In The Name of the Lord

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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.