RELATIVELY FICTION

A Book About The French And Indian War For Kids

2012-02-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

The hunters of the hills: a story of the French and Indian war by Joseph Alexander Altsheler (1862-1919), was published in 1916. Mr. Altsheler wrote several other volumes of juvenile historical fiction on various subjects.

A Former Slave, William Webb, In Detroit

2012-02-01T07:37:00.000-08:00

Found on Documenting The American South website:

The History of William Webb Composed By Himself is a fascinating account of a person who was born a slave in 1836 and met his future wife in Detroit, published in 1873:

William Webb in the South:

... I was living in Georgia. The master I belonged to moved to Mississippi. My father said to his children, I am going to part from all of you, I have heard so much about Mississippi; I shall not go with you... .

Old master's son married a girl from Kentucky, and he took me with him to Kentucky. We moved with an ox team. We were five weeks on the road, from Mississippi to Kentucky, Warren County, between Bowling Green and Shaker Town.

...my master took a notion to move back to Mississippi. I was sorry to go back, for where I lived was better than where I came from.

Then I returned to my old master, who was waiting until my time was up to return to Kentucky. He told me he was very happy to see me, and made me a present of five dollars in silver, and told me to go around and see my friends, and bid them good-bye. He made preparations to start to Grey's County Kentucky. I went round and saw my mother, and my brothers and sisters.

William Webb in Michigan and beyond:

The next morning I went harvesting for another man, and I worked for him about two weeks. Then I went to a hotel to work, and I stayed there till fall, and I left there and came to Detroit, and I went out Fort street west, five miles, and chopped wood all winter. The cemetery* is on the spot where I chopped wood. While I was out there a riot occurred in the city, and a great many colored people were fleeing out in the country where I was... . [*Note: At one point in my 20's I lived near Woodmere cemetery which is on Fort Street]

I left and came back to Detroit. There was a man named Mr. Warsaw, who kept a boarding-house on Cass street, between Jefferson avenue and Larned street, and I went to board with him. I began to study what I had heard when I was at the Quaker's, about being born again and serving the Lord and wishing to do to others as I would be done by, and I studied the matter over very close.

I commenced whitewashing* around the city again. I whitewashed till harvest time. I started out among the farmers when harvest began, and it came into my mind to go back to that same Quaker again. [*Note: I did not find John Brown mentioned in Mr. Webb's narrative; however, John Brown met at the house of a Mr. William Webb, "one of Detroit's more successful whitewashers", on Congress Street in Detroit to plan his raid on Harper's Ferry. There was a William Webb, b. 1817 in Virginia (race not identified in the 1860 census) who also lived in Detroit who may have been the person who plotted with John Brown]

...being in her company a few more evenings, and we met from time to time, until finally we were engaged to be married. I took the notion to go out to the Eastern States and through Canada. I took the train to Toronto, and from there to Montreal, and took the train and went from there to Pond City, Vermont. When I was on the way to Vermont, I inquired whether there were any colored people living there. They told me that no colored people lived in the city.

Then I wrote back to Detroit to the lady I was engaged to marry, for I was anxious to hear from her, and received an answer in seven days from the time I had written.

I went from there to Albany in the State of New York, and took the train from there to Niagara Fall(s), and looked at all the things worth seeing there, and then took the cars for Detroit. I arrived here safe, without a day's sickness while I was gone, and went back to my old boarding-house on Cass street. I sat down and studied over all my travels, and I saw the lady I was engaged to marry, and we were much rejoiced to meet one another.

I was married on the 20th October, 1867, and lived on the corner of Cass and Larned streets.

I carried on my business in the city, and in the course of another year the Lord blessed us with a daughter. I thought my calculations about raising up a son were broken up, although I am very well pleased with my daughter. She is seven months old, and has hardly had a day's sickness. I recalled to my mind the time when my wife went down home to Toronto, Canada, to see her mother, and being a man that was in the habit of always coming home as soon as my work was done, both before and since I was married, my wife being gone, the evenings seemed so long and lonesome, and having heard so much about what good times the people were having at balls, tea parties and festivals, I thought I would go out and see for myself what was going on.

Ending on this religious note:

Many will ask the reason why I have not been to school, but I will leave that question and answer it at soms future day, if it is the Lord's will. I trust I have laid up riches in heaven, if I am only humble in the Lord's grace, though a man ought to do all the good he can in this world, and after he has done that, it is but a small thing in the sight of God. Then shall the dust return to the earth, and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it. For God shall bring every thing to judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

Canadian Topics Of Interest

2012-01-27T06:48:00.001-08:00

I found author Barbara Martin's blog through a Google search for the Battle of Queenston Heights during the War of 1812. Like the posts and also the links.

Stephen Crane's The Open Boat

2012-01-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

The Open Boat , Stephen Crane, the Commodore and filibustering were all part of a display at the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse Museum. The area used to be known as Mosquito Inlet.

View From the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse

I remembered reading Crane's Red Badge of Courage in high school (a long time ago!), and wondered why Stephen Crane was part of a lighthouse display.

From The Stephen Crane Display

Stephen Crane, author and newspaper reporter, was smack in the middle of a real life drama on the Commodore during his filibustering days prior to the Spanish-American War.

[The Open Boat is] A Tale intended to be after the fact. Being the experience of four men
from the sunk steamer "Commodore."

"What do you think of those life-saving people? Ain't they peaches?'
"Funny they haven't seen us."
"Maybe they think we're out here for sport! Maybe they think we're
fishin'. Maybe they think we're damned fools."
It was a long afternoon. A changed tide tried to force them southward,
but the wind and wave said northward. Far ahead, where coast-line, sea,
and sky formed their mighty angle, there were little dots which seemed
to indicate a city on the shore.
"St. Augustine?"
The captain shook his head. "Too near Mosquito Inlet."

From Spark notes for The Open Boat:
“The Open Boat” confronts both Crane’s time aboard the dinghy and the symbolic implications of fighting for one’s life amidst forces that are uncaring about one’s survival.

UNC's site for the analysis of the story.

Stephen Crane books, including one with The Open Boat as its first short story here.

From The Stephen Crane Display

Irish Pioneers In Kentucky

2011-12-10T15:50:00.000-08:00

From Irish Pioneers In Kentucky:

Springfield [MA] Library's Genealogy Fiction List

2011-11-30T15:29:00.000-08:00

From a reading list for genealogical fiction (there's more at the site):

Diary Of Capt. Samuel Jenks - French And Indian War

2011-11-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

Diary of Captain Samuel Jenk:

Sergeant David Holden's Journal - French And Indian War

2011-11-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

Journal Kept By Sergeant David Holden concerning the French And Indian War:

Connected To One By Family And The Other By Geography

2011-10-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

From Washington, West of the Cascades...

"In 1907 he [Judge Thomas Burke] went abroad, accompanied by his wife and Mr. and Mrs. M. F. Backus*. They sailed on the steamship Minnesota and traveled extensively through the Orient, combining business and pleasure, for the two gentlemen were special commissioners of the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition. Their efforts in that connection were given without compensation and the participation of the Japanese and other oriental peoples in the exposition was brought about through their efforts."

*Manson Franklin (M.F.) Backus was the nephew of my great-great-great grandmother, Laura (Backus) Richmond (Manson's father, Clinton, was Laura's half-brother), and it was his name that caught my attention in the book.

"In the meantime he (Thomas Burke) had determined upon the law as his life work and in preparation therefore he entered the Michigan State University [sic] at Ann Arbor, although again his period of study was not a continuous one, as it was necessary for him to leave the university at times and continue teaching in order to meet the expense of his college course. He was also a student for a time in the office of a practicing lawyer at Marshall, Michigan, and following his admission to the bar he entered upon active practice in that city. Before a year had passed he was chosen to fill the position of city attorney, which office he continued to fill until his removal to the west in 1875. [He was a student in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1870]

He began the practice of his profession in partnership with John J. McGilvra, a pioneer lawyer who came to Washington territory in 1861, holding an appointment as United States district attorney, given to him by President Lincoln. This partnership did not continue very long, although the two men remained firm friends and Burke became permanently related to McGilvra by winning the heart and hand of his beautiful daughter.

.Before leaving Marshall, Judge Burke had decided that Seattle was to be the place of his future residence."

United States Census, 1880
Name:    Tho'S Burke
Residence:    Seattle, King, Washington
Birthdate:    1851
Birthplace:    New York, United States
Relationship to Head:    Self
Spouse's Name:    Carrie Burke
Spouse's Birthplace:    Illinois, United States
Father's Birthplace:    Ireland
Mother's Birthplace:    Ireland
Race or Color (Expanded):    White
Occupation:    Lawyer
    Household   Gender   Age
   Tho'S Burke    M    29
Spouse    Carrie Burke    F    21

Reading further about Judge Burke, the references to Michigan State University and Marshall, Michigan, got my attention. We frequently shop and dine in Marshall, Michigan, from our summer home. (Thomas Burke attended the University of Michigan, not Michigan State University). Not only did Judge Burke live in my neck of the woods at one time, he toured the Orient with one of my "Backus" relatives.

Martin L. Squier In the Second MI Cavalry

2011-10-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

While researching a soldier in the Second Michigan Cavalry, Norman Benedict, I found the book, "A Hundred Battles In The West," which was written about that unit. Another soldier in the 2nd Michigan Cavalry was Martin L. Squier:

Michigan In The War

From Ancestry.com:

American Civil War Soldiers American Civil War Soldiers
Name: Martin Squier ,
Enlistment Place: Grand Rapids, Michigan
Enlisted as a Private on 25 Sept 1861 at the age of 31.
Enlisted in Co. C, 2nd Cav Reg Mich on 2 Oct 1861.
Promoted to Full Quartermaster Sgt on 3 Oct 1861.
" Full 2nd Lieutenant on 15 Apr 1863.
" to Full 1st Lieutenant on 1 Mar 1864.
Promoted to Full Captain on 22 Oct 1864.
Discharged from Company C, 2nd Cavalry Regiment Mich. on 20 Nov 1865 at Macon, GA.

When the 2nd Cavalry was originally organized, Russell A. Alger was the Captain of Company "C":

Captain Russell A. Alger married a Squier descendant, Huldana Annette Henry. She was a first cousin of Martin L. Squier who was the Captain of Company "C" at the end of the Civil War.

My grandkids are descendants of Wait and Hannah (Powell) Squier.

From Emily Dickinson To Julia Moore In Fiction

2011-10-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

A line in a mystery novel, Emily Dickinson Is Dead, made me think of my cousin. The line was "...(he) was abandoning Emily Dickinson, getting ready to rip and claw at somebody else. This time it was Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan."

Just as a fictional Emily Dickinson symposium was hosted in Massachusetts, a real Julia Moore event, the Julia Moore Poetry Parody Contest, was held Michigan until budget cuts killed the poetry star (apologies to "Video Killed The Radio Star)."

According to this participant, it was "...Tom Powers, the retired Flint Public Library research librarian who'd been the demented brain behind the rowdy Julia A. Moore Bad Poetry Contest...".

An article in the Chicago Sun Times described Tom's thought process:

FLINT, Mich. - Julia A. Moore certainly took her lumps while she was alive. So librarian Tom Powers figures: Why stop now?

Tom Powers is my cousin and the Julia A. Moore contest was his brainchild.

Though I never attended any of the Julia A. Moore contests, I'm guessing they were nothing like the fictional Emily Dickinson symposium that was in the thick murder and mayhem.

Governor Dinwiddie's French Fears And George Washington's Help

2011-10-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

In The Plains of Abraham (about the French-Indian War and events surrounding said war) Virginia Governor Dinwiddie expressed concerns about the French encroachment.

... Dinwiddie had been deluging London with alarmed reports of the French movements, begging for instructions. The dilatory home government had not even deigned to reply. Right through the spring and scorching summer of 1753, the faithful Lieutenant-Governor sat waiting for some directive, while news came in from the Ohio wilderness of demonstrations by armed and organised French bands in areas long considered the preserve of the middle British colonies. The crisis involving the whole future and structure of North America, as we know it today, was at hand.

On June 16th Dinwiddie wrote to London, pleading the necessity of building forts in the Ohio Valley to check the French:... (Dinwiddie wrote) I hope there is no great army of French among the lakes. His fears were more than justified.

In the whole of Virginia there was not a single man on whom Dinwiddie could call who had been trained as a regular officer. He needed someone of authority and standing to carry the ultimatum to the French. Someone, moreover, who was familiar with the border country and inured to wilderness travel, with a more responsible background than the rough frontiersmen. The requirement soon became the common talk of the Virginia Burgesses, and Dinwiddie's dilemma was solved by a volunteer. His name was George Washington and he was twenty-one years of age.

From The Official Records Of Robert Dinwiddie:

The "Dour Scot," Robert Dinwiddie

2011-10-09T17:05:00.000-07:00

From The Plains of Abraham, a book about the French-Indian War:

...the Lieutenant-Governor [of Virginia], Robert Dinwiddie, took a jaundiced view of these high-spirited, free-spending colonials. A dour, broad-bottomed Scot, with short grey hair like wire and steady, blue-grey eyes, Dinwiddie was a professional civil servant. For most of his life he had been a Customs surveyor in Virginia and the British West Indies, and now, at the age of sixty, brought his fierce integrity to the upholding of the royal prerogative against an elected assembly whose increasing pleasure it was to bait him. As devoted and effective a British administrator ever to function in the American colonies, he (Dinwiddie) had become alarmed at the encroachments of the French in the huge no-man's-land of the Ohio Valley beyond the mountains.

From "The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie...":

Dinwiddie died in Clifton, Bristol, England.

Luke Gridley's Diary - French And Indian War

2011-10-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Luke Gridley's diary:

PREFACE.

THE year 1757 was the nadir of the English cause during the Seven Years' War in America. Not only had it thus far distinctly the worse, — having lost the control of the West at Fort Duquesne in 1755, and that of Lake Ontario at Oswego in 1756, and gained only a desert frontier on the east by depopulating one of its own provinces,—but the disasters had seemingly taught the government nothing. They had not even loosed the hold of political "pulls" and jobbery which was the curse of all the administrative services. For two years a set of very unfit commanders, appointed by court or family influence, with the King's son Cumberland as military dictator, played ducks and drakes with the English chances of gaining the chief heritage of the Western Hemisphere; and they would have lost it altogether but for the provincials whom they despised, belittled, and defamed — largely for their own repute and promotions, and to the fatal misleading of English judgment as to an easy suppression of provincial revolt a few years later.

From the war's "big picture" (above) to the sometimes mundane found in the day to day activities:

Found In The Comprehensive Subject Index of 1897

2011-09-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here is a way to find subjects of interest in older books: The comprehensive subject index to Universal Prose Fiction:

Forest and shore Charles P Ilsley
Forest tragedy and other tales Sara J Lippincott Pseud Grace Greenwood
Foresters Jeremy Belknap
Forsaken Richard P Smith
Fort Braddock letters or Tale of the French and Indian wars in America at the beginning of the eighteenth century Anon
Fort Lafayette Benjamin Wood
Forward with the flag Mary S Robinson
Foundling of the Mohawk Newton M Curtis
Francis Berrian the Mexican patriot T Flint
Francois de Bienville Joseph Marmette
Franklin's oath C.I.A. Chapman
Frederick de Algeroy the hero of Camden Plains Giles Gazer Pseud
From colony to commonwealth Nina Moore Tiffany
Fur seal's tooth a story of Alaskan adventure Kirk Munroe
Gideon Godbold NC Iron
Golden eagle Sylvanus Cobb Jr
Golden hair a tale of the Pilgrim fathers FCL Wraxall
Grace Dudley Charles J Peterson
Great battle year 1863 Mary S Robinson
Great treason Mary AM Hoppus
Green mountain boys an historical tale of the early settlement of Vermont Daniel P Thompson
Greyslaer Charles F Hoffman
Guatimozin ultimo emperador de Mejico Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda
Gun bearer Edward A Robinson
Hammer and rapier John Esten Cooke
Hardscrabble or Fall of Chicago John Richardson
Harpe's Head a legend of Kentucky James Hall
Harrington William D Q Connor
Heart's forever or Old Dominion battle grounds a tale of 1782 NC Iron
Henry Saint John a tale of 1774 1775 John Esten Cooke
Hernan Cortez en Tabasco Fermin del Rey
Hero of Cowpens Rebecca MacConkey
Higher law Edward Maitland Pseud Herbert Ainslie
Hilt to hilt or Days and nights in the Shenandoah in the autumn of 1864 John Esten Cooke
Historischer Roman Cortez Fernando
Hobomok Lydia Maria Child
Horse shoe Robinson a tale of the tory ascendency John P Kennedy Pseud Solomon Second thoughts

The Girtys In Fiction And In Life

2011-09-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

Simon Girty, and two of his brothers, George and James, were taken captive by Indians. Although at one point Simon returned to his family, he favored Indian ways. Initially Simon favored the Americans in the Revolutionary War but then joined the British and worked against the American forces as did George Girty.

Simon Girty's brother George led the Indian attack against a detachment of American forces led by Colonel Archibald Lochry on their way to General George Rogers Clark's army. Every man in the detachment as either killed or captured; for months no one, including General Clark, knew the fate of those involved in "Lochry's Defeat." My ancestor, William Roark, was one of the lucky soldiers; he was captured, not killed (called William Noach (#47) in the list of 64 captured prisoners here).

Simon Girty, one of literature's villains, was mentioned in Major Richardson's War of 1812 book (see excerpt below). In Major Richardson's book, Simon was fictionalized as "Sampson Gattrie" in Major Richardson's book "The Canadian Brothers."

Was it the infamous George Girty, Simon's brother, who claimed land in St. Charles, Missouri? I would say yes.

Major John Richardson, Author Of Wacousta

2011-09-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

From Major John Richardson's War of 1812 book:

....His delineation of Indian character in "Wacousta" has never been equalled, even by James Fenimore Cooper himself. In "The Canadian Brothers" he gives us a description of the principal Indian chiefs who were allies of the British in the War of 1812, to be found nowhere else.

John Richardson, a Canadian author, was a grandson of early Detroit merchant John Askin. Askin had family on both sides of the conflict in the War of 1812.

From the City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922...:

From the preface of Wacousta:

My father, of a younger branch of the Annandale family, the head of which was attainted in the Scottish rebellion of 1745, was an officer of Simcoe's well-known Rangers, in which regiment, and about the same period, the present Lord Hardinge commenced his services in this country. Being quartered at Fort Erie, he met and married at the house of one of the earliest Canadian merchants a daughter of Mr. Erskine, then on a visit to her sister, and by her had eight children, of whom I am the oldest and only survivor. Having a few years after his marriage been ordered to St. Joseph's, near Michilimackinac, my father thought it expedient to leave me with Mr. Erskine at Detroit, where I received the first rudiments of my education. But here I did not remain long, for it was during the period of the stay of the detachment of Simcoe's Rangers at St. Joseph that Mr. Erskine repaired with his family to the Canadian shore, where on the more elevated and conspicuous part of his grounds which are situated nearly opposite the foot of Hog Island, so repeatedly alluded to in "Wacousta," he had caused a flag-staff to be erected, from which each Sabbath day proudly floated the colors under which he had served, and which he never could bring himself to disown.

It was at Strabane that the old lady, with whom I was a great favorite, used to enchain my young interest by detailing various facts connected with the siege she so well remembered, and infused into me a longing to grow up to manhood that I might write a book about it. The details of the Ponteac [Pontiac] plan for the capture of the two forts were what she most enlarged upon, and although a long lapse of years of absence from the scene, and ten thousand incidents of a higher and more immediate importance might have been supposed to weaken the recollections of so early a period of life, the impression has ever vividly remained. Hence the first appearance of "Wacousta" in London in 1832, more than a quarter of a century later. The story is founded solely on the artifice of Ponteac to possess himself of those two last British forts. All else is imaginary.

It is not a little curious that I, only a few years subsequent to the narration by old Mrs. Erskine of the daring and cunning feats of Ponteac, and his vain attempt to secure the fort of Detroit, should myself have entered it in arms. But it was so. I had ever hated school with a most bitter hatred, and I gladly availed myself of an offer from General Brock to obtain for me a commission in the King's service. Meanwhile I did duty as a cadet with the gallant 41st regiment, to which the English edition of "Wacousta" was inscribed, and was one of the guard of honor who took possession of the fort. The duty of a sentinel over the British colors, which had just been hoisted was assigned to me, and I certainly felt not a little proud of the distinction.

Five times within half a century had the flag of that fortress [Detroit] been changed. First the lily of France, then the red cross of England, and next the stars and stripes of America had floated over its ramparts; and then again the red cross, and lastly the stars. On my return to this country a few years since, I visited those scenes of stirring excitement in which my boyhood had been passed, but I looked in vain for the ancient fortifications which had given a classical interest to that region. The unsparing hand of utilitarianism had passed over them, destroying almost every vestige of the past. Where had risen the only fortress in America at all worthy to give antiquity to the scene, streets had been laid out and made, and houses had been built, leaving not a trace of its existence save the well that formerly supplied the closely besieged garrison with water; and this, half imbedded in the herbage of an enclosure of a dwelling house of mean appearance, was rather to be guessed at than seen; while at the opposite extremity of the city, where had been conspicuous for years the Bloody Run, cultivation and improvement had nearly obliterated every trace of the past.

Fort Prince George In The Story of Old Fort Loudon

2011-09-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

From Story of Old Fort Loudon by Mary Noailles Murfree:

"Here's something from Fort Prince George," said Demere, from where he sat at the rude table with the papers scattered before him. "A goodly packet," he continued, as he broke the seal, in the expectant, pleased silence of the others. "Ensign Milne is writing--both the official communication and a long personal letter," noting the signature.

At the first glance along the lines his face fell.

"Captain Coytmore* is dead," he said in a low voice.
Murdered by the Indians he had been, in front of the fort, in the presence of the officers of his own command!

Note: It's really more about Fort Prince George and an incident involving Capt. Coytmore encountered while doing some Cameron (surname) research.

From The Cherokee:

* The imprisonment of their ambassadors, which included the head man of almost every important Cherokee town, roused bitterness and resentment throughout the Nation. Feeling was intensified when Lieut. Richard Coytmore, Commander of Fort Prince George, with another British officer, crossed the river to the town of Keowee, forced their way into a Cherokee house and grossly abused some Cherokee women whose men were away hunting.

Fictional Account Of The Siege Of Detroit

2011-09-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

Various excerpts from At The Siege of Detroit, A Story Of Two Ohio Boys In The War of 1812 as set down by David Bellinger, edited by James Otis (fiction):

2011-08-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

From The Kentuckians by Janet Holt Giles:

The Cumberland Gap Area

The colonel [Henderson] has got a valid title if the [British] crown recognizes it. Virginia and North Carolina have both repudiated him, but he hasn't sought recognition from them and isn't depending on it. He has bought the land from the Cherokees, and it's his opinion that under the terms of the treaty at Hard Labor it was recognized by Britain as belonging to them. He intends to set up as a proprietor under the crown. He's purchased the land from the mouth of the Kentucky River along the boundary of the Ohio to Powell Mountain, down the ridge of that mountain to the Cumberland River, and down the Cumberland to where it flows into the Ohio. He's already starting entering claims in the name of his company, which he calls the Transylvania Company....

...Cap'n [George Rogers] Clark is good friends with Patrick Henry [Governor of Virginia] and he said he was going to have a word with him about Colonel Henderson and try to find out which way the wind is blowing back there.

...to think of folks outside going their ownways, some in comfort and peace and even richness, deciding things in Williamsburg and Fort Pitt and Philadelphia, and even over in London, that would make things harder or easier for us here in the western country.

Note: The Cumberland Gap was crucial to the settlement of Kentucky. Pioneers were able to cross the Appalachian Mountains through that gap.

Daniel Boone And The Kentuckians' Kentucky

2011-08-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

From The Kentuckians by Janet Holt Giles:

Terrain Map Of The Cumberland Gap Area

He's [Colonel Henderson and his Transylvania Company] got Kentucky [accessed through the Cumberland Gap] for ten thousand pounds of goods offen the Cherokee. He's got one of your great specks up his sleeve, and you've fallen for it. Neither of us sitting by the fire together that night could look ahead and see the time when Dannel Boone would lose every acre of land the colonel deeded to him, and the thousands he staked out and claimed by his own sweat. There was no way of knowing he would leave the country, bitter against it and so poor he had naught but his own gun to provide his living again.

Cumberland Gap With A View Of Kentucky

I went around the cabin then and sat on the doorstep. The knoll slid down into the valley and I could see across it to the meadows widening between the hills. We'd freed ourselves of the Henderson company. We'd built three forts and held them against all attacks. We'd petitioned and made ourselves into a county [Kentucky County, Virginia], and we'd formed and set up our own county government.

Bridging The Gap

2011-08-25T05:16:00.001-07:00

From The Kentuckians by Janet Holt Giles, exploration of the Cumberland Gap area (and further) from character David Cooper's point of view...:

Near The Cumberland Gap

I first set foot in the Green River country in the spring of 1769. Jim Knox, from the Wolf Hills settlement on the Holston, led a party of us into Kentucky to hunt. Folks called us the Long Hunters because we stayed gone such a time.

I didn't know Ben Logan* too good, but he was from the same Wolf Hills settlement as Jim [Knox] and they'd always been friendly. Ben was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian like nearly all the rest of the folks over in that settlement....

Note: *Benjamin Logan and my ancestor, Christopher Acklin (see a picture of Acklin's tavern), were mentioned in the same paragraph here in the book the History of Southwest Virginia, 1746.... .

I came up to Martin's Station in the Powell Valley the evening of the fourth day. This was Joe Martin's place. It was little more than a clearing, squatting in the shadows of the high cliffs that barred the way to Kentucky, but it was the farthest west of any settlement.

About four miles yon side the Gap we met a party of some fifteen men heading back to the settlements. They were hurrying fearfully and their fright showed in their faces. ...The Indians are rampaging...

Dr. Beanes And The Star-Spangled Banner

2011-08-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

Francis Scott Key, an attorney, was positioned to see "that our flag was still there" because he was on a mission to free Dr. William Beanes. Levin Winder addressed the letter below, dated August 31, 1814, requesting the Dr. Beanes' release to the British General, Robert Ross.

From The British invasion of Maryland, (1812-1815:

Dr. Beanes was born in 1749 and died in 1828.

John Askin, An Important Figure In Early Detroit

2011-08-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

From The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922...:

JOHN ASKIN

... John Askin, one of the most important characters of the time and a man of great influence. He was born in Strabane, near Belfast, Ireland, about 1741, and came to America in 1756 or 1757. He was a volunteer in the British Army at the first attempt to take Ticonderoga and, about this time, fell in with Maj. Robert Rogers...

Askin's tastes inclined him more to trade than to war, and he afterward formed a trade partnership with Rogers at Albany. When Pontiac was besieging the post of Detroit in 1763 and the garrison and inhabitants were in need of food, Askin, as commissary, accompanied a body of troops with provisions from Albany, eluded the Indians, and succored the village. He was located at Mackinac prior to and during a part of the Revolution and held a position in the British commissary.

Fort At Mackinac Island, Michigan

Subsequently he moved to Detroit and engaged extensively in trade and the purchase of real estate.

Map of Detroit Area Found In The John Askin Papers Held At MSU (online)

He was an officer in the Canadian militia and was only deprived of his command because of old age. He regretted that he was unable to take an active part in the War of 1812. He was an ardent loyalist and not only refused to remain in Detroit after it was surrendered by the British...

Mr. Askin died at his home in Strabane, Canada, in 1818, and was buried at Sandwich.

One of John Askin's account books is held at the New York Public Library:

...between Detroit and Albany, 20 May - 21 July, 1762. Trade locations include Detroit, Niagara, Fort Ontario, Oswego Falls, Fort Brewington, Blockhouse, Fort Stanwix, Little Falls, Schenectady, and Albany. Persons named include Robert Rogers, Cezar Cormick, Alexander Steele, John Keating, Warren Tracy, Dennis Croughan, Thomas Lottridge, Collen Andrews, Isaac Van Valkenburg, and Edward Cole.

Aftermath Of The Plains Of Abraham Battle

2011-08-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

In the book, The Plains of Abraham ...

Vindication of earlier ignominious actions by the British was found at that battle:

"Slipping down the river towards him came the little force that was to decide the fate and future of all North America. The Indian raids on the British colonies, Washington's years of endurance on the mountain frontier, the incompetence of Braddock and Loudoun, Webb and Abercrombie were about to be avenged."

Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania

The clash at Quebec stands out almost as an isolated occurrence in most people's minds to-day, yet it was the climax of five years of bloody warfare along the borders of the British possessions in North America. The conflict has unexpected associations. It was precipitated by a skirmish in the jungle wilderness of the Ohio Valley between the French and a small party led by George Washington--not yet the Founding Father of the United States, but a loyal major in His Britannic Majesty's colonial militia.

Fort Necessity in Fayette Co., Pennsylvania

Ten Minutes That Changed America

2011-08-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

In the book, The Plains of Abraham, the battle on The Plains of Abraham was characterized as "brief though the savage clash of arms had been, their two little armies had fought one of the battles which have changed the face of history. They were the ten minutes that changed America." The British Army led by General Wolfe defeated the French Army led by General Montcalm.

"For a century the French had laboured to draw a vast cordon round the British possessions in North America. Up the Mississippi it ran from New Orleans and through the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence estuary."

The British colonies were east of the Appalachian Mountains for the most part, although King George II issued land grants ca 1748 for land in the Ohio River Valley.

"With the wild Indian allies they so sedulously cultivated, the French King's henchmen sought to pin the British colonists to the line of the Appalachian range and deny them the interior of the continent. Wolfe's victory broke their [the French] hold for ever. Into the vacuum surged the progenitors of the American Revolution."

The most famous of those who "surged" after their French-Indian War experience was George Washington.

Abraham Lincoln In Louisville, Kentucky

2011-08-01T06:32:00.000-07:00

"Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years, Volume I, by Carl Sandburg, related Abraham Lincoln's 1841 visit with his friend, Joshua Speed, at the home of Speeds' mother (Lucy Gilmer Fry Speed*, granddaughter of Dr. Thomas Walker) in Louisville, Kentucky. Lincoln observed the plantation life of slaves; what impact did this visit have in shaping Lincoln's view of slavery? *Lucy Speed's gift to Lincoln is explained here.

The year of Lincoln's visit to the Speed Plantation (Farmington) did not start out well:

After Abraham Lincoln's and Mary Todd's broken engagement (their wedding was originally scheduled for January 1, 1841).

"In 1840 Lincoln and Mary Todd were engaged to be married. Ninian W. Edwards and his wife had argued she was throwing herself away; it wasn't a match; she and Lincoln came form different classes of society." [Sandburg book]

The Louisville visit in August 1841:

"The legislature adjourned. Josh Speed was selling his store and going back to his folks in Kentucky. Lincoln in a struggle to come back traveled to Louisville in August and staying with Speed some three weeks shared talk and counsel with that rare friend."

The John Speed home, Farmington, is now part of the Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail.

Lincoln's friend, Joshua Fry Speed [Jim's photo of KY Heritage Marker]

Detroit In The French-Indian War Prelude

2011-07-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

In honor of Detroit's 307th birthday, July 24, 2011, a glimpse of Detroit in its youth. At one time Detroit was a strategic location over which the British and the French were vying for control.

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:

While the British delegates became increasingly distrustful of what they called the trickery, time-wasting and tergiversation of the French, their opponents were putting the delay to good effect. Probing, pinpricking and plotting with the Indians, the French were determined to nullify Britain's gains in the war.

A French officer, Celoron de Bienville (Commandant at Detroit in 1743), with a small armed party was sent to make an ostentatious display of force on the long river circuit down the Allegany and Ohio and then up the Miami and Maumee back to Detroit.

Father Bonnecamp's Map From de Bienville's Expedition

Missouri In The Civil War

2011-07-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

From The Blue and The Gray (Volume One) The Nomination of Lincoln To The Eve of Gettysburg, by Henry Steele Commager:

The war in the Trans-Mississippi West has been unjustly neglected by historians. ....yet the fighting in the West profoundly influenced the course of these Eastern campaigns (Gettysburg, the Wilderness, etc.), and some of these campaigns, in turn, were directed to the severance of the Confederacy along the Mississippi River.

It was Missouri that was crucial. Had that state gone with the Confederacy.....

Clare Howard's Studies At Oxford

2011-07-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

ENGLISH TRAVELLERS OF THE RENAISSANCE , by Clare Howard (1914).

Clare Howard was the daughter of Alfred Digby & Caroline Sophia (Turner) Howard and the 1st cousin (once removed) of my 2nd great-grandmother Mary Agnes (Kennedy) Powers.

The preface revealed Clare Howard's activities:

This essay was written in 1908-1910 while I was studying at Oxford as Fellow of the Society of American Women in London.

To the Faculty of the English Department at Columbia University I owe the gratitude of one who has received her earliest inclination to scholarship from their teachings.

"Beginning with the end of the sixteenth century when travel became the fashion, as the only means of acquiring modern languages and modern history, as well as those physical accomplishments and social graces by which a young man won his way at Court, they trace his evolution up to the time when it had no longer any serious motive; that is, when the chairs of modern history and modern languages were founded at the
English universities, and when, with the fall of the Stuarts, the Court ceased to be the arbiter of men's fortunes."

"These discussions of the art of travel are relics of an age when Englishmen, next to the Germans, were known for the greatest travellers among all nations. In the same boat-load with merchants, spies, exiles, and diplomats from England sailed the young gentleman fresh from his university, to complete his education by a look at the most civilized countries of the world. He approached the Continent with an inquiring, open mind, eager to learn, quick to imitate the refinements and ideas of countries older than his own. For the same purpose that now takes American students to England, or Japanese students to America, the English striplings once journeyed to France, comparing governments and manners, watching everything, noting everything, and coming home to benefit their country by new ideas."

A Fourth Of July Oration

2011-07-04T06:29:00.000-07:00

An 1859 Fourth Of July Oration:

Saved By An Act of Disobedience

2011-07-03T08:01:00.000-07:00

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:

"By an inspired piece of undiscipline, Barre ignored the order, and some historians, drawing the parallel with the party of light infantry who found the landing-place at Louisbourg, have suggested that this was the second time that Wolfe was saved by an act of disobedience. As soon as the boats were emptied, Barre sent them back again to bring off Townshend's brigade from the ships now arriving. They then went to fetch Burton's reserve from Point Levis....".

The Iron Brigade

2011-07-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

The History of the Twenty-Fourth Michigan of the Iron Brigade (known as the Detroit and Wayne County Regiment) was published in 1891.

Joseph Smith's Widow

2011-06-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

A trip to Nauvoo, Illinois, was replete with history of the Mormon Church. One point of interest was that Joseph Smith's widow stayed in Nauvoo instead of making the trek to Salt Lake City.

Picture from "The Rocky Mountain Saints..."

What happened to Emma (1804-1879), the widow of Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Mormon Church, after Joseph was murdered, was found in the book, New Light On Mormonism:

Mrs. Emma Smith, the true wife of the first Mormon Prophet, with her children and several of the elder members of the numerous Smith family who had followed the fortunes of Joseph to Nauvoo, did not leave the neighborhood of the city to go west with the other Mormons under the leadership of Brigham Young. Mrs. Smith afterward married Major L. (Lewis) C. (Crum) Bidamon, and died a few years ago.

The Bidamons were part of a story about the Jupiter Talisman Myth:

"The source of the now famous Talisman story, which Dr. Durham bases his findings on, originated from Wilford C. Wood, who was told it by Charles Bidaman, who was the illegitimate son of Lewis Bidaman. Lewis was Emma Smith's non-Mormon second husband. Charles was born out of an affair between Lewis Bidaman and Nancy Abercrombie, which occurred while Lewis was married to Emma. Charles was taken in by Emma at the age of 4 and raised by her until she died 11 years later."

The Bidamon family in the 1870 census:

United States Census, Illinois 1870 (Hancock, Nauvoo)
name:   Lewis C Bidamon
estimated birth year:   1805
gender:   Male
age in 1870:   65y
color (white, black, mulatto, chinese, indian):   White
birthplace:   Virginia
home in 1870:   Illinois, United States
    Household   Gender   Age
    Lewis C Bidamon   M   65y
Emma Bidamon   F   66y
Charles E Bidamon   M   6y
Emma J Smith   F   13y

The family was also in Nauvoo in 1860 and 1850.

This source stated that Major Lewis C. Bidamon was Abraham Lincoln's commanding officer in the Black Hawk War, as does this source.

Objectives of the French-Indian War

2011-06-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell, in reference to the French-Indian War:

Like most wars, it achieved few of its initial objectives. The French, who had thought to humble Britain as a colonial power, lost almost their entire overseas empire. The British, not without intent, found themselves masters of vast new territories and most of the world's trade, but so mismanaged the fruits of victory in North America that they evoked among the colonists the unity--and the issues--which formed the basis of their struggle for independence.

The first sentence is something to keep in mind when evaluating present day events.

Incompetence In the French-Indian War

2011-05-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

A comment from The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell (written about the French-Indian War):

What facilitated the enterprises of the French, wrote Horace Walpole...was the extreme ignorance in which the English Court had kept themselves of the affairs of America.

That department is subjected to the Secretary of State for the Southern Province, assisted by the Board of Trade. That Board, during Sir Robert Walpole's administration, had very faultily been suffered to lapse almost into a sinecure, and during all that period [for nearly thirty years until 1754] the Duke of Newcastle had been Secretary of State. ...reams of papers...lay mouldering and unopened in his office.... .

Only one of many ways to defeat oneself.

Where Captain Abraham Lincoln Died In Kentucky

2011-05-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

Tying in with our recent visit:

From "Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years, Volume I," by Carl Sandburg:

"In the year 1776, when the 13 American colonies gave the world their famous Declaration of Independence, there was a captain of Virginia militia living in Rockingham County named Abraham Lincoln. He had a 210-acre farm deeded to him by his father, John Lincoln... ".

"Abraham Lincoln had taken a wife Bathsheba Herring, who bore him three sons, Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas, and two daughters, Mary and Nancy. This family Abraham Lincoln moved to Kentucky in 1782."

"Abraham Lincoln located on the Green River, where he filed claims for more than 2,000 acres." "One day about two years later, he was working in a field with his three sons, and they saw him in a spasm of pain fall to the ground, just after the boys heard a rifle shot and the whine of a bullet." "The boys yelled to each other, 'Indians!"

From the plaque at Long Run Baptist Church cemetery and ruins:

YOU STAND ON HISTORIC GROUND

This spot was frequented by the ancestors of two Presidents of the Unites States of America, namely Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), and Harry S. Truman (1884-19_ _). The old church ruins occupy a site selected by Captain Abraham Lincoln (1738-1786), grandfather of Abraham Lincoln, for a home in 1780. Prior to May 29, 1780, Captain Lincoln erected a cabin where the ruins now stand.

This marker, the ruins of the Old Long Run Baptist Church and the cemetery are on one acre of the 400 acres of land, the original title of which was obtained by Captain Abraham Lincoln on a land-office Treasury Warrant No. 3334 issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia on March 4, 1780.

It was here on May 19, 1786 that Captain Abraham Lincoln was, as President Lincoln wrote in 1857, "killed by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest." The ambush was witnessed by Captain Lincoln's three sons, Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851, father of the President, then only eight years of age). Mordecai, the eldest son, shot at the Indians, killing one of them. Josiah ran one-half of a mile to a stockade known as Morgan Hughes Station for assistance. Hughes Station was located about one-half of a mile northeast from this spot.

The church area is the traditional site of Captain Lincoln's grave. After the death of Captain Lincoln his widow and five children moved to what is now Washington County, Kentucky, where Mrs. Lincoln's relatives resided leaving an empty, untended log dwelling. The abandoned cabin was used by the settlers for a school and meeting house for religious worshippers. Eventually the building was used exclusively as a meeting house of the Baptists.

The story of the death of his grandfather made a profound impression on the mind of President Lincoln. After relating the tragic incident in a letter dated April 1, 1854, the President wrote that the story was "more strongly than all other imprinted on my mind and memory."

President Harry S. Truman's maternal grandmother, Harriet Louisa Gregg Young, two of his maternal great-grandfathers and numerous other relatives frequently came here to worship and attend religious services.

Mordecai Lincoln, heir-at-law of Captain Lincoln, and Mary, his wife, by deed, dated April 2, 1822, conveyed the 400 acres of land to Benjamin Bridges, senior. Benjamin Bridges by a deed dated July 4, 1834, transferred one acre to the trustees for the Regular Baptist Church on Long Run.

County Judge B. C. Van Arsdale, Robert A. Fife, Mark Beauchamp and Philip P. Ardery, Commissioners of the Fiscal Court of Jefferson County, acquired these premises by deed dated August 23, 1961, from the trustees of the Long Run Baptist Church for the purposes of establishing a historic shrine.

General Van Dorn & The Battle Of Pea Ridge

2011-05-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Photo of Elkhorn Tavern on the battleground taken during our 2010 visit

From The Blue and The Gray (Volume One) by Henry Steele Commager:

The Tide Turns At Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern)

In December he (Halleck) sent Pope out with greatly strengthened forces to restore Union control of Northern and central Missouri. Price had retreated to Springfield; he now moved southward to Arkansas where he was joined by Ben McCulloch with a force that included some 5,000 Indians from the Five Civilized Nations. Their combined force numbered over 20,000, and was under the command of General Van Dorn. After him went General Samuel Curtis. The two armies meat at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, at the southernmost tip of the Ozarks. With almost a two-to-one superiority Van Dorn thought it safe to divide his army and try an attack from front and rear.

He was wrong.

General Earl Van Dorn never had the confidence of his troops after the Battle of Pea Ridge. He was murdered by a jealous husband some 14 months after he lost the battle and the hearts of his troops (May 7, 1863).

Note: Earl Van Dorn's mother was President Andrew Jackson's niece, Sophia Donelson Caffery. Sophia was the daughter of Mary Donelson and John Caffery. Mary Donelson was the sister of Rachel, Mrs. Andrew Jackson.

General Earl Van Dorn

2011-04-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

From History and civics of Oklahoma:

From: Annals of the army of the cumberland:

From: Battles and sketches of the Army of Tennessee:

Why The Five Nations Favored The South

2011-04-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

From: History and civics of Oklahoma: