Robert Whitcomb (c1629-1704) and Mary Cudworth (c1637-1699) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 23) Theme: "Wedding"

It isn't often that a wedding results in legal charges, yet that is exactly what happened to my 7X great grandparents Mary (Cudworth) and Robert Whitcomb!

Born to General James Cudworth and his wife Mary (Parker) in Scituate, Plymouth Colony in 1637, Mary Cudworth probably grew up in relatively comfortable circumstances. Her father was a well-respected citizen in early Plymouth Colony. Though not himself a Quaker, he was known for defending the unpopular Quakers in the area, a position that had resulted in some serious repercussions for him from time to time.

General James Cudworth Memorial
Scituate, MA photo 1999

Robert Whitcomb was born in Taunton, Somerset, England in about 1629. His parents John Whitcomb and Frances (Coggens) had been married in St. Mary Magdalene Church at Taunton 26 November 1623.

Interior of Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Taunton, Somerset, England photo 1998

As a young child, Robert immigrated to America with his family.  Like the Cudworths, the Whitcombs settled at Scituate in Plymouth Colony. When his parents moved the family to Lancaster in 1654, Robert was a young man ready to make his own life. He received lands from his father and remained behind at Scituate. It is possible that Robert remained as part of the Quaker congregation that included his older sister Catherine (Whitcomb) Ellmes. Perhaps Robert was already taking an interest in Mary Cudworth and wished to remain near her.

However it transpired, early in 1660, Robert and Mary were married by Henry Hobson, a Quaker preacher in Rhode Island. Hobson not being licenced under the laws of the colony, the marriage was pronounced unlawful. Robert and Mary were charged with "disorderly conduct coming together without consent of parents and lawful marriage" and were sentenced to pay 10 pounds fine and be imprisoned during the pleasure of the court.

The couple responded with an approved and fully-accredited wedding on 9 March 1660. Half the fine was thereby remitted; there is no record of the other half of the fine having ever been paid. Nor is there any record of actual imprisonment of the guilty parties.

Having now been married twice, Robert and Mary spent their lives in Scituate where they raised their family, the youngest of whom was my 6X great grandfather James Whitcomb. Their first wedding is the only record of any trouble-making on their part!

Resources:

• Records of the Cudworth Family: A History of the Ancestors and Descendants of James Cudworth of Scituate, Mass. collected and compiled by W. John Calder, Oakland California 1941, ed. and revised by Arthur G. Cudworth, Sr. in 1974. 
• Deane, Samuel, History of Scituate, Massachusetts from its First Settlement to 1831; Boston: James Loring, 1831, 381.
• Earle, Alice Morse, "Old-Time Marriage Customs in New England", The Journal of Amercan Folklore, Vol, 6, No. 21; 1893, pp.97-102 accessed online 13 May 2020 at https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/533294.pdf

Nils Olsen (1802-1892) and Guri Larsdatter (1807-1900) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 22) Theme: "Uncertain"

We can thank the meticulous record-keeping of the Norwegian Lutheran Church for providing certainty for what would have been left uncertain in many societies. Birth records kept by the church indicated whether a child was born in or out of wedlock and both mother and father went on the record in either case.

Viker Kirke, Norderhov, Buskerud
 Photo by Tove Frovoll Thoresen, Wikimedia Commons

When my great grandfather Carl Johan Nelson was baptized in 1840, almost a year after his birth, the Norderhov, Buskerud church record indicates his status as the baby of unmarried parents Nils Olsen Sorgefoss and Guri Larsdatter Vesterneie.

1839 birth and 1840 baptism record for Carl Johan Nelson

Was it simply a matter of Nils and Guri being uncertain about making a commitment? The answer seems more complex.

Although the unmarried status of a child's parents was obviously of some significance, it was hardly unusual in Norway in those times. Most men didn't marry until they were 27 or 28 years old, and women a year or two younger. Given the number of years a fertile young person was likely to be single, coupled with lack of contraception, it isn't surprising that so many babies were born before their parents would marry. Traditionally, engagements could last for some time and once an engagement was announced, it was acceptable for the couple to behave as if married; as a result, many babies were born shortly after the wedding occurred. However, it does not seem that any engagement had been announced in the case of Nils and Guri. At the time Carl was born, Nils would have been about 37 years old and Guri about 32, certainly prime ages for having their babies.

So why were young people postponing marriage for so long in Norway at the time? I don't know the full answer but expect that it has a lot to do with their economic situation not being stable enough to provide for a family. In Norway in the mid-1800's, the burgeoning population and shortage of land and opportunities led many to head to America in search of a better life. Many of the Norwegian farmers were basically cotters renting just tiny plots barely large enough for a vegetable garden, let alone providing crops for sale. No doubt this left many young people, like Nils and Guri, stranded in an unmarried state for years longer than might have been ideal.

As it turned out, when Carl was born, he already had a couple of half-siblings. The church records show that Nils had fathered another son out of wedlock just a couple of years earlier. Young Martin Nelson had been born in the same community to the same father but a different mother, Berthe Halvorsdatter, early in 1838.

1838 birth and baptism record for Martin Nelsen, 1838 - Father was Nils Olsen Sorgefoss and mother was Berthe Halvorsdatter

Guri had also previously given birth to another son out of wedlock. Carl's other half-brother, Engebret  Nelson, had been born in 1833 to Guri and Nels Ericsen Honnefos.

Amid all this uncertainty of relationships, Carl's father Nils Olsen Sorgefoss married the mother of his other son Martin on 15 July 1842 and went on to have more children with her. They show up on Bergedal farm, Norderhov, Buskerud in the 1865 Norwegian census records as follows:

Nils Olsen, 60
Berthe Halvorsdtr., 47, his wife
Ole Nilsen, their son, 12
Johanne Nilsdtr, their daughter, 9
Berthe Maria Nilsdtr, their daughter, 5
Helle Nilsdtr, their daughter, 20, and her daughter Nikoline Nilsdtr, age 2

The census tells us that Nils had a cow, 3 sheep, barley, mixed grain and potato crops. (Oldest son Martin Nilsen would have been about 23 years old and living away from home by this time.)

No matter how understandable and how common their situation was, one cannot help but wonder at the difficulties these relationships must have caused them over the years.

It seems that Guri raised her two sons, Engebret and Carl, on her own. No evidence has ever been found for a marriage for Guri. She was living with son Engebret and his family in 1865 when the Norwegian census was taken. Engebret and Carl emigrated to America together with their wives and young children in 1867 in the midst of famine in Norway. It is hard to imagine they would have abandoned their mother unless she had other remaining family to provide support. No further record has yet been found regarding Guri's fate although her date of death is generally given as 31 December 1900 which would have made her an elderly 93 at the time of her death.

Any difficulties caused by the uncertainty in establishing his family did not seem to do Nils any long-term damage either. He lived to the advanced age of 90 years, dying in Norderhov, Buskerud 16 January 1892.

Some Resources:

• Norwegian Digital Archives for Norderhov, Buskrud - Norderhov kirkebøker (church books) various dates - records can be searched online through this site: https://media.digitalarkivet.no/en/kb/browse?counties%5B%5D=06&clerical_parishes%5B%5D=0613P&start_year=&end_year=&text=
• Norwegian Digital Archives for 1865 census for Norderhov, Buskerud - records can be searched online through this site: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/search/sources?s=&from=&to=&format=all&archive_key=&jt%5B%5D=7&m%5B%5D=0613
• "Norway Social Life and Customs" article in the Familysearch.org wiki located at this site: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Norway_Social_Life_and_Customs

Eleazor Carver (c1669-1744) and Experience Blake (1665-1746) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 21) Theme: "Tombstone"

Last week's "Travel" theme had us visiting sites associated with Joseph and Sarah (Hartwell) Carver. While in New England in 1999, we were also able to find tombstones for Joseph's grandparents Deacon Eleazor Carver and Experience Blake, my 8X great grandparents who are the subjects of this week's story.

Deacon Eleazor Carver's Stone

Both are buried in Bridgewater, Massachusetts in the First Cemetery, also known as the Old Graveyard and the Summer Street Cemetery.

Eleazor's and Experiences's stones were typical of those common at the time in New England. The shape was perhaps suggestive of the headboard of a bed symbolizing rest. It was also symbolic of the arches and portals the soul would be required to pass through en route to eternity. The rounded central portion, called the tympanum, was above the carved details of the deceased person. Either side had another rounded shoulder, often fully decorated, as were the Carvers' stones.

Tympanum for Elezaor's Stone 

To me, the most interesting part of their stones, similar for both, is the tympanum with the interesting arches (depicting Heaven-bound wings) and the rather scary Martian-like faces. This is apparently a variation of the winged death's head. In earlier times, these were clearly skulls with wings, a symbol of mortality derived from the Puritans' strong and stern religious beliefs. By the time the Carvers passed away, the skull was evolving into a winged face or effigy, with sometimes rather strange results. The other decorative motifs carved into the stones were often symbolic in the society or for the individual whose resting place was being marked, although it appears the Carvers' were perhaps purely decorative.

Tombstone for Experience (Blake) Carver "relict too Deacon Eleazor Carver"
Bridgewater, MA

Records for the lives of Eleazor and Experience can be found at Marshfield, Taunton and Bridgewater in Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts).   Experience was previously married to a man named Samuel Sumner and had  four children with him prior to his death. She and Eleazor married 11 June 1695 and  had sons Eleazor and Joseph (my 7X great grandfather) and daughters Experience and Mehitabel. 

Eleazer was generally known as "Deacon Eleazer."  His first name, rather appropriately, means "To whom God is a help." He was clerk of the First Congregational Society of Bridgewater from 1716 to 1718 and Deacon until his retirement in 1741. Throughout his life, he was very active in the church, often taking the part of pastor though there is no evidence that he was actually an ordained minister.

The tombstones for Eleazor and Experience are side by side in the Old Graveyard at Bridgewater (near the Unitarian Church). His tombstone says: "In memory of Dea'cn Eleazor Carver, Who dece'd January y 25th, 1744, in y 75th year of his age." 

And hers says: "In memory of Mrs. Experience Carver, relict to Deac'n Eleaz'r Carver, who deceas'd Jan'y 16th, 1746, in y 82d year of her age." These days, widows would bristle at being called a "relict", but that is the term often used in those days to indicate that the wife had outlived her husband. Twice widowed, I suppose Experience was twice a relict!

In the mid 1700s, average life expectancy in New England was only to the mid 30s. Experience and Eleazor both lived to very ripe old ages for their times. Their stones have also been long-lived, surviving in quite good condition for some 275 years.

Some Resources:

• Jones, William, "Robert Carver of Marshfield and Some of His Descendants" from Genealogies of Mayflower Families, Vol. I; Selected and Compiled by Gary Boyd Roberts; Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1985, p.432. Accessed online at Ancestry.com.
• Early American Gravestones.doc  accessed at website https://www.davidrumsey.com/farber/Early%20American%20Gravestones.pdf
• Mitchell, Nahum, Mitchell's History of Early Settlement of Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Bridgewater, MA., Printed by Henry T. Pratt, Published by Edward Alden, 1897 available at Google Books at this website:  https://books.google.ca/books?id=KIc-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, pp. 130-131.

Sarah Hartwell (1726-1817) and Joseph Carver (1727-1786) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 20) Theme: "Travel"

For family historians, nothing can beat the thrill of travel to ancestral homelands! In the spring of 1999 my husband, my mother and I visited New England: so many graveyards, churches, memorials, libraries and historical societies. It was absolute bliss!

One part of the family we were looking for was our Carver line. My 7X great grandmother Elizabeth (Snow) Carver was one ancestor whose resting place we located during our travels in Massachusetts.

The author and her mother at Scotland Cemetery, Bridgewater, MA 1999

Stone for Elizabeth Carver who died in 1755

No matter how thoroughly we searched during our visit to Scotland Cemetery, we were unable to find Elizabeth's husband Joseph Carver (senior) who died in 1778. (Years later, we learned from his Find a Grave website memorial that there is no record of his having been buried here - nor apparently  anywhere else, for that matter!)

During our travels, we also visited the Foster, Rhode Island area where Elizabeth and Joseph Carver's son, another Joseph Carver and his wife Sarah (Hartwell) Carver (my 6X great grandparents) are buried at a very remote cemetery called the Hopkins-Ide Lot (also known as the Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Foster #26). This is in a very rocky wooded area and is definitely not your typical well-tended New England town cemetery.

Photo 1999 by Elinor Bardahl - we were all enjoying our visit to the site.

Joseph and Sarah's Stones behind a rusted iron fence

Lots of rocks in the vicinity

Directions point out how tricky it is to find the cemetery location:  You enter Tucker Hollow Road from Route #6, then watch for a lane near the foot of the hill. Enter the lane in front of telephone pole #15 and follow the lane to telephone pole #2. The entrance is just before Pole #2 on the north side of the lane. Well, even before the era of GPS, we were somehow able to find it!

Seeing where the couple were buried might lead one to the mistaken conclusion that they lived a very quiet, isolated and rustic life.

Sarah Hartwell was born 26 March 1726  and husband Joseph Carver was almost exactly a year younger, born 23 March 1727. Both grew to adulthood in Bridgewater, Plymouth Colony where they were part of large extended families. They married there on 25 September 1746 when he was 19 and she 20. Sarah and Joseph raised a family of 8 children with the first four also born in Bridgewater. It was sometime after the birth of their fourth child in 1753 that they moved their family to Providence, Rhode Island where Joseph was a merchant.

When we visited Providence in 1999, we did not know that Joseph had once been a businessman there. As a result, our travels did not include looking for any evidence of Joseph there. Living all the way across the continent makes a return trip impractical, even before travel was essentially shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic this year. This means it is definitely time for some virtual travel through the use of maps and online resources. Although perhaps not quite so satisfying as an actual visit, this often provides even more context to the overall family story.

A map of downtown Providence from 1770 shows the prime location of Joseph's land there.

1770 Map of Buildings in Central Providence, R.I.

Close-up showing location of Joseph Carver property 1770

This can be brought forward into the 21st century through the magic of Google Earth showing this same street layout in the downtown business district. When we traveled to Providence in 1999, we did not know of Joseph's connection to this particular property or we would certainly have visited and taken our own pictures, but we would not have obtained this interesting aerial view!

Same area of downtown Providence with the wedge-shaped Turk's Head Building built 1913
Google Earth Street View Image

Front View of Turk's Head Building, Providence
Joseph's property would have been down the right side toward the back
Photo 24 June 2007 by Infrogmation
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5license

Obviously, it was nothing like this when Joseph had his business there. But perhaps even in its early days, Providence was getting too large for Joseph's taste and he decided to move his family and his business into a more rural area. In 1769 he purchased property at Scituate, R.I. and moved his family there a year or two later.  The census for Scituate in 1774 lists Joseph Carver with five males over the age of 16 and one under the age of 5. (Apparently there was no interest in recording the number of females at that time.) Joseph was obviously an enterprising man. He had an interest in a forge known as Hopewell which he eventually sold to his eldest son Oliver (my 5X great grandfather) in 1778.

Joseph signed up on 6 July 1775 to fight for the "Patriots" in the American Revolution and was discharged on 17 December of that same year. We don't know just how far he might have traveled while participating in the War.

But he did seem to have traveled around a bit after this, showing up in the records of Fair Haven, Vermont in 1782. He and others apparently petitioned the town for certain land rights there. However, a Remonstrance by a man named Benoni Hurlburt claimed that Carver was a "transient person from the State of Rhode Island" who had used Hurlburt's name on the petition without his knowledge and consent and against his interest. Perhaps Carver was retaliating since he and the other petitioners were complaining that they had themselves been unjustly treated and deprived of their rights without being informed or represented. (After looking at maps, my guess is that this land dispute in Fair Haven relates to the lands on which he wished to install his various undertakings referred to below.) 

Time for more armchair travel.

Google Earth map showing proximity of Fair Haven, Vermont to the Poultney River

Joseph established an iron works and lumber mill near Fair Haven on the Poultney River but across the state line in New York, naming the falls there "Carver's Falls". There is now a dam in the area, but pictures of the Falls can be found online at this site: http://www.newenglandwaterfalls.com/vt-carverfalls.html.

Hampton, N.Y. - also close to the Poultney River

No doubt this is the same iron works referred to in the History of Washington County, New York where a man by the name of Carver was reported to have built an iron forge in the northern part of Hampton in its very early days. Hampton is just 5 miles from Fair Haven, Vermont. Apparently the boundary between New York and  Vermont was disputed for many years and the proximity of these locations shows how it was likely all part of the same general business that Joseph conducted.  The iron was brought from the west side of Lake Champlain, probably along the river systems including the Poultney, and was used to make flat and square bar-iron for blacksmiths' use.

Joseph Carver died in Foster, Rhode Island just before Christmas in 1786. In addition to the iron works in New York, Joseph also owned land in Vermont and two farms in Foster and one in Scituate, R.I., all of which he left to his sons. Apparently wife Sarah was not happy with this and did not accept the legacies given to her in the will in lieu of her dower rights.

Joseph Carver's stone in the Hopkins-Ide Lot, Foster, R.I.
Photo by the author 1999

Sarah was living with son Oliver at the time of the 1790 census but later moved in with her daughter Sarah and son-in-law Timothy Hopkins. Sarah Carver died in Scituate on 27 June 1817 in her 93rd year.

Sarah's stone in the Hopkins-Ide Lot at Foster, R.I.
Photo by the author 1999

Their quiet resting places belie the varied and interesting lives they led, encompassing the American Revolutionary War and family and business life throughout Plymouth colony (Massachusetts), Rhode Island, Vermont and New York. Sarah and Joseph were well-traveled citizens of their time.

Resources:

Adams, Andrew Napoleon, History of the Town of Fair Haven, Vermont: in Three Parts; Leonard & Phelps, printers, 1870; available online through Google Books; pages 25-26 and 514.

Johnson, Crisfield, History of Washington Co., New York; Philadephia: Everts & Ensign, 1878; available online through Google Books; pages 363 and 369.

Grace Edwards (1904-1993) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 19) Theme: "Service"

Grace (Edwards) and Floyd McBride in their Service Station Coffee Shop
Moses Lake, Washington, 1940

A service station featured prominently in the life of one family member and her husband. Grace was my Grandma Della's youngest sister, born to Charles F. Edwards and Mary Jane "Mayme" (Wescott) Edwards on 19 November 1904 in Great Falls, Montana.

It is so disappointing that we cannot see additional views of the cafe in the above picture since there was apparently one feature that was at one time the talk of the town in Moses Lake. Here is Grace's nephew John Edwards' description, transcribed from his audio recording (see Resources below to find a link to listen to John tell it in his own voice):

"That little coffee shop and restaurant that my Aunt Grace and Uncle Floyd had in Moses Lake was an interesting place. . . .

When Grace and Floyd built that restaurant there, the state told her they had to have two bathrooms, they couldn’t have one. They had to have a men’s and a women’s. So what she had was two doors a ways apart, one was women’s and one was men’s. They both went into the same bathroom! It was the talk of the town! The state never caught on. They were pioneers in their day. That was true grit, if there ever was. 

I loved my Aunt Grace. She was my favorite aunt." 

Before returning to more of John's memories, we will visit Grace's life story that led to that service station in Moses Lake.

Grace's older sister Marion recalled in her memoirs that the family had quite a comfortable life in Great Falls, Montana, where Grace was born. Father Charles had good employment with the railroad and they had a nice home right across from Longfellow School. The merry-go-round that Charles built them in their back yard was well used by all the school children. Railway passes enabled regular visits to Mayme's family back in Wisconsin. Mayme, an excellent seamstress, ensured that they were always well dressed.

Grace Edwards 1906

Despite this comfort, when Grace was about 4 years old Charles decided to move his family to a  fruit farm 12 miles from Kalispell near Lake Blaine. Charles seemed to be forever on the move, looking for yet another opportunity, but never quite finding that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The 1910 American census finds young Grace, age 5 living with her family at Jocko, Flathead, Montana. Cayuse Prairie School was 3 miles away. By the time Grace started school, it was no longer a matter of simply crossing the street!

When freight rates made the fruit farm uneconomic, Charles went back to work for the Great Northern Railroad. A strike in 1914 left him unemployed, so he went to Canada to work for the CPR and then took out a homestead on some rather poor farmland. The 1921 Canadian census for the family at Miry Creek, Maple Creek, Saskatchewan includes 15 year-old Grace, a student. This was NOT a particularly luxurious life for the family.

Christmas 1921 at the Charles Edwards Saskatchewan Homestead
Grace is on the right, next to her mother Mayme

Within a few months of the above picture, their farm house burned to the ground, including paintings and sketches by Charles Russell, the Montana artist who had been a friend back in Great Falls. Charles gave up on his Saskatchewan homestead and moved back to work on the railroad in the United States.

Grace first married Clark Robbins and settled in Birmingham, Oakland, Michigan, where a 1925 City Directory has them listed at 616 Ann. This marriage was not destined to last; after her divorce from Clark, she married Floyd Marshall McBride on 8 June 1931 in Ferndale, Michigan. Floyd was listed as an insurance agent at the time of the 1930 U.S. census.

Grace was always beautifully turned out!

Grace's mother Mayme had died suddenly in 1926, leaving the family bereft. Her father Charles had received a railroad pension after losing a leg in a switching accident, enabling him to buy property in the area of Castle Rock, Washington. By the early 1930s, hearing of plans to build Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington, Charles had sold the Castle Rock property and built a service station near the dam site.

Charles and his son Everett operated that service station at the dam site until he sold that in about 1939 to help Grace and Floyd get established in Moses Lake, Washington with their own service station (pictured at the top of this story).

Grace and Floyd raised a family of two; Grace gave up the cafe to stay at home with her children. Their son says that when Floyd first opened his service station, he drove his car to Spokane and sold it to generate enough funds for an air compressor and other equipment for the new service station - and a bus ticket back to Moses Lake!

January 1947 - Family Gathering with Floyd and Grace standing center 

Grace's nephew John Edwards (smiling in the center of the above photo, seated at the table on his father's knee) recounts the events that occurred at the service station restaurant one very memorable December during his childhood. The following is a transcription from an audio recording made by John in  2019:

"I think it was the winter of ‘45, I’m not sure. All the winters - that area was extreme in its climate at that time. It was triple digits in the summer and it was below zero in the winter and blizzards and it was just a miserable place to live. It’s amazing that a jackrabbit could survive out there. But Grace and Floyd ran that little café. He had a little bulk plant back in behind there. . . .

It was winter and they were all gathered there celebrating, I guess, the upcoming Christmas and singing songs. My uncle Everett there, my Dad’s brother, he was D.O.A. That doesn’t mean dead on arrival; it means drunk on arrival. Which was not unusual for Everett or anybody else in those days, I guess. Every deal was done on a handshake and a drink. It was kind of interesting. As a little kid I didn’t realize that that was inappropriate. I would have been 5 years old.

I think it was the winter of ‘45. This blizzard had been blowing all night. There was hardly anybody coming through town at all. The snow was so deep everybody had chains on and then this one car had come over from Seattle all the way through the Snoqualmie Pass, in those days nothing like it is today, a little two-lane road that was paved in places only. Most of it was gravel. It was a horrible time getting through. We had this car that came through and stopped there at Grace’s café. It was a 1940 Plymouth business coupe. And a very polite young man got out of that and he was just beat and bedraggled. It had been a heck of a trip! His fenders were all beat up in the back from those chains. He came in just frozen. He had run out of money - and everything else. . . .

They were all gathered around in there. Everett had a collection of harmonicas; I think he probably had those the day he died, all colors, all different kinds of harmonicas. He was a genius on a harmonica. Oh, he could play good! Dad had his guitar. They were in there singing Christmas songs.

This gentleman came in all bedraggled and broke and didn’t know what he was going to do. They invited him in and Grace made him a sandwich of some kind and they all kept singing and Dad was playing his guitar and Everett the harmonica.

This little fellow said “I have a little tenor guitar out in my car. Let me go get it.” Dad said sure we’ll wait and he went out and came in with this little tenor guitar. . . . They struck up again and started singing.

And this gentleman started singing with them and, all of a sudden, they just all stopped singing. And it was Bing Crosby! They’d all heard him on the radio but they had never seen him before. They were just thrilled to death!

He was the guest of the evening. He was fed and I think they sang songs all night down there. I fell asleep over in a corner there somewhere, as a kid. . . .

In the morning Bing wanted to know if there was anyplace in town where he could maybe hawk his little 4 string guitar to get enough money to get on into Spokane - that’s where he lived. Chris the barber had a place down there on East Broadway. . . . He was the one who had the pawn business. And so Bing got on down there; they gave him a couple of bucks to get down there. They’d had a road grader come through and knocked some of the worst snow back where you could get going again.

Chris was so excited when he found out who he was! He wrote him a pawn ticket for it but he had one of the - Parker had just come out with the roller pens  to write with instead of  the regular fountain pen and it went down a lot nicer - and he had Bing sign his guitar and put the date on it and everything and he said this will always be here. He said, "If you can’t pick up your pawn ticket that’s fine. But I will have this guitar until the day I die. I’m not going to sell your guitar." . . .

I think he loaned Bing $20 which in those days was one heck of a lot of money, and that’s what he paid for the little 4 string guitar.

 Bing made it, I guess, on in to Spokane.  . . . But I think Chris had that guitar still when he died."

Grace (Edwards) McBride c1964

Grace's son recalls that the family lived for awhile at the service station in the part that had been the cafe. The McBrides built a new service station on the same location in the mid-1950s and eventually sold out to retire in 1973.

Grace and Floyd at the time of their 50th wedding anniversary party

Floyd died in Moses Lake, Washington in 1992 and Grace joined him the following year.

End note: 

In fairness, but not wanting to ruin the hilarious story of the deceptive bathroom doors recalled above by John Edwards, it should be reported that Grace's son recalls there actually being two bathrooms at one point but with the dividing wall not providing much privacy! Perhaps the authorities did catch Grace out in the end?

Resources:

• Edwards, John; Audio recording made in 2019 detailing some of his memories of his Aunt Grace's service station cafe, can be listened to in its entirety in the Memories section for Grace Edwards on the Familysearch.org website at: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/LCRN-S58
• Miller, Marion Frances Edwards; My Memories, personal memoir written for her family in January 1978 from her home at 5405 Union Street, Lexington, Michigan

Captain Richard Beers (1607-1675) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 18) Theme: "Where There's A Will"

My 10X great grandfather Richard Beers was born 1 May 1607 in Gravesend, Kent, England to John and Mary (Selby) Beers (sometimes spelled "Beeres" or "Beres").

Milton Chantry built c.1320 in Gravesend Kent
Image courtesy Agw19666
his file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

He emigrated from Gravesend to New England in 1635 with his orphan nephews, Anthony and James (sons of his brother James). They settled in Watertown, MA., where he remained for the rest of his life. Richard was made a freeman of Watertown in 1637, was a Selectman in the government there for 31 years and served as a Representative to the General Court for thirteen years. Clearly, he was a  respected man of influence in his community.

Richard was active in the military, taking part in the Pequot War of 1636; this was a trade war between the English Colonists on one side and the Pequot tribe and Dutch settlers on the other. Many years later, on 24 October 1665 he petitioned for some land to add to the 1 1/2 acres he had been given as support resulting from his participation in the War and was granted several hundred acres in response.

He married a woman named Elizabeth, generally believed to have been Elizabeth Furman (1615-1706). She had immigrated to Massachusetts Bay from Nayland, Suffolk, England with her parents in the Winthrop Fleet of 1630. Their oldest child Sarah Beers, my 9X great grandmother, was born in 1639, followed by others between 1642 and 1662.

In 1654, Richard was granted a license to keep an ordinary (inn) in Watertown, which he operated for the rest of his life. I always think that is a perfect occupation for a man named Beers!

Friendship between the colonists and the local Native Americans in early Plymouth Colony continued throughout much of Richard's life. Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoags, was a friend and ally to the early colonists and is often credited with saving them from almost certain starvation when they first landed. All went well until after his death upon the succession in 1662 by his second son Metacom (who often went by his English name Philip).  Philip was less favorably inclined toward the colonists, probably for good reason. More and more English settlers continued to arrive and occupy traditional Wampanoag territory.  Bad treatment by some of the colonists and, in particular, the execution of three of Philip's warriors in response to their killing of John Sassomon, a Harvard-educated Native American convert to Puritanism, led to the eruption of all-out war in the latter half of 1675. The conflict, known as "King Philip's War", the "Great Narragansett War" or the  "First Indian War", was one of the worst ever waged on American soil.

Captain Richard Beers at age 68 surely knew the danger he would be facing when he left the safety and comfort of his inn to lead his men the 60 miles to Brookfield on 6 August 1675 in the early days of King Philip's War. He had the foresight to make his will the day he left, leaving his estate to wife Elizabeth and his 8 surviving children. As it turned out, Captain Richard Beers indeed had a short military history in King Philip's War and his will would, sadly, soon be put to use.

Yellow pins mark significant locations from Richard Beer's home in Watertown
through Brookfield and Springfield to the Beer's Ambush site at Northfield, Massachusetts

A detailed description of the campaign can be found in Soldiers of King Philip's War. Captain Beers and his men had marched some 35 miles to Springfield by 15 August; there they were joined by others including the Connecticut Indians and spent several days searching the area unsuccessfully for the enemy. They returned to Brookfield where there was a council meeting of leaders to determine the course of action. The idea was to disarm Philip's men at their fort on the west side of the river, but by the time they got there, no one was to be found. In hot pursuit, Beers and his group came upon the enemy unexpectedly and a skirmish at Sugar Loaf Hill left several men dead. Once again, the enemy escaped. Meanwhile on 1 September Philip's men had attacked Northfield, burning houses and killing several of the residents there. Unaware of these developments, Beers arrived near Northfield on the evening of 3 September with about 3 dozen mounted men and an ox team bearing stores and ammunition for the protection of Northfield. Early the next morning Captain Beers and his 36 men proceeded into Northfield but were ambushed by 150 enemy fighters under the direction of Monoco, the Nashaway sachem. Fighting went on for some time but eventually Beers and his men were backed into a ravine south of a hill that later became known as "Beer's Hill" since it was there that Captain Beers and nineteen of his soldiers were killed.

Public Domain Image
From Findagrave.com website for Richard Beers

Richard Beers was buried along with the men who fell with him at the Beer's Ambush Gravesite in Northfield, Hampshire, MA.

Some Resources:

Find a Grave Memorial 39677250 for Richard Beers located at Find a Grave.

Bodge, George M., Soldiers in King Philip's War 1675-1677, Boston: Printed for the Author, 1891, available online at Internet Archive.

Van Wagenen, Mrs. Avis Stearns, Genealogy and Memoirs of Isaac Stearns and his Descendants, Syracuse, N.Y.: Courier Printing Co., 1901, available online at Internet Archive, p.26

Ingvald Theodore Anderson (1893-1958) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 17) Theme: "Land"

Ingvald (sometimes spelled "Ingwald" as it was pronounced) was my maternal grandfather. He was born 3 January 1893 on the family farm west of Grafton, North Dakota to Andrew and Jorgena (Torkelson) Anderson and baptized at the South Trinity Lutheran Church at Grafton on 31 March of that year. The new state of North Dakota had just been established in 1889 but no civil birth records can reliably be found until 1899; thankfully, the Lutheran church in America had a strong tradition of maintaining its own records, a practice that had long been established in Norway.

Birth/baptism record for Ingvald - first entry at the top of the page

He had five older siblings, plus a sixth who had died at the age of 3 in 1885. Another brother Arnold was born the year after Ingvald; tragically, this younger brother also died very young. Some time after the birth of his youngest sister Gladys in 1903, his mother Jorgena's mental health declined to the point where she was admitted into an institution in Yankton, South Dakota. Shortly thereafter, Ingvald's father moved his family to a ranch in South Dakota, perhaps to be closer. With the family story being that she had died, it isn't clear that the children ever actually visited her.  His mother basically disappeared from his life when Ingvald was about 12.

Andrew and Jorgina Anderson family c.1904; Ingvald is they young boy on the far right

The only incident we know from Ingvald's youth is described by his son Bob Anderson:

In 1905, Ingvald met with a near-fatal accident when a friend's shotgun accidentally discharged, the full blast catching him in the left shoulder just above the lung.  He almost bled to death before a doctor reached him, and lay close to death for many days following.  The left arm and hand were  to remain permanently stunted, though not of too great a hindrance to work.  Fifty years later, suffering from neck and shoulder pains, he thought it might be the old wound.  X-rays revealed many shotgun pellets lodged in bone, muscle and skin in the shoulder and neck.

Ingvald in back row centre (see arrow) at Business College, 1909

A few years after the move to South Dakota, Andrew sold out the ranch and bought a hardware and implement business in Haynes, North Dakota.  Ingvald clerked there as a youth. It seemed for awhile as if Ingvald planned to join his father with a career in business but the land seemed to call out to him.

Canada had been encouraging farmers to take up land in its western prairies. For a $10 registration fee, qualified individuals could file at a Dominion Land Office for a selected  "homestead" of 160 acres (1/4 section) of land. Certain requirements to build and reside on the land and to cultivate it had to be met in order to have the land title transferred into the name of the homesteader; this was called "proving up" the land. One of the requirements for obtaining title was that the homesteader be a British subject. A second adjacent quarter-section could be obtained by a process called "pre-emption". Uncle Bob describes Ingvald's reaction to this opportunity:

By the time Ingvald and brother Clarence were of age, arable land in the American West had just about all been settled and a large part of the most accessible acreage of the Saskatchewan prairies had also been settled.  Areas such as the Lancer-Abbey region -- still with no rail service closer than Swift Current -- were still available.  To this area in 1909 came Clarence (age 19) and Ingvald (age 17) and their friend Hans Berg (age 22).  They filed on homesteads on the "flat" between Abbey and the South Saskatchewan River.  Ingvald's homestead quarter was SE6-22-20-W3M.  He had to stretch his age to get it, 18 being minimum age to qualify for a homestead.  They came with horse teams and wagons which held their few belongings all the way from Park River, North Dakota. They journeyed through eastern Montana and north into Western Saskatchewan -- a treeless stretch of prairie.  They mentioned having to pull ranchers' fence posts for fuel to cook with and for heat at their night camps. Clarence and Ingvald both felt extremely fortunate in getting a homestead with a creek running through it (Spring Creek).

Ingvald (right) probably about 1906

On 9 March 1911, Ingvald made application for his homestead; he had proved up his land and received title on 23 July 1914. To fulfill the requirement that he be a British subject, Ingvald became a naturalized Canadian citizen in June of 1914.

Although his original homestead application was for the SE quarter, he eventually built his home on the SW quarter of Section 6.

Ingvald's Homestead Grant (top line) in the Dominion Lands Records

When World War I broke out in the Fall of 1914.  Ingvald went to enlist, but was turned down when the medical examiner told him he looked as though he had already been through the war.  (This was no doubt because of the shotgun accident he had had as a boy.)

Ingvald as a young homesteader

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It was likely in the Fall of 1917 that Ingvald first met Idella Edwards when she started teaching at nearby Wayne Valley School. The two were married in Swift Current, Saskatchewan in late 1919. Children started arriving a year later with the birth of my Uncle Bob, followed by his sisters Kathryn, Eunice, Elinor (my mother), then John "Jack", and finally Helen.

Ingvald back row, second from left
Front row: daughters Elinor, Eunice, Kathryn, probably about 1929

With Della pregnant as winter approached in 1927, the family moved to be near Della's father Charles Edwards in Everett, Washington. This is where younger son Jack was born in December of  1927. While there, Ingvald worked in the lumber industry. But when spring arrived, he made his way back to his Saskatchewan land.

Ingvald on the left, in Washington State about 1927

The Anderson family lived in an unpainted shack made up of a main part that was 12 X 16 feet with a north lean-to 10 X 16 and an east lean-to 6 X 12 feet, the latter containing bunk beds.  There was a plank cribbed cellar under the north lean-to for vegetable storage and cooling milk.  In the winter, snow was melted in a wooden barrel for household use.

The land that Ingvald had homesteaded was to prove challenging over the years, no more so than during the "Dirty Thirties" of the depression and drought. This was the time that my mother and her siblings were growing up; the children seemed to have taken things in stride and had a happy childhood. However, for Ingvald and Della, things must have been very difficult. Trying to feed and clothe this growing family with the economic hardships of the time must have been a challenge.

Uncle Bob described the situation in a story he wrote in 1986 about how local governments tried to help reduce pest problems by declaring a bounty on gophers and rabbits:

In those desperate Prairie years of the early 1930s many things came together to drive farm families into deep poverty. Grain and livestock prices sagged to all-time lows and continued drought resulted in crop failures and reduced herds and flocks. Weeds, grasshoppers and cutworms further thinned the stands of grain. Gophers ate their way in from field edges, gathering and storing grain. Jack rabbits roamed field and pasture, eating at feed stacks in winter.

Horsing Around with Family and Neighbours c1938

Dust was everywhere in the summers and the winters were bitterly cold. Uncle Bob described how the wood fires often burned down by midnight, leaving water in the tea kettle frozen atop the stove by morning. There was no coal to heat their small homestead shack. The prairies were not generally a good source for wood, but Ingvald and elder son Bob would make an annual trip to scavenge what they could, quite often for poplar, willow and black birch in the nearby Sandhills. The following is an account written by Uncle Bob in 1986:

I was down cleaning out the barn that late fall afternoon when the stranger in his shiny new car drove into our yard. Dad was at our wood pile. He had just started, with bucksaw and axe, to convert the huge pile of poles into stove-length pieces to use in the coming winter. 

The stranger stopped his car by the wood pile and got out. In moments I heard Dad's voice, loud and angry-sounding. I couldn't hear what was said, but it upset me just the same. I had never before heard Dad speak to a caller in this way. 

I watched as the stranger paced out the length and width of the pile of uncut poles. I thought I saw Dad hand him some money. The stranger wrote on a piece of paper, handed it to Dad, jumped into his car and left. I thought I'd better finish my job and let Dad cool down a little before I went to the wood pile to ask him who the stranger was.

Later, when Bob could see that Ingvald had calmed down, he learned that the stranger was a government man who had fined them for taking the wood. Bob still had  the receipt in 1986 when he wrote the story.

Received: the sum of six dollars. From I. Anderson. On account of: Dues for six cords fuel wood cut in trespass. Signed (officer's name) Department of Natural Resources. 

Ingvald was diagnosed with diabetes and suffered complications such as poor circulation in his legs and removal of a kidney. Daughter Helen reported that it aged him tremendously.

Della never loved the land the way Ingvald did. By the mid 1940s the family moved to Swift Current where she operated a boarding house. In the summers, Ingvald would return to farm his land in the Lancer area, eventually joined by son Bob. My memories of my grandfather are of a quiet gentle introverted man with a warm sense of humour.

Ingvald about 1955

My brother John and sister Sandy and I were staying with our grandparents at their farm in the summer of 1958 when Ingvald died very suddenly of a heart attack at the age of  65. Sandy had gone with him to deliver a load of grain to the local elevator when he collapsed in his seat. He died, not on his own land, but nevertheless while conducting his farming operations.

Some Resources:

• Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, Homesteading; located online at https://www.saskarchives.com/collections/land-records/history-and-background-administration-land-saskatchewan/homesteading
• Anderson, Robert W., various writings in possession of the author (many hand-written, some from articles printed in the Western Producer newspaper in the 1980s)