, were brought before the Fair Play “court” and decisions were final, with no chance to appeal. In addi�on, the decisions of the tribunal were carried out “by the whole body, who started up in mass, at the mandate of the court.” On 4 July 1776 the Fair Play men assembled on Pine Creek and issued their own declara�on of independence absolving themselves from all allegiance to Great Britain, “henceforth free and independent.” h�p://www.gutenberg.org/files/22471/22471-h/22471-h.htm Wolf, George D. 1969. The Fair Play Se�lers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784: A Study of Fron�er Ethnography. Harrisburg.

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W.E.H. Lecky, a British historian, “they alone appear to have had no Tories and no pacifists in their ranks.” In 1778 Cleary served as a private in Robinson’s Rangers, a “Ranging Company” headed by Captain Thomas Robinson. This was a unit that “sometimes operated as an independent command, ranging at will within its extensive assigned area of operations within Northumberland County. At other times the unit functioned as an infantry company which was a subordinate command within a regiment of the Pennsylvania Line of the Continental Army.” This was the same year that the Big Runaway caused a mass evacuation of se�lers from the territory, because of threats from Native Americans. Cleary was one of the se�lers who returned to his land a few months after the evacuation took place. Cleary’s wife Anne died just after the Revolutionary War in 1784. Their daughter Margaret was born that year, so perhaps Anne never recovered from childbirth. Margaret died at age 14, in 1798. Eventually, in September 1792 Cleary took up the most elevated farm in Centre County, on the top of Muncy Mountain (known now as Bald Eagle Mountain), within sight of Bellefonte, which “seems to indicate that he was not lazy after locations

of a high order.” By the end of the century, he owned 100 acres (40 developed) as well as several cows and horses. In 1800 he served as the schoolmaster in Bald Eagle, Pennsylvania. Cleary died on his Centre County farm in 1809. Compared to their colorful father, the Campbell children appear to have lived quiet and relatively uneventful lives. There is not much information about Allen, but he appears in the 1800 census as a resident of Centre County, alongside Cleary and William. William married Elizabeth Parsons in 1793, no doubt the daughter of another of the founding families in the region. William and Elizabeth had a total of five children, but there is no record of three of them—presumably the first three, as the youngest were born shortly before William’s death: John Thomas (b. 1813) and Thomas (b. 1817). William died in 1818 in Mifflin, Pennsylvania leaving Elizabeth with five minor children. On 20 January 1831 Elizabeth filed a petition requesting that her minor children be placed under the guardianship of the Delong family until they reached the age of 21. She must have known she was dying at the time as she did not live much longer. The Delongs were another prominent se�ler family who had been active in the Fair Play

The Big Runaway The Big Runaway was a mass evacua�on in June and July 1778 of se�lers from the fron�er areas of north central Pennsylvania during the American Revolu�onary War. A major campaign by Loyalists and Na�ve Americans allied with the Bri�sh devastated the small communi�es on the northern and western branches of the Susquehanna River, promp�ng local mili�a leaders to order the evacua�on. Most of the se�lers relocated to Fort Augusta at modern-day Sunbury at the confluence of the North and West Branches of the Susquehanna River, while their abandoned houses and farms were all burnt. Some se�lers returned soon a�er, but the a�acks were renewed the following year, leading to a second evacua�on known as The Li�le Runaway. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Big_Runaway

Above: Seneca chief Ki-On-Twog-Ky (also known as Cornplanter), F. Bartoli, 1796. As a chief warrior, Cornplanter fought in the French and Indian War and the American Revolu�onary War. In both wars, the Seneca and three other Iroquois na�ons were allied with the Bri�sh. A�er the war Cornplanter led nego�a�ons with the United States and was a signatory of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784). He helped gain Iroquois neutrality during the Northwest Indian War.

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Above: Alen Campbell, c1915. Below: Bellwood, Pennsylvania, c1903. Opposite: (Top) Mabel and Ethel Campbell, c1910; (Bo�om) Mabel and Charles “Bus” Campbell, c1920.

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community. William’s sister Sarah had married Jonathan Delong in 1803. It was her second marriage (presumably her first husband, George [James?] McCloskey, died). She had one living son from her first marriage and she and Delong had five of their own by the time they took charge of her nephews. Sarah died in Liberty Township, Pennsylvania in December 1857. She was 85 years old and was “highly respected for her Christian character.” John Thomas’s early life was marked by tragedy. His father died when he was five and his mother just about the time he turned 18. In April 1839 he married Mary Like

Hogue and in September that year the first of their 10 children was born: Elizabeth (b. 1839), Edward Augustus (b. 1841), Elmira Margaret (b. 1843), Miles J. (b. 1845), Mary Louisa “Molly” (b. 1847), Emma (b. 1850), Clara Ure�a (b. 1855), George Edwin (b. 1857), Josie (b. 1859), and Imelda (b. 1861). Only eight survived to adulthood. Emma and Edward both died before they reached the age of 3. Their mother, Mary died in 1865 when the youngest child was just three. No doubt she was exhausted from constant pregnancies and motherhood. The family moved around a li�le bit within the small area


where they were all born. After marrying in Centre County, John Thomas and Mary first lived in Boggs Township where he worked in the trade/ manufacturing industry. By 1850 they set up a home in Milesburg and John Thomas was a carpenter, a job he maintained for the rest of his working life. Eventually they se�led in nearby Huston (the postal address was Julian) where John Thomas died in 1901. At the time of his death, the local paper reported that there was genuine sorrow, “for Squire Campbell was a great man.” He was just shy of his 89th birthday when he died. His living children all remained nearby in Centre County, except for Josie who had moved to Richmond, Indiana. John was also survived by 33 grandchildren. “His remains were laid away in the burying grounds on the Campbell farm.” Miles Campbell was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in 1845 and by the time he was old enough to a�end school he was living in nearby Milesburg. In 1868 he married Sarah Ann (Sadie) Berkhammer, daughter of James and Caroline. He worked as a laborer when their first children were born and by 1880 was, like his father, working as carpenter. Over 20 years, Miles and Sadie had six children, all boys:

Harry (b. 1869), Alen (b. 1872), Clarence (b. 1878), David (b. 1881), Vincent (b. 1884), and James (b. 1890). But Miles died in 1893, and in 1900 Sadie had moved the family to Altoona, Pennsylvania where she worked as a domestic. By then the older boys were working and out of the house. Harry worked as a brakeman on the railroad and Alen was a motorman on the City Pass Railway Company in Bellwood, Pennsylvania. David also worked for the railroad as an oiler. Sadie died around 1933. *** Alen was born in 1872 and a�ended school in Huston, Pennsylvania. In 1895, at the age of 22, he married Olive McCaulley* when she was just 16. Al was working as a motorman and living in Antis, Blair County and he and Olive quickly had five children: Benjamin (b. 1895), Mabel Mae (1896), Ethel (b. 1898), Thomas (b. 1900), and Charles “Bus” (b. 1902). Benjamin and Thomas did not survive childhood. And Olive, too, died young, in 1904, of “the fever” which was probably typhoid (or possibly cholera, or the raging smallpox epidemic). At that point Al abandoned his young family, leaving Mabel, Ethel, and Bus in the hands of the McCaulleys,* his in-laws, where they were raised by their grandpar-

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Above: Mabel and Bernard Nolan, c1929; Mabel, Bernard, and Bernie, 1930. Opposite: Mabel, 1937.

ents Frank and Nancy. Al was then working as a streetcar conductor between Altoona and Bellwood. He offered no support to his children, and rarely even acknowledged them, even when they crossed paths in town and he could see

Live Music in the Silent Movie Era “Silent” movies of the early twen�eth century were not, in fact, completely quiet. Fancy cinemas might offer full orchestras, or at least a combo of musicians to provide a sound track to the ac�on on the screen. But, according to Sco� Eyman in The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolu�on, 1926–1930, “Even the meanest fleapit in the s�cks had a piano player.” The musicians might be able to consult with a library of sheet music to create their own score. In many cases there were cue sheets available, distributed in trade publica�ons and by the movie studios, that a�empted to match the music with specific scenes in the film. In this case, accompanists would need to have the appropriate sheet music on hand, looking for musical nota�ons on generic composi�ons, such as “highly drama�c agitato” or “agitato furioso.” If they did not have the score available, other pianists might rely on snippets of familiar tunes and the audience would get involved in singing along. h�ps://www.atlasobscura.com/ar�cles/keeping-art-silent-film-music-alive-organ-cinemacomedy h�ps://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/apr/12/pianists-silent-film-fes�valmusical-accompaniment

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that they needed shoes. Mabel and Bus never forgave their father and were bi�er toward him throughout their lives. Ethel, who always lived in Bellwood, while never close to her father, did acknowledge him and stayed in contact the rest of his life. In 1908, Al got married a second time to Clara Evans. She had a son from a previous marriage, and together they had two daughters, Elva (b. 1909) and Lorna (b. 1918). There was no interaction between his first and second families. Al died in Bellwood in 1955 of congestive heart failure. By the time Mabel was 13, she was living in a crowded house in Bellwood with her grandfather, who worked as a machine hand at the local railroad shop, her grandmother, and her 22-year-old uncle Harry who also worked for the railroad as a brakeman. Her aunt Edna lived there with her husband John Keller (a house painter) and their two children—Esther who was 3 and Arnold who was an infant. Mabel always disliked Bellwood and the lifestyle there, and education was not important in those days. So both she and Ethel dropped out of school after about 8th grade— Bus did complete high school. The McCaulleys were involved in the local vaudeville scene,


and Mabel earned some money working occasionally as a singer in the theater. At age 16 Mabel had set out to make it on her own. She found part-time jobs including playing the piano at silent movie theaters and later as a hairdresser, telephone operator, and bookkeeper. She was determined to get out of Bellwood and she ended up in Clearfield, Pennsylvania—a town about 50 miles away— around 1918, when she was 22. She was working as a telephone operator when she met Bernard J. Nolan,* a shoe salesman at the Brown Boot Shop. They married on 29 December 1921 and moved to Philipsburg together. Their son Bernie* (b. 1930) was born nine years later, but when he was just 11 months old, his father died tragically in an accident. Bernard Sr. fell down the stairs where they were living and fractured his skull. So two weeks before Christmas in 1930 the situation Mabel faced, with an 11month-old baby at the start of the Depression, was no job and no one to help take care of the child. After staying for a while, with the help of the Drivas family who lived next door and owned the building, she eventually had no option but to move back to Bellwood and move in with her sister Ethel and her family.

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Top: Paul and Ethel (Campbell) Smith, c1970. Bo�om: Arthur “Red” Fowler, c1965.

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Ethel was married to Paul Smith—her second marriage; her first had been to Paul’s brother who died at an early age. Ethel and Paul had two children, Dean born in 1920 and Bill born in 1926. Since this was now the heart of the Depression years in the 1930s, Paul had difficulty finding work, but managed to keep some income coming in to pay the bills. Mabel immediately went to work as a hairdresser in Tyrone, Pennsylvania about seven miles from Bellwood. Mabel always managed to have a car of some sort, and Ethel was always home to take care of the baby. On 1 January 1939, Mabel traveled to Washington, DC to spend New Year’s with a man she had been dating—Arthur E. “Red” Fowler. He was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania in 1907, the second of four children. Red dropped out of school, spent some years as an apprentice in the shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad before becoming a house painter and wallpaper hanger. His first wife, Thelma Lytle, was killed in an automobile accident in which Red was also seriously injured. Mabel and Red had apparently had been dating for a few months and they

decided spontaneously to get married in Alexandria, Virginia and move there. He was working for people who were developing middleincome homes in the area. This turned out to be a good opportunity for Red as, with the coming of WWII, the Washington area was becoming a boom town. Mabel was to be his bookkeeper and ended up managing his business. Mabel also worked on weekends as a secretary at the exclusive Cosmo Club in Washington, DC, typing up the weekly menus for the members. During the war Mabel and Red rented out a spare bedroom to two Navy lieutenants. Around 1950 Mabel and Red moved to Wilmington, Delaware for about a decade before going back to Alexandria until Red retired. They then se�led on Kent Island, Maryland, in the 1970s, near his brother Eddie and his wife Dorothy. Mabel developed a form of dementia and gradually her health failed. She died in January 1980. Red remarried again—to the sister of his first wife—but he died just three years later in the spring of 1983. Bernie’s story continues in the Nolan chapter, page 153.


Sources Hanna, Charles A. 1902. The Scotch-Irish: or, The Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America. New York, London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Volume 2: 62. h�p://www.clintoncogensociety.org/MembersofRobinsonsRangers.htm h�ps://www.ccsna.org/campbells-in-north-america h�ps://www.vamonde.com/posts/1700s-irish-farm/2613 Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. 1878 (1917). A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Volume 2: 262. Meginness, John Franklin. 1889. O�inachson: A History of the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna. Williamsport, PA: Gaze�e and Bulletin Printing House, 20– 25. “Obituary.” 1901. Democratic Watchman, 18 October, Bellefonte, PA. Wolf, George D. 1969. The Fair Play Se�lers of the West Branch Valley, 1769–1784: A Study of Frontier Ethnography. Harrisburg. h�p://www.gutenberg.org/files/ 22471/22471-h/22471-h.htm

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McArthur Fide et opera—By fidelity and labor

D

1769

uncan McArthur b. 1772, was the eleventh governor of Ohio, from 1830–32. He was born in Dutchess County, New York (near Poughkeepsie) on 14 January 1772. His father, John MacArthur (Duncan chose to spell his name differently than his father), along with his new wife Margaret Campbell, had emigrated to the British colony from the Isle of Bute in Scotland, arriving in New York City in 1769. Margaret died in 1776 leaving behind Duncan (age 4) and his sister Eleanor (age 2). Shortly thereafter, John moved his family to western Pennsylvania, to a region dominated by Scots-Irish culture. These immigrants often preferred to se�le in the back country frontier areas where they enjoyed cheap land and independence from the established government. John remarried

and had at least five more children with his second wife (whose name is not recorded). Duncan’s life as a child on the frontier was quite difficult. His family was poor and had to struggle to survive, and as the oldest he had to work hard from a very young age. Eventually he found work as a hired hand on neighboring farms to add to the family's income. Duncan’s responsibilities kept him from obtaining a formal education, although he did teach himself to read by the time he was a teenager. His lack of formal education sets him apart from other early Ohio governors, many of whom had college educations. In 1790, at the age of 18, Duncan joined the socalled “Pennsylvania volunteers.” He participated in General Josiah Harmar's

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McArthur Name Origin Clan Arthur or Clan MacArthur is a Highland Sco�sh clan that once held lands on the shores of Loch Awe

opposite Inishail. The clan has been described as one of the oldest clans in Argyll and there is a Gaelic saying, “as old as the hills, the MacArthurs and the Devil.” Clan Arthur and Clan Campbell share a common origin, and at one point the MacArthurs challenged the seniority of the leading Campbell family. A branch of MacArthurs from the Isle of Skye were a sept (a division of a Sco�sh or Irish family referring to a subgroup within a large clan, par�cularly when that group has taken up residence outside their clan's original territory) of the MacDonalds of Sleat, and were hereditary pipers for the MacDonalds of the Isles. Under the social organiza�on of the clan chief each member or tenant had his or her own posi�on, role, and status. Those a�ending to the chief and his family included a harper and a bard or poet, then la�erly, with the introduc�on of the bagpipes to Scotland around the fi�eenth century, a clan piper. The MacArthurs were said to have been among the finest pipers and exponents of the piobaireachd and history relates great rivalry between them and the MacCrimmons family for supremacy. Both had their own colleges for piping students. h�p://www.rampantscotland.com/clans/blclanmacarthur.htm

expedition against Native American peoples in the Northwest Territory. In this and other military adventures, Duncan gained a reputation for courageous leadership. By 1792, he was living in Maysville, Kentucky, and working in a local salt works. Then, the following year he obtained a position with frontier surveyor Nathaniel Massie on an expedition into the Northwest Territory. He worked once again with Massie in 1796 to lay out a new town called Chillicothe. At this point, Duncan was able to obtain a tract of land near Chillicothe and moved to the area with his new bride, Nancy McDonald.

McDonald Detour Nancy (b. 1779) was the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants from the Loch Shin region in the Sco�ish Highlands. The McDonalds had also se�led in the western Pennsylvania frontier. Nancy’s father, William,¹ came to America in 1770. In a family bible, her brother John described their father as “a very active, but li�le man, of a violent and hasty temper, impetuous in all his pursuits; but in his friendships he was kind and as true as the needle in the hole.” Their paternal grandfather, Thomas McDonald, “was born and raised in the highlands of Scotland; near to Loch Shin:

¹ Some people claim that William McDonald is descended from Alasdair Ruadh Maclain McDonald (b. 1630), chief of the sept of McDonalds living at Glencoe at the time of the infamous massacre (see box, page 87). I cannot find any definitive proof of this claim. Furthermore, William’s son Colonel John McDonald, a diligent chronicler of his family history, does not mention the connection. It seems unlikely John would have omi�ed that relationship in his reporting if it were true.

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his occupation was that of a herdsman, and dealer in ca�le. He married Henrie�a Gray; they both died about the year 1770, and were buried in their native Highlands.” William met and married Nancy’s mother, Effie McDonald, in Pennsylvania, although she was from the same clan as her husband and distantly related. Her family was also from the Loch Shin area in the Sco�ish Highlands. Effie’s son, again from the family bible, says, “My mother was a most amiable and religious woman, patient in adversity and affliction, in which school she was severely tried. Her confidence in the watchful protection of an unseen arm, tendered her meek, and resigned spirit conspicuous to all who knew her. I believe she never was reviled or censured by man or woman.” Effie’s father, also named William, was born in 1727. At the age of 18 he had fought in the ba�le of Culloden—the final confrontation of the Jacobite uprising— and was awarded a special bonnet for gallantry. He married Elizabeth Douglas a few years later, and together they had nine children. But after the defeat of the house of Stuart, Bonnie Prince

McArthur and Ohio’s Na�ves The Indian popula�on in Scioto County was small when the white man first entered it. That region was merely a summer hun�ng ground for the tribes that occupied villages to the north and south of it. In fact, there were but two Indian villages of importance on the Ohio River, one, the Shawnee village at the mouth of the Scioto, and the other, Logstown. Yet, the existence of the many mounds and other earthworks, and the plen�ful supply of stone axes and flint arrowheads, give evidence that the Ohio Valley had once been populated by tribes that were numerous (p. 16). The Indians some�mes maintained a camp at the mouth of the Scioto River. From this camp, the warriors went forth to a�ack boats naviga�ng the Ohio River. A feeble effort was made to patrol the Ohio by sending two scouts up the river as two were descending. Duncan McArthur was in this scout service for some �me. One day on a scou�ng expedi�on in 1793, he and Samuel Davis went to a deerlick to secure some venison. It was a s�ll morning with a fog close to the earth. As they neared the lick, McArthur stopped while Davis crept ahead. As deer have very sensi�ve hearing, the slightest sound will cause them to take flight. To lessen the chance of making any noise, Davis crept up alone. When he reached a point from which he could see the lick, he rose and parted the brush. Immediately, he heard the report of a rifle and a bullet cut the brush close to his head. The powder used by the old-�mer was black and gave off dense smoke from the muzzle of the rifle. The smoke prevented Davis and the rifleman from seeing each other. But in an instant, an Indian stepped to one side of the smoke to see whether he had killed the hunter. This gave Davis an opportunity to shoot; and he killed the Indian. McArthur, hearing the shots, hastened to the aid of his comrade. Just as he reached him, a party of Indians rushed upon them, but Davis and McArthur retreated to their canoe in the Ohio, and crossed the river for safety (p. 32). McArthur crept up to the lick and concealed himself behind the brush to wait for a deer. Soon, he saw two Indians, armed with rifles, tomahawks, and scalping knives, creeping up to the lick. They were so close that McArthur could not escape without being seen or heard. He waited un�l the Indians were but fourteen steps from him, and, when they rose up to see if there was any game at the lick, McArthur killed one of them. He thought the other Indian would at once run into the brush, but he was too cunning. He knew that there was only one scout, for only one shot had been fired. He also knew that the advantage was now with him, because his rifle was loaded and that of his enemy was empty. McArthur ran, but was halted by the top of a fallen tree. The Indian fired, but missed him. McArthur and the Indian were now upon equal terms. McArthur turned to end the struggle in a hand to hand contest; but as he did so, a large band of Indians rushed at him. He fled with the Indians in close pursuit. Several shots were fired at him, but he ran in a zigzag course and prevented an accurate aim. A bullet struck his powder horn, and the splinters from the horn were driven into his side, causing him to bleed quite freely. At last, the Indians were out distanced and McArthur turned towards the river. His comrades, upon hearing the shots, launched their canoe and paddled slowly up the river, so that McArthur might be able to see them. As soon as he saw them, he called and they took him in and crossed the river. This incident is the last record of any boats’ having been fired upon by the Indians at the Scioto. Indeed, at this �me, prac�cally all the tribes were engaged in opposing General Wayne. The Indian killed by McArthur was the last Indian killed near the mouth of the Scioto River (pp. 36–37). Bannon, Henry T. 1920. Scioto Sketches: An Account of Discovery and Se�lement of Scioto County, Ohio. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Company.

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Above: Ba�le of Culloden between the Jacobites and the “Redcoats.” David Morier, 1746. Opposite: Land grant signed by President John Adams to William McDonald.

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Charlie, closely pursued by the British army, entered a co�age and concealed himself under the skirts of a loyal Sco�ish woman, Flora McDonald. Once discovered, Flora and many of the clan McDonald were compelled to flee from Scotland and they came to America and found shelter in North Carolina. William and his wife Elizabeth came to America along with those McDonalds in 1772. Their youngest, Hugh, was born at sea. William and his family moved to New York State and from there to Washington County in western Pennsylvania. Although he was in his 60s during the American Revolution, William enlisted in the Continental

Army and served throughout the conflict. To repay his service he was given a land grant by President John Adams for 400 acres near Chillicothe.² As an old man, he became senile and his grandson John describes how, “In their morning walks or plays [the children] would find grandfather in a thicket of small poppaw brushes that was not far from his cabin, not kneeling upon his knees, but prostrate upon the leaves that covered the ground, his face resting on his hands. There for long periods of time he would be engaged offering the most earnest prayer, not mentally, but in outspoken, audible words, his long white hair falling forward over his head and the part of his face not covered by his hands. His prayers were in the Gaelic language.” Effie’s sister Margaret married Archibald McDonald, also a soldier in the American Revolution. Archibald was from the Glencoe region, the site of the famous massacre (see box, page 87). He had come to America as a British soldier, but deserted and joined the American forces. He was at the surrender of

² This may well be the land eventually inherited by his great-great granddaughter, Effie McArthur, that become Lone Elm where she and Isham Atchison Jones* se�led in 1885.


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Above: Fruit Hill, seen in photo published 1896, was the home in Ross County, Ohio of Ohio governors Duncan McArthur and William Allen, his son-in-law.

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Cornwallis. By one account, while he was still a “redcoat” he was taken prisoner by William, his eventual father-in-law. Although some 15 years his senior, Archibald was a good friend of Duncan McArthur, who eventually married Archibald’s niece, Effie’s daughter Nancy. Nancy is described by her brother, in his biographical sketch of McArthur published in 1838, as “an exemplary and religious woman, well versed in business, and whose prudence and care over her husband’s domestic affairs, contributed largely to his happiness and interest. No woman, in Chillicothe or its vicinity,

more generously relieved the necessities of the poor. By her wealth she was enabled to be liberal; and her strong and discriminating mind could clearly discover the proper objects of charity.” *** Duncan and Nancy married in 1797 and McArthur was able to make his fortune in land speculation in the Northwest Territory and then the new state of Ohio. He used some of his money to build an elaborate home on his country estate which they called “Fruit Hill.” The house contained not only local stone and wood but also many luxury items brought


by river from the East, including brass fixtures, glass, and many other furnishings. Duncan and Nancy were known for their hospitality at Fruit Hill. He also earned a fortune in the timber business as Ohio grew and developed after becoming a state in 1803. In 1805, McArthur became involved in politics for the first time. He was elected to the Ohio Senate and, in 1809, became Speaker of the Senate. McArthur quickly became associated with a number of controversial issues within state government. He allied himself with other members of the Democratic-Republican Party to impeach state Supreme Court justices George Tod and Calvin Pease. He supported moving the state capital to Columbus, and opposed the Tammany Societies springing up in Ohio. McArthur faced a difficult reelection in 1811. Accused of cheating at cards and drinking too much, he was nevertheless successfully re-elected. In addition to his political service, Duncan also joined the state militia as a colonel. He was soon promoted to major general. Commanding a militia unit under General William Hull during the War of 1812, he

Mrs. Nancy McArthur near Chillicothe Ohio Columbus, Febry. 27th 1831 My Dear wife, Your favour of the 25th [unclear], was received last evening. I regret to learn that you have sufferd so much with sore eyes and that poor Effie suffered so severly, since I saw her. I have all packed up to go home, have paid my stage fare in the a�ernoon, but have just now received a message from Mr. Neal the stage owner, informing me that the creek is so high that the stage cannot cross it, but that he will try to send the mail on horseback. One reason why I wished to return home immediately is that I received a le�er from Jesse Williams informing me that some of the canal contractors wish to cut my oke �mber between Roberts and the South pasture, and proposing to pay me a cent per cubic foot on whatever the appraisers [torn] allows for it. Now I can’t buy the same �mber and haul it home for three �mes what he offers or for perhaps three �mes as much as appraisors would allow me. I have wri�en to Mr. Williams begging of him not to suffer the Canal Contractors to rob me of the �mber which I have been saving for thirty years and offered to pay the contractors, if they will get �mber elsewhere, the difference of the prices of hauling, between the place where they may get it elsewhere, and hauling it from my land. It is not possible, however, that they will leave my �mber and look out for other �mber. There is plenty of �mber south of Point Creek which they could buy for half the price that mine is worth, if they would condescend to do so, and I would gladly pay for the difference of hauling it rather than have my [unclear] �mber [taken?]. I have wri�en to Jesse Williams on the subject as I before stated and wish Allan to go and see him and do what he can to save the �mber, but if that cannot be done, I wish hands hired to cut down and cut off into rail cuts of saw logs the best and straightest of my �mber. The Contractors will want some �mber to finish the stable – that �mber must be out. If we can do no be�er, we must endeavour to take a share of our own �mber whilst it is gaining. The old fences are all ro�en down and we must saw as much of our �mber as will rebuild them. If you find that our �mber cannot be kept from the Canal men, hire as many hands as you can and have a good share of it, cut down and cut off in such lengths as will not answer them. I am in great haste, the mail is about to close. Ever yours,

was captured and then paroled by the British at Detroit. After his parole, Duncan resigned from the militia and joined the United States army as a brigadier general under the leadership of General William Henry Harrison. When Harrison re-

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Above: The Ohio and Erie Canal in 1902.

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signed in 1814, McArthur took command of the army in the Northwest. After the War of 1812 ended, Duncan returned to political life, and was elected to the state legislature once again in 1815. He was involved in negotiating treaties with Native American nations in Ohio, including the Treaty of Maumee Rapids in 1817 and the Treaty of St. Mary’s in 1818. In 1819, McArthur failed to win reelection to the Ohio House of Representatives, in part because he opposed taxation of the National Bank of the United States. (He served as a director of the National Bank's branch at Chillicothe.) Duncan McArthur returned to politics in 1821, serving in the state Senate

from 1821 to 1823. Between 1823 and 1825, he represented Ohio in Congress but did not win reelection at the end of his term. He was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1826 to 1827 and served again in the Ohio Senate from 1829 to 1830. In 1830, he ran for governor against Robert Lucas, winning by a narrow margin of only 482 votes. In comparison to some of his predecessors, Duncan had a fairly uneventful term as governor, with no significant controversies. This was a time of economic growth in Ohio. Construction on the Ohio and Erie Canal was completed, and other canals were begun as well. A le�er from his time as governor shows that he did not wish to sell his timber to the Canal Contractors for the low price they were offering (see le�er, page 105). The National Road was also under construction and made it as far as Zanesville by the time that he left office. The state legislature granted a number of charters to com-


panies to build railroads, although none was actually started until after his term ended. Duncan chose not to run for reelection as governor. He ran instead for another term in the legislature in 1832. After he was defeated by William Allen,³ Duncan retired to his home at Fruit Hill, where he lived until his death. Following a freak accident in Columbus that left him crippled, his brother-in-law reported: “Instead of being that strong, athletic man, that exposure nor hardship could weary, nor danger appal, he is now a helpless old man, that requires assistance to rise or lie down.” Nancy died before her husband, and, as her brother described, “his wife, the partner of his fortune, stood by him in his time of suffering; and diligently watched over

his couch, night and day, till her frail frame gave way by constant watching and fatigue. She sickened, and died on the 23d of October,

³ In 1832, William Allen was the party’s candidate for the US House of Representatives and he defeated Duncan McArthur by one vote. At that time, he was the youngest person to be elected to the Congress. This victory delayed his marriage to the love of his life, Effie McArthur, daughter of the man he had so narrowly defeated. Duncan McArthur never forgave him, and Effie married Dr. Elijah Coons, of Alabama. Coons died of consumption before the birth of their first child, and Effie returned to Chillicothe to reside with her parents. McArthur died in 1839, and six years later, William and Effie were married. After serving two terms in the Senate, Allen retired to his home near Chillicothe without Effie. She had died in 1847 of pneumonia, and he went home to Fruit Hill, the plantation Effie had inherited from her father, to raise their one-year-old daughter and his stepson. William devoted his time to farming, primarily horticulture and the raising of livestock, and was actively involved in community life. He spent his leisure time reading and studying history and the works of ancient philosophers. Allen become the 31st Governor of Ohio, serving from 1874 to 1876.

Above: Portrait of Duncan McArthur, eleventh Governor of Ohio, that hangs in room 108 of the Ohio Statehouse. George W. Hoffman.

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1836, in the fifty-seventh year of her age.” John McDonald goes on to say that, “Since the death of his wife, General McArthur remains with but li�le change: the lonely occupant of his room, he is indeed ‘solitary and almost alone.’ His mind is in such a morbid state, that it presents no picture of what it once was. Absent and indifferent on most subjects, it can only be occasionally roused to reflection on his own affairs. General McArthur's private character, in many respects, was worthy of imitation. His energy and untiring industry in whatever pursuit he engaged, deserves the highest praise. Wherever he came across an old frontier man in distress, his purse was open for his relief. His hospitality at his own mansion, was bordering on extravagance; no one left him hungry or thirsty. Notwithstanding that he was liberal in feeding

Above: Duncan McArthur, a Federalist and Na�onal Republican poli�cian from Ohio. Educa�onal Technology Clearinghouse. Florida Center for Instruc�onal Technology.

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the hungry, and clothing the naked, he was admi�ed to be a close and severe dealer.” No doubt this mind in “such a morbid state” contributed to an eventual lawsuit challenging his will and the distribution of his property, which is described below. Duncan McArthur died in 1839. *** Duncan and Nancy McArthur had eleven children over 19 years, but only five lived into adulthood. Allan Campbell McArthur b. 1805 was the second-oldest of the five surviving children, and the oldest living son.⁴ During his youth, he worked with his father, helping to manage the timber business, and working as a surveyor, even as he became a lawyer. One of his projects was to survey the Marion & Circleville Railways. In 1832, the city of Marion gained a charter for construction of a railroad. Until then, canal boats had been the preferred way to travel throughout the state. But by the mid-nineteenth

⁴ Allan’s youngest sister, Mary (1818–1842) married Dr. Cary Trimble—no relation to Carrie Trimble—a Chillicothe physician who taught medicine at Ohio University, and a US congressman from 1859–63. When he was not reelected, he returned to his medical practice. His father had served as eighth and tenth governor of Ohio.


century, people found this mode of transportation to be slow and costly. Allan a�ended Dickinson College in Carlyle, Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the Belles Le�res Society.⁵ He was described as having been “reared at Chillicothe, where he was a prominent practitioner of law for the greater part of his life.... In many respects he resembled his distinguished father and these same noble virtues and amiable characteristics were inherited [his son].” In May of 1838, Allan married Olive Whitney,* the youngest daughter of Ruluff and Susanna (Glenny) Whitney, who had come to Portsmouth, Ohio from New England in 1821. Olive’s mother, Susanna Glenny, emigrated with her family to Dryden, New York from the town of Derry, County Down, Ireland. The family came just after the American Revolutionary War, to take up a claim of their son and brother, Lieutenant Glenny, who had

died in the conflict. Susanna was a small woman with black hair and eyes. She married Ruluff Whitney,* whose family was well established, having come to America in 1635. The Whitneys originally se�led in Massachuse�s, then moved down to Connecticut before arriving in New York, where Ruluff also took up his father’s land claim for soldiers of the continental army. By 1821, Ruluff and Susanna and family were living in Portsmouth, and Olive met and married Allan McArthur in 1838 in her hometown. The young couple se�led in Chillicothe and were living there in 1850 with their four young children and Olive’s sister Minerva, who was a young widow. Allan was listed as a surveyor at that time. Altogether, the couple had six children and when Allan died in 1858, Olive was left on her own with the children, ranging in age from 4 to 17. She had real estate holdings worth $10,000 in 1860.

⁵ The Belles Le�res Literary Society (est. 1786) is the oldest student organization at Dickinson College and one of the oldest literary societies in the country. Currently, it serves as the parent organization of Dickinson's literary magazine, The Dickinson Review. Other Belles Le�res activities include readings and workshops, as well as events with visiting writers and editors and the occasional literary field trip. In Allen’s day, the Society appears to have included those who studied the classics and rhetoric, and activities included something like a modern-day debate club.

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By the next census in 1870, Olive and her children were living in Cincinnati. Olive was a homemaker, and her daughters Effie (age 21) and Susannah (17) were living at home, as was their li�le brother Allen⁶ (16) who was still in high school. Flora (19) and her husband James Tice lived there as well. James was a bookkeeper, originally from Maryland. Minerva Curtis was still living with them, too, “assisting her sister.” During this time, the extensive properties in Chillicothe were the subject of a legal dispute over Duncan McArthur’s will, dating from his death in 1839. The lawsuit took three generations (46 years!) to resolve, ending with a US Supreme Court ruling in 1885. The main issues were whether or not the will extended inheritance rights to his grandchildren and whether or not Duncan was of sound mind when he wrote the will. The Ohio courts had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but eventually their decision was overturned. From the US Supreme Court decision:

The present bill (without mentioning the proceeding to annul the probate, set forth in the answers), alleged that, immediately after the death of Duncan McArthur, his five children, desiring to obtain for themselves the whole of his real and personal estate, and to deprive his grandchildren of all the provisions intended for them by his will, unlawfully combined and confederated with other persons, and, contriving to defraud the plaintiffs, procured and brought about the tender and acceptance of the resignations of the executors, and appropriated to their own use all his personal property, and, by means of the proceeding in partition above mentioned, divided all his lands among themselves, and conveyed parts of the same to other persons, and, in defence of their fraudulent conspiracy and doings, pretended that he died intestate,

⁶ In 1886, this Allan married his first cousin, Theresa Whitney, daughter of Olive’s brother William.

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and they as his children had inherited his lands. These allegations were denied in the answers. McArthur v. Sco�, 113 U.S. 340, 352-53 (1885) … we are of opinion that the will purports to devise to all the grandchildren per capita, children of the five surviving children of the testator, a vested remainder in fee; and to the children per stirpes of any grandchildren deceased before the arrival of the youngest grandchild at twentyone years of age, a similar estate in fee by way executory devise. McArthur v. Sco�, 113 U.S. 340, 381 (1885) Olive eventually returned Ross County and she died around the time this court decision came down. She is buried in Chillicothe. *** Effie McArthur b. 1844 was the second of four sisters and a brother born to Allen and Olive, and the

granddaughter of Duncan and Nancy. She was born and raised in Chillicothe, but her father died when she was just 13, and sometime after that the family moved to Cincinnati. Meanwhile, as the issue of the land was making its way through the courts, Effie married Isham Atchison Jones* in 1872. It is unclear where they met, but they married in DeWi� County, Illinois in the central part of the state, near Springfield. Isham was five years her junior, and she must have been considered an “old maid”—she was 28 at the time of their marriage. They had three children in quick succession: Flora (b. 1873), Susan (b. 1875), and Stephen Arthur (b. 1879). In 1885, when the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the property dispute, Effie inherited 400 acres, possibly the same land mentioned earlier—the original land grant to William McDonald (see pages 102–103.) The Jones family returned to Pickaway County to take over the farm, which they named “Lone Elm.” Their story continues in the Jones chapter, page 135.

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Sources Andrews, H. Franklin. 1902. The Hamlin Family: A Genealogy of James Hamlin of Barnstable Massachuse�s. Exira, IA. Cole, Charles Chester. 2001. A Fragile Capital: Identity and the Early Years of Columbus, Ohio. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. h�p://www.whitneygen.org/wrg/index.php/Family:Whitney,_Ruluff_(17771846) h�ps://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Duncan_McArthur McDonald, John. 1838. Biographical Sketches of General Nathaniel Massie, General Duncan McArthur, Captain William Wells, and General Simon Kenton: Who were Early Se�lers in the Western Country. Cincinnati: E. Morgan and Son. Medart, Pat. 2016. “The Governor Comes Home,” The Recorder. Chillicothe: The Ross County Historical Society. Van Cleaf, Aaron R. (ed). 1906. History of Pickaway County and Representative Citizens. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co.

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McCaulley Dulce Periculum—Sweet Danger

T

he McCaulleys were part of the wave of Scots-Irish immigrants of the mid-eighteenth century, but their history stretches way back to the fifteenth century and earlier in the Sco�ish Hebrides— specifically the Isle of Lewis. The ancient genealogy of the McCaulley clan is murky and the connection between the mainland and island McCaulleys is speculative, but there is no doubt that the earliest Lewis ancestor related to our family is Dugald, at Kneep (b. c1459). At the time, the land at Reef, Kneep, and Valtos was held by Dugald McCaulley until he was killed over a dispute involving the family living

1777

at Pabbay Mor. Pabbay Mor is an island located a few hundred meters offshore from Valtos, occupied by the Macleod clan, which served as a place of refuge for the chief of the Lewis Macleods. It was the home, in the fifteenth century, of Norman Macleod and his sons. A dispute broke out between the two families when a cow belonging to the McCaulleys was spo�ed in the MacLeod herd. The altercation eventually led to the McCaulleys being a�acked and killed by the sons of Norman Macleod. Only Malcolm, an illegitimate son,¹ was spared because of his youth and John Roy (Iain Ruadh) also survived the massacre be-

¹ Clergy tried to enforce a religious ceremony of marriage, but the marriage tie was li�le respected at this time, and thus a “fruitful source of quarrel between the clans was the practice of sending back a lady to her friends when her husband was displeased with or tired of her; hence, too, the summary way in which the seniors of a clan are deposed by the antiquists of the junior branches, that is, by declaring them all to be illegitimate” (Thomas 1880).

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McCaulley Name Origin The history of the Macaulay (original spelling) clan is complex as there are two dis�nct branches. Our ancestors were from the Macaulay family located around Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides— the northernmost and largest of the islands—and they were largely unconnected with the Macaulays of the Sco�sh mainland. These Hebrides clansmen claimed descent from Aula (Olaf the Black), who was a thirteenth-century king of the Isles. The Macaulays of Lewis are generally said to be of Norse origin because of the etymology of their surname (the Gaelic name MacAmhlaibh or MacAmhaidh, or son of Amlaib was originally derived from the Norse King Olaf) and also because of the islands’ Viking Age past. However, a recent analysis of the Y-DNA of men with Sco�sh surnames has shown that a large number of Hebridean Macaulays are of Irish origin. One hypothesis is that this marker may represent Irish slaves brought to Scotland by the Vikings. In the late seventeenth century, the origin of the clan was documented by John Morrison of Bragar, “Indweller” of Lewis. The Indweller lists one of the earliest inhabitants of Lewis as “Iskair MacAwlay ane Irish man whose posteri�e remain likvise to this day in the Lews.” The name Iskair in Sco�sh Gaelic is wri�en as as Sgàire which has been further Anglicized in forms of the Biblical name Zachariah. This Gaelic name is peculiar to the Macaulays of Lewis and is s�ll used by the clan; it is thought to be of Norse origin. Later historians have pointed out that the Icelandic Iskair means “Irish” (in fact, the Old Norse írskr means “Irish”) and have concluded that this term could be used in Old Norse sources to refer to not only the na�ve Irish, but also to Scandinavians from Ireland. In 1880, Capt. F.W.L. Thomas published “The Tradi�ons of the Macaulays of Lewis,” with a detailed and entertaining examina�on of the origins of these claims and some the island’s conten�ous and lively history. His work traces the Macaulay family history “from lawlessness and bloodshed to the peaceful ministra�ons of Chris�anity,” ending about the �me they emigrated to the United States and Canada in the mid-eighteenth century. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaulay_family_of_Lewis

Evidence of a Norse Past The Lewis Chessmen were discovered in the parish of Uig, on Lewis, in 1831. They are thought to have been made in Scandinavia, in the late twel�h century, when the Outer Hebrides were a part of the Kingdom of Norway.

h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Lewis_chessmen

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cause he was living with his foster-father Finlay Macritchie in Mealista. John Roy McCaulley (b. c1490) lived during a time of great lawlessness in Lewis, a period known in folklore as the age of plunder or ruin (see Supplement for the stories). Another a�empt was made on his life when he was thirteen years old, after which he sought refuge with his mother's people, the Macleans of Lochbuie, Isle of Mull. He returned to Uig in adulthood and killed the sons of Norman Macleod who had wiped out his family. Old Norman Macleod, shamed by his family's treatment of John Roy, gave him Baile na Cille and Crowlista. Oral histories in-

dicate that John married a daughter of his protector at Lochbuie and they had one son, Dugald. His wife’s name was not recorded. Dugald (b. 1530) appears to have lived a fairly quiet life, compared to both his father and his sons. One historian notes: “the only son of John Roy McCaulley was Dugald, of whom it may be predicated that he had a fortunate life, for nothing is told about him except that he was the father of the famous Lewis champion, Donald Cam McCaulley, and of two other sons who were hardly less remarkable for their courage.” Dugald was married, although his wife’s name is also lost, and he fa-


thered several children, including the notorious Dòmhnall (Donald) Cam. Dòmhnall Cam appears in stories as a fierce fighter with a short temper. The stories also indicate that he was the least formidable of his brothers, but that “what he lacked in physical strength he made up in grim determination.” *** Donald Cam (b. 1560) became the Chief of the McCaulleys and a notorious renegade who lived in various fortifications around Uig. Early in his career he fought in the Irish wars as a mercenary. He returned to Lewis and lived a violent life (see Supplement), ba�ling with the Morrisons and Mackenzies, taking part in the siege of Stornoway Castle in 1605, and a�racting the a�ention of the authorities, leading to an a�empt to expel all McCaulleys from their lands in Uig. Donald had a reputation for being fierce with the sword and quick to anger. He is the subject of many stories still told in Uig today, and many inhabitants trace their lineage from him. The nickname Cam (“squint”) is said to originate from a quarrel with the blacksmith at Kneep, during which the

smith put out one of Donald's eyes with a red-hot poker. Records indicate that Donald married Gilbea Maclaren of Galson in 1610. There is also a story that he married a Macdonald of Grimersta, one of the clans “inserted” between the McCaulleys in Uig and the Morrisons in the north, to create a buffer zone between them and diffuse

Above: Map of the Sco�sh Highlands and Hebrides. Red marker indicates Kneep on Lewis Island.

Irish Wars The Nine Years’ War, some�mes called Tyrone’s Rebellion, took place in Ireland from 1593 to 1603. It was fought between an Irish alliance against English rule in Ireland, and was a response to the then-ongoing Tudor conquest of Ireland under Elizabeth I. Leaders of the rebellion managed to rally Irish septs who were dissa�sfied with English government, and some Catholics who opposed the spread of Protestan�sm in Ireland. The war was fought in all parts of the country, but mainly in the northern province of Ulster. The Irish alliance won some important early ba�les, but the English won a decisive victory against the alliance and their Spanish allies in the Siege of Kinsale. The war was the largest conflict fought by England in the Elizabethan era. At the height of the conflict (1600–01) more than 18,000 soldiers were figh�ng in the English army in Ireland. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Years%27_War_(Ireland)

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The Ba�le of Auldearn Between 1639 and 1653, Scotland was involved in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of wars star�ng with the Bishops Wars between Scotland and England, the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the English Civil War (and its extension in Scotland), the Irish Confederate Wars, and finally the subjuga�on of Ireland and Scotland by the English Army. In Scotland, from 1644–45 a Sco�sh civil war was fought between Sco�sh Royalists—supporters of Charles I—and the Covenanters, who had controlled Scotland since 1639 and were allied with the English Parliament. The Ba�le of Auldearn was an engagement of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms that took place on 9 May 1645, in and around the village of Auldearn in Nairnshire on the Sco�sh mainland. The Lewis clans were called to fight against the Royalists who numbered around 1500, against roughly 4000 Sco�sh Covenanters. Despite being outnumbered, the Royalists won the ba�le with negligible casual�es versus 1500 deaths among the Sco�sh soldiers. Nevertheless, the wars ended with the defeat of Charles I and the Royalists by the Parliamentarians. This established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament’s consent. The idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was then legally established as part of the Glorious Revolu�on in 1688. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_in_the_Wars_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

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their constant warring. Whoever his wife was, they had five children: Angus, William, John, and two daughters whose names they did not bother to record. Angus (b. 1590), oldest son of Dòmhnall Cam, was the first of the McCaulleys to be a tacksman in Brenish. He came to an agreement with Alexander Mackenzie of Achilty whereby he would accept the lands of Brenish from the Mackenzies and marry Achilty’s daughter. According to tradition he was already married to a daughter of Judge


Morrison from Ness, whom he subsequently divorced to marry Ann Mackenzie. Ann was said to have been a domineering woman with a caustic tongue who was unpopular in Uig: indeed she is said to have been the reason her husband went to Auldearn where he met his death. Angus supposedly left for the ba�le, and reached Stornoway with the rest of the Uig men, but was persuaded to return home so that someone would remain to look after the interests of the clan. When he got home, he was met by his wife who greeted him with the words: “All the men left and the useless people remained.” So Angus went off again to join the rest of the fighting men. He was killed at the ba�le of Auldearn in 1645. William, Angus’s youngest brother, was a tacksman in Islivig. He was known as an excellent swordsman and was able to fight with a sword in each hand. Traditional stories hold that, at the ba�le of Auldearn, William had his back against a wooden paling in a gateway, but defended himself against his enemies with a sword in each hand until he was finally overcome and killed

Tacksman Tacksman comes from the Sco�sh Gaelic term fear-taic, meaning “suppor�ng man.” This was a landholder of intermediate legal and social status in Sco�sh Highland society—a leaseholder or tenant in the Highlands who further sublets his land. In the South-West Sco�sh Highlands, according to records of the earliest rentals da�ng to the sixteenth century, some of the land was retained by the chiefs, some was donated to the Church, and some was given out rent-free to officials of the clans; the remainder was distributed among tenants who became known as tacksmen, that is, as men possessing “tacks” or leases for a specified number of years, or for life, or even longer. Dr. Samuel Johnson, in 1773, defined the Skye tacksman, as follows: “Next in dignity to the laird is the tacksman, a large taker or leaseholder of land, of which he keeps part as a domain in his own hand, and lets parts to under-tenants. The tacksman is necessarily a man capable of securing to the laird the whole rent, and is commonly a collateral rela�on.” Source: h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacksman

when they climbed onto a loft above him. John, the middle son of Dòmhnall Cam, was tacksman of Kneep. He was reputedly the only one of the 60 men from Uig who survived the ba�le of Auldearn. *** Most of the McCaulleys of Lewis were descended from John McCaulley and from his brother Angus, who, despite his untimely death, had fathered three boys—Dugald (b. 1630), Donald (b. 1639), and Murdo (b. c1640). Dugald succeeded his father as tacksman of Brenish and Murdo was the tacksman in Valtos. Donald became the tacksman in Carnish, but lived an apparently unremarkable life, raising three sons with his wife Christina Tweedie. His son,

Opposite: Ba�le of Auldearn—The Strathbogie Regiment countera�acks.

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Above: Kneep and Valtos on the Isle of Lewis: "The adjoining villages of Kneep (le�) and Valtos (right) on the Valtos Peninsula. The boundary wall between the villages can just be seen, running top le� to middle right."—Sarah Egan 2007.

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also Donald, was born in 1674, the youngest of three boys. He distinguished himself in his youth by his strength, courage, and “skill in manly exercises.” He graduated from either Edinburgh University or St. Andrews [sources differ] in 1692 where he befriended a number of people from notable families, including Sir James McDonald, the laird of Skye. (This timeline is a li�le fuzzy so this source may not be completely accurate.

Nevertheless, Donald did live out his life on Skye. His brothers stayed on Lewis, and also became important clergymen, with significant involvement in social and political events there.) Donald was appointed parish schoolmaster in Dingwall, near Inverness, in May of 1695, but stayed there only one year before taking up duties as chaplain. With the laird’s support, he was ordained to Kilmuir in 1700 and transferred to Bracadale in


1708 where he lived until his death in 1748. Donald was married to Katherine MacQueen, the youngest of seven, whose father Angus was a minister at Sniznort. Rev. MacQueen was “deprived by the visitors [circuit visitor or peer advisor] for bad behavior [possibly marrying someone who had been excommunicated]” but was in charge again at the time of his death in 1709. Donald and Katherine raised five children: Margaret (b. 1695), Archibald (b. 1699), Donald (b. 1700), Angus (b. 1704), and Alice (b. 1718). Donald is also on record as the tacksman of Totarder on the Isle of Skye. *** Angus, or Aeneus, McCaulley (b. 1704) was the fourth child and third son of Donald and Katharine. He was a Presbyterian minister, but there is li�le additional information about him and his family. They lived in a somewhat turbulent time when the Jacobite Rebellion was being quashed (the McCaulleys supported the Jacobites; some of the Lewis cousins in quite active roles) and the social and economic structure of the islands was changing. Many clan chiefs began to forget about kin-

ship ties, and to lease the tacks on their estates to the highest bidder. Angus married May Margaret Macleod on 28 September 1743 when she was 23 and he was 39 years old. In quick succession she gave birth to nine children: Donald (b. 1745), Marion (b. 1746 who died a year later), Katherine (b. 1748), Murdo (b. 1750), Janet (b. 1752), Ebenezer (b. 1755), William (b. 1756), John (b. 1757), and Angus (b. 1759). There is no information about most of the older children, so they may not have all survived to adulthood. Angus Sr. died at the age of 56, shortly after the birth of his youngest child, leaving May Margaret, at age 30, with the surviving young children. There is no record of her afterward so it isn’t clear whether she died in Scotland or emigrated with her children. Angus, the youngest, emigrated to Canada in 1803. He was a licensed chaplain but preferred teaching, and was eventually recruited as an agent to enlist Highlanders for a proposed se�lement in Upper Canada. From the beginning of se�lement, Angus enjoyed popular support among the Highlanders brought to Prince Edward Island, serving as

Above: Angus Macaulay, b. 1759, emigrated to Prince Edward Island, Canada. Below: John A. Macaulay (an uncle), b. 1814. We don’t have pictures of our direct ancestors, but based on the family resemblance, we have an idea of how they may have looked.

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schoolmaster, physician, and lay preacher, and eventually representing Queens County in the House of Assembly.

Above: Elizabeth Masilla Williams, photo taken c1855. Opposite: Again, Elizabeth Masilla Williams, photo taken c1875.

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*** By that time, though, our ancestor John McCaulley (b. 1757) had emigrated to Pennsylvania. Social upheavals in Scotland after

1746 led to a mass migration of tacksmen and their subtenants, mainly from Skye, though a few from the Outer Isles also left at the time. An eruption of Hecla in Iceland in 1755 led to bad harvests for several years thereafter, and there was a major emigration from Lewis to the United States, primarily to New York and Pennsylvania. The largest number of emigrants known to have left Lewis in one year was in 1772–73, when 831 emigrants departed. Around that time John married Mary Macdonald, and they emigrated together when they were both in their late teens. They had three, perhaps four, boys, all born around 1780, with records showing that the first two were born in Antis Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania. The oldest was John (b. 1775), followed by Daniel (b. 1779) who became an original European se�ler in Juniata. Their brother William was born in 1780. Some of this information is anecdotal, but there is strong DNA evidence to support the connections. A fourth son, Henry, is recorded in some genealogies; the records are not clear and a DNA connection has not been established for him. Records


from the early 1800s show that John McCaulley owned a modest 100-acre farm in Antis Township, valued at $140. At the time, the average local farm was closer to 200 acres and worth over $400. It is not clear if this was John Sr. or his son, John (below). The information about John is from family oral history, and official records have not been uncovered, but according to the story, John married a woman named Mary (Polly) and they had four children: John A. (b. 1814), Jane (b. 1819), Daniel Calvin (b. 1822), and Thomas (b. 1823). All of the children survived. Jane moved to Minnesota after she married, but the boys stayed close to home. When Thomas McCaulley was 41 years old he registered for the draft for the Union Army. His pension records show that he had

several deployments with the 6th Pennsylvania Reserve Regiment. At the time he enlisted, he was a laborer and had been married for 16 years to Elizabeth Massilla Williams.

Above: Map of the Shamokin Path, a Na�ve American trail across Pennsylvania that connected some of the major se�lements. Many of our ancestors more or less followed this path as they moved into central Pennsylvania.

Detour: Colemans Elizabeth was descended from long-time residents of Pennsylvania, including her maternal grandfather, Thomas Coleman, who “was emphatically an Indian hater; the great aim and object of his life appeared to be centered in the destruction of Indians” (see more in the Supplement). This hatred was driven by an atrocity commi�ed against his brother when they lived in a remote area on the west branch of the Susquehanna in the late-eighteenth

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teered his services as a spy and guide for countless missions.

Above: Up the gap below Point Lookout, on the Bells Gap Railroad. Photo: R.A. Bonine. 1886. Opposite: B.F. (Frank) McCaulley.

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century. Thomas was reputed to be the greatest Native American fighter in this section of Pennsylvania. Much of his success was due to his method of waging warfare on the Native Americans in their own style of fighting. Coleman served in the Bedford County Militia during the Revolutionary War. The Supreme Council of Pennsylvania commissioned him as an Ensign in the Continental Army. He volun-

*** Elizabeth was 12 years old when her grandfather Thomas Coleman died. She married Thomas McCaulley in 1847 when they were both around 22 and together they had nine children—two girls and seven boys—over the next 17 years. There are no records of the two girls, Elizabeth (b. 1850; twin to Benjamin?) and Martha (b. 1859); apparently they did not survive to adulthood. The oldest son, William Alfred (b. 1847, six months after his parents’ marriage) may have lied about his age in order to enlist in the Union Army in 1864. Military records list his age as 18, but census records indicate that he was only 16 or 17 at the time. Thomas and Elizabeth lived in Antis Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania with their family. Prior to the war, Thomas worked as a collier and a day laborer. By 1860 he was sharing his home with his wife, five children, a sister-in-law, and several other women who were most likely borders. This may have helped provide some income while he was away during the


war. Thomas and Alfred (he went by his middle name) returned to a house full of boys: Bengamin Franklin (b. 1850), Thomas Asbury (b. 1853), Harry (b. 1856), and Martin (b. 1859, Martha’s twin?). Rowan (b. 1865), the youngest, was born shortly after the end of the war. Following the war, both Thomas and his son Alfred worked as farm laborers, according to the 1870 census. But eventually Thomas went to work on the gravel grain for the Bells Gap railroad. He was killed in a workplace accident in 1875. Bengamin Franklin was born in Bellwood, Pennsylvania and lived in the area his entire life. (It’s not clear if he really spelled his name with a “g” or if bad handwriting has inscribed this in the historical record. In any case, he went by “Frank.”) Frank married Nancy Turner of Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, the oldest of three children born to William and Susan Turner. Frank and Nancy were both 23 when they married in 1873 and Frank worked as a laborer at the time. They had seven children over the next 12 years: Thomas (b. 1874), Franklin (b. 1875), Olive (b. 1878), Clyde (b.

1880), Edna (b. 1881), Charles (b. 1883), and Leslie “Boney” (b. 1886). In 1900 Frank was working as a brakeman for the railroad, and five of his children were still living at home: Thomas (26) was also a brakeman with the railroad and Franklin (24) was a laborer on the railroad tracks. Charles (16) was working at the foundry as a molder. The household also consisted of Edna (19) and Harry (13) who was still at school, and Frank and Nancy’s granddaughter Mabel Campbell* (3). This was around the time Mabel’s brother was born, and her sister was about 18 months old, so perhaps she was staying there to help out the young family. But 10 years later, according to the 1910 census reports, Frank and Nancy had all three young grandchildren, Mabel, Ethel, and Charles “Bus” living there after their mother, Olive, died in 1904 at the age of 26, and their father, Alen Campbell,* abandoned the children. Olive’s brother Franklin had also died in 1904 of a sudden heart a�ack when he was just 28. Also in the home in Bellwood was daughter Edna, her husband

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John Kellar, and their two children Esther and Arnold. Frank was now a machinist with the railroad. By 1920, Frank had retired, but he and Nancy were still helping out their grandchildren. Mabel had moved out by then, but Ethel was a young widow and single mother, living there with her son Leslie. Leslie died shortly thereafter and Ethel married Paul Smith (her late husband’s brother) in March of that year. They went on to have two sons, Dean (1920) and Bill (1926). Also in the McCaulley household was “Bus” who, at 17, was working as a laborer with the steam railroad. Nancy died in 1921 when she was 70 and at some point Frank remarried. He lived till the end of the decade when he died of a heart block and

Above: Edna McCaulley, c1910. We don’t have any pictures of Olive, but perhaps she resembled her sister. Below: Mabel Campbell, c1915.

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edema of the lung after a brief illness. *** Olive McCaulley married Alen Campbell in February 1895 when she was 16 and Alen was 22. Their first son Benjamin was born a month later, which may explain her early marriage. In all Olive gave birth to five children, but only three survived. Mabel (b. 1896) was her second, but oldest living child. Ethel was the middle child. Thomas was born in 1900, before Charles (“Bus”), but he died sometime before 1910, as did Benjamin. And sadly Olive also died in 1904, of typhoid fever (which may also have taken her sons). Her widower Alen abandoned their remaining children, leaving them with her parents. Their story is told in the Campbell chapter, page 85.

Sources h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaulay_family_of_Lewis h�ps://www.ancestry.com/ h�ps://www.scotweb.co.uk/info/macaulay-of-lewis/ h�ps://www.hebrideanconnections.com/ h�ps://www.hebridespeople.com/ Jones, U. J. (Uriah James). 1856. History of the Early Se�lement of the Juniata Valley. Philadelphia: Henry B. Ashmead. Thomas, F. 1880. “Traditions of the Macaulays of Lewis,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 14: 363–431. Retrieved from h�p://journals.socantscot. org/index.php/psas/article/view/5936


McDivitt J

1798

ust when you were beginning to wonder if we really have any Irish ancestors, the McDivi�s arrived on these shores. However, li�le is known about the origins of our McDivi� family or their emigration to the United States. Civil records were not kept in Ireland or Pennsylvania at the time, so this chapter relies mostly on family research and stories. It appears, though, that James and his brother(s) Richard and/or Robert came over from Newtownstewart, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland in the late 1700s. In 1798 the British government violently quelled an Irish Rebellion that had been inspired by the American and French revolutions. The rebellion was led by Presbyterians angry at being shut out of power by the Anglican establishment, and joined by Catholics like the McDivi�s

who made up the majority of the population. The brothers would have been in their late teens or early 20s at the time they first emigrated. The McDivi� brothers returned to Ireland to find wives and, while his brothers’ fates are unclear from that point, James I (b. 1780) (the Roman numeral is to distinguish him in this genealogy) appears again on a ship’s passenger manifest, sailing on the William and Mary from Londonderry for the United States on 29 May 1804. His wife Delia McNelis gave birth to their son James II three days after their ship arrived in New York City, on 15 July. Delia suffered malnutrition and seasickness on the voyage and apparently some mishap during childbirth, which prevented the couple from having any additional children.

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McDivi� Name Origin The name McDivi� (or McDevi�), is derived from the na�ve Gaelic MacDaibheid, meaning “Son of David,” and Y-DNA evidence seems to support the claim that the MacDevi� family of Inishowen is a sept of the Ó Dochartaigh (O Doherty) clan. The McDevi�s were located in Coun�es Donegal and Derry in the northwestern part of Ireland. The "David” in ques�on was David O Doherty (d. 1208), of the Cenel Eoghain branch of the family. He was a chief of the clan Doherty of Inishowen, a peninsula in north Donegal situated between Lough Swilly and Lough Foyle. The McDevi� family served as emissaries and trusted advisors to the O'Doherty chie�ains. The McDevi� clan were fostered—i.e., under the protec�on of the O Doherty clan—and were considered kinsmen to the O Donnells who were the ruling chiefs of Donegal for many years. The O Doherty clan ruled the Inishowen peninsula and were equal to the O Donnells up to the �me of the ba�le of Kilmacrennan c1606 when Séan Óg (young) O Doherty was killed in ba�le. The O Doherty and the McDevi� clans lost their lands at that point and were forced to move toward the prac�cally uninhabited wastelands of west Donegal. h�ps://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/mcdevi�/331/

James and Delia made their way with their newborn baby to Shorbsville (later Eagleville, now Tyrone), Pennsylvania where they likely worked as tenant farmers, too poor to own their own land. There was industry in the region, in the form of ironworks, as the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Shorbsville was named for Anthony Shorb who, along with several business partners, owned the forges and the furnaces of the Sligo Iron Works in the Juniata Valley, as well as

in Pi�sburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. As farmers, the McDivi�s would have endured severe hardship in 1816 during the “year with no summer” when sporadic cold spells destroyed crops throughout the United States and Europe following the volcano eruption in Indonesia the year before (see box, page 25). New England and Canada were particularly hard hit, with storms bringing a foot or more of snow in May in June. Even in Pennsylvania, lakes and

Tenant Farming in Pennsylvania In the 1800s Pennsylvania promoters boasted that the Commonwealth had thousands upon thousands of independent, freehold farms. Farm tenancy, however, was far from rare. For genera�ons, the preferred form of farm tenancy was sharecropping, a system in which the tenant paid a share of the crops (usually a third, but some�mes more) to the landowner as rent. Typically, the tenants paid the taxes and supplied their own livestock, and some�mes tools. Tenancy was not invariably an exploita�ve ins�tu�on. Tenants ranged from what one judge called a “mere cropper”—essen�ally a wage laborer—to farmers with substan�al resources of their own, for share tenancy o�en gave land to sons who did not take over the family farm. In newly se�led areas, the longterm share leases that required tenants to clear land and erect fences provided an incen�ve for development. One disadvantage of tenancy was that most tenants farmed just one year at a �me. April first was known in many parts of the state as “fli�ng day”—when leases were up and tenants moved to a different farm. Families trailed down the rural dirt roads with all their possessions, children riding high atop wagons piled with furniture. Tenant wives set up stoves in the yards of their new premises to feed the friends and neighbors who came to help them move. For many families, then, tenancy brought frequent mobility. Excerpted from: h�ps://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-5D

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rivers were frozen over in July and August. This alternated with freakishly hot weather and drought that left rivers like the Schuylkill so low that people could wade across. *** James I and Delia disappear from official records, until James’s death in 1850, in what came to be known as Tyrone, Pennsylvania. It appears from the 1840 US Census that they may have been living with their son James II (b. 1804) who married Mary “Polly” Addleman* in 1822. The area was sparsely se�led by Sco�ish, Irish, Dutch, and German pioneers. There were very few Catholic families interspersed among them, but in 1799 Prince Demetrius Augustin Galli�in had established, in nearby Lore�o, the first English-speaking Catholic se�lement in the United States west of the Allegheny Front. During this time, Catholic families were visited by itinerant priests and mass was said in their homes. Church records show that Father Galli�in said mass at the McDivi�’s home in 1829. The first of James II and Polly’s 10 children was born in Warriors Mark, two years after their marriage (Mary Ann b. 1824,

William b. 1825, John b. 1829, James III b. 1831, Augustine b. 1834, Martha b. 1839, Daniel b. 1841, Michael b. 1843, and twins Rose and Andrew b. 1846). The McDivi�s are next seen in Stormstown or Half Moon, in Centre County, about 15 miles northeast of Tyrone and by 1840, James and Polly lived on a modest farm they owned, along with eight children, and several older adults, most likely his parents. At age 67 in 1870, James was still farming on a small piece of land; he had never a�ended school, but could read and write. Polly could read but not write. Their son Augustine lived on a neighboring parcel, likely part of the same property as he did not own it himself and is listed in the census as “works on farm.” Augustine had no formal education and could read but not write, however his school-age children were all a�ending school. When James II died in 1879 at the age of 76, he was buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Tyrone. Polly died at the age of 90 in 1895, outliving several of her children. Because

Above: Signature of James McDivi� (II) on the inventory of effects for his son William who died during the Civil War.

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Prince Gallitzin Prince Demetrius Augus�ne Gallitzin was an émigré Russian aristocrat and Catholic priest known as The Apostle of the Alleghenies. His father was the Russian ambassador to the Netherlands, and his mother a Prussian countess. He was raised as a nominal member of the Russian Orthodox Church, although his father, like many Russian aristocrats of his age, had li�le connec�on to or fondness for religion. His mother returned to Catholicism in 1786, and Demetrius was greatly influenced by her circle of intellectuals, priests, and aristocrats. At the age of 17, Prince Dimitri was formally received into the Catholic Church and to please his mother, whose birth and marriage occurred on feast of Saint Augus�ne, he assumed that name at confirma�on. As was the custom among young aristocrats at the �me, he set out to complete his educa�on by travel. The French Revolu�on had made European tours unsafe, so his parents resolved that he should spend two years traveling through America, the West Indies, and other foreign lands. Not long a�er his arrival in Bal�more in 1792, he became interested in the needs of the Catholic Church in the United States. To the shock and horror of his father, Prince Dimitri decided to join the priesthood and offered to forgo his inheritance. Father Gallitzin was ordained on 18 March 1795; he was the first to make all his theological studies in the United States. Gallitzin then was sent to work in a church mission at Port Tobacco, Maryland, and soon transferred to the Conewago district in Pennsylvania, where he served un�l 1799. Then, in the Allegheny Mountains in 1799, Gallitzin founded the se�lement of Lore�o, in what is now Cambria County, Pennsylvania. When he established Lore�o, there were few families, and those were widely sca�ered. He traveled the Allegheny Mountains, o�en in very difficult condi�ons, preaching, teaching, serving, praying, and offering the sacraments. He bought land to a�ract other Catholic se�lers (Gallitzin is believed to have spent $150,000 of his own funds, to purchase some addi�onal 20,000 acres), which he gave or sold at low prices to newly arriving Catholic se�lers. For most of his �me in the mountains, he worked alone and was rela�vely isolated. Traveling from one valley to the next, he was o�en away for over a week, sleeping on bare floors. For 41 years, Gallitzin's part in building up the Catholic church in western Pennsylvania cannot be overes�mated; it is said that at his death there were 10,000 Catholics in the district where forty years before he had found a scant dozen. Lore�o today is in the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. Father Gallitzin ministered faithfully un�l the very end of his life, and a�er a brief illness, died at Lore�o on 6 May 1840, shortly a�er Easter. He was buried near St. Michael's church in Lore�o. In 2005 Gallitzin was named a Servant of God by the Congrega�on for the Causes of Saints, the first step on the path toward possible future sainthood. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetrius_Augus�ne_Gallitzin

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she was not raised Catholic, Polly could not be buried with James. She was laid to rest in Gray's Cemetery in Half Moon Township. James III was born in 1831, the fourth of the 10 children and the third boy. He had blue eyes and brown hair and a dark complexion. He married Ellen McLaughlin, a dressmaker, in October 1862 when she was 22 years old and he was 30. McLaughlin/Dougherty Just a quick detour to note that Ellen was also born to a big family of Irish immigrants, eighth of eleven children (nine girls and two boys) from the “Irishtown” se�lement—Lawrence Township—in nearby Clearfield County. Her father John had married his wife Marjorie Dougherty in County Donegal, Ireland in 1825, and emigrated to Pennsylvania where their first daughter was born the following year. Neither James nor Ellen had a�ended formal schooling, but both could read and write. James worked as a farmer on property valued at $2000 in 1860. *** James III and Ellen’s son Thomas was born in 1863, the first of their 10 children


(Thomas b. 1863, Margaret b. 1865, Carrie b. 1866, Grace b. 1868, Jessie b. 1871, Daniel b. 1876, Pius b. 1877, Bernard b. 1881, Winifred b. 1883, Frances b. 1884). Then James was drafted into the Union Army and reported for duty on 18 January 1865. At the time he was working as a laborer. James III served as a private in the E. 100 Regiment of the Pennsylvania Infantry, fighting in the Ba�le of Fort Stedman on 25 March 1865 during the final weeks of the Civil War. His regiment also served on the Appoma�ox Campaign from 28 March–9 April, including the assault on and fall of Petersburg on 2 April. They occupied Petersburg, Virginia on 3 April and pursued Robert E. Lee from 3–8 April. At the end of that month they moved to Washington, DC and remained on duty there until July. The regiment took part in the Grand Review of the Armies—a military procession and celebration in the nation’s capital following the close of the Civil War. Along with other elements of the Union Army they paraded through the streets to receive accolades from the crowds and reviewing politicians, officials, and prominent citizens, includ-

ing US President Andrew Johnson, a month after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. With the rest of his regiment, James was mustered out 24 July 1865. James’s brother William also served in the Union Army and his regiment had fought at Ge�ysburg. The 18th Regiment in which he served was present for 50 ba�les ending at Rude's Hill in Virginia in March 1865. Unfor-

Top: James McDivi� (III), c1860. Bo�om: John P. McLaughlin Sr. and Marjorie Dougherty, c1860.

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tunately, William contracted typhoid fever¹ and died on 30 June 1865 in a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. His father James II traveled to Washington, DC to retrieve his effects which included a coat, “trowsers,” vest, a shirt, and a testament. In 1870, James and Ellen and their children still lived in Lawrence Township with their children. James was again working as a laborer while Ellen kept house. James’s brother Austin lived with them and like James worked as a laborer. By 1880, James had rented a farm and his children were all a�ending school, including Thomas who, at 16, could have been hired out to work. In 1900, at age 68, Ellen and James were still living on the same farm, along with their 16-year-old daughter Winifred who was a student. In 1888 James received a military pension as an invalid although it is unclear what sort of disability he suffered from. The family lived in Clearfield, where James died in the spring of

Top Ellen McLaughlin McDivi�, c1915. Below: Grace McDivi� Nolan, c1895.

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1902, and in 1905, his widow Ellen received a widow’s pension for his service during the Civil War. She continued living in town with her daughter Winifred, who worked as a dressmaker and never married. In 1915, Ellen and Winifred, along with Ellen’s granddaughter (also Winnie) and two others, were injured when a car driven by a friend of her brother Frank plunged off the road and through the brick portico of a house on Philipsburg Road. At the start of the century, the United States had only 8,000 cars and 144 miles of paved roads, but by 1915, cars were already prevalent thanks in part to mass production and the assembly line innovations of Henry Ford. In 1909 there were 200,000 motorized vehicles in the United States, and by 1916, there were 2.25 million. Ellen and her family were riding in a Studebaker and were thrown violently from the car, landing in a local resident’s back yard. Ellen received some bruises,

¹ Typhoid fever was one of several infectious diseases that emerged in 1861 during the first year of the war. Water near camps and ba�lefields in the early part of the war contained a bacillus that produced an acute, infectious disease that could be fatal. At the start of the war, in both the Confederate and Union armies, there were few doctors to help against this disease, and in any case there was no effective treatment. At least 80,000 soldiers died as a result of typhoid fever or dysentery during the war.


but was relatively unscathed; her daughter Winifred suffered two broken ribs and serious bruises while her granddaughter Winnie needed six stitches to repair a torn artery in her arm. Frank received serious internal injuries and the driver a broken nose. Ellen died in Clearfield County, in 1923 at the age of 83 after an illness of about two years, following an a�ack of pneumonia. Jessie McDivi� (b. 1871) became a seamstress, and she married miner James B. Nolan* on 4 June 1895, in Pa�on, Cambria County. Jessie was 23 and Jim was 26. Just a few months later, her sister Grace married Jim’s brother Ma�hew. Ma�hew was a Superintendent of Mines, and Grace worked at the St. Charles Hotel. When they were living in Clearfield, there was a flood that almost washed Grace off the back porch. Others grabbed her and saved her. Ma� died of cancer at the age of 50, after which Grace moved their family to Rochester, New York so her children could finish school and find jobs. Years later, she became blind, and her son was forever teasing her by placing a coat and hat on the banister. She would bump into it and

always apologize, thinking that it was a person. Meanwhile, in 1900 Jessie and Jim lived in a rented house in Pa�on, Centre County, Pennsylvania with their first two children: Mary Ellen (b. 1896) and Bernard Joseph* (b. 1898). Jim had joined the military in 1898, shortly before the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Spanish-American War. Jessie was boarding in a house in Altoona

Above: Jesse McDivi� Nolan with baby Ella, 1897.

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Above: McDivi� siblings, L to R: Back row: Jessie, Dan, Bernie, Winnie; Front row: Tom, Carrie. c1911. Below: Grace McDivi� Nolan and family: (L to R) Dorothy, Grace, baby Charles, Mathew Nolan, Joseph. c1911.

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and working as a seamstress while Jim remained in the army, and two more daughters were born (Winifred b. 1900 and Agnes b. 1904). Unfortunately, Jim (and shortly after, Agnes) died from smallpox in 1904, at the tail end of a worldwide epidemic. At the time Jessie was so sick, too, that she was not told that her husband and daughter had died and been buried. After she recovered, Jessie supported her three remaining children with a job as a cook in an orphanage in Erie, Pennsylvania which also gave her accommodations in exchange for her work. Ella, Bernard, and Winnie were raised in the orphanage. By 1918, the family were boarders at 302 S. 3rd Street in Clearfield. At this point the children were all working: Ellen as a timekeeper for the railroad, Bernard as a clerk at Brown’s Boot Shop, and Winnie was a bookkeeper at the Penn Public Services Corporation. Jessie’s life continued to be touched by tragedy: her daughter Ella died in 1928 at the age of 31 from complications of childbirth. Bernard died in an accident in December 1930, falling down the steep stairs of the apartment where he lived with his wife Mabel and young


son, also Bernard J. Nolan,* and fracturing his skull. Jessie’s sole remaining child, Winnie, developed a bad heart; she married Leslie Spence in June 1925, and Jessie lived with Winnie and Leslie and their children until her death from colon cancer at the age of 71 in their Johnstown home. Her grandson, Charles (Chuck) Spence recalls her hearing a dog howling, and asking him to tell her which way it was looking for it meant someone in that direction was going to die. “Well, the

dog was going in a circle,” he says, “so I guess we were all in trouble.” Jessie became very sick and bedridden, and she reverted to speaking Gaelic before her death. Chuck also recalls that prior to the United States entering World War II, Jessie and her friends were kni�ing socks for the Germans, hoping they would defeat the British. Jessie’s funeral was held on 7 January 1943 in St. Francis Catholic Church in Clearfield, and she was buried in Calvary Cemetery.

Sources Other than vital records, this chapter relies on family stories and research by McDivi� cousins Winifred Spence, Chuck Spence, Rita Spence, Bernie Nolan, Walter Haller, Kathy Pfeffer, and Sara Stephenson.

Above: Jesse McDivi� Nolan (center) with sisters, L to R: Grace, Gertrude Mullen (sister in law), Winifred, Carrie. 1933.

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Jones T

1801

here are no records of when the Jones family emigrated to America, or even where they are originally from. Surely their roots are in Wales, where nearly 15 percent of the population share that surname. But the name is also common in England and to a lesser extent in Ireland. The first ancestor we have information about is Stephen Jones (b. 1780) who emigrated from Pennsylvania to Illinois in the early 1800s. His father, Edward Jones (b. c1760), was married to Sarah Eaton, and like his son, served in the War of 1812. Edward’s father, John Jones (b. c1730), was most likely the immigrant. His wife Drucilla was the daughter of William Edwards who lived and died in Wales in the early eighteenth century. Between 1717 and 1775,

America’s colonial west was mainly se�led by Presbyterian immigrants who were feeling hard times and persecution in the northern England border lands, Scotland, and the northern part of Ireland. Many initially landed in family groups in Philadelphia or Baltimore but soon migrated to the western frontier, where land was cheaper and restrictions less onerous. Stephen A. Jones was a native of Pennsylvania where he was raised in poverty to become a farmer. In 1810, he married Jemima Jones in Greene, Ohio, and the first of their seven children was born the following year. Stephen had served under General Duncan McArthur* as a Captain in the US Army during the War of 1812, and he received a land warrant for his services. Around 1817 the fam-

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Jones—One of the World’s Most Popular Surnames Un�l the mid-fi�eenth century there was a variety of nomenclature in Wales. For centuries, in order to own land, Welshmen had to trace their descendants back to the original landholders. So by using the prefix “ap” (meaning “son of”), names became portable genealogies to list a person’s forefathers. However, in 1536 when Henry VIII incorporated Wales into neighboring England, the Act of Union that was drawn up declared English to be the only language of the courts. Anyone using the Welsh language would be forbidden from holding public office. So parents who previously might have named their child a�er the ancient pagan heroes and gods of Wales, like Llywarch or Gwalchmai, were now forced to choose from poli�cally expedient Anglicized names like John and David. Furthermore, Henry had just broken from the Catholic Church, so Catholic devo�onal names like Gwasdewi (devotee of St. David) or Gwasmihangel (follower of the archangel Michael), were also ruled out. The popularity of John as a safe apoli�cal name (the Welsh language doesn’t even have a le�er “J” in it) quickly saw Jones (“John’s son”) spread through the valleys. For centuries the name Jones thus became a kind of an�iden�ty, a name that didn’t get you into trouble, a name whose ubiquity was itself a kind of anonymity. h�ps://www.atlasobscura.com/ar�cles/how-jones-became-one-of-worlds-mostcommon-last-names

ily se�led in Logan County, Illinois among the pioneers there, and Stephen soon became “thoroughly identified with the most active and enterprising pioneers of that section of Illinois.” He was a farmer by occupation but he was also a shrewd businessman, engaged extensively in buying and selling land, in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, purchasing many of the land warrants that had been given to other soldiers of the War of 1812. He was described as “a man of firm

convictions, voting with the Democratic party¹ and supporting the Methodist Church.” Through diligence, careful management, and shrewd investment of his money, he accumulated an ample fortune. Jemima died in 1848 when she was in her 60s, and Stephen remarried the following year. His second marriage was to Airy Adna Ware, who was of Sco�ish descent, and who had previously been married to a Mr. Ham. Stephen was 68 and Airy Adna was 43 at the time of their marriage. She had one child, Jason, from her first marriage, and she and Stephen had Isham Atchison, born in 1850. Airy Adna was “a faithful and conscientious Christian, and a Methodist in her religious belief.” Unfortunately, she died just a few years later, when Isham was only three years old. Then the following year, Stephen died at the age of 75. He was “of strong natural ability, and his death ... was a serious blow to the county where he had

¹ Founded in 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, the Democratic party is the world’s oldest active political party. Before 1860, the party supported limited government and state sovereignty and opposed a national bank and high tariffs. A shift began in the twentieth century, when the party supported progressive reforms and opposed imperialism. Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration, the party has promoted a social liberal platform and its conservative wing has withered.

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lived and labored so long.” At the time of his death he left an estate of between 600 and 800 acres which he bequeathed to his son Isham. (In the event that Isham pre-deceased him, it would have been divided among his “first sons” who were, by then, all adults living independently. Stephen directed that each of these other children––five sons and two daughters–– receive $1.00 from the estate.) Stephen also directed that half of his personal property be sold to be used on behalf of Isham, “as his Guardian shall direct, and I hereby strictly enjoin his Guardian to give my son Isham A. Jones a good English education.” Thus sadly left an orphan, Isham was cared for by his half-brother, Eli Wallace Jones, until he was thirteen years old, spending his boyhood on a farm and a�ending the local district school. His brother then died, too, and after that Isham lived with a nephew, James B. Dunham, until he was 21 years old, when he began his life as a farmer. For some years he carried on farming near Waynesville, Illinois, and then engaged in a hardware business in Waynesville, where he lived for seven years before he

returned to farming, on the 120-acre farm he had purchased before his move. The property was located in Barnard Township, De Wi� County, Illinois. Isham was married 12 December 1873, to Effie McArthur,* the granddaughter of Duncan McArthur, an officer in the regular army who was elected Governor of Ohio. Isham and Effie married in De Wi� County, and although it’s unclear how they met, it may have been through the connection Isham’s father had with General McArthur, from the War of 1812. The couple had three children: Flora (b. 1873), Susan (b. 1875), and Arthur Steven (b. 1879), named for his grandfather (and known as Steve). The Jones family moved to Pickaway County, Ohio in 1885, to take up residence in Jackson Township. Effie had inherited 400 acres of ex-Gov. McArthur’s estate, which had been in litigation for two or three generations, and had finally been se�led by the US Supreme Court [see page 110]. By then, the property was in a neglected condition but “with his characteristic energy [Isham] soon made many changes. The old log buildings gave way to

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Above: Lone Elm Farm, residence of I.A. Jones, Jackson Twp., Pickaway County, Ohio, 1892.

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handsome, substantial frame ones, and he built a beautiful residence on a favorable location which makes it one of the most a�ractive rural homes of the township.” The property was called Lone Elm Farm, named for an old-growth elm tree, 15 feet in circumference, which stood in front of the house. The tree was said to have “survived all its forest companions, and ... seen generations of those who have rested beneath its shade pass away.” In addition to this property, Isham and Effie had 97

acres in Clarke County and some land in Union County. Isham rented out some of the land and farmed the remainder: “His land is managed carefully and he pays a�ention to the raising of grain and the growing of stock, making specialties of Shorthorn ca�le and PolandChina hogs. His farm is well conducted after the most approved modern methods and in a methodical manner, and its appointments are of the best....” The Joneses enjoyed a high social standing, and in 1904 Isham was elected to a two-year term on the


Jackson Township Board of Education. They were members of the Presbyterian church. Isham was a lifelong Democrat and was prominent in political circles where he was one of the party’s most efficient workers. He served as a member of the County Central Commi�ee for two terms, and was State Delegate to several conventions. Effie died in 1915 and was buried in the Forest Cemetery in Circleville. In all, Isham married three times—the 1920 census lists a 32-yearold wife, Callie, from Georgia; and when he died in early 1928, he left a widow, Eliza, age 56. Isham’s three children were the only inheritors of his estate, however, which included real estate valued at $55,000. Isham was 77 when he died of pneumonia after a brief illness. In 1898 Isham and Effie’s son Steve Jones married Carrie Trimble (b. 1873) the daughter of James and Dorothy (Dawson) Trimble. Detour: Trimbles James (b. 1845) emigrated from Ireland with his parents Robert (b. 1814) and Lydia (Harper) in 1853 when he was eight years old. The family were Scotch-

Trimble Name Origin The name Trimble is a surname with at least three possible origins. In one case, it was brought to England a�er the 1066 Norman invasion led by William the Conqueror. Variants of this name include Tremoille and Tremblet. On the other hand, Trimble is o�en regarded as a variant of the name Turnbull which also has numerous spellings. In this case, the surname dates back to medieval �mes when bull-bai�ng was a popular sport, and to have the ability to “turn the bull” was a sobriquet of honor, only granted to those of considerable courage. Finally, the name may be derived from the first name “Trumboert” which means “strong and bold.” In Ireland this name was introduced into Ulster Province by se�lers arriving from England and Scotland, especially during the seventeenth century. This was the �me of the “Planta�ons [colonies] of Ireland” that marked the end of Gaelic supremacy in the territory. Most of the land colonized was forfeited by the na�ve Gaelic chiefs, several of whom had fled Ireland for mainland Europe in 1607 following the Nine Years' War against English rule. Most of the colonists came from southern Scotland and northern England, the majority having a different culture to the na�ves. The Planta�on of Ulster was the biggest of the Planta�ons of Ireland. It led to the founding of many of Ulster’s towns and created a las�ng Ulster Protestant community in the province with �es to Britain. It also resulted in many of the na�ve Irish losing their land and led to ethnic and sectarian conflict, notably in the Irish rebellion of 1641. Whereas the influx of se�lers in the wake of the earlier AngloNorman invasion of the twel�h century resulted in a full integra�on into Irish society of the new arrivals, the same never occurred with the Ulster Planters who maintained their own dis�nct iden�ty. h�p://www.allfamilycrests.com/t/trimble-family-crest-coat-of-arms.shtml h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planta�on_of_Ulster h�ps://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Trimble

Irish, originally from County Down, but had been living in County Tyrone, in a home “within sight of the castle”—most likely Castle Caulfield in Dungannon, near Pomeroy in Northern Ireland. Lydia’s parents emigrated to Canada. Robert’s parents were Mulholland Trimble (b. c1790) and Sarah Groves, whose brother fought in the Ba�le of Waterloo in June 1815. James was the third of four children. The oldest, Sarah, married and moved

Above: Castle Caulfield ruins, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. 2018.

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Above: Carrie and Steve Jones, c1940.

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to Indiana. Andrew moved to nearby Mt. Sterling and started a family. Robert, who was four years his junior, worked as a liveryman in a Circleville stable. James married Dorothy (Dora) Dawson whose family were Pennsylvania Dutch, from Five Points, Ohio. Her father’s parents had lived in the area for several generations, but her mother’s family had moved from Maryland around 1817. When they first married, James worked as a farmer while Dora took care of their first-born son. In those days, they shared their home with another young couple— John and Amanda Purgan, who may have been employees (John was a journeyman carpenter and Amanda worked as a do-

mestic servant). James was still farming 10 years later, now with three young children: (James) Marion, George, and Carrie. A 20year-old farm laborer named Samuel Hardisty lived with them, too. By 1900, James was operating a small general “country” store in Fox, Ohio, with a population of about 25, located some four miles northwest of Circleville. The town also had a post office until it was discontinued and the town was incorporated into one of the rural delivery routes. James operated the Trimble Brothers’ store for 25 years before turning it over to his sons Marion and George. He then worked as a real estate agent into his 60s. Dora died in 1919 and the following year, James was retired, but living with his daughter-in-law Elizabeth, wife of Marion, and their three children. Marion was probably living and working nearby in Columbus. According to the Circleville paper, at the end of 1924 James transferred the deeds of several properties to each of his three children. Two years later, Isham Jones filed a civil action against James Trimble, Carrie, “and others,” se�ing aside


conveyance of the deeds. This usually means there is some evidence of fraud: the deeds may have been transferred to avoid creditors, or to deceive a buyer or seller. Unfortunately the story behind this civil action and its outcome are lost. At the time of his death in 1932, James lived with his daughter Carrie and her family. He was 86 years old when he died. Steve Jones & Carrie Trimble A.S. Jones, also known as Steven Arthur, or Steve, was the youngest of three siblings and the only boy. Born in De Wi� County, Illinois, he had moved with his family to Lone Elm in Pickaway County, Ohio in 1885 when he was just six years old. As an adult, Steve was of medium build and medium height, with brown eyes. When he was 19 he married Carrie Trimble (b. 1873), also the youngest of three, and the only daughter of James and Dora (nee Dawson) Trimble, of Circleville, Ohio. Carrie was 23 at the time of her marriage. Carrie and Steve’s first son, Arthur Trimble (b. 1899), was born a year later. The young family lived on a

rented farm. They had three more children in the next ten years, but also lost four sons between 1903 and 1914. Carrie was heartbroken when the youngest son, Donald, died. Eventually they had four children who survived to adulthood. In addition to Trimble (he went by his middle name), there were Richard (b. 1901), Dorothy (b. 1903), and Effie (Janet) (b. 1914). Steve, whose hair was now greying, was working as an implement dealer in 1920. He and a friend were always scheming about going into business together, but it never amounted to anything. For a time he worked as a janitor in a school. Then, in the 1940s, the family moved out to a remote cabin in the woods. They had no car, and probably moved out there to make Steve stop drinking. They raised turkeys and sheep. There were a lot of buzzards in the sky over their property, so they called their home Buzzard’s Glory. As required, Steve registered for the draft for both world wars, but was never called to service. In 1948, he and Carrie celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at the home of their daughter

Above: Carrie and Steve Jones, c1948.

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Dorothy and her husband Lloyd Jonnes.² Carrie was a gifted, untrained artist who had once been invited to teach at Columbia University. Years later, when one of her grandsons a�ended Ohio State University, a professor told him about a local woman who was “a be�er artist than Grandma Moses,” and it turned out it was “Grandma Jones.” Carrie died in 1950 at the home of her daughter Dorothy when she was 76. She had been ill for three years. Steve died in 1956 at the age of 77. In Circleville, Trimble (b. 1899) belonged to a gang of boys who grew up together. He went to school and had fine penmanship. When he was about 12 he wrote an essay on birds and won an essay contest and the prize was a beautiful silver cup like the ones they give for sports. As the oldest son, and typical of Irish families where the firstborn had to stay and take care of the

Above: Trimble Jones, c1920.

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² Lloyd was not related although he and his wife shared a surname. Lloyd had introduced the alternate spelling following a dispute with his father. For decades the Jones family had owned a silver bowl with “Mrs. Jonnes” inscribed on the handle. Lloyd challenged his father as to why “no one had the courage to spell the name the way it was supposed to be spelled.” After considerable discussion his father finally told Lloyd, “If you want to spell your name with two ‘Ns,’ go right ahead!” So apparently Lloyd went to the courthouse and legally changed his name. There is no evidence that the family name was ever anything but Jones with one “N” and it is still unclear exactly why Lloyd was so passionate about it. The “Jonnes” on the bowl was most likely simply an inscriber's error.


parents, Trimble didn’t get to go to college. He had to stay and help his mother manage his father, who was an alcoholic. He would have to wait up with his mother till his father came home to make sure he made it to bed. His brother Richard a�ended college as well as their two sisters—Dorothy and Janet—who went to a good school: Western College for Women, which is now part of Miami University. Trimble worked as a laborer, and his father Steve was a trader so Trimble never learned how to farm. He was still a teenager when he first met Minnie Gatewood*; she was 5–7 years older than him, depending on which census and other official documents you believe (at the time it was de rigueur to lie about one’s age). Minnie was living in Pickaway County, working as a high school teacher and boarding with several other teachers. But she had met the family earlier, probably as a student at Ohio State University. Trimble was of medium height and build, with blue eyes and brown hair. He was cheerful, a jokester, and he was apparently smi�en. Even when Minnie went out with another beau, he would tag

along and play with the tassels on her dress. After they married in 1922, they first lived with Trimble’s parents, while Trimble ostensibly fixed up their own house on a farm near Columbus. It was taking too long, though, and Minnie was irritated by the Jones’s lackadaisical lifestyle, so she moved in with her sisters in Columbus until their own house was ready. After her first two children were born, Minnie wanted to be closer to her mother, so each of her sisters loaned them $500 to purchase a Sears Roebuck mail-order house. The house came in a box and Minnie’s brother Perry built it on her father’s property on Big Creek, in Crown City, Ohio. Although Trimble was not a farmer, he was a willing learner. Minnie’s father James (Jimmy) Gatewood*

Above: Minnie and Trimble Jones, c1925.

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took Trimble in hand and taught him how to work the hilly land. He had a mule and a horse, and an old hand plow, and he would hook up the mule and plow his li�le plot. Again he was cast in the role of helping out the parents—this time his elderly in-laws—providing some relief to their unmarried daughter, Ethel, who was also caring for them. Soon he and Minnie had five children: James (b. 1926), Virginia (b. 1927), who were born prior to the move to Crown City; then Thomas (b. 1928), Carolyn (b. 1929), and Patricia (b. 1931). The farm didn’t produce much, but they grew enough to live on. Trimble also had a weekly egg route. He raised chickens that he ordered through the mail and they were delivered early each spring. The children would sit and wait by the mailbox when the delivery was due, to hear the cheeping chicks in the boxes that arrived. Trimble would sleep out in the

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chicken brooder house to monitor the li�le stove to make sure the fire didn’t go out and the temperature stayed warm enough. He had a li�le cot he would sleep in out there and it was nice and cozy. Each week he and his sister-in-law Ethel would take at least 25 dozen fresh eggs to deliver in nearby Huntington, West Virginia. Sometimes the children would come along to help, running the deliveries up to the houses. If any weren’t sold, they would take them home and whatever they didn’t use they would sell to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. The family would never use any that were more than three days old, but the store would buy week-old eggs. During the summer they might also offer farm produce and berries they picked in the woods. This was the only money Trimble had for groceries and other necessities, and for a time, he was on welfare. After the Depression, Trimble was offered regular work at the Ohio Livestock Company to supplement the farm income. There was a weekly market in Gallipolis where people brought in livestock and produce for trading and selling. Minnie’s Uncle George Bovie


was the bookkeeper there, and Trimble helped with the bookkeeping. In 1942, the family bought a farm just upriver from Big Creek. The farm had once belonged to Perry, but at the time was owned by Minnie’s brother Paul. Trimble did not have the kind of camaraderie in Crown City that he had enjoyed as a youth. He was a chain smoker and by the time the family moved to the farm he was a regular drinker—a “nipper”—and his ill health got worse. He thought having two boys he would have help on the farm, but his sons were recalcitrant. He loved to read, and one of the magazines he bought when he could afford it was Cosmopolitan. One day he noticed his young daughter, Patsy, reading an issue and suggested she might be too young to be reading it. (She was a regular reader by then, but told him she only read it for the cartoons they published as advertisements.) During the 1940s when he would sit reading in the living room he would cough (and smoke; the nico-

tine habit was strong). Sometimes he would go up to Circleville to get medicine with codeine in it from his brother-in-law Lloyd Jonnes.³ He had huge pressures that made him miserable in his later years. Then toward the end, about a year before he died, Trimble fell into a deep depression and received electroshock therapy. He never really recovered from any of that. In 1959 he died of emphysema,

³ Dr. Lloyd Jonnes was married to Trimble’s sister Dorothy. He was a doctor who should have been an artist, philosopher, and scholar; he failed in the doctor business, allegedly became addicted to heroin, and eventually shot himself. He died in 1952 at age 62, and had been the Pickaway County coroner for seven years.

Opposite: (Top) Trimble Jones, c1940. (Bo�om) View of the farm near Crown City, Ohio. Above: Jones siblings, c1940 (L to R): Jimmy, Tom, Carolyn, Pat, and Ginny. Below: Recrea�on of original photo. c1955.

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but the autopsy showed that he also had a huge mass of cancer on his liver. He was 59 years old.

Above: Hun�ngton, West Virginia. View looking west on 4th Avenue during the 1937 flood.

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*** Patsy, as she was known by her family, was the youngest of five siblings, born on Tuesday 15 June 1931 at Crown City, Ohio at 2:00 �.�. The nurse was Emma Gatewood—her aunt—and the doctor was Dr. Mort; she weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces at birth. Patsy and her siblings a�ended the local Crown City school until she was in the middle of fifth grade when they changed the school district boundaries. The first few years there was a school bus, but it was closed down, so they had to

walk in all weather. Patsy walked the one and a quarter miles each way with her brothers and sisters, and after school they were the fastest ones out. A scary situation occurred in January/February 1937 when there was a big flood of the Ohio River. Water came up across the road and into the barns, 30 feet above flood stage. School was so important to their mother that the flood didn’t prevent them from a�ending. The only way to get there, though, was for their father to row all five children in a li�le rowboat across the body of water until they reached the road higher up. These flood conditions lasted for several weeks. Up until high school, the children lacked good, appropriate clothes because of their poverty. Once, GreatAunt Emma Kerns, Jimmy Gatewood’s sister, gave Minnie a big cast-off dress which she took apart, washed, and made into a very nice jumper for Patsy. Her cousin Mabel MacIntyre gave Minnie fabric at Christmas time so she could make dresses for her daughters, and Aunt Ethel (Minnie’s sister) made sure they all had winter coats. High school was at the Marshall College Lab School


in Huntington. It was a teacher-training school affiliated with the college. There was open enrollment but Patsy’s parents paid $20 a semester for their children to a�end because they lived in Ohio. Their Aunt Ethel taught at a public high school in Huntington and she would drive them into school every day. Patsy’s parents weren’t planning to send her to college. There was no money and her father didn’t think girls needed to go—they just needed to get married and have a family. Patsy was planning to a�end the Bliss Business School in Columbus; she had submi�ed an application and the school arranged to send down representatives for an interview. But on the day they picked, the Ohio River flooded again and they couldn’t get there. Meanwhile, Minnie’s cousin came to visit and mentioned that her daughter and her nephew were going to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. That helped persuade her parents, and by the time the Bliss men finally showed up, it had been decided that Patsy would go to Miami, too. College was an adjustment, but Pat managed. She majored in English because

Minnie was insistent that she take secretarial classes so she was assured of a job. She took business courses, too, but in the end felt that it was a waste of four years. She would have liked to study geology but felt pressure to acquire more marketable skills. In January of her sophomore year, Pat was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was sent home. She spent nine months in a TB sanitarium in Newark, Ohio. When she and her mother went to sign in, they asked Minnie where she would like them to send the body. Pat knew it wasn’t really a bad case, but at the time, the only treatment was sulfa. Life in the sanitarium was tedious. The room had a huge long porch with five garage-type doors at the foot of each bed. Six people could be out on the porch—fresh air was part of the treatment. The patients weren’t allowed to shower or take a bath; they could only get up to go to the bathroom. The food was terrible, and there was rat poop in the sugar bowl. The radio played the same top 40 songs over and over and they had to use earphones if they listened. At night they’d play games like Lifeboat and Ba�leship. Although a snowstorm

Sanitarium Served County Residents Pulmonary tuberculosis was once called consump�on, a was�ng of �ssue; it generally affected the lungs, and the ailment was painful and exhaus�ng. Licking County was ill-prepared for trea�ng its residents, and members of a local Women’s Club felt it was the county’s obliga�on to provide a nursing service and an ins�tu�on for residents suffering from tuberculosis. In 1928, the Licking County commissioners voted to construct a tuberculosis sanitarium on Price Road. The sanitarium opened to the public 13 September 1932 for treatment. Before that, a number of Licking County residents were treated in facili�es in other coun�es. Now there were enough beds for them and for people from smaller surrounding coun�es as well. A tax levy supported the facility, and a resident could be treated at no cost, if necessary. Visita�on was kept to a minimum to slow the spread of TB to the general popula�on. Because of the advancement of treatment, there were fewer pa�ents as �me went by. In 1967, the facility closed. Any remaining pa�ents were moved to other hospitals. Since then, the building has found many uses, including as the present-day Licking County Health Department Sa�erfield, Jerry. 2015. Newark Advocate, 21 March, with contribu�ons from Bill Markley and Sophia McGuire. Licking County Archives Department.

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Above: Pat Jones, 1952. Opposite (Top): Pat Jones, wedding portrait from the local newspaper, October 1957. (Bo�om): Pat Nolan with children (L to R): Mike, Nancie, and Diana. 1965.

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delayed her release Pat got out of the sanitarium just before Christmas, then had to wait till the following September to go back to Miami. By law she was required to have a private dorm room, so she ended up with a single. She was finally initiated into the Pi Beta Phi sorority that she had pledged before she left for the sanitarium.

By graduation, Pat was sick of the secretarial stuff, so she got a job in market research with Procter & Gamble. She had to learn how to drive in order to qualify for the job. In one town, when she was creeping along slowly with the window open, a young man called out, “If you don’t know how to drive it, take it home and park it.” Pat replied, “I don’t know how to park it, either!” She and a team of other women would travel to cities across the country to interview housewives about different products. They would ask them what they were using, or ask them to test the new product, then give them a sample and come back to ask about it. Every time they would hit a city they immediately got the local paper and the phone book to discover anything they could do there in their free time. Pat spent two years as a market researcher, which was the typical duration for young women in that job—it was hard traveling all the time, and an “unnatural life” for young women. Generally there were four cities the women gravitated to after working in market research: New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Pat decided


to se�le in San Francisco and found work at an advertising agency. The boss Marshall Blum and his wife frequently had Pat over, and they introduced her to Bernie Nolan* in April 1957 when he was in town distributing samples of Zest soap. One of the last campaigns Pat had worked on for P&G was also a Zest test market. Six months later Pat and Bernie married at her parents’ home in Crown City. As reported in the Circleville paper, “A program of organ music preceded the service. The ceremony was read before an ivy-twined arch which was flanked by candelabra and baskets of white chrysanthemums. The bride was given in marriage by her father. She wore a beige sheath dress with a Vneckline, elbow length sleeves and panels of Italian chiffon. Her flowers were Fugi chrysanthemums and variegated ivy in a cascade bouquet with pink streamers.” The couple traveled to Key Biscayne, Florida for their honeymoon. When they returned to Cincinnati, Pat and Bernie lived first in a small rented house on the east side of town, then bought a ranch house in Milford, Ohio, a new suburb east of the city

where a lot of other young families lived. Bernie would carpool to work downtown. They had three children in quick succession—Mike (b. 1958), Diana (b. 1959), and Nancie (b. 1961). In the mid1960s, tired of the carpooling and the long commute, they moved back into the city, to a big house in the Hyde Park/Mt. Lookout neighborhood. Pat got a Masters degree in education, but realized she didn’t really like classroom teaching. She sometimes worked as a substitute before ge�ing a part-time job teaching morning nursery school in a neighborhood church. When her children were in high school, she worked three days a week as a secretary for “the gentlemen”—three

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Above (Top): Rug House adver�sement in the Eastern Hills Journal, December 1975. (Bo�om): Rug House business card.

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wealthy, retired businessmen who maintained an office downtown. But Pat’s real passion was making handcrafted rugs—braided, hooked, and woven—and in the 1970s, she started The Rug House in the basement of their home. Her grandmother Maggie had made braided rugs and her mother loved them too. Aunts Olive and Louise made braided and hooked rugs and Pat was always charmed by their work. Pat made her own first rug when she was five. Her mother saved bags of cast-off, outgrown clothes and when enough accumu-

lated, she would turn them into a finished rug. In the 1960s, when they still lived in Milford, Pat signed up for a rug hooking and braiding class that was advertised in a local neighborhood paper. Her first piece—pre�y irregular work, in hindsight— was a green and yellow flower in a vase. She found an antique frame and displayed it proudly, despite its gaps and holes. She kept it as a benchmark to see how her later efforts would compare. Pat would rummage through Goodwill stores to get old skirts that were 100 percent wool and take them apart. New yard goods were out of her price range. The best source was the spring sale at the Catholic Church thrift shop; at the end of the season there were always lots of wool skirts available. She also dyed (and overdyed) wool for the colors she wanted. About that time, Bernie told her she needed to find a way to pay for her expensive hobby. Two of her coworkers at the nursery school expressed interest in learning how to make rugs, so Pat put an ad in the same local paper offering to teach classes. In the end, five women joined the first class. At the time, most women


were not working outside the home and had time to a�end such activities during the day. Pat had also learned how to weave, and had her eye on a sturdy li�le loom she could buy for $450. Her brother Tom had inherited the family farm when their parents died, provided he buy his sisters out. So Tom had been making small, regular installments over the years. He made the final payment of $400—just enough for the loom. Pat knew her mother would have been pleased to know that’s how she used the money. So The Rug House was born. Over the years, Pat created hundreds of custommade rugs for clients coast to coast. She a�ended arts and crafts shows and taught continuing education classes and workshops around the country and in local colleges, and in the basement of the family home. Thursday was “Rug House” day at the house and the women (and occasional man) would come with their projects, spread out across the repurposed ping-pong table, and work on their rugs. The basement walls all had floor-to-ceiling shelving, full of new wool, most of it remnants from New York’s garment district. (“Both

Grandma and Mother would have been horrified that I was cu�ing up beautiful new woolens to make rugs.”) Pat’s three children all learned the basics of braiding and lacing rugs, but none of them really took to the hobby. One year, though, there was a big rug they all pitched in on. Although Pat would never guarantee a deadline, she really wanted to complete the big braided rug in time for Christmas. When the children come home from college, she put them to work immediately on the last foot or so. Diana and Nancie stood at the mantle braiding strands, while Mike and Pat laced them to the rug. It was 9:00 �.�. on Christmas eve when Pat was able to call the

Above: Pat Nolan with son-in-law Bachir Bouzid, cra� fair in Waterford, Virginia. 1988.

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family and announce that their rug was complete (and they showed up by 10:00 to pick it up just in time for their holiday). About 25 years later, the Rug House closed when Pat and Bernie retired. Together they traveled around the world on cruise ships to

Europe, South America, Alaska, French Polynesia, and Antarctica. Bernie died in October 2018. Now se�led in Port Charlo�e, Florida, Pat continues to travel when she can, and works on quilts and hooked rugs, albeit with a smaller stash of new wool.

Sources Chapman Bros. 1892. Portrait and Biographical Record of Faye�e Pickaway and Madison Counties, Ohio: Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens: Together with Biographies and Portraits of All the Presidents of the United States. Chicago: Chapman Bros. Van Cleaf, Aaron R. (ed.). 1906. History of Pickaway County and Representative Citizens. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co.

Above: Pat and Bernie Nolan. 2011.

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Nolan Cor una, via unam—One heart, one way

T

he steamship Wisconsin departed from Queenstown (Cork), Ireland in the spring of 1865, on one of its regular emigrant voyages to America. On board were the Molloy family of County Leitrim, Ireland. As they disembarked in New York City on 4 April, they gave their names to the US immigration officials: Margaret, Dennis, Mary, and their children ... Nolan. This story begins in Ulster (Northern Ireland) around 1775 with Ma�hew Nolan and his wife Margaret. They were the parents of James Jacob Nolan who was born about 1800. It seems likely, given the time and place, that there were

other children (total fertility rate in Ireland at the time was around five children), but we don’t have any records of them. But how did they turn into Molloys? As recounted in 1924 by Patrick Clancy, a nephew of Mary Reynolds Nolan (see next section): “[James Jacob] was born in Ulster and married a Protestant lady who at her marriage turned Catholic. In them days a Protestant who turned Catholic could not live in Ulster. The lives of the young couple were threatened by the old Orange gang and they had to flee in the night. For woe to them if they were

Orangemen The Orange Order, founded in 1795, is a conserva�ve unionist organiza�on, with links to Ulster loyalism. The Order sees itself as defending Protestant civil and religious liber�es, whereas cri�cs accuse the Order of being sectarian, triumphalist, and supremacist. As a strict Protestant society, it does not accept non-Protestants as members unless they convert and adhere to the principles of Orangeism, nor does it accept Protestants married to Catholics. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order

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Nolan Name Origin The Nolan clan is one of the oldest families in Ireland and its origins are unclear. The old Druid genealogists preserved lineages back to Eochaidh Fionn of Fothairt, son of Feidhlimidh Reachmhar, King of Ireland in 164–174 AD, and even further back to Cobhthach Caol mBreach, a King of Ireland who ruled from 591 to 541 BC. Eochaidh Fionn Fohart’s elder brother Conn Ceadcathach (Conn of the Hundred Ba�les) was King of Ireland in the early part of the second century AD. Some�me in the early part of the fi�h century, the Forthairt (the name descendents of Eochaidh were called) and the Ui Bearraic—medieval people who lived in the southeast Ireland—were a�acked by the Ui Cinnsealaigh people who came into the area from Munster in the southwest of Ireland. The Ui Cinnsealaigh were technologically superior to the resident clans, so the invaders were able to drive down into the valleys of the Slaney and the Barrow Rivers. They pushed the older tribes toward the mountain chain now known as the Blackstairs and southward to the area near Wexford, now known as the baronies of Forth and Bargy. In the mountainous areas of Carlow the Forthairt people eventually adopted the name Ó Nuallain and the Ui Bearraic people became known as the Ui Neill. In pre-Norman �mes the Nolan sept held power in the barony of Forth, in County Carlow, where they were known as Princes of Foharta and held high hereditary office under the Kings of Leinster. A�er the eleventh-century Norman invasion the area was occupied for a �me by Norman overlords to whom the O’Nolans paid tribute. When the Kavanagh revival occurred in the fourteenth century the O’Nolans became their staunchest allies and they paid their rents to the Kavanaghs. From about 1530 onward, in the face of relentless pressure from the English administra�on, the fortunes of the clan and its leaders began to wane. In Irish Gaelic the surname means descendent of Nuallan, but the deriva�on of this name is obscure because the word nuall means “noble” or “famous,” however, the word niall refers to a “shout” or a “cry.” It is possible that the surname doesn’t necessarily follow from either deriva�on. To this day, Nolans are the most numerous people living in what is known as the Barony of Forth in Carlow. h�p://nowlanclan.weebly.com/things-that-do-not-fit-elsewhere.html

caught. They were assisted in their flight by the clergy who brought them safe to a Catholic quarter in Co. Longford. It was here he assumed the name Molloy lest they might be found out. They were known only by the Catholic priests who never told a secret. He was a school master and the priests found a school for him at a place called Cluncowly. They brought up

Above: Poster adver�sing the Guion Line, a Bri�sh passenger service that operated the Liverpool-Queenstown-New York route from 1866 to 1894.

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their family here and was highly respected by the pope. Each one of their family as they grew up became a teacher. Their school and dwelling house was built on the farm of a respectable young man named Michael Reynolds. In some years later my good Aunt Mary got married to the said M. Reynolds. They had three children: Bridget, Sarah, and John M.

Potato Famine The 1841 census showed that two-thirds of the Irish popula�on depended on agriculture for their survival, but they rarely received a working wage. They had to work for their landlords in return for the patch of land they needed to grow enough food for their own families. This system forced Ireland and its peasantry into monoculture, since only the potato could be grown in sufficient quan�ty. The rights to a plot of land in Ireland could mean the difference between life and death in the early nineteenth century. From 1845–52 potato crops succumbed to a fungus blight, leading to catastrophic hunger among the people who depended solely on potatoes for food—in some coun�es, 90 percent of the people. During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island’s popula�on to fall by between 20–25 percent. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Emigra�on


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Reynolds died leaving Aunt a widow. She got married to Dennis Molloy son of Master Molloy. After this marriage Aunt sold her farm to her first brother-in-law Patrick Reynolds.”

Above: View of Shamokin, c1855.

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James and his once-Protestant bride Margaret had six children: Ma�hew (b. 1837), Susan (b. 1840), Dennis John (b. 1841), James (b. 1844), John Emmet (b. 1851), and Margaret (b. 1855). At the time they were se�ing up in their new home, Leitrim and Longford were the fastest growing counties in Ireland. Nineteenth century Ireland was the most densely populated country in Europe—in 1800 the population

was 4.5 million; but by 1841 it had grown to 8 million. Most people lived in misery, with only one staple crop—potatoes. Then in the summer of 1845 a ship from America brought a fungus to Ireland which led to the ruin of potato crops, and famine in Ireland. Although they received corn as aid from United States, the Irish did not know what to do with it. The famine stretched into 1852, with 1849 the worst year of all. The Molloy children were all born around the height of the Great Famine, but they did not emigrate until sometime later, in 1865. After 1860, the number of emigrants from Ireland had fallen from the highs


of the famine years, but continued to be large. Families still predominated, but single people began to leave in high numbers. It was not until after James Jacob died on 10 January 1860 in Drumish Parish, County Longford, that Margaret and her children and grandchildren emigrated to the United States. They arrived in the United States a few days before the end of the Civil War, about a week before Lincoln’s assassination. Se�ling in America At the time they emigrated, Dennis was married to Mary Reynolds¹ (mentioned above), who was born in Ireland in 1835. She was the widow of Michael Reynolds upon whose land the Molloys had been living. Mary already had three children with her first husband, all born in Ireland, John (b. 1859), Bridget (b. 1861), and Sarah (b. 1863); they all came to America together. She sold her farm to her first brother-inlaw, Patrick Reynolds, which may have helped pay for their voyage. Upon their arrival in America, the family reclaimed their Nolan name, and se�led

in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Shamokin was founded in 1773, displacing the Native American populations (Shawnee, then Delaware Indians who were forcibly removed from their native lands in Eastern Pennsylvania by the Walking Treaty). The town did not develop much until the nineteenth century when the discovery of anthracite coal became the basis of much of its industry. Railroad companies, such as Reading Railroad, bought interests in coal and became major employers of the area, building railroads to ship coal to markets and controlling most jobs. The Irish who emigrated to the United States were eager to work but generally had few industrial skills, so they ended up working in the least desirable and most dangerous jobs in the mining, textile, and transportation industries. According to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, “railroad laborers worked all day, clearing the ground, cu�ing down trees, removing stumps or other impediments that interfered with the roadbed, cu�ing rock where necessary, leveling the ground,

The Walking Treaty Founder of the Pennsylvania Colony William Penn enjoyed a reputa�on for fair-dealing with the Lenape (a.k.a. Delaware) Indians. However his heirs, John and Thomas Penn, abandoned many of their father’s moderate prac�ces. In 1736, they claimed a deed from 1686 by which the Lenape promised to sell a tract beginning at the junc�on of the upper Delaware River and the tributary Lehigh River (near modern Easton, Pennsylvania) and extending as far west as a man could walk in a day and a half, later to become known as the “Walking Purchase” or the Walking Treaty of 1737. This document may have been an unsigned, unra�fied treaty, or even an outright forgery. According to the popular account, Lenape leaders assumed that about 40 miles was the longest distance that could be covered under these condi�ons. Penn Land Office agent and provincial secretary James Logan hired the three fastest runners in the colony to run on a prepared trail. The walk occurred on 19 September 1737 reaching the vicinity of presentday Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, 70 miles away. At the end of the walk, they drew a perpendicular line back toward the northeast, and claimed all the land east of these two lines ending at the Delaware River. This resulted in an area of 1,200,932 acres, roughly equivalent to the size of Rhode Island, located in eastern Pennsylvania. As a result, the Lenape soon had to vacate the Walking Purchase lands. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Walking_Purchase

¹ Reynolds was Mary’s maiden name as well as the name of her first husband. It is a corruption of the name O’Rourke who were the one-time rulers of the county. Mary’s father Owen Reynolds was convicted in 1845 of “appearing armed by night and assaulting the dwelling house of John McTernan,” and “appearing armed by day, and ... taking a gun [which was] the property of Simon Elliot, without his consent.” Reynolds was transported to Australia and served nearly five years in the penal colony, eventually se�ling in New South Wales where he died in 1884.

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Above: Nolan Family c1900, Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. (L to R) Top row: Dennis Jr., Mary, Dennis Flannigan, Ma�hew Nolan, Margaret; Middle Row: Uncle James Nolan, Mary Variot Nolan; “Aunt Sue” Glenn, Dennis Sr., Bridget Nolan, Mary Hurley (Bridget’s daughter). Children uniden�fied except lower center: Mary Ellen; right: Alice Hurley (Bridget’s daughter).

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building drainage, assessing the land for erosion, blasting tunnels, and building bridges or walls to protect the track from floods or landslides.” Ma�hew started out working in the mines, but became a schoolteacher, and was known as Professor Nolan. His obituary referred to him with the title of Squire. He and his wife also owned and operated a small store in Shamokin. James was also a teacher in Sunberry, Pennsylvania. He later studied and passed the bar to become a lawyer and member of the Clearfield and Centre County Bar Association. He dealt in real estate and owned property throughout Clearfield

County, including 275 acres of coal on the Penfield Mountain. In 1913 he moved to Washington State where he died in Colfax in 1921. His obituary described him as the President of State Creek Consolidated Mining Company, and Vice President of Daisy Coal company. He left the deed to the coal on Penfield Mountains to his widow Blanch who had stayed behind in Pennsylvania. The land was shortly thereafter involved in a legal dispute that prevented her from ever recovering the coal. After arriving in America, Mary and Dennis had four more children: Ma�hew (b. 1866), James Bernard (b. 1869),


Mary (b. 1872), and Dennis P. (b. 1873), all born in Pennsylvania. They had an adopted daughter, Margaret, who was also born in 1872. In 1880, Dennis and Mary lived with all their children in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, about 60 miles north of Shamokin. Lycoming County was broken off from Northumberland County by an Act on 13 April 1795. The population was originally composed of Scotch-Irish and Quakers from the lower counties of the state, and their descendants still occupied the valleys, together with many Germans and others from Pennsylvania and New York. By the mid-nineteenth century, agriculture and lumbering were the principal occupations of the citizens; the area had several iron works along Lycoming Creek and its tributaries. The census of 1840 showed significant industry, including four furnaces, three forges, bloomeries, rollingmills, 20 tanneries, 10 fullingmills and woolen manufactories, and 11 distilleries. In 1877 the railroad workers and miners took part in the Shamokin Uprising, in response to unexpected cuts in wages. They joined workers from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in what developed across the East as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. In 1880, Dennis worked as a laborer in the mines. His

sons John (now age 23) and Ma�hew (age 14) were likewise laborers; Bridget (19) and Sarah (17) worked as domestic servants, and the younger children were home. Ma�hew a�ended school; but John and his mother Mary were listed as illiterate in the census report. The Nolans also had a boarder at that time, 24-year-old Dennis McFadden, who was a laborer on the railroad tracks. McFadden was also an Irish immigrant. Mary died, most likely around 1885, because the following year, Dennis remarried, to Susan Glenn of Centre County, Pennsylvania. He was listed as a merchant on their marriage certificate. She was known to the family as “Aunt Sue.” Around the beginning of the twentieth century, though, Dennis had moved again, this time to Washington State, probably riding west on the newly built railroad lines. He left Sue behind, and she ended up living first with her stepdaughter Mary in Philipsburg, then around 1910 moving in with a nephew until her death from pneumonia in March 1913. By 1886 whites had begun se�ling in and transforming

Dennis Nolan and his pups in Washington State c1920.

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the land in central Washington, and the main line of the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed through Ki�itas County on 1 July 1887. At the turn of the century, both the railroad and mining presented opportunities for work, even for a man in his 60s as Dennis was. In 1911, he was noted as the next-of-kin for his grandson Herbert Cassidy who died in Ellensburg at age 23 of typhus. Dennis was living in Corfu, about 60 miles away. At the time of his own death, Dennis owned property in Ellensburg. He had purchased Lots 6 and 7 of Shoudy’s first addition—land that is now the heart of the downtown area. His will stated that he “bequeathed unto the children of my deceased son, Mathew, the sum of $1.00 each; and unto the children of my adopted daughter Mary Ann the sum of $1.00 each. I further give and

bequeath unto Dennis, Bridget and Sarah, children of my deceased wife the sum of $1.00 each. All the rest of my estate whether real or personal I give, devise and bequeath unto the widow and children of my deceased son, James, share and share alike.” Unfortunately, Dennis died owing money to numerous creditors, including for his brother James’s funeral services as well as unpaid taxes on his property, which was at the time valued at $2000. The property was sold at auction to cover the liens. It was purchased by an Elsie Hartman for $2750—the only offer received. Since “[t]his bid was for an amount considerably greater than the appraised value of the property described,” the executor recommended the sale. Therefore it is likely that James’s widow and her children did receive a modest inheritance.

² Herbert was Mary’s son and had been raised in New Hampshire, but he worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad in Washington for six years. His death in Ellensburg came after a four-week ba�le with typhoid fever. At the time of his death, he had just been appointed sheriff of Ki�itas County. He left behind a wife, Olive Voice, a son, and daughter, in addition to his relatives in the east. ³ Corfu, Washington is a ghost-town now, but then it was a station located along the Chicago-Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad mainline, in service from 1909 to 1980. Corfu was established in 1910 with a two-story store, post office, gas station, school house, depot, and homes. One hundred yards up the hill from the town site was the railroad section foreman’s house and laborers’ bunkhouse. Corfu’s population in 1920 was 131 and by 1930 was 62. In 1941 with the coming of highways the Corfu school closed, and a short time later the Corfu Mercantile closed.

Above: Receipts from creditors making claims on Dennis Nolan’s estate.

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⁴ The town was officially incorporated in 1883. John Alden Shoudy came to the Ki�itas Valley in 1871, and purchased a small trading post called Robber’s Roost. It was the first business in the valley, other than the early trading that occurred among Native Americans, ca�le drivers, trappers, and miners. Shoudy named the town after his wife, Mary Ellen. While he was not the first European se�ler in the Ki�itas Valley, nor the first businessperson, he was responsible for laying out the city of Ellensburgh [original spelling] in the 1870s.


*** James Bernard Nolan (b. 1869) had blue eyes and light brown hair and stood nearly five feet eight inches tall. Along with his brothers John and Ma�hew, he worked as a coal miner, beginning at the age of 10. He was a stable boss at the time of his early death. He married Jessie McDivi�* on 4 June 1895, and in 1900 they lived in a rented house in Pa�on, Cambria County, Pennsylvania with their first two children: Mary Ellen (Ella) (b. 1896) and Bernard Joseph (Bernie) (b. 1898). Jessie’s sister Grace was married to Jim’s brother Mathew who eventually became a foreman in the mines. Pa�on is located just west of Altoona, about 70 miles southwest from Lycoming, and the downtown where the Nolans would have lived is now on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1898, Jim was working as a railroad timekeeper, when he enlisted in the army during the Spanish-American war. James and Jessie’s daughter Winifred was born in 1900 and a fourth child, Agnes, was born in 1904. Sadly, James died on 14 April 1904 at age 34 from the smallpox epidemic that hit Pennsylvania particularly hard. Baby Agnes died a month later, from the same disease. At the time Jessie was also sick and was not told that her husband and daughter had died.

Railroad Timekeepers Special watches were designed as a technical fix applied to US railroads following accidents in the mid-nineteenth century. Back then �metables governed train arrivals and departures, established train priori�es, and ensured that trains did not collide on single-track lines. Clocks in railroad sta�ons and watches held by conductors and engineers helped to enforce the �metables. But in the middle of the nineteenth century, �mepieces in use on the railroads varied wildly in quality and availability. There was no single standard of quality for railroad �mekeepers. A�er a horrific fatal accident in August 1853, caused in part by the inaccuracy of a conductor’s watch, some railroads in New England responded to public cri�cism of their industry by �ghtening up running rules and ordering top-quality clocks and watches for their employees. h�ps://americanhistory..edu/collec�ons/search/object/nmah_1204723

Once she recovered, Jessie had to support her three remaining children. She took a job as a cook in an orphanage in Erie, Pennsylvania which also gave her accommodations in exchange for her work. Ella, Bernard, and Winnie were raised in the orphanage for about 10 years. In 1918, the family were boarders at 302 S. 3rd Street in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. Ella worked as a timekeeper, Bernie was a clerk at Brown’s Boot Shop, and Winnie was a bookkeeper at the Penn Public Services Corporation. By 1922 they had moved into a rented space a few blocks away on S. 3rd Avenue, except for Bernie who was married and lived nearby at 313 Reed Street. Ella was working as a clerk at Kurz Bros. school and office supply store and Bernie had been promoted to salesman at the shoe store. Ella married Walter Logan, but she died at age 31 of “puerperal sepsis, complicated by pelvic thrombophlebitis following a spon-

Above: James (Jim) Bernard Nolan, c1895.

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Smallpox Vaccina�on The smallpox epidemic of 1898–1904 had far-reaching implica�ons for public health officials—as well as Americans concerned about their own civil liber�es. During this period there were no adequate methods for assessing the safety of the vaccine and there were instances of contaminated vaccine transmi�ng infec�ons such as erysipelas, tetanus, sep�cemia, and tuberculosis. At the turn of the twen�eth century there were li�le to no regula�ons governing the pharmaceu�cal industry. Many people were forced to receive the vaccine—most of the �me against their will. People infected with smallpox would also be quaran�ned against their will in large isola�on hospitals called pest houses. Smallpox vaccine was the only vaccine available during this period, and so the determined opposi�on to it ini�ated a number of vaccine controversies that spread to other vaccines and into the twenty-first century. Because so many refused to get vaccinated, there were isolated incidents of smallpox outbreaks in the United States un�l 1949. It wasn’t un�l 1972 that the US government decided to stop mandatory vaccina�on against smallpox, in part because the disease had been largely eradicated. Willrich, Michael. 2011. Pox: An American History. London: Penguin Press. h�ps://www.npr.org/2011/04/05/135121451/how-the-pox-epidemic-changed-vaccina�on-rules h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine

taneous delivery”—in other words, complications from childbirth. There is no record of the baby, who presumably was stillborn or died shortly after birth. (Walter Logan moved from the area, remarried, and raised a family in Ohio and elsewhere.) Winnie married Leslie Spence in 1925 and they had four children. Jessie lived the remainder of her life with Winnie and Leslie in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She died of colon cancer in 1943 at the age of 71. *** Bernie was employed by Brown’s Boot Shop where he worked his way up from a clerk in 1918, to a salesman in 1922, to manager of the Clearfield branch by 1930. He enlisted in the Marine Corps during World War I and was stationed at Parris Island, South Carolina, but he never went overseas as the war was nearly over. He served as a private in Company 337, Ba�alion

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Corporal Eagen Corporal Eagen was an amateur produc�on of the type that flourished during the Depression. Produced by the Universal Producing Co., a company created by the four Stewart brothers of Fairfield, Iowa, some 3,000 smalltown produc�ons were staged all over the country between 1928 and 1934. The play’s ac�on revolved around a bumbling private—”Red Eagen”—an Irish doughboy trying for a promo�on, and his screamingly funny Jewish buddy, Izzy Goldstein. Universal Producing would hired a space for the produc�on, sell adver�sing space around the theater, and employ local talent ensuring a good turnout for each show. Each produc�on was cast with some 150 townsfolk, including musicians and a children’s choir. Admission could be rather steep-50 cents--but everyone wanted to see their friends perform. (Author William Faulkner played Izzy in a local produc�on in his home town in September 1930.) h�ps://www.abebooks.com/servlet/ SearchResults?an=levenson%20dave&tn=playscripts%20college%20fl apper%20corporal%20eagen&cm_sp=mbc-_-ats-_-all h�ps://www.lancastereaglegaze�e.com/story/news/history/ remember-when/2017/02/19/come-see-friends-corporal-eagen/ 98036296/

Playbill from a nearby produc�on of Corporal Egan in 1932.

“Z” from 12 August 1918 to 28 February 1919 when he was honorably discharged. In 1921 he married Mabel Mae Campbell,* originally of Bellwood, Pennsylvania. She was working as a telephone operator in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. Bernie and Mabel had to have their wedding in the vestibule of the Catholic Church in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania because, while he was from a devout Catholic family, Mabel was not a religious person and could not be married inside. Later Bernie was transferred to the store in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. He and Mabel lived in town, next door to the Drivas family, Greek im-

migrants who owned the apartment they rented. The Drivases also owned the Sugar Bowl Shop, a homemade candy and ice cream store. Mabel and Bernie were a popular couple around Philipsburg. After almost nine years of marriage, Mabel gave birth to their son—also Bernard Joseph Nolan—born 24 January 1930 at the McGurk Sanitarium in Philipsburg. Bernie Sr. was “a honey of a man” according to Mabel’s brother Bus, and his 1930 obituary noted that “his friendly disposition and genial manner won him a host of acquaintances.” Bernie died in a tragic accident in December 1930, after

Above: Bernard Joseph Nolan Sr. Opposite: Bernard Joseph Nolan Sr. with his sisters Winifred (center) and Mary Ellen, c1905.

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Above: Bernard Joseph Nolan Sr. and Jr. 1930. Below: Bernie Nolan 1931. Facing page: Bernie Nolan in Uncle Paul’s ice truck, Bellwood, Pennsylvania. 1946.

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falling down the steep stairs to their apartment. At the time, he had just begun working as an insurance salesman for the Frank R. Beals Insurance Agency. The night of his accident, Bernie had been performing in a minstrel feature of a Legion Auxiliary benefit entitled “Corporal Eagan.” “It is thought he slipped on a rug, placed at the top of the stairs on a newly waxed floor covering at his home and fell backwards the full length of the stairs,” the local paper reported. The apartment was on the second floor with steep steps to the landing. Mabel had been out with the baby and Bernie came home alone, slipped on a rug at the top of the stairs, fell down to the bo�om—it turned out he had a fractured skull. In his rush to get home, Bernie had left his bag with clothes and costume at the stage and two friends brought it to his house, finding him unconscious at the bo�om of the steps. They carried him up to his apartment, which was unlocked, and laid him on the couch. When Mabel returned shortly afterward with the 11-month-old baby, she found Bernie on the couch and assumed he had had too much to drink and was sleeping—so she went to bed. The next morning she realized Bernie was dead. The Drivas family helped Mabel for a few months but,

unable to find work, she and young Bernie returned to Bellwood, moving in with her sister Ethel and brother-in-law Paul Smith. On New Year’s Day 1939, she married her second husband, Arthur “Red” Fowler. Red was a paperhanger and house painter, or as she sometimes told people, an “interior decorator.” During and after World War II there was a boom in homebuilding and he had found a lot of work in the Washington, DC area. Mabel was to be his bookkeeper, but really managed his business as it turned out Red was not much of a businessman. *** When his mother remarried, Bernie was still in Bellwood in the 4th grade at the Bellwood Public School. The plan was for him to finish 4th grade in June and then move to Alexandria with his mother and new stepfather. But he was not at all happy about living alone without his mother and the situation became too much of a chore for Aunt Ethel, so after much consideration, Bernie moved to Alexandria in the middle of the school year. There he lived with Mabel and Red in a twobedroom, basement apartment in the Del Ray section of Alexandria and he always had some strange man as a roommate—a painter or a


The Best Job I Ever Had—Bernie Nolan By the �me I was 10 years old, my mother had remarried and we had moved from Pennsylvania to Alexandria, Virginia. Although I think I was able to adapt fairly quickly to this new lifestyle and school system, Bellwood, Pennsylvania, was s�ll “back home” to me. Having been raised by my Aunt Ethel and Uncle Paul in Bellwood during those impressionable years, I always looked forward to returning to Bellwood. When school was out, I was ready to take the train to Bellwood to stay with my aunt and uncle. My uncle owned the ice plant in this small town and this was during World War II before most people had refrigerators. They depended on the ice man to deliver ice to their ice box to keep their food cold. By the �me I was 15, I was finally big enough and strong enough to begin to work on the ice truck. I would leave Alexandria as soon as school was out and head for Bellwood for most of the summers that I was 15, 16, and 17. World War II was coming to an end and the small town was jumping. Early every morning we would load up the truck at the ice plant with over a ton of ice in 300 pound cakes and drive through the town on our regular route. Each home had an ice card that they would put in their window signifying how much ice they needed: 25 pounds, 50 pounds, 75 pounds, or 100 pounds. The cards were colorcoded so we could see the color, chop the ice into the proper weight, and take it to the ice box. There were three of us working on the truck in the summer; the other two were good friends of mine and also the local high school football heroes. Most everyone in town knew us and we had a great �me every day. We even looked forward to ge�ng up every morning to go to work. While the work was physically demanding— carrying 50–100 pounds of ice, some�mes up three flights of steps, was not easy—we were all young and in good shape. Through the years I have o�en said that the best job I ever had was working on that ice truck. We were outside all day, we were doing work that was physical in nature—but most of all we were having a good �me. Every �me we stopped, there would be neighborhood children running to the truck for a piece of ice and we should chip off a small piece for them (this was before the ice cream truck). And of course, if there were teenage girls in the house, we always had to stop to say hello. We knew just about everyone and where their ice box was located. As World War II ended and with the advent of electric refrigerators, the days of the ice truck were gone. But 65 years later, I could probably s�ll return to that small town and drive the route we took and maybe tell you where the ice box used to be.

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Zest Soap Zest is a brand name, or trademark, which Procter & Gamble introduced in 1955 with the slogan “For the first �me in your life, feel really clean.” Early commercials stated that Zest is not a soap, because it does not leave the s�cky film that soap does. The trademark was originally used (1958 to 2006) to market a “deodorant bar” that included both standard soap and synthe�c detergent ingredients. The synthe�c detergent prevented the deposi�on of soap scum in the presence of hard water. Marbled in appearance, it originally came in two forms: the Aqua and the yellow lemon-scented Citrus. Procter & Gamble sold Zest to Unilever in 2015. h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Zest_(brand

Opposite: Wedding of Bernie Nolan and Pat Jones, 5 October 1957, at her parent’s home, Crown City, Ohio. L to R: Bus Campbell (seated), Ginny Thiel, Carolyn Jones, Bernie, Pat, Red Fowler.

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paperhanger Red needed for his business. Red’s business was doing well and the demand for houses in the new Beverly Hills area of Alexandria was booming. With pressure and foresight from Mabel, they purchased a new house in a nice section of town and moved in on Red’s birthday, 17 November 1939. Bernie had started 5th grade at the local school, then transferred in November to the brand new George Mason School near Beverly Hills. Bernie went on to George Washington HS in Alexandria. At that time, Virginia had an 11-year system— there was no 8th grade—and because he had started school in Bellwood at 5 years of age he graduated from high school at age 16. High school years were rather uneventful, although they were during WWII. Bernie was an average student who enjoyed school and generally these were good years. Graduating in 1946, the war was ending and all of the GIs were returning and many were going to college through the GI bill. Knowing nothing about college or how to apply, and with no counselors available at the time, Bernie struggled about where to go to college. Mabel thought he should go to Lehigh University because the son of her good friend had graduated from there. So he

applied to Lehigh but was turned down, and when late August rolled around he had nowhere to go to school. Mabel found out about a small prep school in Pennsylvania near the Lehigh campus and Bernie ended up at Perkiomen Prep in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania in September of 1946. Bernie then a�ended the College of William & Mary from 1948–52 graduating with a BS degree, a major in mathematics. As a W&M student, he was secretary of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and a member of the Backdrop Club, the Colonial Echo staff, and the W&M Chorus. Facing the draft in June after graduation, Bernie thought it was worth the effort to get a commission. The Marine Corps offered the best deal—two years of active duty with eight years of reserves— and he liked the history of the Corps. Bernie was also influenced by his family history. His father and cousin Bob had been Marines, so he enrolled in Officer Candidates School, US Marine Corps Reserve, Parris Island, South Carolina. In September of 1952, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and transferred to Quantico, Virginia for basic officer training. Upon completion of the training, he was assigned as an anti-aircraft officer, then the ba�alion adjutant, before being promoted to executive officer of Company C, and 1st Lieu-


tenant, shortly before being transferred to inactive duty. Upon his return to civilian life, Bernie lived in Wilmington, Delaware and worked in sales for the Diamond Corp. and briefly a�ended graduate school at the University of Delaware. Then he found a job where he worked his entire career, at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. In April 1957 he met Patricia (Pat) Jones* in San Francisco, where Bernie was distributing samples of a new P&G product—Zest soap. Pat was working as a secretary at

the advertising agency that was working on the Zest campaign. A few months earlier, when Pat had been working as a P&G market researcher, she had also worked on the Zest campaign. Six months after they met Bernie and Pat married and se�led in Cincinnati. Their three children, Mike (b. 1958), Diana (b. 1959), and Nancie (b. 1961) came in quick succession. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, when he retired, Bernie had spent 34 years giving things away, starting as a field representative where he

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traveled around the country giving away product samples door-to-door. By the end of his career, he was the Vice President and administrator of the P&G Foundation, giving millions to universities, charities, and other organizations. Bernie’s community involvements included serving as chairman of the advisory commi�ee for United Way of America, serving as a member of the advisory commi�ee for the United Negro College Fund, and chairing the contributions council of the Conference Board. Also, he was president of the Cincinnati School Foundation, a trustee of the Community Chest in Cincinnati, and a member of the Cincinnati Zoo’s advisory commi�ee. Other memberships were with the Phi Delta Kappa Club, Cincinnati Tennis (where he served on the board of directors), and Fenwick in Cincinnati, which he served as chairman. A devoted family man,

lifelong dog lover, and avid sports fan, Bernie retired with Pat to Florida and together they traveled the world on cruises and tours. Bernie died in Florida on October 20, 2018 from complications following heart surgery at the age of 88. For a detailed life story of Bernie Nolan, based on interviews with his granddaughter Samia Bouzid, visit: h�ps:// samiabouzid. atavist.com/ nolan-family-history. Now it’s up to you to write the next chapters.

Sources h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamokin,_Pennsylvania h�ps://lists.rootsweb.com/hyperki�y/list/irl-longford.rootsweb.com/thread/67018/ h�p://nowlanclan.weebly.com/things-that-do-not-fit-elsewhere.html h�ps://www.ancestry.com/ h�ps://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsushistorical/mortstatsh_1905.pdf h�ps://www.clannolan.com/homelands/ h�ps://www.libraryireland.com/Pedigrees1/nowlan-heremon.php

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Above: Nolan Family 2011. (L to R) Back row: Mike Nolan, Julie Pek, Nancie Nolan, Sophia Carey, Diana Nolan, Bachir Bouzid, Roger Oldham. Front row: Aus�n Carey, Celine Carey, Bernie Nolan, Pat Nolan, Samia Bouzid, Munir Bouzid. Below: Family pets Thornbush and Sassafras. 1974.


Supplement Thomas Cornell Senior & Junior Dudley Family Tree John Roy Macaulay Dòmhnall Cam Macaulay Thomas Coleman National Geographic DNA Results

171 177 179 187 203 207


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Cornell Thomas Cornell Senior & Junior

T

he Cornells trace their ancestry to the Cornwells—landed gentry of England several centuries ago. Thomas Cornell was christened 24 March 1591/92 in Saffron Walden, Essex, England; and he died 1655 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. His wife, Rebecca Briggs, was born in 1600. Thomas and Rebecca married on 9 June 1620 at St. Mary the Virgin, in Saffron Walden. Thomas and Rebecca had 11 children, including six sons. Their eldest son, also named Thomas Cornell (Jr.), was born in October 1627 in Saffron Walden. Thomas Cornell and his family emigrated from England to Boston in 1638 when Thomas Jr. would have been 11 years old. Upon their arrival in the Massachuse�s Bay Colony, Thomas Cornell was allowed by vote of the Town

Meeting, 20 August 1638, “to buy William Bastones house and become an Inhabitant” of the new city of Boston. He owned land on Washington Street where he was an innkeeper. But the family decided to leave Boston and move to Portsmouth after Thomas Sr. received a number of fines. The fines were for drinking heavily at the pinnace [a small sailing ship], selling wine without a license, and selling beer above the maximum allowable price. Cornell was part of the Peripheral Group in the Antinomian Controversy, a religious and political conflict in the Massachuse�s Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. So he sold his inn and left for Rhode Island, where others from the Antinomian Controversy had se�led after being ordered to leave the Colony. He removed to Portsmouth in 1640, where

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Above: The Cornell house, Portsmouth, Rhode Island (no longer standing). New England Historical Society.

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he was admi�ed as a Freeman and served as constable that year. Here he lived for four years; he was commissioned Ensign in the Portsmouth Militia from 1642–44, and later served against the Native Americans under Governor Keift. Cornell became friends with Roger Williams and sympathized with the more tolerant society Williams was creating in Rhode Island. Then in 1643 Cornell became “the second Grantee under the Dutch” and cofounded the village of Westchester north of New Amsterdam (later New York

City). In 1646, he was granted a patent on an area of about four square miles that later became part of The Bronx. He moved there and improved the land, but after a few years, having given offense to the Native Americans, they burned his buildings. Some of his family were killed by the Natives who claimed that he had not paid for his land. So he returned to Rhode Island and obtained a land grant for 100 acres in Portsmouth, on Aquidneck Island, and that became the Cornell homestead. Thomas Senior died in Portsmouth on 8 February 1655.


Thomas Jr. (b. 1627) Both Thomas Cornells, senior and junior, were wellregarded citizens, serving in public office. Thomas Jr. married Elizabeth Fiscock in 1644 when he was about 17 and together they had numerous children. Elizabeth died in 1658 and Thomas married Sarah Earle and they had numerous more children (including Sarah Cornell, the mother of Abigail Bu�s who married John Cole Jr. which is the connection to our family; Sarah Cornell was also the second wife of John Cole Sr.). By 1673, following the death of her husband, Rebecca had entrusted her estate to her son Thomas. That year, Thomas Jr. was accused, tried, convicted, and hanged for the alleged murder of his mother, Rebecca Cornell, in Portsmouth. He was convicted using circumstantial as well as spectral evidence, where witnesses recounted dreams involving ghosts pointing to his alleged guilt. (American jurisprudence was later modernized to exclude the use of apparitions and dreams as evidence in trials.) This case and its history have been chronicled in the book Killed Strangely: The Death of Rebecca Cornell (2002) by Elaine Forman Crane. The follow-

ing account is adapted from the New England Historical Society. *** On a winter’s evening in 1673, tragedy descended on the respectable Rhode Island household of Thomas Cornell. His 73-year-old mother, Rebecca, was found close to her bedroom’s large fireplace, dead and badly burned. The legal owner of the Cornells’ hundred acres along Narraganse� Bay, Rebecca shared her home with Thomas and his family, a servant, and a lodger. A coroner’s panel initially declared her death “an Unhappie Accident,” but before summer arrived, a dark web of events—rumors of domestic abuse, allusions to witchcraft, even the testimony of Rebecca’s ghost through her brother— resulted in Thomas’s trial for matricide. Such were the ambiguities of the case that some other people would be tried for the murder as well. Crime and Scandal On the night of 8 February 1673, Thomas Cornell rushed into the si�ing room where he had earlier left his mother Rebecca Cornell. On the floor he found a body, badly burned. He suspected

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he’d found a drunken Indian who had fallen into the fire. But as he rushed close, he declared: “Oh, Lord! It is my mother!” And so began the strange case of the murder of Rebecca Cornell. On the day she died, Thomas spent more than an hour talking with his mother in her si�ing room. Then he was called to dinner. The evening dinner was salt mackerel, which Rebecca did not eat. She said it made her dry in the night. Thomas sent his son Edward to ask Rebecca if she wanted boiled milk or some other supper. As Edward tried to rouse his grandmother, he was alarmed by a dog bounding from the si�ing room. Something was amiss and Edward ran to fetch a candle and raise an alarm. When Thomas returned to the si�ing room with Edward, he found the body on the floor. Kneeling down, Thomas first tried some Native American phrases to communicate with the injured person. On closer inspection he recognized his mother. The first coroner’s inquest was quick and to the point. Rebecca Cornell had died in a fire. She had probably fallen asleep, dropped ash from her pipe on herself and

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burned to death. But four days after the death, Rebecca’s brother John gave a strange testimony. Ghost Sighting John was asleep in bed when “he felt something heave up the bedclothes twice, and thought somebody had been coming to bed to him, where upon he awaked, and turned himself about in his bed, and being turned, he perceived a light in the room, like to the dawning of the day, and plainly saw the shape and appearance of a woman standing by his bedside where at he was much affrighted, and cried out, ‘in the name of God what art thou?’ The apparition answered, ‘I am your sister Cornell,’ and twice said, ‘see how I was burnt with fire.’ And she plainly appeared unto him to be very much burnt about the shoulders, face, and head.” The vision reinvigorated the investigation. Rebecca’s brother interpreted the vision to mean that his sister accused someone of burning her intentionally. Rebecca’s body was inspected a second time, and this jury found a suspicious wound in her stomach. A new version of events began to


take shape, and Thomas Cornell was charged with murdering his mother. The Trial At trial, witnesses painted an unpleasant picture of life in the Cornell home. Rebecca Cornell had complained about her treatment. She had to work on the farm. She went to bed without her bed made up or warmed. And she complained that Thomas was skimpy in heating the home and would not provide a good fire. Her son declined to hire a maid to look after her. And she and Thomas argued over whether rent should be paid for staying at the house and whether he should pay her or vice versa. Rebecca Cornell, two witnesses testified, had contemplated killing herself, either by stabbing herself or drowning herself. Further, she had told some, she planned to leave Thomas’s house and move in with her son Samuel in the spring. Of particular concern to Rebecca was Thomas’s second wife, Sarah, whom she disliked.

Patience Coggeshall testified: “She was afraid there would be mischief done. Her daughter-in-law was of such a desperate spirit, for not long since, said she, she ran after one of the children of his first wife, with an Axe, into her house; but she prevented her striking the child. Yet she did not live with any of her other children because she had made over her estate to her son Thomas. If she had thought her son Thomas’s first wife would have died before her, she would not have made it over to him.” Meanwhile, other witnesses questioned Thomas’s story about his mother refusing mackerel, charging that she had been known to eat it. John Pierce suggested Thomas Cornell was glad his mother was gone. He testified: “Thomas Cornell said that his Mother in her life time had a desire to have a good fire, and further said, that he thought God had answered her ends, for now she had it.” The jury unanimously found that Thomas Cornell had murdered Rebecca Cornell with virtually no evi-

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dence that he had done so. Evidently, all the talk of Thomas’s unkindness to his mother, the alleged wound on the body, the fact that he was the last person to see her alive—not to mention the cameo appearance by Rebecca’s ghost—was enough to convince jurors of his guilt. Thomas was hanged on 23 May. His last request was that he be

buried next to his mother. His wish was granted. Sarah Cornell was pregnant at the time of her husband’s execution. She gave birth to a daughter a short time later, who she named “Innocent.”¹ Two years after Thomas died, Sarah was charged with assisting in the murder, along with a local Native American, though she was not convicted.

Sources h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cornell_(se�ler) h�ps://www.amazon.com/Killed-Strangely-Death-Rebecca-Cornell-ebookdp-B00JMNL1HM/dp/B00JMNL1HM/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid= h�ps://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/1673-murder-rebeccacornell-and-good-fire/ Vail, William Penn,. Genealogy of some of the Vail family descended from Thomas Vail at Salem, Mass., 1640 together with collateral lines. Charleston, S.C.: Walker, Evans & Cogswell, 1937. h�p://strangeco.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-strange-death-of-rebecca-cornell .html

¹ Innocent was fourth great-grandmother to Lizzie Borden, also accused of murdering her parents in 1892.

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DNA National Geographic Genographic Project Results: Pat Nolan

T

he common direct maternal ancestor to all women alive today was born in East Africa about 180,000 years ago. Though not the only woman alive at the time, hers is the only line to survive into current generations. Your Maternal Line—H3aa From East Africa, groups containing this lineage spread across Africa. Between 60 and 70 thousand years ago, some groups moved from Africa to Asia. Your line traces to one of these groups. Your ancestors first se�led West Asia. From there, they expanded toward the Levant region and toward Europe. Some lines traveled to South Asia.

Branch: L3 Age: 70,000 Years Ago Location of Origin: East Africa This woman’s descendants would eventually account for both out-of-Africa maternal lineages, significant population migrations in Africa, and even take part in the Atlantic Slave Trade related dispersals from Africa. The common direct maternal ancestor to all women alive today was born in East Africa around 180,000 years ago. Dubbed “Mitochondrial Eve” by the popular press, she represents the root of the human family tree. Eve gave rise to two descendant lineages known as L0 and L1’2’3’4’5’6, characterized by a different set of genetic

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Point of Interest The L branch is shared by all women alive today, both in Africa and around the world.

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mutations their members carry. Current genetic data indicates that indigenous people belonging to these groups are found exclusively in Africa. This means that, because all humans have a common female ancestor, and because the genetic data shows that Africans are the oldest groups on the planet, we know our species originated there. Eventually, L1’2’3’4’5’6 gave rise to L3 in East Africa. It is a similar story: an individual underwent a mutation to her mitochondrial DNA, which was passed onto her children. The children were successful, and their descendants ultimately broke away from L1’2’3’4’5’6, eventually separating into a new group called L3. While L3 individuals are found all over Africa, L3 is important for its movements north. Your L3 ancestors were significant because they are the first modern humans to have left Africa, representing the deepest branches of the tree found outside of that continent. From there, members of this group went in a few different directions. Many stayed on in Africa, dispersing to the west and south.

Some L3 lineages are predominant in many Bantuspeaking groups who originated in west-central Africa, later dispersing throughout the continent and spreading this L3 lineage from Mali to South Africa. Today, L3 is also found in many AfricanAmericans. Other L3 individuals, your ancestors, kept moving northward, eventually leaving the African continent completely. These people gave rise to two important haplogroups that went on to populate the rest of the world. Why would humans have first ventured out of the familiar African hunting grounds and into unexplored lands? It is likely that a fluctuation in climate may have provided the impetus for your ancestors’ exodus out of Africa. The African Ice Age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. Around 50,000 years ago the ice sheets of northern Europe began to melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to savanna, the animals your ancestors hunted


expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. Your nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and plentiful game northward across this Saharan Gateway, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined. Branch: N Age: About 60,000 Years Ago Location of Origin: East Africa or Asia Your next ancestor is the woman whose descendants formed haplogroup N. Haplogroup N comprises one of two groups that were created by the descendants of L3. One of these two groups of individuals moved north rather than east and left the African continent across the Sinai Peninsula, in presentday Egypt. Also faced with the harsh desert conditions of the Sahara, these people likely followed the Nile basin, which would have proved a reliable water and food supply in spite of the surrounding desert and its frequent sandstorms. Descendants of these migrants eventually formed haplogroup N. Early members of this group lived in the eastern Mediterranean region and western Asia,

where they likely coexisted for a time with other hominids such as Neanderthals. Excavations in Israel’s Kebara Cave (Mount Carmel) have unearthed Neanderthal skeletons as recent as 60,000 years old, indicating that there was both geographic and temporal overlap of these two hominids. This likely accounts for the presence of Neanderthal DNA in people living outside of Africa. Some members bearing mutations specific to haplogroup N formed many groups of their own which went on to populate much of the rest of the globe. These descendants are found throughout Asia, Europe, India, and the Americas. However, because almost all of the mitochondrial lineages found in the Near East and Europe descend from N, it is considered a western Eurasian haplogroup. After several thousand years in the Near East, members of your group began moving into unexplored nearby territories, following large herds of migrating game across vast plains. These groups broke into several directions and made their way into territories surrounding the Near East.

Point of Interest The N line and its sister lineage are the only two founding lineages to expand out of Africa.

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Point of Interest Descendants of the R line dominate the European maternal landscape, making up 75 to 95 percent of the lineages there.

Today, haplogroup N individuals who headed west are prevalent in Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean, they are found further east in parts of Central Asia and the Indus Valley of Pakistan and India. And members of your haplogroup who headed north out of the Levant across the Caucasus Mountains have remained in southeastern Europe and the Balkans. Importantly, descendants of these people eventually went on to populate the rest of Europe, and today comprise the most frequent mitochondrial lineages found there. Branch: R Age: About 55,000 Years Ago Location of Origin: West Asia After several thousand years in the Near East, individuals belonging to a new group called haplogroup R began to move out and explore the surrounding areas. Some moved south, migrating back into northern Africa. Others went west across Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and north across the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia and southern Russia. Still others headed

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east into the Middle East, and on to Central Asia. All of these individuals had one thing in common: they shared a female ancestor from the N clan, a recent descendant of the migration out of Africa. The story of haplogroup R is complicated, however, because these individuals can be found almost everywhere, and because their origin is quite ancient. In fact, the ancestor of haplogroup R lived relatively soon after humans moved out of Africa during the second wave, and her descendants undertook many of the same migrations as her own group, N. Because the two groups lived side by side for thousands of years, it is likely that the migrations radiating out from the Near East comprised individuals from both of these groups. They simply moved together, bringing their N and R lineages to the same places around the same times. The tapestry of genetic lines became quickly entangled, and geneticists are currently working to unravel the different stories of haplogroups N and R, since they are found in many of the same farreaching places.


Branch: R0 Age: About 41,000 Years Ago Location of Origin: West Asia Some individuals moved across West Asia into Central Asia and then the Indus Valley. Others moved south, heading back into the African homeland from where their ancestors had recently departed. Later, members of this lineage moved north across the Caucasus Mountains and west across Anatolia into Europe. These were Cro-Magnon. Their arrival in Europe heralded the end of the era of the Neanderthals. Today, members of this lineage are present around the Red Sea and widely throughout the region. While this genetic lineage is common in Ethiopia and Somalia, individuals from this group are present at highest frequency in Arabia. Those living in East Africa are the likely result of more recent migrations back into the continent.

Branch: HV Age: 22,350 ± 7,745 Years Ago Location of Origin: West Asia Descending from haplogroup R were a group of individuals who formed a western Eurasian lineage. The descendants of pre-HV live in high frequencies in the Anatolian-Caucasus region and Iran. While members of this group can also be found in the Indus Valley near the PakistanIndia border, their presence is considered the result of a subsequent migration eastward of individuals out of the Near East. Individuals in haplogroup pre-HV can be found all around the Red Sea and widely throughout the Near East. While this genetic lineage is common in Ethiopia and Somalia, individuals from this group are found at highest frequency in Arabia. Because of their close genetic and geographic proximity to other western Eurasian clusters, members of this group living in eastern Africa are the likely result of more recent migrations back into the continent. As we have seen from haplogroups N and R, descendants from these western Eurasian lineages

Point of Interest Some descendant branches of the HV line that are now part of the popula�ons of East Africa were introduced by the Arab slave trade of the last two millennia.

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used the Near East as a home base of sorts, radiating from that region to populate much of the rest of the world. Their descendants comprise all of the western Eurasian genetic lineages, and about half of the eastern Eurasian mtDNA gene pool. Some individuals moved across the Middle East into Central Asia and the Hindus Valley near western India. Some moved south, heading back into the African homeland from where their ancestors had recently departed. Haplogroup pre-HV is of particular importance because over the course of several thousand years, its descendants split off and formed their own group, called HV. This group— thanks in large part to a brutal cold spell that was about to set in—gave rise to the two most prevalent female lineages found in Western Europe. While some descendants of these ancestral lineages moved out across Central Asia, the Indus Valley, and even back into Africa, your ancestors remained in the Near East. Descending from haplogroup pre-HV, they formed a new group, characterized by a unique set of mutations, called haplogroup HV.

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Haplogroup HV is a west Eurasian haplogroup found throughout the Near East, including Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia and the republic of Georgia. It is also found in parts of East Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, where its presence there indicates recent Near Eastern gene flow, likely the result of the Arab slave trade over the last two millennia. Much earlier, around 30,000 years ago, some members of HV moved north across the Caucasus Mountains and west across Anatolia, their lineages being carried into Europe for the first time by the CroMagnon. Their arrival in Europe heralded the end of the era of the Neanderthals, a hominid species that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago. Be�er communication skills, weapons, and resourcefulness probably enabled them to outcompete Neanderthals for scarce resources. Importantly, some descendants of HV had already broken off and formed their own group, haplogroup H, and continued the push into Western Europe.


Today, members of this line are part of the populations of Europe, West Asia (including Anatolia), and the Caucasus Mountains of South Russia and the Republic of Georgia. This lineage accounts for around 21 percent of maternal lineages in Armenia. It is about 8 percent of those in Turkey and about 5 percent of those in Croatia. Across much of Europe, this line is present at low frequencies of around 1 percent. This lineage accounts for about 7 percent of the population of both India in South Asia and the United Arab Emirates in West Asia. Branch: H Age: About 28,000 Years Ago Location of Origin: West Asia This wave of migration into western Europe marked the appearance and spread of what archaeologists call the Aurignacian culture, a culture distinguished by significant innovations in methods of manufacturing tools, standardization of tools, and use of a broader set of tool types, such as end-scrapers for preparing animal skins and tools for woodworking. Around 15,000 to 20,000

years ago, colder temperatures and a drier global climate locked much of the world’s fresh water at the polar ice caps, making living conditions near impossible for much of the northern hemisphere. Early Europeans retreated to the warmer climates of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and the Balkans, where they waited out the cold spell. Their population sizes were drastically reduced, and much of the genetic diversity that had previously existed in Europe was lost. Beginning about 15,000 years ago—after the ice sheets had begun their retreat—humans moved north again and recolonized western Europe. By far the most frequent mitochondrial lineage carried by these expanding groups was haplogroup H. Because of the population growth that quickly followed this expansion, your haplogroup now dominates the European female landscape. Today haplogroup H comprises 40 to 60 percent of the gene pool of most European populations. In Rome and Athens, for example, the frequency of H is around 40 percent of the entire population, and it exhibits similar frequencies

Point of Interest The highest percentage of the H line in Europe is in Ireland, where it makes up 61 percent of the popula�on. Notable People French queen Marie Antoine�e and Renaissance astronomer Nicholas Copernicus were members of this lineage.

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throughout western Europe. Moving eastward the frequency of H gradually decreases, clearly illustrating the migratory path these se�lers followed as they left the Iberian Peninsula after the ice sheets had receded. Haplogroup H is found at around 25 percent in Turkey and around 20 percent in the Caucasus Mountains. While haplogroup H is considered the Western European lineage due to its high frequency there, it is also found much further east. Today it comprises around 20 percent of southwest Asian lineages, about 15 percent of people living in Central Asia, and around five percent in northern Asia. Importantly, the age of haplogroup H lineages differs quite substantially between those seen in the West compared with those found in the East. In Europe its age is estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 years old, and while H made it into Europe substantially earlier (30,000 years ago), reduced population sizes resulting from the glacial maximum significantly reduced its diversity there, and thus its estimated

age. In Central and East Asia, however, its age is estimated at around 30,000 years old, meaning your lineage made it into those areas during some of the earlier migrations out of the Near East. Haplogroup H is a great example of the effect that population dynamics such as bo�leneck events, founder effect, genetic drift, and rapid population growth, have on the genetic diversity of resulting populations. Later migrations, such as those during the Neolithic Revolution and those triggered by the Bronze Age, brought additional groups containing different descendant branches of this line to Europe. Branch: H3* Age: 16,430 ± 1,970 Years Ago Location of Origin: Europe In Europe, the beginning of the last glacial maximum forced members of this lineage into the few habitable places that remained. When the glaciers receded, this line expanded from the Franco-Cantabrian refugium.

*This branch is not accompanied by a major movement on the map, and research on this branch is continuing.

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Today, this lineage is present most often in Portugal where it is about 10 percent of maternal lineages. It is between 4 and 8 percent of maternal lineages in the British Isles. It is about 5 percent of the population of France. It is about 5 percent of maternal lineages in Croatia. It is also part of some Jewish Diaspora groups. Heatmap for H3 This next step in your journey is a map [ed: map not available] showing the frequency of your haplogroup (or the closest haplogroup in your path that we have frequency information for) in indigenous populations from around the world, providing a more detailed look at where your more recent ancestors se�led in their migratory journey. What do we mean by recent? It's difficult to say, as it could vary from a few hundred years ago to a few thousand years ago depending on how much scientists currently know about your particular haplogroup. As we test more individuals and receive more information

worldwide, this information will grow and change. The colors on the map represent the percentage frequency of your haplogroup in populations from different geographic regions—red indicates high concentrations and light yellow and grey indicate low concentrations. The geographic region with the highest frequency isn’t necessarily the place where the haplogroup originated, although this is sometimes the case. The map for H3 shows that it is most common in western Europe and Tunisia. Its presence in North Africa is likely due to migration from Europe. Does this mean you’re related to people in the areas highlighted on your map? Distantly, yes! We are all connected through our ancient ancestry. In order for us to learn more ancestry information about where haplogroups se�led in more recent times, please choose to contribute your results to science (check the checkbox during Login or from the Account Se�ings tab of your Profile), and fill out your ancestry information in the Profile section of the site.

Notable People American singer Jimmy Buffe� belongs to the H3 lineage.

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Your first reference popula�on: Bri�sh (United Kingdom) This reference popula�on is based on samples collected from popula�ons in the United Kingdom. The dominant 49% Northern European component likely reflects the earliest se�lers in Europe, hunter-gatherers who arrived there more than 35,000 years ago. The 33% Mediterranean and 17% Southwest Asian percentages arrived later, with the spread of agriculture from the Fer�le Crescent in the Middle East, over the past 10,000 years. As these early farmers moved into Europe, they spread their gene�c pa�erns as well. Today, northern European popula�ons retain their links to both the earliest Europeans and these later migrants from the Middle East.

Your second reference popula�on: German This reference popula�on is based on samples collected from people na�ve to Germany. The dominant 46% Northern European component likely reflects the earliest se�lers in Europe, huntergatherers who arrived there more than 35,000 years ago. The 36% Mediterranean and 17% Southwest Asian percentages probably arrived later, with the spread of agriculture from the Fer�le Crescent in the Middle East over the past 10,000 years. As these early farmers moved into Europe, they spread their gene�c pa�erns as well. Today, northern and central European popula�ons retain links to both the earliest Europeans and these later migrants from the Middle East.

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WHO AM I? 44% Northern European This component of your ancestry is found at highest frequency in northern European populations—people from the UK, Denmark, Finland, Russia, and Germany in our reference populations. While not limited to these groups, it is found at lower frequencies throughout the rest of Europe. This component is likely the signal of the earliest huntergatherer inhabitants of Europe, who were the last to make the transition to agriculture as it moved in from the Middle East during the Neolithic period around 8,000 years ago. 38% Mediterranean This component of your ancestry is found at highest frequencies in southern Europe and the Levant— people from Sardinia, Italy, Greece, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia in our reference populations. While not limited to these groups, it is found at lower frequencies

throughout the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Central and South Asia. This component is likely the signal of the Neolithic population expansion from the Middle East, beginning around 8,000 years ago, likely from the western part of the Fertile Crescent. 18% Southwest Asian This component of your ancestry is found at highest frequencies in India and neighboring populations, including Tajikistan and Iran in our reference dataset. It is also found at lower frequencies in Europe and North Africa. As with the Mediterranean component, it was likely spread during the Neolithic expansion, perhaps from the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent. Individuals with heavy European influence in their ancestry will show traces of this because all Europeans have mixed with people from Southwest Asia over tens of thousands of years.


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McCaulley Legends of John Roy (b. c1490)

Origins of the Feud n August about 1500 the brother of the Chief of Lewis was Old Norman Macleod, who lived at the island of Pabbay, which lies one mile to the northward of Kneep and Valtos; Norman Oig, his eldest son, had the farm of Balnakil, three miles distant on the shore of the bay of Uig. Macleod, the Chief of Lewis, allowed the whole rental of the parish of Uig for the support of his brother Norman and his family. It was at this time that the sons of Dugald Macaulay held the farm of Berry or Reef, and the two adjacent farms of Valtos and Kneep. It was upon one or another of these farms that Old Norman had to land or embark his ca�le and sheep as they passed to or from the island of Pabbay. On one

Photo: Paolo Chiabrando

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occasion, as Old Norman’s ca�le were being ferried from Kneep, a cow belonging to the Macaulays happened to be among them. The herdsman of the Macaulays claimed the cow, but the Macleods refused to give it up, saying it was one of their own. When this altercation was reported to the sons of Dugald Macaulay, they repaired in a hurry to the shore at Kneep, and arrived there just as Old Norman, who was in the boat, had hold of the cow’s tether with both his hands. The Macaulays demanded the cow, which Old Norman still refused to yield; they then seized the tether and dragged it with violence from Old Norman, by which he was thrown forward in the boat and two of his teeth

Note: Stories adapted from Thomas, F. 1880. “Traditions of the Macaulays of Lewis,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 14: 363–431.

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Above: Beach on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, UK. David Wheater.

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were knocked out by striking against a timber. The old man suffered much pain and loss of blood, and took to his bed when he got back to Pabbay, but, knowing the vindictive temper of his wife and sons, he concealed the cause of his accident, and cautioned his servants to do the same; they, however, disobeyed him. When the sons returned from the Flannen Isles, the wife, wishing to add fuel to flame, placed on the table before them the two teeth which Old Norman had lost in the struggle. In great exasperation the Macleods landed that night at Reef when the people were to bed, and murdered all the Macaulays they could find. The Macleods sought fiercely for any male of the Macaulay clan, and finding Malcolm, who had at first been hidden by his nurse, they hesitated as to whether they should kill him or not,

till one of the murderers flung him over a park wall, by which the child’s leg was broken. The murderers jestingly remarked that if reprisals were not made till they were made by that boy they need never be on the outlook. The screams and shouts occasioned by these savage murders were heard over the surrounding farms, and across the sea to Pabbay; and Old Norman said, “What doleful cry is that ashore at Kneep?” His wicked wife replied that her whelps had now plenty of blood about their teeth, alluding at once to the disaster which had befallen Old Norman, and to the murderous deeds of her sons. When the old man understood what had been done at her instigation, he exclaimed, in great sorrow, “Oh! wicked woman; for the vile murders which you have advised your sons to do this night a time shall come when they too shall be killed, and none shall escape.” *** John Roy Avoids the Slaughter One of the sons of Dugald Macaulay escaped the slaughter; this was John Roy, who was “being fostered” by Finlay Ciar


Macritchie, at Mealista, at the “farther” end of Uig. John Roy was now without family or friends, and destitute of all means of defending himself from the rapacious Macleods. But while the desperate condition of John Roy was being considered by his foster-father, a messenger came, with the authority and approbation of the Chief at Stornoway, and delivered himself to this effect. The rash murders which had been commi�ed on John Roy’s friends and brothers by Old Norman’s sons had incurred his highest displeasure; to make some amends, it was the wish of the Chief that his brother Norman should take John Roy into his family and show him every mark of kindness—the Macleods solemnly binding themselves to protect him from every injury by their arms and persons. Under these binding and secure obligations John Roy Macaulay came into the family of Norman Macleod at Pabbay. But notwithstanding these plausible engagements of the Macleods, John Roy’s foster-father, Finlay Ciar Macritchie, was always restless on his account—doubting the sincerity and the veracity of the Macleods.

*** Macleods Threaten John Roy When John Roy was thirteen years of age, the Macleods, ever replete with malice, proposed a hunting party to the wild forest that borders upon Harris. It was the month of November, and much snow had fallen upon the hills; toward evening these young men repaired to a shieling (a hut), called Tota Kenneth, a Lewis mile to the southward of Ken Resort. Here they were to pass the night; but, without pity or remorse, the Macleods seized John Roy and bound him hand and foot, then stripping him to his shirt they tied him to a large stone, and left him upon the bare snow, exposed to all the horrors of a dark and bi�er night. In vain he entreated these merciless men to spare his life and he would engage to forget and forgive all that had passed before, but they left him there to perish, and turned a deaf ear to his cries and entreaties. But while this black tragedy was being perpetrated, Finlay Ciar, at Mealista, which is seven Lewis miles from where his beloved and adopted son, John Roy, was lying bound and exposed to the in-

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clemency of the snowy night, this Finlay Ciar was suddenly warned in his sleep of the hapless situation of his foster son at Tota Kenneth. In great alarm poor Finlay Ciar waked up and told his wife what he had dreamed, but she said that restlessness and anxiety had wrought upon his imagination. He turned himself to sleep, and again a spirit came before him and repeated with greater earnestness the former warning.* His wife tried to persuade him that what he dreamed was the effect of his disturbed and anxious mind, and bade him try to sleep. But he had hardly closed his eyes when the spirit appeared, and directed him to rise and save his foster son ere it was too late. Finlay Ciar now got up, and made his wife milk the cows, which were in the house, into a craggan (a primitive form of native po�ery), and boil it on the fire; when it was boiling hot he wrapped the craggan in a skin, and on a frosty moonlight night set off for Tota Kenneth. There he found John Roy bound hand and foot, and almost dead from cold and hunger;

but he soon revived the boy by a great draught of the warm milk, and, wrapping him in his big coat, he took him on his back and returned to Mealista before daylight. *** John Roy Escapes The sons of Old Norman MacLeod, frustrated in their design of extirpating the worthy Macaulay family, were determined to deprive John Roy of life, but his watchful protector, Finlay Ciar, dreading their renewed a�empts, sent him away, well armed and clothed, with a faithful a�endant to a secluded retreat among the hills, where there was a cave, called Uamh Tayval. This cave, besides having two entrances by which a ready escape could be made, had a peculiar advantage, for no person could approach it without warning being given by a nicely balanced stone which made a grating noise when it was trod upon. In this cave the anxious Finlay placed his dear John Roy until a favorable time should arrive for sending him away. While they were in the

* To those who object to the supernatural in this narrative it may be submi�ed that Finlay Ciar had heard of this hunting expedition, which was often an excuse for something very different, and that he suspected mischief.

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cave John Roy and his a�endant took turns to watch, and they had not been there many nights before the warning-stone announced the approach of an enemy in sufficient time to allow John Roy to escape by the opposite outlet, but his a�endant was captured and secured by Old Norman’s sons. John Roy fled across the river, but when daylight came he drew near to the Macleods and said: “Allow my servant to return at once, or every arrow that I shoot shall have one of you upon its point so long as any one of you is left alive.” The Macleods, knowing well the skill and courage of the young Macaulay, were discouraged; they permi�ed his servant to rejoin him and gave up the pursuit. *** John Roy Returns John Roy having now arrived at manhood, Maclean of Lochbuie wrote to the chief of Lewis desiring him to compel his nephews to make restitution of the property belonging to the deceased Macaulays, or he would send that now accomplished soldier, John Roy Macaulay, to Lewis, to demand his rights by force of arms. The chief of Lewis replied that he was highly

incensed at the treacherous conduct of his nephews, whom he believed to be ruthless and incorrigible, and that if John Roy revenged their misdeeds upon the guilty parties he would give him the best farm in Uig free for life. When Lochbuie received this encouraging le�er he called John Roy before him; he tried him in the use of the broadsword and other martial accomplishments, and finding him in every respect a worthy gentleman and soldier, he showed him the le�er from the chief of Lewis. John Roy was ready, even single handed, to return to Lewis and seek revenge upon the murderers of his father’s family. Maclean offered men and arms to assist him in his adventure, but John Roy would only accept the services of one a�endant, and was landed from Maclean’s galley in Harris, from whence he went to Mealista, where he was received with much joy by his foster father, Finlay Ciar; and the same evening he traveled on to Pennydonald, within a mile of Balnakil, the farm of Norman Oig Macleod. Now it is told by those who narrate this story that, during the seven years that

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John Roy had been away from Lewis, Norman Oig, betraying his guilty conscience and always dreading revenge, watched for several hours every day at a ravine which is behind the Manse of Uig. It was on a Saturday evening that John Roy came to Pennydonald, on the southern shore of the sands of Uig, and it happened that two of Norman Oig’s personal a�endants came across the sands the same evening; both were seized, and in order to save their lives they were made to take an oath of secrecy and to promise that if it should be discovered that John Roy was approaching Uig on the morrow, they would endeavor to hinder Norman Oig from reaching the sanctuary. About the noon of Sunday the people began to gather for going to the church, and Norman Oig, had as usual gone to look out from the Skor, when suddenly he exclaimed, “What tall man can this be who is coming over the sands?” His fellows said it was one of the parish people on his way to church. But Norman Oig continued to gaze with great anxiety, and said, “If John Roy Macaulay is alive

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it is he!” His a�endants dissuaded him from the idea, but Norman looked ruefully toward the crowd and said, “I shall soon know, for John Roy, whenever he came to a river, always drew his bonnet firmly on his head before he we�ed his feet.” By this time John Roy was about to cross the river, and, as usual, put his hand to his bonnet. “It is he,” exclaimed Norman Oig, and began running to get within the walls of the sanctuary. His a�endants tried to hinder him, still he was driving them before him. John Roy observed the struggle and rushed forward. By this time Norman had got clear of his two men and was running for the sanctuary. John Roy, wanting no stimulus, ran fast, and before Norman could leap the wall of the sanctuary John Roy had overtaken him and thrust him through the body with his sword. John Roy then went on, intending to reach Pabbay that same night, but when he came to Valtos he found that two of Old Norman’s sons were on shore, and both being taken by surprise, were killed there. The only son of Old Norman now remaining was one who was fostered


at Lochs, and who had not been concerned in the slaughter of the Macaulays. John Roy got a boat and went across to Pabbay, and there in scorn and contempt of the wicked woman who had been the cause of all these misfortunes, he ordered her clothes to be cut off from below her waist, and made her fly from the country to her native home in Skye. John Roy then directed that one-third of the ca�le and goods should be set aside for Old Norman, and kept the rest for himself. He then went on toward Stornoway to see the chief of Lewis, and on the way was joined by his natural brother, Malcolm, the one who was thrown over the wall on the night of the murders. As they were drawing near Stornoway, who should come right upon them but the only son of

Old Norman Macleod, who, as he was not present at the murders in Uig, was permi�ed to visit his uncle at the castle. The lad knew John Roy at once, and said, “Mercy, mercy, Macaulay.” John Roy replied, “I will grant you mercy if the young man behind me will do so.” On hearing this the young Macleod ran down the hill to swim to the castle, but before he could cross an arrow was discharged which wounded him in the back of the head. Macleod, the chief, seeing all this from his castle, said, “Let John Roy have the benefit of his shot,” and would not suffer his nephew to land: the poor lad turned back to Aird Chlerich and was there killed; thus did Macaulay repay their wicked deeds to the Uig Macleods.

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McCaulley Dòmhnall Cam (b. c1560): Notorious renegade Donald Cam Macaulay and Alister Smallheel Macleod n 1597 some degree of peace was enjoyed in Lewis under the government of Torquil Dubh Macleod, son of Old Rorie. Torquil Dubh had been fostered in Uig under the guard of Donald Cam and twenty-eight stout Macaulays. Torquil Dubh was hunting for rabbits in his nightshirt, on a li�le island opposite Valtos, when a message came from John Morrison, Brieve of Lewis, inviting Torquil Dubh, Donald Cam, and their friends to a feast at Ness, on board a foreign vessel which he had captured. But the Brieve treacherously concealed a party of the best warriors of his clan in the ship, of whom the doughtiest was John Roy Mackay, who

I

lived at North Bragir, in Barvas. The guests were seated round the table and enjoyed themselves for some hours, their arms having been deposited elsewhere. It was ge�ing dark, and everything being ready, the ship’s cable was silently cut and she drifted into the open sea. Presently the ship began to roll; Donald Cam jumped on deck, and, seeing the state of ma�ers, cried out to Torquil Dubh that they were betrayed. He rushed to where his arms had been laid, but they had been removed, and then the Brieve’s party, who had been concealed, stood forth with swords and daggers. The gigantic Mackay seized Donald Cam, and, while others stood by with their swords to his breast, lashed

Note: Stories adapted from Thomas, F. 1880. “Traditions of the Macaulays of Lewis,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 14: 363–431.

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Lord, grant that I may always be right, for thou knowest I am hard to turn. —Scots-Irish Prayer him to the mast. Torquil Dubh was bound by another party of ruffians, and the ship was steered for Ullapool, the residence of the pseudo-brother of Torquil Dubh. The prisoners were landed; Donald Cam and his son-in-law, Alister Smallheel Macleod, were fe�ered by a heavy chain to a large block like an anvil, which weighed eleven Dutch stones. It is told that the prisoners were chained in pairs si�ing with their backs to the wall, Torquil and another being at the top, and Donald Cam with Alister Macleod were the last. While si�ing in this disconsolate manner a man suddenly entered, having in his hand a bunch of twigs of sycamore. He walked along the row, beginning at the top, presenting the bunch in passing as if he meant that each should help himself from it. Being absorbed in anxiety and despair, they took li�le notice of the man, and perhaps thought he had come to mock their misery. But when the bunch was

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proffered to Donald Cam, although he was in as forlorn a condition as any of the rest, he was so irascible by disposition, that he clutched at and snatched away some of the twigs, and Alister followed his example, and they noted afterwards that they were the only two who escaped with life. While Donald Cam and his companion were brooding over their misfortunes, Alister remembered that one of his feet was smaller than the other, and that it was the small one that was in the fe�er. With li�le difficulty he extricated himself, helped to place the block and chain on the back of Donald Cam, and both got away. They lurked in the woods all next day, but the boats were everywhere turned upside down, and not an oar was left outside a house. But the fugitives succeeded in reaching Applecross, and there found an old boat, but so leaky that they had to stop the seams with clay, and their only


oars were the bars from the gate of a ca�le-pen. They started in the direction of Skye; but by this time Donald Cam was so far spent by misery and the intolerable weight of his chain, that, rendered desperate by his misfortunes, he gave up rowing and baling when but halfway across, and sat gloomily down in the stern of the boat. At this failure on the part of Donald Cam, Alister did not say one word, but awhile he rowed and awhile he baled, till at last they reached Skye. When they got to land Alister asked Donald Cam why he had given up rowing when they were but halfway across. Donald said he was so galled by his chains and irritated by his misfortunes that he thought by si�ing idle in the leaky boat he would provoke Alister to quarrel, that then they would fight and both would perish together. Alister suspected such was his intention, and, knowing the danger, avoided offending him, and rowed and baled as best he could. They were kindly received at Dunvegan, and a smith took off the chain which was linked round Donald Cam’s neck and leg. The iron chain was kept for many years at Dunvegan as

a convincing proof of the strength and endurance of Donald Cam; but once, when Macleod was from home, a blacksmith converted it to some domestic use. After the adventurers had recruited their strength and procured new arms, they crossed the sea to Harris and came on to Uig, their native place. There was much joy on their safe arrival among their friends and relations, who had had no hope of ever seeing them again. When the Brieve of Lewis found that Donald Cam and Alister Smallheel had escaped, he hastened home in much alarm, dreading invasion from the Macaulays, and prepared for defense by endeavoring to procure the a�achment and assistance of the ablest of the Ness warriors. *** John Mor Mackay of Bragir When John Mor Mackay came back from Ullapool with John Morrison, Brieve of Lewis, he began at once, from fear of a�ack by Donald Cam Macaulay, to fortify himself in Dun Bragir, in which he built a hut for himself and his wife. But she was a niece of Donald Cam, and deeply resented the treachery acted toward

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him by her husband. John Mor Mackay was of such uncommon size and strength as to be reckoned one of the giants of the country, yet he dreaded danger when he heard that Donald Cam had got to Uig, and well he might. After Donald Cam had returned he mustered all the Uig warriors; he picked out twelve of the strongest, and who were also the best swordsmen, and sent them away to take John Mackay, dead or alive. These twelve, fully equipped, set out for Bragir, and arrived at the shore of the loch by night. They got a boat and rowed to the dun, and without delay entered the hut in which Mackay was in bed. They a�acked him furiously, yet he defended himself with advantage against the twelve. They then closed and grappled with him, but their combined strength could not bring him to the ground. His wife then cried out: “What poor fellows! did you never see a boar libbed?” Acting on this treacherous hint they brought him down, and bound him hand and foot. In the morning the Macaulays set off with their prisoner, with his hands tied behind him, and secured (in a cruel manner) by a rope, of which six of the

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Macaulays had hold in front, and six behind. Nevertheless, when the party was fording the Grimersta river at Linshader, Mackay made a lunge in one direction, by which he overthrew the six Macaulays who were in front, and then by a lunge in the opposite direction he brought down those who were behind; he was unable, however, to make his escape. Soon after they arrived at Kirkibost, in Bernera, and there rested with their prisoner, while information was sent to Donald Cam of the success of their adventure. The next day all the people of Uig repaired to Kirkibost, and last of all came Donald Cam. Mackay had sent a man to watch the approach of Donald Cam from Ballyglom, and particularly to notice whether he was looking up or looking down. The man returned and said that Donald Cam had his head so bent as if he were seeking for small pins on the ground. When Mackay heard this he said—“The Lord pity my case this day, for by this I know that he has determined on full revenge.” When Donald Cam came up Mackay cried out— “Mercy, mercy, oh, son of Dugald!” but he was coldly reminded that he had received no mercy, but had


even been treated with unnecessary indignity, when a prisoner on board the ship. With li�le ceremony it was decreed that John Mor Mackay should die on that very day, and that every man should give him a cut with a sword. *** The Red Weaver The grant which John Roy Macaulay obtained from the Chief of Lewis of the farm of Crolista, described it as an eight-farthings land. On obtaining it John Roy intimated to the tenants that they would have to remove, as the land was his for life. There was then living at Crolista a man called the Breabadair Ruadh, or the Red Weaver, who held the ninth part of that farm, and who was ordered to remove along with the rest. This man went to the Chief at Stornoway and told him that lie, the Red Weaver, and those before him, had always been at Crolista, and asked to retain the one-farthing land, “which was not contained in John Roy’s grant.” The Chief directed that the Red Weaver should not be disturbed in his holding. The Red Weaver, exulting in his success, returned to Uig, and made the same known

to John Roy, and ever afterward the Red Weaver was a thorn in his flesh, and a bi�er ingredient in his cup. The Red Weaver was offered the ninth part of the lands of Crolista in one piece, but he insisted upon having the ninth part of every farthingland in the place, and enclosed each by a dike the ruins of which may be seen to this day. Although the Red Weaver gave all this trouble to John Roy, he yet forbore to molest him. The Red Weaver had now become old, and had lain in bed for some years in a house at Kirkibost, and on the occasion of Mackay’s execution Donald Cam ordered the old weaver, in revenge of the trouble he had given, to be brought out of the house and killed on Cnoc na miChomhairle, i.e., the Hill of Evil or Unfortunate Counsel, which name it still retains. After these tragedies the terror of Donald Cam spread far and wide. Shortly after this Donald Cam married a daughter of Finlay Maclaran, who had the farm of North Galson, and had several children by her. *** The South Dell Tenants We ought in our own day to be very thankful to that Divine Providence

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which has dispelled the barbarous darkness and depression from our land, and shed upon it the light of the Gospel, for there are many things related of the hero, Donald Cam, which are revolting to humanity. It is told that Donald Cam had a foster-mother who used to go about the country begging for meal, etc. She was at one time down at Ness, gathering meal in summer, and she was returning by South Dell, in which there were then six tenants. The tenants, seeing a woman with a bag of meal on her back, agreed with her to let them have the meal till the following harvest, when they would pay it back, and more besides. To this the woman consented, yet when she returned to Uig, and Donald Cam asked her what success she had had at Ness, she complained that the tenants at South Dell had taken the meal from her without giving her anything in return. Donald Cam went to Ness, and when he came to Dell these poor tenants were in the ebb, seeking shell-fish for food, for those were years of great scarcity. Donald Cam waited at the floodmark till these poor victims came up to him. He asked them no questions, but ordered each to dig his own

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grave; and when they had done so, he killed all the six, and buried them there. *** Starving the Blind Woman Donald Cam and the Gow Ban (of whom more anon) were one day walking together at Kneep, close by a small bothy in which an old blind woman lived. Some of the tenants’ wives were si�ing outside the bothy talking together, and one of them remarked that they need have no fear of an enemy a�empting to invade or plunder them, for there were few like Donald Cam and the Gow Ban in all the country. The blind woman from within asked who were they whom they were praising so much? On being told, she indignantly exclaimed: “Had you seen the men who fought the ba�le of Machir-house; I say had you seen those heroes who repulsed and killed a Danish pirate and crew, you would not say that either Donald Cam or the Big Smith is a man of such valour and prowess.” Donald Cam and the smith asked what the blind woman inside was talking about, and when the women told them, they fell to and blocked up the door of the bothy with stones, and threatened with


instant death anyone who should give food or drink to the old blind woman, so being left to starve she soon died. The ba�le alluded to was fought by a Danish pirate who landed his men at Berry or Reef, and who thought to plunder the country with impunity; but the clans faced the Danes as they landed and a bloody ba�le ensued, when all the Danes except three were killed on the spot, and of the three who ran to their boat to save themselves, one was shot dead by an arrow. It was the warriors in this ba�le to whom the blind woman alluded, and for which she was starved to death. *** John Du Chroig At a time when the Morrisons, the Macaulays, and the Macleods were somewhat at peace, word was brought that a well-armed ship was at Barra, which it was conjectured had been sent to subjugate the Long Island clans, and to bring the guilty to punishment. The clans in Lewis held a council of war, with the result that they set off in a body in the Judge’s galley and two other large schuyts, and the next day boarded the ship and killed all the

crew, except one man, his wife, and their child, who had the Gaelic speech. The boy was John Du Chroig, i.e., Big-fisted Dark John, and it is from him that the Mackimions of this part of Lewis are sprung. Donald Cam made choice of him as his personal a�endant; he was active and clever, and could keep Donald Cam at bay with the small sword, but he had not strength to play the broad sword. Donald Cam had to betake himself to places of retreat in the most sequestered parts of Uig, in duns, upon islands in the lakes, or in caves, to which he and his friends could resort safe from the invasion of their enemies, or when they did not think proper to engage at a disadvantage. Donald Cam and John Du Chroig took up their abode on an island in Loch Burravat, a lake a few miles to the westward of the Manse of Uig. There are still to be seen the ruins of a dun upon the island, which was approached on the north side by very large steppingstones; those which are near the shore are above water, but farther out they are submerged. Those stones which are above water are in the same straight line, but where the submergence begins the stones are farther

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apart, and a large bend or divergence takes place in their direction; this is a stratagem to drown an enemy who should a�empt to invade the island in the nighttime. Here the two spent some time, living mostly on fish and venison. They had a boat at Gallon Head, which they used to hide in such a way that no enemy could steal or find it. One day they were out fishing, when John Du Chroig was pulling, and his master was hauling in the long lines. The sea was rather rough, but John Du was doing his best, when his master said: “Pull the boat ahead be�er.” John Du replied: “Be�er I cannot do, and what I cannot do you may do yourself.” Donald Cam let go the fishing-line and drew his dagger; John Du, perceiving this, instantly launched both oars out of the boat, and he himself plunged into the sea. John Du struck out for the beach at Aird Uig, where he got on shore, went home to the island in the lake, made a good fire, swept the house, and put everything in order. Donald Cam, being deprived of the oars, was tossed about for some time till he was able to get hold of one oar and then the other; he hauled up the lines and went on shore, much de-

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jected at the loss of John Du Chroig, whom he supposed to be drowned; but when Donald Cam came in sight of the lake, he saw, to his great joy, smoke ascending from the dun. When Donald Cam came in he found the house in order and John Du si�ing before a roaring fire. After Donald Cam had sat down and warmed himself, he turned to John Du, and said: “You foolish fellow, what made you throw the oars out of boat?” John Du replied that if he had not thrown the oars out of the boat he might as well have remained there himself, and that it was the only way to escape from his senseless fury. Donald Cam said nothing, but smiled, and bade John Du get the supper ready. John Du Chroig was one summer season fishing in the sound of Shiant, and living on the islands opposite the Park. It was a time of great scarcity, and as there was no provision at home, he had brought his aged mother along with him. She had been there but a few days when she died. John was now in a great dilemma, for he wished his mother to be buried at Uig, at the same time he was loath to lose his fishing. To obtain both objects he disembowelled the corpse, and


hung it up to dry in a cave, and when the fishing was over he carried the body of his mother home to Uig, and buried it among her friends and relations. This proceeding was rather barbarous, yet considering the times and the want of cultivation in uneducated men, we must excuse John Du Chroig. *** The Gow Ban One of the best warriors of the parish of Uig was the Gow Ban, i.e., the Fairhaired Smith, who lived at Kneep, quite close to Donald Cam, who was se�led at Valtos. The Gow Ban was a stronger man than Donald Cam, but was not so clever with the sword. The smith had a cess of grain from the parish, and when a cow was killed for domestic use, the smith had a right to the head; but Donald Cam had neglected to pay his dues to the smith for seven years. It happened that a horse belonging to Donald Cam fell over a cliff and was killed. Donald Cam had the head of the horse skinned and sent to the Gow Ban. The smith saw plainly that it was the head of a horse; however, he said nothing about it, but ordered the

head to be dried and taken care of. Not long after Donald Cam sent his servants to the smith with iron to make new, and repair old, work; but the smith put all the iron together into the fire and welded it into one lump; he then told Donald Cam’s servants to take the iron to their master, and tell him that he would not do a stroke of work for him until the seven years’ dues had been paid. When the servants were gone, the Gow Ban, as he was no match for Donald Cam with the sword, took the precaution to make red-hot about six feet of a long iron bar. As he expected, Donald Cam was soon seen coming along in ba�le array, on which the smith came out of the smiddy with the hot iron bar, by which he forced Donald Cam to fall back, and he went home greatly displeased. The next day Donald Cam returned, and promised to pay the smith all the dues which had been owing to him so long, on which they became friends, and the smith invited Donald Cam to dine with him on the morrow. The smith gave orders to make ready mu�on and beef, and also to have the horse’s head boiled in a separate pot, and presented

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as if it had been a cow’s head. After that they had sat down to dinner, Donald Cam said: “This beef and mu�on are too fat to please me, help me to some of that cow’s head.” The smith was now at the summit of his design, and handed the dish with the horse’s head to Donald Cam. He wrought at it for a good while, when the smith asked him how he liked the head. Macaulay liked the head-beef very well; it was savoury and delicious. “Well,” said the smith, “that is the very head you sent me lately from your own house.”* At this, Donald Cam started up and went home. The smith well knew what to expect, so he went to the smiddy and had recourse to his friend the iron bar, and not before it was time. For presently Donald Cam was seen hurrying over the road, but the smith went out with his hot iron bar, and Donald Cam was a second time repulsed. Yet for all that, when there was any emergency Donald Cam would always have the Gow Ban with him.

*** Ba�le of the West Side It is told that a ship came to anchor at Esnishgarry, close to Kirkibost, Bernera. Neil Macleod and Donald Cam headed a party of the islanders, boarded the ship, and killed all the crew; they found so much money in the ship that Donald Cam’s helmet was used to mete it out. In consequence of this piracy a cruiser was sent to Stornoway, and the castle was occupied, but Donald Cam and his two brothers retook the castle and killed most of the invaders; but one of the brothers was killed at South Beach by a shot from the castle. On this repulse the King of Scotland gave permission to anyone to conquer Lewis. This encouraged Macdonald of the Isles to invade Lewis with a large body of men, on which Neil Macleod called upon the clans to stand up for their country. At this time there was a tribe of men, called Maclaren, dwelling on the west side of Lewis, who, on the promise that if successful they should hold their lands free, or, if otherwise, they should have

* There is something more in this tale than merely tricking Donald Cam into eating his own horse-beef. To eat horse-flesh was a mark of idolatry, and an abomination to the Christian Northmen, and it was a great insult to reproach a man with having done it; so to trick Donald Cam into eating horseflesh, was to make him appear as if he was no Christian.

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lands given them in Skye, had pledged to support Macdonald. So when the Ba�le of the West Side began, Macdonald called out: “Separate, separate yourselves, Maclarens; do today as you promised yesterday.” Then one hundred and forty of the Maclarens, wearing blue bonnets, went over to Macdonald’s army. The ba�le lasted the whole day, but the Macdonalds and Maclarens were worsted. Macdonald himself narrowly escaped, and but few of his men, or of the Maclarens, succeeded in reaching Skye. Instead of lands Macdonald only gave them a cow and a boll of meal, and told them to go about their business, for that he could have no confidence in them as they had betrayed their country and their chief. The Maclarens never had any footing in the island after that memorable ba�le. *** Burning of the Morrisons in Dun Carloway Donald Cam and the Big Smith went one summer season to the Flannan Isles, and the Morrisons of Ness, hearing the Macaulays were from home, came and drove away the cows from the moor, for there was no one to oppose the invaders.

When the party from the Flannan Isles came back, the wives told what the Morrisons had done. The Macaulays immediately started in their boats across Loch Roag, to try and overtake the spoil. When they came to the opposite shore, they saw that the cows were grazing near a loch, by which they knew that the Morrisons were in the strong fortress of Dun Carloway. The Macaulays rested themselves by the shore for the night, and, on the morning, as they were exhausted for want of food, Donald Cam and the Big Smith went alone to reconnoitre. When they got near the dun they saw a large ke�le over a fire, and a whole carcass of one of the plundered cows was in it, and a man was lying asleep near the fire. The Big Smith held the man till Donald Cam drew out the beef, and then they threw the cook into the ke�le. The smith rolled the boiled beef in his plaid and carried it to his famishing party, while Donald Cam went toward the dun. The Macaulays having come up, Donald Cam stabbed the sentry at the door of the dun, and left the Big Smith there to prevent anyone from coming out. Macaulay then climbed the

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walls of the dun by means of two dirks or daggers as steps, changing them by turns until he got to the top of this uncouth edifice. The dun tapered, till at the top it was covered by one large flat stone. Donald Cam ordered his men to pull heather and make it into large bundles, which he threw into the area of the fortress, and when it was full he set fire to the heather, and so smothered and burnt all the inmates. Then the Macaulays demolished that old fabric called Dun Carloway, which was built in the fourth century by a giant named Darg mac Nu-aran. There are two other similar duns in the parish of Uig, which were built and inhabited by two brothers of Darg; the one at the Sands of Uig belonged to Knock mac Nu-aran; the other, at Kirkibost, Bernera, where Tid mac Nu-aran dwelt.

Above: Stac Dhomnuill Chaim, drawing by F.W.L. Thomas. 1890.

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*** Ba�le of Drum na’ Càrnon The sons of the Brieve, John Morrison, went to Rona to gather eggs, seafowl, etc.; and when this was known at Uig the Macaulays started for Ness to plunder the ca�le of the Morrisons. The Brieve was old and blind, and there was no one there to oppose the

spoilers, so all the ca�le were driven away. The old Brieve sent a man to watch for the return of his sons, and when he heard that they were approaching, he ordered the greatest variety of food to be carried to meet them at the shore; and also the bearers were to observe particularly what the sons would do when they were told of the disaster. When the Morrisons heard what had happened, they did not stay to partake of the feast, but taking a large draught of ale and a lump of beef in hand, they set off in pursuit of the Macaulays. This was told to the Brieve; he then said, “As sure as they partook of the beef and of the ale, they will be hearty and strong, and ere they return they will give cause to many of deep sorrow.” They overtook the Macaulays at Brue, the first village west of Barvas, and a�acked them, killing a great many, and their graves are pointed out to this day. The Morrisons encountered the Macaulays again at Arnol, in such manner that only three escaped— Zachary Macaulay, and two of his near relations. The Morrisons pursued them as far as Carloway, and were about to give up the chase; but, on meeting an


illegitimate brother who dwelt there, he persuaded them to follow on to Callernish, as he was sure he knew the place to which the fugitives would retreat. When they got to Callernish he led them to the brink of a rock, below which there was a score, like a bed-place, in which Zachary and his two companions were sleeping, and it is still called Zachary’s bed. The Morrisons were for leaving them unharmed; but when the brother from Carloway heard this, he took a dagger in each hand, jumped down upon the breast of the sleeping Zachary, which was crushed by his weight; and he stabbed the other two. When the Breive heard what had been done he was much displeased, and cautioned his sons to have no dealings with him of Carloway, for his ungovernable passion was not to be trusted. It is told of this wretch that once, when he was leaving Carloway, his child cried after him and was not willing to return home, when the brutish father seized hold of the child and hurled it into the river. When Neil Macleod fortified himself at Berrisary Donald Cam did the same on a rock to the westward of Uig, which has since been

called “Donald Cam’s Stack.” He was there a�ended by his daughter, known as “Big Anne,” who used to carry to him milk and other provisions over the sharp and dangerous crag which connects the high rock with the mainland. But after a time, so says tradition, he embarked for Ireland, and, having greatly distinguished himself there, he received a pardon for all past offences, and se�led down quietly in Uig, where he devoted himself to farming and the welfare of his family, and there died before he became an old man. *** The Fortune-Teller One Christmas Angus Macaulay had collected his friends and kinsman to pass

Above: Stac Dhomhnuill Chaim. Inlet on the coast beyond Mangurstadh. 2008. Photo: Duncan Grey.

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the festive season at Brenish. At that time a fortune-teller came to the house while Donald Cam and the rest were enjoying themselves in their room. It seems the fortune-teller, who was in the kitchen, was not pleased with his treatment. He was a palmister, and pretended to foretell events by looking into the palms of his hands; so he foretold to the servants that the master of that house would not live to enjoy many more Christmases after the present. This prediction came to the ears of the goodwife, and her countenance at once bespoke the trouble of her mind. This was observed by all the guests, and her husband wanted to know what was the ma�er. She was very unwilling to tell, but as they all insisted on knowing, she at last said that the palmister had predicted a short life to her husband. Donald Cam bade the mistress go to the fortune-teller and ask him how long he (the fortuneteller) had yet to live. The mistress went down and asked the question, when the palmister looked into the palm of one of his hands, and concluded from what he saw that he would have a long life. The

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mistress returned to the room and reported what the palmister had said. Donald Cam replied that one of the predictions was false, and took hold of the Gliamn, a name which he gave to his gun. The servants perceiving this, told the fortune-teller to escape, which he a�empted to do, but Donald Cam ran after him and shot him near the house at Brenish, at a spot since then called Leob a Phalmaistear, or the Palmister’s Rig. *** Conclusions and Clarifications These traditions of Donald Cam have usually a foundation in fact, but the dates, and the names of persons and places, are often much confused; these may be corrected, in some degree, by comparing together the parallel traditions from different parts of Lewis. It is to be remarked, as showing the weight of power, that the sinister influence exerted by the Mackenzies on the fortunes of the Siol Torquil is altogether suppressed or ignored; the bards have found it convenient to make their narratives agreeable to the reigning dynasty. The first notice of Don-


ald Cam is that he was one of seven persons who were seized, along with the young Chief of Lewis, Torquil Du, by the Brieve of Lewis. Torquil Du was murdered at Ullapool in July 1597; Donald Cam, however along with Alister Smallheel Macleod, escaped to Dunvegan, and, on their return to Uig, Donald Cam revenged himself on one of his captors, John Roy Mackay. In 1607 Stornoway Castle was taken by Neil Macleod, assisted by Donald Cam, on which occasion Angus, a brother of Donald Cam, was killed by a shot from the Castle. About this time the ship of Abel Dynes, a Bordeaux merchant, was piratically seized by the Macneil’s of Barra, in which transaction Donald Cam and other Lewis men were, it seems, likewise engaged. In the record of the Privy Council, 24th July 1610, there is: “Warrant to Rory MCleud of Hereiss to keep in his custody until the last day of May next, Donald Cam M’Coull and Mulcallum M’Coull to the effect the Lords of the Council may at that time give such other directions anent them as shall seem most meet and expedient for the quietness of the country.”

The traditions of Lewis are thus corroborated by Public Record. About this time Donald Cam must have fortified himself on the “Stack” which still bears his name. In 1613 Neil Macleod was, by a cruel stratagem, forced to evacuate his fortress, and it is probable that Donald Cam then made his peace with the Mackenzies. The story of Donald Cam Macaulay going to Ireland, of his being the hero of the Ba�le of Beul na Trochid, and, as a consequence, receiving the pardon of the Scotch government, seems based upon a ridiculous confusion. The Ba�le of Beul na Trochid, i.e., the Ba�le of the Mouth of the Bridge, was fought in 1495, and a Donald Cam was there, but it was Donald Cam Mac Dounchaid, a chief in Sligo. It is true that in 1595 Borie Mor Macleod of Harris (Ara) landed at Lough Foyle, with 600 men, to assist O’Donnell, and Donald Cam Macaulay may have been among them; but he would certainly not have received any reward from his own government, and, besides, we find him in rebellion long after that time.

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Dudley I

n 1716, Henry Gatewood married Dorothy Dudley in the Virginia Colony. Henry was a first-generation Virginian, but Dorothy’s family had already been in the colony for nearly a century. The Dudley family

can be traced back many more generations to connections with the Plantagenet kings of England, as shown in this tree, beginning with her parents Richard and Elizabeth.

Richard Dudley III 1663- ?

m. Elizabeth ? 1671- ?

Richard Dudley 1652-1698

m. Elizabeth Stephens 1639- ?

Col. Richard Dudley 1623-1695

m. Mary Seawell 1628-1645

Edward Dudley 1605-1655

m. Elizabeth Pritchard 1600-1691

Robert Dudley 1575- ?

m. Bridget Green 1569- ?

Sir Robert Dudley 1540-1613

m. Anne Wood 1556- ?

John Dudley 1520- ?

m. Bridget Carre 1520- ?

Richard Su�on Dudley 1500-1593

m. Dorothy Joan Sanford 1502- ?

Thomas Su�on 1487-1530

m. Grace Threlkeld 1490- ?

Edward Su�on, Baron Dudley 1459- ?

m. Cecily Willoughby parents: Sir William Willoughby and Joan Strangeways

Edmund Su�on, Lord Dudley 1425-1483

m. Ma�lda Clifford, Baroness 1442-1483

John Su�on, Lord Dudley 1400-1487

m. Elizabeth Berkeley 1400-1478

177


Baron John Su�on Dudley 1380-1406

m. Constance Blount 1380-1432

Baron John Su�on Dudley 1361-1395

m. Alice Le Despencer 1364-1392

Baron John Su�on Dudley 1329-1370

m Catherine Stafford 1340-1361 daughter of: Ralph de Stafford, Earl 1301-1372

m. Margaret De Sudley, Baroness 1312-1347 daughter of: Hugh de Audley, Earl of Gloucester 1289-1347

Hugh de Audley, Earl of Gloucester 1289-1347

m. Margaret de Clare, Countess of Gloucester & Her�ord 1292-1342 daughter of: Gilbert “the Red Earl” de Clare 1243-1295

Gilbert “the Red Earl” de Clare 1243-1295

Images: Top: Su�on Coat of Arms; Center: Geoffrey le Bon of Anjou; and Bo�om: Ma�lda, Empress of Germany.

178

m. Joan “of Acre,” Princess of England 1272-1307 daughter of: Edward I “Longsharks,” King of England 1239-1307

m. Leonore Princess of Cas�le and Leon, Queen of England 1244-1290

Henry III, King of England 1206-1272

m. Eleanor, Countess of Provence, Queen of England 1217-1291

John “Lackland,” King of England

m. Isabella de Taillefer, Queen of England

Henry II “Plantagenet,” King of England 1133-1189

m. Eleonore Princess of Aquitaine 1121-1204

Geoffrey V “Le Bon” Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy 1113-1151

m. Ma�lda, Empress of Germany 1102-1169 Daughter of: Henry I, King of England 1068-1135

m. Ma�lda of Scotland 1080-1118


Coleman Thomas Coleman—Pennsylvania Pioneer

T

homas Coleman was born in Cumberland County, in 1748, and resided in Logan Township, Blair County, near Altoona. It appears that at an early day the Coleman family lived on the west branch of the Susquehanna. Their habitation was remote from the se�lements, and their chief occupation was hunting and trapping in winter, boiling sugar in the spring, and tilling some ground they held during the summer months. Where they originally came from was rather a mystery, but they were evidently tolerably well educated, and had seen more refined life than the forest afforded. Nevertheless, they led an apparently happy life in the woods. There were three brothers of them, and what is not very common nowadays, they were passionately a�ached to each other.

Early in the spring, probably in the year 1763, while employed in boiling sugar, one of the brothers discovered the tracks of a bear, when it was resolved that the elder two should follow, and the younger remain to a�end to the sugar boiling. The brothers followed the tracks of the bear for several hours, but not overtaking him, agreed to return to the sugar camp. On their arrival they found the remains of their brother boiled to a jelly in the large iron ke�le—a sad and sickening sight, truly; but the authors of the blackhearted crime had left their sign-manual behind them, an old tomahawk, red with the gore of their victim, sunk into one of the props which supported the ke�le. They buried the remains as best they could, repaired to their home, broke up their camp, abandoned their

203


place a short time after, and moved to the Juniata valley. Their first location was near the mouth of the river, but gradually they worked their way west until they se�led somewhere in the neighborhood of the mouth of Spruce Creek, on the Li�le Juniata, about the year 1770. A few years later the two brothers, Thomas and Michael, the survivors of the family, moved to the base of the mountain, in what now constitutes Logan Township, near where Altoona stands. These men were fearless almost to a fault, and on the commencement of hostilities, or after the first predatory incursion of the Native Americans, it appears that Thomas gave himself up solely to hunting them. He was in all scouting parties that were projected, and always leading when danger threatened; and it has very aptly... been said of Coleman, that when no parties were willing to venture out, he shouldered his rifle and ranged the woods alone, in hopes of occasionally picking up a stray Native or two.

Above: Tombstone in Grandview Cemetery, Altoona, PA.

204

That his trusty rifle sent many a Native American to eternity there is no a doubt. He, however, never said so. He was never known to acknowledge to any of his intimate acquaintances that he had ever killed a Native; and yet, strange as it may seem, he came to Fort Fe�er on several occasions with rather ugly wounds upon his body, and his knife and tomahawk looked as if they had been used to some purpose. Occasionally, too, a dead Native was found in his tracks, but no one could tell who killed him. For such reserve Mr. Coleman probably had his own motives; but that his fights with the Native Americans were many and bloody is susceptible of proof even at this late day. We may incidentally mention that both the Colemans accompanied Capt. Blair’s expedition to overtake the Tories, and Thomas was one of the unfortunate “Bedford scouts.”¹ When applying for a pension in 1833, the following statement was submi�ed on Thomas’s behalf: “That in the year 1777, he, with a number

¹ The Blair County Historical Society set up a marker in 1923 whose inscription reads: "Forty-five rods east of this spot, along the Ki�anning War Path June 3, 1781, a detachment of the Bedford Scouts, under command of Captain Moore and Lieutenant Smith, was ambushed by Indians and Tories. Seventeen of the Scouts were killed and scalped and five wounded."


of his neighbors, who lived in what was then considered the very frontier se�lement ... then known as a part of County of Bedford, collected into a fort called Fe�ers, ... during which year he began to exert himself against the [Native Americans] and in the service of the United States; that in the month of November in the same year he discovered the tracks of a parcel of [Natives] pursuing the path from Ki�anning toward Frankstown; that he followed until he found them in the act of making their fires; that he immediately warned the inhabitants of the se�lement of their danger who made their escape and that he assisted in collecting men to a�ack them the following night when five of the [Natives] were killed and wounded. From that time deponent became a guide to the different companies of men that came to protect the defenseless inhabitants on the frontier. He also turned out and followed the Tories who had meditated the death of the defenseless women and children by joining the

[Natives] and conducting them to the se�lement and followed them to the Cherrytree on the Seuwuehanna in the most inclement weather when we encamped and deponent was the first man chosen to proceed to Ki�anning to discover, if possible, if the Tories had formed a Junction with the [Native Americans].” On 1 August 1780 Thomas was commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania an Ensign and served under Captain John Moore. His commission was for a period of seven months. He afterwards continued his services as a spy and guide to all that called upon him, during which time he served under Colonel Jack, Captain Black, Colonel Piper, and others, and ranged the frontier to Hannastown and as far as Fort Pi�. “We frequently marched several days without anything to eat. At one time pursued the [Native Americans] to near Ki�anning. Our jerked beef was out. We then had nothing to eat for four days.” To show how well Thomas was known, and to demonstrate clearly that he

205


had on sundry occasions had dealings with some of the Natives without the knowledge of his friends, we may state that during the late war with Great Britain, on the Canadian frontier, a great many Native Americans made enquiries about “Old Coley”; and particularly one, a son of Shingas, who pointed out, a severe gash on his forehead, by which he said he should be likely to remember “Coley” for the balance of his life. Thomas died at his resi-

dence, of old age about the year 1837, beloved and respected by his community. He is buried in Grandview Cemetery, Altoona, and was survived by his widow, Pheby, and the following children: John, James, Thomas, Absalom, Michum, William, Sarah married to Frederick Yingling, Catharine married to William Scandred, Margaret married to Thomas Williams, Margaret married to William Benne� and Nancy married to Daniel McCauley.

Sources Hoenstine, Floyd G. 1940. Military Services and Genealogical Records of Soldiers of Blair County Pennsylvania.; Hollidaysburg, PA: Telegraph Press, p. 33. Available at: h�p://www.oatney.org/Family_Coleman.htm Wiley, Samuel T. and W. Sco� Garner (eds.) 1892. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Gresham, pp. 598599. Available at: h�p://www.oatney.org/Family_ColemanThomas%20Biography.htm

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