So. Over four months now. Seems like less. Maybe half that time. Still raw, still tears, still anger and self-flagellation. The quickening in my chest when I think of what happened is gone, gone for a month or more.
I don't want to "heal." I don't want to "get over it."
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
cry
I cry for the pain my wife felt in her last hours, for the personal indignities and violations of medical treatment and death.
I cry for the things my wife saw and did and will see and do no more.
I cry for what she did not live to see and do.
I cry for myself and the vast desolate emptiness that is left of me.
I cry for the things my wife saw and did and will see and do no more.
I cry for what she did not live to see and do.
I cry for myself and the vast desolate emptiness that is left of me.
run
One can only run or bike so far, or work so hard, before thoughts catch up. One can't run away, not for long.
On the bicycle, when that feeling rises from my chest I can punch up the tempo and run from it -- which is probably what that feeling is, a call to fight or flee -- but I can't keep it up. A minute or two and I am gasping for breath. It helps, but not for long.
Just about everything and anything in my home, my environment, city or in the news starts it, and if I do not hunker down on the floor and sob then I have to run.
On the bicycle, when that feeling rises from my chest I can punch up the tempo and run from it -- which is probably what that feeling is, a call to fight or flee -- but I can't keep it up. A minute or two and I am gasping for breath. It helps, but not for long.
Just about everything and anything in my home, my environment, city or in the news starts it, and if I do not hunker down on the floor and sob then I have to run.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
relearning
A little over a month ago I relearned how to cry. Yesterday I relearned how to sob.
Piss-poor effort really, somewhere between hiccups and repeated belching.
Piss-poor effort really, somewhere between hiccups and repeated belching.
Friday, July 27, 2012
okay
I suppose that at this point what I'd most like is for my wife to pat me on the back and say "Good boy. You're doing okay. Keep it up." Is that so unreasonable?
days
One month ago, 31 days, the world turned upside down.
Not a good day today, but there are no good days. There are worse days and worst days.
Which brings up the conversations I had and still have. "I'm sorry for your loss," they say. Or, "My condolences." Then when signing off they say "Have a great day!" Or, "Have a wonderful day!" There are no great days any more, or wonderful ones, and the worst days of more than a month ago seem beatific in comparison.
I wish I could turn back the clock. When I look at something dated, bearing a date more than a month ago, I yearn for the past, to become part of the past, to live there forever--or to change certain critical events that led up to what happened a month ago.
My link to reality is less strong than it probably looks. I could so easily drift into a universe where my wife is alive and a month ago never happened or happened differently. Or I could talk to my wife and hear her answering me and walking beside me. So tempting to just let that happen. But I know she is gone and morover I feel she is gone. The presence that was there in my head up until a month ago is not there now. Which is probably just my way of looking at things, though I send out tendrils of thought to explore and searh for her presence; I await the ghostly brush of her hand, her presence in dreams, the sound of breathing next to me. I don't remember any dream I have had recently, but I don't think my wife was in them. I wish she were.
One aspect of my unstable grasp on reality is that I have never had a personal loss anywhere like this before. My grandfather died 52 years ago; that is my only experience with something like this. It is hard for me to understand fully that I cannot change things by closing my eyes and crossing my fingers and hoping very hard, or by pressing a reset button on a game machine. But no, that doesn't work here. Wish it would.
On my way downtown today I passed the newly landscaped building that my wife wanted to take a picture of a couple of days before she left on the plane. I walked on the same sidewalks that my wife and had walked on. Probably there are residues from our shoes that linger in those places that bloodhound might scent and identify. I went to the bakery that I liked to take my wife to. Everywhere memories.
I saw a construction sign that read "Delano & Mackenzie." Flashback to 2001 when my wife and I were walking on a street in Miami at night. Across from where we walked, a big block of stone in the shadows of the evening, there was the Hotel Delano, that we looked at curiously.
I could leave town and go somewhere neither of us ever went before and she would still be there. There is no escape.
There is little that I do that does not evoke ghosts and memories of my wife. I did pick up a book by Lincoln Child that kept me distracted, until it grew weak at the end. Some of the other books I have been reading were read by my wife, which is little help at all.
Not a good day today, but there are no good days. There are worse days and worst days.
Which brings up the conversations I had and still have. "I'm sorry for your loss," they say. Or, "My condolences." Then when signing off they say "Have a great day!" Or, "Have a wonderful day!" There are no great days any more, or wonderful ones, and the worst days of more than a month ago seem beatific in comparison.
I wish I could turn back the clock. When I look at something dated, bearing a date more than a month ago, I yearn for the past, to become part of the past, to live there forever--or to change certain critical events that led up to what happened a month ago.
My link to reality is less strong than it probably looks. I could so easily drift into a universe where my wife is alive and a month ago never happened or happened differently. Or I could talk to my wife and hear her answering me and walking beside me. So tempting to just let that happen. But I know she is gone and morover I feel she is gone. The presence that was there in my head up until a month ago is not there now. Which is probably just my way of looking at things, though I send out tendrils of thought to explore and searh for her presence; I await the ghostly brush of her hand, her presence in dreams, the sound of breathing next to me. I don't remember any dream I have had recently, but I don't think my wife was in them. I wish she were.
One aspect of my unstable grasp on reality is that I have never had a personal loss anywhere like this before. My grandfather died 52 years ago; that is my only experience with something like this. It is hard for me to understand fully that I cannot change things by closing my eyes and crossing my fingers and hoping very hard, or by pressing a reset button on a game machine. But no, that doesn't work here. Wish it would.
On my way downtown today I passed the newly landscaped building that my wife wanted to take a picture of a couple of days before she left on the plane. I walked on the same sidewalks that my wife and had walked on. Probably there are residues from our shoes that linger in those places that bloodhound might scent and identify. I went to the bakery that I liked to take my wife to. Everywhere memories.
I saw a construction sign that read "Delano & Mackenzie." Flashback to 2001 when my wife and I were walking on a street in Miami at night. Across from where we walked, a big block of stone in the shadows of the evening, there was the Hotel Delano, that we looked at curiously.
I could leave town and go somewhere neither of us ever went before and she would still be there. There is no escape.
There is little that I do that does not evoke ghosts and memories of my wife. I did pick up a book by Lincoln Child that kept me distracted, until it grew weak at the end. Some of the other books I have been reading were read by my wife, which is little help at all.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
diligence
I am trying to make my wife proud of me. Not that I believe she knows what I do or do not do. It's more of a testament or the performance of an obligation or a memorial. Something like giri.
Out of my need for distraction, preferably simple physical labor, is born, I hope, diligence.
My wife was a worker in a different class from most of us. When she was in her mid-teens, she was holding down 1-2 jobs in addition to going to school and getting good grades. From that time until she was in her late 30s, she was never without at least one job for more a day.
While in college and in labor before the birth of one of her children, she is said to have called for her books so she could prepare for a test that was coming up. I believe it. Over ten years ago when she was hospitalized over a vomiting spell she asked me to bring her computer and papers to her room so she could get some work done.
Her work normally required several all-nighters a month, and sometimes two or more weeks of working on 2-3 hours sleep a night. And that did not include her investment plans and property management, which took up more of her time. This year was especially severe. She basically worked herself to death. I urged her to get up and walk a few blocks several times a day. She felt there was no time.
I told her recently that she and her health were most important and that she needed to look out for No. 1. She looked at me like I was some alien form of life and snorted.
Taking it easy has never been a problem with me. I am unable to work through the night, and will quit by 1 a.m. even when the work must be done. I can work up quite a sweat, sometimes, but that's about it.
In this time of crisis, surrounded by evidence and artifacts of my wife's labors and plans, I am trying to change, a little. To make her proud of me.
Out of my need for distraction, preferably simple physical labor, is born, I hope, diligence.
My wife was a worker in a different class from most of us. When she was in her mid-teens, she was holding down 1-2 jobs in addition to going to school and getting good grades. From that time until she was in her late 30s, she was never without at least one job for more a day.
While in college and in labor before the birth of one of her children, she is said to have called for her books so she could prepare for a test that was coming up. I believe it. Over ten years ago when she was hospitalized over a vomiting spell she asked me to bring her computer and papers to her room so she could get some work done.
Her work normally required several all-nighters a month, and sometimes two or more weeks of working on 2-3 hours sleep a night. And that did not include her investment plans and property management, which took up more of her time. This year was especially severe. She basically worked herself to death. I urged her to get up and walk a few blocks several times a day. She felt there was no time.
I told her recently that she and her health were most important and that she needed to look out for No. 1. She looked at me like I was some alien form of life and snorted.
Taking it easy has never been a problem with me. I am unable to work through the night, and will quit by 1 a.m. even when the work must be done. I can work up quite a sweat, sometimes, but that's about it.
In this time of crisis, surrounded by evidence and artifacts of my wife's labors and plans, I am trying to change, a little. To make her proud of me.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Cleaning
What I am cleaning out are things that I had kept around for my wife.
Couple of weeks ago I cleaned out my main email box. So much there I saved, for months, years even, to take up with my wife when the opportunity presented itself. Some emails concerned health tips that were too relevant as it turned out. Trash.
So many videos too, that I collected in the hopes of seeing with my wife someday. Chick flicks, historical flicks. Movies we saw together but will never see again. Trash.
Same with a number of books. Trash.
Same too with so many plans. Hopes and plans for vacations, trips, events, places. Trash.
But not all of those last. I am working on a goal for the future: to revisit the places where my wife and I were happiest, and to visit for her those places where we both wanted to go but never did.
Couple of weeks ago I cleaned out my main email box. So much there I saved, for months, years even, to take up with my wife when the opportunity presented itself. Some emails concerned health tips that were too relevant as it turned out. Trash.
So many videos too, that I collected in the hopes of seeing with my wife someday. Chick flicks, historical flicks. Movies we saw together but will never see again. Trash.
Same with a number of books. Trash.
Same too with so many plans. Hopes and plans for vacations, trips, events, places. Trash.
But not all of those last. I am working on a goal for the future: to revisit the places where my wife and I were happiest, and to visit for her those places where we both wanted to go but never did.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
death
"I'll die before you," she said repeatedly. "I want to die before you."
And I would glare and retreat to the lonely inner cages where I have lived most of my life.
Not that she was morbid or obsessed with dying. It started when her mother died when she was in her mid-60s and she came to be diagnosed as a diabetic. Not a Type 2 adult-onset diabetic, but what is now starting to be called Type One and a Half, a diabetic whose cells quit producing insulin and whose remaining cells are insulin resistant. Not a type treatable by weight loss.
"Bad genes," she said. A conclusion that is echoed by her brothers and sisters who see doom approaching.
"Your mother will outlive me," she said accusingly, as my mother crept toward the century mark and I was caretaker of my mother and not of my wife.
My father died at 72. However his sister died recently at 102, I only found out this spring. My mother's grandmother died the year I was born at 99. I never told my wife that. Mostly because there was so much else to talk about.
Even before all this I was worried. There is a hypothesis around that mammalian species are pre-programmed to live a set number of heartbeats. Shrews and tiny rodnts that have a jitterbug heartbeat life extremely short active lives. Longer lived mammals like elephants and humans have a slow heart beat. Dr. Kenneth Cooper who named and started aerobic exercise talked about how aerobic exercise while it increased pulse rate during exercise reduced it overall, thus "saving" heartbeats and adding, he implied, to our lifespan. A "fixed-heartbeat" theory which may or may not have somehting in it.
In the early hours of morning I would feel my wife's pulse; the beats would be motoring along at near 85 beats per minute. My own pulse rate would drop in the wee hours to the 60s and recently to the low 50s. I told myself none of that meant anything.
Blood tests done two months before my wife's passing showed her chlesterol to be under 300 and triglycerides to be over 150, which was actually an improvement over what the numbers had been years ago. But those numbers were twice mine.
Had I plied my wife with Vitamin D and baby aspirin and forced her to test her blood sugar, she would still be here, for a while. 95% sure.
And now my wife's prophecies and genetics proved right and I am alone. I am alone in my head; her presence that I carried with me however far apart we were physically is gone. I am a ghostly being floating through life, motivation and joy gone.
As I stare down a bleak corridor of possible decades barring accident or cancer I think "What a curse!" Not that it is more than I deserve, in some Twilight Zone moral play where the wicked and neglectful are punished.
And I would glare and retreat to the lonely inner cages where I have lived most of my life.
Not that she was morbid or obsessed with dying. It started when her mother died when she was in her mid-60s and she came to be diagnosed as a diabetic. Not a Type 2 adult-onset diabetic, but what is now starting to be called Type One and a Half, a diabetic whose cells quit producing insulin and whose remaining cells are insulin resistant. Not a type treatable by weight loss.
"Bad genes," she said. A conclusion that is echoed by her brothers and sisters who see doom approaching.
"Your mother will outlive me," she said accusingly, as my mother crept toward the century mark and I was caretaker of my mother and not of my wife.
My father died at 72. However his sister died recently at 102, I only found out this spring. My mother's grandmother died the year I was born at 99. I never told my wife that. Mostly because there was so much else to talk about.
Even before all this I was worried. There is a hypothesis around that mammalian species are pre-programmed to live a set number of heartbeats. Shrews and tiny rodnts that have a jitterbug heartbeat life extremely short active lives. Longer lived mammals like elephants and humans have a slow heart beat. Dr. Kenneth Cooper who named and started aerobic exercise talked about how aerobic exercise while it increased pulse rate during exercise reduced it overall, thus "saving" heartbeats and adding, he implied, to our lifespan. A "fixed-heartbeat" theory which may or may not have somehting in it.
In the early hours of morning I would feel my wife's pulse; the beats would be motoring along at near 85 beats per minute. My own pulse rate would drop in the wee hours to the 60s and recently to the low 50s. I told myself none of that meant anything.
Blood tests done two months before my wife's passing showed her chlesterol to be under 300 and triglycerides to be over 150, which was actually an improvement over what the numbers had been years ago. But those numbers were twice mine.
Had I plied my wife with Vitamin D and baby aspirin and forced her to test her blood sugar, she would still be here, for a while. 95% sure.
And now my wife's prophecies and genetics proved right and I am alone. I am alone in my head; her presence that I carried with me however far apart we were physically is gone. I am a ghostly being floating through life, motivation and joy gone.
As I stare down a bleak corridor of possible decades barring accident or cancer I think "What a curse!" Not that it is more than I deserve, in some Twilight Zone moral play where the wicked and neglectful are punished.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Bad
Been three weeks now. This was not the worst day by any means. But if I didn't have three dogs, multiple cats and an elderly parent to look after, this would have been my last day. When I think of what has happened, my chest gets tight and I ball up my fists and feel rage.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Memories
Got a call minutes ago from a friend expressing condolences, a friend who took us to eat once when we were in NYC. He said he was having a tree planted in Israel in my wife's name. She would like that. Not that she fully supports all the State of Israel does but that she would want to reforest deserts, and was ever fascinated with Israel and the story of the Jewish people. At her bedside there were several books about Israel and Jewish history, a couple that I had given her. There were also a couple of books by Noam Chomsky she found for herself, but I did not mention them to the friend, whose leanings are quite conservative and Republican.
Memories are everywhere. As I drive her car my hands touch the places her hands touched. As I walk on errands I walk on sidewalks where my wife walked too. I checked my voice mail and found messages from her from a week or so before it happened. Archived now, to preserve her voice for a time when I can hear it without breaking in pieces.
Her children tell me "We have to work and carry on; it is what she would want." That is easier to say when they have their own lives and husbands and wives and children. I have three dogs, some cats, an aged parent, and nothing else or hope for anything else. Memories only and a bare skeleton of what was a life. I am a ghost walking in shadowy gardens of memory.
Soon I will analyze and separate out the feelings that I am experiencing, because only here do I reveal myself. There are those among the family who encouraged me to talk, but I will not burden them.
Memories are everywhere. As I drive her car my hands touch the places her hands touched. As I walk on errands I walk on sidewalks where my wife walked too. I checked my voice mail and found messages from her from a week or so before it happened. Archived now, to preserve her voice for a time when I can hear it without breaking in pieces.
Her children tell me "We have to work and carry on; it is what she would want." That is easier to say when they have their own lives and husbands and wives and children. I have three dogs, some cats, an aged parent, and nothing else or hope for anything else. Memories only and a bare skeleton of what was a life. I am a ghost walking in shadowy gardens of memory.
Soon I will analyze and separate out the feelings that I am experiencing, because only here do I reveal myself. There are those among the family who encouraged me to talk, but I will not burden them.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
duty
Through the process, the 5 1/2 hour rosary-prayer vigil, the closing ceremony next day at the funeral home, the funeral mass, the graveside service complete with mariachis singing several songs in Spanish concluding with "Ave Maria" which brings tears to my eyes in the best of times, the white dove released, the dirt scattered handful by handful into the grave, the lunch following, I have tried to play my part with the dignity and politeness my wife is entitled to.
I shook dozens of hands, hugged and was hugged by hundreds of people I did and did not know, cried silently for hours on end. I did not -- did not have the chance really -- to hug or kiss my wife goodbye that Saturday she left on the plane. I kissed her, what was left of her, goodbye as she lay there in the coffin, touching her hand where it was bruised by the IV. I put a sunflower in her coffin before it was closed, rejecting the rose I was offered. It was a grand funeral of tradition and ceremony worthy of a duchess but not worthy of my wife.
Alone I went to her graveside Sunday morning and sang the song she had asked me to sing over her grave. (She knew she would die first, but not yet.)
I did my job. That part at least. The rest goes on. The responsibility of keeping a small empire together continues and increases. But oh the hole in my life is so great. It's all hole really, all emptiness and duty and task. I must be worthy.
I shook dozens of hands, hugged and was hugged by hundreds of people I did and did not know, cried silently for hours on end. I did not -- did not have the chance really -- to hug or kiss my wife goodbye that Saturday she left on the plane. I kissed her, what was left of her, goodbye as she lay there in the coffin, touching her hand where it was bruised by the IV. I put a sunflower in her coffin before it was closed, rejecting the rose I was offered. It was a grand funeral of tradition and ceremony worthy of a duchess but not worthy of my wife.
Alone I went to her graveside Sunday morning and sang the song she had asked me to sing over her grave. (She knew she would die first, but not yet.)
I did my job. That part at least. The rest goes on. The responsibility of keeping a small empire together continues and increases. But oh the hole in my life is so great. It's all hole really, all emptiness and duty and task. I must be worthy.
Monday, July 2, 2012
rage
This morning I got up angry. Angry at the illogic of what happened. Free floatin anger. Tonight, I am angry with myself.
Others are saying how this was inevitable, or God's will or fate. Nuts to that. It was preventable, or more accurately, postponeable. It did not have to happen, yet.
I had it in my power to prevent it, probably. In at least half a dozen ways leading up to the final day. My errors and omissions. I did not act and now my love is dead and gone.
Others are saying how this was inevitable, or God's will or fate. Nuts to that. It was preventable, or more accurately, postponeable. It did not have to happen, yet.
I had it in my power to prevent it, probably. In at least half a dozen ways leading up to the final day. My errors and omissions. I did not act and now my love is dead and gone.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
legacy
Our step daughter-in-law put toether some marvelous pictures she had taken over a half-dozen years into a slideshow. She asked me what was my wife's favorite song. I choked out "All I need is the air that I breathe and to love you."
A few minutes later she had blended the song and pictures into a symphony of emotion. I could hardly watch.
I wanted to share this with my wife, to dial her cell phone and hope she would answer.
I had the weird feeling that my wife had repeatedly told me this was a favorite song just so the song could be used in this way at her funeral. It being settled between us (in my wife's mind at least) that I would survive her. "I want to go before you," she told me many times.
I am not a loveable or loving person. Can never utter affectionate words without stilt or discomfort. And my wife was a type A hard-worker who wore herself out far too quickly. But as I experienced the slide show I was overcome with the legacy of love left us by my wife. Even to me, who never wanted this terrible role of survivor.
A few minutes later she had blended the song and pictures into a symphony of emotion. I could hardly watch.
I wanted to share this with my wife, to dial her cell phone and hope she would answer.
I had the weird feeling that my wife had repeatedly told me this was a favorite song just so the song could be used in this way at her funeral. It being settled between us (in my wife's mind at least) that I would survive her. "I want to go before you," she told me many times.
I am not a loveable or loving person. Can never utter affectionate words without stilt or discomfort. And my wife was a type A hard-worker who wore herself out far too quickly. But as I experienced the slide show I was overcome with the legacy of love left us by my wife. Even to me, who never wanted this terrible role of survivor.
Friday, June 29, 2012
undone
Somebody said that what we regret most are not the things we did but those we didn't do. I am full of regret there.
Trips never taken, trips never taken together because I thought I couldn't go, events unattended, movies unseen, books unread, words unsaid.
She asked me to teach her to play chess. Once this year. I didn't.
I learned to ride a bicycle because of her, actually. She bought an old Schwinn Varsity at a police auction. It sat there for several years and finally I got off with it and took it apart. It was when she told me a son bought a bunch of bikes at an auction and they were all riding that I decided to learn. So I learned. And we rode together twice only. I didn't encourage her because I worried about her getting hurt. My bones don't break, my bruises don't hurt; hers did.
I wanted her to play golf, got her sets of clubs twice. The first set diasppeared, borrowed by someone. The second sits nearby. Once we went out into the yard for 5 minutes to swing at whiffle balls.
She wanted a child, and undertook a costly and dangerous regimen of hormones. I was often not there at the critical times. We never had a child of our own.
So often and so long I was not there. I was not even half a husband.
She should have married someone rich but caring. Instead she got me.
The last time I saw her alive, at the airport leaving for vacation, they were late for the plane and fussing with baggage and children and I did not hug or kiss her. I waived, when I thought she looked my way, but she didn't see. I did not speak to her again.
Trips never taken, trips never taken together because I thought I couldn't go, events unattended, movies unseen, books unread, words unsaid.
She asked me to teach her to play chess. Once this year. I didn't.
I learned to ride a bicycle because of her, actually. She bought an old Schwinn Varsity at a police auction. It sat there for several years and finally I got off with it and took it apart. It was when she told me a son bought a bunch of bikes at an auction and they were all riding that I decided to learn. So I learned. And we rode together twice only. I didn't encourage her because I worried about her getting hurt. My bones don't break, my bruises don't hurt; hers did.
I wanted her to play golf, got her sets of clubs twice. The first set diasppeared, borrowed by someone. The second sits nearby. Once we went out into the yard for 5 minutes to swing at whiffle balls.
She wanted a child, and undertook a costly and dangerous regimen of hormones. I was often not there at the critical times. We never had a child of our own.
So often and so long I was not there. I was not even half a husband.
She should have married someone rich but caring. Instead she got me.
The last time I saw her alive, at the airport leaving for vacation, they were late for the plane and fussing with baggage and children and I did not hug or kiss her. I waived, when I thought she looked my way, but she didn't see. I did not speak to her again.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Should
It should have been me. I wish it were me. I want to die. I don't know how much longer I can stand this.
hard
Its hard to lose your only lover, confident and friend, that you were married to for 26 years and knew for 27. She told me I was her rock, her anchor, her best friend. I was a poor one. But she was my only anchor to reality.
If
Had my wife been alive today, she would have jumped up and clapped her hands as the Supreme Court decision was announced. She was unable to get coverage, being in a high risk group, and has she lived this would have enabled that.
I wish there were a way of turning the clock back just a few days. She need not have died. All this was preventable, by her and by me. Not permanently preventable, but delayable. I survive alone and I bear the burden alone.
Part is guilt, the fact of things unsaid and undone. So many. And in not preserving the life of my beloved, I failed her one more time. All I had to do was insist she see a doctor about her heart. That she take a glucose meter and use it. I could have done this from afar. Her phone is full of my unanswered calls and text messages.
Everywhere in my life and my environment are her footsteps. Places we were, places we walked, things we said. There is no escaping them. They are there but she is gone.
I wish there were a way of turning the clock back just a few days. She need not have died. All this was preventable, by her and by me. Not permanently preventable, but delayable. I survive alone and I bear the burden alone.
Part is guilt, the fact of things unsaid and undone. So many. And in not preserving the life of my beloved, I failed her one more time. All I had to do was insist she see a doctor about her heart. That she take a glucose meter and use it. I could have done this from afar. Her phone is full of my unanswered calls and text messages.
Everywhere in my life and my environment are her footsteps. Places we were, places we walked, things we said. There is no escaping them. They are there but she is gone.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
----------
I'd hoped I'd not live to see this day.
I was told that chances were I would. I didn't believe it and didn't want to think about it.
Death is just around the corner, for each of us.
Now the better part of me is gone. The light of my life is gone. There is no hope and no future.
I was told that chances were I would. I didn't believe it and didn't want to think about it.
Death is just around the corner, for each of us.
Now the better part of me is gone. The light of my life is gone. There is no hope and no future.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Another Day in SNAFUville
Temperature and thermostats...
Ever wonder why in this day of expensive energy the thermostats of buildings are set so low in the summer that those working in them must wear more clothes than are appropriate outside? Lot of times you'd better take a sweater to be inside even if the temp outside is 90!
Why? I think it is because appearance -- Style! -- is everything. You want to keep offices cold enough in the summer that men can comfortably wear a suit with coat and tie. So that women can show off their woolen wardrobe at any time of year. Damn the cost! What price ostentacion?
Summer or two ago for the first time a passenger staying in my parked vehicle for a few minutes who insisted on the motor being left running to keep the air conditioner on! I've seen that but never experienced that particular craziness before. Totally insane!
For myself, I can drive seven hours in 100+ degree heat without an air conditioner, no problema. A pail of ice, cold drinks, a little hot air flow and I'll be fine.
The human body was designed to adjust to variations in temperature. In my poor opinion, it is insane to expect to live out our lives in a narrow band of temperature variation hovering around 70 degrees F. The human body is especially evolved to cope with cooling in hot temperatures.
Of course I like to sleep in an unheated room in winter, and the colder it gets the more comfortable I am, down into the 30s at night (I can't breathe trying to sleep in a warm room in winter.)
It is crazy when the weatherperson on TV warns us about spring heat waves into the 90s or warn us about going outside when temps are below 20. Do they think we are stupid? Well...
All this unnaturalness is killing us of course, at the bank and otherwise. I pity the bubble-baby children growing up today. "It's too hot to play outside!" "It's too cold to play outside!" Which is true of half the days of the year.
This is one of a number of reasons why I think our species is headed toward extinction.
Ever wonder why in this day of expensive energy the thermostats of buildings are set so low in the summer that those working in them must wear more clothes than are appropriate outside? Lot of times you'd better take a sweater to be inside even if the temp outside is 90!
Why? I think it is because appearance -- Style! -- is everything. You want to keep offices cold enough in the summer that men can comfortably wear a suit with coat and tie. So that women can show off their woolen wardrobe at any time of year. Damn the cost! What price ostentacion?
Summer or two ago for the first time a passenger staying in my parked vehicle for a few minutes who insisted on the motor being left running to keep the air conditioner on! I've seen that but never experienced that particular craziness before. Totally insane!
For myself, I can drive seven hours in 100+ degree heat without an air conditioner, no problema. A pail of ice, cold drinks, a little hot air flow and I'll be fine.
The human body was designed to adjust to variations in temperature. In my poor opinion, it is insane to expect to live out our lives in a narrow band of temperature variation hovering around 70 degrees F. The human body is especially evolved to cope with cooling in hot temperatures.
Of course I like to sleep in an unheated room in winter, and the colder it gets the more comfortable I am, down into the 30s at night (I can't breathe trying to sleep in a warm room in winter.)
It is crazy when the weatherperson on TV warns us about spring heat waves into the 90s or warn us about going outside when temps are below 20. Do they think we are stupid? Well...
All this unnaturalness is killing us of course, at the bank and otherwise. I pity the bubble-baby children growing up today. "It's too hot to play outside!" "It's too cold to play outside!" Which is true of half the days of the year.
This is one of a number of reasons why I think our species is headed toward extinction.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Polydactyl Cat
Gentle and obliging soul that I am, sucker that I am, I have been feeding cats, including some strays that show up hungry and abused. I won't say how many, but the number is far in excess to what the law allows.
Few months ago a little black long haired cat showed up. Very shy, wouldn't let me approach much less touch it. I'd throw it food and it would run, being used to having objects other than food thrown at it. No clue as to gender. As far as age it has grown a bit since it has taken up residence here.
Anyway, I finally got close enough while it was eating to see there was something unusual about its front paws. It's polydactyl, with a furry thumb on each front paw. Which I am very happy about because it means I can probably place the cat. Just took pictures though it is so shy I don't have good images of those front paws. When I start to focus the cat looks up and thinks I am planning harm and runs, though I have actually gotten close enough at feedings that I can brush its fur before it runs.
Polydactyl cats may have originated at Boston, Massachusetts. In any case they appear to have been spread from Boston via ships that took them on as ship's cats. But before sailors got the idea polydactyls were lucky at sea or more skilled at climbing the rigging or latching rats, landsmen in Massachusetts descended from Puritans killed polydactyls believing they were the work of the devil.
I posted in an earlier blog that I appear to be descended from William Towne, a 1637 immigrant to Massachusetts three of whose daughters were accused of witchcraft in 1692, one of them an infirm lady in her 70s who was removed to prison from her sickbed and tried and hanged along with one of her sisters.
It is well to remember that our Puritan forbears were more superstitious and foolish than even the sailors who cherished polydactyl cats instead of killing them, and that even Cotton Mather, touted as one of the most highly educated men of his time, was little more than a superstitious fool.
Few months ago a little black long haired cat showed up. Very shy, wouldn't let me approach much less touch it. I'd throw it food and it would run, being used to having objects other than food thrown at it. No clue as to gender. As far as age it has grown a bit since it has taken up residence here.
Anyway, I finally got close enough while it was eating to see there was something unusual about its front paws. It's polydactyl, with a furry thumb on each front paw. Which I am very happy about because it means I can probably place the cat. Just took pictures though it is so shy I don't have good images of those front paws. When I start to focus the cat looks up and thinks I am planning harm and runs, though I have actually gotten close enough at feedings that I can brush its fur before it runs.
Polydactyl cats may have originated at Boston, Massachusetts. In any case they appear to have been spread from Boston via ships that took them on as ship's cats. But before sailors got the idea polydactyls were lucky at sea or more skilled at climbing the rigging or latching rats, landsmen in Massachusetts descended from Puritans killed polydactyls believing they were the work of the devil.
I posted in an earlier blog that I appear to be descended from William Towne, a 1637 immigrant to Massachusetts three of whose daughters were accused of witchcraft in 1692, one of them an infirm lady in her 70s who was removed to prison from her sickbed and tried and hanged along with one of her sisters.
It is well to remember that our Puritan forbears were more superstitious and foolish than even the sailors who cherished polydactyl cats instead of killing them, and that even Cotton Mather, touted as one of the most highly educated men of his time, was little more than a superstitious fool.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Revolutionary Ancestors --Under Construction
Samuel Pool (b. 1759 Johnston Co., NC, d. 1844, Russell Co., AL). Service from June 4, 1776, for 12 months attached to Brinkham's 5th Regiment, Continental Troops; later served 3 months and additional 3 months as a substitute. Battle of Guilford Courthouse (skirmish, really, where Cornwallis won the battle but was deflected from his original intentions and sent on a route that ended in Yorktown.) Data from pension statement in open court.
More later
More later
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
First!
More genealogy, this time a list of the first of my ancestors to come to the New World. This post is a work in progress and I expect to add to it from time to time.
1. Rev. William Mease, believed to have landed in Virginia about 1610 and to have founded a church at a community a short distance from Jamestown. He did not stay and died in England. Much about Rev. William is not certain, so take this one with a grain of salt.
2. Hugh Bullock and son, William Bullock. Hugh probably first landed in Virginia as a merchant shipmaster/owner in the 1620s, and William was a Virginia resident from about 1624, writing a tract about Virginia that was printed in London. Hugh was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1631. Hugh did not stay in Virginia, but maintained permanent residence in England; William stayed except for one or more voyages back to England.
3. Puritans William Towne and Joanna Blessing Towne and their children, came to Salem, Massachusetts, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolkshire, England in 1637. Two of the daughters who arrived with them would later be hanged for witchcraft.
4. Stephen Gates (1599-1662) and Ann Veare (or Vere), from Hingham, Norfolkshire, England, to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638.
5. Quakers Richard Borden (1596-1688) and Joane Fowle Borden of Kent, England, settled in Rhode Island 1635-38.
6. Peter Cloyes UNFINISHED
7. Frederick Staring a/k/a Frederick Starnes, Sr., (1700-1774), came to New York in 1710 along with his father and some 3000 other Palatine Germans on British ships, his mother possibly being among the 12% who died en route to the new world. His future wife, Ann Goldman, was another child on the ships. Frederick was Ensign of the Albany County militia in 1731 In 1741, Frederick left New York for Pennsylvania, then settled in Augusta County, Virginia, by the mid-1740s. In Virginia he was wounded by Indians while working his fields during the French & Indian War. In 1756, Frederick was county commissioner, and with his extended family moved to lands on the Holston River by the late 1760s.
UNFINISHED
1. Rev. William Mease, believed to have landed in Virginia about 1610 and to have founded a church at a community a short distance from Jamestown. He did not stay and died in England. Much about Rev. William is not certain, so take this one with a grain of salt.
2. Hugh Bullock and son, William Bullock. Hugh probably first landed in Virginia as a merchant shipmaster/owner in the 1620s, and William was a Virginia resident from about 1624, writing a tract about Virginia that was printed in London. Hugh was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1631. Hugh did not stay in Virginia, but maintained permanent residence in England; William stayed except for one or more voyages back to England.
3. Puritans William Towne and Joanna Blessing Towne and their children, came to Salem, Massachusetts, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolkshire, England in 1637. Two of the daughters who arrived with them would later be hanged for witchcraft.
4. Stephen Gates (1599-1662) and Ann Veare (or Vere), from Hingham, Norfolkshire, England, to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638.
5. Quakers Richard Borden (1596-1688) and Joane Fowle Borden of Kent, England, settled in Rhode Island 1635-38.
6. Peter Cloyes UNFINISHED
7. Frederick Staring a/k/a Frederick Starnes, Sr., (1700-1774), came to New York in 1710 along with his father and some 3000 other Palatine Germans on British ships, his mother possibly being among the 12% who died en route to the new world. His future wife, Ann Goldman, was another child on the ships. Frederick was Ensign of the Albany County militia in 1731 In 1741, Frederick left New York for Pennsylvania, then settled in Augusta County, Virginia, by the mid-1740s. In Virginia he was wounded by Indians while working his fields during the French & Indian War. In 1756, Frederick was county commissioner, and with his extended family moved to lands on the Holston River by the late 1760s.
UNFINISHED
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Is a Playlist a Clue to the Man?
Romney's playlist. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen%20...%20bled=false Interesting.
To me, it's good. An indication that Romney is unsatisfied, questing, restless, not at all the smug self-satisfied guy who thinks he has all the answers. If he is elected, there might be a surprise in store for those who vote for him. Which would be good too. If it happens, which it probably won't.
Wonder what one could infer about me by my own playlist, if I had one, which I don't. There are a pile of CDs in the truck console. Some of which I hate, such as somebody's own mix of rap songs ripped from commercial CDs (it was thrown away and I picked it up off the street; the previous owner had the right idea but I haven't bothered yet; keep it around to play when I'm driving with someone I don't like). There is some Andrew Lloyd Webber, some Cajun and Zydeco, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Billy Joel, Springsteen, choral and opera CDs. Like what I eat, what I listen to is dictated by what I find on sale cheap, so there's an unreliability about inferring too much from a pile of CDs. The Jimmy Dale Gilmore is the only CD I went looking for.
Some of what was on Romney's list would be on mine too. Loved the songs of "O, Brother, Where Art Thou" and "the Soggy Bottom Boys."
BTW, there was ONE song in that movie that was sung by the actor who was performing it. Can you name it? Can you name the actor?
For the hell of it, I'm going to put together my own playlist and encourage y'all to post yours too. Let's play "Match up to Mitt."
1. Cyndi Lauper, Girls just want to have fun.
2. Cyndi Lauper, She Bops.
3. The Eagles, Desparado.
4. Springsteen, Born to run.
5. Springsteen, This gun's for hire.
6. Conquistador. Don't remember who performs it.
7. Doris Day, Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
8. Doris Day, Secret Love.
9. More Doris Day.
10. Leonard Cohen, If it be your will
11. Leonard Cohen, Take this waltz.
12. Leonard Cohen, The partisan.
13. Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Story of you.
14. Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Ain't gonna sing no lonesome tune.
15. Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Tonight I think I'm gonna go downtown.
16. Billy Joel, I didn't start the fire.
17. Billy Joel, Innocent man.
18. Billy Joel, Matter of trust.
19. Andrew Lloyd Webber, No matter what they say.
20. Johnny Cash, I walk the line.
And so on. I'd add more Gilmore, some Cajun, some Celtic. Maybe some 50s R&R.
To me, it's good. An indication that Romney is unsatisfied, questing, restless, not at all the smug self-satisfied guy who thinks he has all the answers. If he is elected, there might be a surprise in store for those who vote for him. Which would be good too. If it happens, which it probably won't.
Wonder what one could infer about me by my own playlist, if I had one, which I don't. There are a pile of CDs in the truck console. Some of which I hate, such as somebody's own mix of rap songs ripped from commercial CDs (it was thrown away and I picked it up off the street; the previous owner had the right idea but I haven't bothered yet; keep it around to play when I'm driving with someone I don't like). There is some Andrew Lloyd Webber, some Cajun and Zydeco, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Billy Joel, Springsteen, choral and opera CDs. Like what I eat, what I listen to is dictated by what I find on sale cheap, so there's an unreliability about inferring too much from a pile of CDs. The Jimmy Dale Gilmore is the only CD I went looking for.
Some of what was on Romney's list would be on mine too. Loved the songs of "O, Brother, Where Art Thou" and "the Soggy Bottom Boys."
BTW, there was ONE song in that movie that was sung by the actor who was performing it. Can you name it? Can you name the actor?
For the hell of it, I'm going to put together my own playlist and encourage y'all to post yours too. Let's play "Match up to Mitt."
1. Cyndi Lauper, Girls just want to have fun.
2. Cyndi Lauper, She Bops.
3. The Eagles, Desparado.
4. Springsteen, Born to run.
5. Springsteen, This gun's for hire.
6. Conquistador. Don't remember who performs it.
7. Doris Day, Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
8. Doris Day, Secret Love.
9. More Doris Day.
10. Leonard Cohen, If it be your will
11. Leonard Cohen, Take this waltz.
12. Leonard Cohen, The partisan.
13. Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Story of you.
14. Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Ain't gonna sing no lonesome tune.
15. Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Tonight I think I'm gonna go downtown.
16. Billy Joel, I didn't start the fire.
17. Billy Joel, Innocent man.
18. Billy Joel, Matter of trust.
19. Andrew Lloyd Webber, No matter what they say.
20. Johnny Cash, I walk the line.
And so on. I'd add more Gilmore, some Cajun, some Celtic. Maybe some 50s R&R.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Reflections on Generations Past
After just over two months of looking into my family's ancestry, what are my most salient impressions? These.
1. How quickly you go far back into history. Ten generations back from my mother takes one into the 1600s. Which brings up--
2. How much is forgotten! We remember almost nothing about our forbears three generations back, and after a dozen generations almost nothing is known. There are old stories that are distorted or wholly untrue and that is all.
3. How early my ancestors settled in America. When I started, I expected to find immigrants from the 1800s. I've found none. All so far came in the 1600s and 1700s. [Wrong! The Barrons immigrated to Virginia from Ireland probably after 1800.] I was surprised to find such early settlers in Virginia, in Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. (As to Massachusetts one must remember that from 1628-1640 there was a veritable flood of Puritan immigrants from England, so much so that Boston harbor was one of the busiest seaports of the world, and then in the time of Cromwell there was a mini-flood of aristocrats to Virginia. And in England, some villages were left half empty by the migration.)
4. I had heard of ancestors in Mississippi, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Fulton, Kentucky. And Tennessee. But most lines were in North Carolina for at least a generation. And a surprising number from Virginia. I heard no stories about NC or VA. NC, VA and TN were the "hub" states for my ancestry. Other states include South Carolina (the Pools) New York (Starnes), Rhode Island (Bordens) and New Jersey (Bordens).
5. The states that are not represented are interesting. It is like the way air circulates around the earth; north and south hemispheres have little intermingling of ari masses. Those who settled in the North tended to stay in the North, those in the South tended to stay in the South, except when migrating westward. Or in my case, from the South westward and southerly. Some of the direction of migration was dictated by geography. The mountains and rivers of Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina run northeast to southwest, and that deflected the flow of migrants from those states toward Arkansas, Alabama and, ultimately, Texas, and not to Missouri or Ohio.
6. I would love to discover Indian, black, and Jewish ancestry. There probably are American Indians in the genealogy and there are rumored to be, but it is not absolutely proven. Jewish ancestry is possible, and there are many names that are commonly Jewish; however, they are not exclusively Jewish, and so I don't really know; no Cohens or Levys but there are Goulds, Goldschmitts, Goldmans, Guthmans, Eisenmanns, Bachmanns, and so on, often coupled with Patriarchal given names. Black is definitely unproven, but any are welcome if they turn up.
7. 40 years ago I read a sci-fi story about a rich man who commissioned a team of genealogists to look into his ancestry. In the end he achieved distinction for being the only person whose ancestors did absolutely nothing memorable and among whom there was nobody remotely famous. That's not really the case here. Some have been well-to-do or rich and some while poorer were clearly in the vortices of history. There have been no generals or presidents, but I wasn't looking for those. Frederick Starnes being killed by Shawnee right near a settlement begun by Daniel Boone and his father Frederick, Sr., being wounded in his fields a decade earlier is entirely satisfying to me. I will as soon take a craftsman as a politician, a frontiersman as a military officer. I wanted local color, and found some. My disappointments are from not knowing more about the lives those names represent.
1. How quickly you go far back into history. Ten generations back from my mother takes one into the 1600s. Which brings up--
2. How much is forgotten! We remember almost nothing about our forbears three generations back, and after a dozen generations almost nothing is known. There are old stories that are distorted or wholly untrue and that is all.
3. How early my ancestors settled in America. When I started, I expected to find immigrants from the 1800s. I've found none. All so far came in the 1600s and 1700s. [Wrong! The Barrons immigrated to Virginia from Ireland probably after 1800.] I was surprised to find such early settlers in Virginia, in Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. (As to Massachusetts one must remember that from 1628-1640 there was a veritable flood of Puritan immigrants from England, so much so that Boston harbor was one of the busiest seaports of the world, and then in the time of Cromwell there was a mini-flood of aristocrats to Virginia. And in England, some villages were left half empty by the migration.)
4. I had heard of ancestors in Mississippi, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Fulton, Kentucky. And Tennessee. But most lines were in North Carolina for at least a generation. And a surprising number from Virginia. I heard no stories about NC or VA. NC, VA and TN were the "hub" states for my ancestry. Other states include South Carolina (the Pools) New York (Starnes), Rhode Island (Bordens) and New Jersey (Bordens).
5. The states that are not represented are interesting. It is like the way air circulates around the earth; north and south hemispheres have little intermingling of ari masses. Those who settled in the North tended to stay in the North, those in the South tended to stay in the South, except when migrating westward. Or in my case, from the South westward and southerly. Some of the direction of migration was dictated by geography. The mountains and rivers of Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina run northeast to southwest, and that deflected the flow of migrants from those states toward Arkansas, Alabama and, ultimately, Texas, and not to Missouri or Ohio.
6. I would love to discover Indian, black, and Jewish ancestry. There probably are American Indians in the genealogy and there are rumored to be, but it is not absolutely proven. Jewish ancestry is possible, and there are many names that are commonly Jewish; however, they are not exclusively Jewish, and so I don't really know; no Cohens or Levys but there are Goulds, Goldschmitts, Goldmans, Guthmans, Eisenmanns, Bachmanns, and so on, often coupled with Patriarchal given names. Black is definitely unproven, but any are welcome if they turn up.
7. 40 years ago I read a sci-fi story about a rich man who commissioned a team of genealogists to look into his ancestry. In the end he achieved distinction for being the only person whose ancestors did absolutely nothing memorable and among whom there was nobody remotely famous. That's not really the case here. Some have been well-to-do or rich and some while poorer were clearly in the vortices of history. There have been no generals or presidents, but I wasn't looking for those. Frederick Starnes being killed by Shawnee right near a settlement begun by Daniel Boone and his father Frederick, Sr., being wounded in his fields a decade earlier is entirely satisfying to me. I will as soon take a craftsman as a politician, a frontiersman as a military officer. I wanted local color, and found some. My disappointments are from not knowing more about the lives those names represent.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Rebellions
Two forgotten incidents of history have always been special to me. They are Wat Tyler's Rebellion in England in 1381 and the Jacquerie in France. Wat Tyler was far ahead of his time, resembling nothing as much as the French Revolution 400 years later, promoting ideas of equality that are still not practiced in the UK. He sought to curb the accumulation of land and wealth by the church and to end the influence of the nobility. He died for it, being run through by the lord mayor of London as he tried to dictate terms to Henry VI.
(We think of the Magna Carta as "guaranteeing the rights of Englishmen" and so on, but it didn't. The Magna Carta confirmed the power of the nobility versus the king and little more. Most Englishmen were in effect slaves.)
There were other rebellions, even less well known. My dabbling in genealogy has unearthed several touching my forebears.
The Borden family of Kent, England, may have participated in Jack Cade's Rebellion in 1450. Henry VI pardoned Cade and other leaders, then as the rebellion died down revoked the pardons and apprehended and executed Cade; royal prerogative. There was more to it than that; see http://www.warsoftheroses.co.uk/chapter_39.htm for a good discussion.
In 1645 in certain villages on Lake Zurich including Richterswil where the Bachmanns lived there occurred the Wädenswiler Steueraufstand, a tax revolt. One Rudolf Goldschmid who led the movement was executed. Was he related to the Anna Goldschmitt born 1655 who was the mother of Heinrich Bachmann?
In 1676 there was Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. An uprising of indentured servants, the landless, and those unprotected on the frontier against the landed interests in power in the colony. Bacon himself cheated the hangman's rope by dying of malaria, but others were hanged.
From 1765-1771 in the western counties of North Carolina there occurred the War of the Regulation, a political and economic revolt against colonial officeholders and the wealthy families in the east, that presaged the American Revoluton.. Anson County was the heart of the movement. Quite a few of my ancestors were in North Carolina, in Anson, Mecklenburg, and Cabarrus counties around that time. That revolt ended in a mini-massacre as a trained militia fired on farmers and townsmen. And with the hanging of about 20 leaders.
It is a thesis of mine that the American Revolution was in part a revolt of class against class, or the poor and unenfranchised against the wealthy; an Occupy Wall Street movement with teeth. A broad generalization but there is truth in it.
(We think of the Magna Carta as "guaranteeing the rights of Englishmen" and so on, but it didn't. The Magna Carta confirmed the power of the nobility versus the king and little more. Most Englishmen were in effect slaves.)
There were other rebellions, even less well known. My dabbling in genealogy has unearthed several touching my forebears.
The Borden family of Kent, England, may have participated in Jack Cade's Rebellion in 1450. Henry VI pardoned Cade and other leaders, then as the rebellion died down revoked the pardons and apprehended and executed Cade; royal prerogative. There was more to it than that; see http://www.warsoftheroses.co.uk/chapter_39.htm for a good discussion.
In 1645 in certain villages on Lake Zurich including Richterswil where the Bachmanns lived there occurred the Wädenswiler Steueraufstand, a tax revolt. One Rudolf Goldschmid who led the movement was executed. Was he related to the Anna Goldschmitt born 1655 who was the mother of Heinrich Bachmann?
In 1676 there was Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. An uprising of indentured servants, the landless, and those unprotected on the frontier against the landed interests in power in the colony. Bacon himself cheated the hangman's rope by dying of malaria, but others were hanged.
From 1765-1771 in the western counties of North Carolina there occurred the War of the Regulation, a political and economic revolt against colonial officeholders and the wealthy families in the east, that presaged the American Revoluton.. Anson County was the heart of the movement. Quite a few of my ancestors were in North Carolina, in Anson, Mecklenburg, and Cabarrus counties around that time. That revolt ended in a mini-massacre as a trained militia fired on farmers and townsmen. And with the hanging of about 20 leaders.
It is a thesis of mine that the American Revolution was in part a revolt of class against class, or the poor and unenfranchised against the wealthy; an Occupy Wall Street movement with teeth. A broad generalization but there is truth in it.
Virginia Connections...
A casual bid at a book auction last October got me a first edition set of Douglas Southall Freeman's bio of George Washington, 7 vols. for $45. 5 of the 7 are first printings as well as being in excellent condition. Not a bad buy as it turned out.
Actually I was the only bidder, at the minimum bid, and to confess I bid only to prime the pump. It's happened before, my getting a phone call on Sunday notifying me that I had bought something I had forgotten about bidding on. Not knocking my Norman Rockwell folios or the tiny print OED, but this was the best yet. The best deal yet too.
Among other chapters, I've been reading about the Fairfax Proprietary. Freeman wrote an appendix of over 100 pages on the Proprietary besides some information within the text itself. Besides hundreds of pages on Virginia colony in the 1700s, its government, culture and history. Great stuff, especially when you've just learned that you had ancestors in Virginia around that time, which brings it all to life: what was it like then?
Well, early this week, I resumed genealogizing to the extent of googling a couple of names I had neglected before. One name was Heinrich Bachmann and the other was Benjamin Borden.
Heinrich Bachmann immigrated to the colonies about 1738 or '39 from Richterswil, Zurich Canton, Switzerland. My first Swiss! And that's not all. After spending about 20 years in the Shanandoah Valley of Virginia, he shows up in the records as the buyer of 257 acres in the Shenandoah of Frederick County, VA, from the Fairfax Proprietary and he died there about 20 years later.
Heinrich's mother had the name Dagan, which sources say is Hebraic. His father's mother was a Goldschmidt. Were they Jewish? If so, not for long.
Another Fairfax nexus or near nexus came up with Ben Borden, Jr. His grandfather was a Quaker and immigrated to the new colony of Rhode Island in the late 1630s, not as a founder but an early colonist. His son Benjamin moved to New Jersey, where his son Benjamin Borden, Jr., was born. All the Bordens had a knack for acquiring land, and that was a special calling for Ben Borden, Jr., who bought and sold thousands of acres in what is now New Jersey. Then Ben Borden, Jr., went to Virginia, perhaps after a spot of trouble over opposition to the hanging of a suspected pirate.
Somehow through persuasion or wheeling and dealing Borden obtained a patent on 91,000 acres in Rockbridge County, Virginia, near present day Lexington. Some say he was nicknamed "Fairfax Ben" because he was an agent of the Fairfax Proprietary. I think it was because with his control over 91,000 acres he was set up as a sort of mini Lord Fairfax with 1/50th the land and minus the titles.
He didn't lose the land through poor judgment the way a number of prominent Virginia plantation owners did. He left his daughters 5,000 acres each and his sons considerably more. His estate was inventoried for probate at some 120,000 acres, and litigation over claims to it was said to have continued for 154 years!
His granddaughter, Margaret Borden, married Nichodemus Keith in Bedford County, Va, the county just to the south of the Borden landholdings. After several children were born, Margaret and Nichodemus and it seems her father John Borden then migrated to Tennessee.
Why did John Borden, who ought to have been prosperous thanks to Ben Borden's will, leave Virginia for greater hardship and risk out on the frontier? That is one mystery. The usual reasons to migrate to Tennessee were economic: a quest for land or for more land away from the established economic hieratchy in the East.
Another mystery is where Nichodemus Keith came from. On the internet one finds various nonsense about him, that he was born in Tennessee in 1755 or that he lived in Tennessee before his marriage to Margaret. There are claims that he served in the Revolution: undocumented, plus his family grew so fast during the Revolution years that he surely stayed nearby. There are claims he was the son of Sir William Keith of Scotland, but the dates don't quite jibe. Others say he was the son of a William Butler Keith of Ireland.
Tennessee was a wild and wooly place before 1790. The British established a settlement at Ft. Loudon in 1757. It was under continual Indian attack and was abandoned three years later. Finally a group of settlers acted outside the law and treaties and established a community complete with its own constitution--the Wautaga Association. To be followed by efforts to create the new State of Franklin. Following the close of the Revolutionary War, there was significant immigration to Tennessee, which grew explosively in the1790s; after 1800, Tennessee was becoming settled and civilized. There is no way Nichodemus would have been born in Tennessee in 1755 or 1760, and no way he would have been married in Tennessee in 1776 as some would have it.
One might wish to connect Nichodemus Keith with the famous line of Keiths in Scotland, a 500+ year old line of marischals and earl-marischals of Scotland extending over 500 years from the late 1100s until 1716, when the clan head and marischal was outlawed and his titles and lands were confiscated by the Crown for supporting a Stuart claimant to the throne, some Keiths being descended from the Stuart king James I, king of Scotland 1406-1437, and some associated with the affairs of later Stuarts including Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son James I, king of England, Scotland, and Wales for whom the "King James Bible" was named. [Or Queen James, which I call him to offend Christian fundamentalist homophobes who claim divine inspiration for the KJV.]
Most likely, Nichodemus Keith was Scots-Irish, meaning that he was descended from those impoverished Scots who were settled for a time in Ireland as colonists/buffers for the British Crown who then moved from Ireland to the colonies, and was not part of that famous line, at least not for some generations back. But it is not known.
Statements are made about Margaret Borden, that she was a poet and a Baptist preacher. Where did that come from? There was a book written about Nichodemus & Margaret Keith and their descendants that I have not seen; are these stories contained in that book? Were there female Baptist preachers in the 1700s? Seems a little early to me.
Was Nichodemus Keith descended from a settler on a tract of Ben Borden's land? Was he a neighbor of the Bordens? Don't know. Was he a grandson of wandering Baptist preacher Cornelius Keith who roamed the Virginia and North Carolina mountains in a wagon around 1715? A relative of George Keith, who was a Quaker associated with William Penn but who split with Penn and formed his own Quakerish sect called Keithians? Unknown, captain.
Why did a grandaughter of a major landowner marry Nichodemus? Don't know.
Why was Nichodemus referred to as "Judge" Nichodemus Keith in one record? Don't know.
Why did they all pull up stakes and go to Tennessee, including John Borden Margaret's father? Unknown.
So here is the state of my ancestors in Virginia:
(1) Bullock. William Bullock settled near Jamestown/Williamsburg about 1624 and died at Warwick, VA in 1650. His father Hugh, "master and owner of the Endeavor" and other ships, was a sometime resident of Virginia from the 1620s but primarily lived in London though he was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1631 by virtue of owning 2600 acres of Virginia land. Nevertheless, descent from Hugh qualfies one for membership in the Jamestown Society. In the late 1700s, Agnes Bullock born in North Carolina would marry into the Pool family of North Carolina and their daughter would be born in Georgia in 1800 and would marry a Smith and later die at the Smith enclave in Lafayette County, Mississippi.
(2) Mayes. The Mayes were in Virginia before moving to Kentucky in the 1800s. They lived in Halifax and Pittsylvania, Virginia in the 1700s and earlier. By some genealogies they trace back to Rev. William Mease who arrived in Virginia in 1610. In terms of early colonial ancestry Rev. Mease is paydirt. However, one must be cautious because some facts about Rev. Mease and his descendants are not certain. Descent appears to trace as follows: Rev, William Mease (1584-1636?) --> John Mays (1611-1673) --> William Mayes + ___ Newcombe --> William Mayes + Mary Mattox --> William Mayes (d. 1752) + Eliz. Gardiner --> William Mays (1724-1794) + Sarah Latham --> Drury Mays (1773-1820) --> Thomas David Mayes (1799-1852) + --> David N. Mayes (1831 TN-1886) + Martha Cloyes [who brings in Massachusetts Puritan ancestry] --> Ida Emma Eudora Frances Mayes (1858-1926) who married John Bachman Downing, my great-grandfather. 12 generations in all, some in Virginia.
(3) Brumbelow. Edward Brumbelow was born in Warsaw, Virginia, about 1675 and was the carpenter who built the Richmond County courthouse around 1706. A son or grandson was a local judge in Virginia. A descendant, Lewis Brumbelow, would migrate from Virginia to Tennessee, and his daughter, Elizabeth Brumbelow, would marry a later Nichodemus Keith and die in Texas in 1895; her mother was reputed to be Cherokee but this is unproven.
(4) Borden. Quaker and real estate wheeler-dealer Benjamin Borden, Jr., moved to Virginia from New Jersey about 1734 and then settled on his 91,000 acre tract in Rockbridge County where he died in 1743 near Winchester right after being appointed to a judgeship. It is told that Borden was wandering in the wilderness in western Virginia trying to find his land specified in the patent when he stopped for the night at a little cabin; John McDowell, the son of the family living there just happened to be trained as a surveyor, and Borden offered him a thousand acres to survey and stake out Borden's land and begin settling it; it was quickly surveyed though McDowell had to sue Borden to get his choice of land, which preserved the incident and the contract between te men. Here is more information and a transcription of the written agreement between Borden and McDowell dated 1737: http://leomcdowell.tripod.com/id28.htm
(5) Starnes. Frederick Starnes, Jr., migrated from New York to Pennsylvania and settled on the South Fork of the Holston River near present day Abington, Virginia, possibly before 1750, the Holston being a jump-off point for explorations of the Tennessee and Kentucky wilderness and an epicenter for "the longhunters" who were the first white explorers of Tennessee and Kentucky; Frederick was a constable and former militiaman, and while on a scouting expedition past Boonesborough, Kentucky, that Frederick and relatives undertook in 1779, was killed along with his brother and son-in-law by Shawnee stirred up by the British. It was reported that the son-in-law was a big man, and that his heart was missing when the bodies were found. A son and nephew were among settlers of Boonesborough and another son, "Capt. John," was killed in the Revolutionary War. His father, Frederick Starnes, Sr., also had moved to Virginia and was wounded by Indians while working in his field.
(6) Bachmann. In 1762 Heinrich Bachmann bought 257 acres of Fairfax Proprietary land in the Shanandoah Valley and some of his descendants lived on that tract in Virginia at least until the 1850s. At some point, a Bachmann -- or Bachman or Baughman -- would move on to Tennessee, where a daughter would marry a James Downing and give birth to a son, John Bachman Downing, who as a teenager out on his own would seek work in North Carolina, marry Ida Mayes, and move on to Dallas, Texas, in the 1870s.
(7) Keith. Margaret Borden and Nichodemus Keith married in Bedford County, Virginia, in 1776 and lived there for a few years as some of their children were born before moving to Tennessee by the 1790s along with John Borden. One of their daughters would marry Samuel Cowan in Tennessee where Cowan was a commissioner of Knox County, and then some descendants, Cowans and Keiths both, would migrate to Texas in the late 1830s.
Actually I was the only bidder, at the minimum bid, and to confess I bid only to prime the pump. It's happened before, my getting a phone call on Sunday notifying me that I had bought something I had forgotten about bidding on. Not knocking my Norman Rockwell folios or the tiny print OED, but this was the best yet. The best deal yet too.
Among other chapters, I've been reading about the Fairfax Proprietary. Freeman wrote an appendix of over 100 pages on the Proprietary besides some information within the text itself. Besides hundreds of pages on Virginia colony in the 1700s, its government, culture and history. Great stuff, especially when you've just learned that you had ancestors in Virginia around that time, which brings it all to life: what was it like then?
Well, early this week, I resumed genealogizing to the extent of googling a couple of names I had neglected before. One name was Heinrich Bachmann and the other was Benjamin Borden.
Heinrich Bachmann immigrated to the colonies about 1738 or '39 from Richterswil, Zurich Canton, Switzerland. My first Swiss! And that's not all. After spending about 20 years in the Shanandoah Valley of Virginia, he shows up in the records as the buyer of 257 acres in the Shenandoah of Frederick County, VA, from the Fairfax Proprietary and he died there about 20 years later.
Heinrich's mother had the name Dagan, which sources say is Hebraic. His father's mother was a Goldschmidt. Were they Jewish? If so, not for long.
Another Fairfax nexus or near nexus came up with Ben Borden, Jr. His grandfather was a Quaker and immigrated to the new colony of Rhode Island in the late 1630s, not as a founder but an early colonist. His son Benjamin moved to New Jersey, where his son Benjamin Borden, Jr., was born. All the Bordens had a knack for acquiring land, and that was a special calling for Ben Borden, Jr., who bought and sold thousands of acres in what is now New Jersey. Then Ben Borden, Jr., went to Virginia, perhaps after a spot of trouble over opposition to the hanging of a suspected pirate.
Somehow through persuasion or wheeling and dealing Borden obtained a patent on 91,000 acres in Rockbridge County, Virginia, near present day Lexington. Some say he was nicknamed "Fairfax Ben" because he was an agent of the Fairfax Proprietary. I think it was because with his control over 91,000 acres he was set up as a sort of mini Lord Fairfax with 1/50th the land and minus the titles.
He didn't lose the land through poor judgment the way a number of prominent Virginia plantation owners did. He left his daughters 5,000 acres each and his sons considerably more. His estate was inventoried for probate at some 120,000 acres, and litigation over claims to it was said to have continued for 154 years!
His granddaughter, Margaret Borden, married Nichodemus Keith in Bedford County, Va, the county just to the south of the Borden landholdings. After several children were born, Margaret and Nichodemus and it seems her father John Borden then migrated to Tennessee.
Why did John Borden, who ought to have been prosperous thanks to Ben Borden's will, leave Virginia for greater hardship and risk out on the frontier? That is one mystery. The usual reasons to migrate to Tennessee were economic: a quest for land or for more land away from the established economic hieratchy in the East.
Another mystery is where Nichodemus Keith came from. On the internet one finds various nonsense about him, that he was born in Tennessee in 1755 or that he lived in Tennessee before his marriage to Margaret. There are claims that he served in the Revolution: undocumented, plus his family grew so fast during the Revolution years that he surely stayed nearby. There are claims he was the son of Sir William Keith of Scotland, but the dates don't quite jibe. Others say he was the son of a William Butler Keith of Ireland.
Tennessee was a wild and wooly place before 1790. The British established a settlement at Ft. Loudon in 1757. It was under continual Indian attack and was abandoned three years later. Finally a group of settlers acted outside the law and treaties and established a community complete with its own constitution--the Wautaga Association. To be followed by efforts to create the new State of Franklin. Following the close of the Revolutionary War, there was significant immigration to Tennessee, which grew explosively in the1790s; after 1800, Tennessee was becoming settled and civilized. There is no way Nichodemus would have been born in Tennessee in 1755 or 1760, and no way he would have been married in Tennessee in 1776 as some would have it.
One might wish to connect Nichodemus Keith with the famous line of Keiths in Scotland, a 500+ year old line of marischals and earl-marischals of Scotland extending over 500 years from the late 1100s until 1716, when the clan head and marischal was outlawed and his titles and lands were confiscated by the Crown for supporting a Stuart claimant to the throne, some Keiths being descended from the Stuart king James I, king of Scotland 1406-1437, and some associated with the affairs of later Stuarts including Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son James I, king of England, Scotland, and Wales for whom the "King James Bible" was named. [Or Queen James, which I call him to offend Christian fundamentalist homophobes who claim divine inspiration for the KJV.]
Most likely, Nichodemus Keith was Scots-Irish, meaning that he was descended from those impoverished Scots who were settled for a time in Ireland as colonists/buffers for the British Crown who then moved from Ireland to the colonies, and was not part of that famous line, at least not for some generations back. But it is not known.
Statements are made about Margaret Borden, that she was a poet and a Baptist preacher. Where did that come from? There was a book written about Nichodemus & Margaret Keith and their descendants that I have not seen; are these stories contained in that book? Were there female Baptist preachers in the 1700s? Seems a little early to me.
Was Nichodemus Keith descended from a settler on a tract of Ben Borden's land? Was he a neighbor of the Bordens? Don't know. Was he a grandson of wandering Baptist preacher Cornelius Keith who roamed the Virginia and North Carolina mountains in a wagon around 1715? A relative of George Keith, who was a Quaker associated with William Penn but who split with Penn and formed his own Quakerish sect called Keithians? Unknown, captain.
Why did a grandaughter of a major landowner marry Nichodemus? Don't know.
Why was Nichodemus referred to as "Judge" Nichodemus Keith in one record? Don't know.
Why did they all pull up stakes and go to Tennessee, including John Borden Margaret's father? Unknown.
So here is the state of my ancestors in Virginia:
(1) Bullock. William Bullock settled near Jamestown/Williamsburg about 1624 and died at Warwick, VA in 1650. His father Hugh, "master and owner of the Endeavor" and other ships, was a sometime resident of Virginia from the 1620s but primarily lived in London though he was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1631 by virtue of owning 2600 acres of Virginia land. Nevertheless, descent from Hugh qualfies one for membership in the Jamestown Society. In the late 1700s, Agnes Bullock born in North Carolina would marry into the Pool family of North Carolina and their daughter would be born in Georgia in 1800 and would marry a Smith and later die at the Smith enclave in Lafayette County, Mississippi.
(2) Mayes. The Mayes were in Virginia before moving to Kentucky in the 1800s. They lived in Halifax and Pittsylvania, Virginia in the 1700s and earlier. By some genealogies they trace back to Rev. William Mease who arrived in Virginia in 1610. In terms of early colonial ancestry Rev. Mease is paydirt. However, one must be cautious because some facts about Rev. Mease and his descendants are not certain. Descent appears to trace as follows: Rev, William Mease (1584-1636?) --> John Mays (1611-1673) --> William Mayes + ___ Newcombe --> William Mayes + Mary Mattox --> William Mayes (d. 1752) + Eliz. Gardiner --> William Mays (1724-1794) + Sarah Latham --> Drury Mays (1773-1820) --> Thomas David Mayes (1799-1852) + --> David N. Mayes (1831 TN-1886) + Martha Cloyes [who brings in Massachusetts Puritan ancestry] --> Ida Emma Eudora Frances Mayes (1858-1926) who married John Bachman Downing, my great-grandfather. 12 generations in all, some in Virginia.
(3) Brumbelow. Edward Brumbelow was born in Warsaw, Virginia, about 1675 and was the carpenter who built the Richmond County courthouse around 1706. A son or grandson was a local judge in Virginia. A descendant, Lewis Brumbelow, would migrate from Virginia to Tennessee, and his daughter, Elizabeth Brumbelow, would marry a later Nichodemus Keith and die in Texas in 1895; her mother was reputed to be Cherokee but this is unproven.
(4) Borden. Quaker and real estate wheeler-dealer Benjamin Borden, Jr., moved to Virginia from New Jersey about 1734 and then settled on his 91,000 acre tract in Rockbridge County where he died in 1743 near Winchester right after being appointed to a judgeship. It is told that Borden was wandering in the wilderness in western Virginia trying to find his land specified in the patent when he stopped for the night at a little cabin; John McDowell, the son of the family living there just happened to be trained as a surveyor, and Borden offered him a thousand acres to survey and stake out Borden's land and begin settling it; it was quickly surveyed though McDowell had to sue Borden to get his choice of land, which preserved the incident and the contract between te men. Here is more information and a transcription of the written agreement between Borden and McDowell dated 1737: http://leomcdowell.tripod.com/id28.htm
(5) Starnes. Frederick Starnes, Jr., migrated from New York to Pennsylvania and settled on the South Fork of the Holston River near present day Abington, Virginia, possibly before 1750, the Holston being a jump-off point for explorations of the Tennessee and Kentucky wilderness and an epicenter for "the longhunters" who were the first white explorers of Tennessee and Kentucky; Frederick was a constable and former militiaman, and while on a scouting expedition past Boonesborough, Kentucky, that Frederick and relatives undertook in 1779, was killed along with his brother and son-in-law by Shawnee stirred up by the British. It was reported that the son-in-law was a big man, and that his heart was missing when the bodies were found. A son and nephew were among settlers of Boonesborough and another son, "Capt. John," was killed in the Revolutionary War. His father, Frederick Starnes, Sr., also had moved to Virginia and was wounded by Indians while working in his field.
(6) Bachmann. In 1762 Heinrich Bachmann bought 257 acres of Fairfax Proprietary land in the Shanandoah Valley and some of his descendants lived on that tract in Virginia at least until the 1850s. At some point, a Bachmann -- or Bachman or Baughman -- would move on to Tennessee, where a daughter would marry a James Downing and give birth to a son, John Bachman Downing, who as a teenager out on his own would seek work in North Carolina, marry Ida Mayes, and move on to Dallas, Texas, in the 1870s.
(7) Keith. Margaret Borden and Nichodemus Keith married in Bedford County, Virginia, in 1776 and lived there for a few years as some of their children were born before moving to Tennessee by the 1790s along with John Borden. One of their daughters would marry Samuel Cowan in Tennessee where Cowan was a commissioner of Knox County, and then some descendants, Cowans and Keiths both, would migrate to Texas in the late 1830s.
Monday, February 20, 2012
What's in a Name?
I noted in an earlier post that the middle name of my great grandfather John Downing was Bachman and that the name had transmuted from Baughman to Bachman.
H. L. Mencken had it otherwise in his book, The American Language, chapter about proper names. He quoted an article by Howard Barker, who wrote: "Bachmann was first 'improved' as Baughmann, promptly misunderstood as Boughman (pronounced to rhyme with ploughman), and then more easily spelled Bowman, which made possible one more shift in pronumciation." [The American Language, P. 479.]
This goes contrary to what I first learned of what the Bachmans/Boughmans in my family did sometime around 1800, as Johannes Baughman son of Heinrich Baughmann had a son born 1783 who called himself Daniel Bachman. On the other hand, some genealogies show only a change from Bachmann to Bachman and ignore the "Baughman" http://mykindred.com/cloud/TX/getperson.php?personID=I89290&tree=mykindred01 In that case, my sources have it wrong. But there is the pronunciation: my mother learned from John Bachman Downing (d. 1944) pronounced the name "Bawkman," not "Bockman."
The Oxford Dictionary of Surnames by Hanks and Hodges considers Bachman at least to be a variant of Bach, meaning perhaps, "baker" or possibly "one who lives by a river." But according to the genealogy I linked to above, the name was Bachmann at least as far back as the early 1600s in Richterswig Canton, Zurich, Switzerland, from whence the Bachmann's came to America and bought land in Virginia from the Fairfax Proprietary.
"Carriker" did come from "Karcher." Likely they are pronounced the same.
Changing gears. I have been accused of having two first names. This accusation shows a lack of history, because my last name dates from the late 1100s and was first used as a given name no more than 150 years ago. The name itself probably is taken from Gaelic meaning "woods" or even"wind" depending on which dictionary you look it up in.
Like many surnames it likely came from a location, in this case the grant of a barony and lands by King Malcolm to the family in recognition for fighting Danes (there is the usual story about the ancestor killing the Danish chieftain in single combat). There is a town in Scotland of that name, dating back to the time of Malcolm or earlier, which may mark the location of those lands. By this theory then, the place gave rise to the name.
But there was a charming story about how the family name originated, that it comes from the Germanic tribe known as the Catti, a poor tribe whose name may be preserved today in one of the poorer regions of Germany known as Hesse. The Catti were among the allied tribes who destroyed the three legions of Varus about 2003 years ago. ["My legions." moaned Augustus, in shock over the disaster, "Varus! Bring me back my legions!"] At some point, so the story goes, a number of the Catti in escaping from the soldiers of Tiberius (about the year 4) or those of Germanicus (about 20 years later when he wreaked a fearful vengeance over the loss of 20,000 of Varus' men) fled for their lives in boats across the North Sea to the coast of Scotland, where they were permitted to settle. My surname, so goes the story, comes straight from the tribal name Catti.
Now in fact at one point the family battle flag did feature a cat on it, but this may have been beause the story was then current and believed. It is said that the Catti flag was carried into the battle of Flodden Field in 1513, and that despite the death of a number of family members the flag was recovered and preserved.
This tale suggests that a tribal name came first, then a place name and a family name. Historically fascinating, even if not believed today.
Changing gears again: variations on "Gold." One branch (I think it is the Cloyes or the Gates or somebody back in the Mayes line but don't remember) is traced back to a Solomon Gould in England who had sons named Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, and so on. Was he Jewish? Who knows? The first Starnes to grow up in America married an Ann Goldman who like him came to New York in 1710. The mother of Heinrich Bachman who emigrated to the colonies from Switzerland was named Goldschmidt. Interesting.
H. L. Mencken had it otherwise in his book, The American Language, chapter about proper names. He quoted an article by Howard Barker, who wrote: "Bachmann was first 'improved' as Baughmann, promptly misunderstood as Boughman (pronounced to rhyme with ploughman), and then more easily spelled Bowman, which made possible one more shift in pronumciation." [The American Language, P. 479.]
This goes contrary to what I first learned of what the Bachmans/Boughmans in my family did sometime around 1800, as Johannes Baughman son of Heinrich Baughmann had a son born 1783 who called himself Daniel Bachman. On the other hand, some genealogies show only a change from Bachmann to Bachman and ignore the "Baughman" http://mykindred.com/cloud/TX/getperson.php?personID=I89290&tree=mykindred01 In that case, my sources have it wrong. But there is the pronunciation: my mother learned from John Bachman Downing (d. 1944) pronounced the name "Bawkman," not "Bockman."
The Oxford Dictionary of Surnames by Hanks and Hodges considers Bachman at least to be a variant of Bach, meaning perhaps, "baker" or possibly "one who lives by a river." But according to the genealogy I linked to above, the name was Bachmann at least as far back as the early 1600s in Richterswig Canton, Zurich, Switzerland, from whence the Bachmann's came to America and bought land in Virginia from the Fairfax Proprietary.
"Carriker" did come from "Karcher." Likely they are pronounced the same.
Changing gears. I have been accused of having two first names. This accusation shows a lack of history, because my last name dates from the late 1100s and was first used as a given name no more than 150 years ago. The name itself probably is taken from Gaelic meaning "woods" or even"wind" depending on which dictionary you look it up in.
Like many surnames it likely came from a location, in this case the grant of a barony and lands by King Malcolm to the family in recognition for fighting Danes (there is the usual story about the ancestor killing the Danish chieftain in single combat). There is a town in Scotland of that name, dating back to the time of Malcolm or earlier, which may mark the location of those lands. By this theory then, the place gave rise to the name.
But there was a charming story about how the family name originated, that it comes from the Germanic tribe known as the Catti, a poor tribe whose name may be preserved today in one of the poorer regions of Germany known as Hesse. The Catti were among the allied tribes who destroyed the three legions of Varus about 2003 years ago. ["My legions." moaned Augustus, in shock over the disaster, "Varus! Bring me back my legions!"] At some point, so the story goes, a number of the Catti in escaping from the soldiers of Tiberius (about the year 4) or those of Germanicus (about 20 years later when he wreaked a fearful vengeance over the loss of 20,000 of Varus' men) fled for their lives in boats across the North Sea to the coast of Scotland, where they were permitted to settle. My surname, so goes the story, comes straight from the tribal name Catti.
Now in fact at one point the family battle flag did feature a cat on it, but this may have been beause the story was then current and believed. It is said that the Catti flag was carried into the battle of Flodden Field in 1513, and that despite the death of a number of family members the flag was recovered and preserved.
This tale suggests that a tribal name came first, then a place name and a family name. Historically fascinating, even if not believed today.
Changing gears again: variations on "Gold." One branch (I think it is the Cloyes or the Gates or somebody back in the Mayes line but don't remember) is traced back to a Solomon Gould in England who had sons named Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, and so on. Was he Jewish? Who knows? The first Starnes to grow up in America married an Ann Goldman who like him came to New York in 1710. The mother of Heinrich Bachman who emigrated to the colonies from Switzerland was named Goldschmidt. Interesting.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Pulling Up the Family Tree to Look at the Roots
Two days before xmas I finished up some work and kicked back on the internet to relax as is my wont of late. Decided to look up some dates on an ancestor. When I googled the name, I spotted information about that person I never heard before.
"That person" was my father btw, whom I had not seen since 1961, whose birth and death dates I wanted to verify. The information I found was about his family. I knew they lived in in New Mexico for much of the 20th century but the stories I heard had them moving there from Alabama, that my father was born in Alabama, on an Indian reservation, it was said. Not so. His family had been in Texas since possibly before 1840, moving from what would become Titus County to Hunt County to Erath County, then to Oklahoma where his father married, and then on, by covered wagon, to Quay County, NM.
I visited his father's place in NM in the 1950s for a family reunion and saw an old wagon there with hoops for a canvas cover. We played on that wagon, and on an old motorcycle rusting nearby; rode a horse too. (Who was that fetching young lady who got me to climb up on the horse behind her? She would be 60-70 now.)
The genealogy bug bit. I was off and running. I spent the rest of the evening putting together a chart from info found on the internet. What I did was to find the name of a known ancestor on somebody else's genealogical chart which I would then plagiarize. Genealogizing on the quick and dirty.
There were more surprises.
A big surprise was this: my mother's sister had married a Cowan. I was astonished to find that 200 years ago a Cowan had married the daughter of the first identified ancestor in America to bear my father's name and that that very Cowan was the ancestor of the Cowans to whom I was related by my aunt's marriage.
More than that; both families had moved from Tennessee to Texas at about the same time, and lived in the same counties in Texas in the same sequence. The father of the Cowan who married my mother's sister was born in the same county as my father's father. And of course sons of each family married sisters then living in another county-- my mother and aunt. And nobody realized the connection!
Seems that sort of migration, of extended families together, was common. Not like today, when a nuclear family or individual moves alone from coast to coast. (Well, there was John Downing who in the late 1850s left his family in Tennessee in order, it was claimed, to dig for gold in California; he was not seen again.)
That movement, the migration, the patterns of it, and how it ties into history is most interesting. I am much more conscious of being a product of history than before. Reading about colonial and frontier times has distinctly more personal significance than before.
Some oddities. Several times, in different family lines over generations, the same name would crop up in marriages. In my father's family, his mother was a Crane and so was his great grandmother born in 1800. My mother's grandmother was a Carriker, but so was her greatgrandmother whose daughter married a Carriker. My mother's other grandmother's antecedents had a daughter who married a Cloyse in Massachusetts, and then 2-3 generations down the line of ancestry runs through other Cloyes.
The Smiths and Cloyes' were interrelated in NY long before a Smith married the daughter of a woman descended from Cloyses. And the Smiths those Cloyes were peripherally related to included one Joseph Smith, who would go on to found the Mormon faith. These were probably not related to the Smith who was my grandfather, mind you. Different lines.
I grew up being told that I was part Indian, that my father was born on a reservation in Alabama; well, there were of course Indians in Alabama, though no reservations. Later I would learn that Indian ancestry was looked on with disapproval. (My mother said years later that if she knew that about my father she would not have married him. She was, and is, quite racist despite having black friends.)
My father was it seems actually born in Oklahoma in Indian Territory, and while there are some candidates for Indian descent among his forbears (Brumbelow and/or Uzzel and/or Crane), it seems very likely on my mother's side. I note that on her mother's side, a Downing married a Mayes. Well, both Downing and Mayes were the names of Cherokee chiefs in Oklahoma in the late 1800s. Quite possibly there was intermarriage in my family with Indians while they were in Tennessee or North Carolina. The most likely candidate for Indianhood was on my mother's father's side, where internet sources say a bride known only as "Neoma Naomi" is thought to have been Cherokee.
Names change over time. Starring becomes Stearnes or Starns or even Stern. Karcher becomes Carriker. Baughman becomes Bachman. (It is interesting that my mother pronounces "Bachman" as "Bawkman." This is probably how you would have pronounced Baughman. She of course knew her grandfather John Bachman Downing (1856-1944), who told her of being raised by his grandparents in Tennessee after his father left, and having gone to North Carolina to work when he was in his mid-teens, then marrying and traveling to Dallas with the Board family.) Gerlach becomes Carlock. Guthmann becomes Gutmann or Goodman. Cloyes is variously Cloyse or even Clayes. Some forms are artifacts of genealogists; for example you see the name listed as "Clayes-Cloyes," which is actually stating alternate forms; it is possible that the name given as "Neoma Naomi" is like that.
Why do the names change? On reason is that some ancestors were illiterate and knew pronunciations but not spellings. Another is that spelling rules were less fixed than today. Another was the anglicization of names.
Some interesting names crop up in my ancestry. I didn't know about Eisenmann or Goodman or Goldman or Gould or Yerton. Some of these may have been Jewish. An ancestral Gould in England had sons named Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph. A Solomon Carriker married a Rachel Yerton. But if any were Jewish it did not last, which casts doubt on my hypothesis; surely Jews would not be marrying not-Jews and dropping their faith so often. [Added: more interesting names have cropped up, for example Goldschmidt and Dagon in the Bachman/Bachmann ancestry in Switzerland.]
A Veare in old England was likely of Normon origin. Paschal cropped up in one line. There was a Jonson in England; could there be a relationship to rare Ben Jonson?
I had heard about forebears in Georgia and Pennsylvania and Mississippi, but never about Massachusetts or New York or Virginia. Nor North Carolina, where along with Tennessee nearly all branches of the family lived at one time or another, sometimes within miles of other families they would marry into generations later in other states. I can't recall how many ancestors lived in Mecklinberg County or Cabarrus County or Anson County from the late 1700s to the mid 1800s. Or in eastern Tennessee. [Added: Ruchard Borden was an early settler in Rhode Island before 1640; his son Benjamin moved on to New Jersey in the late 1600s. And there were at least a half dozen ancestral lines in Virginia from 1610-1800.]
Several lived in the Shenandoah Valley or Clinch Mountain region, some of the prettiest landscapes in the USA! Why they moved on, to Texas of all places, is a mystery to me. The change from eastern Tennessee to the barren near desert landscape of Quay County, NM, is quite a step down, scenically at least, from the Blue Ridge or Shenandoah or Eastern Tennessee.
I recently saw the 1992 movie "Last of the Mohicans" for the first time. While the movie was set in New York it was filmed in North Carolina, amid the Blue Ridge mountains. I was on the edge of my seat when I learned that; my ancestors, I thought with shock, moved from that to this? I came out with the short end of the stick!
I was surprised how many ancestors were in the colonies early, but none as far as I've found were original Jamestown settlers or passengers on the Mayflower. 1624 in Virginia is the oldest immigrant to the New World so far, that being Willam Bullock.
I am only about 2/3 finished. There are what look like dead ends. Who knows where a John Smith came from; he is lost among many of that name in the Piedmont. Smiths, Downings, Cranes, Sams, Lewis, Guthrie, all peter out in the early 1800s. The Pools in the 1700s. Either their names were too common or they immigrated late or they were too poor or were illiterate and left no clear traces. For a Miss Uzzell, one doesn't know which Uzzell in early Texas the lass was descended from. And so on. Except for skinning and tanning of hides, the hunt for ancestors is pretty much over.
On literacy, I found on the internet a transcription of a probated will signed with marks. They apprently had a not insubstantial estate, but could not sign their names. If I recall correctly, they were Paschels.
The lines traceable back into the 1500s or earlier in Britain are the Bordens, the Cloyes, and others.
No famous people so far. No generals, presidents, or senators were an ancestor. For most of the names in my chart there is no indication of what they did or of how they spent their lives, only hints of their movements or lack of movement revealed in places of birth and death. Sometimes deeds or lawsuits or wills are described or transcribed on the internet. Occasionally a bit of history comes through.
For example, an ancestral Brumbelow is said to have been a carpenter on the Richmond county courthouse about 1700. Lawsuit records and other court information about that Brumbelow has been found.
A Brumbelow in the early 1700s is referred to as "judge" as was a Nichodemus Keith around the time of the Revolution. No support for the proposition that Nichodemus was a real judge; could be a mistake or a form of respectful address.
Nichodemus' origin btw is unknown; there are suppositions that he came from Scotland; a little more support for his emigrating from Ireland; a hint from genealogical savant Larry Keith who wrote books on that family that Nichodemus may have had a brother and sister in Virginia and might have been Irish and that is all. His father may have been a William Butler Keith who was born in Ireland. That family may have been among the many Scots who emigrated to Ireland and lived there as Scots-Irish fighting with the native Irish then emigrated to the colonies in the 1700s where they fought with Indians.
An ancestral Smith in Georgia married a Pool whose mother was a Bullock. She was descended from Hugh Bullock born in the 1500s who was a prosperous Englishman and owner of a small fleet of ships that supplied the Virginia colony in the 1620s. Hugh's son William settled in Virginia in 1624, right about the time when the charter was cancelled and Virginia became a Crown colony. Hugh was a big landowner and in the House of Burgesses in 1631. Did he acquire lands through the "hundreds" grants under the charter before 1624, bringing over people as well as supplies?
The Starnes (Stearnes) have a most interesting frontier nexus. The family was Palatine German, coming to New York on British ships in 1710. The second and third generations moved to Pennsylvania then to Western Virginia. One family patriarch, Frederick Stearnes, Jr., was killed by Shawnee along with his brother and son-in-law a short distance from Boonesborough while exploring for new land in Kentucky. ne account says the son-in-law's heart was removed. A couple of Frederick's sons lived at Boonesborough prior to 1779 and may have helped Daniel Boone build the fort. Another, a Capt. John Stearnes, may have been killed in 1780 when Gen. Gates was routed by the British at Camden.
Frederick Starnes, Jr., seems to have been rather prosperous, a constable, and was involved in supplying the Virginia militia with beef. There was an officer in the militia around that time named Lt. Col. George Washington; did they ever meet? Who knows?
Frederick Starnes, Jr., last settled near the Holston River in Washington County, Virginia. That locale around the branches of the Holston that led into Tennessee and to the location where Knoxville would be founded was known for being the jumping off point of men who were called "The Longhunters." While Frederick was not one, two witnesses of his 1778 will, Bird and Bounds, may have been longhunters.
Most immigrants were poor, and had to work off their passage in ways not dissimilar to the Chinese illegals working in sweat shops in New York City basements. I don't know how many in the family tree were indentured servants. (The following person, though he was 37 when he and his large family took passage to Massachusetts, may have had to work to pay off the costs of transport which kept him in one place for the better part of 10 years before he was free to move on to another location.)
Another surprising nexus with history. William Towne, Puritan, born 1599 and a resident of the port town of Yarmouth, England, immigrated to Massachusetts in 1637 with his wife and six children. For a time they lived in Salem, then moved onto a farm in an adjoining county. Two daughters had married and stayed behind in Salem. A third moved with the family to a place called Topfield. The daughters were Rebecca Towne Nurse, Mary Towne Estey and Sarah Towne Cloyse.
In 1692, some years after their father's death in or about 1685, all three were accused of witchcraft. Rebecca (who was elderly and an invalid) and Mary were hanged, while Sarah, who stormed out of a church service when the minister declared there was a devil in the congregation, was imprisoned. A thing of pride that they did not confess and attempt to throw blame on others to save their lives; if they had confessed they would have lived. I am not a descendant of any of these women but of their brother Jacob, 9 or 10 generations back. For those who have not read Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" based closely on records of the time or Alexander Mackay's book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" (he has a chapter on the witch mania) there is a lot of information on the internet includng transcriptions of the trials themselves.
By coincidence, when I was a pre-adolescent, I read and enjoyed a children's book called "Tinker's Tim and the Witches" that was set in Salem during the witch mania period. "Tinker's Tim" like "The Crucible" was written at a time when America was embarking on other witch-hunts. "Tinker's Tim" has been a great influence on me, turning me into the contarian anti-religious cuss that I am.
Here's a review of "Tinker's Tim and the Witches" by, one presumes, an evangelical concerned about the liberal content of the modern school curriculum. http://homeschoolblogger.com/homeschoolbookreview/757301/ While I agree that whitewashing the past to remove objectionable content is a dispicable practice and turns school books into bland pablum, my own opinion is that "Tinker's Tim" is quite timely and that all around us there are imaginary witches being subjected to persecution, including minorities, aliens, Muslims, atheists, and gays. The spirit of 1692 Salem is alive and well in America. The whips and stocks and gibbit are oiled and ready and waiting, for us.
"That person" was my father btw, whom I had not seen since 1961, whose birth and death dates I wanted to verify. The information I found was about his family. I knew they lived in in New Mexico for much of the 20th century but the stories I heard had them moving there from Alabama, that my father was born in Alabama, on an Indian reservation, it was said. Not so. His family had been in Texas since possibly before 1840, moving from what would become Titus County to Hunt County to Erath County, then to Oklahoma where his father married, and then on, by covered wagon, to Quay County, NM.
I visited his father's place in NM in the 1950s for a family reunion and saw an old wagon there with hoops for a canvas cover. We played on that wagon, and on an old motorcycle rusting nearby; rode a horse too. (Who was that fetching young lady who got me to climb up on the horse behind her? She would be 60-70 now.)
The genealogy bug bit. I was off and running. I spent the rest of the evening putting together a chart from info found on the internet. What I did was to find the name of a known ancestor on somebody else's genealogical chart which I would then plagiarize. Genealogizing on the quick and dirty.
There were more surprises.
A big surprise was this: my mother's sister had married a Cowan. I was astonished to find that 200 years ago a Cowan had married the daughter of the first identified ancestor in America to bear my father's name and that that very Cowan was the ancestor of the Cowans to whom I was related by my aunt's marriage.
More than that; both families had moved from Tennessee to Texas at about the same time, and lived in the same counties in Texas in the same sequence. The father of the Cowan who married my mother's sister was born in the same county as my father's father. And of course sons of each family married sisters then living in another county-- my mother and aunt. And nobody realized the connection!
Seems that sort of migration, of extended families together, was common. Not like today, when a nuclear family or individual moves alone from coast to coast. (Well, there was John Downing who in the late 1850s left his family in Tennessee in order, it was claimed, to dig for gold in California; he was not seen again.)
That movement, the migration, the patterns of it, and how it ties into history is most interesting. I am much more conscious of being a product of history than before. Reading about colonial and frontier times has distinctly more personal significance than before.
Some oddities. Several times, in different family lines over generations, the same name would crop up in marriages. In my father's family, his mother was a Crane and so was his great grandmother born in 1800. My mother's grandmother was a Carriker, but so was her greatgrandmother whose daughter married a Carriker. My mother's other grandmother's antecedents had a daughter who married a Cloyse in Massachusetts, and then 2-3 generations down the line of ancestry runs through other Cloyes.
The Smiths and Cloyes' were interrelated in NY long before a Smith married the daughter of a woman descended from Cloyses. And the Smiths those Cloyes were peripherally related to included one Joseph Smith, who would go on to found the Mormon faith. These were probably not related to the Smith who was my grandfather, mind you. Different lines.
I grew up being told that I was part Indian, that my father was born on a reservation in Alabama; well, there were of course Indians in Alabama, though no reservations. Later I would learn that Indian ancestry was looked on with disapproval. (My mother said years later that if she knew that about my father she would not have married him. She was, and is, quite racist despite having black friends.)
My father was it seems actually born in Oklahoma in Indian Territory, and while there are some candidates for Indian descent among his forbears (Brumbelow and/or Uzzel and/or Crane), it seems very likely on my mother's side. I note that on her mother's side, a Downing married a Mayes. Well, both Downing and Mayes were the names of Cherokee chiefs in Oklahoma in the late 1800s. Quite possibly there was intermarriage in my family with Indians while they were in Tennessee or North Carolina. The most likely candidate for Indianhood was on my mother's father's side, where internet sources say a bride known only as "Neoma Naomi" is thought to have been Cherokee.
Names change over time. Starring becomes Stearnes or Starns or even Stern. Karcher becomes Carriker. Baughman becomes Bachman. (It is interesting that my mother pronounces "Bachman" as "Bawkman." This is probably how you would have pronounced Baughman. She of course knew her grandfather John Bachman Downing (1856-1944), who told her of being raised by his grandparents in Tennessee after his father left, and having gone to North Carolina to work when he was in his mid-teens, then marrying and traveling to Dallas with the Board family.) Gerlach becomes Carlock. Guthmann becomes Gutmann or Goodman. Cloyes is variously Cloyse or even Clayes. Some forms are artifacts of genealogists; for example you see the name listed as "Clayes-Cloyes," which is actually stating alternate forms; it is possible that the name given as "Neoma Naomi" is like that.
Why do the names change? On reason is that some ancestors were illiterate and knew pronunciations but not spellings. Another is that spelling rules were less fixed than today. Another was the anglicization of names.
Some interesting names crop up in my ancestry. I didn't know about Eisenmann or Goodman or Goldman or Gould or Yerton. Some of these may have been Jewish. An ancestral Gould in England had sons named Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph. A Solomon Carriker married a Rachel Yerton. But if any were Jewish it did not last, which casts doubt on my hypothesis; surely Jews would not be marrying not-Jews and dropping their faith so often. [Added: more interesting names have cropped up, for example Goldschmidt and Dagon in the Bachman/Bachmann ancestry in Switzerland.]
A Veare in old England was likely of Normon origin. Paschal cropped up in one line. There was a Jonson in England; could there be a relationship to rare Ben Jonson?
I had heard about forebears in Georgia and Pennsylvania and Mississippi, but never about Massachusetts or New York or Virginia. Nor North Carolina, where along with Tennessee nearly all branches of the family lived at one time or another, sometimes within miles of other families they would marry into generations later in other states. I can't recall how many ancestors lived in Mecklinberg County or Cabarrus County or Anson County from the late 1700s to the mid 1800s. Or in eastern Tennessee. [Added: Ruchard Borden was an early settler in Rhode Island before 1640; his son Benjamin moved on to New Jersey in the late 1600s. And there were at least a half dozen ancestral lines in Virginia from 1610-1800.]
Several lived in the Shenandoah Valley or Clinch Mountain region, some of the prettiest landscapes in the USA! Why they moved on, to Texas of all places, is a mystery to me. The change from eastern Tennessee to the barren near desert landscape of Quay County, NM, is quite a step down, scenically at least, from the Blue Ridge or Shenandoah or Eastern Tennessee.
I recently saw the 1992 movie "Last of the Mohicans" for the first time. While the movie was set in New York it was filmed in North Carolina, amid the Blue Ridge mountains. I was on the edge of my seat when I learned that; my ancestors, I thought with shock, moved from that to this? I came out with the short end of the stick!
I was surprised how many ancestors were in the colonies early, but none as far as I've found were original Jamestown settlers or passengers on the Mayflower. 1624 in Virginia is the oldest immigrant to the New World so far, that being Willam Bullock.
I am only about 2/3 finished. There are what look like dead ends. Who knows where a John Smith came from; he is lost among many of that name in the Piedmont. Smiths, Downings, Cranes, Sams, Lewis, Guthrie, all peter out in the early 1800s. The Pools in the 1700s. Either their names were too common or they immigrated late or they were too poor or were illiterate and left no clear traces. For a Miss Uzzell, one doesn't know which Uzzell in early Texas the lass was descended from. And so on. Except for skinning and tanning of hides, the hunt for ancestors is pretty much over.
On literacy, I found on the internet a transcription of a probated will signed with marks. They apprently had a not insubstantial estate, but could not sign their names. If I recall correctly, they were Paschels.
The lines traceable back into the 1500s or earlier in Britain are the Bordens, the Cloyes, and others.
No famous people so far. No generals, presidents, or senators were an ancestor. For most of the names in my chart there is no indication of what they did or of how they spent their lives, only hints of their movements or lack of movement revealed in places of birth and death. Sometimes deeds or lawsuits or wills are described or transcribed on the internet. Occasionally a bit of history comes through.
For example, an ancestral Brumbelow is said to have been a carpenter on the Richmond county courthouse about 1700. Lawsuit records and other court information about that Brumbelow has been found.
A Brumbelow in the early 1700s is referred to as "judge" as was a Nichodemus Keith around the time of the Revolution. No support for the proposition that Nichodemus was a real judge; could be a mistake or a form of respectful address.
Nichodemus' origin btw is unknown; there are suppositions that he came from Scotland; a little more support for his emigrating from Ireland; a hint from genealogical savant Larry Keith who wrote books on that family that Nichodemus may have had a brother and sister in Virginia and might have been Irish and that is all. His father may have been a William Butler Keith who was born in Ireland. That family may have been among the many Scots who emigrated to Ireland and lived there as Scots-Irish fighting with the native Irish then emigrated to the colonies in the 1700s where they fought with Indians.
An ancestral Smith in Georgia married a Pool whose mother was a Bullock. She was descended from Hugh Bullock born in the 1500s who was a prosperous Englishman and owner of a small fleet of ships that supplied the Virginia colony in the 1620s. Hugh's son William settled in Virginia in 1624, right about the time when the charter was cancelled and Virginia became a Crown colony. Hugh was a big landowner and in the House of Burgesses in 1631. Did he acquire lands through the "hundreds" grants under the charter before 1624, bringing over people as well as supplies?
The Starnes (Stearnes) have a most interesting frontier nexus. The family was Palatine German, coming to New York on British ships in 1710. The second and third generations moved to Pennsylvania then to Western Virginia. One family patriarch, Frederick Stearnes, Jr., was killed by Shawnee along with his brother and son-in-law a short distance from Boonesborough while exploring for new land in Kentucky. ne account says the son-in-law's heart was removed. A couple of Frederick's sons lived at Boonesborough prior to 1779 and may have helped Daniel Boone build the fort. Another, a Capt. John Stearnes, may have been killed in 1780 when Gen. Gates was routed by the British at Camden.
Frederick Starnes, Jr., seems to have been rather prosperous, a constable, and was involved in supplying the Virginia militia with beef. There was an officer in the militia around that time named Lt. Col. George Washington; did they ever meet? Who knows?
Frederick Starnes, Jr., last settled near the Holston River in Washington County, Virginia. That locale around the branches of the Holston that led into Tennessee and to the location where Knoxville would be founded was known for being the jumping off point of men who were called "The Longhunters." While Frederick was not one, two witnesses of his 1778 will, Bird and Bounds, may have been longhunters.
Most immigrants were poor, and had to work off their passage in ways not dissimilar to the Chinese illegals working in sweat shops in New York City basements. I don't know how many in the family tree were indentured servants. (The following person, though he was 37 when he and his large family took passage to Massachusetts, may have had to work to pay off the costs of transport which kept him in one place for the better part of 10 years before he was free to move on to another location.)
Another surprising nexus with history. William Towne, Puritan, born 1599 and a resident of the port town of Yarmouth, England, immigrated to Massachusetts in 1637 with his wife and six children. For a time they lived in Salem, then moved onto a farm in an adjoining county. Two daughters had married and stayed behind in Salem. A third moved with the family to a place called Topfield. The daughters were Rebecca Towne Nurse, Mary Towne Estey and Sarah Towne Cloyse.
In 1692, some years after their father's death in or about 1685, all three were accused of witchcraft. Rebecca (who was elderly and an invalid) and Mary were hanged, while Sarah, who stormed out of a church service when the minister declared there was a devil in the congregation, was imprisoned. A thing of pride that they did not confess and attempt to throw blame on others to save their lives; if they had confessed they would have lived. I am not a descendant of any of these women but of their brother Jacob, 9 or 10 generations back. For those who have not read Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" based closely on records of the time or Alexander Mackay's book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" (he has a chapter on the witch mania) there is a lot of information on the internet includng transcriptions of the trials themselves.
By coincidence, when I was a pre-adolescent, I read and enjoyed a children's book called "Tinker's Tim and the Witches" that was set in Salem during the witch mania period. "Tinker's Tim" like "The Crucible" was written at a time when America was embarking on other witch-hunts. "Tinker's Tim" has been a great influence on me, turning me into the contarian anti-religious cuss that I am.
Here's a review of "Tinker's Tim and the Witches" by, one presumes, an evangelical concerned about the liberal content of the modern school curriculum. http://homeschoolblogger.com/homeschoolbookreview/757301/ While I agree that whitewashing the past to remove objectionable content is a dispicable practice and turns school books into bland pablum, my own opinion is that "Tinker's Tim" is quite timely and that all around us there are imaginary witches being subjected to persecution, including minorities, aliens, Muslims, atheists, and gays. The spirit of 1692 Salem is alive and well in America. The whips and stocks and gibbit are oiled and ready and waiting, for us.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Alien V, or Homosolecism
Today I was skimming through a short article telling how common planets seem to be around the universe. The article mentioned "alien worlds." That got me thinking.
Visualizations followed. "Who you callin' an alien?" an angry E.T. shouts at a mob of earthlings? Or a yoda like being sittign cross-legged comments "Me an alien? Why, am I not a resident of the same universe that you are?"
It's our tendency to think and verbalize in those terms: US versus THEM. Whoever THEM are.
So our close neighbors to the south are ALIENS! Or ILLEGAL ALIENS! "Look ma, there's an ALIEN walking in the street!" Somebody get the roach spray. Or an assault rifle. Or call the Border Patrol.
It's easy to forget we are of the same species and are nearby residents of the same hemisphere on a little planet we call earth. Divided when it comes down to that by mostly imaginary and somewhat meaningless lines called "borders."
Not too different really from the way we used to make maps, with our city, or nation, or continent at the center of the world map. WE, whoever WE are, call ourselves ":the People," while all other humans are "Barbarians" or "Others, or "Them," or "Hey You!" Or ALIENS.
We didn't stop there. We believed the sun circled the earth; how could it be otherwise when WE are so important? So crushing to the ego to learn that our earth circles an incredibly large sun, and is only one of nine or so planets, and not the biggest one either!
Neither is our sun located at the center of the universe, but out on one arm of an ordinary galaxy that is one of millions of galaxies. Sort of like living in a cardboard shack in Podunk, Appalachia, with an outhouse in back.
I guess if there is a point to this, it is to observe that truth has a way of defeating inflated self importance. That humility is a law that nature teaches, while self-grandiosity is a law of human nature. Science advances, but himan nature is still with us.
Visualizations followed. "Who you callin' an alien?" an angry E.T. shouts at a mob of earthlings? Or a yoda like being sittign cross-legged comments "Me an alien? Why, am I not a resident of the same universe that you are?"
It's our tendency to think and verbalize in those terms: US versus THEM. Whoever THEM are.
So our close neighbors to the south are ALIENS! Or ILLEGAL ALIENS! "Look ma, there's an ALIEN walking in the street!" Somebody get the roach spray. Or an assault rifle. Or call the Border Patrol.
It's easy to forget we are of the same species and are nearby residents of the same hemisphere on a little planet we call earth. Divided when it comes down to that by mostly imaginary and somewhat meaningless lines called "borders."
Not too different really from the way we used to make maps, with our city, or nation, or continent at the center of the world map. WE, whoever WE are, call ourselves ":the People," while all other humans are "Barbarians" or "Others, or "Them," or "Hey You!" Or ALIENS.
We didn't stop there. We believed the sun circled the earth; how could it be otherwise when WE are so important? So crushing to the ego to learn that our earth circles an incredibly large sun, and is only one of nine or so planets, and not the biggest one either!
Neither is our sun located at the center of the universe, but out on one arm of an ordinary galaxy that is one of millions of galaxies. Sort of like living in a cardboard shack in Podunk, Appalachia, with an outhouse in back.
I guess if there is a point to this, it is to observe that truth has a way of defeating inflated self importance. That humility is a law that nature teaches, while self-grandiosity is a law of human nature. Science advances, but himan nature is still with us.
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