Geneology, the curse that keeps on giving, good - and bad stuff
My late lamented sister, gone now a year, haunts me with her last addiction, the love of geneology. She really wanted to know where the seed of our family came from - the craziness part I guess. Why we do the things we do, and as she laid the ground work for me, a lot of it, It has taken a year of grieving over her for me to slowly pick up the chains and move on with it.
Only tonight, I discovered our family tree - part of it, anyway, is a trunk called, the Willards, from my father's side. Pat gave me a head start. Seems as if we lost a general during the Gettysburg campaign, two actually. John Fulton Reynolds on the first day. and George Lamb Willard on the second day, as did the first, on horse back, leading his cavalry into a fight, picked off by snipers. Both generals had long military careers, fathers with backgrounds in combat.
George Lamb Willard had parents who were imbedded in the Revolutionary War, combat commanders under Washington. More details on those guys as I dig further. The more I know, the more inadequate I feel.
It's a guy thing.
We also lost a cavalry Colonel at Cold Harbor in Virginia. I'm just now digging through Pat's initial paperwork on the widow's pension papers the Mrs drew on for the many years after the battle. Again, he was picked off by Confederate snipers. those guys around in their bare feet and corn cobb pipes had apparently little else to do.
Further research showed my great grandmother Elderkin, kept house in a two story lob cabin five miles down the Orange turnpike from the battle when two officers from the Confederacy showed up looking for conscripts.
She sat on the porch, in an old rocker, corn pipe in her mouth, shotgun in her lap, told the soldiers that no one was home, then the troops quietly left. At the end of her life, Grandma Elderkin died quietly in the next room with my mother sleeping quietly down the hall. Mom was just ten in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
The other Williard was the last person to be hung for witchcraft in 1692 in the Mass. Bay Colony. His own brother, an Episcopalian priest testified against him in court. He swore in the religious court, at the time, that his brother's own presence in a room cause a young lady"s "water" to cease flowing. Case apparently closed.
He was hung the next morning.
The last Williard I know of so far was the only Army Lieutenant on the Corps of Discovery with the Oregon Trial crew. His military background was horse-shoeing and fire-arms. As history describes, he was needed for the first, but the Indians they met along the way were friendly and they didn't do much shooting.
As luck would have it, two centuries later, I myownself would wind up working for three tribes in Oregon that assisted the Corps of Discovery as they passed through their tribal lands. I formed relationships with the descendents of the early indians who met up with the explorers. The weather in Oregon is miserable 80% of the time, no matter what you hear about it. History books will describe that the explorers hit the west coast, built Fort Clatsop constructed a salt factory, " suffered through ONE MISERABLE WINTER, packed up and went home."
Trust me, having spent years there, it is NOT an exxageration.
More to follow as I weed through the details.
###
Only tonight, I discovered our family tree - part of it, anyway, is a trunk called, the Willards, from my father's side. Pat gave me a head start. Seems as if we lost a general during the Gettysburg campaign, two actually. John Fulton Reynolds on the first day. and George Lamb Willard on the second day, as did the first, on horse back, leading his cavalry into a fight, picked off by snipers. Both generals had long military careers, fathers with backgrounds in combat.
George Lamb Willard had parents who were imbedded in the Revolutionary War, combat commanders under Washington. More details on those guys as I dig further. The more I know, the more inadequate I feel.
It's a guy thing.
We also lost a cavalry Colonel at Cold Harbor in Virginia. I'm just now digging through Pat's initial paperwork on the widow's pension papers the Mrs drew on for the many years after the battle. Again, he was picked off by Confederate snipers. those guys around in their bare feet and corn cobb pipes had apparently little else to do.
Further research showed my great grandmother Elderkin, kept house in a two story lob cabin five miles down the Orange turnpike from the battle when two officers from the Confederacy showed up looking for conscripts.
She sat on the porch, in an old rocker, corn pipe in her mouth, shotgun in her lap, told the soldiers that no one was home, then the troops quietly left. At the end of her life, Grandma Elderkin died quietly in the next room with my mother sleeping quietly down the hall. Mom was just ten in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
The other Williard was the last person to be hung for witchcraft in 1692 in the Mass. Bay Colony. His own brother, an Episcopalian priest testified against him in court. He swore in the religious court, at the time, that his brother's own presence in a room cause a young lady"s "water" to cease flowing. Case apparently closed.
He was hung the next morning.
The last Williard I know of so far was the only Army Lieutenant on the Corps of Discovery with the Oregon Trial crew. His military background was horse-shoeing and fire-arms. As history describes, he was needed for the first, but the Indians they met along the way were friendly and they didn't do much shooting.
As luck would have it, two centuries later, I myownself would wind up working for three tribes in Oregon that assisted the Corps of Discovery as they passed through their tribal lands. I formed relationships with the descendents of the early indians who met up with the explorers. The weather in Oregon is miserable 80% of the time, no matter what you hear about it. History books will describe that the explorers hit the west coast, built Fort Clatsop constructed a salt factory, " suffered through ONE MISERABLE WINTER, packed up and went home."
Trust me, having spent years there, it is NOT an exxageration.
More to follow as I weed through the details.
###
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