BLOGGING BRUNCH9

Sitting here on my day off basking in the afterglow of last night’s
Red Sox victory as I drink a cup of coffee and surf my fellow
genealogy blogger’s sites.


I’m glad that Randy Seaver and his family have been spared
from the fires in the San Diego area. His post on Genea-Musings
about blog post statistics made me check mine. I regularly check
the Visitor Activity stats at StatCounter to see what the daily
activity has been but I haven’t really checked the Keyword
Analysis or Keyword Activity since “flutaphones” seems usually
to be at the top of the list.


Today, though, I found that “Amos Hastings” had been the
most used term at 6, (albeit it was only by two visitors) followed
by “ruth perley ames murder” with 4.


However, if I add the 2 for “flutaphones” with the 2 for “pictures
of flutaphones”, that puts it right up there for a tie at second place.
It is nice though to think that maybe something I’ve posted here
about my ancestors might help others of their descendants.


Dick Eastman’s post about “jump drives” prompted me to check
the K-Mart across the plaza from my store and I now own a 1gb
flash drive that is small enough to carry around in my shirt
pocket if I so choose. It just amazes me that it was so inexpensive
($19.99) and that it has so much space on so small a device. It’s
more memory than I had on the hard drives of my first two desk
top computers--combined! I’ve already backed up my genealogy
files on it as well as the family photos I’ve scanned.


Finally, last night I downloaded the Revolutionary War Pension
File of my 4th great grandfather Moses Coburn at Footnote.com
and looked through them this morning. Among the documents
there’s a “schedule” of his belongings:
1 Cow $20
1 Hog 8
1 Sheep & lamb 2
Table 0.50
Crockery ware 1.50
glass ware 0.50
Pot & kettle 1.50
Chair 1.00
4 dung hill Fowls .80
______
$35.80

As an aside, the dollar amounts on the document were further
over to the right from the items listed. For some reason, I can
never get these sort of lists to publish here the way I enter them.

I immediately had to google “dung hill fowls” and found that they
were chickens. Then looking at the list again, the thought struck
me: where’s the bed? Given that Moses’ family at the time
included his wife Esther Spaulding and three of their children, (the
oldest 14 and the youngest 5) they’d have needed beds, right?

So, where did they sleep?


This is a two cup of coffee problem.

BLOGGING BRUNCH8

After having spent several hours in hunting for my lost wallet(I
found it, btw) I sat down here with a cup of coffee and calmed
down by browsing genealogy blogs.


First off, I have been remiss in not mentioning that the 34th
Carnival of Genealogy is out and once again Jasia’s call for articles
resulted in great reading. There are the usual fine contributors
but there are also some new names. Thomas Wheatley’s list of
superstitions at Family History Quick Start made me think of
some I recall from my mom’s Irish family. Bob Frank’s
memories of his childhood Halloweens at the Itawamba History
Review made me grin. In fact, there’s a whole slew of posts on
that subject that brought back some memories of my own and
I’ll try to post about them soon. A lot of good reading
as always and if you haven’t read the CoG before, you should!

Other interesting new posts this morning included Tim Abbott’s
at “Walking the Berkshires” concerning an Abbot(t) relative’s
ties to Roger’s Rangers from the French and Indian War. And
isn’t it a great time to be a sports fan in New England, Tim?


Terry Thornton over at "Hill Country of Monroe County,
Mississippi” posted a picture of a friend's grandmother and a
sailor in Smithville, Mississippi 1943 and another of World War
II sugar ration coupons and adds some of his memories of the
time.


Finally, there’s posts at various blogs about the new ties between
A*******.com and the NEHGS. Since I can’t afford the World
Deluxe membership in the first place, the news really doesn’t
effect me. If I can find the money in my budget at some point I’ll
join the NEHGS again at the most affordable membership level
but that’s not likely to happen until next year.

AND WALKING THROUGH THE GRAVEYARD I CHANCED UPON MYSELF

Continuing in the Halloween vein(so to speak) for this month,
there is another story from my days as a camp counselor on
Cape Cod that if I’d thought about I would have also submitted
to the Carnival of Genealogy this month.


We had counselors from all over the country and one year from
other nations. This particular summer, one of the staff was from
Minnesota. He’d never seen the ocean so part of the reason he’d
taken a summer job in Massachusetts was to see the Atlantic.
Since we hiked the kids down to Dennis Beach several times
during the summer Gary accomplished his goal early on, but a
few of us decided we’d take him down to Provincetown so he
could tell the folks back home he’d been as far out to the edge
of the States as he could get without leaving land.


This was back in the late `60’s. We were a bit more innocent back
then and so four of us thought nothing of hitchhiking on the
MidCape Highway. Luckily for us we made it safely down to
Ptown and spent the day walking around the town, poking about
in the great old Army-Navy Surplus Store on the main street,
and then finding and eating the cheapest meal available since we
weren’t exactly in a high paying job.


It was late afternoon when we started back for the highway. Now
I’m not sure of the exact location, because it’s forty years since it
happened, but we took a shortcut through a graveyard and as
we walked along the road we looked at some of the headstones.


And that’s when I saw it: a headstone with my name on it.


“William West”.

You can imagine the jokes from the others. It did spook me out
a little bit but I laughed it off and we eventually moved on to the
highway to “thumb” our way back up the Cape to Brewster.
Since drivers were less likely to stop for four hitchers than two,
we split up into two pairs and made plans to rendezvous at our
exit off the highway.


My companion and I were picked up by a pair of sailors who’d
been sightseeing the hippies at Provincetown as well as doing a
little drinking and it wasn’t long before I realized that perhaps
the one driving the car was a bit drunk and his friend was a whole
lot more drunk. He had a bottle and offered us a drink and when
we declined, he got insistent about us taking a swig. So we did.


By this time I already flashed back to that gravestone with my
name on it. Was it some sort of warning? So I did the sensible
thing. I lied and told the driver that the next exit was where we
had to get off. The other counselor nodded when he asked if we
were sure. He laughed, drove by it, and eventually let us out two
more exits up in what they must have thought was a cool joke.
We eventually caught a another ride, met up with the others,
and made it back to camp safely.


Apparently the sailors made it back to Boston alright as well
since we didn’t hear about any sailors killed in car crashes. And I
took a bit more ribbing over “my” grave.


It was the last time I hitchhiked on Cape Cod. The next summer
that I worked there I had my own car.


And occasionally I think about that headstone. I don’t recall
anything about the dates or the inscription. Maybe someday I’ll
look up the information.


But I certainly won’t do it around Halloween.

THE HAUNTED BOOKS STORE2

Remember what I said in the first post in this series about taking
the word “haunted” and adding a state or city’s name to it for a
Google search for a book with that title?


Well, if you search for “Haunted Massachusetts” you’ll find
there’s two books with that title: the one by Cherie Revai I’ve
previously mentioned and another by Thomas D’Agostino.
It has a stark black and white cover illustration of a lighthouse
station and is one of three books he’s written on the paranormal,
the other three being “Haunted Rhode Island” , “Haunted New
Hampshire” and “Pirate Ghosts and Phantom Ships” .


From a local bookseller and resident’s perspective the
Massachusetts book interests me because of its section on the
Bridgewater Triangle and on ghosts at my old alma mater,
Bridgewater State College. I have to admit that I’m a bit
skeptical about the ghost at the Student Union Center because
the building was completed after I graduated and it just doesn’t
seem right that a place that’s only 35 years old on a campus over
160 years old would be a place that is haunted!


Now if it was in the old Maxwell Library building, that I could
believe!


At any rate, Mr. D’Agostino’s book explores an interesting variety
of reportedly haunted locales such as an antiques shop in
Plymouth and the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River. All four of
his books are published by Schiffer Books in soft cover and the
prices on the three New England books are $12.95 while the
newer pirate book is $14.95.

Schiffer also publishes other regional paranormal books in the
same price range, including books on ghosts in cities such as
Baltimore, New Orleans, and Austin.

And remember, all are orderable at your local bookstores if they
don’t already have them in stock. Go haunt a bookstore!

Next in this series, I’ll discuss a book that has a genealogy and
family history connection to the Salem Witch Trials.

THE HELL HOUNDS OF BREWSTER

Back in my college days, I spent three summers as a camp
counselor at Camp Mitton in Brewster, Mass down on Cape Cod.

One night during my last summer there in 1970, I was sitting at
the Indian Council Ring with the campers and councilors as we
told stories around a campfire. One of the kids started telling a
story about the Black Hell Hounds that chased a murderer’s
ghost on the dirt roads by the camp and I had to grin. I knew the
story well.

In fact, I was the one who’d first told it.


Two years before I was trying to come up with the a story to tell
at the campfire that hadn’t already been told and a combination
of things led me to make up a new one.


One of the elements was the camp’s location. There were several
dirt roads that wound their way through old cranberry bogs,
some of which with old buildings nearby. We occasionally took the
kids on hikes down those roads and so the locale of the story
would be familiar.


Another element was that one of the councilors had snorkeled in
the lake the camp was situated on and found an old buckboard
type wagon on the lake floor. Everyone had wondered how it ever
got there.

And the third element? That would be Queenie the black Labrador
Retriever and two of her grown offspring who frequently hung
around the camp mooching scraps and attention from the kids.
And so, I came up with this story:


“Many years ago there lived down by the cranberry bogs a man
and his wife. They had no children, and the cranberry farmer’s
wife was lonely so the farmer bought her three black hounds to
keep her company and protect her when he was away from the
farm.


Things went well for several years until bad weather caused
the cranberry crop to be a small one and the farmer fell into
debt. He took to drinking and when his wife asked him to stop
they would argue. One night the man hit his wife and the dogs
who were trained to protect her attacked the farmer. In a rage
he grabbed his axe and killed the dogs and then his wife, and
then buried them all in an unmarked grave somewhere along
the dirt roads through the bogs. If neighbors asked he told them
his wife had left him and gone off to her parents’ home in
Boston.


Then one night exactly a year to the night later of the murder
the farmer was driving his wagon down a dirt road, the very
same road that ran right through the center of our camp, when
he heard the sound of hounds baying behind him. He looked
over hisshoulder and by the light of the moon he saw the red
eyes of the ghostly three hounds racing after him in the
moonlight.


He whipped his horse to run faster, but still the hounds came
closer, and closer, and CLOSER until suddenly the wagon hit
the bump in the road just past where the softball field was
today and the horse broke free, while the wagon went racing
down into the lake, taking the farmer with it to drown.


And some said that every year the murderous farmer’s ghost
could be seen in his wagon being chased down the dirt road by
the three Black Hounds.”


Not exactly Poe but it worked well in the dark by the campfire,
especially with Queenie nearby begging for marshmallows.



I didn’t work at the camp the summer after I first told the story
but apparently it had been told by one of the campers that year,
and then the year I returned, another camper told it. I don’t
know if it continued to be told, since that was the last summer I
spent there. But if Queenie and her descendants were around I
suspect it might have been told again.


I think this must be how a lot of legends and ghost stories must
have started, a mixture of the commonplace with fantasy.


Oh. Did I mention that here in my apartment complex nearly
forty years later, my next door neighbor’s pet is a Labrador
Retriever?

THE HAUNTED BOOKS STORE

Over the years working in a bookstore I’ve stocked and sold
many titles that are brought in for the Halloween season:
books on ghosts, witches, and eerie events in Massachusetts
and New England. It’s amazing how many books are out there
dealing with such topics for every part of the country. I have
to confess that since my genealogy bug bit me I tend to look
through these books to see if any of my ancestors or their
relatives are mentioned.


Try this: take the name of your state, put the word haunted in
front of it and then google the phrase. Then try the same thing
using the name of a major city in your state and the words
"Ghosts of”. You should find many titles, usually put out by
a regional press and written by local authors.


I’ll try to list some of these over the next few weeks and
occasionally comment on some of the stories in them. But if
you are looking for a book that has stories from all over the
country, I’d recommend the books by Michael Norman
and Beth Scott, such as their Haunted Heartland and others
which are published by larger companies and may be easier
to find quickly.

One of the popular books in my local interest section is
Cheri Revai’s Haunted Massachusetts. This is published
by Stackpole Books and is one of 11 in a series that covers
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states ((All of them are paperback
and priced at $9.95)). This doesn’t surprise me as it’s one of
the two books in the store that mentions the Bridgewater
Triangle(which on this end of the Triangle is sometimes
called the Abington Triangle). Many of the stories are
familiar ones but if you haven’t explored the supernatural
in Massachusetts, this is a good introduction that’s an easy
read.


I might note that Stackpole doesn’t have a book as yet on
haunted New Hampshire or Rhode Island, so maybe you
can do the New Hampshire book, Janice!


Oh, and I’d like to urge you all to patronize your local
bookstores, large or small, in shopping for any of the
books I mention. Online shopping is nice but it’s taking a
toll on brick and mortar stores, especially the smaller local
stores.


Haunt a bookstore for Halloween!

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 17

Sometimes, the pieces of the genealogy puzzle just seem to fit
together with a life of their own.

I decided to search Footnote.com again for my ancestor Amos
Upton in the Revolutionary War Pension File. He hadn’t been
there the first time I’d looked but Footnote is still updating
those files so I checked, and voila…there it was. As I read it
I found he’d been a resident of Norway, Maine which I hadn’t
known before.

So while I downloaded the images of the file, I did a search on
Google and found A History of Norway, Me. by David Noyes
on Googlebooks. There is quite a bit of information about Amos
in there as well as some on his son Francis. This brought me to
Amos’ granddaughter, Hannah, who I didn’t know much about
other than she had married Cyrus Moore and that their daughter
(my great great grandmother) Betsey Jane had been born in
Waterford, Maine.

The Amos Upton file was still dl so I tried searching Googlebooks
for Hannah Upton & Waterford. I found The History of Waterford:
Oxford County, Maine by Henry Pelt Warren and on pp 273-274
in the Records of Families I found a Hannah Upton who married a
Cyrus, son of Stephen Moore and Millie Davis. There were two
younger Moore children listed, daughters Betsey and Jane.


Perhaps Betsey Jane Moore had been named after her aunts?


By this time the Amos Upton file was all downloaded so I decided
I’d blog about this and then turn in for the night. I’ll try to find
more Moores in the next day or so, but if this pans out I now know
the names of Cyrus Moore’s parents, which I hadn’t before tonight.


Ah, serendipity!

BLOGGING BRUNCH7

Another leisurely blog brunch. One of the things only a bachelor
could get away with on a day off!


The 33rd Carnival of Genealogy is up and once again Jasia has
gathered a bunch of interesting posts, this time on the subject
of weddings.


The next CoG has a Halloween theme with a call for posts on
stories about the supernatural or eerie in your family. If you
haven’t checked into the CoG yet, you should, because it’s a
great way to discover other genealogy blogs!


On another front, I recently bought two genealogy or history
related books at work.


The first is Evidence: Citation and Analysis for the Family
Historian by Elizabeth Shown Mills. I need to start getting my
sources and citations into shape and this book is mentioned over
and over again by my fellow genealogy bloggers. All I can say is
that after looking through it, I really, really have a lot of work
ahead of me.


The second book is Diane Rapaport’s The Naked Quaker: True
Crimes and Controversies from the Courts of Colonial New
England. All of the stories in it are new to me but some were
previously published in "New England Ancestors" magazine
which is published by the NEHGS.


No, Ralph Ellinwood’s case didn’t make the book but it is full of
fascinating stories that shed light not only on the court system of
colonial New England but also on the society of the period.


And since we’re coming up on Halloween, I’ll be doing some
posts on some books I sell at the bookstore that deal with the
supernatural side of New England, as well as a post or two about
the witches in my family!

GENEALOGY IS MURDER

As I’ve mentioned before, when not wracking my brain for
anther genealogy use for a flutaphone, I work as a bookseller
at the local location for a national bookstore chain. From time
to time I’ll be posting something about books I’ve seen or
read that relate to genealogy.


So how about a little mystery?


I was walking past the new paperbacks table and the title of
one of the new books caught my eye: Sins of the Fathers
by Patricia Sprinkle. A quick glance at the description
on the back cover told me the book is the second in a new
series of mysteries involving genealogy and family history.
The first book is entitled Death on the Family Tree.


I want to find the first book before I buy the second, but it
does look interesting. I'll let you all know what I think once
I read them.


Anyone else know of more mystery novels with a genealogy
twist?

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 16

I’m sort of delaying heading off to bed even though I’m really
tired but I wanted to post this thought before it vanishes into
the swiss cheese that is my brain while I sleep.


I was following up on Chris Dunham’s comment on the probable
identity of Orpha Reynolds as the daughter of Simeon Reynolds
and Ruhama West. I noticed on the 1850 Oxford County Census
her name is listed as “Ruhannah”. Was the “m” misread as two
“n” ‘s by the transcriber or written as such by the census taker?
I then googled it to see if the variation popped up elsewhere.


I found the name then as “Ruanna Ames” on an Iowa bboard
query by a descendant.

At any rate, it appears from my initial digging thanks to Chris’
post that Simeon Reynolds is connected by marriage to my
Packard and Dunham lines.

Another example of the tangled roots of genealogy!

ORPHA

Her name appears on the 1860 Census of the Town of Upton,
County of Oxford, State of Maine at the end of the list of names in
John Cutter West’s family.


Orpha Reynolds. 18 F. Further over on the line it states she was
born in Maine.


She is a bit of an enigma in my genealogy research,



There aren’t any other Reynolds listed on the census in Upton
that year so her family might have been living elsewhere. Perhaps
she was a hired woman who helped Arvilla Ames West run the
household, for Arvilla was now fifty years of age and while most
of her children were grown, she still had 9 year old Ruth and 6
year old David to care for. Ruth in particular might have been
challenging; she was listed as an “idiot” on the 1860 census and
would have perhaps needed more supervision. (19th Century
terminology for intelligence levels differ, I think, from modern
assessment. I’ve no way of knowing how mentally impaired Ruth
might have been by today’s standards.)


At any rate, Orpha lived with the West family, one of whom was
the 26 year old Jonathan Phelps West. I cannot say how or when
they fell in love since I don’t know of any letters or diaries by
either of them that might shed some light on their courtship.

The couple married on October 20, 1861.


A little over two months later, their marriage would come to an
end.



During the year 1861 diphtheria raged throughout the area but
up until now it had not touched the West family. Now it struck it
hard. It could have come to the family from a guest invited to the
wedding who wasn’t as yet displaying the full symptoms of the
disease.



Orpha Viette Reynolds West died on New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31st,
1861. She was 19 years old.


David Pingree West died on Jan. 17th , 1862

Ruth Ellen West died on Jan. 26th.

16 year old Arvilla Electa West died on Feb. 6th.

Older brother Asa Atwood West lost two of his children to the
disease as well:

8 year old Arvilla died on Feb. 18th.

2 year old Anna Pearl on Feb. 20th.

Another grandchild died in March, but cause of death is not given.

So by Spring of 1862 Jonathan Phelps West had lost a brother,
two sisters, two nieces, and his bride Orpha to the epidemic. And
that Summer he lost his father as John Cutter West passed away
at the age of 59.


I cannot begin to imagine how Jonathan could have coped with
such losses in so short a time. But he did.


He did what generations of New Englanders before and after him
have done: he survived and got on with life.


Three years later, on Jan.31st, 1865,Jonathan married Louisa
Almata Richardson. They would have four sons, the second of
whom was my great grandfather Philip Jonathan West.


I of course would not be sitting here typing this had Jonathan not
lost his first wife Orpha and later married Louisa. But still I
cannot help but feel sympathy for him. I wonder if he ever looked
back at his memories of that October wedding? It took place after
harvest time on a farm, so was wherever it took place decorated to
celebrate both the wedding and Harvest?


Did Jonathan revisit that memory with a smile or did the
knowledge of what came after make it too painful?


And did he ever wonder what life might have been like if he had
not lost his Orpha?

49 USES FOR A FLUTAPHONE NUMBER 14

#14 -Distress Signal. IF you become lost in the stacks of a major
genealogical library, DO NOT PANIC! Use your flutaphone
to summon help by blowing as hard as you can on through
the mouthpiece. A series of the highest and most shrill notes
will be most efficacious and a friendly librarian will arrive to

escort you safely back to your chair.

MRS. JESSIE H. TUTTLE PT5

I have found approximately forty images at Footnotes.com
in the Revolutionary War Pension Files of correspondence
between Mrs. Jessie Hale Tuttle and Pension Department.
The earliest request is in 1915 and the latest so far is from
1928, but there is still 21 percent of the pension Files yet to be
scanned and no doubt there are more letters I haven't seen.



Over that period Jessie’s address changed several times, and for
a short period it seems she either owned a typewriter or had
access to one but the majority of her correspondence was
handwritten. I will be blogging more in the future about Jessie
and her dealings with the Pension Department, but there are
two items I discovered that I’ll mention now.


Sometime in the mid 1920’s Jessie must have decided to put her
expertise in family research to good use and a printed letterhead
of:


“Mrs. Jessie Hale Tuttle
Genealogist and Researcher”

appears at the top of the handwritten first page of a letter about
Benjamin Fuller. The original address under her name is scratched
out and her new address handwritten next to it. In another letter
concerning her request for information on Bela Graves she
states that the information was “needed for a D.A.R. paper”. (The
original request had not been answered as yet.)

So, perhaps Jessie’s original research into Moses Barrows was for
proof of descent from a Revolutionary War Veteran in order for
her to join the Daughters of the American Revolution and that
eventually led to her becoming a professional genealogist?

Whether that was actually the case or not, I do think the letters
show Jessie to be a bright, literate woman with a no nonsense
approach. She is indicative of the way American women and
society were changing at the start of the Twentieth Century.
And I found the glimpse into how research into the Pension
Files was done a century ago fascinating.

As I said, I’ll be blogging more about Jessie’s correspondence
but for the moment I’m going to turn my attention back to my
own ancestors.

BLOGGING BRUNCH6

It seems to be a quiet day in many of the genealogy blogs I read
most often so after watching the Patriots game I started to dl the
the Revolutionary War Pension File for my ancestor Amos
Hastings from Footnotes.com. Last night I downloaded those of
Jesse Barker, the brother of my ancestor Jonathan Barker, which
is much smaller than his other brother Benjamin’s and the
Hastings file as well.


So far I’ve found Pension Files for seven ancestors at Footnotes
and the service records and rolls for some of them. It’s a windfall
of information for me and along with the Jesse Tuttle story they
should provide me with plenty of blogging material.


But I do want to get my files here more organized, so I ordered a
copy of Elizabeth Shown Mill’s book Evidence: Citation &
Analysis for the Family Historian so I can get more of a handle
on all the material I have found lately.


And I still need to come up with another thirty or so genealogical
uses for the fluteaphone!

JOHN CUTTER WEST SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES

Ok. Janice made me do it!

MRS. JESSIE H. TUTTLE PT4

Continuing the story of Mrs. Jessie H. Tuttle's correspondence
I’ve found at Footnote.com while exploring my ancestors’ in the
Revolutionary War Pension Files:


Some months passed between the previous exchange and the
next one that I found in Moses Barrows’ file. Perhaps an event
called World War 1 might have had something to do with the
delay?


It was February 1917 before Jessie sent the check:


"4650 Fremont Ave. So.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Feb. 17,1917
Commissioner of Pensions
Dear Sir:-
Enclosed please find my certified check for $3.15. Please send
me photographic copies of the eleven pages concerning the
pension claim of Lemuel Stimson, widow file 7222
Revolutionary War, and the ten pages concerning the claim of
Moses Barrows Widows file 18560.

In both there are 21 pages at 15 cents page making 3.15..
I do not care for certified copies.

Very truly yours
Jessie H. Tuttle"

Jessie emphatically underlined "certified".

Written above Jessie’s address in another’s handwriting is:

“Check for $3.15 rec’d--(three initials that I cannot decipher).


And a few days later came the typewritten reply:

“Rev. War Section

Feb.27,1917
Jessie H. Tuttle
4650 Fremont Ave, South
Minneapolis, Minn.
Madam:
In reply to your letter of the 17th instant, herewith
are enclosed copies of eleven pages from the Revolutionary
War pension claim of Lemuel and Catharine Stimson. Mass.
W.7222, and of ten pages from the Revolutionary War pension
claim of Elizabeth widow of Moses Barrows, Mass. W. 18,560,
said uncertified Photostat copies are furnished to you under the
provisions of the act of August 21,1912.
Very respectfuly,
G.M. Saltzgaber
Commisioner"



I had to smile at the underlined “certified” in Jessie’s request.
She might have been living in Minnesota but she had Yankee
frugality. She was getting copies of government files from a
government agency mailed no doubt with an official stamp in a
government envelope. Why spend extra money for certification
of something so patently obvious ?


So that concluded Jessie’s mail in the Moses Barrows’ file. A few
years later she sought information about his brother Asa,
perhaps having only just then learned of Asa’s existence. I was
certain Jessie must have been related to the Barrows family and
as Janice Brown of Cow Hampshire kindly proved in her
comments to part 1 of this series of post, Jessie's genealogy
shows she was indeed descended from Moses and so a distant
cousin of mine.


I decided to see if Jessie made any other inquiries from the
Pension Dept.

THE 32nd CARNIVAL OF GENEALOGY IS UP

The new Carnival of Genealogy is up over at Susan Kitchen's blog,
Family Oral History Using Digital Tools and I'm
looking forward to reading all of the posts during the
day later today when I'm more awake and able to
appreciate their contents more.

I missed this COG dateline.

The dog ate my keyboard.


Ok. I forgot. I was busy with the Jessie Tuttle series
and forgot.

Ah well. Next time!

MRS. JESSIE H. TUTTLE PT3

One of the cool things about the Revolutionary War Pension Files
from the National Archives at Footnote.com is the glimpses you
catch either of people’s lives or of how things were done back in
earlier times, such as how far genealogy research has come.

Here is another exchange between Jessie Tuttle and
Commisioner G.M. Saltzgaber:

"4650 Fremont Ave So.
Minneapolis, Minn., May 29,1916
Commissioner of Pensions
Dear Sir:-
Will you please inform me how many pages there are in the
Rev. War pension claims of the two following:
Moses Barrows enlisted 1780 Res at enlistment, Plympton,
Ma. Married Elizabeth Colby at NewTown, N.H. July 29, 1789.
She was pensioned as his widow-application dated Oct 20,
1838. Res. at date of application Irasburg, Vermont. He enlisted
1780 under Capt David Holbrook and Colonel Shephard, Mass.
also-
Lemuel Stimson
Enlisted May 1775-8 mos. Nathan Fuller Capt. Thos. Gardiner,
Col.
Enlisted May & June 1776. 5 mos. Capt Charles Miles, Col. Reed.
Date of Application Oct 16-1832 Res at date of application
Ashburnham, Mass. Born July 11 -1758 Weston, Mass.
died Ashburnham Sept 22, 1840
and greatly oblige
Mrs. Geo. E. Tuttle"

There is a round U. S. Pension Office postmark of May 31, 1916
By this time Jessie must have been noticed by the clerks of the
Pension Dept. Image 51 of the file seems to be some sort of inner
office memo about this request:




“Moses Barrows, Born in Mass. where he lived until after the
Revolutionary war. Presumably in a Mass. Regt. Died in Irasburg
Vt. His wife Elizabeth is said to have drawn a pension. It is not
known whether he did. Mrs. Barrows also died in Irasburg, Vt.

Lebbeus Hammand, said to have been in troops of the Conn. line.
The Company was raised, however in Westmoreland Co. Penn
(Wyoming) He is spoken of as the “famous Indian scout.” Escaped
from the massacre of Ft. Wyoming in 1778. Drew penson. Died in
Tioga Co. N.Y.

Lemuel Stimson, of Weston Mass. Seems to have been at Bunker
Hill with Col. Gardner who was killed there.

I do not know precisely what is wanted but, but presumably the
service. I suppose also the lady thinks that there will be a full
history of the soldier’s experience. If the record should show
anything more than the bare service any particulars would of
course be thankfully received. I imagine that it will be pretty
difficult to verify the service.

To
H.E. Warner
Bureau of Pensions
Thro Marsh’s Desk"

And so a reply was sent to Jessie Tuttle:


"June 5, 1916,
Mrs. G. E. Tuttle
4650 Fremont Ave South,
Minneapolis, Minn.

Madam:
In reply to your letter of the 29th instant, you are advised that
under the Act of August 24, 1918, a charge of 15 cents is made
for each sheet photographed, with 25 cents additional for
certification if that is desired. If a certified copy be ordered it
will be necessary to place on the certificate a ten cent internal
revenue documentary stamp. Each stamp should be forwarded
and not included in the remittance.

The proper amount should be forwarded by certified check,
draft, money order or cashier’s check.
In the pension claim, Lemuel Stimson, Widow File 7222,
Revolutionary War, there are eleven sheets to be copied, the
cost would be 1.65 uncertified, or $1.90 certified and a stamp as
described above.

In the pension claim, Moses Barrows, Widow File 18560, Rev-
olutionary War, there are ten sheets to be copied, the cost
would be $1.50 uncertified or $ 1.75 certified and a stamp also.
Very respectfully,
G.M. Saltzgaber
Commissioner "

Handwritten below the last paragraph and off in the is the
following:

“The ten sheets are 6 pieces, namely -
widow’s decla. of Oct 20 1838-
letter of F. S. Durwage dated Boston Sept. 9,1840
town record of Concord Feb. 26, 1839
affidavits of Joshua Johnson &
Experience “ } Oct 17,1838
& unsigned memorandums.
These are the only essential papers.”

But as we shall see, Jessie Tuttle didn’t quite yet obtain her
documents.

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" IN MASSACHUSETTS

The BBC genealogy television show “Who Do You Think You
Are?” recently visited the Hazen Garrison House in Haverhill,
Ma. to shoot footage for an upcoming show. They wouldn’t say
which celebrity’s roots might cause a visit to a 300 year old
home in New England.

More in the article here.

MRS. JESSIE H. TUTTLE PT 2

A few months after obtaining the Revolutionary Pension Files of
my ancestors Asa Barrows and John Ames from Footnote.com
during a free trial membership, I took out a monthly subscription
and started searching for files of other ancestors and their
siblings.


One of the first I found was the file of Asa’s brother, Moses. And
there again I encountered Mrs. Jessie H. Tuttle. Notice that the
correspondence took place some years before her inquiry on
Asa.


“4650 Fremont Ave So.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Sept.4th 1915

Commissioner of Pensions
Dear Sir:-
Will you kindly give me the date of the death of Elizabeth Colby
Barrows who was pensioned as the widow of Moses Barrows
who enlisted in the Rev. from Plympton, Mass. She probably
died in Irasburg, Vt.

Will you also please tell if it plainly states in Moses Barrows
pension record that he died Jan 10, 1823.? If we prove this date
to be wrong, can it be changed in the records?”

I noticed that Jessie didn’t sign her note.


So did the official who sent her a reply:


“Name Unknown,
4650 Fremont Ave, So.
Minneapolis, Minn.

Madam:
In response to your unsigned letter dated the 4th instant, you
are advised that in her declaration for pension, signed and
sworn before the Judge of the Court of Orleans County,
Vermont, October 20th, 1838, Elizabeth Barrows testified that
her husband died ‘on the tenth day of January A.D. 1823' and
that this Bureau has no authority to change it.


For the date and place of the widow’s death and the name of
the person to whom the arrears of her pension were paid,
application should be made to the Auditor for the Interior
Department, U.S. Treasury Department, giving him all of the
following data:

“Elizabeth Barrows widow of Moses Barrows, Certificate No.
1513, issued August 26, 1848, for $80. per annum from March
4, 1848 under the Act of February 2, 1848, at the Poultney,
Vermont Agency”.


Very Respectfully,
G.M. Saltzgaber
Commissioner.”

If this was not the first encounter between Mr. Saltzgaber and
Mrs, Tuttle, then it was certainly one among many.
And she wasn’t done with Moses Barrows yet.

MRS. JESSIE H. TUTTLE PT 1

I’m going to post the transcriptions of the Barrows
brothers soon as well as eventually those of Amos
Hastings and the Barker brothers, although I may
hold off on my direct ancestor Jonathan Barker’s
brother Benjamin, whose Revolutionary War Pension
File has 85 images!



But before that, let me introduce you to Mrs.
Jessie H. Tuttle.


On image 2 of Asa Barrow’s file is the notation,
written vertically along the inner edge of a notebook
page “Hist. to Jessie H. Tuttle.


I wondered who that might be, and discovered more
on images 9 and 11. For some reason the order of
the correspondence is reversed, so I’ve put them
back in the right order for clarification here.

Image 11:

“3730 Grand Ave, Minneapolis, Minn. Aug.1,1923
Commissioner of Pensions,
Dear Sir: -

Will you please send me record
of pension claim of
Asa Barrows.
born July 28 (1750?) in Plymouth Co, Mass.
married Feb 12, 1781 Content Benson,
died Oxford Co. Maine about May 1834
placed on pension roll (Maine) July 23
1833 aged 83. Pension began May 4, 1831.
Served in Massachusetts.
Thanking you in advance
I am yours very truly
Mrs Jessie H. Tuttle”


A round stamp to the bottom left of Jessie’s signature
shows that her request was received at the Pension
Office on Aug 3 1923

Image 9 is the typewritten reply to Jessie Tuttle’s request:



Image 9 is the typewritten reply to Jessie Tuttle’s request:
“Rev. War Section”
September 18, 1923.
Jessie H. Tuttle,
3730 Grand Ave.
Minneapolis, Minn.
“Madam;
I have to advise you that from the papers in
the Revolutionary War pension claim, S. 16038,it
appears that Asa Barrows, while living in Plymton,
Plymouth County, Massachusetts, enlisted April 1775,
and served as a private eight months in Captain
Joshua Benson’s company, Colonel Cotton’s regiment,
Massachusetts troops.
He enlisted December 1776 and served six weeks
under Lieutenant Joshua Perkins. The last of July
1780, he enlisted and serve two weeks under Captain
Perez Churchill
He was allowed pension on his application exe-
cuted August 28, 1832, while a resident of Hamlin’s
Grove, Oxford County, Maine, aged eighty one years.
There is no data on file as to his family.
Respectfully,

Commissioner.”

The letter is unsigned. A carbon copy, perhaps?

I wondered what relationship Mrs. Tuttle might have to
Asa Barrows. Was she a relative, or researching the Barrows
family for some other purpose?

I wondered briefly and then set the matter aside for now.
Then I downloaded the records of Moses Barrows, Asa’s
brother, and once more encountered the redoubtable
Jessie Tuttle.

BLOGGING BRUNCH5

Another hour or so this morning at my kb with the mandatory
cup of coffee as I browse the genealogy blogs.


The A*******.com debate continues with posts at Dick
Eastman’s blog and Craig Manson’s careful examination of the
legal issues involved at his site. One thing I must comment on is
that while I don’t agree with Dick’s point of view, I do feel he has
handled some of the less than civil commentary with grace and
style.


Several of his commenters let their anger get the better of
themselves and it added nothing useful to the debate, nor is
Dick deserving of ad hominem attacks.


I did notice at the WorldVitalRecords Blog something that may
be at offshoot of the controversy. In an invitation to genealogists
to upload their gedcom files to their FamilyLink.com site, they
added this:

“Important: Your family tree is YOUR data. You can remove it
at any time, limit who can see it, collaborate with others and
grow it together, and share it with whomever you choose. We
will never charge others to search and access YOUR data.”


Now I don’t know if they’ve posted that before, but in light of
recent events it certainly caught my attention today.

49 USES FOR A FLUTAPHONE NUMBERS 9-13

Astute readers will note that my first entry in this list was for
numbers 1 to 5 and I’m suddenly at number 9.


That’s because Janice and Apple took pity on a befuddled old
man and contributed 6,7, and 8 in comments.


If anyone else is likewise moved to such kindness, feel free to
send your use for a flutaphone right along!




9. Flower holder- for when you visit the ancestral grave. Stick
sharp pointy mouthpiece into the ground and your flowers into
the other end of the flutaphone.



10. Bookmark-When you have to leave your chair for a moment
to ask the librarian to find you another genealogy book in
the stacks.
NOTE- DO NOT LET THE LIBRARIAN SEE YOU DO
THIS!!



11. Bookfetcher- That particular tome on a shelf you can’t quite
reach? Using the pointy mouthpiece end, gently rock the book
loose and down.


12. Bookcatcher- See above. Quickly reverse the flutaphone to
catch the falling book on the wide-ended mouth. If the
librarian notices, tell her you are practicing balancing the
books.

13. Eartrumpet- For when a librarian starts yelling. Insert
narrow end in ear after REMOVING the pointy mouthpiece.
Remember, catch any books before they hit the floor if you
were performing uses numbers 11 and/or 12 when the
librarian started yelling. Turn wide end towards librarian
and say “Eh?”

For some esoteric reason, my spellchecker wants to change
flutaphone to glutathione.

Some late night message from an ancestor about chemicals, maybe?

BEARDS & BARKERS

Tim Abbot at Walking the Berkshires did a post on “Beard Envy”
the other day and it put me in mind of a pic that a newfound

Barker family cousin sent me about a month ago.

This is Symonds Epes Barker Jr. He was the son of Symonds

Epes Barker, Sr. whose parents were Jonathan Barker and

Abigail Mitchell. Jonathan was descended from Richard Barker,

one of the first settlers of Andover, Ma.

I’m descended from Jonathan and Abigail’s son Jonathan

through my grandmother Cora Berthella Barker.

So far, this is the only picture of a fully bearded relative, near or
distant that I have seen. My grandfather West grew one

occasionally I think but nothing on the scale of the 19th century

styles!

By the way, I asked Tim and his mother’s Barker line is a

different one from mine, but there is a connection through our

Abbot(t) line where we are both descended from Richard Barker

of Andover.

49 USES FOR A FLUTAPHONE NUMBERS 1-5

Ok, Janice, I couldn’t come up with 49 genealogy
related uses for a flutaphone.


But there’s one here and more to come among the others.

1. Doorstop- It’s more humane than using dead cats
or dead Wesley Crushers. And it smells better.


2. Windchimes


3. A Habitat trail for Earthworms-All those finger holes.
“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out…”


4. Tank decoration for guppies- All those finger holes.
“ The fish swim in, the fish swim out…”


5. A defensive weapon-For when that librarian finally snaps
when you ask her to find another dusty volume in the stacks.
Mouthpieces on flutaphones are pointy!!!


To be continued.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG....

Okay, let’s move along to other matters, shall we?


footnoteMaven has given me a “Nice Matters” award
for which I thank her and which I shall proudly display.
It was created by Genevieve Olsen of Bella Enchanted

The only trouble I have is coming up with others to give the
award to, though. Not that I can’t think of anyone nice, just
that there are so many, and then the ones I think of first
have already gotten the award.


Luckily, I’m able to give one to Tim Abbott for his thoughtful
writing on the environment and history as well as for running
his Family Archive Photo Caption Contest. He was the first of
my distant cousins I’ve discovered online and is a gentleman
and a scholar.



The records I’ve found at Footnote.com will keep me busy for
some time. My direct ancestor Jonathan Barker’s pension file is
only thirteen pages long but his brother Benjamin’s is fifty and
there are the Revolutionary War Rolls and Service Records as
well. The Pension File for Amos Hastings, another ancestor, is
thirty pages.



And I going to post it all here, or the transcriptions that is, to
share with my readers.


I can see those hits already plummeting!


Ah well, back to the genealogy mines.

BEDTIME BOOGIE 2

A few random things as I sit and wait to feel sleepy…

Apparently A*******.com was well aware of genealogy bloggers’
opinions on the recent controversy. A post and comment on
Craig's Geneablogie mentioned the location of Pleasant Grove,
Utah and sure enough, when I checked my Statcounter there it
was. So all those posts from the community were being read.

Thanks to Janice at Cow Hampshire and Becky at Kinnexions
for alerting us all!

I gave myself a belated birthday gift and took a monthly
subscription to Footnote.com and straightaway found some
Revolutionary Pension files on another Barrows and two Barker
relatives, as well as another encounter with the name Jessie
Tuttle. More on that in future posts.


Also, I dl Family Tree Legends and am very impressed with it. It’s
much easier to make reports and charts than with PAF and there’s
more types of each to choose from. Editing is easier too I think. But
I’ll be interested to see what more experienced genealogists like
Randy at Genea-Musings think of FTL as compared to the others.


OK, I think I am ready for bed.

MORE ON SCRAPING, CACHING, AND BLOGGING

Another thought on A*******.com and the scraping/caching topic.

I’ve seen a few people who say they’ll not post any more of their
research to their blogs so that A*******.com can’t harvest it.
That’s their right of course but it seems to me that does nothing
really to The Corporation That Shall NOT Be Named but does
harm the genealogy blogging community.


I hope I can put this coherently.


The reason there is a genealogy blogging community is the way
we share our families with each other. We set out facts, show
pictures, and tell stories about our ancestors. Yes, posts about
the actual research processing and tips about archives and
sources are a vital part of this as well, but it’s the personal side of
our individual searches that makes it a community.


I’ve gained a lot since I started this blog. I’ve met distant relatives
I didn’t know about. I’ve learned things I didn’t know about
history and new ways to do my research. I’ve shared things like
my Aunt Dot’s memories and read about the families of other
bloggers.


None of it would have happened without the openness of this
blogging community.



So. I’ll continue posting my research and photos and family
stories here.


I urge others who are thinking of not posting research to their
own blog because of A*******.com’s actions to reconsider and
continue to keep this genealogy blog community the lively thing
it is.

EARLY MORNING GENEALOGY SCRAPING

I have been working a mid day (noon to 9pm)shift at work the
last few nights and so I’ve been getting online a bit later than
I usually do (and that’s fairly late already). So I’ve come to the
discussion over Ancestry.com’s newest…er….venture(?) only
now.

I’m not very sharp minded at 3:15am, so I’ll not even attempt to
discuss why I find the scraping tactic ethically challenged except
to say that whenever I’ve used material from others’ sites on this
blog I’ve asked their permission first. I expect the same courtesy
to be extended towards me in using my blog posts.

I do not charge anyone to read or make use of the information. I
would expect that should anyone, oh, say, the corporation in
question, were to make use of my writing posted here that they
would likewise not charge others to read it. (Although I don't
know if they've used anything of mine. I'm not a subscriber.)


I don’t ask readers to register here to view my blog. I would
expect that …well…you get the picture.

Okay, henceforth, the Corporation in Question’s name will be
either referred to as A*******.com or as They Who Shall NOT
Be Named (TWSNBN for short) and there will be no links or tags
with said Corporation’s full name should the occasion arise that
they are even mentioned.

And I’ve copyrighted the blog and added a Creative Commons
Copyright notice, something that in hindsight I probably should
have done earlier but in my innocence and enthusiasm did not
think necessary for a genealogy blog.

CAVEAT GENEALOGIS

“CAVEAT GENEALOGIS
"Genealogist Beware -
Trust only your independent verification."
(Yes, I made up the Latin)-Diana, 2000”


I haven’t posted anything here for the past week. I’ve really not
been up to it. My friend Diana, who got me started with the online
part of my genealogy search, had been on life support.


She passed away this Sunday afternoon.


So I thought I’d share some of her thoughts about online
genealogy with you. Keep in mind this was written seven years
ago so some of it is dated.

You can find them at:
http://quicksilver.spiraldreams.com/tracing/index2.html

A GENEALOGICAL "DOH!"

It’s been sort of a slow day today here genealogy activity wise.
I’m still concerned about my friend Diana and didn’t feel much
like scanning old family pictures either. So I read some of the
Carnival of Genealogy and laughed (again) at Janice’s “Genealogy
Seminars I’d Like to See” and did likewise at John Newmark’s
“What If” at his Transylvanian Dutch blog. One of the great
things about the CoG is how I keep finding new blogs to add to
my link list. Today I added John’s.


The next CoG, the 31st, will be “Confirm or Debunk: Family
Myths, Legends, and Lore.” I wasn’t sure I’d be contributing to
that since I’d already sent the story of the family Blackfoot Indian
legend in and couldn’t think of anything new to write. Then I
remembered my post back in April about Lydia Phelps and sent
that.

Saturday night I was adding more Ellingwood siblings of my
ancestors to my charts I noticed that one of Ralph Ellingwood
Sr.’s daughters, Mary, had married a John Smith. Since I use PAF
I did a search on FamilySearch, then confirmed what I found over
on several of the RootsWeb WorldConnect files: John Smith and
Mary Ellingwood’s daughter Abigail married Ebenezer Dunham.


Now I’ve always known about the connection between the
Dunhams and Ellingwoods because of the marriage of Asa F.
Ellingwood to Florilla Dunham. And when I looked at my pedigree
charts, sure enough, there was John Smith but Mary’s name was
spelled Ellenwood, one of the alternative versions


Well, that thud you perhaps heard very early Sunday morning
was my jaw hitting the floor. Which was followed by a Homer
Simpson like “DOH!” at my never noticing it. I emailed Chris
Dunham about it and he’d known about it from his own research.


It's the kind of “Would you believe…?” thing that I hope to tell
Diana about soon.

BLOGGING BRUNCH4

I’ve been busy adding Ellingwood and Barrows cousins to my
family tree the last few nights. A good friend of mine is very ill
and since she lives far away all I can do is keep a good thought
and pray for her. I’m in no state of mind to be too creative so
entering names and dates provides a bit of a distraction for me.


I’ve also been reorganizing my browser bookmarks. The list of
links dealing with genealogy has grown so much I finally made a
separate folder for them. While doing that I realized that I didn’t
have a link on the blog for Chris Dunham’s Genealogue, so I fixed
that oversight as well.


There’s been a discussion going on about the terms “genealogist”
and “family historian” and which one best applies to what many
of us are doing. It started at Schelly Talalay Dardashti’s blog,
Tracing the Tribe and then continued on Jasia’s Creative Gene,
Chris Dunham’s The Genealogue and footnoteMaven’s blogs. As
usual, a lot of good thoughtful writing.


After reading them, I’ve decided I fall under the category Jasia
calls “geneahistorian”: I search for people to add their names and
dates to my family tree but I also look for and write about the
events of their lives. It reflects how I’ve always viewed history in
general, with the emphasis on “story”.

FROM GRANDMOTHER WEST"S BIBLE

In Late November 1979 my parents received a letter from

Florence O’Connor, a cousin of my Dad’s, announcing she had

written a book “The Ancestors and Descendants of Asa Freeman

and Florilla (Dunham) Ellingwood”. It would trace our

Ellingwood line from Ralph in Salem, Ma in 1635 and the

Dunhams from 1294 in England. A major part of the book would

deal with Asa and Florilla’s ten children and other relatives. The

hardcover book would cost $17.50.

I’m not sure if it was my folks or myself who sent the money(I’d

just turned 21and was out in the workforce.) The book arrived

and I sent Mrs. O’Connor a letter asking for more details about

the West line. She very kindly sent me a typed out transcription

of her Grandmother West’s Bible. That would have been Clarinda

Britton West, daughter to Jonathan Cutter West and Arvilla

Ames. She also sent information on our Richardson line and

another two sheets on the various West marriages and children.

At some point during the 1980’s I took the book to work and

photocopied the entries for the Ellingwoods and added them to

the file of pedigree and family sheets Aunt Dot had sent us. The

book is packed away somewhere (I hope) after several moves but

I still have those Ellingwood photocopied pages and the typed

correspondence from Mrs. O’Connor.

So, above is a scan of the transcription from Mrs. O’Connor, to

whom I am grateful. Along with Aunt Dot, she gave me the

beginnings of my interest in genealogy.

JOHN AMES HEIRS

((Some of the following information was found on the IGI and at
the Rootsweb Peru, Oxford, Maine and Canton, Oxford, Maine
Genealogy Projects of Craig Bryant and as I say in my blog
header, is not entirely set in stone until its been verified.)



Between them John Ames and Lydia Phelps had ten children;
Lydia’s three children by her first husband, Sampson Read
(Sampson, Lydia and Amy) were not included on John Ames’
petition possibly because as stepchildren their claims were
superseded by his own children. Also, one, Sampson Read Jr.,
was already dead so his sisters might have also passed away
already.



Of the seven Ames children, one, Ezekiel (or Ezekial) is missing
from the list of John’s heirs. Ezekiel died in Hartford Maine on 12
November 1806 at age 23 and may have been the husband of
Lydia Chickering but I’ve not yet found convincing evidence of
that.


John and Lydia’s remaining six children were already middle
aged themselves at the time the petition was filed in 1832.

The eldest, John Ames(another one!), was 53 years old and
married to Grace(last name unknown). They had seven children,
four girls and three boys.


The next son, Jonathan Phelps Ames, married Polly Griffith and
had ten children. Polly died in 1834 and Jonathan married her
sister Sarah with whom he had three more children. (Jonathan
and Polly’s daughter Arvilla is my ancestor through her marriage
to John Cutter West.) He was 51 years old at the time of the
petition.



Sally Ames married Isaac Fuller with whom she had at least one
child that I’ve been able to find and was 48 years old when the
petition was filed.



Polly Ames was 47 at the filing and was married to Sylvanus
Poland.They had nine children. Two of her sons had “Ames” as
their middle name


Finally, Betsey (or Betsy) was married to James Putnam and had
two children. She was 42 years old in 1832. Like her sister Polly's,
several of her children and grandchildren had the middle name
“Ames”.


Some of the grandchildren married each other. John Phelps
Ames’ son Generous married his cousin Grace Ames, daughter
of his Uncle John Ames.(They had a son with the unique name of
Generous Fernando Ames!) Sally Ames’ son Ezekiel married his
cousin Asenath, daughter of his uncle Ralph Ames. And overall,
John Ames’ tribe increased, with nearly thirty grandchildren at
the time of his death.


I’m sure there are posts in the future about these cousins of
mine, but for now, this concludes my series on John Ames and
his Revolutionary War pension file.

GENEALOGY GRIN

Janice Brown over at CowHampshire has posted about a
genealogy seminar she'd like to see and I am honored to be
listed among the.. umm..presenters.


Now all I have to do is come up with things to do with a
flutaphone!


Thanks for the mention, Janice, and for a laugh that I
really needed!

ON GENEALOGY & FLUTAPHONES

Hmm. My blog traffic has fallen off a bit lately. Maybe my John
Ames' posts are too boring? Wait until I do Asa Barrows.

As an interesting note, the keyword that's attracted the most
hits here lately is "flutaphone"!

Go figure!

JOHN AMES: NAMES2

I wasn’t able to find much about the other soldiers listed
in John Ames’ petition. It’s possible that David and John
Hazen were cousins of the Ames family through their mother
who was Betty Nutting. John's mother was Sarah Nutting.


But I was more successful with his witness, Obadiah Wetherell.


In History of the Old Towns, Norridgewock and Canaan:
Comprising Norridgewock, Canaan, Starks ... by John Wesley
Hanson I learned:


Obadiah Wetherell did indeed continue as a soldier in the
Continental Army for three years and eight months. He was
present at the Battles of White Plains and Monmouth and
the surrender of General Burgoyne. Like many others from the
Groton area he eventually migrated to Norridgewock, Maine.
He and his half brother Charles (another veteran of the
Revolution) were prominent citizens in the new town. The
earliest town record is an warrant to Obadiah to assemble the
free men of the area to elect a government in 1788. At that
meeting Obadiah was one of several men appointed as a town
surveyor. He also owned a farm.


In 1794 Obadiah served on the committee to finish the building
of the town meetinghouse.

A further reference was found on a website with the Journal of
the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873 that on
2 Feb 1832 a petition was presented to the U.S. Senate by a Mr.
Sprague on behalf of Obadiah Wetherell asking that he be
restored to the roll of Revolutionary War pensioners. But in June
of the same year Sprague asked that Wetherell be allowed to
withdraw his petition and it was so ordered. Sprague was Senator
Peleg Sprague of Maine. Why Obadiah was removed as a
pensioner in the first place and why he later withdrew his petition
I have yet to discover.

He was 99 when he died in 1847

The final part will deal with John Ames' heirs.

SYNCHRONICITY

I’ve been searching the web for information on the men who are
mentioned on the Ames petition and ran into one of those cases
of synchronicity that makes genealogy fun.

Many of the early settlers of Norridgewock, Maine came from
Groton, Mass. I found some lists and besides the names I was
looking for I found John Laughton. Now I have three John
Laughtons among my ancestors, and a quick look at their sheets
told me that the John Laughton on the list was the first of them,
who is my 6x great grandfather. His great great granddaughter
Louisa Almata Richardson married Jonathan Phelps West.
His mother was Arvilla Ames.


I know it’s not all that uncommon for these coincidences to pop
up given the size of the population in Maine in that era but still
it tickles me to think John Laughton and John Ames might have
known each other.


What would they have thought if they knew their descendants
would marry?

Gee, I hope they liked each other!

JOHN AMES: NAMES

I’m nearly done with my exploration of the John Ames pension
request file. But I thought it might be interesting to flesh out
some of the different names that appear on it.

So, for this post let’s look at some of the witnesses and
officials:

William Allen Jr. to whom John Ames’ Certificate of Pension was
sent was a surveyor, clerk and writer. Among his works are
histories of the towns of Industry and Norridgewock, Maine, and
a journal of his and his family’s experiences as earlier settlers in
the area.


Nathan Weston Jr, Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court before
whom John appeared to make his declaration of service went on
to serve as Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court for seven
years. (1834-1841). Among his descendants was his grandson,
Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court Melville Weston Fuller.

Cornelius Holland the member of Congress cited as a character
witness for John was a practicing physician from Canton, Maine
who had been a Maine State Representaive and State Senator.
He was a member of the Democratic Party and after being
appointed to serve out the term of a congressman, he won
re-election for the seat and served in Congress from 1830-
1833.


Charles Fuller, the other character witness from Canton, might
have been a relative of Isaac Fuller, husband of John Ames’
daughter Sally.



William Spaulding, John Ames’ childhood schoolmate, may be
the same William Spaulding who held the position of Postmaster
for Norridgewock in 1816. He also quite possibly was a cousin of
John’s through a common descent from William Green and Mary
Crispe.

JOHN AMES, SCHOOLMASTER?

Way back here in my series of posts about John Ames’
Revolutionary War pension file, I listed several questions I had.
One of them was this: One of the witnesses, William Spaulding,
testifies that he knewJohn Ames from childhood and that when
he “was a boy I went to school with him at his fathers house in
Groton.” If John’s father,who was also named John Ames, was
a school master, this is the first I’d seen mention of that. Was
this true?

I have known the answer for a few weeks now but pushed the
topic to a back burner while transcribing my Aunt Dot’s
memories.

A search at Google Books brought me to “History of the Town of
Groton: Including Pepperell and Shirley, from the First Grant
of Groton Plantation in 1655” by Caleb Butler. It seems that the
town hadn’t a school house but instead held classes in several
different locations. In 1741 it was voted to hold school “in five
places, six weeks a place.” In 1742 seven places were chosen, and
in 1745 only four. Eventually there was a school house built in
the middle of the town but those living more than two miles away
could have classes held closer to their homes.


As I said, I’d not seen any records to indicate any of the Ames of
colonial Groton were schoolmasters or teachers. But in 1717 the
town was charged as being in violation of the law by the General
Court of Massachusetts for not having a school master. A petition
was sent to the General Court which pointed out that Groton was
at that time a small town with fewer than a hundred families and
many were not able to contribute funds for a school. But it also
explained that the town had hired a school master the previous
December. In light of that fact the town hoped that the charge
against it would be dropped, and it was.


The petition was presented to the General Court for Groton by
John Ames. Given the year was 1717/8 that would have to be
either the first John Ames, son of Robert Ames and Rebecca
Blake, or his son John Ames, Jr. John Ames 3rd would have
owned the house where William Spaulding went to school with
the fourth John Ames.


Too many Johns there! Almost the genealogy equivalent of
"Who's on First?"


So, while there were no schoolteachers in the Ames of Groton of
that period, they seem to have been one of the families active in
seeing the town’s children were getting an education.

BLOGGING BRUNCH3

The 29th Carnival of Genealogy is up and once more has a bunch
of interesting writing from other genealogy blogs. I’ve spent the
past hour or so reading them as I sat here with my cup of coffee.
The subject is ethical or moral dilemmas in genealogical research
which was what prompted my own post about my White family
dilemma.

Next Carnival is on genealogy conference experiences and since
I’ve never been to one and am not likely to before the next
deadline, I’ll have to sit that one out. (The last conference or
convention I attended featured people in Wookie costumes.
That was some 20 years ago.)


Meanwhile, I’ll distract myself from the heat by digging in the
past.

MY DILEMMA

When I went to my nephew’s wedding two weekends ago I had
the chance to spend some time with my aunts from both sides of
my family: Aunt Dot, my Dad’s sister, and my Aunt Emily, my
Uncle Ed’s wife and Mom’s sister-in-law.


I was seated next to my cousin Winnie, Emily’s daughter, and the
subject of our grandfather Edward F. White, Sr. came up. I heard
a few things I hadn’t known. Not only had he been unfaithful to his
wife Aggie, he’d done it under their own roof, and that at some
point my Mom and Emily had gone looking for him and found out
that not only had he remarried, he’d named one of his new family
Edward, the same name as his eldest son, my uncle. I don’t know
if they confronted him or not. I do know that as far as I know, my
mother had no contact with her father for most of her life from her
childhood to her death.


That hurt. I think it had always bothered her not only that he’d
left the family in the first place, but also that he’d never been
around for things a father should have been or made an effort to
know his grandchildren. Not only that, but none of the rest of his
family ever contacted her either.


That’s the operative term: “as far as I know.” Mom might have
heard from her father at some point, or maybe Uncle Ed had, and
they both would never have said anything. They might have
wanted more of a relationship or not, but even if they had, their
loyalty and love for their mother would be stronger.

I've thought about all this over the years but it's sort of become
more frequent since that wedding. Blood is thicker than water,
they say. How could Edward F. White Sr. do what he had and then
cut off all contact?



I’ve always suspected he or perhaps another White relative might
have been keeping tabs on Mom and Uncle Ed. There were times
when the phone rang and I answered it, and while whoever it was
didn’t speak, they didn’t hang up immediately, either. I’d ask who
it was and after they didn’t answer, I would hang up. I’ve thought
about it and I’m fairly certain the phone calls stopped shortly after
Mom died.



So here’s my dilemma: I want to know about my grandfather. Did
he ever tell his new family that they had a half-brother and sister?
Did he try to see Mom or Uncle Ed at any time? Did he somehow
follow news of their lives? How much of story did the rest of his
family and my grandmother’s family know? And what was his
version of why he and Aggie’s marriage ended?



Let’s be clear here. I saw the effects on Aggie and on my Mom.
My love and loyalty is with them and my Uncle. But every story
has two sides and I’d like to hear his side of it, at least what the
surviving members of his second family might have been told.



There’s also a more logical reason to try to find out more about
him. Both Mom and Uncle Ed died of cancer. Is there a history
of cancer in the White family? My grandfather’s family’s medical
history could be important to myself, my sister and my brother.


Another dilemma: if any of his other children are still alive,
they’d be in their seventies. Should I contact them? Do I have
the right to surely disrupt their lives if they had never known
of their father’s first marriage?


I don’t know. I am still debating the question with myself.


Do I really want to know everything?

RALPH & THE RELUCTANT BRIDE

Chris Dunham’s post over on The Genealogue about the
upcoming book “The Naked Quaker” by Diane Rapaport
reminded me of a story about a divorce that might or might
not be among those in the book:


In June 1682, a twenty five year old man named Ralph found
himself being divorced by his young wife Katharine, who stated
words to the effect that she’d rather be dead than live with him.
She sued on grounds of her husband’s insufficiency to consummate
their marriage.


Ralph for his part did what any man in 17th century Salem Ma.
might do when faced with such an embarrassing situation: he
claimed that it had to be witchcraft. Not exactly original, and
highly ineffective in the light of the character witnesses Katherine
called to testify in her behalf.



It must have been the talk of the town. Both husband and wife
were given physical examinations, Katherine by a panel of
“goodwives” and Ralph by two men(one of them a chirurgeon)
appointed by the Court. Based on their reports the Court granted
Katherine her divorce and ordered she be allowed to take
whatever clothes and property that she had brought with her into
marriage.


All of this might have been lost in the mists of time except that
there was a court record of the proceedings and several centuries
later the case was cited in articles and a book about women in
Puritan society. I’ve not been able to read any of them in their
entirety but what I have read makes no mention of what
happened after. So in the interest of fairness to Ralph, here’s the
rest of it:

Ralph remained single for nearly 9 years but in August of 1691 he
wed Martha Rowlandson. The marriage lasted nearly 20 years
before her death.


They had 7 children


We don’t know what happened to Katherine after her divorce
from Ralph, There is no record of her maiden name. Hopefully
she too remarried and with a man she loved and who gave her
children of her own.


We’ll never know the exact reason why the marriage of my
ancestor Ralph Ellingwood and his first wife Katherine ended so
scandalously. Possibly it was an arranged match between a man
and a deeply unhappy younger bride. Possibly Ralph was not the
perfect husband and possessed bad manners and lousy personal
hygiene. Perhaps there just wasn't any...spark.

Perhaps he could have used a talk with Dr. Phil, but alas, there
was no Dr. Phil on 17th century Salem.


But obviously Ralph felt he had a point to prove to all of Salem,
and judging by the 7 children he fathered, I guess he did it.


He wasn’t “insufficient”!

BEDTIME GENEALOGY 15

I spent part of the afternoon on the Great July Organize Your
Genealogy Files project. I’d been so wrapped up first in the John
Ames file and then Aunt Dot’s Memories transcriptions that I
hadn’t made very much headway. But I had bought a denim sort
of material expandable file case a week ago to move some of my
files into and today was the day I got that done. These are the
original family sheets Aunt Dot sent us years ago that have been
kept in several manila file folders for years now. While they were
in order most of the time, they frequently would get shuffled
around when I was going through them looking for something.
They certainly look better in the case filed alphabetically by
family name.


I was also looking for some links to some of the places Dot
mentioned in her memories and found one for Gould Academy. I
glanced at the history page and I think either Mr. Hanscom or
Mr. Ireland was the headmaster who finally asked her about my
Dad. I couldn’t find any suitable sites for Wilson’s Mills or the
Azicohos(or Aziscoos) Dam so I’ll have to wait until later for that.


I’ll get back to the John Ames files again in the next few posts.

FOUR GENERATIONS

I'm not certain which one of my cousins Aunt Dot is holding in
this photo, but from left to right, this is my grandfather Floyd E.
West Sr., Aunt Dot and child, and my great grandfather Philip
Jonathan (P.J.) West. The photo must have been taken in the
late forties or early fifties. P. J. passed away in 1954 at 86.

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES5

This is the final installment of my transcription of my Aunt
Dot's thirteen handwritten pages of memories of her and my
Dad's childhood growing up in Oxford County, Maine during
the Depression years. This one shows ..well..a bit of a rebel
strain in them both. Man, if I'd known about this when I was
growing up, I'd have never let Dad live it down!


Up until now I've transcribed everything as written but for
this blog post I've edited two words(the reason should be
self explanatory when you see them) and the left out the
first and middle name of Dad's grade school teacher. My
transcribed copy in my records is unedited.


Our social life was rather sparce. We always looked forward to
the Young Peoples Meetings. It was a group that got together
once a week at a different home each time. We had a short
prayer meeting, played games and had refreshments. Our
minister, Rev. John G. Mantor picked us up and brought us
home each time.

Bud was in the Boy Scouts for several years. Rev. Mantor was
the Scout Master. Bud learned to swim really well during that
time.


Fun at School--


Our grade school was only 2 rooms and all twelve grades were
taught by two teachers. The state changed the requirements
for high school graduates when Bud was in the eighth grade so
he was off to Gould Academy in the fall. Hazel had quit school
during the fall of her junior year but thought it would be great to
go to boarding school so she enrolled as a junior. Guess it wasn’t
that great for her because she quit GA in December and never
went back.


Bud gave folks at Gould a hard time. He wasn’t in to rules and
regulations and did some fancy bending of the rules. He was
caught smoking and was punished. He went into the pool hall
and was suspended for two weeks. Did another stint at home
but I don’t remember what for. After all that-in his junior year-
he came down with the mumps and was sent home again. When
he applied in the fall he was turned down so he didn’t graduate.
-The next year he joined the Army Air Force. During my senior
year I roomed in the headmaster’s home. During the whole 4
years he had never once mentioned Bud to me. It did my heart
good when he asked me one day- that last Spring- what had
happened to my brother. I was so proud I got real brave, for me,
and said, “Oh, he is attending Iowa State Teacher’s College". I
didn‘t bother to mention that the Air Force sent him there to
train for some sort of radio communication.


Back to Grade School


Basically we had some very nice teachers. Only remember one
that none of us liked and of course she was the one who stayed
for three years. Her name was * * Ritchie. One time the boys in
Bud’s class (there were 5 of them) each had to sing a solo -same
song- but each one had to stand in front of the room and sing-
The song went-

In the prison cell I sit
Thinking Mother dear of you-

When it was Bud’s turn he sang- (he was in the 6th or 7th grade)

In the prison cell I sit
With my britches all be sh*t

Miss Ritchie grabbed him -threw him down in his seat and
grabbing him by the ears- slam, slam, slam, his head kept
hitting the desk. Guess she was unhappy with him!


Another time- (I’m in 3rd or 4th grade) I was given an English
paper to write. I was to copy it from a book on the desk behind
me. I kept writing and not looking at the book. She finally
asked what I was doing. I told her doing my lesson. When she
came to look at it I crumpled the paper-ran down front and put
the paper in the bottom of the waste basket. She dumped
everything oh her desk and smoothed out my paper. It said
(about 5 times)

Miss Ritchie is an old b*tchie.


Bud worked several places during the summers-
He worked at road construction when the road below the dam
that went across the river was built.

He worked in the woods with Pop- cutting logs for lumber at
the mill and cutting, loading, and hauling pulp to be pushed into
the river to go to the Berlin paper mills.

There was farming to do for a neighbor so we would have use
of his pasture and hay for our cows.

Also worked at the saw mill.

Guess that is all I remember for now. Sorry this is so messy.

Love to you,
Aunt Dot.

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES4

This is the fourth installment of my transcription of my Aunt
Dot's memories of her and my father Bud growing up in Oxford
County, Maine in the 1920's and `30's.

I knew Dad had shot himself in the foot in his early teens but he
never gave us the real story of how it happened. I do recall seeing
a small round scar on his foot when he happened to be barefoot.



Bud loved to fly fish. We would go down to the river where there
was a great fishing spot at the foot of the old sluice that used to
be used to shoot logs over the dam and down the river. This was
about a mile down river from the dam. The water ran so swift
that it made a roaring noise not unlike the ocean waves coming
onto a rocky shoreline. We really enjoyed those trout.



Bud never left me out when his friends came to play ball. I could
neither catch a ball nor throw it where I wanted it to go. As for
batting, I always swung at the ball but never hit it. Never-the-
less I was never left out of his games and his friends knew better
than to make anything other than encouraging comments.



"The 22 rifle that Bud had was one he bought from a friend-Pop
paid half on it and said that half was mine. We were never
allowed to take the gun out except to target shoot at the corner
of the house. We had set some traps on the mountain behind
the house and wanted to take the 22 when we went to tend to
them. We were told NO! So I went in a back room and stood the
gun out the window. When we left we sort of passed that way
and took it along. When we got to the first trap there was a
skunk in it, Bud loaded the rifle and shot it, then he loaded it
again and stood the barrel on the toe of his sneaker to wait and
see if he needed a second shot. I told him he shouldn’t hold it
that way & he said it was OK because the safety was on. A few
minutes later some chips flew up and hit me and he had shot
himself in thru the foot. He said we needed to hurry home.
The ground was rough and I was winded and lagged behind.
I told him to hurry on as I knew the way. He wouldn’t leave me
behind so I just had to hurry faster. When we got home I ran to
the nearest neighbor to phone for Pop to come home. He got
the gunshot dressed and the doctor came every day and pushed
a swab with iodine on it all the way throu his foot. Bet that felt
good."

AUNT DOT'S MEMORIES3

This is the third in a series of posts that are word for word
transcriptions of 13 hand written pages given to me by my
Dad's sister Dorothy. They are her memories of their childhood
growing up in the Depression era in Oxford County, Maine.


This section deals mostly with Pop...my grandfather Floyd E.
West, Sr. and what jobs he worked at.







"Pop was always afraid of the water-afraid of drowning or of
some of us lost to it.

He had a tiny hut at Beaver Brook- across the lake from where
we were living. He tended traps there all winter crossing the
lake on snowshoes and carrying a pick-pole. When ice started
breaking up in the spring it was pretty scary watching him
leave with his heavy pack sack strapped to his back. He would
step onto a large chunk of ice and shove with his pick-pole until
he got to another chunk big enough to hold him-then step onto
it-or push the chunk out of the way and stay on the one he was
floating on. I always wondered if and when he would come back.
He was gone several days and I used to be afraid the ice would
be all gone when he was ready to return.



When Flossie was born Mother went to Bethel and stayed for
two weeks. She had made new dresses for Hazel and me and I
can still rember those dresses hanging up high on the wall. They
were orange with white daisies with bright blue centers.



While Mother was gone Pop took us out to the dam every day.
Bud & Hazel were allowed to go to the house to play with
cousins Lee and Leita but since Aunt Mabel had a girl (Ruth),
younger than me, he thought she shouldn’t have to watch two
little ones. He always took me to the longshop where he was
building a motorboat for Clarence. I took my naps in the boat
he was working on. The finished boat was named the Kiko.
The last time I saw the Kiko was about 1959/60. It was no
longer the beauty it had been.



Pop had a 9 passenger green buick, convertible, touring car.
The only time I remember riding in it was when we went to
Bethel to get mother. in the late 1930’s Pop cut that car in half
and made a farm tractor out of it. The jitter-bug was all the
rage at that time. There wasn’t money for tractors and many
people were converting old cars to use in the fields. The back
tires were big truck tires.


Among other jobs -Pop was a guide for the fishermen who
came from the big city’s and didn’t know where to catch
anything. Most of the men in town were guides. Besides
knowing where to fish - the guides did the cooking and
entertaining of these guests. Story telling was a great asset.
These men could string out some pretty outlandish yarns.


We moved into the Will Hart place when Flossie was a year
old- 1931. There was a big old barn in the field close by. The
owner had a fishing lodge where he floated his 2 cows to
every summer. In winter we kept the cows in his barn- so had
milk & butter from June to Labor Day. Bud & I loved to climb
in the loft and pitch hay onto the barn floor then jump down
into it."

A DEEP BREATH

Phew, time for a breather.

Since coming home from the wedding I’ve been a busy genealogy
beaver. I sent out copies of the John Ames file to my cousin Diana
in Ohio and didn’t realize I was flooding her email box! So it took
several tries to straighten that out.

I spent a good part of Saturday night trying to send some pictures
to my Aunt Emily, her daughter Winnie and Winnie’s husband
David since the email address I have for them was incorrect. I
think that’s been straightened out as well since the last attempt
hasn’t bounced back at me since Sunday morning. Either that
or some stranger is enjoying old wedding photos!

And then of course I’ve been transcribing the material Aunt Dot
gave me which is a process of scanning the page and then typing
…then stopping to reread again what she wrote because so much
of this is fascinating to find out about Dad. (Well for me at least!
Hopefully I’m not boring those who read this blog with all this
stuff I’ve posted lately.)

So I took a break to catch up on the latest Carnival of Genealogy
which is full of great posts about surnames. And there’s those
new free World Vital Records databases Randy mentioned in a
post on Genea-Musings I want to look into.

But for the moment, I think I’ll call it a night!