A LONG WAY HOME

Epidemic nearly wipes out entire family

2012-02-08T09:33:00.003-06:00

Did you know that our first President of The United States of America was a survivor of smallpox? In 1751, George, at the age of 19, went to

Barbados

in the British West Indies with his half brother to get some benefit from the warmer climate there, as he was suffering from tuberculosis. It is said that he contracted smallpox during this visit, and If it were not for his experience, and first hand knowledge of smallpox, this dreaded disease brought by the red coats before the Revolutionary War ever got started may well have wiped out our militia, and our country might have turned out entirely different than what we know today.

Here Lies buried
Mr Zenas Rider who
Dec'd Jan'ry 1766
With the Smallpox
in ye 41st year of
his Age

Also Bethia Sister to
above Named Dec'd the same
time in her 39th year

As a self-professed, armchair genealogist, I often encounter the great influence of epidemics in the United States upon the lives of my ancestors. I must admit, when I first started out researching my families’ history my own knowledge of the history of our great country was limited. I was unable to recognize the signs and the patterns that existed in the records and documents of my research. My ignorance I suppose is from my American education where I was taught from an early age that my ancestor’s migration westward was for greater opportunity. While there is some truth to that, it does not begin to explain why families that earned their livelihood, and put food on the table from the hard labors of farming the land they owned, would just sell off their land where they had actually built their home by hand, and move.

Mr. & Mrs. Hand were second cousins.
Miss Esther England was my great aunt.
She was the High School Principle of Ayers
Cliff High School. Gordon P. England
was a famous author, and my great uncle.
They were children of my great grandfather,
Rev. C.P. England.

The photo above is from the Nickerson Cemetery in Chatham, Barnstable county, Massachusetts. Although, as you will read later in this story, I highly doubt that either body is truly buried in this location.

My first education into epidemics was when I found a 1920's newspaper clipping in among some old family photos. My family was struck by the 1917 nationwide outbreak of Spanish influenza, which killed over 500,000 people, and to date has been the single worse epidemic in the

United States

. My family mentioned in the two articles to the right recovered, and survived the influenza epidemic.

My paternal Grandfather, William Rider Howie lived for eighty-three years. He died in January 1965 in Southern California not much time before I was born. William was a naturalized citizen, emigrating from

Canada

. He was born January 1882 in Fitch Bay, one of the many small communities of Stanstead County, which lies in the heart of Quebec Canada. William was third generation Canadian on his father, William George Howie’s side. His forebears from his mother side, Helen Desdemonia Rider, my paternal great-great grandmother were from the

United States

. Her father Mr. Ezra Rider, leaving New Hampshire, and building his family home in Fitch Bay. His son, Timothy
Byron Rider built a home there which still stands today.
Actuellement connu sous le nom du musée du château de Witch Bay!
(Pictured below)

The many Rider families found in New England were quite large, and scattered throughout New England. I had many theories as to why, but no facts as to the reason for their vast migration north, south and westward.

This past week while doing my genealogical research on Ancestry.com I came across a series of newspaper articles from a Nova Scotia newspaper titled New Englanders in Nova Scotia. (Pictured above) One of the family lines the author highlighted was that of the Rider family. This caught my attention. As you will read here in this article, almost entire families of Rider’s were wiped out by the smallpox epidemic of 1765-66 in Cape Cod. According to contemporary reports, the smallpox epidemic began in the Chatham family of Deacon Paul Crowell. He was a prominent citizen, who had purchased clothing from the British West Indies, probably Barbados where smallpox was known to have come from. While still other accounts hypothesize that it emanated from a bale of cotton, which had been purchased in the South, and sold at a store very near to the residence of Mr. Reuben Rider, who contracted the disease.

Selectman James Covel, also of Chatham, compiled a chronologic list of persons who died during the epidemic. Of 37 deaths that he recorded, 17 occurred in one family, that of the Rider family! The aged, and well-to-do Mr. John Rider and his wife were taken by the disease; as was their daughter Bethiah, their son Zenas and his wife and children, and their son Stephen, along with his wife and nine of their ten children.

Every method was used to combat the spread of smallpox in Cape Cod. Schools were closed, businesses were abandoned, and funeral services for the dead were omitted; replaced with family members burying the dead on the rear of their family farm, far away from the community, and not in the town cemetery.

One hundred years ago, the Honorable James W. Hawes, speaking at the 1912 Chatham Bicentennial Celebration spoke to the memory of this tragic event that took the lives of sixty percent of the citizens of Chatham that were attacked. As a sociologist, I love statistics, especially when used by politicians! While I agree it was a tragic event, especially to the relatives of my forebears, the actual numbers were that 37 died, and 24 recovered. Nine percent of the population of Cape Cod was affected during that epidemic. Now you and I have a much better understanding of one possible reason our forebears moved north, and left their homes in Massachusetts. A story that was probably known to my great grandparents, but has been lost, not passed down through history to the next generations.

Naturalization for William Rider Howie

2011-09-18T12:18:00.000-05:00

U.S. World War II Navy

2011-05-27T16:18:00.001-05:00

The USS LSM(R) 404 Underway ca. 1946.

Specifications:
Displacement 758 t.(light), 993 t.(attack) 1,175 t. (fully loaded)
Length 203' 6" o.a.
Beam 34' 6"
Draft 7' forward, 9' aft
Speed 13 kts.
Complement 6 officers, 137 enlisted
Armament

one single 5"/38 dual purpose gun mount

two twin 40mm gun mounts

four twin 20mm gun mounts

ten twin tube continuous loading 5" spin stabilizer rocket launchers

four 4".2 mortars

two .50 cal machine guns on the forecastle

two .30 cal machine guns on the bridge wings.
Armor 10-lb. STS on conning station, pilot-house, radio room, radar plot, and rocket control, 10-lb. ASPP around 40 and 20mm gun mounts and directors
Propulsion two General Motors 16-287A (non-reversing with airflex clutch) diesels, direct drive with 1,440 BHP each @ 720rpm, twin screws, Endurance, 3,000 miles @ 13kts

LSM(R)-401 Class Landing Ship Medium (Rocket);

As you can see above, LSM(R) was the class of ship.

Laid down, 6 January 1945, at Charleston Naval Yard, Charleston, S.C.

Launched, 25 January 1945

Commissioned USS LSM(R)-404, 25 April 1945, LTjg. J.P. Ryan, USNR, in command

My father Donald J. Howie served aboard this ship.

His final rank was Seaman First Class.

NOTICE OF SEPARATION FROM THE U.S. NAVAL SERVICE
serial no. 567-XX-XX
HOWIE, Donald James
Seaman First Class USNR V-6
315 E. Howard Street
Pasadena, California
Los Angeles, County
Place of Separation: PSC NB TI, SAN PEDRO, CALIF.
Character of separation: HONORABLE
Race: White
Sex: Male
Marital Status: Single
U.S. Citizen: Yes
Date and place of birth: 28 Sept 1927, Derby, Orleans County Vermont.
Means of entry: Enlisted
Date: 04 AUG 1945
Date of active service: 28 SEPT 1945
Place of entry: Pasadena, Calif
Qualifications, Certificates held.
See rating booklet # 15165
Seaman First Class
Marksman
Ratings Held: AS, S2c, S1c
Services schools completed: None
Service (Vessels and stations served on)
USS LSM (R) 404
Remarks:
Victory Medal World War II
Signed by: J.B. Warner, LT. COMDR., USNR

Education completed prior:
GRAM: 8 Y.S.: 4 COLL: 0 MAJOR: None
Date of separation: 17 AUG 1946

Front of Victory Medal World War II

Rev. Victory War Medal World War II

The World War II Victory Medal is a decoration of the United States military which was created by an act of Congress in July 1945. The decoration commemorates military service during World War II and is awarded to any member of the United States military, including members of the armed forces of the Government of the Philippine Islands, who served on active duty, or as a reservist, between December 7, 1941 and December 31, 1946.
The World War II Victory Medal was first issued as a ribbon, and was referred to simply as the “Victory Ribbon.” By 1946, a full medal had been established which was referred to as the World War II Victory Medal. The medal's front depicts Nike standing victorious, holding a broken sword, representing the broken power of the Axis, with one foot upon the helmet of Mars, the Roman god of war, representing the end of the conflict. Behind Nike is a sunburst, representing the dawn of peace. The reverse recalls the "Four Freedoms" speech by President Roosevelt, with a laurel sprig, surrounded by the words "United States of America", and the dates of the conflict, "1941-1945". The edges of the ribbon revisit the multi-colored rainbow ribbon of the Allied World War I Victory Medal. This again honors all the allied nations. The wide red center represents the new sacrifice of blood by World War II combatants. The thin white lines separating the central red band from the outer multi-colored bands represent the rays of new hope, two of them signifying that this was the second global conflict.
There is no minimum service time limit for the issuance of the World War II Victory Medal, and the National Personnel Records Center has reported some cases of service members receiving the award for simply a few days of service. As the Second World War ended on September 2, 1945, there are also cases of service members, who had enlisted in 1946, receiving the decoration without having been a veteran of World War II. The reason for this late date is that President Harry S. Truman did not declare an official end of hostilities until the last day of 1946.

In The Name of the Lord

2011-02-25T00:45:00.000-06:00

November 02, 1631, The Lyon, the first ship of three hired by Rev. Thomas Hooker and the Braintree Company of Braintree, Essex County, England, arrives in Boston Harbor. Immigrants aboard were prepared to do battle with the savages in the name of the Lord. Among those landing were William Westwood, and Deacon Stephen Hart. These were very wealthy men. William Westwood, although only thirteen years old, held title as Yeoman. They were the first to settle Braintree Massachusetts, but soon there after formed Newtowne, which today is Cambridge. Rev. Thomas Hooker had been invited by the Puritans to come from England to be their pastor. Approximately 350 Immigrants arrived in the Braintree Company to the shores of New England. They brought with them smallpox. During the twelve week voyage many died of smallpox and were buried at sea. When they arrived, the smallpox quickly spread and was wiping out the Native American Indians. The puritans saw this as Gods work to clean the new land of the savages.

May 14, 1634, Deacon Stephen Hart was admitted as a freeman in Cambridge. Then in 1635 he moves with Rev. Hookers group to and area now called Hartford. He was one of the original proprietors and built his home near the ford he discovered where you could cross the Connecticut river at a low stage of the water. Thus the town was named "Hartsford," which soon just became Hartford. Born in 1605, Hart was now thirty years old, and along with Hookers group had taken much of the cleared pasture and meadow from the Indians. On March 04, 1635, Westwood takes the freemans oath at Newtown, and on September 05, 1635 was sworn in as constable of the Plantation Connecticut. Then by March of 1636 Westwood was given a commission to govern the people of Connecticut in the first court. The first general court had great power. It acted as both the court and the legislature under the Mosaic Laws of the Church.

July 1636, on Block Island just off the coast of Connecticut, members of the Narragansett tributary tribe kill Captain John Oldham. In retaliation, John Endicott sets sail out of Boston for Block Island and he and his men spend two days setting fire to the Indian huts, destroying food reserves and shooting their dogs. By winter of 1636 the Indians return the white mans attack, and besiege Fort Saybrook and attack the Wethersfield settlement.

In the winter and early into 1637 Westwood and his court declare war on the Pequot Indians. On the 10th of May Captain Mason set sail down the river with three ships and seventy men. Then on May 26, 1637, under the command of Captain John Mason the Puritans joined with 90 men from the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes to surround the Pequot Village of Misstuck (Mystic). Within one hour 700 men, women and children are put to death by sword and burned to death as the entire village was burned. On there return the Puritan soldiers were granted a lot known as a Soldiers field.

Why am I telling you this story about The Pequot War? Because Deacon Stephen Hart is my ninth Great Grand Father and he was there killing the Pequot Indians and burning down Misstuck village in the name of the Lord.
He had a daughter, Mary Hart who married John Lee. We are descendants from this branch of the Lee family. Not from Robert E. Lee of the Virginia Lee's, but that story is for another posting.

Here is the pedigree which links me to Deacon Stephen Hart, my 9th Great Grand Father, the proprietor of Hartford Connecticut, and to the Lee family descendants of John Lee.

Deacon Stephen Hart (1602 - 1683)

is your 9th great grandfather

Mary Hart (1631 - 1710)

Daughter of Deacon Stephen

David Lee (1674 - 1759)

Son of Mary

Jedediah Lee (1697 - 1749)

Son of David

Elias Jedediah Lee (1723 - 1795)

Son of Jedediah

Daniel Lee (1753 - 1806)

Son of Elias Jedediah

Ede W Lee (1791 - 1867)

Son of Daniel

Dorothy Ann Lee (1824 - 1885)

Daughter of Ede W

Helen Desdemonia Rider (1857 - 1927)

Daughter of Dorothy Ann

William Rider Howie (1882 - 1965)

Son of Helen Desdemonia

Donald James Howie (1927 - 2005)

Son of William Rider

Richard Scott Howie

You are the son of Donald James

I want to thank Google for making available on Googlebooks the Lee Family Genealogy 1634 - 1897 By: Leonard & Sarah Marsh Lee. The book is more than 700 pages, but if you get a chance, at-least read the introduction.

Masonic Compass

2011-02-22T19:07:00.000-06:00

I recently started looking to cemeteries to help me in my family research. This has brought me huge success. The day is here when you don't have to travel around the country looking for the cemetery, and then wander around a cemetery for hours on end with disapointment and frustration that you were not able to locate your ancestor.

I have found a couple of websites where you can travel to virtual cemeteries. The premise is an all volunteer system. You volunteer to go to cemeteries near your home and take photos, and someone else does the same for you. Just this past holiday I received my first request to find a family plot here in Texas near my home. I was given the GPS coordinates of Longitude and Latitude and I headed out on my quest.

I found the family plot, and if you know me, you know that I had to talk to someone and ask questions for sure, right? Well the family cemetery plot was on private land, on a huge cattle ranch on the north shore of Lake Travis. Back in the mid - 1800's the area was known as Travis Peak. The area is still mostly rolling hills covered in Cedar and Oak trees. Very beautiful place that will probably in my life time be swallowed up by the growth of the city of Austin. Well, me having a jeep, I just drove right on in to the ranch. I met the current resident of the ranch and we talked briefly about the history of the area, and the original family, it was great! I explained I was there to photograph the family cemetery plot, so he showed be the way, and he went on about his day.

The cemetery was on a bluff over looking a beautiful valley with a creek in the bottom. It was enclosed within a rusty old white painted iron fence that had since been knocked over by the 150 plus years of cattle. Directly in the center of the plot and surrounded by a few family headstones was a newer granite monument. On the top of the monument for this family was the Masonic compass.

I have seen this compass symbol everywhere in my family research, and have to say that I am very ignorant regarding this organization, which peaks my interest all the more. My knowledge I guess is limited to the book and movie by the same name, The Da Vinci Code, and I had a friend in college who is a Mason.

Since many of my ancestors were Masons in Quebec Canada and were from the Golden Rule Lodge in Vermont at Owls Head, which is in Newport. I decided I need to began my inquiry into this secret society. I thought I should start small first, and find out why the Masonic Compass appears on the headstones.

I first discover that like any organization, people branch off. Besides Masons, I also find there are Freemasons, and The Scottish Rite. I decided this would be too much work, I do not want to write a PHD thesis here. The one thing I find they all have in common is the Masonic Compass.

One of the most common symbols of The Masonic Temple, Freemasonry, and the Scottish Rite is the symbol of the crossed compass and set-square. The compass and square are architect's tools, and symbolize God as the architect of the universe, among other things.

As measuring instruments, the tools represent judgment and discernment.

The compass, which is used to draw circles, represents the realm of the spiritual- eternity. It is symbolic of the defining and limiting principle, and also of infinite boundaries.

The angle measures the square, the symbol of earth and the realm of the material. The square represents fairness, balance, and firmness, which is reflected in phrases such as "on the square" and "squared away." Something that is squared is something that is stable, a foundation for building upon.

Together, the compass and square represent the convergence of matter and spirit, and the convergence of earthly and spiritual responsibilities. The two symbols together form a hexagram, forming a union of the earth with the heavens, matter and mind.

What I take away from this, is the union between life, and death, and the joining of the two through the cycle of life on earth with that in the heavens. Seems very appropriate now to me.

Howie Family Cemetery

2011-02-21T17:55:00.000-06:00

Vieux Cimetiere de Pike River

The year was 1976, I was just a young boy when I traveled with my mother and father in a 1968 Blue Datsun pickup truck with a camper shell on the bed. We drove across country heading out from Albuquerque New Mexico in search of our family history and to see the United States. We made many stops along the 3,000 mile journey that summer, and had great adventure. When we arrived in Vermont we first went to the home where my father lived as a young boy before his mother died. The home was built by his father and held great memories for my father, as well as historical interest. From there we tried to locate family members, and a cemetery with no luck, we left without ever finding where his parents, my grand parents or any other family were buried or still living. Now lets fast forward 34 years, to 2011. You and I can now travel the internet highway of the worldwide web, and thanks to volunteers like David J. Ellis, with a click of our mouse we are able to visit these far away cemeteries. The photos and all the information I post here today, I want to thank and give credit to David J. Ellis. The information has been of great value in my family research. I had been contacting Churches in the area with no luck, then I found on the website www.internment.net the following text in italics which explains the story why.

This cemetery is located in a field 300 meters north of the village store. Access is from Ch. des Rivières.

The earliest burial was in 1828. The cemetery was originally a multi-denominational Protestant cemetery but was associated with the Methodist Church building, which was erected nearby in 1858 and catered to all denominations. That building, but not the cemetery, was sold in 1915 and subsequently dismantled. The cemetery was often referred to in the village as the “Protestant Cemetery” or the “Methodist Cemetery”. The first official name was the “Pike River Burying Ground” and later the “Pike River Protestant Cemetery”. It has also been referred to as the “Cemetery on the Hill”, the “Cemetery in the Field”, or simply the “Old Cemetery” but, contrary to occasional claims, not as the “Loyalist Cemetery”.
Due to township boundary changes, the cemetery has at different times been part of the Township of Stanbridge, of the Seigniory of Noyan, of the municipalities of Notre Dame des Anges and of Saint-Sebastien. A significant change of boundaries between the counties of Iberville and of Missisquoi in 1912 also affected the cemetery. The current ownership was established on the 5th of July 1932 by virtue of the “Loi des Compagnies de Cimetières”, or Bill C17. A more detailed history is held by Compagnie du Vieux Cimetière de Pike River.

This listing was compiled by M. Jef Asnong, a member of the Cemetery Company, by surveying the markers. To supplement damaged or missing markers, it incorporates information from partial listings made in 1927 by M. Pierre A. Saint-Pierre and 1960 by Alfred Rousseau. Cross verification against the 1960 listing was performed by David Ellis, a member of the Cemetery Company, and discrepancies found were verified against the actual markers.
Markers are numbered sequentially across all rows from the South West corner to the North West corner, then continuing in the next row. Rows are numbered from West to East. Different faces on the same monument are signified by the letters "A", "B" etc. and different individuals on the same face by ".1", ".2" etc. Some individuals appear more than once, often on a monument and also on an individual marker. When an individual appears on two markers, the information on both markers is not always consistent.

This listing is a joint effort of Jef Asnong and myself in the summer of 2005. The cemetery is in good condition, although in need of some fence work.

- David J. Ellis

Again, Thank you to Mr. David J. Ellis and M. Jef Asnong.

There are many of our ancestors in their final resting place here at the Pike River Cemetery. One epitaph that I found very touching was for Mary Jane Howie (1860), the daughter of Thomas Howie (1831 - 1902) and his wife, Jane Frances McMillan (1840 - 1915). Inscription:
Gone is little Mary Jane - From her mother and me - An angel loved her when she smiled - She was Mary Jane, our only child.

Click on the top blue link or Howie Family Cemetery to go to Find A Grave.

Or click here for a list of those buried here.

HIBBARD FAMILY

2011-02-20T02:30:00.003-06:00

On the Howie and Rider branches I have come to a wall and currently am unable to research back any further. The New England Historical Genealogical Society has a 100 year gap between my GGGr-granndfather Seth Bartlett Rider of Haverhill New Hampshire and Samuel Rider. I call it a wall, as many researchers on Ancestry.com were placing a Seth Rider of Massachusetts in their tree, which I knew was incorrect. To prove this I had to start researching other branches and the history of Haverhill New Hampshire.

What I have found is my sixth generation 4th Great Grand Father Thomas Hibbard (1756 - 1800) born in England. Helen Desdemonia Rider was my 2nd Great Grand Mother, and her father was Ezra Bartlett Rider. Ezra's mother was Mary Hibbard (1774 - 1860), and she was the daughter of Thomas Hibbard.

I have purchased three books on the Hibbard family and have downloaded from google books some history books on the area. As I get more information I may update this post, however here is what I have so far.

The scene of the surrender of the British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, on October 17, 1777, was a turning point in the American Revolutionary War

Thomas Hibbard was born in England and came first to Haverhill New Hampshire and settled in Newbury Vermont between 1770 and the American Revolutionary War. He fell in love with and married Lucy Sylvester on February 22, 1772. She was the daughter of Levi Sylvester, and she was born in 1751. Their first born was Mary Hibbard born in 1774, she later becomes Seth Bartlett Rider's second wife from whom we descend. Thomas and Lucy had seven children in all. In June of 1775 Thomas was appointed adjutant in Colonel Bedel's regiment and accompanied it through the march to Canada. He was able to return to his family in January 1776. In that same month he was appointed adjutant in another regiment commanded by Colonel Timothy Bedel, which went back to Canada and they were gone for more than one year. In the summer of 1777 we find him present at the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York on October 17, 1777. Burgoyne’s surrender followed battles with American General Horatio Gates near Saratoga on September 19 and October 7, 1777. Later Thomas was adjutant of a regiment which protected the northern frontier of New Hampshire in an area of disputed land Grants between Fort Number 4 and Crown Point until the end of the war. In all he saw about three and a half years of service. Thomas Hibbard then became a school master and minute, and it is said that he had the most beautiful hand in writing. A minute was a person who wrote land deeds, so many such documents of the era would have been written in Thomas Hibbards hand. As a school master Thomas taught in Newbury, Haverhill and in Bath, and in 1800 he went to Cambridge, New York, to open an academy, where he died suddenly on July 01, 1800. After his untimely death, Lucy (Sylvester) Hibbard married Mark Sanborn of Bath on January 10, 1801. They stayed married until his death on July 26, 1821. She never married again and she lived until 1860 at the age of 86 years.

COMPTON CALIFORNIA

2011-02-19T00:28:00.001-06:00

My cousin Annie F. Howie is here buried alongside her brother Robert Maitland Howie. She is a cousin that I never met, although she lived so close by to us in southern California. Robert and Annie were the children of James Alexander Howie. Most of you are now saying who was James? William Rider Howies' father was William George Howie. James Alexander Howie was one of the brothers of William George Howie. They had moved out to California back in 1893. This was much earlier than William Rider Howie who moved with his family from Canada to California in 1935 just after his wife died. Also, earlier than William R. Howie's parents, Helen Desdemonia Rider (Howie) (Parker) & her second husband Albert Gardner Parker. They came to Pasadena California just before 1910.

Robert Maitland Howie was just three years old when his family moved him from the family farm in Canada out to California in 1893. We then find Robert and Annie on the 1900 U.S. Census along with the rest of their family living in Compton California. Their father James A. Howie was a railroad laborer. By the 1910 U.S. Census we still find the family living together in Compton, but the census now lists them as farmers between Tweedy Blvd and Abbott Road. If you look on a current map, this is a large area. By the 1920 U.S. Census, Robert M. Howie has married Vera Naomi Gains and they have a son. They are renting a farm next to Thomas Mayo and Flora (Howie) Mayo on Lemon Ave. in Compton. I believe this is where this next photo was taken.

The year of this photo says 1916 Compton. Pictured in the photo from left to right. James Alexander Howie and above him his spouse Clara Elnett (Hand) Howie, and below him is Flora L. (Howie) Mayo and her daughter Marjorie L. Mayo. Above and to the right of Marjorie is Albert Gardner Parker and standing behind him is his spouse Helen Desdemonia (Rider) (Howie) Parker. Then sitting on the step is the Thomas Mayo and their second daughter Mabel M. Mayo. On June 5th 1917 we find a WWI draft registration card for Robert Maitland Howie, and then nine years later we find his Burial:
Woodlawn Memorial Park
Compton
Los Angeles County
California, USA.
On the 1920 U.S. Census, we find James Alexander Howie (wd) living with his daughter Annie Howie. It says he owns the home, 130 So. Rose Ave., Compton, CA. He was 65 years old, and was working as a night security guard.

Annie Howie lived a very long time. She most likely inherited the home from her father where she resided at 130 S. Rose St., Compton CA until her death January 04, 1976. She was 91 years old. She out lived all of her family except Mabel (Mayo) Somfelde who died in 1986 at 73 years of age.
Using Google maps streetview, we now find the above home is gone, it has been replaced with an asphalt parking lot.

This is about all I have on Cousin Annie Howie. I wish I had been able to get more information from Dorothy Lecka way back when. The people are gone as are the farms. All that is left is a headstone, and as you can see from the above photo taken in 2005, it appears that the headstone soon will be pushed off its base and probably broken as so many headstones are.

Sol Smith Russell died of Hiccoughs

2011-02-08T22:32:00.001-06:00

Tonight my 3rd Cousin Lillian Rider sent me the names and dates of her grand parents. I added them to Ancestry.com and then traveled back six generations quickly. Lillian is a descendant of some very notable and interesting ancestors.

Actors, professors, clergy, miller, author, and politician. But look at the figure of realestate asset of Sol Smith Russell! Yes, $2,000,000 and that was in 1902! Did you also see that he died of Hiccoughs? He is the second person I have researched who has died this way. I think so far, this is the best obituary I have read. This is why I shared it with my readers. I guess stage actors made bank in those days.

The interesting story here I will have to research is how he went from rags to riches. Just seven years prior in 1895, I found Sol and his family living in a Penal, Corrective and Charitable Institution. Grover Cleveland was President of the United States, and had just come through the worse depression of the time. The 1893 PANIC, where we can find unemployment at over 18%.

Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington D.C.

Vanished people, deportation, Armenian Immigrants

2011-02-03T12:01:00.004-06:00

While researching family history and genealogy I find the story of immigration was often caused by persecution.

I am researching the Kooshian family and a horrific story is unfolding. This is a story that I never learned in school. Youtube has many videos on the subject of Armenian Genocide produced by the BBC network. Here is part one of a five part video. I warn you now this video is very graphic.

In the video we hear the current Turkish people denying that there was ever a Genocide. There are always two sides to history. Unfortunately, history has generally been written by the victor. As a result, only one viewpoint is told and exaggerations are made, but occasionally the other angle gets out there. It is then up to the reader to determine what is authentic and what is mere fabrication.

Mehmed Talaat Pasha (1874-1921)

Pasha was the key architect of the Armenian genocide, one of the largest genocides in modern history. Over 1 million people were massacred in the span of 2 years. A member of the Young Turks, Talaat rose up and became one of the three Pashas who ruled the Ottoman government in 1913 until the end of the disastrous First World War. Many Muslim Turks came to see the rise in nationalism of the Christian Armenians as a threat to the existence of the Ottoman state. Programs had already been installed against Armenians in previous years with possibly hundreds of thousands dying. 30,000 died in the Adana massacre of 1909. Once entering World War One, the Ottoman’s endeavor ended in total failure. Russian and Armenian forces set up an Armenian mini-state in 1915 and thus Talaat Pasha sought to punish them. Security forces rounded up 250 Armenian intellectuals and leaders in Istanbul in 1915, and eventually executed them. After passing a Deportation Law, Pasha ordered deportations and executions to be carried out against the whole Armenian population. During the deportations, conditions were deplorable and men were routinely separated from the rest and executed. Many prisoners were tortured and were victims of gruesome medical experiments. More died of hunger and thirst. In some instances victims would be crucified in imitation of Jesus as the perpetrators would say: “Now let your Christ come help you!” Others would have red-hot irons and pincers applied to their flesh. Out of a population of 2.5 million Armenians, between 1 and 1.5 million perished in this period. After the Ottoman collapse, Talaat Pasha fled to Berlin and was subsequently murdered there in 1921. His assassin was an Armenian genocide survivor.

Why do I post the above story? Well, my cousin Rev. Kooshian is an American with Armenian ancestors. His parents were part of the deportation of Armenians, however his grand parents and grand aunts and uncles were not able to flee their homeland. As the woman in the first video explains, they fled to the church where all the men, women and children were burned alive in the Adana massacre of 1909.

In the very near future genealogy will be based more on the genetic code of DNA. Currently many in my family can trace their roots to the United Kingdom, however there are the Nalick, Lecka and Gejekooshian families whose genetic roots are deep in the Ottoman Empire, and their stories and histories have been lost to wars.

The last video I would like you to watch is the other side of the story. How Muslims, Christians and Jewish people once lived together. I wonder if history just might repeat itself as Nationalism and it's ideals become stronger in the United States.

Rev. Kooshian's great grandfather was from Tarsus. Tarsus can be found mentioned in the Bible as the birth place of Paul and was the Roman Capital city of Cilicia from 72 A.D.

For more reference on Armenian's besides Youtube check out the Armeniapedia.org.

Mayflower Ancestor Francis & John Cooke

2011-01-17T10:10:00.002-06:00

I received a message on Friday night from someone on Ancestry.com informing me that I had some incorrect dates on the Harlow side of my tree. The message was from a Helen, and she went into such depth, and effort to explain my error that I then spent many hours this weekend correcting the Harlow Family Tree.

If you have read one of my prior postings, my aunt Evelyn May Harlow has many ancestors that share links with the Howie's!

While doing more research to correct the dates of marriages, deaths and so on, I was able to discover many new ancestors who we share links. The first name I found was Thomas Taber who was the son of Philip Tabor and Lydia Masters. Upon more research into the Taber family, I found a book about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Colonial Ancestors. This in turn helped me find that the Harlow's and the Howie's are related to Francis & John Cooke of the Mayflower.

Here is my pedigree:

Christmas 2010.mov

2011-01-11T01:25:00.001-06:00

Click here to view this video

Mary Ginn's Birthday 2010

2010-12-18T23:29:00.000-06:00

Here is a photo of Mary Ginn with long time family friend Krista Thurman.

Happy 54th Birthday Mary "Howie" Ginn! You look Marvelous!

A New Cousin: William Dutch Miller

2010-12-13T16:38:00.000-06:00

William Dutch Miller, Born December 03, 2010. He is healthy 8lb 7 Oz.

Lost Rider Family Found

2010-12-01T11:18:00.003-06:00

I guess you can say I love a mystery, but I love a challenge even more.
I have been reading through old correspondence that I had received over the years, some dating back to 1983. There are just some clues that jump out and catch my attention. In one letter from my Aunt Helen she wrote, "James Howie was William George Howie's brother. They had another brother which went "west" as a young man and was never heard from again - it is believed he met with disaster of some kind." Doesn't that leave you intrigued? It does me. Was he traveling by train, or stage coach? Was he attacked by Indians, or did he join the gold rush? It turns out that William George Howie and James Alexander Howie were just two of seven children. There are three confirmed boys and three girls. One un-legible name. So Helen was correct. His name was John S. Howie, and I still can't find him. Without more details, I probably never will with a common name like John.

The other mystery is very new to me, "The Lost Rider Family." I was recently put in contact with my third cousin Lillian Madelyn Rider. She had sent me a family tree of the RIDERS of Fitch Bay. It begins with the progenitor of the Canadian family, Ezra Bartlett Rider. Who happens to be my 2nd Great Grand Father. He was Helen Desdemonia Rider's father. Prior to this I knew that Ezra had two wives, however I never knew that he had children by his first wife Fanny Chandler. On this tree, RIDERS of Fitch Bay, there is a box that just says 8 children moved to Illinois & Kansas in 1844. I passed over this without much thought as they would be no blood relation to me, and there were no names, until this Thanksgiving holiday when I received an email. Prior to this, I had sent out some requests to get information on locating a Masters Thesis, titled "The RIDERS of Fitch Bay." I was looking for more information on my fourth Great Grand Father Seth Bartlett Rider, as there is over a hundred year gap in the national registry. I had contacted the University for a copy of the thesis in hopes that it might have a missing link that would help me locate the parents and siblings of Seth Bartlett Rider who would be my 3rd great grand father. The University was very prompt with a response; they held two copies of the thesis, and to contact my local library for an international exchange. Which I did, but this will take sometime. They also gave me the email address of the author, so I shot and email off to Stephen Moore.

So, over Thanksgiving Stephen Moore responded to my request, and also said he had questions of the Lost Rider's who went west, did I have any information? Now again I was intrigued. Here is someone who wrote their Masters Thesis on the Riders of Fitch Bay and he was asking me for information. He stated that his source for the thesis was Lillian Rider, and they both were looking for information of eight Rider's who moved west. Being the great investigator that I am, I quickly got on it to find the lost family. I went on Ancestry.com and found that there was nothing except other genealogists also looking for clues on this family of eight children. So I posted a thread to a message board that I was also looking, and off to the library I went.
I had a copy of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register which had a story on Samuel Rider, so that was my first stop. Since I am a member of the NEHGS, I went online first with no luck. Then at the library I went to the index for the NEHGR. Found some information, but nothing new. So back to my family tree to get more clues. It is amazing that three months ago I barely knew the name of my 2nd great grandfather and today I have well over six thousand aunts, uncles, cousins and so on. I add everyone, as this has been the biggest help for me. Many times on a census form or death certificate of a cousin or brother's uncle I find the name of another family member I was looking for. Truly I am so lucky that our family immigrated from Massachusetts up the east coast and into Canada. Back in the early 1980's I hated this fact as I did not have the resources to contact Canada. Now, I am so glad because so much work has already been done, and many Churches in Quebec Canada kept wonderful records. Although the French documents are difficult to read.

So I have a story of a female farmer with three young boys, and I have a story of settlers to Stanstead Quebec. Well my local San Antonio downtown library has an extensive genealogy area, it fills the entire top floor of the library. So I started looking for one of these books written about the settlers of Stanstead, and lucky for me they had a copy. Now I understand that books are secondary sources, and not the most reliable to a true genealogist, however, this book has so much detail. The book title is: "The History of Stanstead County", by Hubbard, ISBN:1-55613-123-2. There in the pages was my great grandmother Helen D. Rider and my 2nd great grand father Ezra B. Rider. It listed both his wives and their issue (children). I entered the names and birth-dates of the eight missing children of Ezra and Fanny into my family tree on Ancestry.com. Then through U.S. Census data I was able to follow some of their movements from Illinois, to Kansas, Wisconsin and one son even moved back to Canada with his wife. Anyway my prior hunch that whatever the reason they moved, they had probably changed their name. I was so correct. These eight children changed the spelling of their last name to Ryder, stayed in the United States and moved west in 1844. Their mother Fanny Chandler died in 1843. Then in October of the same year Ezra re-married Dorothy Ann Lee, of the settler Lee's of Stanstead. They married and settled in Fitch Bay, Quebec during the time of the mass exodus from Canada.

Between 1784 and 1844, the population of Quebec increased by 400 percent. However, between 1840 and 1930, more than 900,000 French-Canadians left Canada and immigrated to the United States and Australia. Canada did not have enough inhabitable land for the rapid growth and they were moving from a rural economy to an industrial one. Manufacturing was replacing the farmer, and this is probably the reason these Riders chose not to follow their father into Canada. Going from what they knew, being a farmer, to working in a factory probably was not on their bucket list. A story for another day, but these eight farmer's probably were able to get land grants in Illinois and Kansas.

Hunt family Thanksgiving Photos

2010-11-26T21:56:00.000-06:00

Well, Thanksgiving is over and the family photos are beginning to trickle in. Send me any family photos that you took for the holidays and I will post them.

I have here photos of the Hunt Family.

Bradley Robert Hunt

Sherina, Justin & Bradley Hunt

Jason, Brother of Justin, Sherina, Gregory Merrill and his family: Jennifer (Hunt), sister of Justin and there two Merrill boys with little Bradley Hunt

Greg & Jennifer Merrill & Ethan & Drew

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T15:31:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all, even if where you live around the globe you do not celebrate this "American Tradition."

This post has turned out much longer than I first thought, I apologize.
So, back to our journey of the Separatist cult which history prefers to call the Pilgrims. They spent twelve years in Leyden, Holland struggling to make a living as for the most part they were farmers by trade and Amsterdam and Leyden were manufacturing communities. King James I was tired of the propaganda materials that they were printing, and smuggling back to England which put bad light on the church of England and the King. With bad economy, their children becoming assimilated to a different culture, threat of being arrested and an imminent war with Spain, the group decided to go to the new world.   They hired a boat called "The Speedwell" first then they had investors join them and they were also able to hire "The Mayflower" and her crew. They boarded the Speedwell in Leyden and sailed for England where the Mayflower was waiting. When they arrived, they found that their investor had like all the others betrayed them. He had sold passage to "Strangers" to the new world, and told the Pilgrims that they also had to sign a contract. This caused much delay and loss of provisions as they had no money. They set off for the new world, but with the "strangers" there was much dissension. They had to turn back twice, some say that the Speedwell was not sea worthy. Others speculate that passengers aboard the Speedwell were scuttling their own boat as they would rather be drowned at sea then be indentured servants to the investment company.   It was agreed that not all would go, and they would take just the Mayflower. The groups were equally divided. However, not many of the original Scrooby congregation still survived. Seven of the original group made it on the Mayflower. The group from Leyden were 17 men, 10 women, and 14 children. The "Strangers" from England were 17 men, 9 women, 13 children and servants: 5 men, 1 woman and 6 children. Yes children! Remember the era, children were working as young as 5 years old, many were orphans. They began what would turn out to be an 8 month journey in August of 1620. They spent 18 days in South-Hampton, 10 days in Dartmouth and then 14 days in Old Plymouth. Then they spent another 66 days at sea before they set foot in the new world in December 1620 it was a horrible journey. Finally in took them another 131 days of exploring the new land before they finally agreed on a settlement. There was so much bitterness and fighting as they just sat in the bay anchored one mile off shore that it is believed that William Bradford's wife Dorothy committed suicide. She was just 23 years of age. Of course he did not write this, as suicide is a sin. He wrote that she fell over board and drowned. They had to come to an agreement, so the Mayflower Compact was drawn up and signed. Richard Warren from which our family descends signed the Compact and his signature appears twelfth. In all, 41 signed the Mayflower Compact.

They arrived in the dead of winter and explored Cape Cod for 30 days. They were sick, cold and hungry. The first shore party of 16 men took the shallop and rowed to shore. The water was shallow. In full armour and leather boots, holding sword and musket they ended up having to get out and walk the boat a long distance in the freezing cold. Miles Standish, William Bradford, Stephen Hopkins and Edward Tilly were amongst these men. They stayed for three days and two nights before returning to the ship. William Bradford writes about walking through a foot of snow and accidentally getting his foot in a deer trap, the sapling tree quickly had him face down hanging from one ankle. In this first exploration they came across an Indian village that was primarily used in the summer when fishing was good. The pilgrims stole everything including the seed corn that the Indians had left for next years planting. This was probably the first of many transgressions by the Pilgrims in this new land which lead up to King Philips War.

The first child to be born in the new world arrived to a family from Sturton-Le- Steeple, William White and his wife Susanna. He was christened Peregrine White. This was this families second son. The first was born in Leyden four years earlier. His name was Resolved. I am not of direct descent. However, Lewis Morris White (1847-1941) the father of Minnie Emma White was.    She married Fredrick Hamilton Rider who was a progeny of Ezra Bartlett Rider. Lewis was of direct male descent. That family lived through the massacres of King Philips war.

I might still find a connection, however I am currently missing 100 years in the Rider line of decent. Stay tuned!

William Bradford missed his 5 year son John. Dorothy had decided not to bring him on the first voyage, and like many other families left their children back in Europe. Isaac Allerton, who Clarence Howie's wife Evelyn May Harlow has family connection, and his wife Mary Norris had just given birth to a still born son, Mary did not recover and later died herself she was 34 years old.   It was a cold somber winter and over the next three days three more died of scurvy. The Pilgrims had not eaten properly in over eight months.

January came and the first mater of business was to protect themselves from the Indians which had made several attacks and had set a blaze their first common house by shooting flaming arrows into the thatch roof. They built a large stockade with enough room to build 19 individual homes and one common house. They then built the common house, and upon the roof built a fort with a cannon which them kept manned night and day.   By January 11th everyone was exhausted and ill including William Bradford and Christopher Martin. The common house became a hospital and eight more quickly died of scurvy including Christopher Martin. We are connected to the Martin family through the Howie line. The remaining Martin family also fought the Indians in King Philips war. The next date in Bradford's journal was February 17. William White and Mary Allerton were dead. This continued through the winter with the Mayflower anchored off shore. More than half of all the people died including the crew on board the Mayflower. Only six remained on their feet to care for the ill. Elder Brewster who was 50 years old was one of these. He had to cut wood, tend fires, feed and clean the ill to attempt to stop the dysentery. Then by night they would have to bury the dead. They did not want the Indians to know how small their community was getting inside the stockade so they placed no grave stones on burial hill.

In the spring a Naked Massasoit Indian brave walked into the camp. Twenty-five year old Edward Winslow quickly covered him with a coat, and became the ambassador to the Indians. Later in the spring Squanto, a Paturxet Indian who was captured and made a slave returned from Europe to his home land to find the Pilgrims on it. Some historians believe this was the Pilgrims hope and their downfall. As Squanto spoke English he was able to play both sides. This created much tension as he was also helping the white man live off the land.

On April 5th, 1621 the crew of the Mayflower was well and set sail for England, leaving the Pilgrims, not one Pilgrim went back with the Mayflower.

On May 12, 1621 the first wedding took place. However, Puritans do not recognize marriage as a sacrament. So it would have been a civil ceremony. Now widower Edward Winslow and Widow Susanna (Fuller) White were joined before William Bradford as legal magistrate, six weeks after Edwards first wife died.   Susanna was the sister of Samuel Fuller the only doctor, used in the loosest of terms. She was taking care of orphans Resolved and Peregrine White, as their mother and father were dead and she was their only kin.

The summer much exploring and farming was performed so they could store food for winter. In December, on the same date as the Pilgrims had first stole the food from the first Indian camp, the Chief showed up with 90 Indians and demanded a feast in reparation for the food they had stole the prior winter.   So there is the story of the winter harvest, that today we are celebrating with our families and giving Thanks.

THE 53 PILGRIMS
AT THE FIRST THANKSGIVING :

4 MARRIED WOMEN : Eleanor Billington, Mary Brewster, Elizabeth Hopkins, Susanna White Winslow.
5 ADOLESCENT GIRLS : Mary Chilton (14), Constance Hopkins (13 or 14), Priscilla Mullins (19), Elizabeth Tilley (14 or15) and Dorothy, the Carver's unnamed maidservant, perhaps 18 or 19.
9 ADOLESCENT BOYS : Francis & John Billington, John Cooke, John Crackston, Samuel Fuller (2d), Giles Hopkins, William Latham, Joseph Rogers, Henry Samson.
13 YOUNG CHILDREN : Bartholomew, Mary & Remember Allerton, Love & Wrestling Brewster, Humility Cooper, Samuel Eaton, Damaris & Oceanus Hopkins, Desire Minter, Richard More, Resolved & Peregrine White.
22 MEN : John Alden, Isaac Allerton, John Billington, William Bradford, William Brewster, Peter Brown, Francis Cooke, Edward Doty, Francis Eaton, [first name unknown] Ely, Samuel Fuller, Richard Gardiner, John Goodman, Stephen Hopkins, John Howland, Edward Lester, George Soule, Myles Standish, William Trevor, Richard Warren, Edward Winslow, Gilbert Winslow.

The Separatist of Scrooby

2010-11-22T21:23:00.000-06:00


This Plaque is in Leyden Where John Robinson was buried.

Continued from prior post, after much research and skimming through chapters of almost thirty books written about the immigrants of the Mayflower; I still do not understand our love affair with Thanksgiving and our genealogical pursuit for a family connection to the Mayflower. Now don't get me wrong, I love to eat a home cooked meal just as much as the next guy. But through commercialization have we not lost the true tradition of Autumn harvest? And I am just one of 8 million people who can trace their roots to the Mayflower. Do we really think that if we find these lost cousins they are going to invite us over to share in the great feast?

King James I had financed the settlement of Jamestown Virgina in 1607. Later the Father of Canada, Samuel de Champlain established a settlement on July 03, 1608 on the east coast of the Americas in Kannata, the Huron-Iroquoian word for 'town'. . Prior to the settlement by Champlain, Jacques Cartier a French explorer had discovered the St. Lawrence River and named an Indian village Mont Real. The Spanish built the first University of the Americas, the University of Mexico in 1551. Prior to that, by 1550 Charles V laid claim to many Caribbean islands, and through conquest most of the central region along the Rio Grand through Mexico and most of South America except for Brazil, which belonged to Portugal. Santa Fe, at Pueblo Santa Fe founded a settlement in 1608. Historically the Pilgrims were not the first settlers. In fact they were fugitives from the law. They were pretty much forgotten, left to starve or die of disease or Indian attack. Jamestown Virginia was the place where fortune and new life was almost guaranteed.

How did this Puritan group known as Pilgrims become so close?
The Separatist group that met just north of Nottingham and the Lincolnshire boarder formed a nonconformist group under the leadership of Pastor Richard Clifton and Pastor John Robinson. John Robinson was born in 1576 in Sturton-le Steeple on the old Roman road, which traveled from Lincoln to Doncaster. John Robinson was of yeoman stock, and was educated at Cambridge, where he stayed for twelve years from 1597 as a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. When James I became King of England in 1603, and a more repressive regime appeared, John Robinson left his fellowship and went back home due to revisions of the teachings. He had received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1596, and his Master of Arts degree in 1599. He was then a teacher at Cambridge for many years. In addition to leaving Cambridge and his job he resigned from the living of St. Andrew's, Norwich, because he refused to follow the revised Thirty-nine Articles, which were the points of the doctrine maintained by the Church of England, that all candidates for ordination as clergymen of the Anglican Church must subscribe to them. Married men were also prohibited from teaching. And just five days later, John Robinson married Bridget White (1579-1643) of Fenton, which was a half mile from Sturton-le-Steeple. She was also of yeoman stock. Her parents were Alexander White and Eleanor (Smith). The new couple went to live on the banks of the Trent river at Gainsborough and could look across the river into the county of Nottingham. There they had three children, John, Bridget, and Isaac Robinson. Pastor John Robinson moved his congregation twelve miles west of Gainsborough to the village of Scrooby. Can you imagine walking 12 miles to go to church? Especially since highway robbery and murder were still everyday occurrences. Nearby Bawtry was a rendezvous for bandits and ruffians of the day, and Scrooby was know as a mean county.

Sir William Davison was chosen by Elizabeth Tudor to go to the Netherlands and take possession of the towns of Flushing and Brielle. They were ceded to England as a guarantee of the cost of the Earl of Leicester's expedition of 1585 that had not been handed back in over thirty years. This was successful and Sir William Davison was given the keys to the city he handed them to William Brewster who was the steward and bailiff of Scrooby Manor Farm as was his father before him. Here is where Pastor John Robinson held church meetings. John and William Brewster were friends since their days at Cambridge. As their futures were looking bright, Elizabeth Tudor was looking for a scapegoat for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, and in 1587 had Sir William Davidson held prisoner and taken to the Tower. William Brewster became the postmaster, and his wife Mary bore him three children. The first born in 1593, christened Jonathan, followed by two daughters, Patience, born in 1600, and Fear, born in 1606. William Brewster was then dismissed from his job in 1607 because of his religious belief and fined for disobedience in the matters of religion. Brewster joined Pastor Robinson in leading the meetings of the Separatists in Scrooby and together recruited many new followers.

William Bradford, born on March 19, 1589 was one recruit. He was born in the village of Austerfield three miles north on the Yorkshire boarder. After his father's death, his mother remarried and he was brought up in solitary living with his grandfather and two uncles. As a teen William Bradford had plenty of time to read and began questioning spiritual matters. For this he was persecuted by friends and his family did not take kindly. He sought out the true written Word of God, and in Scrooby is where he found it. The more oppressed the Separatists became, the greater belief they held that they were God's true elect, and that they would suffer for their faith like the martyrs described in the book of Martyrs by Foxe. The Separatists were watched, criticized, fired, informed upon and imprisoned. Bradford opens his journal with an explicit statement, "that England, first to break free from the darkness of popery, had naturally provoked the envy of Satan." I have to realize how literal was Satan at this time. After all it was the age of the Witch craze in Europe. Today we can turn to fictional books or watch the movies of Harry Potter that are loosely based on fact to see that demoniacal possession was as firmly believed then as the precepts of psychiatry are today.

At any moment a war might break out with Spain so time was running short to leave England and settle in Holland. Remember they did not have separation of Church and state at that time. In retaliation for the murder of Mary, Philip vowed to attack England and put a Catholic Monarch on the thrown. This war was being financed by Pope Sixtus V as he permitted Philip to collect crusade taxes to finance the war. However, no one could leave England without permission and it was doubtful that such permission would be given to Separatists especially in time of war. The only solution to their exodus was bribery and secrecy. They needed to be smuggled out of England. In 1607 Bradford was 18 years of age. He arranged a boat to carry the Separatists from Old Boston to Lincolnshire so the group set out. They had to first travel sixty miles from Scrooby to Old Boston. They took a boat down the Trent River to Gainsborough, then by the Roman canal called the Foss Dyke to Lincoln, then they took the River Witham all the way to Old Boston. However, the captain of the ship that Bradford hired to take them to Holland betrayed them and revealed their scheme. When the party arrived they were arrested in Boston and searched. Bradford was the first released, but Brewster, Robinson and Clifton stayed in prison for a month. In the spring of 1608 they would try again even though they had been told upon release from Guildhall never to attempt such a stunt again. Bradford and some other younger men jumped aboard a ship for Zeeland and made a successful crossing. The remaining members hired a Dutchman and he suggested that the group split up. The men to travel by land and the women and children with luggage would be picked up by boat, but not from a port. The women set off my boat to rough sea. So rough that they became sea sick and pulled to shore for calmer water. The boat became grounded and could not be pulled off until high tide at noon the following day. The Dutch captain arrived at the meeting point and picked up the men who had traveled by land. The last man had just came aboard when they noticed a hoard of mounted men and just as many on foot carrying weapons and bearing down on the women who were stuck in the mud. The captain quickly set sail to get to safety. The men were torn as their wives, children and all of their possessions were now captured. They had no food, no money and only the clothes on their backs. With tears in their eyes they begged the captain to turn back, but he refused. There was a horrible storm and it took a fortnight (fourteen days) to reach shore. Back in Old Boston the authorities were were faced with what to do with these destitute women and children with tears in their eyes. They agreed that the women were doing their Christian duty to obey their husbands and did not fine them or find them guilty. However, they could not send them home with no husbands, the only solution was to pack them across to Amsterdam. They reconnected in Amsterdam, but with the bad economy and no jobs they moved to Leyden, Holland where they lived for twelve years. Some of the older members die in Holland, and others moved back to England of those years. The remaining Pilgrims took notice that their children were becoming assimilated into the culture of Holland and had learned to speak a language that was foreign to them. The twelve year truce between the Spanish was to end in 1621, and they feared that Holland would become a bloodbath. They made plans to move to the New World. Not to become missionaries or to find riches, but to save their families and way of life.
Follow the next post as they board the Mayflower.

The origins of Pilgrims and Thanksgiving

2010-11-22T18:53:00.001-06:00

Pocahontas and Squanto

The seasons are changing, the nights are growing colder and Thanksgiving is just days away now. This holiday is probably the only one that is shared by everyone in the United States. This holiday is not held by boundary of religion. It is an "American" holiday to give thanks.

In the video above we see a story about Pocahontas and Squanto, two Native Americans that have reached worldwide celebrity through the telling of history. What I am discovering during my genealogical pursuit is that history is his story, and her story, and their story, and now my story. The problem that I see with this statement is my education in history. I am a product of the education system in the United States. I feel that I can honestly state that the highest mark/grade that I ever received in History was below average. I attribute that to my belief that I was being lied to, that history was not a science that I could prove beyond a shadow of the doubt.

So what do we really know about the history of Thanksgiving? Is it like the Norman Rockwell painting? Or are the images above more of a correct story? Follow along in the next few blogs as I tell the story of my ancestors who came across on "The Mayflower" and created the progeny from which I am issue.

Christianity as we all know follows the book of the Bible. Similarly, the story of Thanksgiving, the history of the Pilgrims and their genealogy follows just one book, "Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation", a journal written by William Bradford, a passenger of The Mayflower and later the Governor of the settlement at Plymouth. He began writing his book in 1630 and completed it just before his death in 1657. The book disappeared during the British evacuation of Boston in 1776. Later to be found in 1856 in the library of the Anglican Bishop of Oxford. William Bradford was born in the farming community of Yorkshire, England in 1588. As a teenager he joined a cult of extreme Protestants known as Separatists. They believed in a purity of Christianity and in so doing had to separate themselves from the Anglican Church of England. The term Puritans has been around since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in about 1565. The Puritans believed that Queen Elizabeth did not go far enough to abolish the rituals of the Roman Catholics when she established the Protestant Church of England. When King James I began his reign in England he had the Bible translated from Latin to English. This is where the King James version of the Bible got its name. King James I called Puritans, "a pest, a fanatic, and a hypocrite, worse than a cattle thief."

The Puritans mainly read and studied the letters of Saint Paul who as we know was also in a shipwreck back in 60 AD on the island of Malta. They also read the Acts of the Apostles, the book of Genesis and Psalms. These stories of the early church they believed were the most authentic form of Christianity. They were also Calvinists. As they also followed the beliefs of the French Reformer John Calvin. Today the belief that Calvin bestowed that the human race should be divided in two, those selected to go to heaven and those who will go to hell is still very strong. The Puritans argued that the Church of England was beyond redemption because of its Roman Catholic past. They wished to create a membership that was pure from the influence of Rome. In 1593, Parliament and Queen Elizabeth made Separatism a crime. And thus our journey begins.

Saving The Planet

2010-11-19T15:53:00.000-06:00

One Turtle at a time!

We have all been curious children in our lives so I have to understand, right?

This morning I stepped out of the elevator of my apartment building on the garage floor to find an aquarium smelling up the place. Yes, right there on the ground directly in front of the elevator doors was this aquarium with about four inches of water. Upon further investigation I could see two San Antonio River turtles laying in the bottom of this horrible smelling water. I got a cardboard box and some plastic bags for my hands. When I returned I was picking the two turtles up one at a time, rescuing them from this watery grave, and placing them in the box.

I quickly jumped in my truck with turtles in tow, and transported them back to the river. As I drove and heard the turtles scratching at the sides of the box I was getting angry. Then I thought to myself, I was a child once, and kids will be kids. However, I then thought of the weight of this aquarium grave where the turtles were left to slowly die. No child brought this aquarium and placed it on the ground. Some parent in my building could not stand the smell in their apartment any longer and they thought they were teaching their child a lesson.

Some lesson I would say! Not only did the child not learn to keep the aquarium clean to care for another living creature. The parent failed again by not only not returning these creatures back to freedom, but by example that these lives aren't worth anything and can just be cast out to die.

The long and the short of this story. I got to the river, placed the box containing the two San Antonio river turtles on its side, and patiently waited for them to run to freedom like only a turtle can do. They are both now happily eating watercress and catching minnows once more in the city of "The River Walk."

So the moral to this story is why are we so worried about saving the planet if we aren't teaching the next generation that every life is precious?

The Soup Line

2010-11-19T13:54:00.000-06:00

The furnace has been on the past two nights pumping out it's warm air, taking the chill off from a San Antonio Texas night that can barely be called cold by any measure. Yesterday I didn't get a chance to blog as due to the recession I was standing in the modern day soup line. This was the second such occurrence for me to experience poverty in my life. The last was just after the horrible mud slide that hit my parents home in January of 2005. I want to start off by saying that the Great State of Texas has California beat in the manner it takes care of its people. My experience back in 2005 was horrible. I was homeless, while my mother and I stayed with a friend as I worked to restore her home. I was dirty from 12 hour days of digging the mud out of my parents home, and I was sick with what they were calling at the time, Valley Fever. I had to be subjected to some Ventura County worker who thought it was their business to be the moral majority.

Texas on the other hand has been great. Last Saturday when I received notice in the mail from the California EDD that they were not sending me my unemployment check because I failed to mark a box, I wondered what I was going to do. It had been three weeks already without a check and my pantry was bare. I thought about going to a food bank or the local Church, and then went online. Texas had an online intake form which was easy to complete. Then on Tuesday the state called me and explained to me that I would have a telephone interview on Thursday in the morning. Sure enough, Thursday morning I received a phone call from my case worker Angela. She went over my application for food stamps and I explained that I needed temporary help as California Employment Development Department (EDD) was not sending my unemployment insurance checks.
She gave me the address of the nearest office to pickup an EBT card, a type of ATM card that is linked to a government bank account. She was even nice enough to ask me if I had transportation before ending the phone call. Wow! They were treating me like family, not some unwanted trash the way I was made to feel in California.

When I arrived at the office I would say it was like most government offices such as the DMV or IRS. I put my name on a waiting list and had a seat with the other citizens who needed some assistance. The sample of people waiting alongside me I would say was very representative of the population of San Antonio. The majority were Mexican-American, then White, followed by African-American men and women. I saw only one Middle Eastern woman and one man. There were no Asians. The active Sociologist in me wanting to make a statistical sample. I waited my turn for a couple hours; a major difference between this and standing in a soup line back in the 1930's was that I could be looking for work on the internet using my cell phone and I saw others possibly doing the same, or checking email and one lady even had a laptop computer.

It was my turn, I was called to the window. We exchanged some pleasantries and the nice woman behind the counter gave me an EBT card. I signed a document and was on my way out the door. I drove to the nearest grocery store and purchased a couple cans of lentil soup and a pound of ground hamburger, a yam, some fresh broccoli and a spring mix of salad greens.
Thank goodness that we have unemployment insurance!

I am happy that Texas is being so helpful, but at the same time I feel it is a shame because it isn't their fault. I wouldn't be unemployed if it were not for USAA. And I would not be in Texas if it were not for USAA. Then that is probably California's fault since the economy in California has been horrible for years due in part to the housing bubble that finally burst. The following photos is from the blog Ramona's Voices. For other opinions on unemployment, check out her blog.

1918 Flu Pandemic

2010-11-17T17:03:00.000-06:00

It has almost been a month since my last post. I had wanted to create a post prior to Veterans day. A chronicle of my ancestors who fought in the many wars.
Unfortunately, I came down with the flu this year so I have barely had the energy to research companies and send out resumes as my unemployment continues past three months now. I took this down time to read and re-read the letters between my Grand Uncle Gordon Philip England (1901-1992) and his mother, my Great Grandmother Nettie Martha "Smith" England (1870-1963). The letters revealed the era and the history of the time. World War I was taking place and the Spanish Flu as it was called was about to kill 3% of the worlds population according to Wikipedia.
(Translation of a letter attached below. I have attempted to put in clarification where possible). Gordon England was 15 years old at the time he wrote this letter.

Sunday February 13, 1916, Derby, VT. Oleans County. Gordon wrote to his Aunt Mary Chastina Smith. (1859-1942).

"Dear Aunt Mary, How are you and all the rest. I am feeling about as usual. Have you heard from Harvey lately?" (Harvey William Smith). "I wanted to go to a masquerade Friday night, but did not have anything to wear. (Costume I mean). Bailey and Cecil went. Esther was Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.
My grade gave a prom and candy sale lately. We took in $8.65. I brought it home in that nice little coin purse you sent me. Our class pins are to cost $2.25 a piece. I am getting on well at school except in Arith and Writing. I got a higer average on my report card than anyone else in ninth grade for one month.

The Diea basket ball first team won from Newport team 19 to 17. Twenty have enlisted lately at Beebe." (He is speaking about the war). "Els boy took Ruth's strap and hid it in the barber's shop and Harold Elder and a bean boy found it and cut it up. Tell Aunt Sarah (Sarah Maria Smith) I am coming to see her next summer. Mrs Kelley gives us a test in Arith every week. Has Willie got a gun and is there any hunting around there?" (Mary's grandfather was William Ewins. I don't know if Gordon is referring to him as Willie or Mary's brother Harvey William Smith). "There is nothing here except a few English sparrows. I shoot a few once in a while to keep my hand in. What is Teddy doing now?" (Unknown who he is referring). "Wasn't it mean of the German's to destroy our Parliament Buildings?" (I had to research this statement. What I found was on February 3, 1916, just ten days before Gordon wrote this letter. Right in the middle of World War I, the Center Block of the Parliament Buildings caught fire and the whole complex burned to the ground, with the exception of the library which is the large domed building that still stands today in the rear of the current Parliament building. It is told that several people burned to death. People cried sabotage, and blamed the Germans of Ottawa, and crowds went looking for German stores to trash and burn. German Canadian's quickly responded. The large concentration of Germans in Berlin, Ontario, demonstrated their Canadian patriotism by changing the name from Berlin to Kitchener, Britain's famous Minister of War.) "I wish you would send me some Montreal Papers. I haven't seen any for a long time. I still firmly believe that U.S. will fight against Britain. I may send you a few posts to show you my side of the question.
With Love,
Aurevoir Gordon.
P.S. Be sure to write to me soon."
With Gordon Philip England being a famous Canadian Author and the historical significance of this letter, I am sure that if Mary Ginn took it to the Antique Road Show it would be worth "Millions"...
Gordon also included a very nice poem:

"A MOTHER'S PROUD OFFERING"
Take our sons, O England,
They were born and bred for thee;
Take our sons, O England,
And save our Liberty.
To you we yield them proudly
As oft mothers did of yore;
Dear God, please protect them
And guide them through the war.

"Tis for a righteous cause
Our boys have gone o'er the sea
To fight this tyrant Hitler
And nobly die for thee.
We know they'll do their duty
Whene'er it on them fall
To fight for their dear country
And give their might and all.

Although we sadly miss them
And our hearts are bleeding sore
We give them to you proudly
How can we give you more?
Take our sons, O England;

Gordon Philip England

The letters spoke of the normal day to day as well. What vegetables grew in the garden and who was getting married. Many letters also spoke about my Great Grandfather Reverend Clarence Philo England and his poor health. He had gone through a recovery for some type of surgery that I did not discover in the letters and was ill for many years until his death much later in 1953. I also found tucked away in Gordon England's letters some newspaper clippings. As you can see above at fifteen he was very interested in reading newspapers, and he later went on to write stories to be published in them as well. Two of the clippings talk about how sick everyone was. They are from the Stanstead Journal one is dated Feb 26, 1920 and the other Dec. 23, 1920. They are title Barnston. And lists The family of Rev. C.P. England, consisting of his three sons, is suffering from influenza, with Dr. McCurdy in attendance. Fortunately, for me and my family, my grandmother Ruth Augusta England had already moved out, completed college and had just got married to William Rider Howie August 19, 1916 and moved to Beebe Vermont. Otherwise Helen, Clarence and Arthur may have never been born.
So, the above blog was inspired by me catching the flu, and is dedicated to, according to Wikipedia statistics, the 50 Million people around the world who died from the Spanish flu and the other 500 Million who were infected by the Spanish Flu during that time. To read more on the Spanish flu or the fire click a blue link above.

I am very interested in this as I am checking into DNA research and genealogy. Helen, Clarence and Arthur and their descendants probably have some DNA marker for resistance to this type of influenza. Where-as my parents were born after the Spanish flu and may not have past down any marker. This is all new and very interesting to me.
There are many letters that Gordon saved as well as some photos. So my hope is to add them slowly over time to this blog. I have also heard that there are some diaries on my Grandmothers, Nettie England that our in circulation within the family. I hope if they one day come my way, that I will be able to forever capture them to my blog for all to enjoy. So here is the Million dollar letter...

California Pioneer Harmon Higgins

2010-10-22T10:26:00.001-05:00

I am going to tell a story now about cousin Annie Howie. She was born April 18, 1884 in Potton, MISSISQUOI, Quebec, Canada, an area just north-east of Lake Champlain. She was the second child of James Alexander Howie c. 1855 and his wife, Clara Elnett Hand. The family were farmers in the Stanstead area of Canada for many years. Her father James was the older brother to my Great Grand-father William George Howie, c. 1856. At this point I am not currently aware of the how or the when, however Annie and her younger sister Flora Howie moved out west to Southern California. Here is where my story begins. Flora first appears in the 1900 U.S. Census taken in Compton California. A young girl of 15 years. Flora next appears November 16, 1909 on a marriage certificate to Thomas Clay Mayo. Thomas was born to a farming family in Compton on August 27, 1885. They had two children together, daughters Marjorie and Mabel in 1910 and 1911. Thomas Mayo registers for the draft for WWI in 1917 at the age of 32. In the 1920 Census data for his occupation has now changed from farmer to Ranch operator and we now see also appearing on the same census, Annie & Flora's younger brother Robert Maitland Howie, c. 1890, his wife Naomie and their newly first born son Robert Howie, c. 1920 living on the adjacent ranch. Here is a photo above taken of the Mayo family on the Compton farm in 1916 with James and Clara Howie in the back and Marjorie and Mabel in the front and Helen D. (Rider) (Howie) Parker standing besides her husband Albert Parker while he sits on the porch in a rocking chair.

William George Howie

Henry Mayo, c. 1849 was a farmer in Missouri, and father to Thomas Mayo. Henry and his wife Augusta Ann Higgins, c. 1858 who was a farmer from Oregon are not pictured here. Augustas' father was Harmon Higgins a farmer from Illinois and her mother Melinda Durbin was from Missouri where her parents Daniel and Thersa (Fugett) Durbin were also farmers. Harmon and Melinda were California Pioneer's. I am now placing two pages of a historical biography on the Higgins to tell a their story that you will probably enjoy reading along with a photo of Harmon Higgins.

Harmon Higgins

I need to correct just a little bit of time line from the wonderfully written story above. As the writer pointed out the 7 month journey on the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon, the final journey to California was no easier. We find the Higgins family in the 1850 U.S. Census, farmers in Napa, California. Then ten years later we find the Higgins family in the 1860 Census, farmers in Visalia, California. Then 1870 & 1880 census finally reaching southern California to Compton and then on to Wilmington California.

Here is the genealogy on my not so distant cousin:

Cold Cream for Preservation

2010-10-22T08:15:00.000-05:00

I just recently drove to Albuquerque New Mexico to celebrate my mother turning eighty years old. It was great to see the family and old friends and catch up on new family additions and reminisce about the good ole days. I drove around the city passing by my old elementary schools, and middle schools and I was even as adventurous to hike to the Sandia Man Caves that I remembered so fondly from my childhood. Like most cities, Albuquerque is no different with the passing of time. Those brand new neighborhoods of yesterday have fallen into decay and crime as white flight and capitalism have the newer generations sprawling outside the city to new enclaves. I drove down Texas Street where I lived seven youthful years. The city plunge, once an Olympic size pool where I swam as a young boy with my friends was gone; the entire block was covered up by something new. As I drove closer to my old house I could tell the neighborhood was not the same. Paint was peeling, roof shingles were falling off or missing and some homes now have bars over the windows. I think there was only one green lawn left on the entire block. After all those good years where my father and I kept up with the neighbors to have the best looking front yards with manicured landscaping, had now been replaced with families that are too busy to enjoy their home. I was positive that when I got to my old house it would still look as beautiful as I once remembered. My hopes sank as I journeyed ever closer. I could see that there were no trees; I mean none. Not in the back yard, the side yard, the next door neighbors yard or the front yard. The huge 100 year old cottonwood tree that I had climbed as a boy and appeared on the channel 4 TV show, Eyewitness News had been cut down. The entire front yards of the homes had been covered up by concrete with cars parked everywhere. Gone were the juniper bushes that framed the front entrance to my home. Gone was the gas lamp that kept watch over our landscaped front yard day and night. Gone were the tulips and the crocus that burst from the snow covered ground ever spring. The current generation was showing to me that they cared little about preservation of my past. I have only my memories and some 1970's photos to keep and preserve.

As I work on recording the genealogy of my family and travel back in time 200, 300, or even 400 years in one night, I realize that nothing lasts forever. If you put cold cream on your face at night, or sun screen during the day. Eat organic food, exercise or get plenty of rest. What does that get us? A better sex life one could hope. Preservation of our family history collection needs more work than just some cold cream. As we get older we want to pass on our memory to the future generations, but again, nothing lasts forever. In my globe trotting I have seen some horrible preservation of ancestors in Peru that should really be classified as ruins, to some truly ornate mausoleums in Europe which have been spared through many wars, that reach the status of shrine. In my research of the Lecka's, Pritchard's, Watson's, Starnes' and Chandlers of Tennessee I have read many a story online where cemeteries have been moved or family plots even covered up by a Walmart as there are no kin left who remember. From the family grave plot on the forty acre farm to the wooden crosses left to mark the graves of our fallen soldiers, they have all gone back to the earth as nature intended.

We as the human race are driven to remember our ancestors and preserve the past. From the pyramids of Egypt, to sixteenth-century Mona Lisa in France, to the Indian petroglyphs in Albuquerque; we want to be remembered. So how do we accomplish this task? I find that churches have done the best job, as they tend to stand the tests of time. Some of the best records I have found for source documentation have been kept by churches in Canada, England and Scotland.

So I have taken on the daunting task as a historian and genealogist. Burden with newspaper clippings and manuscripts of once famous authors in my family. Photos fading, and newspapers decaying from their own acids. I asked librarians and museum staff what do I do? I turned to the internet where I found two interesting articles on the preservation of old documents and here are the links.
The Library of Congress.
Ancestry.com

So I will see what I can do about getting some of these keepsakes preserved for future generations so they in turn can do the same, and so on, and so on. But for now, I am also still going to trust a Church. See, I am addicted to Ancestry.com for help in my genealogical research and have a feeling that what ever names, dates or photos that I store to their website using today's current technology will be left to future generations to figure out how they want to preserve our past.

"The United Empire Loyalist"

2010-10-21T15:43:00.001-05:00

I have mentioned before that I am a descendant from Canada and hold many kinship's still with Canada, and yet I still do not know much about Canada. As I do my research I am perplexed with location of Lower Canada and West Canada and Upper Canada. I have probably missed many opportunity to find my ancestors because some source document stated that the family was from West Canada. West Canada is truly "Ontario" today which by the way is still the most populated province in Canada. So yes, I probably discounted someone along the way thinking that the family had moved to the Pacific "West" side of the country, when really they had just migrated north with the Loyalist migration.

In my post of Thursday, October 14th, "The American Revolution" I described the many parties such as Patriots and Loyalists and how we have ancestors on both sides. Many settlers to Canada in the 18th and early 19th centuries were Loyalists who had left America and the thirteen colonies prior to the American Rebellion. While others were British Soldiers who were given land grants in Canada by the British forces, because at that time West Canada was part of British North America.

Before I go on I want to give credit to Sherry Koshney Downward for all her efforts to research and document the Loyalists. Another online source I used was by author Wilbur H. Sherbert vol. VII.

As I pour through family letters passed down to me, and thumb through our family cookbook an unknown term catches my eye. Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch, "Pennsylvania Dutch" associated with the surname Ruiter.

What identifies one as Pennsylvania Dutch I asked myself? So I went to Wikipedia and here is what they had to say: "Recently due to loss of the Pennsylvania German language (among others) in many communities, as well as to intermarriage and increased mobility especially in the more secular communities, Pennsylvania Dutch ethnic consciousness is often very low, especially among younger Pennsylvania Dutch. Many young Pennsylvania Dutch consider themselves only descendants of Pennsylvania Dutch and it is not part of their personal identity. Additionally, as a result of two wars against German enemies, many older Pennsylvania Dutch have deemphasized any Germanic traditions or influences they inherited from prior generations. However, many of those raised in the immediate area, or those who have close ties there, still hold those ties close even if their parents do not emphasize those ties. In some communities the Pennsylvania Dutch name is reserved only for members of the Amish and traditional Mennonite communities."

Now just to remind you of my prior post "What is it to be an Immigrant." I went on a rant about our choice to pick an ethnic identity. No where did I see where I could have made the choice for Pennsylvania Dutch. This isn't anything new by the way. I have looked at all the census data going back to the first census in 1790. Back then it was just a matter of Black or white. Well this isn't a posting about the census, let me get back on track, on with the story.

So in my current language, Pennsylvania Dutch was just another way of saying "Those People" someone who was different and spoke funny. Wow! All the above copy just because Great Great Grandfather Philo England c. 1833 married Margurite Eunice Ruiter c. 1832 and my 2nd great Grand Uncle George England c. 1828, brother of Philo, son of Fredrick England c. 1789 married her sister Elizabeth Ellen Ruiter c. 1828.

If you are curious as to what happens next, click on Read More...
On the left is a photo of Philip Lampman Ruiter c. 1804 - photo courtesy Pam Wood Waugh. It is written that he was the first white child born in Cowansville an area just west of Lake Brome between Beebe Vermont and Montreal Canada. In the book, "The History of Eastern Townships" chapter II. It begins with a geographical description of Missisquoi and the land grant petition for Dunham which was issued April 28, 1795. The following historical names follow. The first is Thomas Dunn, as this hamlet is the land of Dunn's, "Dunham!" Then we have his associates where I find my ancestors highlighted below. "Joseph Buck, John Heilker, Jacob Heliker, George Saxe, Mathew Hall, William Ferrand, David Ferrand, Joshua Chambers, Amos Woodard, David Reychart, John Clark, Thomas Best, Daniel Mills, Jeremiah Reychart, Daniel Trevor, Alexander McDougall, Thomas Pell, Andrew Ten Eyck, Henry Ten Eyck, Archibald Henderson, Henry Hall, Elisha Dickinson, Jacob Best Senior, George Waymore, Abraham Lampman, John Mills, Stephen Jenner, Jacob Best junior, Adam Deal, Frederick Streit, Samuel Mills, Philip Ruiter, and Jacob Ruiter. It is said that Dunham was the first township erected in Lower Canada.
Philip Ruiter c. 1766 and his brother Jacob Ruiter c. 1772 were both land agents for Thomas Dunn, and in 1794 Mr. Dunn gave Jacob a land grant. These two brothers were born in Hoosick, Rensselaer, New York. They were Loyalists and left New York as they supported the Crown, and removed to Quebec. They arrived with their families, and settled in Caldwell Manor (Clarenceville) before moving to Missiquoi Bay. Do you like history? I hope you do as much as I. "In the early French regime the area now known as Clarenceville was then called the Seigneurie de Foucault . After the Treaty of Paris signing in 1763, the lands in New France were transferred to British rule. In 1774 the area was leased to Col Henry Caldwell and the area became known as Caldwells’ Manor . and at a later date Allard's Manor It is only in 1822 that we find the area after government proclamation being called Saint Georges de Clarenceville . It must also be noted that once the religious element became involved in this area we find the Parish of Saint Thomas and the Parish of Saint George , segmenting the area of the Seigneurie de Foucault even further. " If you want to read more on this subject, The above paragraph was written by: J C McCorkill.

During the summer of 1798, Jacob Ruiter left his family at Missisquoi Bay and went to claim his land granted to him by Thomas Dunn. He built a temporary shelter where we find today the seniors residence, Manoir Cowan, on Main Street. He went back to his family for the winter, returning the following spring with his wife Eunice Freeman Ruiter c. 1780, his first born son John c. 1778 and daughter Elizabeth c. 1800. They settled on the south side of the Yamasaka River near what is today the bridge at South street. Back then the area was covered by a thick forest, so during that summer, 26 year old Jacob built his home of logs. In the early 1800's, Jacob built a flour mill and saw mill that was used by the people in the surrounding areas for several years. This place was known then as "Ruiter's Mill". In 1805, Jacob named this new settlement, Nelsonville, it is told that this was in honor of the British Admiral Lord Nelson who died during the Battle of Trafalgar during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). At this time I cannot prove nor disprove this fact, however there was another founder in the area with the surname Nelson. Then in 1811, Jacob gave a piece of land for the building of the first school and later he gave another lot for the Union Cemetery on Main St. He and his wife had twelve children in this area. Their son, Philip Lampman Ruiter was born March 29, 1804 and as I mentioned above, he is probably the first white (as in skin color) child to be born in Cowansville.
Do you have time to read more...?
Philip Lampman Ruiter c. 1804 married Elizabeth Lampman c. 1829, daughter of Abraham Lampman and his wife Margaret Best. If you are interested in the Lampman family there are many books and websites. Philip Lampman Ruiter is my 3rd Great Grandfather, and father of both Margurite Eunice Ruiter c. 1832 my 2nd Great Grandmother and Elizabeth Ellen Ruiter c. 1828 my 2nd great Grand Aunt. I hope you haven't already forgotten these sisters married the two England brothers George and Philo, two of Fredrick England's boys.

So there you have it, the England's were Patriots, and the Ruiters were Loyalists and it took their daughters to bring these opposing parties together. If you want to read more about the "Daughters of the American Revolution" or you are thinking about joining them here is a link to the D.A.R website. For more reading just click on any blue link above. If any of these links fail, please comment below to let me know. Here is the genealogy:

Founder of Hartford Connecticut

2010-10-20T09:26:00.000-05:00

After my posting yesterday on the Lee family I was going to write today about the Indians and how my ancestors affected and were affected. That story is going to have to wait. After opening the mail last night from my Uncle Arthur Howie and receiving the genealogy sheets on the Smith family I was awake almost all night. I was first excited by the relationship with Benjamin Wright and his wife Thankful Taylor. Benjamin was a Captain and son of Samuel Wright who was killed by Indians. As I researched more, what I have found is Andrew Warner and his wife Mary Humphrey. Andrew Warner was a maltser, born in Great Waltham in Essex, England. He and Mary immigrated to Cambridge Massachusetts in November 2, 1631 along with their son John; daughter Mary; son Robert and son Andrew. He took the freeman's oath in Cambridge in 1632. On May 14, 1634 he joined Thomas Hooker's trek to Connecticut to found Hartford where Andrew was a surveyor. Here is a link to the founders of Hartford. The records show that he owned large plots of land as he went on to help settle Farmington. He had become a deacon of the church and due to a dispute with other church leaders he removed with his new wife Esther Wakeman to Hadley. The Warner family were prominent in the area and are listed in the book, "The History of Northfield. Here is my genealogy connection to the Warner's and the Humphrey's of England and Hartford Connecticut. They are my 7th Great-Grand Parents on my fathers side:

Here is a page from the book, "History of Northfield"

Ancestors of Rev. Clarence Philo England & Nettie Martha Smith

2010-10-19T19:47:00.001-05:00

Today I received a letter from Arthur England Howie who turned 90 years old on July 30, 2010. He thanked me for sending him the newspaper article on the author George Allan England and said that he and his wife Jeanette are in the process of down-sizing over 50 years of genealogy collection that includes photos and other memories. He sent me a letter he kept from Arthur Emerson England and a genealogy of the Smith family. There are 10 pages in all. I hope by down-sizing I am to take it that he is passing on these treasures to one of his children.

Page 1 Smith

Page 2 Smith Genealogy

Page 3 Smith Genealogy

Page 4 Smith Genealogy

Page 5 Smith Genealogy

Page 1 England ltr

Page 2 England ltr

Page 3 England Ltr

Page 4 England Ltr

Page 5 England Ltr.

General Robert Edward Lee (1807 - 1870)

2010-10-19T15:50:00.001-05:00

In search of my ancestor Robert Edward Lee.
This story has been past down through generations that we are related to Gen. Lee. It has only been 200 years since his birth, however the link has been very difficult for me to make. So that I am not recreating the wheel, if anyone has already made the link to our family through Dorothy Ann Lee please take the time to comment to let me know and help me out. I have made a few trips to the library and I am sure I will make a few more. Here is a story I found on another blog out there that I found interesting.

Robert E. Lee was born Jan. 19, 1807, at Stratford Plantation on the Northern Neck of Virginia and was the seventh child of Revolutionary War hero Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee. He attended West Point and never received a demerit. By all accounts enormously handsome, tall, charismatic and humble, he had a long and illustrious career in the U.S. Army. In 1861, as Southern states contemplated secession, Lee privately ridiculed the idea. Still, when he was offered command of the Union Army, he turned it down once Virginia -- his "country" -- seceded.

During the Civil War, Lee's troops were often vastly outnumbered but managed to win or fight to a stalemate for years. Once the war ended, Lee resisted calls to continue the fight in the hills as a guerrilla and instead encouraged his soldiers to go home and begin rebuilding the nation. He retired to what was then Washington College, where he set about innovating the offerings, including the first classes in the country in business and journalism.

In other countries, leaders of failed civil rebellions are often reviled. But a strange thing happened to Lee after he died. He became beloved by many. Over the years, he has been praised by the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had a picture of Lee hanging in his office.

Northerners, seizing on Lee's early ambivalence about the war, his gentlemanly sense of honor and duty, and his distaste of slavery -- he once wrote that it was a "moral and political evil" -- embraced the Confederate general as a way to foster reconciliation, said John Coski, a historian at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond. In 1901, he was one of only 29 Americans inducted into New York University's Hall of Fame. Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the lyrics for the Battle Hymn of the Republic, composed a poem in Lee's honor.

At the same time, his former generals wrote of him as so perfect and his cause so noble that Lee became fixed as the tragic hero of a romantic "Lost Cause" and that cause became synonymous with white Southern identity.

"There's an old saw in the South of a little girl asking, 'Mommy, is Robert E. Lee from the Old Testament or the New?' " Coski said. "Lee has been so praised and distorted that they made him more than human, and in so doing, made him less than human. He's a complex figure. If we want to understand history in its complexity, we have to understand Robert E. Lee."

Like many military hero's there are many families out there pointing their family genealogy toward Robert Edward Lee. Here is a link to Robert the Bruce of Scotland who was able to make his link.

When the Lee's came to America it was still a wild and largely unexplored land. Sir Francis Drake had sailed along the coast of California and had landed near San Francisco in 1579. The colony of Virginia, where the Lee family was to become important was then settle only along the tidewater bays and rivers. Inland was still very much Indian Land. The community of Virginia was founded in 1607. By the time Richard Lee arrived on the shores in 1639 there were 7,500 white settlers and several hundred Negro slaves. The Indians had nearly wiped out Jamestown in 1622, and were still a threat. John Smith and the Indian maiden Pocahontas, who had allegedly save his life were dead. In 1640 Richard Lee married Anne Constable. They moved twenty miles outside of Jamestown on the mouth of the York River near the Indian town of Capahosic Wicomico. Pocahontas had died in 1617 and her father, Powhatan died in 1618. He was succeeded by Chief Openchancanough. In 1644 this new Chief had seen enough of the White man taking up the land. On April 18, 1644 the Indians came out of the forest and killed 300 White men. Richard Lee and his family escaped on a trading boat and settled in New Poquoson safe from any future attacks. In 1650 Richard Lee returns to England and is made Colonel during the British Civil Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate (1638-1660). The religious society of friends acquire the name "Quakers" when the judge at George Fox's trial for blasphemy says that they "tremble at the word of the Lord." Prior to his death in 1664, Richard and Anne Lee had eight children: John Lee (1642-1673), Richard Lee (1646-1714) m. Laetitia Corbin (1657-1706), Francis Lee (1648-1714), William Lee (1650-1696), Hancock Lee (1652-1709) m. (1) Mary Kendall, (2) Sarah Allerton, Elizabeth Lee (1653-?) M. Leonard Howson, Anne Lee (1653-?) M. Thomas Youell, Charles Lee (1656-1700) m. Elizabeth Metstand and founded the Cobbs Hall Line of Lee's.
Richard & Laetitia had seven children: John Lee (d. infant), Richard Lee (1678-1718) m. Martha Silk, Philip Lee (1678-1718) m. (1) Sarah Brooke, (2) Elizabeth Sewell, Francis (unk), Thomas Lee (1690-1750) m. Hannah Harrison Ludwell, from whom descend the Stratford Lees. Henry Lee (1691-1747) m. Mary Bland, from whom descend the Leesylvania Less. Ann Lee (?-1732) m. William Fitzhugh. Thomas & Hannah Lee had eight children: Philip Ludwell Lee (1726-1775) m. Elizabeth Steptoe, Hannah Lee (1728-1782) m. Gawin Corbin, Thomas Ludwell Lee (1730-1778) m. Mary Aylett, Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) M. (1) Ann Aylett, (2) Ann Pinckard, Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734-1797) m. Rebecca Taylor, Alice Lee (1736-1818) m. William Shippen, William Lee (1739-1795) m. Hannah P. Ludwell, Arthur Lee (1740-1792) died single. Henry & Lucy Lee had eight children: Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee (1756-1818) m. (1) "Cousin" Matilda Lee, (2) Ann Hill Carter, of Shirley, Charles Lee (1758-1815) (U.S. Attorney-General 1795-1801)., Richard Bland Lee (1761-1827), Theodorick Lee (1766-1840), Edmund Jennings Lee (1772-1843), Lucy Lee (17740?), Mary Lee (unk), Anne Lee (1776-1857). Philip Ludwell & Elizabeth had two daughters who both married cousins: Matilda Lee, m. Maj. Gen. Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee, Flora Lee, m. Ludwell Lee. From the marriage of Maj. Gen. Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee & cousing Matilda Lee they had two children: Lucy Grymes Lee (1786-1860), and Henry Lee (1787-1837) who was the last master of the Stratford Lee's, he died in Paris. Childred from (2nd) wife of Maj. Gen Henry Lee, they had six: Algernon Sidney Lee (1795-1796), Charles Carter Lee (1798-1871), Anne Kinloch Lee (1800-1864), Sydney Smith Lee (1802-1869) m. William Fitzhugh (1835-1905) great-grandson of Ann Lee & William Fitzhugh. (Major General of the Confederate States Army, Governor of Virginia, Major General, U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War., Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870), m. Mary Anne Custis,. Catherine Mildred Lee (1811-1856). Robert E. & Mary Anne Lee had seven children: George Washington Custis Lee (1832-1913) died single,. Mary Custis Lee, died single, William Henry Fitzhugh Lee (1837-1891) m. Mary Tabb Bolling, Annie Lee (1839-1862) died single, Agnes Lee (unk) died single, Robert Edward Lee II (unk), Mildred Lee (unk) died single. From William H. & Mary T. Lee they had two children: George Billing Lee (1872- ?) m. Helen Keney, Robert Edward Lee III (unk). It appears that Robert Edward II married (unk) and had two children: Anne Carter Lee (unk) m. Hanson Ely Jr., Mary Custis Lee (unk) m. Hunter De Butts.

This is enough for now... as we can see there are several lines of the Lee family to research. Wish me good luck, and if you can be of any help just hit the comment link below this post.

Woman Suffrage "Iron Jawed Angels"

2010-10-19T13:45:00.099-05:00

The post below are not my own words they came from an email sent to me by my mother for this up-coming election week. While in college at the University of California, Davis, while working on my degree in Sociology I had many great professors lecture on woman suffrage and this part of our history.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1865-1925) served as President of the United States (1913-1921). He was a Democrat. He graduated from the College of New Jersey which is today Princeton. He died three years after leaving the White House. Why am I explaining all of this? No, I have not recently linked our family to this president, however I am close to linking to Lincoln so stay tuned on that. I find it interesting that history shows we have not come that far. The Democrat party and the media is creating witch hysteria over Republican candidate for the special 2010 Delaware election for Senate, Christine O' Donnell. Politicians losing sight that they represent everyone in their district.

So my word here today is to urge everyone to get out and vote for some politician they feel represents the people, all the people!

A TRUE STORY EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW!

This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

(Lucy Burns)They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

Mrs Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day sentence.

Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York

(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

Conferring over ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at National Woman's Party headquarters, Jackson Place , Washington , D.C.

Left to right: Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))

In the current HBO movie "Iron Jawed Angels" It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.'

Getting help from David Lepitre

2010-10-18T10:09:00.000-05:00

I want to introduce you to David Lepitre. He has been of great help to me in my research of my family from Vermont and Canada. He is a fellow genealogist, printer and writer of the column "Your Ancestry" in The Log Cabin Chronicles. I have sent to him a few digital copies of old family photos and he has worked miracles to help in my research.
David has also been able to locate and get me in touch with Lillian Rider and Penny Tetreault.
I recently sent him two photos that had no description other than a photographer stamp. He quickly responded with information on the photographer and a possible date and location of the photos.
A big thank you to David Lepitre for all of his help. Here is a link to his website if you are interested.

Le Château Witch Bay

2010-10-15T16:33:00.041-05:00

Ghosts, Goblins and Witches, oh my!

Isn't Halloween a wonderful time of year?

If you believe in them or not is another story. The history is a story that will be told again and again.
In my last post I introduced to you Stephen England and took you back to the late 1700's. Today we just might go back a bit further. Hold on tight!

This post is titled "Le Château Witch Bay," I thought this would be appropriate not only for the season, but for the story I am about to tell. Above you will see a photo of a very beautiful castle. Note the weather vane, it is a witch riding her broom stick. Does this castle look familiar to you? Well if you are a Howie maybe not so much, but if you are a Rider it should. This castle was once the home of Timothy Byron Rider. He built this home in Fitch Bay Quebec, where it still stands today. The Rider family still owned it until the year 2000 when it was sold. The new owners have really put some love and hard work into the restoration, which was completed in just over 8 years. The home is more than just an attraction for those Harry Potter fans. This home stands as a museum to the once booming town of Fitch Bay and the Rider family. I am told by Penny, the manager of the property that the furniture though not original, is antique Victorian and correct for the era, and there are photos of Ezra Rider hanging on the wall. (Pictured on left) Now that name should ring a bell to a Howie. Ezra Bartlett Rider was the father of Helen Desdemonia Rider. Ezra B. Rider was from Haverhill New Hampshire, born in 1798. He married Fanny Chandler and had three children in New Hampshire before Fanny died at forty-two years old in 1843. Ezra moves north to Quebec to start his grist mill and meets Dorothy Ann Lee. They are quickly married on October 18th, 1843. (That was 167 years ago to the date). Together Ezra & Dorothy had four children. Two sons and two daughters. Timothy, Hamilton, Helen and Clara. Timothy, the oldest of the four was a hard worker. He had a farm, a saw mill, a grist mill and was buying up real estate, and built the home pictured below in 1880 after his children had grown. Timothy was also the postmaster and joined political office. He was elected to the House of Commons in the Parliament of Canada on March 5th, 1891 and held this office for 1,937 days. That is 5 years, 3 months and 20 days.

Mr. Timothy Byron Rider was a very wealthy and influential man, also an inventor which I have located his government patents and a business man. He was a merchant in the area, and when his sister Helen D. Rider married William George Howie, he gave William a job as a store clerk. According to the the 1881 Census of Canada, William & Helen were also living in this beautiful new Château. From this early photo above on the right you can see how big it is compared to his brother Hamiltons' house behind.

Timothy amassed his fortune by acquiring real estate. He purchased the saw mills, the grist mills and two mercantile operations. Like many of my ancestors, Timothy Byron Rider was also a Mason, the Masonic order I do not yet know at this time. A secret society that I know very little of, other than it is a social organization. By 1912, Peoples telephone of Canada then became Peoples & Rider. In 1933 Mr. Rider was one of the first wealthy people that could afford to have electricity in his home.

Penny informed me that Timothy was also friends with Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the seventh Prime Minister of Canada, and who was also a guest in the home. Timothy B. Rider went on to become Mayor of Fitch Bay and served for 19 years.

When I received the email this week from Penny with the photos of the house with a witch for a weather vane I could not be more surprised nor wait to reply to tell her about his ancestors. Turn back the time now to 1688 Salem Massachusetts. In November, Rev. Samuel Parris preaches in Salem Village for the first time. October 1691, Joseph Porter, Joseph Hutchinson, Joseph Putnam, Daniel Andrew and Francis Nurse become the elected majority to the Salem Village committee. January 20, 1692, Samuel Parris' nine year old daughter, Betty, falls ill. More young girls in Salem Village also fall ill. The Salem Village physician, Dr. William Griggs, concludes the girls are bewitched. Parris' servant/slave, Tituba, and her husband, John Indian, are advised by Mary Sibley to bake a witch cake. She hopes the cake will help the girls identify the person(s) who are bewitching them. On March 1st Tituba confesses to witchcraft. Later, Sarah Osborne, Sarah Good and Tituba are sent to a Boston prison. Then one of the afflicted girls, possibly Mercy Lewis, accuses Elizabeth, wife of John Proctor of witchcraft. On April 11, 1692 Sarah Cloyce and Elizabeth Proctor appear before the Salem Magistrates. John and Elizabeth Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyce, Martha Corey and Dorcas Good are sent to a Boston prison on this night. Then on May 21, an arrest warrant is issued for John and Elizabeth Proctor's daughter, Sarah and two days later their son Benjamin. Then on May 28th an arrest warrant is issued for John and Elizabeth Proctor's second son, William. By now almost the entire wealthy Proctor family are in prison for witchcraft. In September nine accused are put to death. Elizabeth and the children are later set free. However Elizabeth Proctor does not inherit her late husbands wealth and continued to fight in court over the property rights.
John Proctor is my link to the Salem Witch trials and ends my story. If you want to research more on the Salem Witch trials there are many good websites from which I took the above time line. If you want to know more about the Rider and Howie family continue to follow my blog. For avid research you can also check for this book: According to Moore, Stephen A., T. B. Rider and the Rider Family of Fitch Bay, 1850-1960 . . ., M.A. Thesis, Bishops University, Lennoxville, Quebec, 1992 (especially Chapter 10, pp [218]-232) the Rider family was involved in a number of social groups to include the Masons.
In conclusion my Great Grand Uncle, Timothy Byron Rider who built "Le Chateau Witchbay" is related to John Proctor of Salem MA, who was put to death by hanging during the witch trials in the late 1600's.

Timothy's mother was Dorothy Ann Lee, wife of Ezra. Her father was Ede Lee of Willington, Connecticut, and his father was Daniel Lee, who's father was Elias Jedediah Lee. Elias' mother was Lucy Dodge, her father was Josiah Dodge (1665 - 1714) of Beverly Massachusetts. His mother was Sarah Proctor of Salem and her brother was John Proctor (1632 - 1692). He was hung on Gallows Hill, Salem, Massachusetts on August 19, 1692 for witchcraft.

Historian's and genealogists are still working on proof at this time and more source documentation. More data is always coming forward on John Proctors descendants. A new reference book was just published titled: Records of Salem Witch-Hunt, by: Bernard Rosenthal. 2009. I used this book to verify my data.

Sarah Proctor Dodge is believed to have lived from (1646 - 1706) and by the way was later married to Captain John Dodge who served in King Philip's war of 1675. But that is a blog for another day.

American Revolution ( 1775 - 1783)

2010-10-14T23:10:00.012-05:00

Starting with myself and then going back twelve generations I find that I am a descendant of Nathan Hurd, a Captain during the American Revolutionary War. While I am not the son of an American Revolutionary War hero, this story is about my genealogical links; the year, 1776.

On April 18, 1775 the British commander in Boston sent soldiers to Concord to find guns and powder. They were also ordered to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock who were hiding in Lexington. Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts to warn the citizens that the British army was on its way. Revere was captured, but he escaped safely.
John Hancock who signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence was elected President of the Second Continental Congress on May 24 1775. John Hancock had just established the first Colonial Post Office of which was appointed by Congress, Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin, Esquire who was unanimously chosen. On the other side of the pond, King George III was the King of Great Britain and Ireland and the ruler over the colonies.

Captain Nathan Hurd joins at the beginning of the war; leading the eighth company of the first battalion toward Fort Ticonderoga New York where the nearest city is Burlington Vermont. Joining on along this long march from Connecticut to Northern New York are the Green Mountain Boys and militia volunteers from Massachusetts and Connecticut. The battle begins in May 1775 and under the direct command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold these Americans are able to capture the fort from British control by a surprise attack.

Prior to this battle, the Second Continental Congress chose in 1775 as Commander-In-Chief of the Continental Army General George Washington. Above I used the term "Americans.” Inhabitants of the thirteen colonies that supported the American Revolution are primarily referred to as "Americans,” with occasional references to "Patriots", "Whigs", "Rebels," or "Revolutionaries.” Colonists who supported the British in opposing the Revolution usually referred to as "Loyalists" or "Tories”. Keep note of this in the future as you read my blog you will find we are descendants of both sides sometimes splitting families and thus possible name changes.

Upon a call for reinforcement for Washington's army in the summer of 1776, the Connecticut assembly ordered the enlistment of seven battalions for the service of the command of Brigadier General James Wadsworth of Durham Connecticut. Colonel Gold Selleck Silliman of Fairfield Connecticut was in charge of the first battalion, which was comprised of eight companies. As mentioned above, Captain Nathan Hurd led Company Eight. These same young men lived to fight again in the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776. This was the first major battle if not the largest in The American Revolution following the United States Declaration of Independence July 4th 1776.

It is hard for me to get a grasp on the command of Captain Nathan Hurd. In 1775, he marched his men north, over 200 miles from Litchfield Connecticut to Ticonderoga New York for the now famous battle of Ticonderoga. Then in 1776, the Eighth Company marched south, over 300 miles to Harlem New York for the Battle of Long Island.

In July 1776, British General William Howe landed on Staten Island New York to plan an attack that General George Washington was not prepared for. General Howe defeated the Americans in Manhattan New York when on the night of August 29-30 General George Washington evacuated all men and property and retreated through New Jersey into Pennsylvania without loss of a single life. Genealogy of Nathan Hurd to myslelf:

Beginning in July 1775, Ticonderoga was used as a staging area for the invasion of Quebec to begin in September. The war moves northward.More of a direct link to being a son of the American Revolution was Sergeant Stephen England. On 22 May 1775, Stephen England was just 16 years old when he was called to duty to fight in Captain Pillsbury's Company. This Company went on to fight at the Battle of Bennington Vermont on August 16, 1777. This was an American victory. Today the tallest monument in Vermont is at the Battle of Bennington.
Here is my genealogy link to Sgt. Stephen England:

After the American Revolutionary War Stephen England went on to be the owner of the first hotel in Fairfax.

Here is a new addition that also relates to the above battles. The story below on Hezekiah Smith is from the Smith Family History compiled by Kathleen Smith.

1. Hezekiah Smith (Major) was born about 1726 in Barrington, RI. He died at Colrain, MA 8-19-1800 at age 74. He was married in Woodstock, CT 12-19-1747. He married Eunice Morris who was born in Woodstock, CT 1-12-1728 and died in Colrain 11-9-1807 at age 79 years. She was the daughter of Lt. Edward Morris and Bethiah Peake. Edward Morris served in the revolution. Edward Morris was a lieutenant in the French and Indian Wars and was in the Crown Point and Louisberg expeditions. Hezekiah and Eunice Smith moved to Colrain around 1764. They came with the Fox and Wells families and settled on the “Well’s lot” on the west side of the North River just south of the Branch. The population of Colrain in 1765 was 297 (reference #4). He was prominent in local affairs and in the Revolution in which he and 3 of his sons (Nathaniel, David, and Calvin) attained the rank of major. A total of 5 sons fought in the Revolutionary War. Afterwards, these 3 sons married the 3 daughters of Joseph Thompson. Smiths fought at Ticonderoga and were present at Buergoyne’s surrender. He was a member of the First Committee of Correspondence in 1773, a delegate to the Provincial Congress in 1775, and a member of the Convention that formed the Constitution of Massachusetts in 1780. Additional information from reference #5 follows: Joshua Wells of Greenfield sold 100 acres to Hezekiah for 93 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence on 12-6-1764. This tract lay west of the North River and just south of the junction of the east and west branches (p. 12). In January 1773, a town meeting was called in Colrain to consider the first statements received from Boston. They were probably Samuel Adams’ “Statement of the Rights of Colonists” and Joseph Warren’s “List of Infringements and Violations of Those Rights” which had been sent out together in November. A committee of 7 members was appointed to represent Colrain and among them was Hezekiah (p. 61). At a town meeting held 3-7-1774, Hezekiah was one of 7 men appointed to the Committee of Correspondence for the coming year (p. 64). Hezekiah joined the militia in 1774 to join in the siege of Boston (p. 68). Hezekiah was named on 5-23-1775 as a delegate to the Provincial Congress meeting in Watertown. It voted to raise an army of 13, 600 men and provide money to defray expenses (p. 68). Hezekiah was on of the Colrain men with Capt. Robert Oliver in the 24^th regiment of Col. Ephraim Doolittle at Charlestown and Winter Hill from August 1 to October 6, 1775 (p. 73-74). By April 3, 1777, Hezekiah was a major in the 5^th Massachusetts Regiment and was in charge of the Commissary Department at Ticonderoga. He and one of his sons were also there in June 1777 when Burgoyne attacked and stayed until evacuation 7-10-1777. They were in the regiment of Col. David Wells. Immediately after the evacuation of Ticonderoga, Captain Agrippa Wells’ Company of Col. Porter’s regiment marched to reinforce the northern army. Hezekiah and 2 of his sons (Hezekiah, junior and Nathaniel) served in this company from 7-10-1777 to 8-12-1777. When the fort was reoccupied, he was stationed there again in charge of the stores from 1777-1779 (p. 70-74).

Hezekiah founded the First Baptist Church of Colrain 9-5-1780 with 8 family members and 9 other community people, at total of 18 in all (p. 212). This information is from reference #1 page 64 and reference #5 pages 145-147: There is a large monument in the West Branch Cemetery in Colrain dedicated to Hezekiah and which has the names of his sons engraved on its side. This monument was built by Joseph Smith, the grandson of Hezekiah and the son of Calvin who was brother to Nathaniel. Hezekiah and Eunice has 13 children. The 5^th one was Nathaniel. The children were all born in Woodstock, CT except the last two. The children were:

Hannah B. 8-28-1748 and died at age 6
Abigail B. 12-5-1749
Oren B. 3-10-1751
Hezekiah, Jr. B. 12-2-1752
*Nathaniel B. 7-9-1754
Hannah and Bette B. 2-11-1756 (Bette died after 3 days)
David B. 10-16-1757 and died 2-10-1816
Rominer B. 1759 and died 10-23-1827 (was married to Hannah who died 1-12-1850)
Sabrina B. 11-10-1762
Calvin B. 7-11-1764 (was married to Ann who died 3-26-1845)
Luther B. 2-7-1767 and died 7-17-1837
Ester B. 9-16-1770

Bradley's First Haircut

2010-09-17T12:56:00.002-05:00

Bradley Hunt is turning one years old this Saturday September 18th. He wanted to look good for all his party guests so he decided it was time to get his first haircut.

Genealogy research in many languages

2010-09-14T12:49:00.000-05:00

Today I am working on my Swedish branch of my family tree.

Most of the work has been done for me by Elisbet in Sweden. Each time I begin to work on incorporating her tree into mine I just get tired out. The reason is the language. Not only Swedish, I have found most of the source documents are not translated from the native language. If I was searching for lets say Jan. Most likely I would not find much if anything. But if I try a search on Göran, this might be sucessful. So then Jan Anderson might be found as Göran Andersson. Simple? Not so fast. Language isn't just about the spelling. We also must take into account the meaning. You just would not translate Björn Andersson to Bear Anderson.

Since I started working on the family tree I found that I needed the skills to be able to translate many other languages into English. I have been learning French, German, Russian, Maltese, Yiddish, Portuguese, and Swedish. I have found the google translator helps, however it isn't perfect. Atleast it gets you somewhere. One thing that I want to share with you that I found very helpful for Swedish was how to learn to use my keyboard. See the issue I was having was that even though the Swedish language is similar to the English alphabet, there are three more letters: å, ä and ö. These are at the end of the alphabet. Here is how you get these letters on your keyboard using the ALT key. First you hold down the ALT key then on the number pad type the three digit number. For MAC users see below for Mac:

å	Alt key and 134 å is pronounced as 'o' in 'boring' or 'au' in 'laundry'
Å	Alt key and 143
ä	Alt key and 132 ä is pronounced as 'a' in 'mad
Ä	Alt key and 142
ö	Alt key and 148 ö is pronounced as 'i' in 'bird or 'ea' in 'earn
Ö	Alt key and 153
ø	Alt key and 0248
Ø	Alt key and 0216

Other special letters for you

Ç - ALT-128     è - Alt-138     ö - Alt-148    P - Alt-158
¿ - Alt-168      ¡ - Alt-173
ü - Alt-129       ï - Alt-139      ò - Alt-149     ƒ- Alt-159
é- Alt-130        î - Alt-140     û - Alt-150     á - Alt-160
â- Alt-131        ì - Alt-141      ù - Alt-151      í - Alt-161
ä - Alt-132      Ä - Alt-142     ÿ - Alt-152      ó - Alt-162
à - Alt-133      Å - Alt-143     Ö-Alt-153      ú - Alt-163
å - Alt-134       É - Alt-144     Ü - Alt-154     ñ - Alt-164
ç- Alt-135        æ - Alt-145     ¢ - Alt-155     Ñ - Alt-165
ê - Alt-136      Æ - Alt-146     £ - Alt-156      ª - Alt-166
ë - Alt-137       ô - Alt-147      ¥ - Alt-157      º - Alt-167

Mac Users

As a Mac user you need to use your "option" key.
For instance ö is achieved by holding down the option key and the "u" key then type the "o". When you do that nothing appears until you type the 'o'. To get å, you hold down the option key and type the "a".

ä = option and u then the a
ë = option key and u then the e
ü = option key and u then another u

ø = option key and o
é = option key and e
ê = option key and i then the e
â = option key i and then the a
ô = option key and i then the o

There are many more helpful hints for Swedish at:
Learn Swedish

California Farms of the 1920's

2010-09-13T17:35:00.000-05:00

After writing the blog about the Marques family, immigrant farmers from Portugal. I realized that they are five generations from little Bradly Hunt. Augusta was Eleanor's grand mother, and Eleanor is Sherina's grandmother. So that makes Augusta Bradley's, great, great, great grandmother.
When I think of immigrant farm labor of the 1920's in California, I think of the great John Steinbeck novel, "The Grapes of Wrath". Man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Steinbeck consistently and woefully pointed to the fact that the migrants’ great suffering was caused not by bad weather or mere misfortune but by their fellow human beings. Living in Sacramento myself, I know a little bit about the history of the cannery. Over 100,000 migrant men and women workers were employed packing cans of fruit and sugar beats. In sociology classes I took at The University of California at Davis, we were taught about Chavez and the Mexican Migrant. Steinbeck wrote about the displaced farm belt families of Oklahoma. Researching the Marques family was the first I had read about all the immigrants from Portugal.

Have we come very far in the past ninety years? If you didn't read my blog, check it out under the Ginn pages.

2010-09-13T12:31:00.000-05:00

What is it to be an Immigrant

2010-09-13T12:30:00.000-05:00

Being able to trace your ancestry to an immigrant of the Mayflower, is like having a sliver from the true cross where Jesus died.
This past weekend marked nine years since 3,000 people lost their lives in New York and Washington D.C., many of whom we can claim as Americans. One thing I remember about that day and the days following was how that tragic event brought Americans together. Everyone was wearing the flag of the United States. The flag of our stars and stripes was hung from every freeway overpass. Patriotism was all around you. Today Islamophobia is replacing homophobia as our outlet for hate. Americans and the Tea Party wannabes want you and I to believe that the President of the United States is a: Terrorist-coddling, Warmongering, Wall Street-Loving, Socialistic, Godless MUSLIM.
One of America's greatest strengths has always been taking in immigrants from cultures around the world, and assimilating them into our country as Americans; thus united we our stronger. By being citizens of the U.S. we are Americans first, and only, in our national loyalties. This feeling, this movement of Nationalism did not last long.
I was attending Ventura College at the time. I remember a group of students on the campus called MEChA. They were often holding rallies on the campus, speaking of La Raza and waving flags of Mexico. Another movement was starting. First State, then Federal government began building walls between Mexico and the United States; not just physical walls to keep immigrants out but social walls of discrimination.
Not too many months back I was counted for the fifth time in my life on the Census of the United States.
There were ten questions in all. This comes to my attention because most if not all of the source documents I and other genealogical researchers use, is derived from the Census data that is collected every ten years.
In 1790 the United States took its first Census. The surname and first initial of the head of the house was taken, and dash marks were placed for how many free white men there were in the household. To date the United States has now completed twenty-two counts. Each one being different from the prior. Out of the ten questions on the current 2010 Census, two questions, number eight and nine are concerned with your racial and cultural heritage. Question number eight had five questions within that question. This question wants to know if the person identifies with Spanish, Mexican, Latin, and so on, it actually said “and so on”. Question number nine gave other racial groups only one box to check. I chose White, but does that really say who I am?
Mexico is celebrating this week, 200 years of independence from Spain and 100 years since the Mexican revolution. The actual date is September 16, 1821; the war between the colonies of Mexico and Spain began in 1810. I make this comparison, as Mexico’s war was not unlike the war between the Colonist of New England and Britain or any other war to gain freedom and independence.
There have been so many wars, and so many more reasons for our ancestors to immigrate to new lands that this history is what makes the genealogy all that more interesting.
So follow me on my journey back home as I attempt to tell the whole story.

I Had A Dream

2010-09-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

A week or so back I got very involved in my family tree project and I guess I was not sleeping well. I was remembering my childhood at the age of eight years when I first started genealogy in school. My father Donald Howie had an old box of photos from his father William Rider Howie. I looked through all those old black and white photos and tin type photos of days gone. I also ran across some old newspaper clippings of obituaries. One of them was from a newspaper in Montreal Canada. It read to my memory "Montreal's oldest living resident Jane Howie passed away". It was a typical obituary for the day. It described her life, her faith in God and her family. At that time I had asked my dad about her, however he didn't know who she was. The clipping went back in the box never to be seen again, but not out of mind I guess. So the other night I awoke thinking about this clipping and if this could be a possible link to my roots. I quickly sent an email to my mother June Howie. Unfortunately she either had never seen the article that I was describing or had forgotten it. Since there is no one I could turn to so that I could get the information I needed, I had to begin a very thorough research. Using both ancestry.com and the internet I was successful. There is a very useful website called Interment. In 2005 they went to each cemetery and wrote down a description of the name, location and a database of each headstone which is still intact. Each of these data bases are too large to place in my blog. So just click on the link and search yourself. I have found Howie's, Lorimer's, and England's to mention a few. I was then able to have some more data to then look through Church records and Census records. Soon look for the Howie Page on the left to see what I found on Jane Howie.

History or mystery

2010-09-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

Hi my name is Richard Howie.
I am going to use a blog name Rich Sueco from here on.
I have been getting very excited about the details on my family ancestry. I recently dug out my family tree. I have been climbing this tree on and off since I was eight years old. I thought I just wanted to update some new leaves that have sprouted recently to the Howie family branch. Ultimately I would say that I was inspired after watching a new NBC TV series called, "Who do you think you are." That TV program pointed me to ancestry.com. Where I found that genealogy online has greatly improved and I was hooked. www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/

I want to share with you my journey back home.
At this point I am going to keep the blog private to family members only.
Later as I learn more about the social networking community I may open
this blog to the public.

Home and general store for sale

2010-09-10T22:29:00.000-05:00

Ruth Augusta England was my Grand Mother and she was married to Grandpa William Rider Howie. Her marriage to Mr. Howie took place August 19, 1916.
The obituary that was written in the Stanstead Journal on Thursday, SEPTEMBER 12, 1935 is attached and here is the transcription:
The Stanstead Journal
ROCK ISLAND, (STANSTEAD) QUE., THURSDAY,
SEPTEMBER 12, 1935
MRS. WILLIAM R. HOWIE

Well-Known Beebe Plain Lady Suddenly Stricken by Appendicitis

Many friends were deeply grieved by the death of Mrs. Willaim R. Howie (Ruth Augusta England) of Beebe Plain, Vt, which occurred at the Orleans County Memorial Hospital Newport, Vt., September ninth.

After feeling especially well on Thursday, Mrs. Howie became ill on Friday and on Saturday morning was removed to the hospital, where an appendicular operation was immediately performed. Afterwards the patient rallied strongly, but became worse the following morning. In the afternoon she appeared to be decidedly better, but became weaker on Monday, and at four in the afternoon lapsed into unconsiousness, her death occurring at 11 o'clock that night. She suffered great pain during much of her brief illness. Althought the appendix had not burst it was in an unusually serious condition, and her death is understood to have been directly due to peritontis. Mrs. Howie's youngest son, Robert Rae, had just emerged from a long illness, measles having been followed first by whooping cough, then bronchitis, the pneumonia, and lastly by water on the lungs. Doubtless his care had seriously taxed the mother's strength.
Mrs. Howie was formerly Miss Ruth Augusta England. She was born in Dunham, Que, August 1, 1895, being the eldest daughter of Rev. C. P. and Bettie M. (Smith) England, the latter being a native of North Pinnacle, Missisquoi County.
She graduated from Coaticook Academy in 1912, taught in Dixville one year, graduated from Macdonald College in 1914, then taught at Beebe two years.
Her marriage to Mr. Howie took place August 19, 1916, and the family home has since been in Beebe Plain. Mrs. Howie is survived by her husband, four sons, Clarence William 16, Arthur England 15, Donald James 8, and Robert Rae 3; three daughters, Helen Ruth 18, Grace Marion 12 and Dorothy Mae 9, also her parents C.P. and Mrs. England, now of Watsonville; one sister Esther England, who teaches at Inverness; two brothers, Gordon and Arthur England, at home. Francis England, a brother, was accidentally shot by a companion while out looking after traps, Dedember 5, 1925. Another brother had previously passed on. You can read the rest in the attached above link.

Her father, Clarence Philo & Nettie Smith were my Great Grandparents. Clarence was the youngest of four children of Philo England (1833-1916) & Margaret Ruiter(1832). If you know the date of her death please comment below. His siblings were, James Emerson England, Philip, Maude Elizabeth. Philo England (1833-1916) my Great-Great Grandfather had many siblings. I am blogging here today on just one, and that is his brother Israel (1821-1911). Their father was Frederick England (1789 - 1878) & mother Ruth Elizabeth Richardson (1794 - 1881). Ruth is a descendant of the Richardson's of Vermont. Also another blog so keep checking back.

Now as I mentioned above, I am only blogging here today about Philo Englands' brother Israel, even though Philo had other siblings. I will later dedicate a family page to the England's where I will go into more detail. Israel and his son had a general store on the England Block of KNOWLTON, QUEBEC, from 1880 until his death in 1911. If you click on this link it will take you to the England Block which is currently called Lake Street. On that map the store, "Israel & Son" is building number six. The current owners have owned the England store for 21 years. They call it ENGLAND HILL.

England Hill is currently up for sale.

Family Photo Colage

2010-09-10T20:24:00.000-05:00

Bradley Hunt Birthday

2010-09-10T17:20:00.001-05:00

Bradley is so exited that he is turning one years old?

Printing in Vermont

2010-09-09T16:55:00.000-05:00

Printing has long been a profession of our ancestors. Currently Ronald F. Ginn is employed as a printer. He learned this profession from his father -in-law Donald J. Howie. However, William R. Howie was the first in the family line.

A newbie by settlement standards of the east coast, Vermont has an early history of printing. The oldest newspaper was the Vermont Gazette, published in Westminster from 1781 to 1783 by Alden, Spooner, & Green. Interestingly, the printing press used was the first one brought to the colonies from England in 1683. The oldest continuously published family-owned newspaper in the country is the Rutland Herald, covering the entire state since 1794. Newspaper publishing was centered in four locations: Bennington, Brattleboro, Rutland, and Burlington. Most towns in Vermont had their own local newspapers by 1830, which corresponds with the peak population of rural Vermont towns.

The Serpent of Lake Memphrenmagog

2010-09-09T15:55:00.002-05:00

THE SERPENT OF LAKE MEMPHREMAGOG

The Memphremagog Monster, 1917. (Source: J. M. Currier, Uriah Jewett and the Sea Serpent of Lake Memphremagog

Matthew Farfan

Lake Memphremagog is located partly in Canada and partly in the United States. Europeans have been living around the lake for only the last two centuries; before their arrival, the area was occupied by the Abenakis, the indigenous people who gave the lake its name, which roughly translates as "beautiful waters."

The lake is steeped in legend. One such legend pertains to a creature that is said to inhabit the depths beneath Owl's Head Mountain. According to a document from 1816, when the first settlers arrived from New England, the Native people told them that they were afraid to bathe or swim in the lake because it was inhabited by a sea serpent.

Over the past two centuries, more than 225 sightings of the monster have been recorded. One of the earliest reports dates to 1847 when The Stanstead Journal proclaimed that "a strange animal, something of a sea serpent... exists in Lake Memphremagog." Known in the past by such names as the "Sea Serpent," "the Anaconda," or "the Lake Memphremagog Monster," in recent years, the creature has been affectionately dubbed "Memphré."

I have attached a link to the above website.

Our family comes from this area of Quebec, Canada.

The Howie, England, Rider, and Lorimer Families to mention a few, can trace their roots to the Europeans who started out around this lake.

William Rider Howie was born in a bay on Lake Memphremagog. In the town of Fitch Bay.

As its name suggests, Fitch Bay is Located near a bay on Lake Memphremagog. This community began its development in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. One possible solution was to build a canal linking Lake Massawippi Fitch Bay to promote the circulation of small steamers. In 1881, Ftich Bay has three churches, three stores and a population of 300 inhabitants.

Near the village, Highway 247 South, we find a Covered Bridge (Narrows Bridge) built in 1881 by Charles McPherson. It is a length of 28 meters and in good condition. This bridge replaced the first bridge built on the conventional "Narrows" in 1802 to facilitate the connection between Georgeville and Stanstead Plain. Because the wooden bridges had a limited service life due to weather which hastened the decay, covered bridges seemed the best solution. Note also, in the heart of the village, the St. Matthias Anglican Church in neo-Gothic style built in 1889.