Fingal Who?: The GP Family Project

Happy Patriot's Day: a Salute to our Lexington Ancestors

2011-04-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

"Let it be known unto Britain, even American daughters are politicians and patriots, and will aid the good work." --Mercy Otis Warren

Dara, Liz, and a trio of Lexington Minutemen ~ July 2010

Last summer, as I walking in my second Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure throughout the western suburbs of Boston, it seemed absolutely and cosmically appropriate that I should stop in a park in Lexington and pose with these three Minutemen, above, fully regaled in traditional Colonial militia-dress, with all the accouterments of battle, honor, and pride. (That's my friend, Dara, to my right). If I had had the time, I might have asked them what they knew about my ancestors, the Parkers and the Munroes, who were as intertwined by marriage and duty as they were by loyalty to the cause of the Revolution. But those 60 miles were calling, and after a few quick pics, Dara and I were on our way again. As we marched past the Battle Green, I took in the spot where my 6th great grandfather, Jonas Parker, was one of the first to fall on that fateful day of April 19, 1775. We walked past the statue of Captain John Parker, Jonas' younger first cousin, who gallantly led the militia during the Battle of Lexington to launch the Revolutionary War, and onward out through the center of Lexington, where so many of our ancestors lived and worked as farmers and tavern keepers and fought for our freedoms. As we walked through the 23+ grueling miles on our second day of this epic Walk, I couldn’t help but think of the spunk of Jonas Parker, and was glad that his energy seemed to be infusing every step of mine with some of his own special brand of gutsy fortitude.

"By The Rude Bridge That Arched The Flood,
Their Flag to April's Breeze Unfurled,
Here Once The Embattled Farmers Stood,
And Fired The Shot Heard Round The World."

We all know the opening lines, above, to the Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which paid further tribute to the events of the early morning hours on April 19, 1775 forever immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow--however inaccurately--in his poem, Paul Revere's Ride. While the first shots were fired on the Green at Lexington in those early morning hours amidst chaos and confusion and despair, it wasn't until later, when the gathering storm of American colonists had faced the British down at the North Bridge at Concord, that the Minutemen received their first official orders to shoot in the War's first official acts of treason. The Battles at Lexington and Concord have been heralded as the first of the American Revolution, when farmers and carpenters came together within their local militias, took to arms and met the British regulars on the road from Boston to Lexington to Concord and back, putting their experience fighting against the Indians in the French and Indian Wars to good use, taking aim from behind stone walls and thick trees, cracking open the linear regiments of the Redcoats, and sending them running for their lives back to Boston. It's famous for its many heroes: Paul Revere, most notably, as well as the other biggies, John Hancock, Sam Adams, and John Adams, the lesser-known commanders like Captain John Parker, and, of course, the often nameless, faceless militia and Minutemen, who, like Jonas Parker, proved that they could be ready in a minute's time, to fight with all their heart and valor, lay everything on the line, and take that leap into the unpredictable, chaotic world of war against Mother England.

The struggle at the North Bridge

If you're lucky to live close enough to visit Minuteman National Park, you've no doubt experienced first hand the chills of taking in the morning fog rising up over the river by the North Bridge, walking the Battle Road still shadowed with the stench of fear and blood, and touring some of the historic houses, where ghosts of tavern keepers, farmers, and militia men and their families still roam.

Here in Massachusetts, and just north in Maine, to celebrate all the heroes of the Battles at Lexington and Concord, we observe Patriot's Day, which always falls on the Monday closest to the 19th of April. This year, Patriot's Day is today. Happy Patriot's Day, everyone! Woot!

An engraving of the battle.

Patriot's Day is a great little holiday; I like that it is understated, that there are no supermarket aisles devoted to Patriot's Day merchandise, that kids don't expect their parents to lavish Patriot's Day candy and toys on them--chocolate Minutemen, gummy Lobster Backs, and chewy rifles--that it is there for the taking, without the hard sell. Public schools are closed, the iconic, wonderful Boston Marathon is run, and in Concord and Lexington, the "first shot heard around the world" and the beginning battles of the American Revolution are commemorated, with dawn salutes, re-enactments, and parades. It's fitting that in Massachusetts, where history hides in every street corner, cobblestone, and battle road, Patriot's Day is such a celebrated civic holiday. In 1894, Patriot's Day was officially established, a compromise between the town of Lexington's wish to call it Lexington-Concord Day and the town of Concord's wish to call it, you guessed it, Concord-Lexington Day. The Governor at the time, Frederic Greenhalge, diplomatically settled on the name of Patriot's Day.

When my kids were little, we went to Concord one Patriot's Day weekend for the festivities, and they did not disappoint; my older son, Luke, who was four at the time, managed to wake himself up (and my mother, who had agreed to go with him) before 5 am in order to go to the Dawn Salute at the North Bridge. Dominick, just a baby at the time, was much disturbed by the loud canon blasts and gunfire that skittered throughout the skies that day, but loved the bright pageantry of the parade. At the time, we had no idea of our own family connection to the incredible events of April 19, 1775. Since then, however, as we have delved deeper into our past and unearthed some of the more fascinating stories, we've become more enchanted with not just our own family history, but with American History as well, and Dominick, despite his early upset around the battle sounds at Concord and Lexington, has become quite a family historian. In recent years, particularly when we were homeschooling, we have gone back several times to explore our own personal history that is so deeply and intricately entangled in the region's broader history that it is hard to find a passage during that time that we are not personally connected to.

The blaze of redcoats in the distance.

One of the best stories we've discovered is that of Jonas Parker. It is not one that most people have heard. He was not immortalized in any poems nor hymns, but was remembered for the pure, unique firebrand of moxie that must have come from his ancestral past--from all those years of living through unimaginable and heartbreaking loss, physical hardship and suffering, and building strength and resilience--and that he displayed on the early morning of April 19, 1775, when he refused to run from the British, even after being wounded, and stayed to finish what he had started off to do. It was this spirit that has been captured in the painting "The Battle of Lexington," which hangs in the Lexington town hall. Jonas Parker stands as the central figure in an erect position, awaiting the British charge, "the look of determination is well depicted on his handsome face."

Jonas Parker's story is just one of many hidden, untold tales from the time, of heroic deeds and dramatic displays of valor. I'd like to think that some day I could tell his wife Lucy's story a little bit more, after all, the women of the Revolutionary Era were truly the unsung heroes, women like Jonas' wife, Lucy Munroe Parker, who were forced to take strong political stands and actions, and to make great personal sacrifices and struggle alongside their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Jonas' devotion to the cause often no doubt meant that Lucy, like other women of her time, was taking care of more than the usual domestic responsibilities at home--children, animals, farms, cleaning, sewing, cooking, spinning, weaving, hauling--while at the same time finding time to mend uniforms and bandages, boycott tea and British goods, melt down pewter for ammunition, bring water to the soldiers on the battle fields, tend to injured soldiers, often, take up arms to protect their families. As Martha Washington, who was well known and respected for her humility and hard work, said, "Whilst our husbands and brothers are examples of patriotism, we must be patterns of industry." These women often took up the cause alongside their husbands, and yet, it is their stories that for the most part remain undiscovered. I am determined to more fully flesh out the stories of these ancestral women--for now, I offer a Patriot's Day tale full of drama and grit...

Characterized by Theodore Parker in the Parker Genealogy as a "typical Lexington Minuteman," Jonas Parker was, by all accounts, strong of heart, head, and body, confident, and willing to die for what he believed in. Given that the town of Lexington did not officially follow the recommendations of John Hancock and the Provincial Congress of 1774, and actually put together a "minute company," ready to march at a minute's notice, Lexington's fighting men were not officially "Minutemen" but rather militia, but despite the lapse by the town, were no less prepared than the Minutemen from surrounding towns. Lexington's militia consisted of young men and old, farmers, shopkeepers, tavern keepers, grandfathers, and boys of just 16 years. At the time of the battle, Parker was already 53 years old, making him one of the oldest in the Lexington militia. He was married to Lucy Munroe, part of the fiery Munro Clan from Inverness, Scotland, who had deep roots in the battle tradition, as mercenary soldiers and Viking vanquishers, and who had settled successfully in Lexington, fought in the French and Indian War, and would factor big in the Battles at Lexington and beyond. Jonas had spent his life working as a woodworker and farmer in the Parker family tradition, and was a big, strong, tall man, fit as a fiddle, and still, at 53, respected as the best wrestler in town. When war with England seemed imminent, he was heard on several occasions to say that "be the consequences what they might and let others do what they pleased, he would never run from the enemy." It seemed the perfect set up to what would ensue: the chance to prove himself worthy of action and not just words.

Jonas' first cousin, John Parker, happened to be the Captain of the Lexington Militia, elected by the townspeople in 1774 to serve as commander and prepare them for what now seemed inevitable: a quickly escalating, potentially explosive confrontation with Mother England. Both men had served valiantly in the French and Indian War. Both were skilled "joiners" and carpenters. Both were large-framed, strong men. Captain John Parker, though just 45 years old in 1775, some eight years younger than his cousin, Jonas, had been recently weakened by a bout with "consumption," which was still taking its toll on his physical strength. But Captain Parker had trained his militia well, which included many Parkers and Munroes, many with extensive experience in wartime duty.

The British Expedition and Patriot Messengers: the Road to Lexington and Concord

The intent of the British to march on Lexington and Concord was two-fold: to first arrest the rebel rousers John Hancock and Sam Adams in Lexington, and so stifle further revolt, and then, to march on to Concord in order to seize and destroy the growing cache of weapons and ammunition that could spell trouble for the Regulars. On that fateful morning of April 19, 1775, after a fitful few hours of sleep, Captain John Parker heard the news he had been expecting: the British Regulars were marching towards Lexington and Concord to seize arms that had been stored in Concord. Paul Revere, on his way from Charlestown with news of the British Regulars, had successfully gotten word to Hancock and Adams, who were able to flee to safety, and to Parker, who had enough warning to round up his men. Revere would later be captured on the ride to Concord, but not before word had gotten to the town to prepare for an invasion of Redcoats. Captain Parker sounded the alarm at two in the early morning, the night still dark and cool, the belfry on the Lexington Green and the beating of drums calling all militiamen to assemble on the common, and then to wait at Buckman's Tavern until further notice. Some men went home to spend time with their families, while others waited out the hours inside Buckman's Tavern, which was situated directly across from the town green. Jonas Parker, who lived in the center of town next to the home of the Patriot Minister Rev. Jonas Clark, the temporary hide-out of John Hancock and Sam Adams, and the destination of Paul Revere, might have gone home to spend some time with Lucy and his children, or perhaps stayed at the Tavern, too full of anticipation to return home. Wherever he was, his resolve no doubt gained in strength and determination as he awaited the next command from his cousin. Finally, at half-past four, Captain John Parker "called the roll of his company, formed the line near the meeting house, and commanded":

"Every man of you who is equipped follow me, and those of you who are not go into the meeting house and furnish himself from the magazine and immediately join the company."

A formidable force in Lexington

Upon his cousin's orders, Jonas joined in among the two loose rows of less than 100 Lexington militiamen, loaded his musket and awaited as the rows of more than 600 British troops began to draw ever closer. 600 British Regulars! It must have been an imposing sight. Jonas Parker stood, just one of about 80 Lexington militia, bravely facing terrifying odds. The British required access to the road to the left of the Common, where the militia tenuously stood their ground, in order to march on to Concord, but didn't want to leave these rebels untended at their flank. As the first three lines of Redcoats took formation onto the Green, several of the militia around Jonas Parker faltered, and Jonas's cousin, Captain John Parker, had to call out sternly: "The first man who offers to run shall be shot down." The British marched towards them in menacing lines, and halted, Pitcairn waving his sword above his head and crying out, "Disperse, ye villains, ye rebels!" Captain Parker had reportedly told his men "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they want a war let it begin here," but upon seeing how badly they were outnumbered, he soon quickly ordered his men to fall back. But by now, confusion had taken over. The British Major Pitcairn ordered his men to move forward and encircle the militia. The gentlemanly Captain John Parker, upon seeing the decidedly less civil Pitcairn discharge his pistol and order his men to fire, tried to yell above the with more urgency to his men, "Give way, men, fall back!" At this time, someone fired a shot. There are many differing accounts, but it is quite possible that neither a British Regular nor a Lexington militiaman triggered the chaos that ensured, but one of the many bystanders who had gathered. Accounts differ, as one would expect. One of the British 10th Light Infantry later said, “The Soldiery and young Officers wanted to have at the damned dogs; in their impetuosity burst out into firing ... contrary to the command." William Munroe swore he heard Pitcairn order his men to "Fire, damn you, fire!" And another in the Munroe Clan, Ebenezer, reported that "The commanding officer advanced within a few rods of us, and exclaimed, 'Disperse, you damned rebels! you dogs, run!--Rush on my boys!' and fired his pistol."

NO, SIR! HERE I STAY!

Regardless of who fired into the crowd, the Regulars, thinking they had been fired upon, began to shoot openly and spontaneously towards the retreating militia. At the first round, the British had overshot, but a second volley was coming. The militia started running this way and that, and Captain Parker urged his men to retreat. Along with a few other brave souls, Jonas Parker stood his ground, shouting to his cousin and commander, "No, sir! Here I stay!, " before pushing his way from the rear to the center of the line to position himself better to face the incoming assault. Once there, he reputedly removed his hat containing powder, wadding, and bullets and slammed it to the ground in readiness for the second charge. In panic, the front rank pushed through the second rank, some backing away while others hurrying off. It was chaotic, and it was impossible to hear anyone's orders over all the noise, particularly those of Captain John Parker, whose voice was hoarse and tubercular, but Jonas Parker remained calm and utterly focused. In the shuffle was Jonas' nephew, Ebenezer Parker, who tried to persuade his uncle to retreat. Jonas Parker had said that he'd never run from the Redcoats, and true to his word, started shooting defiantly into the oncoming sea of redcoats, the second attack from the British deluging the small company of retreating Lexington farmers with bullets. Our Jonas, standing face forward and in front of his retreating company, was hit. Now badly wounded, he somehow managed to unload his cartridges into his hat, get to his knees, and ready his rifle to shoot again.

It was not to be.

A re-enactment of Parker's end

The next moment, he was "transfixed by a bayonet upon the spot where he first stood and fell." Poor, Jonas! But what a way to go! Wowza!

The British Regulars, buoyed by their seemingly simple overtaking of these Rebels, began their march to Concord, where more and more Minutemen were gathering from surrounding towns, and where they would surprise the British with a powerful face-off at the North Bridge, before chasing them back to Boston in a veritable trouncing. The return trip on the Battle Road would not be a pretty one for the British. The British Regiments suffered 19 officers and 250 soldiers killed and wounded. The American losses did not exceed 90 men.

Out of the roughly eighty men who turned out that morning in Lexington to face the British threat head-on, fifty-two fled unhurt. Ten more were wounded. And out of the eight who fell that morning on Lexington Green, six had ties to the Munroe family. Lucy Munroe Parker, Jonas' wife, and mother to their ten children, lost not only her husband that day, but her brother as well. Robert "Ensign" Munroe (1712-1775), another veteran of the French and Indian War, was well-known for having held the banner at the Battle of Louisburg in Nova Scotia thirty years earlier. Robert Munroe had joined Jonas Parker, his brother-in-law, on the front line, and were the first two killed by British bayonet. Quite remarkably, Robert, the oldest man on the battlefield, was 62, Jonas 53.

As for Captain John Parker, soon after his men dispersed from the Lexington Green, he re-organized his men to attack the British Regulars, now on a fast, chaotic retreat from Concord back to Boston, from a position up on a slight hill that ran perpendicular to the Battle Road. With the help of the Lincoln militia, he fired upon the British column, killing Colonel Smith, and the last uninjured officer of the British 10th light foot, Captain Parsons. Soon known as “Parker’s Revenge, this skirmish was so representative of how the militia was able to use iconic features of the New England landscape--stone walls, large, thick trees, wooded hillsides, and open meadows--to their advantage, pelting the British from hidden spots behind walls and trees along the road to flush them back to Boston. The spot where Captain John Parker avenged the losses his militia--and his family--suffered earlier that morning is marked on the Battle Road to this day.

A few days after the Battles, when eyewitnesses gave depositions to the Colonists to show that the British had fired at the Militia without provocation, Captain Parker would say "I immediately ordered our militia to disperse and not to fire." Since several of the wounded and killed militia members had been shot in the backs, the deposition signed by 34 Lexington Militiamen that declared "Whilst our backs were turned on the troops, we were fired on by them, and...not a gun was fired by any person in our company...before they fired on us," rings true, and yet, the matter is still undecided today, all these years later.

Captain Parker would go on to lead a part of his company to Cambridge the following May, and was ready for action on the day when the British lost so many lives at Bunker Hill. Unfortunately, Parker, who had been ill for quite some time, was too sick to enter the battle, so instead, took his troops to help guard the "Neck"--that narrow strip of land that served as an entry point into Charlestown--that day.

Parker died not long after, on September 17, 1775, at the age of just 46, of an epidemic dysentery that found him easy prey because of the tuberculosis, or "consumption" that had already been ravaging his body, and his family. A startling number in the Parker family succumbed to consumption over the years. As well, the dysentery epidemic of the fall of 1775 took not only Parker, but hundreds of others, including Abigail Adams' mother. Abigail had contracted but survived the disease, as did her youngest son, Tommy, but her mother was not able to beat the illness. "At times I almost am ready to faint under this severe and heavy Stroke," Abigail wrote in a letter to her husband, John Adams. We can only imagine that Lucy Munroe Parker and Lydia Moore Parker, John's wife, felt a similar despair. Like so many other women, though, they soldiered on.

Captain John Parker, the Lexington Minuteman

A statue, sculpted by the artist Henry Hudson Kitson as a tribute to the resolute Militia, and situated on the Battle Green in Lexington, forever memorializes Captain John Parker, who, along with his cousin Jonas Parker, epitomized the strength, valor, and sacrifice of the Lexington men who so valiantly confronted the seemingly endless lines of British Regulars. I like that Parker stands on a fieldstone base, representing the sturdiness of both the New Englanders who fought by his side, and the stone walls from behind which the Militia fired at the British throughout the day on April 19, 1775. John Parker's musket hangs in the Senate Chamber of the Massachusetts State House.

Soon after the Battle, the men killed on the Green that morning--John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathan Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzy, Asahel Porter and Jonas Parker-- were brought to the Old Burying Ground, and hastily buried. An account by Reverend Jonas Clarke's 12-year old daughter, Elizabeth, who kept a journal at the time, describes it as thus: "I saw them let down into the ground, it was a little rainy but we waited to see them Covered up with the Clods and then for fear the British should find them, My Father thought some of the men had best cut some pine or oak bows and spread them on their place of burial, so it looked like a heap of Brush."

"...GAVE THE SPRING TO THE SPIRIT..."

In an address in 1799 at the dedication of the memorial monument erected on the Battle Green to honor those who "fell on this field, the first Victims to the Sword of British Tyranny & Oppression," the famed statesmen Edward Everett captured the story of Jonas Parker in a powerful speech that lauded the courage shown by all on the battlefield that day: "History, Roman history, does not furnish an example of bravery that outshines that of Jonas Parker."

In 1835, seven of the eight bodies were disinterred and reburied under this monument, the oldest Revolutionary War monument "commemorating rank and file soldiers." An obelisk featuring an inscription written by the Reverend Jonas Clarke, the monument calls forth"The Blood of these Martyr's In the cause of God & their Country, Was the Cement of the Union of these States, then Colonies; & gave the spring to the spirit. Firmness And resolution of their Fellow Citizens. They rose as one man to revenge their brethren's Blood and at the point of the sword to assert; Defend their native Rights. They nobly dar'd to be free!!" Woot!

Both Jonas Parker and Captain John Parker left behind large families, and in John's case, a young family, with seven children ranging in ages from 4 to 19. Jonas' children, mostly daughters, were taken in by different families, with some removing from town and disappearing from the records altogether. His oldest daughter, Lucy, who was deaf and dumb, chose Joshua Mead of Waltham as her guardian, but soon after, her uncle Thomas Parker, of Princeton, took her into his family and provided her a home. She lived there until her death in 1813 at the age of 68. Other siblings were already married, and some married soon after their father's premature death. My fifth great grandfather, Philemon Parker, who was just 20 years old in 1775, later married Susan Stone and moved to Princeton, MA, and later to Vermont, had a daughter Sally Parker, who married Scammel Burt, but that's a story for another day. I wish I knew more about what happened to mother Lucy. There is no doubt that she had assisted Jonas in his "remarkable devotion to the American cause" in many different ways, and that no matter how much pride she could take in the sacrifices she and her husband made, life would be difficult without Jonas. To see her children scatter in all different directions must have been heartbreaking.

A LITTLE GENEALOGY OK, a lot.

Jonas Parker and Captain John Parker were first cousins. They were not one in the same, a Captain Jonas Parker, as many web sites claim, nor was Jonas an uncle to John. Their fathers, Andrew and Josiah Parker, were brothers, and sons of John Parker, who was the son of Lt. Hananiah Parker and grandson of Deacon Thomas Parker, the immigrant ancestor who came over from Little Norton, England in 1635. Deacon Thomas Parker left London on the ships the Susan and Ellen in March of 1635, and soon after arriving in Boston or Lynn about six months later, he married "Amy" and promptly started having the first of what would be eleven children. As one of the founders of the twelfth Congregational Church in Massachusetts, Parker was no doubt a Puritan, so the suppositions concerning the date of his marriage reflect the fact that as a devout religious man, his first child, Thomas, who was born sometime in 1636, must have arrived at least nine months after his marriage to Amy. Not five. Not three. Not even eight. And certainly not before--that would have been scandalous! Ha! Well, we know full well that this was not always the case, that first children were not always born at least nine months after marriages took place--but regardless, the assumption was taken as truth, and served to fuel speculation around birth dates when records failed.

Amy Parker is the perfect example of the Puritan woman. The very "ethic of submissiveness to divine will that was the underpinning of the Puritan way of life" not only silenced her but erased her as well. We don't know her surname, where she was from, when she was born. We do know what life might have been like for her. These New England Good Wives--who had to create lives out of nothing--bore excessive numbers of children, and endured often appalling living conditions, epidemics, a high infant mortality rate, and a life of hard physical work (despite the male observation that it was just "righting up the house"). Many were used to single mothering. Most were illiterate. Women were forbidden to speak in church except to confess a sin or to sing. They were silenced on most matters of faith, politics, and even family. And when a woman married, she ceased to exist legally. Her husband, head of household, had all the rights, owned all the property and made all the financial decisions, while she became a "femme covert," with him representing her interests, as he saw them, to the world. A married woman could not sell or purchase land, make a will, sue or be sued, or sign contracts. "Her children, her earnings, and even her body did not legally belong to her. (Women Making America, Hemming/Savage) No wonder Amy vanished.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her book The Pearl of Orr's Island (another ancestral home and haunt), wrote, "In the old times, women did not get their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better worth writing than the men's." Amen, sister.

Amy's husband Thomas Parker, listed as a "farmer" on ship records, became a freeman in May of 1635, which enabled him an allotment of 40 acres of land in Lynn Village, making him one of the first to settle the town of Reading, as it is now called (though the Parker homestead is now officially part of the town of Saugus). He was, by all accounts, active in the church, serving as "Deacon of Redding" for many years, and as Selectman in 1661, and off and on again for the next five years. Parker died in August of 1683, his widow, in January of 1690. Parker, in a weakened state just days before his death, did not have the strength to sign his will, and could only make his mark, thereby granting his house, homestead and lands--which he described as "Bear Medow," "Saw Mill Medow," "Reedy Medow," "the Slodge of Medow Leying near Bursham Medow," "the Great Medow," "My Ceador Swamp," and "Wet Swamp"--to his "Dear wife Amy" and sons. His daughters, as was custom, received some money, but only after "the decease of their mother." As well, he made provisions for his grandchildren, Samuel and Sarah Parker, but only upon the conditions that they "live with their grandmother." Samuel also received his grandfather's "gunn" and "Reste," which I can only imagine meant a rifle rest. Aside from the usual "Bibols and other Bokes" (which clearly did not teach him much in the way of spelling), "featherbeds," and "Cattle & Swine," Parker had no debts to his name.

The Old Burying Ground in Lexington

Thomas Parker's second son, Hananiah Parker, would serve as the "full and sole executor" of his father's will. At the time of his father's death in 1683, Hananiah was 46 years old, living in Lynn on land that bordered his father's property with his wife, Elizabeth Browne Parker, from Reading, and their children, John, Samuel, Elizabeth, Mary, and Ebenezer. Like so many other couples at the time, they had already mourned the loss of three children: Sarah, who was less than a year old when she died in 1673, little Hananiah, who was less than three, and most recently, a second Hananiah, who died at just a few months of age, just two years before his grandfather would die.

Hananiah Parker had been a freeman since 1679, when he with two others were given charge of building a new Meetinghouse, and belonged to Reading's military company, of which he was chosen ensign in 1680, and lieutenant in 1684. According to the Parker Genealogy, at the time of his father's death, Hananiah was well established in the affairs of the town: "In addition to the great work of changing the primeval forest to a fertile far, he performed the duties of selectman, town clerk, and representative, each for a long period." Hananiah's wife Elizabeth died on February 27, 1697. He married for a second time on December 12, 1700, Mrs. Mary (Bursham) Bright, and soon after, on May 20, 1703, he wrote and signed his will. Despite calling himself "aged and weak in body," Hananiah Parker was not only able to sign his name (rather than just make a mark, as his ailing father had been forced to do), but also use elegant, eloquent phrasing, with incredible detail, and with much better spelling than his father was able to muster in his. He lovingly writes of "Mary, my well beloved Wife," as receiving "the use of the west End of my house from the top to the bottom with the back Lean to and Cellar with the use of Buttery and also a sufficient garden Spott to be kept well fenced and in good manner for he ruse as she shall see cause to improve it for planting of roots beans squashes and also the keeping on a Cow Summer and Winter during her life or so long as she shall remain my Widow, also an horse to Ride on when she shall have occasion, also the going of one or two swine summer and winter is she see cause and also a liberty keep fowls."

Whew! Despite the show of better spelling, the juxtaposition of the lack of commas, the randomness of capital letters, and preponderance of run-on sentences is curiously endearing. I love, too, the observation here that Mary can think for herself--"if she cause"--along with the inclusion of "so long as she shall live and remain my widow." Sorry, Mary, dear, but if you die or marry someone else, you no longer will have access to that "sufficient garden Spott." Hananiah's provisions for his wife are extensive and vividly detailed, and include "firewood sufficient to be brought ready cut for her use and laid conveniently near her door by my Executor (who?)", "so many apples as she need to lay in for Winter; also one barrel of Cyder to be placed in her cellar annually." Any more than one barrel and she might risk getting bit by a barn weasel, or go on a bender, and forget to tend to her roots, beans, and squashes. He's taken good care of her, and with much tenderness, set it up so that she will be taken good care of in his absence, with a lifelong supply of firewood, apples, and Cyder, "her gardens and part of housing be kept in good Repair and all taxes lawfully set thereon and demanded to be paid by my second Executor."

Only One Barrel of Cyder for Mary

AT the time of his death, on March 10, 1724, at the age of 86, Hananiah Parker had been living in his father's home for some time. In his will, he "gives and bequeaths to (his) son John Parker and to his heirs and assigns forever that house and land that was his Grandfather Parker's, which is that housing and Lands that he now occupieth and liveth upon..." John was his oldest son, born in Reading on August 3, 1664, and now eldest to seven siblings. He would go on to launch the Lexington Parkers, of which Jonas and John were born.

Theodore Parker's Parker Genealogy describes the time that John Parker lived as a time that covered the "period of the early growth of the colonies, the hardships, wars and rugged life of the times." By 1724, John had been married to his wife Deliverance Dodge (one of my favorite ancestral names!) for 35 years, and had been living in Reading where they had soon settled after their October 2, 1689 wedding, on part of "the original Deacon Thomas Parker place in the center of the town, his farm adjoining that of his father, Hananiah." Deliverance was the daughter of Lt. John Dodge and Sarah Proctor of Beverly, MA. John was constable of Reading, serving as a deputy sheriff of sorts, having been chosen by the townspeople, for his "integrity, force of character, and popularity." In the midst of serving his community and tending to their growing family, quite tragically, by 1724, when John's father Hananiah had died, John and Deliverance had already buried five of their children. Their first child, Sarah, lived just four days. Their sixth child, a boy named John, died as a baby as well, in 1696. Two daughters, Mary and Edie, both died in 1709, at the ages of 14 and 12, respectively. There must have been an epidemic of sickness ravaging families in the area at the time. Consumption, perhaps? This was a disease that hit the Parker family particularly hard--and perhaps explains the weakness of lungs amongst the women in my family. Most recently, in 1711, while on service of Queen Anne's War, while in the Annapolis, N.S. Expedition, their oldest son, Hananiah, born October 10, 1691, and a "promising lad of 18", had succumbed to an illness that was sweeping through the troops, and of which he had just written to his parents:

"Ever Honored father and mother after my Deuty Remembered to you and to my Grandfather and Grandmother: and my Love to all my brothers and all my friends--Hoping theas few lines of my Love Will find you in as Good health as I am at this present Writting, Blessed be God for it. And this is to let you understand that I Recived youer Second Letter, and that is a verey sickly time with us and we have Lost above Three Scor men that belong to New England and thear is above fifty men sick. Barnabas Cook is sick; Daniel Dove is sick; William Hopkins is sick; Benjamin Johnson is amost well of his wounds bu the has had a verey bad sweling upon his thigh above his wounds but we hope he will doe well."

Sometime during the course of delivery of the letter to his parents, Hananiah took ill and, like so many of his fellow soldiers, died while still in the garrison, awaiting the time when "Governur (Samuel Vetch) coms hear (and) Sir Charles (Hobby) sayes he will carry us home."

How sad! There is something wonderfully endearing about the way young Hananiah starts the letter, addressing his parents with such love and respect, and including his grandparents, as well. Clearly, this young man has been raised well, and most likely further humbled by the cycle of death spiraling out of control around him, he has taken the time to try to put his family--and perhaps himself--at ease. It must have been so horrible for his family to get word of his death, and so soon after receiving his letter that declared his present good health, despite everyone, it seems, being sick and dying around him. What they endured is unimaginable: oh, the stuff our ancestors were made of! (Which means, of course, that despite those pesky lungs, we are made of the same stuff--tough, resilient, fueled by love of family, hard work, and hope).

I've seen it over and over again, how the tragic death of a child in a family can cause the family to pack up and leave their home, go elsewhere, find some peace. It seems that it would be no different for the Parker family following the heartbreaking loss of their son. In the spring of 1712, John Parker sold his property in Reading--the farm that had been in the family for so long--and moved his family--his wife, Deliverance, and their three surviving sons, Andrew, Josiah, and John--to Lexington, which was then called Cambridge Farms, and where John would purchase the homestead that would stay in the Parker family for nearly two centuries:

“John Parker, Senr, Joiner, of Redding, purchased in Cambridge Farms” one small Mansion house and sixty acres of land, bounded southwesterly on Watertown line, Elsewhere by Daniel White, John Stone and Thomas Cutler, and of Thomas Cutler. He bought “a certain messuage or Tenement lying and being scituate in Cambridge, In the Farms, containing one mansion house, barn, and about one hundred and ninety acres of land.”

John Parker wasted no time settling into his new community, and was soon chosen fence viewer and tythingman, and given one of the coveted spots in the meeting-house reserved for the most esteemed members of the community. If you are wondering just what a fence viewer and tythingham did, please click here for a full description of what some of the old New Englanders were up to. The general gist of fence viewing was to make sure a line fence was "hog tight and horse high." As we all know, good fences have always made for good neighbors, and good neighbors make good fences, and back when John Parker was responsible for making sure everyone's fences were on the up and up, everyone had livestock, and good, neighborly fences were essential to getting along.

I don't know if the iconic stone walls of the old New England landscape were included in the fence viewing or not.

John was, above all, a New England farmer, and as most men of the time did, worked a secondary occupation. As the deed above states, John was a "joiner" by trade, a skilled woodworker who might have made farm implements, furniture, cabinets and other useful things, all without the use of nails. He opened a small shop, and taught his trade to his sons, who in turn passed on their expertise to their own for many generations, so much so that the "Parkers became noted for their expert craftsmanship." Just a few years after moving to Lexington, Deliverance would die, on the 10th of March, in 1717 or 1718, at the age of 55. John would remarry, to a woman named "Sarah." No marriage records have been found, and they would have no children together. John lived out his life working in his shop and on his farm and tending to his wife, his sons and their families. He died in Lexington on January 22, 1741 at the age of 78.

John and Deliverance's son Andrew Parker became the oldest son after young Hananiah died in 1711, when Andrew was just 18. He was 19 when he "removed" to Lexington with his parents and brothers in 1712, and learned his father's trade in carpentry and joinery while growing into a strong young man. The Parker Genealogy speaks of how he was "favored with a sound and vigorous training in his youth....and was well bestowed physically for the mammoth task of the early pioneer, and he entered into the work heartily." Sarah Whitney, daughter of Isaiah and Sarah Whitney of Lexington, no doubt took notice, and married Andrew, who was 27 to Sarah's 17, on August 2, 1720. Andrew, a "husbandman and woodworker," was, by all accounts, "energetic and industrious...a man of strong physique, as tradition claims that he was of very large size and powerfully built. He was a kind father and was attentive to the physical and spiritual needs of his large family." He and Sarah had twelve children together, several of whom died young. Like his father, he was chosen fence viewer and constable of the town, two positions that were "of much higher dignity and social standing then than now." True, true. I'm not sure we even have a fence viewer anymore.

His wife Sarah died at the age of 70 on December 18, 1774. He died at the age of 83, on April 8, 1776, in the midst of the Revolution, and incredible changes sweeping through the colonies. The Parker Genealogy puts his life in wonderful perspective:

"Andrew Parker lived in the reigns of five English sovereigns, was seven years of age when the year 1700 came, and yet lived to see the first armed expedition of British soldiers against the colonists put to rout at Concord and Lexington, June 19, 1775, and this accomplished partly by his own family."

The image of Andrew Parker, who was a father to 12, grandfather to dozens more, and great grandfather to over "a score," or more than twenty, during those fateful early days of the Revolution, when his own son, Jonas Parker, his brother Josiah's son Captain John Parker, and many other family members were taking up arms against the British in defense of their liberties, their families, their country, gathering his brood "at the old homestead around the open fireplace filled with blazing logs," to tell the ancestral stories about the "hard struggle for existence, but final development of the colonies together with that of their own allied families," is a powerful one, indeed.

Andrew's son, Jonas, was born February 6, 1722, and when he died on April 19, 1775 at the Battle of Lexington, his father Andrew was still alive, but would die the following year. How sad to think that Andrew would lose yet another son in his lifetime. No doubt he was exceptionally proud of his son, and of the indomitable spirit he displayed on the battle field. Jonas took after his father in many ways--spirit, physique, trade. He was, by all descriptions, "tall, well built, and possessed great strength." And when Jonas married Lucy Munroe of Lexington in the summer of 1743, he gained a father-in-law who could no doubt match him in strength and spirit. Lucy, a "lady of ability and independence," was the youngest of nine children of "Sergeant George" Munroe and Sarah Moore, both of Lexington. Given her bloodlines, I have no doubt that Lucy was strong and spirited, and ready for anything. Sergeant George was the son of William Munro from Alive, Inverness, Scotland, who had come to Massachusetts with three other Munros--Robert, John and Hugh--on the ship called the John and Sarah, after being captured by Oliver Cromwell during the Battle of Worcester in 1652, and banished to America. A little ironic, don't you think, that these Munroes, who fought for hundreds of years in battle after battle, defeating Viking invaders, Scottish Lowlanders, and other invading armies; who earned the name "the Invincibles" in recognition of their prowess as one of the most valiant clans of the north, with a strong military traditions going back to the 11th century, when they came from the River Roe in Ireland to settle in Scotland; who, after becoming disillusioned with the English Parliament in 1651, supported the Royalists instead, were banished from their native land for fighting in the King's interest, Charles I, only to have their descendants be among the first to make a stand and fire the first shot on the morning of 19 April 1775 in the American Revolution? Oofta.

Might I just mention here that I think it hilarious and wonderful that I have ancestors who came from Inverness. As a former Rugby Goddess, this makes me laugh out loud. "Four and twenty virgins Came down from Inverness And when the ball was over There were four and twenty less..." There really should be a verse about Pitcairne.

The Munroe Tavern

Lucy's grandfather, William Munroe, settled in the northeasterly part of Cambridge Farms, or Lexington, around 1660 in a part of town that was then called "Scotland." With his first wife, Martha George, he had many sons, and it is said that his old house "looked like a rope walk, with so many additions made to accommodate his sons, as they settled in life"--a recreation of Clan Munro, clearly. The Munroes established a tavern in Lexington in 1695, which, during the Revolution, was owned by William Munroe, great grandson to the banished William, and an Orderly Sergeant in Captain John Parker's Minuteman Company. The Tavern, as did other taverns of the time, served as a meeting spot for colonials and rabble-rousers, and later, as a a field hospital by Lt. Gen. Hugh Percy for retreating British soldiers, who tried to burn it down on their retreat. William would rally his Munro Clan that day, to summon their Scots warrior roots, and fight at the Battle of Lexington Green with those equally as Plucky Parkers. Together, the Munroes and the Parkers accounted for a huge number of those that fought at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. In fact, there were eight Munroes fighting on the Green that day, and later that day, as troops from surrounded towns arrived, 17 came from Reading who bore the name Parker. Deacon Thomas Parker and William Munroe would be proud. I know I am!

Another Depiction of the Battle of Lexington

DESCENDENCY

Deacon Thomas Parker b. 1609 Little Norton, England; d. 12 Aug 1683, Reading, MA. m. “Amy” in 1656, Reading, MA. 11 children. Deacon Thomas Parker was the immigrant ancestor, coming over from London on March 11, 1635, on the ships the Susan and Ellen, and arriving at Boston or Lynn about six months later. Listed as a “farmer, Parker married “Amy” in the early part of 1636. He was one of the first settlers in the town of Reading, which was then known as Lynn Village.

Lt. Hananiah Parker b. 1638, Lynn, MA; d. 10 Mar 1723/24, Reading, MA. m. Elizabeth Browne 30 Sept 1663, Reading, MA. 8 children.

John Parker b. 3 Aug 1664; d. 27 Jan 1740/1, Lexington, MA. m. Deliverance Dodge 7 Oct, 1689. 8 children.

Andrew Parker b. 14 Feb 1693, Reading, MA; d. 8 Apr 1776, Lexington, MA. m. SarahWhitney, 2 Aug 1720, Lexington, MA. 12 children. Andrew’s brother Josiah’s son was Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington Minutemen and leader of the first militia to fight the British on April 19, 1775 at the Battle of Lexington. Parker would lead the Lexington militia to send the British running back to Boston with their (red) tails between their legs. He died of tuberculosis, or “consumption,” a short time after the war, in September of 1775.

Jonas Parker b. 6 Feb 1721/2, Lexington, MA, d. 19 Apr, 1775, Lexington, MA. m. Lucy Munroe, c. 1742. 10 children. Jonas was the hero of the Battle of Lexington—a 53-year old who happened to be well respected as the finest wrestler in town, Jonas told everyone he would never run from the British if given the chance, and so, on the morning of April 19, 1775, Jonas moved forward when his fellow Minutemen started falling back, he stayed to fight after being given the order by his Captain—and cousin—to “give way,” he fired into the British even after he was shot and seriously wounded himself, and geared up to shoot another run before being bayoneted and killed by the rushing British troops. He and his wife’s brother, Andrew Munroe, were the first two killed that day.

Philemon Parker b. 1757, Lexington, MA; d. 1829. m. Susan Stone, 26 Oct 1780, Dudley, MA. 2^nd wife: Rhoda Bump, 1814. He d. Feb. 7 1829, AGE 74. 11 children with Susan Stone.

Sally Parker b. 1 July 1785, Chester, VT; d. 14 Jan 1877, Peru, VT. m. Scammel Burt, 3 May 1807, Princeton, MA. 10+ children. AGE 92.

Mary Ann Burt b. 1833, Peru, VT; m. Charles Lewis Tozier (as his second wife), Nov. 30, 1853, Lawrence, MA; daughter Rebecca Morrill named after Charles‘ first wife, Rebecca G. Morrill, m. June 17, 1849, Waterville, ME and d. Feb. 26, 1852; Mary Ann Burt Tozier, “mother of Rebecca, died when Rebecca was 11,” Jan. 1, 1867, Methuen, MA; Charles remarried for a third time to Henrietta F. Woolson, on Nov. 20, 1867) AGE 34. There’s a mystery about Mary Ann, but we’ll get into that on another day.

Rebecca Morrill Tozier, b. June 5, 1855, Methuen, MA, and named after her father’s first wife, Rebecca Morrill, who died at a young age; m. Francis Augustus Shove, July 1882, Salem? Malden?; d. May 10, 1937, Malden, MA) 1 child. AGE 82.

Martha Frances Shove b. Sept. 8, 1887, Malden, MA; m. Harry Franklin Damon, Sept. 8, 1913, Malden, MA; d. Aug. 14, 1989, N. Conway, NH. Lived Malden, MA and farm in Tamworth, NH. 5 children. AGE 102.

Katharine Damon b. July 30, 1916 Malden, MA; m. Carroll P. Reed Dec. 18, 1937; d. 1999, N. Conway, NH 3 children. AGE 83.

Rooster Pooster

Mother May

2010-08-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Happy, as ever, for the reminders that family history is always a work in progress, that by sharing what information we have, we invite additions and revisions to the stories. It's always a bit of a guessing game as to what information might be correct, what might be "real" and what might be fabricated, or simply erroneously copied, drummed up, or imagined. But it's well worth the effort to make a stab at getting to the truth--it's a nice way to dignify a life.

I heard from my Great Uncle Mase regarding my story on Agnes Dunn, and he was able to fill in some of the gaps. His mother had extensive notes which she got from her mother, Eliza May Mason Gardner, whom Mase and my grandfather called Mother May. Mase is also going to send me the family tree that he put together after his Aunt Arlene went to England and Scotland and went sleuthing in graveyards and public records offices. It sounds like it was a fruitful expedition. I am excited to put more of the pieces together! And when I do, I'll revise Agnes' tale yet again--though I am certain it will not be the last time.

Where art thou, Agnes Dunn?

2010-08-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

Perhaps Agnes played at this castle.

Agnes Dunn is just one of the many women in my ancestral past who is a complete mystery. There are many women like her--including her daughter, Janet Caroline Bettridge, and granddaughter Eliza May Mason--who have been practically erased, left alone to languish in the dusty depths of their unrecorded, forgotten lives, to perish, again and again. And yet--herein lies the excitement for me: a chance to unearth a life, put some flesh and blood on the bones, imagine what she might have been like, and what life might have been like for her. Wonderful stories abound, just waiting for someone to discover them, to listen, and bring them back to life. And it seems the farther I go in following her trail, the more interesting it gets: like a giant puzzle, the pieces start to come together from far off scattered places to form a more complete picture of a person who lived at a time when Great Britain was still trying to assert its world dominance through the colonization of New Zealand and the continued rule in Australia, and when the US was reeling from its own polarizing policies on slavery that had left the nation in a splintered, factious mess.

Agnes was my great, great, great grandmother, my father's father's mother's mother's mother. Little bits of Agnes live on in me, and I am infinitely curious about her, this woman from Scotland who lived in England, New Zealand, and Australia, before coming to the US, where she died in Brockton, Massachusetts, a place where the Bettridges and the Masons and the Watts and the Gardners came together in the 19th century to spawn Gardner Brothers and WB Mason and a whole host of offspring. Agnes, like most women of her time, it seems, is ever elusive in the mix.

Dundee, Scotland, 1821 survey

A few records show that she might have been born on March 10 or 11 in 1808 in Dundee, Angus, Scotland, where the habitational surname of Dun and Dunn (named with Gaelic dun, meaning 'fort') originated in Angus, spreading into the far corners of the world, and littering the Howff Graveyard of Dundee with Dunns of all kinds. Some of these Dunns might have been Agnes' parents--John Dunn, for instance, the "scavenger," who lost a baby daughter Ann to "teething;" or a different John Dunn, the "labourer," whose daughter Mary Ann died of "convulsion fits" at the age of three months, and whose wife, Mary, seems to have died just two years later, of "consumption;"; or perhaps Thomas Dunn, the "shipmaster" whose daughter Mary died of "water in head" as a young tot. Life, no doubt, was harsh. Graveyard records are filled with premature deaths from things that we can manage quite well today--asthma, teething, influenza, fevers and inflammation--or which have been thankfully eradicated--smallpox, cholera, measles. There are a few oddities amongst the causes of death--"chincough," which, after a little research in Webster's 1828 English Dictionary, I discovered is just another name for whooping cough; "heamoptosis," which is the act of coughing up blood; "synochus," or continuous fever, and "bowel hive," which I don't even want to think about. There are very few people who have died of "old age," and they are all women: Ann, at 84, takes the prize for longevity. Some of the other elder Dunns died of things like "worn out constitutions," "asthma," and "lung complaints." But truly, it is the babies, that take center stage, and their anguished mothers and fathers, that make your heart ache, and the Dunns experienced more than their fair share of loss. It must have been brutal.

Whether Agnes' parents were John and Ann, or some other pair, I don't think I'll know until I head to Dundee and do a little research there. For now, it is interesting enough to explore and imagine the possibilities.

There is some evidence that Agnes first married John Hamilton from Glasgow. Five years her elder, he might have been the father of her daughter, Agnes, but no other information is known. John Hamilton died in 1873 in Glasgow, so if they were married, the circumstances of her departure are circumspect.

ca. 1835, Robert Creighton, engr. J. & C. Walker for Lewis' Topo Dictionary

Stonehenge

All we do know is that at some point, Agnes found herself in Salisbury, England, and married Arthur Robert Bettridge, who was from Salisbury or even possibly New Zealand,on September 27, 1841, in Saint James. Agnes was now 33, and Arthur might have been (quite) a few years younger. Go, Agnes! Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England, sitting at the confluence of five rivers, and the crossing point between two major railway lines, making it a regional interchange. Salisbury is known for the stunning Salisbury Cathedral, its bountiful, historic markets, held regularly since 1227, and its proximity to Stonehenge, which stands about 8 miles northwest. At the time of Agnes and Arthur's marriage in 1841, Salisbury had grown to be the most important Wiltshire center, long framed by the prosperity of its Medieval marketplaces and backed by its deep traditions in leather crafts, boot and shoe manufacturing, and parchment makers. As well, the 19th century introduced new crafts and businesses to the area, including straw hat making, metal working, and general engineering services. Its industries were already well on the decline in the early 1840's, when they made the decision to leave. Salisbury had become predominantly a market town and shopping center for the surrounding villages.

What would have led Agnes to go to Salisbury is unknown, but given the general challenges brought on by the industrial age in the UK, it seems like a time when many ordinary folks were struggling to make ends meet and to find a better way. Those who had a little bit of moxie in them took the leap that led them and their families to new opportunities elsewhere.

It is apparent that Arthur and Agnes followed the wave of migrants from Salisbury, which resides in Wiltshire, a southwest county of England that was rich in copper and tin mining at the time, to Auckland, New Zealand, where their first child, a son named Arthur J. Dunn, was born two years later, on May 24 1843. It could be that the depression in the 1840's in Wiltshire, brought about partly by a reduction in the mining, forced them to find a better life somewhere else. Or perhaps they were intrigued by the promise of a new life, and bought into the marketing blitz made by the New Zealand Company, who was eager for new settlers. About half of all the 19th-century English immigrants to New Zealand came on assisted passages, mostly through the New Zealand Company, who were recruiting heavily in the Wiltshire area for farm labourers and craft workers who could provide the necessary skills to recreate English society and culture in New Zealand. Between 1839 and 1850, over 85% of those who emigrated did so with close family members. And Auckland's land grant scheme, which awarded immigrants land orders based on family size, further encouraged these greater family and chain migrations.

I don't know whether Agnes and Robert migrated with any other family members, but they seemed to have settled in fairly quickly, having Arthur, Elizabeth and Ann in Auckland over just a couple of years (Elizabeth may have died in infancy). There is more than one indication that Arthur, their first son, may have been born in Dublin, Ireland, but it doesn't seem to make much sense. The only reason why I mention it at all is that their daughter Janet Caroline Bettridge, my great great grandmother, was born not in Auckland, like her brother and sisters, but rather in Sydney, Australia, on October 4, 1846. The Australia Birth Index from 1788-1922 lists a Caroline J Betteridge born in 1846 to Arthur Betteridge and Agnes in New South Wales. Not sure if the spelling difference is indicative of a change the family might have made during one of their relocations, or just a typo (see below: Bettridge is obviously and indeed a variation on Betteridge). Just what did her father do for a living that brought them from England to New Zealand to Australia (and later, back again)? Was he a mariner or in the military? A younger brother, Robert W. Bettridge, was born in 1849 in Auckland, indicating that the family had returned after a possible longer stint or short excursion in Sydney. It gives some credence to the notion that Arthur could have been born in Dublin, if they were doing a lot of moving around or traveling at the time.

As well, if Arthur the father had been in the military, it was frequent policy for British soldiers to be assigned to different posts in not only New Zealand but Australia as well, and this could explain why some of his children were born in Auckland, while Janet was born in Sydney. The Harriet Affair of 1834, when a group of British soldiers of the 50th Regiment from Australia were sent by Governor Bourke from Sydney to rescue the wife and children of Jacky Guard, infamous whaler and trader, in Taranaki, NZ, and punish the kidnappers, and ended up being criticized for excessive use of force, illustrates well the use of British military from one British colony--Australia--to quell unrest in another British colony--New Zealand.

Arthur Robert Bettridge, the father of Janet, would die just three years after his youngest son, Robert, was born. And quite fittingly, he would die not in Auckland, where Robert was born, but in Merton, New South Wales, Australia, on August 3, 1852. The Bettridge family, then, appears to be living in Australia during this time. Eldest son Arthur would emigrate to the US in 1860, just at the start of the Civil War. Just one year into his new residency, he sought to take part in a historic war that would redefine the country that would later become his family's new home. In 1861, he enlisted Company 1, 12th Massachusetts division of volunteers, and after a year, transferred to the Navy, where he would serve until 1864. He would spend the next four years at sea, another indication that his father, perhaps, had been a mariner, military man, merchant, or seaman of sorts.

MASON - BETTRIDGE
January 15, 1848, at Edwardes-street Chapel, by the Rev J Long, William, eldest son of Mr Wm Mason, to Janet Caroline, second daughter of the late Mr Arthur Bettridge, of Whiteparish, Wilts., England. [NZ'er 63rd Regt May 1848]

During this time, Arthur's sister Janet, our Janet, married the dashing (he must have been) William C. Mason, who had been born in Hastings, England on March 11, 1840, and had come to Auckland with his family as part of the same wave of migration that had spurred Janet's family to leave their home, move to a new continent, and embrace a new beginning. Despite what the above passage backed in gray says, Janet was just 18 when she married William on January 15, 1864, (not 1848, which would have put her at three years old!)--and they were married not in Auckland, New Zealand, but in Sydney, Australia, where it seems Janet, her mother Agnes, sister Ann and brother Robert were still living after their father had passed away in 1852. It is possible that the oldest son, Arthur, was somehow supporting the family at this time. What's curious about the bit in gray is that despite getting the date wrong (the January 15 is correct, of course), the rest of the information seems to be accurate--and quite helpful. Janet's father was, apparently, a military man, a "New Zealander of the 63rd Regiment" in 1848. English colonization of New Zealand set off the inevitable battles for sovereignty between settlers and natives, and Bettridge may well have taken part in the skirmishes of these New Zealand Wars that began in 1843 and began to wind down with Titokowaru's War in 1869. In any case, Arthur Robert Bettridge died in 1852 at a young age, quite possibly of illness or of injury, battle or otherwise. He left behind his wife, Agnes, and four children, who would soon be busy with offspring of their own. How did Agnes cope?

Great Uncle William's company logo

Sometime after their wedding in 1864, Janet and William--and for all we know, Agnes, Ann and Robert, too--moved back to Auckland. In March of the following year, 1865, William Betts Mason was born in Mount Saint Mary, Auckland, which at this point I can only decipher as being either a Catholic college in Auckland, a parish, or a neighborhood also known as St. Mary's Bay. William Betts, incidentally, would go on to found the rubber stamp company in Brockton that grew into the WB Mason Office Supply Company, and it is perhaps his mustached face that adorns their logo, plastered on company vans and advertisements throughout New England, most iconically, at the Green Monster at Fenway Park. Sometimes, especially driving around Boston, I see his face everywhere. Hello, Uncle!

A daughter, Sarah Agnes Mason, followed WB in December of 1866, and in 1868, Uncle Arthur returned to New Zealand, and worked with the Revenue Service until 1870. On January 28, 1869, his sister Janet, still at Mount Saint Mary, would give birth to my great grandmother, Eliza May Mason, who would be joined by a younger sister, Edith Winnifred Mason, on November 17, 1870.

Sometime in 1870, Uncle Arthur returned to the US, settling in Brockton, Massachusetts and working as a carpenter for five years. Five years later, he would move to Pettis County, Missouri, marry Rebecca Jeffries, and then make his way back to Brockton, where he would end out his days, dying on August 17, 1896.

There are some clues as to when the rest of Arthur's family might have come over, but a lot remains buried. Agnes must have come over once her son Arthur had settled in, or perhaps, they came together, but there is greater evidence to suggest that she came sometime between January of 1871 and 1873. When she died, in Brockton, at the age of 65, on December 29, 1873, she had outlived her husband by more than twenty years. Agnes also outlived her son-in-law, William C. Mason, who tragically died at the age of 31 on January 28, 1871, in Auckland. If this is so, Janet must not have come to Brockton until after his death in 1871. Her children would have been so very young--6, 5, 2, and 1--and I can't imagine that her mother left her at this time to go to Brockton without her, or before her, so it makes sense that Agnes must have stayed in Auckland to help Janet with her children before they all came to the US sometime after January of 1871. Difficult times often bring families together; perhaps Janet's older brother Arthur offered assistance at this time, and the family followed him to Brockton.

City Directories and Census reports would tell me a whole lot more, and I'll get on it, but for now, I am too cheap to pay the monstrous subscription prices at Ancestry.com that would allow me to research such places from the comfort and convenience of my home. I suspect that all the Masons and Bettridges might have come over to Brockton and lived close by, if not with each other. I would imagine that Agnes, mother of Janet, and grandmother of Eliza May, most likely lived with Janet and her family. After all, both women were widowed, and it must have been awfully difficult to get along without each other. It is no wonder that WB went on to become such a successful businessman, driven as he was by his circumstances of most likely having to provide for his family at a young age. In fact, the 1880 census shows that Janet was heading a house on Ford Street, her four children living with her. Her son William B., at the age of 15, is already working full time as a clerk in a clothing store. His mother, Janet, is working as a seam stay maker. Sarah (13), Eliza May (11), and Edith (9) are all "at school." The census also serves to confirm the birthplaces of everyone, as well as their parents. In this five-some, Australia, England, Scotland, and New Zealand are all represented, a veritable British empire.

The Mason-Five in 1880

Agnes Dunn Bettridge died on the 29th day of December in 1873, in Brockton, Massachusetts. She was, as I've said, 65. She had lived in five countries on four continents, gave birth to as many as six children, and watched them grow and prosper and have children themselves.

Her granddaughter, Eliza May Mason, went on to marry Emanuel Washington Gardner, son of Eliza Watt and Silas Gardner, who had come over from Stockport, England in the early 1800's to make his way in the fruit and vegetable business, which his two sons, Silas and Eliza's husband Emanuel, eventually took over and named Gardner Brothers. Eliza Watt was the daughter of Robert Watt and Elizabeth Malcolm, both from Scotland. Eliza May and Emanuel married on November 14, 1888, and lived in Brockton, where they had several children, including my grandfather, Donald Watt Gardner. In 1898, WB Mason started his rubber stamp company. His mother, Janet Caroline Bettridge Mason, died on September 12, 1915 in Brockton, at age 69. Janet's daughter, May would die on January 26, 1938, while visiting her daughter in Marblehead, three years after her husband, Emanuel, had died.

A few interesting surname tidbits: In Scottish, Dunn is a nickname from the Gaelic, donn, meaning brown. In English, it was a nickname for a man with dark hair or a swarthy complexion, from the Middle English dunn, meaning dark colored. In Irish, it is a reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Dun:
Ó Duinn, Ó Doinn ‘descendant of Donn’, a byname meaning ‘brown-haired’ or ‘chieftain’. More likely, Dunn is the Scottish habitational name from Dun in Angus, where Agnes was from, named with Gaelic dùn‘ fort', meaning a heap, hill, mount; a fortress, a castle, fastness, a tower.

Bettridge is indeed the reduced form of Betteridge, as in I am better than you. That's a joke--just all that phony British enthnocentricity talking. It's actually from the Old English personal name Beaduric, composed of the elements beadu ‘battle’ + ric for ‘power’. Huh. Battle power. I guess I am better than you. ;)

Mason is of course an occupational surname. Somewhere in our past we've got an ancestor who made things, and in particular, worked with stone to make things, cool things no doubt, given the importance of stone masonry in the Middle Ages, when the surname originated. It comes from the Old French maçon (of Germanic origin, connected with Old English macian to make). The Masons, incidentally, come from northern England; as well, there was, in 1891, a fairly high number of Mason families in Angus, Scotland, too.

Watt is from the Scottish and the English, from an extremely common Middle English personal name, Wat(t), a short form of Walter.

And as for my last name--Gardner--well, let's just say that my great grandfather Emanuel and his brother Silas were carrying on the family traditions when they operated Gardner Brothers fruit and vegetable wholesale and retail market in Brockton. Not only had their father, Silas, sold fruit and such on the streets as a huckster, but their grandfather, also named Emanuel, was from Timperley, England, which served as a market garden for Manchester. And still, it goes on long before that. Gardner is a form of Gardener, from the Anglo-Norman French gardinier, meaning gardener, as in, a cultivator of edible produce in an orchard or a kitchen garden. Sounds a whole lot like me! Off now, to pick some raspberries and tend to the overflowing vegetable garden in the back yard. Happy sleuthing! ~ ESG

Lucy and Davis Damon

2010-06-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

This is the story of Lucy and Davis Damon, my great, great, great, great, grandparents (Davis is the handsome guy in the photograph above). They themselves were third cousins twice removed. What does this mean? Well, to start out with, they were both descended from John Daman (Damon), who was born on the 11th of November, 1621 in Tenterden, Kent, England. Tenterden was known for its wool and ship building. John Damon came over to Plymouth Colony at about the age of seven sometime before 1628 with his sister, Hannah, who was about five, and his mother's brother William Gilson, and his wife, Frances. Gilson was also John and Hannah's guardian. Gilson was from Feering, Essex in England. He and his wife Frances were childless. We don't know the circumstances of why he took on his sister Hannah's children and went to Plymouth.

The Mayflower landed at Plymouth in December, 1620; in 1628, the population held at about three hundred surviving Puritans, who were scattered about the colony. It wasn't until the Great Expansion of the 1630s when 20,000 Puritans came over to New England from England that the population exploded. In 1630, John, his sister Hannah, his Uncle William and Aunt Frances settled in Scituate with other "Men of Kent" who laid out the village with "great regularity" for "mutual defense" (4 acres per lot). Old records record Gilson as a "man of education and talents." He was, as an "assistant to the government," a member of the Governor's Council in 1633, 1634, and 1636-1638. With the help of his nephew John, built and erected the first windmill (for grinding corn) in the New World, suggesting that he could have been a miller by trade. According to colony records of 1633, Gilson was a contractor, with others, at a very early date to "improve the navigable passage at Green's Harbor, near Governor Winslow's, in Marshfield (then called Rexham). We can only imagine that John, as a young man, was helping and learning from his uncle as he would have from his father.

Gilson and his wife Frances, in addition to taking care of John and Hannah, were also looking after Priscilla Brown, daughter of Peter Brown of Plymouth, who had died and left his widow with a large family of children. By all accounts, they were "devoted to their young kinspeople." After Gilson died, a fairly young man, in 1639, his will provided well for both John and Hannah, and dictated that "his nephew John Damon should receive my lot on the third cliff, after the next crop is taken off." John "succeeded to his uncle's residence, on Kent Street." When Frances died ten years later, in 1649, Hannah and John were made sole heirs. All evidence suggests that, as the Plymouth Colony Records state, "although he had no children of his owne, yet that he had two of his sister's children, which he looked upon as his own." Susan Collamore Damon, Davis' sister, in a journal entry on October 1897, quotes Colony Records of 1649: "John and Hannah Damon are allowed by the Court to be lawful heirs of William Gilson, it being proved by divers (diverse) persons that Mr. Gilson had often said that he intended to make these (his sister's children) his heirs."

On the 16th of June in 1644, at the age of 23, John married Katherine Merritt in Scituate, Plymouth Colony. Katherine was the daughter of Henry Merritt and Deborah Buck, daughter of Lt. Isaac Buck, also from good ol' Kent. They had a child named Deborah in no time, and another one, John, four years later, in 1649. Their third child, Zacharia, or Zachary, as it is sometimes listed, sadly died in infancy. Plymouth Colony Vital Records states that "Zacaryah the son of John Damman born in February 1649 deceased in February 1649." We can only imagine the deep sadness that comes from losing a child of any age; during these early times, families were well versed in losing many children in infancy to a variety of maladies, malnutrition, and other difficulties that came with their often harsh way of life; as well, they lost many to the Indian wars, to accidents, epidemics, and natural causes. Many had large families to ensure that at least some of their children would survive to adulthood. The early Damon families are great examples of this--though it seems that most, as you shall see, survived childhood and went on to populate much of New England.

In 1651, Mary was born, followed by Daniel in 1652. Finally, on February 2nd, 1654, their last child together was born, and they named him, of course, Zacharia. The happiness did not last. At the age of only one and three quarters, Zacharia number two lost his mother. Zacharia, or Zachary, as he is often called, would become a prominent Lt. Col., serving in King Philip's War. He would also, in time, become Davis Damon's great great great grandfather.

After four years of grieving for his dead wife, and plowing the 80 acres on the farm (the second lot from Satuit Brook) his uncle William had bequeathed to him, John decided to get back in to the business, and in no time he got married again. In January of 1659, he married Martha Howland, daughter to Arthur Howland and Margaret Reed from Hen Stanton, Huntingdon, England. Margaret was called "the Widow Reed," but there are no records of who her first husband was or what her maiden name had been. Three years later they had their first child together, a son named Experience, who, like his father John, would end up with a stack of children from two different wives. John and Martha would go on to have an additional five children: Silence, Ebenezer, Ichabod, Margaret, and Hannah. In 1666, John Damon was appointed to command the Scituate Company of "Colonial Soldiery under Captain Miles Standish, commander of all of Plymouth Colony's Militia, and served there until 1669.

Around the same time, in 1666, he displayed the great character he was so well known for. The Damon Memorial, or, Notices of Three Damon Families who came from Old England to New England in the 17th Century, by Samuel Chenery Damon, recounts a wonderful story about how John Damon was able to help his friend (and brother-in-law) Arthur Howland, a Quaker, in his efforts to marry the love of his life, Elizabeth Prence, daughter of then Governor Prence.

"He was warm-hearted, generous and ever ready to be of such measure of assistance as he was able, to a friend or neighbor who stood in need. This characteristic brought him collaterally into a pretty romance in which Governor Prence, his daughter Elizabeth and Damon's friend Arthur Howland, Jr., of Duxbury were involved. This was in 1666. At that time this provision concerning courtship was the law of the colony: "Whereas divers persons unfitt for marriage both in regard to their yeoung years as also in regard of their weake estate, some practiseing the enveigleing of men's daughters and maids under guardians (contrary to their parents and guardians liking), and of mayde servants without leave and liking of their masters. It is therefore enacted by the Court that if any shall make any motion of marriage to any man's daughter or maydbe servant not having first obtained leave and consent of the parents or master so to doe, shalbe punished either by fine or corporall punishment or both, at the discretion of the bench and according to the nature of the offense." Young Howland and Mistress Prence were enamored of each other. They were not "unfitt for marriage" within the meaning of this statute, both being of age and the former possessed of fifty acres of land in Duxbury which had been granted him by the colony court.

"There was however one grave and insuperable objection. Howland was a Quaker. His father, at first a sympathizer, had been frequently prosecuted before Prence, who was then Governor, for the entertainment of Quakers and assisting in the promulgation of their faith, and had finally embraced it. The Governor was rabid in his opposition to the sect and the marriage of his daughter to one of them was intolerable. The young woman was the third child of his second marriage. Her mother was a sister of William Collier, as prominent and persistent in his persecution of the Quakers as was the Governor himself. Both parents forbade the courtship which in spite of their joint efforts continued. No other means availing, recourse was finally had to a criminal prosecution against Howland under the law which has been above quoted. On March 5, 1666-7 Howland was brought before the Bench on which his accuser sat as the presiding magistrate and charged with: "inveigling Mistris Elizabeth Prence and makeing motion of marriage to her, and prosecuting the same contrary to her parents liking, and without theire consent, and directly contrary to their mind and will." He was sentenced to pay a fine of five pounds, to find sureties for his good behavior: "and in special that he desist from the use of any meanes to obtaine or retaine her affections as aforesaid." (Plymouth Colony Records Vol. III Page 140, 141).

"Here John Damon came to the assistance of his friend. He became surety for that good behavior which the Court required. He also apparently counseled the action which was taken four months later when Howland "did solemnly and seriously engage before this Court, (Governor Prence still presiding) that hee will wholly desist and never apply himself for the future, as formerly hee hath done, to Mistris Elizabeth Prence, in reference unto marriage." However solemn this agreement may have been, it was not serious on the part of young Howland; nor did Mistress Prence agree that the action either of the Court or her lover was final. The courtship continued and was consummated in a marriage later. The daughter was never forgiven. The bitterness which Prence showed toward General Cudworth for the latter's leniency toward the Quakers was greatly increased in the case of his daughter because of her successful rebellion to his stubborn will. Although he disinherited her, he lived to see her surrounded by a contented brood and the Scituate planter who had become the surety for the good behavior of the parent the Godfather of his children."

There are many stories illustrating John Damon's unselfishness and genuine interest in the welfare of others. As well, his service to the settlement, as demonstrated by his selection as Deputy to the Colony Court, Council of War, and Selectman, further showed his devotion, integrity, and willingness to take risks in order to ensure fairness and stand up for things he believed in. Another story as recorded by Early Planters of Scituate by Harvey Hunter Pratt, brings together many of our emigrant ancestors: John Damon, John Bryant, John Turner, and Lt. Isaac Buck. Suffice it to say that there was a disagreement about whether Elder William Hatch could claim a share in the town's common land. "It has been told elsewhere in these pages that the Colony Court had permitted the freemen of Scituate to make division of these lands among the freeholders. In doing this, there had been trouble. Two factions had sprung up, and the town had delegated the privilege to a committee. While the magistrates did not approve of this, they sanctioned it for a time, and then re-established the bench in the performance of the duty by appointing a committee of its own choice from the townsmen made up however of the leaders of each faction." You see the trouble a-brewing, when the committee assigned the task of resolving the issue is made up the very men on opposite sides of the issue. One one side of the issue--Capt. James Cudworth, Cornet Stetson, Isaac Chittenden, and Lt. Buck--who did not want Elder Hatch to be able to receive a plot of land. Lt. Buck was John Damon's first wife's grandfather. On the other side, advocating for Hatch, were John Damon, John Turner, Sr., John Turner, Jr., and John Bryant, Sr. We are descended from ALL of these men--John Damon, John Turner, and John Bryant. How funny they were on the same side. Except for Buck, who, incidentally, Damon was able to sway over to his side, thereby securing the majority (although he lost Bryant, he gained Chittenden and Buck) for Hatch to receive his "layout," and swapping out one of our ancestors (Bryant) for another (Buck).

In an inventory taken on October 23, 1676, John Damon had few debts, many animals, and much prized food. The big value items included 7 oxen, 10 cattle, 6 score and 12 bushels of Indian corn, and 25 sheep tied with 20 loads of hay. The Scituate Historical Society lists John Damon's death soon after the inventory was taken, in January of 1677. His widow, Martha, was executrix of his will, and later married Peter Bacon on February 19th of 1679.

John's son Experience, from his second marriage with Martha Howland, first married Patience Rawlins in about 1686 and had 7 children. Ichabod came first, then Experience, Patience, John, Ebenezer, Hannah, and finally, Silence. Patience ran out of patience, it seems, and died sometime between 1702-1711, but we don't know the exact date. Experience then married Ruth Low, and had 7 more children: Ruth, Mary, Martha, David, Rachel, Joanna, and Jonathan. Ruth died in 1743. Experience wins the Most Kids Award with a total of 14 children. That guy definitely needed a hobby! Amazingly, Experience still found time to be a blacksmith and a cooper, living near Pincin Hill in Scituate. He died at age 70.

David Damon, eldest son of Experience and Ruth, and born April, 1717, did not marry until he was 31. Ruth Young, at age 18, was his first wife, whom he married in 1748, in Scituate. She died in April of 1754 , and soon after, David married Mary Bryant, the widow Clap. Mary was a descendant of the same John Bryant who spawned Davis Damon (through a first wife, Mary Lewis). So, Lucy and Davis, in addition to both being descended from John Damon, were also both descended from John Bryant, and were fourth cousins once removed through him, who, incidentally, had nineteen children with three different wives! David and Mary would have two daughters, Molly and Ruth, and a son, Luther Damon, born in 1755, who was Lucy Damon's father. Luther married Alice (Ellis/Ellice) Nash in 1796 in Scituate. Alice died of cancer in 1848, in her 70's. Plymouth County records of the 1840 Census of Pensioners show that at the age of 84, in June of 1840, he was receiving a pension for military services. Luther died at the age of 87 in January of 1842.

So we now know about Lucy's part of the story, but what about Davis, Lucy's husband? Do you remember Zacharia number two, the one who fought in King Phillips War? Well, he and Experience were half brothers. Zacharia's wife was Martha Woodworth (aka Woodward), daughter of Walter Woodworth and quite possibly Elizabeth Rogers, reputed daughter of Thomas "The Pilgrim" Rogers, who came over on the Mayflower with his son Joseph after leaving his wife and two daughters and a son back in Leiden. While no documents remain that would evidence this connection, there is record of his wife and children that were left behind in Leiden in the 1622 poll tax of Leiden. His daughters Elizabeth and Margaret apparently came to New England later, and in 1650, Governor William Bradford wrote that "Thomas Rogers, and Joseph, his sone (came). His other children came afterwards… Thomas Rogers dyed in the first sickness, but his sone Joseph is still living, and is married, and hath 6 children. The rest of Thomas Rogers (children) came over, and are maried, and have many children.”

Martha Woodworth was born in 1679 in Scituate, Plymouth Colony. Starting in 1682, with a daughter named Martha and Zacharia (aka Zechary) had eight children, all born in Scituate: Martha (1682), John (1684), Zachariah (1686), Daniel (1688), Mary (1690), Abigail (1692), Hannah (1694), and Mehitable (1696). They seemed to have found their rhythm. After Martha died, Zacharia, or Zechary, would marry Martha Howland, widow of John Howland. They would have no children together. Zacharia, if you remember, served as a Lieutenant in King Philip's War in 1676, and as was the custom at the time, received land for his services. His brother, John Damon Jr., also served as a soldier in the same war, and also received a grant of land for his "brave and fierce service." Scituate Historical Society records, however, indicate that he died in 1675, during the first year of the war. There are no additional family records of him.

One of Zacharia's son was Daniel Damon Sr., who was born in 1688 and married Bathsheba Sylvester, on January 3, 1711 Bathsheba was the daughter of Israel and Martha Sylvester (also spelled Silvester). Both Daniel and his brother, Zachary Jr., built upon the land granted to their father, Lt. Zachary Damon. The Damon family homestead remained in the family for a long while.

Daniel and Bathsheba would have four children together: Hannah, born in 1713, Daniel Jr., born in 1716, Isaac, born 1718, and finally, Joseph, born 1720. Joseph would go on to take as his second wife his half-first cousin once removed Joanna Damon, daughter of Experience and Ruth Damon. Experience was Joseph's (and Daniel Jr.'s) half-great uncle. Whew! And we thought today's modern extended step-and half-families were complicated! Together, they would have thirteen children.

Joseph's brother, Daniel Damon Jr., married Judith Litchfield in 1741 in Scituate. Her father was Samuel Litchfield, her mother, Abigail Buck, both from longtime Scituate families. Daniel Jr., served as Sexton of the Second Church of Scituate in 1780. Their children were Daniel III, born first in 1742 in Scituate, John (1744), Bathsheba (1748), Samuel (1749), Simeon (1751), Joshua (1757), and Abigail (birth unknown). Bathsheba and Abigail would remain unmarried the whole of their lives. Their brothers, however, would all, except for Joshua, go on to marry women from the Bowker family. Samuel would go on to settle in Springfield, Vermont, while the rest stayed in Scituate. Our Simeon, Davis' grandfather, married Lucy Bowker, daughter of John Bowker and Anna Wright, in June of 1780 in Scituate. Together, they would have nine children: Simeon (born 1781, settled in Springfield, Vt with his Uncle Samuel), our Elijah (born 1783), Delight Bowker (b. 1786, also settled in Springfield, Vt), Daniel (b. 1788), Ruth (b. 1790), Judith Litchfield (b. 1792), Samuel Litchfield (b. 1794), and finally, Anna (b. 1796).

Elijah, Davis Damon's father, married Sally Sears of Scituate in November of 1811. Her parents were Peter Sears and Susanna Collamore. Elijah and Sally's first child was Davis, born July 5, 1812 in Scituate. Sarah came next, in 1814, then Lucy in 1817, Hosea in 1819, and then Davis' youngest sister, Susannah Collamore Damon, born in 1824, making her twelve years younger than Davis. Susan, as she was known, would become a devoted Unitarian missionary, remain unmarried, and serve her family and community in ways that merited much admiration and celebration of her life. She and Davis would grow up in Scituate on the north side of Grove Street in a Cape Cod house that perhaps still stands. "Every Sunday they drove in a chaise to the First Church, in South Scituate Village. Elijah wore his beaver hat from Paris and Sally wore a poke bonnet. The beaver hat was carefully put away in a cardboard box. Sally also wore a black veil. The children sat on a cricket. The family pew was near the front on the broad isle. The children stayed there at noon while the parents went to Mr. Sparrell's for Sunday dinner. The hat and the veil are now the property of the Norwell (once South Scituate) Historical Society. There is a granite monument to Elijah and Sally in the First Parish Cemetery."

This newspaper clipping to the right (from old family archives) shows the Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, where the Damons were members for more than two hundred years. The Church, built in 1681 when Cohasset and Hingham were one community, is the oldest meeting house and the oldest wooden church in the US. It is known as the Old Ship's Church. Written on the clipping is this amazing story: "The Church where Elijah Damon took Abe Lincoln in 1851, then drove him home to Sunday dinner at South Scituate. Abe was just an unknown lawyer. He always remembered S. J. May, and used him during the War as a Chaplain in the Senate." Pretty cool.

Davis would be married in this church to his first wife, Lucy Damon! On November 18, 1838, the Rev. Samuel J. May married Lucy and Davis, third cousins twice removed. May presented them with a book upon the occasion, entitled "The Christian Minister's Affectionate Advice to a New Married Couple."

The 1840 Census of Scituate, Massachusetts shows Davis Damon as the head of a household that includes his wife Lucy, and his first son, Albert Davis Damon, who was born in 1840. Although absent from the Census reports, in January of 1842, Lucy and Davis would have a second son, but the baby would die two days later. On July 22, 1845, a daughter, Lucy Alice, was born. She died at the age of fourteen months, on September 20, 1846. In 1850, the Census lists Davis as "David," and living in East Boston. At age 38, he is a "carpenter." Lucy, at age 34, is mother to Albert and Alonzo Willard Damon, who was born in 1847. Albert, at ten, is "at school." Also included in the household is Bridget Bailey, who, at age 17, from Ireland, and unable to read or write, provided the family with domestic help. A third child would die young, a daughter, Emma Jane, born October 15, 1853 only to live a few years, until August 5, 1856. By 1860, Davis, age 48 and listed as a "ship carpenter," and Lucy, 44, have added three more children to the mix: George Franklin Damon, born in 1851, Susan Amelia Damon, born in 1856, and our Herbert, born in 1857. Alonzo, George and Susan are all "at school." Albert is a ship carpenter like his father. Interestingly, a Ruth Damon, age 62, is listed as living with the family. Ruth was Lucy's older sister. Davis was working with Donald McKay of East Boston, famous clipper-ship builder.

Lucy died on August 19, 1864. Davis' sister, Susan Collamore Damon, recorded the event in her diary: "My brother's wife passed on. The motherless family came the night before Thanksgiving. Change after change is all around me."

In 1870, Davis, a "house carpenter," is heading up a large household in East Boston, Massachusetts. His first wife's oldest sister, Ruth, is listed as his wife. We have not been able to find any marriage records to confirm this union, but it would make sense, since they had been living together. Perhaps they were not married, and it was simply a matter of convenience for both that they remained under the same roof. At age 72 to Davis' 58 years, Ruth is "keeping house,' which includes Lucy and Davis' children, George (18), a "clerk in a store," Herbert (12), "attending school," Susan (14), also "attending school," and Davis' youngest sister, Susan Collamore Damon, age 46, who was serving as a "missionary." A Mary Cooney, age 19, is listed as well, probably a servant. Albert and Alonzo Willard are missing from this Census.

Sometime before 1880, Ruth died, and Davis has married another of Lucy's sisters, Nancy Damon Schofield, a widow of 62 years. Nancy married her first husband, George Schofield, in Hingham in 1835. Marriage records show that Davis and Nancy were married January 1, 1873 in Lowell, Massachusetts. The 1880 Census records Davis (67) and Nancy (70) living together with two of Davis' youngest sons (and Nancy's nephews/step-sons), George, age 27, working as a house carpenter, and Herbert, age 22, "bookkeeper." Susan C. Damon is still living with them as a "boarder." Charles Jackson, age 30, house carpenter, is also listed as a boarder, as is Henrietta H. Day, a woman of 68 years. Julia A. Worth, age 19, a "servant" from Canada, rounds out the household. Davis would die eight years later, on May 11, 1888, in South Boston. His widow, Nancy, would marry for a third time, to someone named "Jackson." Could it be that those Damon sisters continued their cougar ways and Nancy married Charles Jackson, 40 years younger?

A newspaper clipping of an obituary of Lucy and Davis' youngest son, Herbert, who would be the only Damon child to go on to have children and grandchildren and great grandchildren (and great, great, and great great great grandchildren--like me) of his own, states that "Mr. Damon was born in East Boston on December 20, 1857. His father was Davis Damon and his mother was Lucy, daughter of Luther and Alice Damon. Tho of the same name, they were no relatives." We now know this was not the case. Like many of the Damon and Reed ancestors, Lucy and Davis were as intertwined as they come.

--Dominick Poulsen (with help from Liz)

Mom, Are We Related to Steve Nash?

2008-06-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

We’ve been constructing lists of all the family surnames for each branch--it’s exhaustive, of course, but awfully fun to imagine the possible connections. Dominick’s conclusions: “We’re related to at least six NBA basketball players: Tony Parker, Kwame Brown, Steve Nash, Jason Richardson, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James.” Ah, if it all worked that way. We’ve long admired Matt Damon from afar (and for a while, Johnny Damon, too, before he traitorously joined the ranks of those bad boys in pinstripes) and have even researched a possible genetic link to his Damon family (it must go way back, even before a seven-year old John Damon Jr. came to Plymouth with his sister Hannah and their uncle and guardian William Gilson in 1628, and spawned all of us Rooster Pooster Damons...but there may be some connection to Matt’s line of Damons—if we look at John’s father, John Damon Sr., who lived in the Faverhsam area in Kent, England).

It’s been fun, too, to trace the evolution of particular family surnames. For instance, if we look at the name McCurdy (Janet McCurdy married Robert Lithgow; their daughter Martha married Lt. James Dunning; their daughter Mary married William Reed Jr.) on the Reed side of the family, it is interesting to see how the name captures the evolution of surnames. In the late 14th century, a man named Ruari, or Roderick, dwelled on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. One name was sufficient. His son, named Macruari (son of Ruari), also had a son, named Gilkrist, who by this time had taken on the last name of his father, as well as the title Chieftan—of the Makurerdy clan, we presume. Clearly, the Isle of Bute was growing more crowded with more clans, and all those Donalds and Daniels and Fingals and Gilkrists needed more distinction, as clan warfare escalated.

With each generation, as the name is passed down from father to son (and we hope, to daughter, too), the name changes shape bit by bit, becoming more refined and distinct. Several generations later, Donald Makurerdy would have a son Donald, who would change his last name to MacKirdy. It is his son, Fingal, to whom this blog is dedicated. Fingal’s son Donald’s son Daniel’s son Daniel (have we lost you yet?) changed the name to McCurdy after he left Scotland for County Antrim, Ireland. It was Daniel McCurdy’s daughter Janet who left Ireland for the coast of Maine all those years ago.

Before Janet's time, there was a unique system of naming girls in Scotland. The feminine version of Mac, was Nc, an abbreviation of “nighean mhic” or “daughter of Mac”, which was attached to a woman’s surname, and sometimes further abbreviated to N’. If you care to read more about Scottish surnames, click here.

In the rest of the world, the use of true surnames—hereditary names used to distinguish one person from another—began first in southern areas of Europe, and then spread to the north. As well, the trend began with the nobility, sweeping through the northern gentry last. And, as we have seen many times, there were many people who retained altogether too many names, like Thomas Read did in 1575, when he was also known as "Clerk of the Green Cloth." Whatever that means.

We’ve researched many of our family surnames to see what they mean and where they are from. Here is a sampling of our findings:

SEWARD ~ High admiral, who kept the sea against pirates; from the sea, and ward; a keeper. This would be an example of a place name that was perhaps combined with an occupational name.
SHOVE ~ Variation of the Dutch “schave”, and from Middle English “schove”, probably from Old English “scufa”, to thrust or push. (We think, perhaps, that the earliest Shove was a playground bully, and his naming was an example of a negative descriptive name)
LAWTON ~ Settlement on or near a hill, or by a burial mound. Hlaw=hill, burial mound; Tun=enclosure, settlement. Habitational, or place name. Similar to Hurst, which is old English for a wooded hill, or Nash, a topographical name for someone who lived by an ash tree.
GARDNER ~ From Gartner (German); and Gardener, which in the middle ages would have been a cultivator of edible produce in an orchard or kitchen garden (as opposed to a frivolous ornamental garden). Occupational name, as Mason is.
DAMON ~ English, Scottish, Classical Greek, and then there’s this: daman="to kill" (ouch!), or from the French, D’Amont, “one who lives uphill.” That sounds a bit better. Could this be an example of a descriptive surname, one that grew from an earlier association with an ancestor who was a killer? Yikes. Fits Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne pretty well.
REED ~ Comes from Read, Reade and Rede before. Middle English for having red hair or a ruddy complexion, or living in a woodland clearing. In addition to being a descriptive name, Reed can also be a habitational name. I suppose that the original Rede might have satisfied all three requirements. Oh! You mean that William, with the red hair and skin, who lives in the woodland clearing down the way. You say he had a few too many last night? And later: Oh! You mean William the Red. Yea, that'd be he, pulling his beard out over nothing. And still later still: Oh! You mean William Rede. He is a good fellow. Ay, I do. And I did all along.
WATT ~ A short form of Walter. Scottish and English. Patronymic. Funny, we thought that it might have come about because some ancestor-dude was hard of hearing. What? Watt?
HITCHCOCK ~ “Hitch” was a pet name for Richard (no doubt, because there were so many of them during the 14th century), and “cock” meant young man. Put them together, and you can imagine a young man named Richard whom everybody called Hitch and who had a son named Richard (because, really, back then, what else was there to name your son?) whom everybody called Hitchcock…and all the babies were little Hitchcocks, and it stuck, and the rest is history!
ROOT ~ There’s much more to this tidy little name than we expected! Root comes from the English nickname for a cheerful person (rote=glad). As well, it was an occupational name for one who played the rote, an early medieval stringed instrument. And finally, it was a topographical name for someone who lived by a retting place.

As for MCCURDY, it means skilled seaman, a good thing to be when you’re traversing the rough seas and rocky channels along the Isle of Bute!

Go Behind the Name to research your own surname.

--ESG with DRP

William Who Shoves: The Evolution of Family Names and Origins

2008-06-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, before billions of people roamed the earth, the scattering of people who eeked out a living in tiny villages were able to get by with just one name. Because of the remoteness of the population density, this custom--assigning just one name--was free of confusion and problems. But as the population rapidly increased, and more and more people inherited the same names, identities became mistaken, and it became too hard to find the person you were looking for.

In 14th century England, five names, William, Henry, John, Richard, and Robert, became so popular that two-thirds of the male population had one of them. To minimize the name confusions, people started associating other words and phrases with people's names to separate and distinguish them from others with the same name. Where you were born or where you had come from, what you looked like, what your occupation was, what your personality was like, and who your father was, all determined how people--neighbors and travelers--would refer to you and distinguish you from the other Williams, Henrys, Johns, Richards, and Roberts that shared soil with you. This was true in other European countries, too. In Norway and Denmark, if your father was Poul (Paul), and you were named Knut, you might have been called Knut Son of Poul, just to distinguish you from the Knut who was son of Thor, who lived just around the fjord. This is an example of a patronymic type of name, one that is derived from the father, and indicating "son of..." There were place or local names as well, that included habitational, topographic, and geographic references. Perhaps you lived next to a lake. You could be named Domenico Who Lives by the Lake, as opposed to the Domenico who lives by the woods. As well, sur names arose from descriptive nicknames, some of which may have started out as having a negative association and were later changed. For instance, what if you were not considered the nicest person in town? Well, unfortunately you could be named for your unkindness, and become known as John the Savage, perhaps, or the playground bully, William Who Shoves. The last type of name was an occupational name, and was based on what you did for work: Richard the Mason, Michael the Miller, Joseph the Smith.

As time went on, the phrases, which were a real mouthful for a time, became combined into easier, shorter beginnings of true surnames, that would start to be passed down generation to generation and would no longer be changed after 1500 AC. Son of Poul would be shortened to Poulsen, Domenico of Lago Marsino would become Domenico Lagomarsino (and later anglicized as Dominick Lake Marsins), and so on. Other family names such as Shove, our bully ancestors, were recreated as this naming revolution took the place of the phrased "last names."

We had fun dreaming up some combinations for ourselves; Daisy who catches rocks = Daisy Rocks, Elizabeth of the bountiful hair = Elizabeth Bounair, Dominick with the large heart = Dominick Large-Heart, Luke who plays on the links = Luke Links, James the buisness manager = James B-man, and last but not least, Mischief who eats mice = Mischief Mouse.

--L.G.P

Send us your old Christmas photos!!

2007-11-30T12:08:00.001-08:00

Christmas Cousins:

Rebecca is clearly ready, opening her stocking wide in anticipation of Santa's arrival: "Put the loot in here, Santy!" Deke looks a bit serious, or worried--"Uh-oh, did I remember to tell Santa that I wanted a remote control motorcycle?" Stefan looks as if he's just caught a glimpse of Santa in the corner. "Is that him? What's he doing? Whaddya say, Mom? Smile?" And Liz? Well, I do think she's had too much holiday cheer--did somebody spike her juice or something? "Anyone seen my sippie cup? That juice was goooood..."

Guess Who?!

2007-11-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

Can you tell us who this is, where these photos were taken, and when? Note the Butts can in the background in the photo on the right. Also, you can catch a glimpse of a mystery woman in the background in the photo on the left. Click on the comment option below to make a guess, and we'll let you know who wins (prizes include the satisfaction of knowing you got it right, and that despite years, even decades, perhaps, of senior moments, there's still some vim left :)). And be sure to check back often for the Guess Who?! Game...

Damons ~ Ooops! my bad...

2007-11-21T11:29:00.000-08:00

...for mixing up Aunt Ginny's name with Aunt Peggy's on the inherited traits email to the Damon clan. Must have been the migraine that has addled my brain his morning, or perhaps a middle-age moment that rendered me temporarily, I hope, idiotic, but whatever the case, I feel awfully foolish to have written the "service for Aunt Ginny" instead of for Aunt Peggy, especially given the fact--and an indisputable one at that--that Aunt Ginny has many years left to enjoy, and still sparkles clear and bright! Thank you to Annie for bringing it to my attention, and apologies to Aunt Ginny, who I am hoping received the news with a forgiving smile :), and to everyone else, some of whom I might have scared, surprised, and, though I hope not, offended. It was a lovely service for Aunt Peggy, and I hate to think that I have diminished it or her memory in any way.

It's funny--I've been thinking about what our first Damon post would be, and well, here it is, certainly not what I had planned. Over the years, this family, this large, rambunctious, generous, loving family of Damons has meant so much to me. Those big family gatherings at the farm when I was growing up--whether for a summer reunion in the meadows, a country wedding, a Thanksgiving feast, or a Christmas celebration--pulled me up and out and provided a tether to something secure and loving and steadfast that I desperately needed. Over the years, we've all grown up, and yet, the need for that connection has always, and will always, remain. I see it in my own children now--and particularly in their love of big family gatherings, and their love and pursuit of family history. So, on this Thanksgiving eve, I offer this thanks: for all the gatherings, past and future, for the constant pull of the family tether, for the sense of belonging, home, and connection, and for the love, humor, and forgiveness, I thank all of you! XO Liz

Inherited Traits Survey Link

2007-11-21T06:51:00.000-08:00

Greetings earthlings and vulcans,

Just in case you can not access the survey from the previous link, here are some more that will hopefully work. We have also adjusted the settings on the collector so that you can access the survey multiple times from the same computer; we are hoping this means that everyone--all family members--will be able to complete the survey. Thanks very much!

Love to all

survey link
survey link
survey link
survey link
survey link

Reeds ~ Old George Jacobs met his end at Gallows Hill

2007-10-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! Today we thought we'd share with you the story of our ancestor, George Jacobs Sr., who was hung at Gallows Hill in Salem on August 19, 1692, after stubbornly refusing to admit any wrongdoing throughout several examinations during the Salem Witchcraft Trials. T.H. Matteson captured his trial in a famous painting, "The Trial of George Jacobs" that now hangs in the Peabody Essex Museum. In it, we see a white haired, red-caped, bearded George Jacobs kneeling, pleading, perhaps, in front of the judge while all around them chaos rules: screaming and fainting young women, shouting townspeople, and wild gestures of accusation and confusion. His own granddaughter, Margaret, who had been forced to accuse her own grandfather, among others, of witchcraft in order to save her own life, shimmers in black and white at the center, her left finger pointed at George while her right hand covers her chest. Her mother, Rebecca Jacobs, who was reputed to be mentally deranged at the time (and Margaret hints at it in her letters), looms over her, arms outstretched, as if she means to swallow up her daughter. She is being restrained, as is her husband, George Jacobs Jr., who stands next to his father, watching in what must have been horror as his own daughter condemned his father. What must this have been like for "Old George Jacobs"? We can only imagine...

What do we know about George Jacobs? He was born in England around 1617, was farming in Salem by the 1640's, settling in that portion of the town which is now Danvers, northwesterly of Great Cove. He married a woman named Mary, and their son George Jacobs Jr. built, in 1677, the ancient Jacobs house, which is still standing (1924), and which has been in the family ever since. In 1718, a section of the house was called "the gun room". By many accounts, Jacobs, despite Matteson's generous treatment (rich red cape, regal features and posture, handsome face--though of course he must have been handsome!) was a 72-year old illiterate farmer and land-owner when he was executed. 72! Jacobs was nearly as old as octogenarian Giles Corey, who was pressed to death for speaking out against the accusers and casting doubt onto these young women. What a horrible thing to have to go through at that age--at any age--but especially when you should be able to enjoy the endless meadows and sunshine of the golden years. Instead, imagine trying to navigate the Puritan landscape of witch hunts and Salem village girls gone wild--it must have been an absolute raging nightmare for them all.

George Jacobs, Sr., along with his son George Jacobs, Jr., his son's wife Rebecca (Andrews) Frost Jacobs, granddaughter Margaret (daughter of George Jr. and Rebecca), and George Jr.'s brother-in-law Daniel Andrews, were all accused of witchcraft, and the grandfather "Old George Jacobs," was examined several times, tried in court, and sentenced to hang. Along with his granddaughter Margaret, he was examined May l0th, 1692 by Corwin and Hathorne, and the accusing girls--including afflicted 20-year old Sarah Churchill, who speaks below, and who served as a servant in George Jacobs Jr.'s home, Mary Warren, Mary Walcott, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Sarah Bibber (Vibber) were present in full force. Another accuser, the infamous Abigail Williams, claimed that she had been "afflicted by his apparition." And while Sarah Churchill presented her "evidence" in the Court, Jacobs was brave--though some would say foolish--in his doggedness to stand up for and cling to his innocence, despite what he must have known would be the consequences:

Jacobs: I am as innocent as the child born tonight. I have lived thirty-three years here in Salem.
Court: What then?
Jacobs: If you can prove that I am guilty I will lie under it.
Sarah: Last night I was afflicted at Deacon Ingersoll's, and Mary Walcott said it was a man with two staves.It was my master . . .
Jacobs: Pray do not accuse me. I am as clear as your worships. You must do right. judgments."

The only chance he had to save his life was to admit to the accusations--that he on several occasions appeared as a specter, hurt the girls, and lived a "wicked life."
Court: Did he not appear on the other side of the river and hurt you? Did not you see him?
Sarah:Yes, he did.
Court: Look there, she accuseth you to your face, she chargeth you that you hurt her twice. Is it not true?
Jacobs: What would you have me say? I never wronged no man in word or deed.
Court: Here are three evidences.
Jacobs: You tax me for a wizard. You may as well tax me for a buzzard. I have done no harm.

The Court reveals that Jacobs cannot read:
Court: Doth he ever pray in his family?
Jacobs: Not unless by himself.
Court: Why do you not pray in your family?
Jacobs: I cannot read.
Court: Well you may pray for all that. Can you say the Lord's prayer? Let us hear you.
Record: (He might [missed] in several parts of it and could not repeat it right after many trials.

Ay, like me, poor George could not quite recite the whole of the Lord's prayer! Must run in the family...

At the end of his first examination, he steadfastly rejects any false admission, and bravely accepts his plight:

Jacobs: Well, burn me or hang me I will stand in the truth of Christ. I know nothing of it.

Sadly, there is much evidence, as outlined in The History of Salem, Massachusetts Vol. III (Perley), that Sarah Churchill's dishonesty in accusing Jacobs had actually been revealed but rebuffed. Here is an account: "Sarah Churchill gave positive evidence against Mr. Jacobs, and subsequently Sarah Ingersoll deposed that Sarah Churchill came to her, crying and wringing her hands, seemingly much troubled in spirit. She asked her what the matter was. She answered that she had undone herself. Miss Ingersoll asked what was it about, and she answered, that it was in belying herself and others in saying that she believed that she had set her hand to the book. She answered, and said, "No, no, no; I never did." She was asked then what made her say she did. She answered that it was because they threatened her, and told her they would put her into the dungeon along ,with Mr. Burroughs, and thus at several times she followed Miss Ingersoll, telling her that she had undone herself. Miss Ingersoll asked her why she did not deny she wrote it, and she said it was because she had stood so long in it that now she did not dare to. She said, also, that if she told Mr. Noyes but once she had set her hand to the book, he would believe her, but if she told the truth and said she had not set her hand to the book a hundred times he would not believe her."

On May 11th, George was examined for a second time, with various accusers at the ready to fall into fits at the mere mention of his name. Abigail Williams is described in the court proceedings as "the bewitched (who) fell into most grevious fits and screechings when he came in," and Mercy Lewis proclaimed "this is the man (after much interruptions of fits) he almost kills me." Ann Putman and Abigail Williams "had each of them a pin stuck in their hands, and they said it was this old Jacobs." When asked if he is "not the man that made disturbance at a Lecture in Salem," George replied "No great disturbance. Do you think I use witchcraft?"
"Yes indeed"
Poor George can only say, "No I use none of them."

And what to make of this? A physical examination of Jacobs while he awaited his fate in prison netted this discovery by George Herrick: "...his Right Sholder wee found A tett aboute A quarter of an Inch longue or better with A Sharpe point Drupeing downwards so that I tooke A pinn from s'd Dounton and Run it through the s'd tett but their was nither watter blood nor curruption nor any other matter and so wee make Returne." A "tett?" Just what is Herrick referring to?! Something about a 1/4" long with a sharp point, dropping downwards, on his right shoulder...what would that be? So they took a pin--no doubt recently sterilized--and tried to pop it? And neither water, blood, corruption, nor any other matter came out? Ah, Jay-sus.

Other accusations--and the accusers were many--included choking, torturing, biting, scratching, pinching and beating them with his "staffe," being in cohorts with a "black man" (horrors), having two wives, and of course, asking them over and over again to put their mark and write in his book, presumably, the "Devil's Book." (ah, the irony in that!) Someone should have kicked the stuffing out of the accusers' heads, and knocked some sense back into them. There's also mention of strange happenings, apparitions, disturbances, and relations with strange oddities: "Likewise a woman appeares to this Deponent who lives at Boston at the Uper end of the Towne whose name is Mary: she goes in black clothes hath: but one Eye: with a Crooked Neck and she saith there is none in Boston." Sounds Goth to me.

On May 14th, less than a week after Old George's examination in Court, warrants were issued for the arrest of his son, George Jacobs, Jr., and his daughter-in-law, George Jr.'s wife Rebecca. Mr. Jacobs managed to escape, but his wife was arrested, and "as she was taken away by the officers, her four little children followed her, but they could not go far, as the youngest was but two years old." Neighbors cared for the Jacobs children while their mother was kept in irons for eight months, before being indicted and sent to trial on January 3, 1692/93, during which she was promptly acquitted, and one hopes, reunited with her children. We couldn't find any account as to what happened to her husband, George Jacobs Jr., who fled and left her (and the children) to fend for herself in jail.

In the meantime, the horrors continued. With accusations flying and cases mounting, a special court, comprised of seven judges, was set up to oversee the trials on May 27. "These magistrates based their judgments and evaluations on various kinds of intangible evidence, including direct confessions, supernatural attributes (such as "witchmarks"), and reactions of the afflicted girls. Spectral evidence, based on the assumption that the Devil could assume the "specter" of an innocent person, was relied upon despite its controversial nature." They didn't waste much time: Bridget Bishop was the first witch to be officially executed on June 10, 1692. Many more followed. By the end, 19 men and women would be executed altogether.

On August 5, 1692, George Jacobs Sr. was found guilty and was sentenced to hang. On August 19, he was hung on Gallows (also known as Witches) Hill, along with George Burroughs, Martha Carrier, John Willard, and John Proctor. Herewith the mood that day, a Friday, as recounted in A History of Salem, Massachusetts: "A procession formed at the jail on St. Peter's Street on that day, and with the victims in a cart, proceeded to the place of the former hangings. All of them protested their innocence; but Cotton Mather, who was there told them that they all died by a righteous sentence. When Mr. Burroughs was upon the ladder, he made a statement of his innocence so solemnly and seriously that the people, who were present in large numbers, admired him for it; and it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the execution. He closed his prayer by repeating the Lord's prayer so composedly and fervently that it was very affecting and drew tears from many. The accusers, who were there to see the culmination of their work, said .that the "black man" stood and dictated to him. It seemed to make no difference whether the accused could repeat the Lord's prayer or not, to them it was evidence of guilt of witchcraft either way, as they pleased. As soon as the hangings ceased, Cotton Mather, who was on horseback, spoke to the people, and declared that Mr. Burroughs was not an ordained minister and that Devil was often transformed into an angel of light. This somewhat appeased the people. When Mr. Burroughs was cut down, he was dragged by the halter to a hole or grave between the rocks, about two feet deep, his shirt and breeches being pulled off, and an old pair of trousers of one of the other men who was executed, put on. He was put into the hole with the bodies of Willard and Mrs. Carrier. One of his hands and his chin and a foot of one of the others were left uncovered. After dark, Mr. Buffum went to the crevice and covered the exposed parts of their bodies."

Where did the bodies go after they were stuffed into the crevice? Some fell into the river, and were carried away, and in fact, "under the ridge where the execution occurred was the North River, between which and the ridge was the ancient highway. It was easy to pass the bodies to a boat in the stream, and from 'thence up North and Danvers rivers to the Great Cove, near George Jacob's home..." Those that were not carried away were buried near the line of the fence, northwest of the crevice. Old George's body was perhaps snatched by his family and buried on his property, where he lay unsettled for hundreds of years. He is now buried at the Nurse Homestead in Danvers, Mass., formerly Salem Village. From the Nurse Homestead site: "In August 1992, the remains of another of the 1692 Witchcraft victims, George Jacobs, Sr., were also laid to rest here following a dignified ceremony in the reproduction Salem Village Meetinghouse. The remains had been unearthed in the 1950's at the former Jacobs property. Resting in quiet storage for many years, they were buried by the Danvers Alarm List Company and Salem Village Witchcraft Tercentennial Committee of Danvers, as one of several projects undertaken during the 300th anniversary observation of the witchcraft period. In May 1993, a stylized facsimile of a slate gravestone was dedicated over the remains, costs having been raised by the Danvers Alarm List Company, Jacobs and other witchcraft descendants, and interested public. The gravestone includes as an epitaph the brave words uttered by Jacobs at his examination. "Well! Burn me or hang me but I'll stand in the truth of Christ." The skull on the stone represents death, while on either side, the carved wings represent the belief that the soul would wing its way to heaven. Jacobs and Nurse stood ready with their lives not to confess to something they did not do, but to speak the truth no matter the consequences."

The day following her grandfather's execution, Margaret Jacobs, daughter of George Jr., and Rebecca Jacobs, wrote from Salem jail a letter to her father. In order to save herself after being accused, she had also testified against her grandfather, and one can only imagine the horrors of what this young girl of sixteen went through, and had to live with as recompsense. Her letter:
Honored father--After my humble duty remembered to you, hoping in the Lord of your good health, as blessed be God I enjoy, though in abundance of affliction being close confined here in a loathsome dungeon, the Lord look down in mercy upon me, not knowing how soon I shall be put to death, by means of the afflicted persons. My grandfather having suffered already and all his estate seized for the king. The reason of my confinement is this, I having, through the magistrates threatenings, and my own vile and wretched heart, confessed several things contrary to my own conscience and knowledge, though to the wounding of my own soul, the Lord pardon me for it. But O, the terrors of a wounded conscience, who can bear ? But blessed be the Lord, he would not let me go on in my sins, but in mercy, I hope, to my soul, would not suffer me to keep it in any longer, but t was forced to confess the truth of all before the magistrates who would not believe me, but 'tis their pleasure to put me here, and God knows how soon I shall be put to death. Dear father, let me beg your prayers to the Lord on my behalf, and send me a joyful and happy meeting in Heaven. My mother, poor woman, is very crazy, and remembers her kind love to you and to uncle, viz. d--A--, so leaving you to the protection of the Lord, I rest your dutiful daughter.
MARGARET JACOBS From the dungeon in Salem prison, Aug. 20, 1692

At the next session of the court, she confessed that she had done wrong: "... They told me if I would not confess I should be put down into the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess I should save my life." The whole of her recant spills forth: "The Lord above knows I know nothing in the least measure, how or who afflicted them, they told me without doubt I did, or else they would not fall down at me, they told me if I would not confess I should be put down into the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess I should have my life. The which did so affright me with my own vile heart, to save my life made me make the like confession I did, which confession, may it please the honored court is altogether false and untrue . . . Whatever I said was altogether false against my grandfather and Mr. Burroughs, which I did to save my life and to have my liberty, but the Lord, charging it to my conscience, made me in so much horror that I could not contain myself before I had denied the confession; which I did, though I saw nothing but death before me, choosing rather death with a quiet conscience than to live in such horror, which I could not suffer. Whereupon my denying my confession I was committed to close prison."

Poor Margaret, with her "disorder in her head," was forced to remain in prison while her case was continued, as she could not pay the fees and charges of the jailer. Alas.

The heirs of Old George Jacobs received seventy-nine pounds in recompense for the horrors of the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Over 125 people had been accused; ...had been executed. For those who had been members of the church, and were thus excommunicated at the height of their suffering, their executions were especially torturous, for without church membership, how would they ever get to Heaven?

Just why were the Jacobs targets of these accusers? Was it a random choice for these drama queens to accuse this family? Or was there something behind it? In many ways the witchcraft trials resemble the cruelty and spirit of persecution shown to the Quakers. It seemed an unfortunate combination of circumstances that led to the hysteria: "...only an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692." The ensuing torturous persecution, suffering, exectutions, and madness is the stuff of fictionalized plays, like Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and, quite simply, bad dreams. Theories abound as to what set the girls off in the first place: some strange illness, a really bad hair day, hormones gone bad, or, a more recent theory, "convulsive ergotism" brought on by eating grain infested with the fungus-produced ergot. Questions remain, as does our culture's merciliess insistence on flushing out and punishing oddballs and misfits, whistle blowers and truth tellers. And we'll never really know who Old George Jacobs was. --ESG, with help from researchers DRP and LGP

A GENEALOGY OF SORTS, with a few missing links

George Jacobs Sr.
b. 1612, England
arrived Salem sometime before 1674
m. Mary (who later married a man who had also been widowed by the Trials in 1693)
d. August 19, 1692, Gallows Hill, Salem

Son George Jacobs Jr.
b. Salem
m. Rebecca (Andrews) Frost, baptised April 18, 1646, married John Frost, June 1666. Frost died 1672
4+ children, including

Son George Jacobs III
b. Sept. 29, 1677, Salem
m. Hannah Cousins Dec., 1701, 9 children; m. Elizabeth Donnell, no children

At some point, George III must have decided to escape Salem and what must have been difficult, daily reminders of his family's persecution and demise, for Maine, where his son George was born.

Son George Jacobs IV
b. Nov. 9, 1718, Wells, Maine
m. Mary Woodman

Son Elias Jacobs
b. Jan. 26, 1745, Wells, York, Maine
m. Mary Dorman, Oct. 6, 1768; Mary b. 1743 in Wells
d.

Son Elias Jacobs Jr.
b. 1779, Scituate, MA
m. Abigail Elizabeth Parker, b. April 22, 1784, d. 1853
d. 1825, Portland, Maine

Daughter Elizabeth Barstow Jacobs
b. Oct. ?/Nov. 26, 1806, Portland, Cumberland, Maine
m. Arthur Reed, Sept. 17, 1833, Orr's Island, Maine
d. March 25, 1899, Bowdoinham, Maine

Son Elias Reed
b. June 11, 1843, Orrs Island, Maine
m. Mary Merrill Purinton (b. Aug. 30, 1843, E. Harpswell, ME; d. Aug. 7, 1882, Bowdoinham) on May 22, 1867
m. Jane Barker, 1894
d. May 24, 1922, Brunswick, ME

Son Frank Purinton Reed
b. Jan. 5, 1869, Orrs Island, Harpswell
m. Bertha Lucetta Fay (b. May 20, 1871, Chester, MA; d. March 26, 1938, W. Roxbury, MA) on May 8, 1895
d. Nov. 15, 1959, N. Conway, NH

Son Carroll Purinton Reed
b. Oct. 9, 1905, W. Roxbury, MA
m. Katharine Damon (b. July 30, 1916, Malden, MA; d. June 20, 1999, N. Conway, NH)
on Dec. 18, 1937
d. Jan. 29, 1995, N. Conway, NH

Daughter Damon Reed
b. March 25, 1940, Boston, MA
m. Donald Gardner Jr. (b. June 25, 1935, Winchester, MA) June 17, 1961, N. Conway, NH

Daughter Elizabeth Seward Gardner
b. Oct. 14, 1965, N. Adams, MA
m. James Samuel Poulsen (b. July 14, 1965, New London, CT) July 21, 1990, N. Conway, NH

Son Luke Gardner Poulsen
b. Sept. 17, 1994, Concord, MA

Son Dominick Reed Poulsen
b. Feb. 28, 1999, Greenfield, MA

Inherited Traits: Can you do THIS?

2007-10-12T16:25:00.001-07:00

Please excuse the odd formatting of this one. The six steps to this fun trick run as follows: right, center, left; then right, center, left, even though the center photos are below the ones on the right and left. Directions are below...enjoy!

Start by crossing your arms with your palms facing each other. Lace fingers together, and twist your arms underneath towards you so that your hands end up upright (step three). Then put your right elbow through the space above your left elbow, without letting go of your fingers (step four). The challenge of this trick is to keep your fingers laced the whole time. To finish the trick, try to fit your head through the space between your arms, again, without letting your fingers become unlaced. If you are successful, you will emerge, as Luke does here (lower right, step six), with head through arms and hands laced behind the neck. We figure, if you can do this, then you're probably part of the family!

Inherited Traits: Can you roll your tongue??!

2007-10-11T17:06:00.001-07:00

Are you right thumbed or left thumbed? Do you have a dimple (like Luke, center) or two? Can you roll your tongue (like Dominick, on the right, who also has a forked tongue)? Trill your tongue? Do the vulcan? Is your second toe longer than your big, or hallux, toe? Are your earlobes attached or do they hang free? Do you have webbed toes? A widow's peak? Extra teeth? Any other circus tricks we should know about? Take our inherited traits survey! Click here to access the survey.

Just so you know: Dominick and Luke may be vulcans, but Liz is definitely an earthling!

Skinny dipping

2007-10-11T16:46:00.001-07:00

Is it a family tradition to shed one's clothing and leap into the cold waters of the sea, or the raging river, or the calm, dark lake? Dominick seems to think so...here he is in Lower Duck Pond on Campobello Island, New Brunswick this past August, where he decided to join Daisy McMayhem (on the right) in skinny dipping amongst the giant seals and clumps of sea weed. Send in your skinny dipping stories! (no photos necessary; 'tis best to leave it up to the imagination...)

Reeds ~ The Large-Heartedness of Joseph Orr

2007-10-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

As far as we know, Michael Sinnett was not related to us at all, (unless you go back to our ancient beginnings in Africa), but he provided a chance for us all to peek back in time, just enough in fact to see what kind of a man Joseph Orr was. Our relative Orr was certainly a wealthy and brave man on paper. He was rich and brave enough to purchase Orr's Island, with his brother Clement, at the time called "Little Sebascodigan," from Elisha Cook and William Taylor, in 1742. He did so by paying, according to most accounts, a mere two shillings per acre, paid in cords of wood delivered to Boston. Hailing from Ireland, but originally from Scotland, Joseph sought religious freedom in the America's, with Clement and other Scotch-Irish Presbyterians families such as the Skofields. After buying the Island he built a homestead in 1756 on Orr's Island, where, just a year before, the population of the island was only 16 people! Their only flaw was forgetting to acquire a signature from one of William's daughters. She claimed that part of the island was still rightfully hers. Joseph responded by giving her one-tenth of the island, and because she was the wife of Matthew Byles, that part of the island was named"Byleses." After buying the Island, Joseph and his brother Clement began to transport cord wood to Boston. They were very successful in their new partnership. Now that you have the background on our Orr ancestor, we'll return to Sinnett. Well back in Ireland, a young Sinnett was being tricked onto a boat that would eventually take him to the Americas. Not knowing his own fate, he stepped aboard the vessel without further thought. When he realized he might never see his home again he was, of course, astounded. When Sinnett arrived on American soil, he was expected to pay the fee for his tickets, even though he had been forced to board the boat, and did not have enough money to pay for the trip. He was stuck in a dilemma, he had no money to pay for the tickets, and had no chance of proving that in fact he had never wanted to come here in the first place. So he was deeply relieved when our relative Joseph Orr generously paid for Sinnett's tickets. Orr brought Sinnett back home with him and allowed him to pay off his dept by working at his farm, allowing him to stay under his roof. Quickly after paying back Orr, Sinnett married a woman named Mary. They left Orr's Island together and resided in Boothsbay, Maine. Mary was tempted to visit her relatives on the train to Boston, and mentioned her wish to Michael. He sadly let her leave, not knowing he would not be seeing her in a long long time. Mary, when arriving back home, found the house deserted. After hearing her husband's fate, she set off to seek Joseph, remembering her husband's tales of the generous Orr. She arrived at his house and told him her unfortunate tale. He promised to keep her safe until Michael returned. And just what had happened to Sinnett this time? He had been forced to join Wolfe's army, or by some acounts was captured by French raiders, and had been fighting in Quebec. Only after they successfully raided Quebec was he discharged. After arriving home and finding it deserted, he, too, made his way to Joseph Orr's house, not knowing his wife had sought the same safety there also. It just goes to show what an impression it made on Michael and Mary when he bought the tickets and provided Michael a place to live; they both remembered the compassionate act and, without thought, went to him when the problem arose. Arriving at Orr's house, Sinnett was surprisingly welcomed by the glowing smile of his wife: a happy ending to a potentially disastrous story, all because of our compassionate and caring relative Joseph Orr.

--LGP

Sources

Beautiful Harpswell by Margaret and Charles Todd
Wheeler's History Of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell

Reeds ~ Origins of Captain Elias Reed

2007-10-09T11:19:00.002-07:00

Our great, great-grandfather, Frank Purinton Reed, compiled a history of his father, Captain Elias Reed, through his own memories of traveling with his parents on different ships, stories that were passed down and around the family, including many which were published in the local newspaper, and primary documents that recorded voyages, passengers, cargo and other interesting details. He writes this preliminary biography of his father, and leaves us with many questions: "Captain Elias Reed was born on Orr's Island, Maine, on June 11, 1843, to Arthur Reed and Elizabeth Jacobs Reed. Their home, the first framed house on the island, and built by Joseph Orr, who came to the island "Little Sebascodigan" in 1748 and bought the whole island--about 1000 acres--for two shillings per acre. The island was thereafter known as Orr's Island. Their home, the Gambrel Roofed house was built in 1756.
"The house and home farm was left by Joseph Orr to his daughter Lettice Orr Reed, and her husband, John Reed, who was an army captain. The house and farm were later bequeathed to their youngest son Arthur, who took care of his parents and an older sister. This place of the Gambrel Roof House was later referred to as the Captain Kitridge House in Harriet Beecher Stowe's book, "The Pearl of Orr's Island." The children born there to Arthur and Elizabeth Reed were Abigail (Mrs. Captain John Pennell of Captain Abby and Captain John fame), Caroline (died at age 16), Elias and Mary Francis (Mrs. E. M. Oliver).
"Elias Reed's education did not extend very far, as the ordinary schooling of the 1850's did not amount to much for the younger children, and when the older boys could work, they had plenty to do at home and only went to school during winter terms. On two occasions, Elias Reed stayed home from sea and took Navigation in the country school.
"In 1855 the Reeds sold their farm on Orrs Island and bought another farm on Harpswell Island nearer the mainland.
"On December 20, 1860, Arthur Reed took his son, Elias, seventeen years of age, to the new bark Deborah Pennell lying at Bath, Maine, to begin his first voyage at sea, which he was determined to follow, and to learn the duties on ship board. The bark had been launched from Pennell Brothers Ship Yard, Brunswick, Maine, towed to Bath to be rigged ready for sea, and loaded. The following eleven years were largely spent on and quite represent the length of life of the bark."
The Captain of the bark for Elias' (and the bark's) first voyage was John D. Pennell of Brunswick, Maine. 1st mate was a Mr. Parker of Bath, and 2nd mate was Mr. Jacob Dunning of Brunswick.

What was Harriet Beecher Stowe's connection to Orr's Island?

What did Caroline Reed die from?

Who was Captain Kitridge?

How was Mr. Jacob Dunning related to us?

We hope to find the answers to these questions in the coming weeks.

The Inherited Traits Project--an introduction

2007-10-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

We are conducting a survey of family members, as well as a random sampling of unrelated people (as a control group), to see what inherited traits we all share and to learn more about genetics. We will be gathering, analyzing, and sharing survey results on this blog. If you'd like to take part in this survey, and have not yet received an invitation to do so, please email us, or try clicking on this survey link. Learn more about cells here. Photographs of certain inherited traits can be found here as well, in case you need help figuring out what an attached ear lobe actually looks like! Thanks for taking the time to participate!

Reeds ~ Fingal Who?

2007-10-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

MacKirdy, of course! Fingal MacKirdy was our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great , great, great, great, great grandfather. He was born in 1575 on the Isle of Bute in Scotland (with a name like that, where else?), the son of Donald MacKirdy (many of the mothers seem to have disappeared from the records), who was the son of another Donald Makurerdy (and a woman named Mary), who was the son of yet another Donald Makurerdy (and Mrs. Donald--imagine naming your baby girl Mrs. Donald!), who was the son of the Chieftan Gilkrist Makurerdy, who was born in 1425, and had four children: Gilkrist, Finlay (not to be confused with Fingal), John, and Donald. The Chieftan Gilkrist, who at the time in 1425+ owned most of the island, descended from Macruari and Ruari, or Roderick, and before them, quite possibly, the mound builders who first inhabited the island back in the days of the paleolithic. Fingal's father, Donald, was the founder of the "MacKirdys," and was the first to change his name from "Makurerdy" to "MacKirdy." Obviously, this changing of the family name backfired, as he was killed in 1600 in a battle with the Cameron Clan. His son, Fingal, our hero, was also killed. According to some records that state his birth year as 1598, this would have made toddler Fingal quite the fighter--and quite the little Gilgamesh, having already fathered at least one child. It makes more sense that he was about 25, already married, and father of Donald, who had six sons with Peggy Cameron, great granddaughter of James IV King of Scots (ah, see? royalty already!): Irven, Pethric, Fingal, Daniel, Gilkrist, and Alexander, three of whom seceded from the Presbyterian Church, while 3 remained loyal, including his son Daniel. Daniel's son, Daniel, fled to County Antrim, Ireland, in November of 1666 at the age of 18, with his brothers, and changed his name to "McCurdy." The McCurdy family motto, "Dieu et mon pays," or "God and my country," appears on the family crest, in black, yellow, and green. In 1682, he had a daughter named Janet McCurdy, born in Derry, Glendermouth County, Ireland. Janet married Robert Lithgow (b. 1676) in 1703 while still in Ireland, but soon left behind four McCurdy brothers for the coast of Maine with her husband and at least one young daughter, Martha, born in 1704. Martha married Lt. James Dunning in Brunswick, Maine in 1795. Their daughter, Mary, one of eight (!), was born in 1733 in Brunswick, married William Reed, Jr., and had a son, John Reed, in 1762 in Topsham, Maine. He married Lettice Orr (the list of strange names goes on!), daughter of Lettice Elliott of Boston and Joseph Orr, who settled Orr's Island, Maine, on September 15, 1785, in Harpswell, Maine. The couple's son Arthur Reed (no relation to the aardvark), born March 4, 1810 on Orr's Island, married Elizabeth Barstow Jacobs, the direct descendant of the poor, illiterate farmer, George Jacobs Sr., who was hung for witchcraft on Gallows Hill during the Salem Witch Trials on August 19, 1692. Captain Elias Reed, son of Arthur and Elizabeth, was born on June 11, 1843 on Orr's Island, and became a famous sea captain. He married Mary Merrill Purinton of the well-known Purinton and Merrill families of East Harpswell, Maine. Our great, great grandfather, and their son, Frank Purinton Reed, was born in 1869 on Harpswell and married Bertha Lucetta Fay, from Chester, Mass., on May 8, 1895. Their son, Carroll Purinton Reed, was our great-grandfather. He was an amazing man and married an amazing woman, Katharine Damon, on December 18, 1937. Together, they raised three daughters, Carol, Damon (our amazing grandmother, Damon Reed), and Stephanie, ran a successful ski shop and catalog business, and were huge influences in the lives of their six grandchildren, including our mother, Elizabeth Gardner, daughter of Damon and Donald Watt Gardner, Jr. Our mother married our father, James S. Poulsen, in North Conway, NH, in July of 1990. We, Luke and Dominick, were born on September 17, 1994 and February 28, 1999, respectively. This is just one of our many DNA trails & tales.

This GP Family Project is a work in progress. We hope to include more DNA trails & tales, with links that will take you to primary documents, family recipes and stories, pedigree charts, family photographs & videos, family news posts & contact information, and other interesting historical facts and stories about our ancestors. As well, this will be the place to go for information about our Inherited Traits Survey, which will be heading out to everyone soon. Check the blog for updates, photographs that will help you better understand some of the traits, and survey results. We hope you'll participate in this project by sharing stories of your own, posting comments, and staying in touch. Thanks!

For a blog devoted to the McCurdy's of Maine, head to kinfolk Michael McCurdy's blog: http://mccurdymicmacmex.blogspot.com/