My Family History
genealogy of k.a.k.petersen

There is some indication that the original name was McKennon so I have added what I found on both Kennon and McKennon. These are from heraldic websites or companies that would like to sell you a 'coat of arms' so not overly sure about accuracy.

Kennon: The Anglo-Saxo name Kennon was established when the family resided in the township of Kenyon found in the parish of Winwick in the county of Lancashire. First found in Lancashire where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 AD. Motto: Sustain the Cross (i.e. support afflictions) with magnanimity.

McKennon: The history of the name McKennon dates back to a time before Irish names were translated into English. The original Gaelic form of McKennon was Mac Cionaoith. First found in county Monaghan at Traugh where they were known as the Lords of Truagh.

Also: Irish and Scottish: Anglicized form of Gaelic MacFhionghuin. The name is believed to originate as far back as 728 a.d., and to be a developed form of 'vindo-gonios' in the ancient language meaning 'the fair born'.

Originally, the name, "Crawford," identified an actual place in Lanarkshire, Scotland, "where the Clyde River winds down.

through the high moors of a marshy valley toward the Irish Sea." Clydesdale horses were bred on farms famous for their orchards and most of the land was valualble only for its minerals of coal and lead.

Johannes Crawford was the lord of the fief of Crawford and the earliest anscestor of the Crawford name. In the year 1140 he took as his own name that of the lands he held as a feudal baron. His decendents did the same. Sir Reginald de Crawford was the sheriff of Ayreshire in 1294. His sons founded the several branches of the Crawford family. Sir David Lindsay became the first Earl of Crawford in 1398, and the coat of arms above derives from this period.

The motto "Tutum te robore reddam" means "I will give you safety by strength"

Introduction

This report was compiled in October of 2006, at that time my database of ancestors numbered about 18,900 of which about 12,400 were Kennon/Crawford ancestors. Of those, approximately 9300 are direct ancestors. I sometimes will record the families of those that marry into the family which is what accounts for the 3100 disparity between direct ancestors and total ancestors. Either my genealogy software was not capable of producing a report that included 9300 people or when produced, my word processing software was not capable of opening the document. I spent countless hours trying to figure this problem out and finally decided that perhaps it was not all that important to include everyone. The possibility that you might be interested in all of your 5th cousins, 4 times removed or your 4th cousins, 5 times removed seemed remote. (Although you will REALLY be interested in your 8th cousin, 3 times removed, see page 33) In the end I had to produce two reports and blend them together, this caused problems because each report produced its own list of sources which required that I go through the first and smaller report and change all the source numbers (the little tiny numbers next to events)! Hopefully I got all my "cutting and pasting" correct, but if you see that perhaps the source for a death that occurred in Texas is a Minnesota death certificate you'll know I goofed up.

There is a "kinship" report near the back that originally listed your relationship to all of your ancestors. The report was 60+ pages long so I deleted all those really distant cousins and got the report down to 31 pages. I believe that most of them are included in this document although they may not have their own page. As near as I can figure this report includes about 5000 people.

The first 7 generations are completely included, this includes 4 generations of your ancestors and 2 generations of descendants. From your great-great grandparents on down I have included everyone I know about. From your great-great grandparents on back to your 17th great grandparent I included a page of the direct ancestor's family and a page for each of his children that had children. Number-wise, #224 and above will include just themselves and a page for each of their children. Numbers below #224 will include all descendants that I know about.

Of those included, each person that has children has their own page. If the ancestor did not have children (or children that I know about) they are represented only on the page of their father. For instance, Edith Kennon (#28.1) did not marry or have children so she will be found only on her father's page (#28). Sarah Aulls (#234.6) married and perhaps had children but I have not found any further information on them, therefore she is represented only on her father's page. I did find information on the family of her sister Margaret (#234.9), so she has her own page. I do have further information on her children but they are not included in this book because, as I explained above, that generation is not included. There was no easy way to mark each entry to identify that the person continues with their own page, you'll just have to look. I did go through and mark whether each person's father continues. If there is a + mark next to the father's name, he has his own page. If there is no mark, I have no information on that person's parents. This was a manual process so I only marked those people with whole numbers (If there is a page for #234.9, obviously there is a page for #234) hopefully I got it all right.  

Witchcraft, Wilderness, Indians, Pirates, Presidents and Heroes

A few of the more notable and/or curious incidents I have come across in my research. In most cases a complete account will be found at the appropriate ancestor's page.

Heroes and other notable ancestors

Edith Kennon (aunt; 28.1)

Born in 1888, Edith seems to me to have been a truly remarkable woman. She earned a Master's Degree in education at Chicago University and devoted much of her career to teaching in Indian schools. Excerpt from her obituary (full text on the page of her father, #28):

Following her graduation from Corning High School, Edith taught for a few years in the rural schools of Adams County. She then attended the State University of Iowa at Iowa City and Chicago University where she acquired her Masters Degree in Education.

Edith then entered the Indian Service for the United States Government, teaching in the Indian Schools at Pipestone, Minnesota; Fort Mojave, Arizona; Greenwood, South Dakota, and in the State of North Dakota. For a time she taught school at the Home Stake Mine at Deadwood, South Dakota, also in the public schools at Dysart, Iowa and Anamosa, Iowa. For many years she taught in the public school system in Chicago, Illinois. Throughout her long and colorful teaching career she always gave her time, her talents and her efforts to the underprivileged children on the Indian Reservations and in the City of Chicago. Her life was devoted to the improvement of conditions for these unfortunate children through education.  

Henry Howitt La Rue (great uncle; 58.2)

According to his obituary H.H. LaRue died after rescuing several people during a flood in August of 1903 at Corning, Iowa. Total rainfall during a four day period was 16.82 inches. See full account on his page.

Randall Frederick Kennon (First Cousin; 28.2.1)

From Randall's obituary is the following, A pilot in the Navy Air Force, he participated in the Battle of Midway and in 1942 was ordered to Guadalcanal. He was awarded the usual air medals, but his most treasured was a Unit Citation he received from Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey for locating the Japanese forces coming down the slot at Guadalcanal. When he was selected for test pilot school, he was four classes ahead of John Glenn and Alan Sheppard, who later became astronauts.

Randall was a member of the "Black Cats,' the first organized and specially trained squadron of night patrol bombers. Their planes were painted all black to make them hard to spot, they were based at Guadalcanal. A newspaper article claimed that he launched the first bombs against the Japanese in 1943 but another article claims the "honor" belonged to one Lieutenant Norman Pederson. Despite the strain of their work, however, the "Black Cat" men retained a happy sense of humor. Take, for example, the New Year's Eve run made by Lieutenant Norman Elwood Pedersen, U.S.N.R. He started out early and was scheduled to be relieved over the target, Munda airfield, again-by Ensign Randall Kennon, U.S.N.R., at midnight. Lieutenant Pedersen, however, had saved a few special tokens for the Japs, and he waited a few minutes overtime to deliver them. At 0000, January 1, 1943, he started his run, blew the warning in the plane, and dropped a 500-pound bomb, a flare, and 24 screaming, empty beer bottles. Ensign Kennon followed along with a similar gift from the United States about five minutes later, but Lieutenant Pedersen claims to have dropped the first bombs of 1943 on the Japs.

Rev Dr Augusta Jane Chapin (1st cousin, twice removed; 118.1.1)

Augusta Jane Chapin (July 16, 1836-June 30, 1905), Universalist minister and educator, was one of the earliest women to be ordained in ministry. She was the first woman to sit on the Council of the General Convention of Universalists. She was also a groundbreaker for women seeking higher education and advanced degrees.

Augusta Jane was born in Lakeville, New York, to Almon Morris and Jane (Pease) Chapin who had moved west from Vermont. She began her formal education at the age of three when her father, proud of her ability to learn, permitted her to attend the local school. A few years later the family settled south of Lansing, Michigan. Augusta grew up there, an avid student in school and pursuing her interests further by reading in her father's library. At fourteen she taught school in a neighboring county. Two years later, having been unsuccessful in gaining admittance to the all-male University of Michigan, she entered Olivet College, a Congregational school.

At Sunday School Augusta memorized biblical passages for which her teachers provided little or no interpretation. It was not until college that she learned about religious doctrine. She struggled with the idea of eternal punishment, finally coming to the conviction that Bible, nature and reason supported Universalism. By the age of seventeen she knew she would be a preacher. She told a biographer nearly thirty years later: "I have no recollection of ever considering the question of whether I would preach or not. I never deliberately chose the profession of ministry; from the moment I believed in Universalism it was a matter of course that I was to preach it. I never questioned as to how I came by this purpose, nor did it ever seem in the least strange that I should preach, nor had I any real conception of how my course must appear to my friends and the world until I had been more than ten years in the active work."

Although Chapin's studies, first at Olivet, then at Michigan Female College, enabled her to receive a classical education, she hoped to attend and graduate from Lombard University or Antioch College. Instead, while preparing for ministry, she served as school principal in Lansing and Lyons, Michigan; then, as head of the Lyons Institute for two more years, she taught Greek, Latin, French, German, higher mathematics, oil painting and drawing.

In 1859 Chapin preached her first sermon at Portland, Michigan. She preached for three years instead of the customary one year before applying for a Letter of Fellowship. This was granted in 1862 by the Michigan Convention of Universalists. In December 1863 she was ordained to the Universalist ministry at Lansing, Michigan. She joined a very small group of American women in ministry which included Lucretia Mott (Quaker), Antoinette Brown (Congregational, later Unitarian), Lydia Jenkins (Universalist) and Olympia Brown (Universalist, ordained earlier that year).

For much of Chapin's ministerial career she was an itinerant preacher or engaged in short-term settlements: itinerancy in Michigan, 1859-63; Bennington, Michigan, 1864-67; Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 1868; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1869; Iowa City, Iowa, 1870-73; Allston, Massachusetts, 1874; San Francisco, California and Oregon, 1874; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1875-76; Blue Island, Illinois, 1876-77; Chicago, Illinois, 1878; Aurora, Illinois, 1878-79; itinerancy in Michigan, 1880-83; Hillsdale, Michigan, 1884-85; Oak Park, Illinois, 1886-92; Omaha, Nebraska, 1894-95; and Mount Vernon, New York, 1897-1901. She organized new congregations in Grinnell, Iowa and West Liberty, Iowa and helped existing churches to reverse downward trends in growth and development. While in Chicago she shared the pulpit at the merged Unitarian Universalist Christian Union Society of Englewood with the Unitarian Jabez T. Sunderland.

Chapin served as missionary for the Wisconsin Association and as a director of the Iowa Convention of Universalists, 1871-72. She preached the occasional sermons for the Iowa convention, 1871; the Oregon convention, 1874; the Michigan convention, 1883; the Fox River Association convention, 1889; and the General Convention when it met in Washington, D. C. in 1893. She preached the ordination sermon for Florence Ellen Kollock, 1877.

Chapin took a seat on the Council of the General Convention of Universalists as ministerial delegate from Iowa to the Universalist Centennial Celebration in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1870. Her proposal for non-gender-specific wording in the new rules on fellowship and discipline was adopted. During the Celebration she addressed the meeting of the Woman's Centenary Aid Association which had been organized the previous year in Buffalo, New York, to assist in raising a portion of the proposed Centenary Fund. In 1873, with Chapin's help, this group was incorporated as the Woman's Centenary Association, the first independent national organization of religious women of any denomination.

In 1868 Lombard University (later College) of Galesburg, Illinois, a co-educational Universalist school, granted Chapin an honorary Master of Arts degree. She served Lombard as non-resident lecturer in English literature, 1885-97, and as non-resident lecturer on art, 1892-1897. In 1893 Lombard conferred on her the first Doctor of Divinity degree ever awarded to a woman in America.

Learning and teaching were interspersed with her ministry throughout her lifetime. When the University of Michigan was finally opened to women students, Chapin earned a Master of Arts in rhetoric and contemporary languages, 1884. Later she was for five years an extension lecturer in English literature for the University of Chicago, 1892-97.

Chapin chaired the Woman's Committee of the World Parliament of Religions which occurred as part of the Chicago World's Fair Chicago in 1893. In that capacity she addressed the opening and closing sessions, and was the only woman to preside over a session of the Parliament. Among her activities during the Parliament, she read Antoinette Brown Blackwell's address to the Parliament on the third day, spoke before the Universalist Church Congress, delivered the prayer at the woman ministers' banquet and assigned her sisters in ministry to the various Chicago area pulpits which had invited women to speak in their churches on the second Sunday of the Parliament. In her welcoming address to the opening session she said, "My memory runs easily back to the time when, in all the modern world, there was not one well equipped college or university open to women students, and when, in all the modern world, no woman had been ordained, or even acknowledged, as a preacher outside the denomination of Friends."

Chapin was a charter member of the American Woman Suffrage Association and an early member of the New York women's club, Sorosis. She served on the first executive committee of the Association for the Advancement of Women and gave a paper (later published as "Women in the Ministry") at its first session in 1873. She was also on the Revising Committee of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible, 1895.

In a sermon of 1901 Chapin preached on "the Church Universal, which is undying, and which belongs to all nations and all times." According to her Christianity was just one of the many forms of the Church Universal. She thought that in the 20th century churches would have to embrace new methods and new truths: "Let the creeds remain as historic landmarks, but let the church the Master founded move on."

Although Chapin never married, family ties nonetheless kept her returning annually to the Michigan homestead where she had grown up. In 1905, after 45 active years teaching, preaching, lecturing, writing, working with congregations and women's groups, she was about to conduct her thirteenth summer literary tour of Europe when she became ill and succumbed to pneumonia. Memorial services were held at the family homestead and burial was in a Michigan graveyard not far away.

There are letters of Augusta Chapin in the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in the archives of Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, Illinois. Chapin's sermons and other writings are published in various periodicals including The Universalist Leader, The Repository: A Magazine for the Christian Home, The Star in the West, New Covenant, and Woman's Journal. Some of her speeches are in Speeches at the World Parliament of Religion (1893) and Proceedings of the Universalist Centennial Held in Gloucester, Mass., September 20th, 21st, and 22nd, 1870 (1870). Among short biographies of Chapin are Phlox Laucher, "For a woman to speak in church": The Proud Calling of Augusta Jane Chapin, Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society Occasional Paper #17 (1997) and the entries in Eliza Rice Hanson, Our Woman Workers (1881); Frances Elizabeth Willard, ed., American Women, 1500 Biographies (1897); Catherine F. Hitchings, Universalist and Unitarian Women Ministers (Journal of the Universalist Historical Society, 1975); and Dorothy May Emerson, ed., Standing Before Us (2000). Chapin's obituary is in The Universalist Leader (July 15, 1905). See also James Swanson, A History of Lombard College: 1851-1930 (1955); John Henry Barrows, The World's Parliament of Religions (1893); and Minot J. Savage, The World's Congress of Religions (1893).

Biography of Augusta Jane Chapin http://oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~sch00501

Augusta Jane Chapin, Universalist minister, lecturer, teacher, and traveler, was born on July 16, 1836, in Lakeville, N.Y., the first child of Jane (Pease) and Almon Morris Chapin. When AJC was six years old the family moved to Eden, Michigan, where AMC, formerly a merchant, became a postmaster and farmer. AJC started school at the age of three. At 16 she left home to attend Olivet College (Olivet, Mich.), a Congregational school, and then went on to Michigan Female College. It was during her college years that religion came to play a central role in her life and that she decided to accept the Universalist creed.

AJC did not earn an undergraduate degree. She taught school in Lansing and Lyons, Mich., and took courses in languages, mathematics, and art. In May 1859 she preached her first sermon in Portland, Mich., and became an itinerant preacher. She was ordained Dec. 3, 1863. Her first settled pastorate was in Portland (1864-1867), and her last in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. (1897-1901).

AJC was a charter member of Sorosis, a New York women's club, and the Association for the Advancement of Women: she read a paper at its first meeting in 1873. She attended suffrage conventions, lectured on various subjects, and played an instrumental role in organizing the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions held at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Teaching also continued to occupy her time. She lectured on literature and art at Lombard University (Galesburg, Ill.), and the University of Chicago. In 1868 Lombard awarded AJC an honorary M.A. and in 1893 an honorary Doctor of Divinity.

She was minister in Oak Park, Ill., 1886-1892, when the church was destroyed by lightning. AJC commissioned her friend Frank Lloyd Wright to design and build a new one, his first public building. In her later years she lived in New York City, traveled independently, and led group tours abroad. She was planning to guide another tour when she became ill with pneumonia. She died on June 30,1905.

NOTE: A little math problem with the statement regarding the Unity Church. Augusta Jane Chapin was the minister in Oak Park, Illinois 1886-1892. The church was destroyed by fire in 1905. Frank Lloyd Wright was a parishioner and took the commission to rebuild in 1905, it was finished in 1908. Augusta Jane Chapin died in June of 1905, I do not have the exact dates of the fire that destroyed the church but it seems perhaps her biographer took a few liberties.

Wright was also asked to build the 1905 Unity Temple, a place of worship for the Universalist Church in Oak Park. Coming from a long tradition of Universalists, he accepted the commission on a very slim budget of $45,000. Due to these financial constraints Wright built for the first time with poured concrete. A square two-storey space housed the temple of worship and behind it was a rectangular parish meeting house for socializing. The temple of worship had to seat 400 people yet Wright still managed to create an intimate space. To enhance the visual drama, these two structures were connected by a modest entrance with low ceiling. The roof of the building was supported by the four square masses in the room, the poured concrete walls therefore became as screens with glass windows above.

Richard Nixon was related to Mabel Crawford through her Cole line, wouldn't she be surprised!

Millard Fillmore (2nd Cousin, 4 times removed; 904.8.2.2) 13th President of the United States

From the White House web page: In his rise from a log cabin to wealth and the White House, Millard Fillmore demonstrated that through methodical industry and some competence an uninspiring man could make the American dream come true.

Will Keith (W.K.) Kellogg was born April 7, 1860. W.K., along with his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, was the co-inventor of flaked cereal. Although he lacked a formal education beyond the sixth grade, W.K. Kellogg forever changed the way we eat breakfast. When he died on October 6, 1951 at the age of 91, he had amassed a fortune and enriched the lives of people in his hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan, and millions of others around the world.

Soon the flaked wheat was being packaged to meet hundreds of mail order requests from guests after they left the San. Because John Harvey Kellogg had little interest in such matters, his brother added another task to his long list of responsibilities: that of managing the burgeoning packaged food enterprise. In 1906, W.K. Kellogg entered the cereal business, as American eating habits began shifting from heavy, fat-laden breakfasts to lighter, more grain-based meals.

W.K. discovered that a better flake was produced by using only the corn grit or "sweet heart of the corn." To help consumers distinguish Kellogg's Corn Flakes cereal from the products of the 42 other cereal companies in Battle Creek, Michigan, W.K. put his signature on each package, saying that these Corn Flakes were the "The Original." The company succeeded because it believed the entire populace, not just those on special diets, might be interested in wholesome cereal foods, and because it continually improved its product line and packaging techniques to meet the needs of an ever-changing and evolving consumer base.

Using his sense of economics, an understanding of marketing techniques and hard work, W.K. constantly increased production, advertising budgets and sales. He expanded his business to Australia in 1924, guided the cereal company through the Great Depression (he increased advertising while others cut back), and brought Kellogg's cereal into England in 1938.

While growing the business overseas, W.K. continued to expand Kellogg's facilities in Battle Creek. During this same period, Kellogg initiated the first food fortification efforts by a cereal manufacturer with the goal of improving overall health and preventing nutritional deficiencies. By 1940, glaucoma had robbed W.K. of his eyesight, but he was able to stay active with his correspondence and business affairs with the help of Elsie Hoatson, his nurse who also doubled as a personal secretary. He constantly telephoned company executives in Battle Creek to maintain his contact with day-to-day business activities.

W.K. Kellogg was 46 years old when he founded Kellogg Company. Despite the fortune he was to amass, he was never completely comfortable with his riches, and so continued to live a comparatively modest life. As his wealth grew, Kellogg gave generously to various charitable causes. He became convinced that the most good, however, could be accomplished by helping young people. So, in 1925, he established the Fellowship Corporation, which helped to build an agricultural school and a bird sanctuary, and established an experimental farm and reforestation project. Kellogg also donated nearly $3 million to hometown causes, such as the Ann J. Kellogg School for handicapped children, a civic auditorium, a junior high school and a youth recreation center.

Johns Hopkins (3rd cousin, 7 times removed; 7976.5.9.2.2)

Johns Hopkins University is named for Johns Hopkins, who left $7 million in his 1867 incorporation papers and his 1873 will for the foundation of the University and Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the time, this was the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history, the equivalent of over $88.2 million in the year 2005.

In 1888, just 12 years after the university was founded, Mark Twain wrote about this university in a letter to a friend. He said:

A few months ago I was told that the Johns Hopkins University had given me a degree. I naturally supposed this constituted me a Member of the Faculty, and so I started in to help as I could there. I told them I believed they were perfectly competent to run a college as far as the higher branches of education are concerned, but what they needed was a little help here and there from a practical commercial man. I said the public is sensitive to little things, and they wouldn't have full confidence in a college that didn't know how to spell the name 'John'.

The first name Johns is derived from the philanthropist's grandfather, also named Johns Hopkins. He in turn was given the name in honor of his mother's maiden name; she was Margaret Johns, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Kinsey) Johns, our direct ancestor.

John Tilley (10th great grandfather; 28998)
Joan Hurst Rogers (10th great grandmother; 28999)
Elizabeth Tilley(9th great grandmother; 14499)
John Howland (9th great grandfather; 14498)

John Tilley, his wife Joan (Hurst) Rogers, and daughter Elizabeth came on the Mayflower in the year 1620. John and Joan died the first winter, but Elizabeth lived, married John Howland, and had eleven children. Elizabeth Tilley was the youngest of five children but was the only child to accompany her parents on the Mayflower. It is believed that Elizabeth then lived in the Carver household. John's brother Edward Tilley came with wife Ann Cooper on the Mayflower as well.

John Howland traveled on the Mayflower as a manservant to John Carver. During the Atlantic voyage, he was swept overboard and rescued. He also served as a member of the party that explored Cape Cod before the landing in Plymouth. Signatures of John Tilley and John Howland on the Mayflower Compact.

Wilderness

Harley W. Crawford (great uncle; 60.1)

Harley homesteaded land in what was the "Cherokee Outlet." The Cherokee Outlet land run was the largest of 5 land runs in Oklahoma. It is sometimes referred to as the Cherokee Strip Land Run which is a misnomer, The Cherokee Outlet and Cherokee Strip are two different regions.

From the Cherokee Strip Museum, "A portion of the original Cherokee Outlet was opened by land run in 1893. This opening was the fourth, and largest, of Oklahoma's five land runs. According to President Cleveland, " The Run " would take place at 12 o'clock noon on September 16, 1893. Oral tradition claims that a nervous soldier accidentally discharged his gun at 11:55 a.m. and the race was on! By horse, train, wagon and on foot more than 100,000 land hungry pioneers raced for 40,000 homesteads and the valuable town lots available in the Cherokee Outlet Land Opening. Immigrants from almost every area of the United States and many foreign countries took part in this epic event."

All of the papers that show Harley's claim state that he settled on his land in December of 1893. He submits an affidavit for homestead on January 22, 1894 in Enid, Oklahoma. He files his final claim on April 22, 1898.

Note: The nickname Oklahoma Sooners comes from land rush times. Sooners are said to be those land claimants that snuck out early and claimed territory before the official start time (they went too soon). Oklahoma Boomers are those folks that waited for the boom of the cannon that marked the beginning of the rush. Perhaps if Harley didn't make a claim until 4 months after the rush he could be considered an Oklahoma Later.

Several of the children of Thomas Cole ended up in Oklahoma as well: John Cole (62.4), Nettie Cole Robinson (62.5), Anna Cole Neff (62.6) and Bert Boyd Cole (62.8) all resided, at one time, in El Reno, Canadian Co., Oklahoma. Witnesses to Harley's claim include the brothers of his wife, Francis, they were Elias and John White. In the 1900 census Elias White and his family are living next to Harley and Fanny.

Septa and Eunice Edgerton Fillmore (3rd great grandparents; 226 & 227)

This is an excerpt from an article entitled "Reminiscences Of Olden Times In Chazy As Told By Eunice Edgerton Fillmore To Her Children And Grand-Children" by Mrs. J. F. Gilbert.

"Septa Fillmore and Eunice Edgerton were married in Norwich,Conn., in 1797. Grandfather came in 1799 and Grandmother in the winter of 1800, her father bringing her as far as Middlebury,Vt., in a sleigh and grandfather meeting her there. They were both from homes of comfort and perhaps luxury at that time. Leaving brothers and sisters and a father's home to make a home in Chazy, then called the Five Nations, and almost a wilderness., I have heard grandmother say that if her father had known to what hardship and privation she was coming, he would never have given his consent. Grandfather built a log or block house with a roof over only one side and a dirt floor. The cooking was then done before an open fire or in a kettle hung on a crane.

For months before the battle of Plattsburgh many of the officers boarded at the hotel, which made lively times and hard work. At one time they were obliged to bake several hundred loaves of bread and hand them out of the window as fast as baked to the soldiers who were (in their way to Plattsburgh and stopped there for rations.

William Aulls (3rd great grandfather, 234)

From the Aulls Genealogy : The 'Genesee Country' included at this time all of western New York and northern Pennsylvania. There were few roads and most travel was over Indian trails, often with directions only by blazed trees. In the spring of 1793 William Aulls accompanied by his younger son Thomas, a lad of 16, made the journey by horseback from his home in Drumore Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to a locality called Pleasant Valley, between Harnmondsport and Bath, New York, near the southern end of Lake Keuka. They built a small log cabin and planted corn and potatoes. Tom was left on the site by his father, who returned south in August for the rest of the family--his wife, stepdaughter, son, and six daughters. When near Pleasant Valley on his return trip, William sent his older son, Ephraim, by a short cut over the hills to join Tom.

Allen Farquhar (6th great grandfather; 1996) In 1735, the said Allen Farquhar for and in consideration of his natural affection for his son William, and for the further consideration of his sons filial kindness and obedience in being willing to remove from 'ye' province of Pennsylvania to 'ye' province of Maryland conveyed to his son William by deed 200 acres of his land. In compliance with the terms of said deed William Farquhar and his wife Ann removed from Pennsylvania to Maryland and settled on this tract of land. Their conveyances were pack horses, on the backs of which they and their children and all their worldly goods and chattels were packed and carried. The country was then a wilderness and destitute of any roads except such paths as were made by wild beasts and Indians."

Lieut. Benjamin Kilborn (5th great grandfather; 1008)

On the breaking out of the Revolution, he (in common with many prominent and influential men in his native town,) steadfastly adhered to the cause of the king.

He continued to reside in Litchfield until some years after the close of the war, when he removed with most of his family to Elizabethtown, near Brockville, Upper Canada - being determined, as he said, to "lay his bones on King George's soil."

David Kilborn (4th great uncle; 1008.7)

From Payne Kilbourne's History of the Kilbourne name: Though residing in the king's dominions, he was a republican at heart, and in the war of 1812, he engaged in the secret service of the United States, under the direction of Gen. Wilkinson, in consequence of which his entire estate in Canada was confiscated to the British government."

Curiosities

Anna Cole Neff (great aunt, 62.6)

On May 23, 1912 the Bedford Free Press reported that Sherman and Anna Neff had found a baby girl on their doorstep and that they intended to keep her, at the time they lived in El Reno, Oklahoma. Subsequent census data in Wichita, Kansas (1920) and Los Angeles, California (1930) list a daughter named, Melba.

Comfort Fillmore (4th great grandfather; 452)

Nathaniel Fillmore (4th great uncle; 904.8)

Amaziah Fillmore (4th great uncle; 904.10)

In 1756, three sons of Capt. John Fillmore, Jr., viz., Nathaniel, Comfort and Amaziah, were brought before Mr. Justice Huntington charged with driving the rate collector from their father's house, armed with clubs and making use of threats and abusive language.

Eulalia Marche (8th great grandmother; 7657)

A story is told of Eulalia Marche Burt, that in England she apparently died, was put in her coffin for interment when signs of life were seen and she was resuscitated and recovered, came to New England and lived to a great age. Eulalia died in 1690 at about the age of 92.

Joseph Leonard (6th great uncle; 3782.3)

Joseph (ca 1644-1716) had 6 wives, I cannot determine whether he outlived his 6th wife or not.

Lieutenant Joseph Kellogg (7th great grandfather; 3810)

Joseph (ca 1625-1707) has 20 children. He married twice and had 9 children (2 of whom "died young") by his first wife and 11 children (2 of whom "died young") by his second wife.

Elizabeth Talbott (1st cousin, 6 times removed;1992.2.6)

Elizabeth Talbott married outside her Quaker faith and the process of removing her from membership had begun but at the monthly meeting it was reported she had died so the proceedings stopped. Her marriage license was issued in February of 1802 and she was reported deceased at the meeting held September of 1802.

John Moore (5th great uncle; 1998.5)

In 1772 John (1746-?) was charged by the Quakers with leaving his wife and children, and we have great cause to think he intends to take a young woman with him in a private and scandalous manner. In April of 1773 his son David was charged with frequenting places of diversion.

Mariah Jane Smith (2nd great grandmother; 125)

The will of Mariah's husband Ezekiel Cole, probated in March of 1852, gives an estimate of the value of certain articles of specific property, allowed by law, to Mariah widow of Ezekiel. Among other things it lists the following:

The wearing apparel of herself and family     60.00

One milch cow and calf for every four persons in the family     28.00

Provisions for herself and family for one year     145.00

Two sheep for each member of the family and the fleeces     32.00

taken from the same.

Food for herself and family for three months 20.00

Daniel Kellogg (7th great uncle; 7620.5))

Daniel Kellogg was a huge man, being more than 7 feet tall, and "of proportionate dimensions otherwise."

Witches

Lieut. Phillip Smith (7th great grandfather; 3808)

Mr. Philip Smith, aged about 50 years, a son of eminently virtuous parents, a deacon of a church in Hadley, a member of the General Court, a justice in the County Court, a selectman for the affairs of the town, a Lieutenant of the troop, and which crowns all, a man for devotion, sanctity, gravity, and all that was honest, exceeding exemplary. Such a man was in the winter of the year 1684, murdered with an hideous witchcraft, that filled all those parts of New England, with astonishment.

Early in January, he began to be very valetudinarious. He shewed such weanedness from the weariness of the world, etc. (NOTE: Valetudinarious means "of a weak and sickly constitution.")

Mary Bliss (6th great aunt; 3780.4)

In 1654 the Parsons moved to Northampton. The family, which included eleven children, became members of the church. Local tradition has remembered Mary as being "possessed of great beauty and talents, but ... not very amiable ... exclusive in the choice of her associates, and ... of haughty manners."

In 1656, soon after the Parsons family moved to Northampton, Joseph Parsons brought an action for slander against Sarah Bridgeman, charging that Sarah had accused Mary, his wife, of being a witch. On the docket of the Middlesex County Court, for its session of October 7, 1656, is found the following entry: "Joseph Parsons, plaintiff, against Sarah, the wife of James Bridgman, defendant, in an action of the case for slandering her [Parson's wife] in her name.

The feud and Mary Parsons ordeal resumed 18 years later, in 1674, when the Bridgmans' son-in-law filed a new complaint. He "strongly suspect[ed] that [his wife] died by some unusuall meanes, viz, by means of some evell Instrument." The instrument he had in mind was Mary Bliss Parsons.

Abigail Rowe (6th great aunt;3622.5)

When Mary Fitch became ill in the fall of 1692, Lieutenant James Stevens sent for the "afflicted girls" of Salem Village to find out who had bewitched her. The girls named Rebecca Dike, Esther Elwell, and Abigail Rowe as the witches, and Stevens subsequently filed a complaint with the magistrates. A warrant for the three was issued November 5 (photo at left).

Abigail Rowe was born in 1677 to Hugh and Mary Prince Rowe. The fact that she was only fifteen years old in 1692 shows the peculiarity of her case. While it was certainly not unheard of for children to be accused of witchcraft, they were generally accused along with other family members. Seeing a teenaged girl accused along with two adult women is quite unusual, but she was not the only woman in her family accused of witchcraft. Her mother was one of the three women listed in the petition from Ipswich jail, and her grandmother was Margaret Prince, accused early on and also listed in the Ipswich petition.

The number of ancestors killed by Indians is a pretty long list. Following are excerpts from several web sites detailing what is referred to as King Phillip's War.

 http://www.infoplease.com

King Philip's War, 1675-76, the bloodiest war in America's history, on a per capita basis. The war is named for King Philip, the son of Massasoit and chief of the Wampanoag. His Wampanoag name was Metacom, Metacomet, or Pometacom. Upon the death (1662) of his brother, Alexander (Wamsutta), whom the Native Americans suspected the English of murdering, Philip became sachem and maintained peace with the colonists for a number of years. Hostility eventually developed over the steady succession of land sales forced on the Native Americans by their growing dependence on English goods. Suspicious of Philip, the English colonists in 1671 questioned and fined him and demanded that the Wampanoag surrender their arms, which they did. In 1675 a Christian Native American who had been acting as an informer to the English was murdered, probably at Philip's instigation. Three Wampanoags were tried for the murder and executed. Incensed by this act, the Native Americans in June, 1675, made a sudden raid on the border settlement of Swansea. Other raids followed; towns were burned and many whites, men, women, and children, were slain. Unable to draw the Native Americans into a major battle, the colonists resorted to similar methods of warfare in retaliation and antagonized other tribes. The Wampanoag were joined by the Nipmuck and by the Narragansett (after the latter were attacked by the colonists), and soon all the New England colonies were involved in the war. Philip's cause began to decline after he made a long journey west in an unsuccessful attempt to secure aid from the Mohawk. In 1676 the Narragansett were completely defeated and their chief, Canonchet, was killed in April of that year; the Wampanoag and Nipmuck were gradually subdued. Philip's wife and son were captured, and he was killed (Aug., 1676) by a Native American in the service of Capt. Benjamin Church after his hiding place at Mt. Hope (Bristol, R.I.) was betrayed. His body was drawn and quartered and his head exposed on a pole in Plymouth. The war, which was extremely costly to the colonists in people and money, resulted in the virtual extermination of tribal Native American life in S New England and the disappearance of the fur trade. The New England Confederation then had the way completely clear for white settlement.

From the Daily Hampshire Gazette "Hampshire Life"

http://www-unix.ecs.umass.edu/~mbisbee/Geneology/bwaite.doc.doc

Late one sunny autumn morning in 1677, while the men were out gathering the harvest from the fields, a terrifying assault struck Hatfield. Rushing in from the undefended north end of the village along Middle Lane, a small band of armed and painted Indian warriors fell upon the houses lying outside the town's stockade fence. Within minutes, several homes and barns were ablaze and 12 people lay dead.

When their work was finished, the attackers took 17 captives and hastened northward. So shocked and confused were the townspeople by the attack that only two men, Benjamin Waite (3782.6a) and Stephen Jennings (7618.5.1b), managed to muster the fortitude to set off in pursuit. Inside is the story of their great frontier odyssey.

In Hatfield on Sept.19, 1677, the day began with a promise of perfection. The bright fall weather was ideal for the harvest and that morning the Hatfield farmers had left their homes early to bring in a bumper crop.

North of the meadows where the men were laboring among tall stalks of ripened corn, the women in the village worked at household chores, while the children, at least those not yet old enough to help ease the burdens of frontier work, played in the streets. Some were within the town's log stockade extended the summer before near the end of the two year war waged by Wampanoag sachem King Phillip - but several cabins were still outside the walls.

Not that it seemed to matter, for King Phillip had been killed by one of his own tribe and the last Indian attack in the Connecticut Valley had occurred in June the year before: A raid on neighboring Hadley by 250 warriors, it had been easily beaten off, with the help of Connecticut reinforcements, by the settlers. And while no treaty had yet been signed with King Phillip's followers, 14 months of peace was the surest proof the frontier families could have that the fighting was over.

It had been a brutal war. In Hampshire County alone (which at that time included the entire valley), the fighting that had raged throughout New England had claimed the lives of 209 settlers, more than half of them soldiers sent north from the vicinity of Hartford. Additionally, an uncounted number of Pocumtuck' Nipmuck and Wampanoug Indians had been killed. But now, with King Phillip dead and the valley's Indians dispersed or disarmed, life continued in normal routine. But at 11 on that sunny September morning, when the odors of the midday meal were rising into the tranquil air, a terrifying assault struck Hatfield. Rushing from the undefended north end of the village along Middle Lane (now Hatfield's Main Street), a small band of armed and painted warriors fell upon the houses lying outside the stockade fence. Within minutes, several homes and barns were ablaze and 12 people lay dead. The story of that day, and the days of captivity to follow, is contained in several town histories, one of the best of those being the detailed The History of Hatfield, by Daniel and Reuben Wells, published in 1910. Among those the Wells brothers list as slain in the sudden attack were John Coleman's wife, Hannah, and his infant child, Bethiah. Another of Coleman's children was wounded, and two were bound and taken captive, one of whom, Sarah, was just 4 years old. The Coleman house was among the first set alight, and it burned to the foundation.

The Indians also killed the wife of Selectman Samuel Belden, then moved on to capture Samuel Foote's wife, his son, Nathaniel, and his 3-year-old daughter, Mary (Samuel Foote, #7618.2.2). Who was killed and who was captured as the Indians swept through the northern part of the village seemed largely a matter of chance - that and the amount of resistance each family put up. Those who were most surprised probably survived, albeit as captives, while the women who had time to pick up a gun or to run were killed or left for dead.

Several men were also slain: Two brothers, carpenters John and Isaac Graves, as well as two men from Springfield, were shot from the frame of a structure they were working on that morning. But as some later surmised, it was the house of Benjamin Waite that was the Indians' principal goal.

Waite, who had gained the reputation of being an Indian fighter at the Turners Falls raid on an Indian camp the previous year, was in the fields to the south with the rest of the men. The Indians burned his house and barn and took away his entire family - his pregnant wife, Martha, and three children, Mary, Martha and Sarah, aged 6, 4 and 2. The Indians then seized Stephen Jennings' wife (Hannah Dickinson, #7618.5.1), who was also pregnant, and her two children by former husband Samuel Gillett, who had been killed at the Turners Falls fight.

With the firing of Benjamin Waite's house, the wrath of the Indians seemed appeased and they withdrew without entering the stockade's open gates. Also, by the time smoke began curling from under the eaves of Waite's cabin, the men in the meadows had seized their guns - still kept near-to-hand a year after King Phillip's War had ended - and were hurrying toward the village.

The Indians, hastening northward up the valley, forced before them 17 captives. When they reached Deerfield early that evening, they captured four more, John Plympton, Benoni Stebbins, Quintin Stockwell, and Samuel Russell, a boy of 9, son of Phillip Russell of Hatfield. The party at Deerfield, which included John Root, who was killed, had been sent there to begin rebuilding the town after it had been abandoned during King Phillip's War.

After a halt for the night in the woods north of Deerfield, the Indians - it was later determined they were a band of rogue warriors numbering barely 30 - continued north on a trek that would, after many weeks, take them and their captives to Canada. And although hundreds of New Englanders would later be carried off to Canada during the French and Indian Wars, this was the first of many such journeys - the most notable being that following the sack of Deerfield in 1704 when 111 captives were taken. That event provided much of the material for Mary P. Wells Smith's "Boy Captive" novels, written during the 1920s and '30s, as well as for several Indian captivity histories written by Alice Baker around the turn of the century.

At night the Hatfield prisoners were staked down by the use of cords, and during the day were closely guarded. Eventually the captives' treatment improved and restraints were eliminated, but only after the band had traveled far enough to be secure from pursuit. For a time, however, as the captives later reported, the Indians' rough handling and threats caused them to fear for their lives.

At Hatfield, meanwhile, all was bedlam. Though Benjamin Waite urged immediate pursuit, so stunned were the men by the suddenness of the blow and by the blood, flames and smoke they found north of the stockade that no pursuit of the Indians was attempted that day. Instead, messengers were sent to surrounding towns with a request for assistance. When a party of would-be rescuers finally set out in pursuit several days later, some of them marching all the way from Hartford, the Indians had vanished. It was only after days of futile search by the soldiers and settlers that Benjamin Waite acted on his own to do what he could to bring the captives back to Hatfield.

The events following the return of the foiled soldiers to Hatfield constitutes one of the great odysseys of frontier life: for in the next eight months Waite, at first alone and later accompanied by Stephen Jennings, would travel more than 1,500 miles through a wilderness still largely pathless, much of that on foot. Moreover the longest and hardest part of their journey to find and rescue the captives was made during the winter. He and Jennings would take a canoe up the length of Lake George, portage to Lake Champlain, then fight fierce winter weather for several more weeks before finally arriving in Canada.

There they would find the surviving captives - three had died along the way and one, Benoni Stebbins, had escaped - and bring them all, as well as two newborns, back to Hatfield. The two infant girls, named Canada Waite (3782.6.4) and Captivity Jennings (7618.5.1.5), were born two months apart, Canada Waite on Jan. 22, 1678, and Captivity Jennings 55 days later.

But in Hatfield, with the soldiers recently returned from their disappointing mission of tracking down the Indians, that was all in the future. In fact, no one seemed to know where to look. So surprised had the settlers been by the attack that at first the authorities thought the raid had been staged by normally friendly Mohawks from New York.

Waite, guessing differently, rode alone to Albany to make sure the Mohawks were not the guilty ones, then returned to Springfield on Oct. 4, barely in time to head off an armed expedition about to be mounted against friendly Indians. Then, stopping only long enough to get from his townsmen a petition of authority and aid for an expedition, he pushed on the same day to Boston to seek a pledge of funds for the captives' ransom.

In Boston, Waite met with several delays of officialdom, but eventually received the colony's financial backing for the ransom he was sure he'd have to pay after he tracked down the raiding party; for by now, with information provided by Stebbins' escape from the Indians, he knew a small band of warriors had come down from Canada for the attack. Their motive, aside from revenge for their losses in King Phillip's War, was loot and ransom money.

By Oct. 24 Waite was back in Hatfield. Able to recruit for his journey only a single man, Stephen Jennings, Waite set out almost immediately for Canada by way of New York. Arriving at Albany on the 30th the two men received a cool reception by the town's commander, Capt. Sylvester Salisbury; after making Waite and Jennings cool their heels in an anteroom for several hours, Salisbury suggested they return the next day when he might have time to talk to them.

Having already been delayed too much, however, and wishing to start north before winter set in, they hurried off to Schenectady to secure a guide. But Capt. Salisbury, instead of simply allowing the anxious men to disappear into the wilderness, had them arrested for acting without his authorization.

Salisbury's ruffled dignity cost Waite and Jennings dearly, for they were put under guard and shipped down the Hudson to New York City. There, after getting a chance to tell their story, they eventually received the support of the colony's governor. On Dec.10 - finally out of trouble with Capt. Salisbury - they were back at Albany, but now winter was at hand and the perils of their journey had increased.

Undaunted, Waite and Jennings found a Mohawk guide, who led them over Indian trails as far as the southern shore of Lake George. The guide left them there after fitting out a canoe and drawing a crude map of the regions to the north on a piece of birch bark. The Lake George passage went well, with the men paddling to the lake's northern end in three days. From there, Waite and Jennings forced their way through the wilderness, carrying their canoe and provisions across three miles of rugged terrain, to reach the shores of Lake Champlain on Dec.16. Then, for six days, fierce winds and high waves delayed them at a place that later became the site of Fort Ticonderoga. By now, ice on the lake had also become a hazard, especially since it was just thick enough to damage their frail canoe, but not so solid that they could walk on it.

Living in shelters they fashioned themselves and with provisions shrinking, the men ate whatever they could find, including some raccoons killed in a hollow tree. Later they found some hard biscuits and brandy left by a hunter in a deserted wigwam. When they did get onto the lake, more often than not they found themselves paddling against bitterly cold headwinds.

Curiously, during much of Waite's and Jennings' odyssey, the captives had been traveling to Canada by another, almost parallel route 100 miles to the east. Shortly after the raid on Hatfield, the Indians had moved into southern Vermont in the hills above Northfield. There they built a long wigwam and remained until Oct.22, just about the time Waite was returning from Boston. It was during this time that Benoni Stebbins escaped with the news that the captives were still alive.

On the 22nd, however, the Indians abandoned their camp and again moved north, traveling 200 miles up the Connecticut valley, then crossing the Green Mountains through deep snow. Of this difficult winter passage, one of the captives taken at Deerfield, Quintin Stockwell, later wrote:

"Here I was frozen, and here again we were like to starve. All the Indians went a hunting but could get nothing; diverse days they powwow'd but got nothing; then they would have us pray to see what the Englishman's god could do. I prayed, so did Sergeant Plympton in another the next day they got bears."

When bear meat ran out, Indians and captives alike went hungry, or ate tree bark fried in bear's grease. "At last," Stockwell wrote, "we found a company of raccoons" (just as Waite and Jennings 100 miles to the west were doing at almost the same moment), "then we made a feast."

It was during this coldest part of the journey through the heavily forested mountains of northern Vermont that two of the young captives died: 9-year-old Samuel Russell and 3-year-old Mary Foote (daughter of Samuel Foote, # 7618.2.2). Whether they simply perished or were killed on the way because they couldn't keep up, none of the other captives ever learned.

As Stockwell reports, his last sight of young Russell was after the boy fell into an icy stream. When he complained of faintness, the Indians treated him gently, sitting him down on the bank and "drying his stockings." But as the rest of the captives were moved away, Stockwell lost sight of the boy and wrote: "Samuel Russell I never saw more, nor knew what became of him." A similar cloud surrounds the death of Mary Foote. Sgt. Plympton's fate was more dramatic; he was burned at the stake on the band's arrival in Canada - apparently because he was a soldier and thus hated by the Indians. His friend, Obediah Dickinson, was compelled to join him to the stake, but Dickinson was spared.

Quintin Stockwell nearly died on the journey and all the captives suffered greatly. Describing the passage along the shore of a frozen lake, probably the northern end of Lake Champlain, Stockwell wrote of the exhaustion that caused him to slip repeatedly on the ice: "I was so spent I had not strength to rise again, but I crept to a tree that lay along and got upon it and there I lay; it was now night, and very sharp weather: I counted no other but I must die there; whilest I was thinking of Death, an Indian... came to me and called me bad names, and told me if I could not go he must knock me in the head. I told him he must then so do; he saw how I had wallowed in that Snow, but could not rise; then he took his Coat, and wrapt me -in it, and went back and sent two Indians with a sled." Such kindnesses, mixed with occasional cruelties, were not uncommon on the trek north. Several of the prisoners, in fact, survived only because of the acts of generosity they received from their captors.

The Indians and their captives arrived in the vicinity of the tiny French settlement of Chambly around the first of January, just a week before Benjamin Waite and Stephen Jennings reached the same village by their more westerly route. It was -there on Jan. 6, among the rude huts of French trappers, that the two men received their first solid news of the captives since they'd left Hatfield in October.

Galvanized by the information that most of the captives were still alive, the two weary men pressed on to the nearby village of Sorel, where they found Jennings' wife and several others they also learned that many of the captives were among the French now, having been pawned off to the trappers for liquor. A few were still with the Indians, but not far away.

After resting a few days and receiving assurance of the captives' safety from the French, Waite and Jennings set out for Quebec to seek the assistance of Gov. Frontenac in arranging the ransom of their friends and kinsmen. With the governor's aid and guarantee, the Indians agreed to accept Waite's promise of a 200 pound payment and released their prisoners into his care. (The money was paid, but only after some grumbling by Boston officials.) It was during those negotiations among Waite, the French authorities and the Indians that Martha Waite gave birth to Canada, and two months later Captivity Jennings was born.

Finally, after many delays and a long wait for the Canadian winter to end, the party of Waite, Jennings and the surviving captives set out for Albany on May 2. Accompanied by an escort of soldiers, they arrived there on the 22nd of May.

By now, however, Waite and Jennings running out of resources. With no money in hand, little food, and with the French soldiers returning to Quebec, Waite appealed to his Hatfield neighbors. In a letter whose text is today emblazoned on a 6 foot-high bronze the Hatfield Public Library, Waite asked for help. The letter, with it's plaintive, almost desperate appeal, is worth citing in its entirety, just as it was written on May 23, 1678:

 'To my loving friends and kindred at Hatfield - These few lines are to let you understand that we are arrived at Albany with the captives, and we now stand in need of assistance, for my charges is very greate and heavy and therefore any that have any love to our condition, let it moove them to come and help us out in this straight. There is Three of ye captives are murdered, - old Goodman Plympton, Samuel Foot's daughter, and Samuel Russell. All the rest are alive and well and now at Albany. (Here he names the survivors.) I pray you, hasten the matter, for it requireth greate hast. Stay not for ye Sabbath, nor for the shoeing of horses. We shall endeavor to meete you it Canterhook; it may be at Houseatonock. We must come very softly because of our wives and children. I pray you, hasten then, stay not night nor day, for ye matter requireth greate hast. Bring provisions with you for us.

 "Your loving kinsman, Benjamin Waite.

"At Albany written from myne own hand as I have bin affected to yours all that were fatherless, be affected to me now, and hasten ye matter and stay not, and ease me of my charges. You shall not need td be afraid of any enemies." The rest of the story is quickly told: Remaining at Albany five days to rest, Waite and his charges arrived on May 27 at Kinderhook, N.Y. (Canterhook in Waite's letter). There they were met by a party from Hatfield with horses and provisions. Within a few days Waite and the redeemed captives were home, again and reunited with their families. Waite, for his trouble, became famous throughout New England, for his letter from Albany was copied and read from every pulpit from Maine to Rhode Island as an example of frontier courage and "God's wonderful bounty." And Hatfield that summer voted to enlarge its stockade. But, of course, the story has a sequel - or more accurately, several sequels. For one, though little is known about Captivity Jennings, she apparently lived into her 60s, while Canada Waite lived to the ripe old age of 72. At 19, Canada Waite married Joseph Smith and became the great-great-grandmother of Sophia Smith, the founder of Smith Academy in Hatfield and of Smith College. The past has a way of creating echoes, and Canada Waite's story is no exception. In North Scituate, R.I., for instance, a distant descendant, Canada Waite Billings, today participates with her husband in historical re-enactments from the Revolutionary War period. She says that as far as she knows she's the first family member since the original to bear the name Canada.  

It's worth noting, too, that Benjamin Waite himself came from Rhode Island, arriving in the Hatfield area sometime in he 1660s. Waite lived to be 62. He was killed by an Indian's bullet as he and 1678. other Hatfield farmers rushed to the aid of their northern neighbors during the Deerfield raid in 1704. And while Canada Waite's tombstone is in the Hill Burying Ground in Hatfield, Benjamin Waite was buried in a common grave with others killed at Deerfield. But perhaps the most poignant footnote to the morning of Sept.19, 1677, is the little red shoe in the Pucumtuck Valley Memorial Association Museum in Deerfield. Worn by 4-year-old Sarah Coleman on the day her mother and infant sister were slain and she and her brother were taken captive, the single shoe survived the long trip to Canada and back (what happened to its mate is nowhere recorded) and was preserved by Sarah's descendants until it was given to the museum by a distant descendant, Edwin Bardwell of Whately, in 1876. The high-topped shoe, originally of red wool and silk, lined in leather, is today much deteriorated, but it sits still in Deerfield, protected under glass, bearing a mute and tenderly personal testimony to that awful trek - the first of many to follow - made during the winter of 1677.  

Sept. 16, 1696. The Indians came along from up Green River to the town, and assaulted Mr. Daniel Belden's house; took Mr. Belden, his son Nathaniel and daughter Esther captive, killed his wife and three children, and wounded Samuel and Abigail, but they recovered, altho' Samuel had a hatchet struck in his head, and some of his brains came out at his wound. Samuel was born Apr 10, 1687.' From another source listed as Mather's Magnalia: The Indians making an Assault upon Deerfield, in this Present War, they struck a Hatchet some Inches into the Skull of a Boy there, even so deep that the Boy felt the force of a Wrench used by 'em to get it out. There he lay a long while Weltering in his Blood; they found him, they Dress'd him; considerable Quantities of his Brain came out from time to time when they opened the Wound- yet the Lad recovered, and is now a Living Monument of the Power and Goodness of God.

George Felt (7th great grandfather; 3784

When, in June of this year, King Philip's War broke out in the Plymouth Colony, George Felt, Jr. was peacefully enjoying his home at Mussel Cove, about two miles eastward from the "Neck" or the "Machigone" of the natives, the present city of Portland. Although the Falmouth Indians evinced to other than a peaceable disposition towards the English, it was thought best on the part of the authorities to deprive them of their weapons; but upon attempting to carry this measure into effect, collisions naturally occurred and the fear and jealousy of the Indians were aroused. They forgot all the former kindnesses they had received, and open hostilities between them and the settlers became the signal for mutual extermination. Hostilities were not confined to Massachusetts, George died in Maine in 1676, at the age of 41.

Martin Kellogg (6th great uncle; 3810.5)

When Deerfield was destroyed by the French and Indians, 29 Feb., 1704, he and four of his children, Martin, Joseph, Joanna and Rebecca, were taken prisoners and carried to Canada. His son, Jonathan, was killed. Mrs. Kellogg escaped. There is a tradition that at the time of the attack upon the house (which was at night), Mrs. Kellogg "escaped from her bed with her infant, a few days old, to the cellar, and after secreting her infant, turned a large tub over herself; the cries of the child attracted the attention of the Indians, who immediately seized it and dashed it against the wall. They afterward feasted upon the stores which they found in the cellar, sitting upon the tub which concealed the wretched mother. On their departure, they set fire to the dwelling. She rushed from the house, almost naked and, with bare feet, fled through the deep snow for two miles to the house then used as a fort."

Joseph Kellogg (1st cousin, 7 times removed; 3810.5.1)

He was the son of Martin and Sarah (Dickinson / Lane). The mother was not captured, but the father and four children were carried away, a fifth child killed. Joseph was twelve and seems to have unusual experiences, for he says "I traveled two & fro amongst the French and Indians" learning "the French language as well as those of all the tribes of Indians I traded with, and Mohawks, & had got into a very good way of business: So as to get Considerable of monies ... & handsomely to support myself & was under no restraint at all." He was perhaps the first New Englander to see the Mississippi River. In 1715 he returned. Always thereafter his skills were called on. He died in 1756 at Schenectady while on the expedition against Oswego.

Deerfield Inn, Deerfield, Massachusetts 

The room descriptions are as follows: Captivity Jennings: Hannah Jennings and her two small children were captured by Indians in Deerfield on a September afternoon in 1677. They were carried to Canada over 100 miles of tangled, uninhabited wilderness and probably reached the Indian village some two weeks later. While in Canada, Hannah's third child, a daughter, was born and appropriately named Captivity Jennings. Captivity returned to the Deerfield area and married Abija Bartlett of Hadley, Massachusetts.

 Martin Kellogg: Martin Kellogg was born in Deerfield in 1686 and was a youth of 18 on that awful night in February 1704 when French and Indians attacked the tiny outpost of Deerfield. Martin was taken captive and marched 100 miles to Montreal over the snowy wilderness. He was redeemed some years later and returned to Deerfield. Martin Kellogg had a colorful career as a wilderness scout and founded many small towns and villages in rural New England. Toward the end of his life he lived in Newington, Connecticut and was a teacher of Indian boys at Mr. Isaac Hollis' School in Newington. He died in November 1753, having lived a most interesting life!

Baby Names?

Popular names, names that appear more than 100 times in our line.

John (501), William (264); Samuel (260); Thomas (254); Joseph (219); Jonathon (112); Benjamin (111); James (106); Nathaniel (104).  Mary (549); Elizabeth (417); Sarah (415); Hannah (207); Ann (196); Margaret (127); Abigail (115); Rebecca (102).

Those funny old names: (* = Male or Female) 

Place names as first names that appear amongst our ancestors:

Abilene (f), Arizona (f), Canada (f), Cleveland (m), Iowa (f), Melbourne (m), Missouri (f), Roswell (m), and Virginia.

Names not to give your baby (although at least one our ancestors did).

My personal favorite in our line is John DeLafayette Septa Fillmore (#226.11). He is generally seen as John DLFS Fillmore.

Another favorite is Clara Edith Daisy LaRue (#29). She was always called Daisy, her grave stone is marked Clara E. D.

Numbering System

The numbering system used in this document is known as the Sosa-Stradonitz System.  In it you assign yourself (or child or parent) the number 1. If you are No. 1, then your father is No. 2, your mother No. 3, your paternal grandfather No. 4, etc. In this system, a person's father's number is always twice the person's number and his or her mother's number is twice-plus-one.

 In this document I started with #'s 14 and 15, they are Ralph Eugene Kennon (#14) and Mabel Crawford (#15 )Therefore the father of #14, is #28 (14 x 2), the mother of #14 is #29 (14 x 2 +1). To account for siblings of a direct ancestor a decimal is used. For instance, Frederick Albert Kennon (#28) had 5 children, the direct ancestor is Ralph Kennon (#14), his siblings are numbered 28.1 (1st child of #28); 28.2 (2nd child of #28); 28.3 (3rd child of #28) etc. Notice there is no #24.5, that is the direct ancestor, his number is #14.  Likewise, the children of those with decimals have decimals. For instance Noah Robiner is # 14.3.6.3, he is the 3rd child, of the 6th child, of the 3rd child of #14!  A letter designates a spouse, #122.1a, would be the first spouse of #122.1; #122.1b, would be the second spouse of #122.1.  Those people with asterisks as numbers are not related, generally these are the parents of an ancestor's spouse.

The Chapin Mess

My numbering system worked fairly well until I happened upon Amelia Wells Chapin (#59)  and her ancestor Deacon Samuel Chapin. Amelia Wells Chapin married Franklin LaRue  (#58) and she is a true Samuel Chapin hybrid.  Samuel Chapin is both her 4th and 5th great grandfather as she is descended 4 different ways through 3 of his 10 children.  I first discovered that we were descendants of Samuel Chapin through Amelia's father Levi Chapin (#118). Numbering back to Samuel gave him the number 3776.  I later discovered the other three branches but decided rather than give him 4 different numbers I would keep using #3776.  The numbering of Samuel Chapin's children is also messy. David, the oldest is numbered 3776.4 which would indicate he is the fourth child of Samuel and Cicely. The youngest, Hannah is numbered 3776.7.  This occurred because the first references I found to Samuel did not name all of his children and when I discovered the others it was too late to go back and renumber the MANY descendants.  Also, just as I gave Samuel only one number, I gave his son Japhet only one number (#1912) that I used for both lines.  Therefore Japhet's son Thomas is number 1918, but his father is #1912 because that is the number assigned up through his other son Jonathon.  The following page shows an ancestor chart for Amelia Wells Chapin which attempts to show that most roads lead back to Samuel Chapin.

I distinctly remember when I made the big break through on this family. In genealogy one never uses a woman's married name but of course, all public records use a woman's married name.  I was stuck on Achsah Chapin who married Phillip Smith and her daughter Achsah Smith who married Levi Chapin. Achsah Chapin Smith and daughter Achsah Smith Chapin - it took me a while to figure out they were two different women.

THIS JUST IN - I AM MY OWN GRANDPA

According to the author of the above named song, he based the song, which proves you can be your own grandfather on an anecdote of Mark Twain's.  It's a little convoluted but funny reading.

In putting this "book" together I have come across errors in my numbering system, for instance I found one lady (direct ancestor) who had an even number, all female direct ancestors should have odd numbers, I had incorrectly assigned her husband's number to her.  My genealogy program does not assign "genealogical" numbers but allows the user to do as I have done, assign numbers based upon one of the recognized formats. Since this is a manual process, it is of course prone to errors.  I've been cleaning up as I go along.  In fixing the above lady I found that her granddaughter Sarah Bliss' s (#7279) father, Thomas Bliss was numbered 3780.1 instead of #14558. In checking this out I found that we are directly related to the father of said Thomas Bliss (also a Thomas! #3780) through two of his children, Thomas, the eldest and Samuel, the youngest. I went through, made the corrections and decided to follow each of the lines down to the present.  (You will now find that Thomas Bliss #3780, has a son Samuel numbered 14558, in keeping with my plan, as outlined above with the Chapin's, of not giving one guy two numbers.)

Frederick Kennon and Daisy LaRue were 6th cousins, 3 times removed (as well as husband and wife).  You can test this by charting them on the Cousin Chart included in this book.  I am certain they had no knowledge of this BUT it means we are related to ourselves.  You (Ralph, Martha, Judy and Sanny) are your own 8th cousins, 3 times removed and I am my own 9th cousin, 3 times removed. 

What amazes me most is that in doing this for 25 years I still come across things I haven't figured out.

Dates

Julian Calendar

The Julian calendar was introduced in 46 BC by Julius Caesar and took force in 45 BC .  It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year. It has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months, and a leap day is added to February every four years. Hence the Julian year is on average 365.25 days long. The Julian calendar remained in use into the 20th century in some countries and is still used by many national Orthodox churches; it has generally been replaced by the modern Gregorian calendar. Reform was required because too many leap days are added with respect to the astronomical seasons on the Julian scheme. On average, the astronomical solstices and the equinoxes advance by about 11 minutes per year against the Julian year, causing the calendar to gain a day about every 134 years.

Gregorian Calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the calendar that is used nearly everywhere in the world. A modification of the Julian calendar, it was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, for whom it is named on February 24, 1582. This was observed in Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. Other Catholic countries followed shortly after, but Protestant countries were reluctant to change, and the Greek orthodox countries didn't change until the start of this century. Note that countries who delayed the change-over beyond 1700 AD had to add eleven days as they had inserted an extra leap year.

Its years are numbered based on the traditional birth year of Jesus Christ. The Gregorian Calendar was devised both because the mean year in the Julian Calendar was slightly too long, causing the vernal equinox to slowly drift backwards in the calendar year, and because the lunar calendar used to compute the date of Easter had grown conspicuously in error as well. The Gregorian calendar system dealt with these problems by dropping a certain number of days to bring the calendar back into synchronization with the seasons, and then slightly shortening the average number of days in a calendar year, by omitting three Julian leap-days every 400 years.

The notation "Old Style" (OS) is sometimes used to indicate a date in the Julian calendar, as opposed to "New Style" (NS), which indicates a date in the Gregorian Calendar. This notation is used when there might otherwise be confusion about which date is found in a text.

During the Middle Ages January 1 was given the name New Year's Day (or an equivalent name) in all Western European countries (those with predominantly Catholic populations), even while most of those countries began their numbered year on 25 December (the Nativity of Jesus), then 25 March (the Incarnation of Jesus), and even Easter, as in France. This name was the result of always displaying the months of the medieval calendar from January to December (in twelve columns containing 28 to 31 days each, (see next page), just like the Romans did. Furthermore, all Western European countries (except for a few Italian states) shifted the first day of their numbered year to January 1st while they were still using the Julian calendar, before they adopted the Gregorian calendar, many during the sixteenth century. Eastern European countries (most of them with populations showing allegiance to the Orthodox Church) began their numbered year on 1 September (since about 988).

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by England and the United States in September of 1752 when September 2nd was followed by September 14th.  Prior to that time the first day of the year was March 25th. Double dating is used to deal with the period from Jan. 1 through March 24 . For example, January 1677/8, would be after December 1677, but before April 1678. In March, dates would be written: March 24, 1677, then the next day would be: March 25, 1678.  To make things more confusing, when the calendar was changed in 1752 (and corrected, skipping about 11 days to account for errors), many people changed dates in their records, or even moved their birthdays--most notably being George Washington who changed his birthday!

George Washington was actually born on February 12 but he changed it to February 22 when the Gregorian calendar was implemented. What I couldn't find/figure out was, if his birthday is now recorded as Feb. 22, 1732, was that February 1732/3 or February 1731/2!  Incidentally Abraham Lincoln was also born on February 12.  In researching this Washington birthday thing I came across lots of dialogue on web sites about people unhappy that the Washington's Birthday holiday was changed and lumped in with Abraham Lincoln's Birthday holiday to become President's Day.  There is a contingent that thinks Washington was special enough that we should continue to celebrate his "real" birthday.  They might be surprised to find out the facts behind his and Lincoln's "real" birthday.

Quakers retained the custom of using month numbers, instead of names, for many years, because they felt that month names were derived from pagan names.Quaker dates are written in one of two formats: 17th da 4th mo 1723 or 4mo 17da 1723. Some people refer to this "1st month in March" as "Quaker dating", however the calendar was the same for everyone, not just the Quakers.

Since we have lots of Quakers in our ancestry I ran into a lot of dates like those above. The big trouble is that through the years other genealogists who were not familiar with "Quaker dates" would automatically do the conversion. They would make 4th mo 17 da 1723 into April 17, 1723 when in fact the event occurred on June 17, 1723.

The Quakers were right, although the names of the months have changed around some, the derivation of the current names are as follows: January, Janus a Roman god; February, februarius, Latin for "month of purification;" March, Mars a Roman god; April, Aprilus, Latin for "month of Venus;"  May, Maia Maiestas, a Roman goddess; June, Juno, a Roman God; July, Julius Caesar, Roman dictator; August, Augustus, Roman emporer; September, septem, Latin for 7th month; October, octo, Latin for 8th month; November, novem, Latin for 9th month; December, decem, Latin for 10th month. Notice September through December are named as the 7th through 10th months.

First Cousins, Second Cousins, Times Removed

Cousin (a.k.a "first cousin")

Your first cousins are the people in your family who have two of the same grandparents as you. In other words, they are the children of your aunts and uncles.

Second Cousin

Your second cousins are the people in your family who have the same great-grandparents as you., but not the same grandparents.

Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cousins

Your third cousins have the same great-great-grandparents, fourth cousins have the same great-great-great-grandparents, and so on.

Removed

When the word "removed" is used to describe a relationship, it indicates that the two people are from different generations. You and your first cousins are in the same generation (two generations younger than your grandparents), so the word "removed" is not used to describe your relationship.

The words "once removed" mean that there is a difference of one generation. For example, your mother's first cousin is your first cousin, once removed. This is because your mother's first cousin is one generation younger than your grandparents and you are two generations younger than your grandparents. This one-generation difference equals "once removed."

Twice removed means that there is a two-generation difference. You are two generations younger than a first cousin of your grandmother, so you and your grandmother's first cousin are first cousins, twice removed.

1. Select  two people in your family and figure out which ancestor they have in common. For example, if you chose yourself and a first cousin, you would have a grandparent in common.

2. Look at the top row of the chart and find the first person's relationship to the common ancestor.

3. Look at the far left column of the chart and find the second person's relationship to the common ancestor.

4. Move across the columns and down the rows to determine where the row and column containing these two relationships (from #2 &  #3) meet. This box is the relationship between the two individuals