The Weekly Dash

A Letter to Uncle Skip about Adventures on Boston Harbor and Near Lake Ponchartrain: Capt. E.G. Martin, Jr. (1843-1902) / Capt. E.G. Martin, Sr. (1815-1873)

2010-11-23T18:13:00.000-05:00

Hi Uncle Skip and Aunt Nancy-
As you may know I was in Marblehead a few years ago and I went to Old Burial Hill, where several of our ancestors are buried. Its a beautiful graveyard overlooking Marblehead Harbor. I was able to find the gravestones of a few relatives, but my family tree research was not nearly as extensive as it is today, and many of the gravestones are difficult to read. Interestingly, the older gravemarkers, which were made of granite have held up well, but the stone-workers used very fine lettering so it's often hard to decipher. The newer headstones are made of marble, and acid rain and other factors have taken a heavy toll.
I just found a picture of Elbridge Gerry, Sr.'s, your great great grandfather, gravestone online. As you can see, it has been badly damaged by the elements. I wanted to let you know where your namesake's gravestone was. If you are ever near Marblehead Old Burial Hill is a beautiful place to explore. Several of the gravestones have had restorative or protective work done on them, and maybe it could be arranged to have this marker preserved as well.

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving, Adam

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the note and picture. Interesting research, but I am a bit confused. The man I am named after is my great grandfather, your great, great grandfather. You mention the man on the tomb stone to be Elbridge Gerry Martin Sr. Was my great grandfather Elbridge Gerry Martin Jr.? That would be right considering the dates (1815 -1873). I don't know my great grandfather's date of birth, but am pretty sure he died in 1902. Can you clarify? And if I am correct, was EG Sr. a pilot also?

A Happy Thanksgiving to you as well,

Skip

Uncle Skip-

Thanks for your email. Your great grandfather, your namesake, Elbridge Gerry Martin, Jr., (he rarely went by Junior) is the son of harbor pilot Capt. Elbridge Gerry, Sr. (who never went by, Sr.) and Rebecca Homan (Dixey) Martin, who were married in Salem on October 10, 1838. He was born in August of 1843 in East Boston and died of a stroke while on duty as a harbor pilot in Boston Harbor on April 5, 1902, at the age of 58.

Elbridge, Jr., had three sisters: Henrietta (b. 1842), Jane L. (b. 1846 – would become the only female lighthouse keeper of her time), Annie (b. 1849), and two brothers: Ambrose A. (b. 1852) and Gilman (b. 1855). In his teenage years Elbridge was a sail-maker in Boston.

Elbridge, Jr., served at least two tours of duty during the Civil War. In 1863 he was stationed with the 42^nd Massachusetts Volunteers at Camp Parapet, near New Orleans. The camp was threatened by secessionist saboteurs and thieves, who would steal ammunition and attempt, unsuccessfully, to break the levees that surrounded Lake Ponchartrain. Companies C and H were brought in to guard the fortifications and to watch over the refugee camps that were full of recently freed slaves. The men of the 42^nd were very fortunate in that their camp was situated in a way so that they avoided many of the diseases suffered by the New York regiments that were stationed nearby.

Companies C and H contained a strange mix of men that often made them difficult to command. No other companies in the regiment were like them in the make up of their personnel. There were good men, with excellent reputations at home and from families of high standing. There were many men whose reputations were known to be bad, taken from the rough element of cities and towns, whose faces and behavior were bad enough to mark them what they were. There were also excellent fellows who did their duties manfully, though they did not come from the ordinary ranks of society. The tough characters, even though they fought hard and often amongst themselves, if one of their comrades were threatened they would come to his aid and they would stand by each other until the last.

The duties performed by these companies were not arduous. One of Private Elbridge Martin’s duties was, as part of a squad made up of himself and six other men, tour the plantations that were now behind Federal lines and escort the recently freed slaves back to the refugee camps. The camps were divided into five different “colonies”. Men were kept separate from the women and children. Initially there were no restrictions on the refugees, and they were free to come and go as they pleased. During the day the able-bodied men would work with the Army engineers who were shoring up Camp Parapet’s fortifications, and at night they would visit their wives and families in the other camps. Sometimes they would go carousing or go to the religious meetings that occurred in the swamps.

The colonies enjoyed high morale until orders came down from General Sumner, of the Engineering Department, that any refugee leaving the camp without authorization be shot. This order caused a great deal of dissatisfaction amongst both the refugees and the troops stationed at the camp. The situation climaxed on the night of April 17, 1863, when one the refugees attempted to leave his colony. A sentry from Company H called out “Who goes there?” The refugee did not respond and was shot in the back. He died the next day from his wound and Camp Parapet’s officers feared that they might be faced with a full-blown riot by the refugees and a revolt from their own enlisted men. The tension escalated when the Company H sentry was arrested for his role in the shooting. Eleven days later Private Elbridge Martin, who was the sentry on duty, sensed that trouble was brewing in the colonies and sounded the alarm. Guard reliefs and other troops responded immediately, some armed and others not. The freed slaves were building a large bonfire and singing. The men of the 42^nd either joined in building the fire and singing, or looked on approvingly. From that point on, there was no more trouble in any of the colonies.

On July 14, 1864, Elbridge re-enlisted in Company C, of the Massachusetts 42^nd Infantry Regiment, this time as a sergeant. The 42^nd Regiment had been reorganized and mustered into service for 100 days. It was used for guard and garrison duty during the late summer and fall, in order that the older and more experienced troops that had been performing this duty might be relieved and sent to the front. The companies that were to constitute the 42^nd Regiment began to assemble at Camp Meigs in Readville in early July, and on July 24 the command set out for Washington under Lieut. Col. Joseph Stedman. About this time Col. Burrell was released from captivity, returned and rejoined his regiment at Alexandria, and resumed his command. The regiment did guard and patrol duty, one detachment being sent to Great Falls, Maryland, while others were employed in guarding supply trains moving to and from the Shenandoah Valley. Sgt. Martin mustered out, with the rest of his regiment, on November 11, 1864.

Your great grandmother was Maria (sometimes spelled Mariah) Theresa Marden. (I remember that Grandpa and Grandma had a “Marden” family crest hanging just inside the front doorway.) Their children were your grandfather Frank and his sister Bertha V., who were born in 1875 and 1878, respectively, and three other children who died in infancy. Your great grandmother was from Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, and a history of that town described her husband as “. . .an efficient pilot . . .(and a) very worthy man”.

Grandpa and Grandma had the following newspaper clip. I do not have the date, or even the name of the paper that the article is from:

Pilot Died at His Post: Capt. Martin Stricken on His Craft Yesterday

Stricken at his post of duty, Captain Elbridge G. Martin passed away on the pilot boat Liberty No. 3, Saturday night.

As the result evidently of a sudden attack of apoplexy. He was found dead in the after-cabin of his craft by some of his comrades.

Along Massachusetts’ rock-bound coast no man was better known than Capt. Martin. A thousand storms he has weathered and many thousand ships he has brought safely by treacherous rocks and shifting reefs. In snow and sleet, in raging surf or shimmering calm, Captain Martin was always at his post until his charge was safely moored within the inner harbor.

It was in 1863 that he received his license as a pilot, after serving an apprenticeship of five years. It was just after the close of the War for the Union, in which Captain Martin served as a member of the First Massachusetts Regiment (Note (Adam): My records show him as serving in the 42^nd Regiment. It is more than possible that he served in the First on a different tour of duty. Of course, 1863 was not the close of the Civil War.) He was a young man then – he was but 58 when he died – and the sea called him as it had done to his father before him.

(Note (Adam): In the following paragraph the newspaper writer becomes confused about the identity of Elbridge, Jr.’s father. The article actually says that Samuel Clemmons Martin, Elbridge, Sr.’s, brother is Elbridge, Jr.’s father. All three men were well-respected pilots in Boston Harbor. Elbridge, Sr., died in 1873, and Samuel Martin continued to act as a mentor and father figure to his nephew.)

For years father and son were comrades in the pilots’ shore home jutting over the harbor, and comrades in the danger of the black night cruises along the Cape Cod shore when the wild wind whistled down from the north and a hurricane buried the pilot boat beneath the falling billows. It was at times like these that the other pilots came to know and appreciate the sterling courage of the younger Martin.

It mattered not how the severe the storm, he was ever ready to put off in his pilot’s cockle shell to aid, and oft times to save, the ship beating about on an unknown coast.

As the pilot boat Liberty put out from dock Saturday morning Martin seemed in the best of spirits, and with light-hearted chaff helped his fellows to while away the time until the lightship was reached. The Liberty was to have remained at this, the middle station, for a week cruising about.

As night came on the sea grew rough, and the small craft tumbled about in the chasm between watery walls of foam. About 10 o’clock The Nordpol, a Norwegian coal steamer was sighted, and Pilot Nelson put off to her.

Captain Martin did not come on deck as Nelson went over the side, and no one missed him for awhile, so busy were they all in watching the bobbing boat of the pilot slowly making its way towards the black hull of the steamer. When they went below Captain Martin, whom they had seen seemingly well a half hour before, was found lying upon the floor dead.

Towed by a government tug, the Liberty came to Boston. Captain Martin’s body was taken to his late home at 212 Webster Street. He is survived by a widow, a daughter and one son, Frank Martin, clerk of the Leyland line. Samuel Martin, the East Boston ship builder, is an uncle of the dead pilot. (Note (Adam): I am reasonably certain that the Samuel Martin referred to in the previous sentence is Samuel Clemmons Martin, Jr., who is Elbridge’s cousin, and not his uncle.)

Captain Martin became especially well known to his fellows throughout the country from the fact that he was secretary and treasurer of both the National Pilots’ Association and of the Boston Pilots’ Relief Society.”

The Liberty #3, the boat on which Elbridge died was a schooner-rigged pilot boat that was built in 1896 in Gloucester. In 1917 she was acquired by the U.S. Navy from the Boston Pilot’s Relief Society and commissioned as USS Liberty #3 (SP-1229). For the duration of the war she patrolled the entrance to Boston Harbor. She was decommissioned in 1919 and returned to the BPRS. There was also a New York Times article, dated January 30, 1897, which said The Liberty #3 was feared lost in an unexpected blizzard that hit Boston Harbor. The article does not mention Capt. Martin by name, but it is likely that he was acting as pilot aboard The Liberty #3 during this incident.

Capt. Elbridge Martin, Sr., who was also a famous harbor pilot, was the son of sea captain and then lighthouse keeper on Baker’s Island, Capt. Ambrose Bowen Martin and his wife Elizabeth (Clemmons) Martin. (Note (Adam): “Clemmons” is spelled in a wide variety of ways.) As a boy, the elder Elbridge made the local papers at least twice. In one incident, in 1833, the 18-year -old Elbridge and one of his brothers, probably Ambrose, Jr., investigated one of the numerous “giant sea serpent” sightings that had been claimed that season. The young men reported that the “serpent” was actually an optical illusion caused by a pod of surfacing pilot whales. The New Bedford Mercury hoped that this explanation would put its readers’ minds at rest. Five years earlier Elbridge had also made local news when, as a 13 year old, he shot and successfully downed an eagle with a seven foot wing span on Baker’s Island. The eagle was presented to the East India Museum in Salem.

The elder Elbridge was not only a harbor pilot, but a professional racing skipper as well. Some of his greatest victories came aboard The Coquette, one of the most admired of the early American yachts. She was low and graceful in the water, with a clipper bow much like the later famous racing yacht America. In the 1840s yacht racing was in its infancy in the United States. In 1844 the New York Yacht Club was formed by nine yacht-owners, and in 1846 the first official yacht race in America was sailed, twenty-five miles windward and back from the Sandy Hook lightship. In this race The Coquette, skippered by Capt. Martin and owned by James H. Perkins, was matched against the centerboard sloop Maria. The Maria was over twice as large and heavy as her competition, and heavily favored to win. The Maria led The Coquette to the leeward mark, but coming up the beat the smaller ship found her stride. The Coquette ended up beating her competition so badly that The Maria’s centerboard broke, and she was forced to limp home. The Coquette’s victorious crew hoisted a broom to their ship’s masthead. The Coquette would later beat both The Brenda and The Belle, and become an icon of early American yachting.

Perkins eventually sold The Coquette to Capt. Martin and fellow pilot Capt. Samuel Colby. The pilots raised her bulwarks and made some adjustments to her deck plan, and she went onto serve as a pilot boat. She gave over eighteen years of service in this capacity before being sold as a ‘Blackbirder’ on the African coast.

Shortly before the famous race between The Maria and The Coquette, Capt. Martin was the plaintiff/appellant in a case heard before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. The uncontested facts of the case were that as the brig Zephyr approached Boston Harbor, pilot E.G. Martin hailed the ship and requested permission to board. The captain of the Zephyr replied that he would grant permission if the pilot would take the ship to Weymouth. Martin countered that he would take the ship through Boston Harbor and then turn her over to a riverboat pilot. The Zephyr’s captain offered to make a bargain, to which Capt. Martin replied “No. I shall charge the Boston Harbor pilotage, whether you take me on board or not.” The Zephyr’s captain said “We shall see about that.”

Capt. Martin sued for the fees that he had been denied. The trial court found in favor of the defendant, reasoning that Boston Harbor pilots were only entitled to fees for ships bound for Boston. On appeal, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rejected the trial court’s overly narrow interpretation of “Boston Harbor”. The justices relied on over forty years of Boston Harbor custom. They ruled that the statutes governing the harbor were written to increase safety. It was impossible for a ship to get to Weymouth without passing through the harbor, and it was unsafe for a ship to pass through the harbor without a qualified pilot. Capt. Martin was granted a new trial.

Elbridge G. Martin, Sr., died in September, 1873, at the age of 58 years old, the same age that his son, Elbridge G. Martin would die in 1902. He is buried on The Old Burial Hill Cemetery in Marblehead, Massachusetts, which overlooks Marblehead Habor.

Thank you again for your email. I hope that my response makes things a little clearer. I think these stories are fascinating. Have a great Thanksgiving and say “Hi” to everyone for me.

All the best, Adam

One Man's Perspective: Captain Edward Bowen, Sr. (1720-1796)

2010-11-19T13:55:00.000-05:00

I had the wind taken out of my sails this week. I got a text from my brother Luke late Tuesday afternoon: “Text me quickly if you can. Who is the most interesting person from the Revolutionary War era? (seeking book report topic)”. Since Luke is long past the age of writing book reports I assumed, and rightly so, that he was making the request on behalf of his ten-year-old daughter. The most interesting person from the revolutionary war era? That is certainly a question for a far more esteemed historian than myself, or for a countdown show on The History Channel. I knew I could come up with an interesting person from that era. After all, I write a weekly blog on interesting people, some of who are from the era in question. I had just finished reading the story of Moll Pitcher, the much-maligned fortune-teller of Lynn, Massachusetts. I do not think that I am related to ol’ Moll, but I would much rather hear that story than the well worn tales of how the Father of Our Country had wooden teeth, or trying to remember whether if it was “One if by land, Two if by sea”, or the other way around. I immediately texted back that I would be happy to put together a list of compelling figures that my niece, Lily, could choose from.

Before I could put this list down on paper I got another text from Luke. Lily had chosen (drum-roll, please) . . . Betsy Ross. Betsy Ross! I apologize to all of you Betsy Ross fans out there, but I cannot think of a less interesting Revolutionary War era figure. But then again, the Betsy Ross story is a very easy one to tell. George Washington asked her to sew a flag. She sewed a flag. The end. It’s a feel good story without a hint of controversy or complication. And about as intriguing as watching paint dry. I hope that those of you who are taking the time to read this post find the following account at least slightly more entertaining.

Captain Edward Bowen, a native of Marblehead, Massachusetts, was fifty-six years old at the start of the Revolution, and for the seventeen years from 1779 until his death in 1796, he kept a journal of his life in that coastal town. One of his earliest journal entries is from January 23, 1779, which marked the birth of his ninth child. My wife delivered a son whose name is to be Edward, who, if he should live, may remember that his father had no hand in the destraction (sic.) of his country, which was once the best for a poor man in the known world, but now the worst.” I don’t know if by destraction he meant “destruction” or “distraction”, but, either way, his frustration with the Revolution is clear. The next week he writes of the source of much of this frustration. After giving a list of prices of provisions. Fine Liberty! O, fine Liberty! May they be punished. The fishermen and sailors of Marblehead had suffered more than anyone under the tax regime of George III, but the war was economically devastating, The formerly fertile fishing areas off the harbor had become the scene of pitched naval battles and the import-export trade had ground to halt. By the spring of 1781 the local economy was in free-fall, and it took 100 of the newly issued American dollars to equal one Spanish mill dollar. There was no meat available in the town, grain was scarce, and the heating fuel had barely lasted the winter.

Marblehead paid not only a heavy financial price, but a heavy price in terms in terms of young men seriously wounded or killed in battle. On July 24, 1781, Capt. Bowen’s son William joined the army, much to elder Bowen’s consternation. Many of Capt. Bowen’s diary entries deal with those who died during the war, including his son Benjamin who died in Barbados in 1779. Capt. Bowen did not receive word of his son’s death until nearly two years after the event. Closer to home the Marblehead privateers were able to significantly harass the British navy, but this did little to relieve the hardships suffered by the community.

Capt. Bowen wrote that the winter of 1779 and 1780 was the coldest of the century to that point. That winter Salem and Marblehead harbors froze over with ice more than eight inches deep. Two-thirds of the families in Marblehead were without meat or firewood. Almost the entire Massachusetts fleet had been destroyed in a failed attack on the British in Penobscot Bay the previous summer and the rebellious Massachusetts colony was on the brink of financial ruin. Capt. Bowen wrote often of his doubts about the revolutionary cause and his frustrations were many. In the summer of 1881, Capt. Bowen’s brother Ashley was aboard a privateering ship that was captured by the British.

On April 13, 1783, news that peace had been declared reached Marblehead. Within a few years the fishing and the international trade began to pick up, and Capt. Bowen wrote in his journal about ships and sailors setting out to and returning from ports including Bilboa Spain, Russia, the West Indies, the Carolinas, and Isle of Sables. Capt. Bowen reported that the Christmas of 1787 was the most pleasant that anyone could remember. The fishing that season had gone extremely well, but the market was extremely slow, perhaps on account of fears that the newly independent nation would be dragged into a war between Great Britain and France. As 1787 became 1788 Capt. Bowen wrote: Political conversation now seems to be most about the form of government. Our State Convention meets at Boston the 8^th of this month for the acceptance or refusal of the Constitution. God grant they may be directed from above: may they have the good of the publick at heart. As we have now begun a new year may we begin it to the Lord. I have reason to fear there will be something uncommon come upon us this year. May it not be our destruction. On October 29, 1789, George Washington visited Salem and Marblehead and Capt. Bowen reported that there was “much ado.”

I know that Edward Bowen did not design or even sew the first flag of our nation, but I find the personal accounts of those who lived through the turbulent days that led to the new republic’s independence far more intriguing than the white-washed, plain vanilla propaganda that often passes as History. I also know that I should not let the wind be taken out of my sails by a fifth grader's choice for a book report topic.

Captain Edward Bowen was my 5th great grand uncle

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) - Allen Lowe Martin - Allen Littlefield Martin - Frank L. Martin - Elbridge Gerry Martin, Jr. - Elbridge Gerry Martin, Sr. - Ambrose Bowen Martin - Elizabeth Bowen (daughter of) - Nathan Bowen, Sr. (father of) - Edward Bowen, Sr.

"The Champion of the Seas" : Samuel Clemmons Martin, Sr. (1817-after 1900)

2010-11-10T15:41:00.001-05:00

"The Champion of the Seas"

Samuel had been shipwrecked many times before, and had always been able to find aid, and often friendship, with the Islanders. This group of natives, however, was clearly offended by the presence of Americans on their islands. Samuel and his friends sprinted back to the small boats that had brought them to shore. The natives were at their heels. The Americans rigged the spirit sails as quickly as they could and set off. There was a strong breeze blowing inland and the islanders, in their felucca-rigged crafts, were rapidly gaining on them. Samuel turned to one of his companions and told him that he was going to try something that he had read in the Bible, and if that did not save them, nothing would. Samuel lashed a six-gallon can of oil that the crew had on-board to the fore-rigging and then stuck a marlin spike in the bottom of the can. The oil began to slowly leak onto the sea. The dories stiffened up and began to glide across the surface of the water, as though they were powered by steam, and the Americans made their escape.

For nearly five decades of the 19^th Century, Samuel Clemmons Martin was either at sea or guiding ships into or out of Boston Harbor. He was born in 1817 in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and was destined to carry on his family’s nearly 200-year-old New England maritime legacy.

Samuel’s father, Captain Ambrose Martin, was a famous sea captain who would later man the lighthouse at Baker’s Island for over twenty-five years. Samuel was literally brought up on the sea, and could manage a boat before he was in his teens. At 17-years-old he signed onto a ship bound for Fiji. This first voyage was a memorable one. The ship that he was on was wrecked and he and several of his companions were cast ashore. They lived amongst the Polynesian islanders for several months before they were taken aboard an English ship that touched there. It took him nearly four years to return to Massachusetts, by which time all of his family and friends had given him up for dead.

Samuel stayed in Boston for a few months before returning to the sea. Over his career he visited all of the major ports, and many of the smaller ports, of the world. He was shipwrecked several times, and would lead a Robinson Crusoe-like existence while he waited to be rescued. In the Ascension Islands he served as counselor to a native chieftain, and became a favorite of the chief and his courtiers. Through his influence, Samuel was able to save the lives of several of his American companions. The chief gave Samuel and his companions clothes made of leaves and straw, and appropriated their clothes to be used as official robes of state, and wore them on all occasions. The chief gave the Americans a special honor guard and supplied them with servants from his own household. When an English ship lighted on this island’s shores, and agreed to give the Americans transport, Captain Martin and his compatriots had to steal away. Captain Martin would often say that he regretted that he had ever left the island. When he returned, several years later, the chief held a great celebration in Captain Martin’s honor, offering him many gifts, including a nicely browned cut of human thigh.

In the late 1840’s Samuel Martin settled in Salem, Massachusetts and became a pilot in Salem Harbor, the same harbor in which he had learned to sail decades before. This was not the end of his adventures, however. Shipbuilding and seafaring traffic in Massachusetts’s harbors were at their height during this era, and the pilot ships were still powered by sail. There were no tow-boats and the dredging and the survey of the harbor were by no means complete. Tides were irregular and sand bars would form without warning. Despite these challenges, Captain Martin’s record as a pilot remained one the cleanest in the history of the harbor.

A story is told of one trip up the harbor that Captain Martin made in the ship “Champion of the Seas.” She was regarded by many as the finest vessel afloat and was launched in East Boston. She plied on the East Indies trade and toward the end of her career carried lumber. One night she arrived in the outer harbor, water logged, and Captain Martin was put aboard to bring her in. She was in a dangerous condition, and he had an all-night fight to bring her to her dock. His comrade who put him on the vessel said of the occurrence: “When Martin climbed over the rail I did not think he would ever get her in: she was leaking badly and her hold was filled with water. But with his dogged persistence he beat her up, and worked all night with her, but finally tied her up and saved the ship.”

Samuel Clemmons Martin, Sr. was my 3^rd Great Grand Uncle

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) – Allen Lowe Martin – Allen Littlefield Martin – Frank L. Martin – Elbridge Gerry Martin, Jr. – Elbridge Gerry Martin, Sr. – Capt. Ambrose Martin (father of) – Samuel Clemmons Martin, Sr.

Maker of The World's Most Expensive Whiskey: Henry Stratford Persse (1769-1833)

2010-11-03T11:30:00.000-04:00

I saw Johnny Drama this past weekend. He said that he enjoyed the blog post on The Leviathan of Parsonstown, but wondered why I haven’t written about what my forefathers, and foremothers, drank. “I mean, was it beer? Was it wine? What was it?”

Well, Johnny, I’m sure that their tastes varied, just as yours do. But a few months back I did read an article about the most expensive bottle of whiskey ever put up for sale. Arkwrights Whisky and Wines, a distributor based in Wiltshire, England, was offering a bottle of Persse’s 25 year Old Pure Pot Still Whiskey, (which is now actually over 100 years old) for a cool £100,000, or a little over $160,000, depending on the exchange rate. Because of the toll that the current recession has taken on my personal finances I reluctantly had to forego buying the bottle and settle for $1 Natural Lights at Vinnie’s Raw Bar. With the money that I have saved I can order an appetizer and desert.

This very expensive, and unsold, bottle of whiskey was one of the last produced by Persse’s Galway Whiskey, a distillery that was started by Henry Stratford Persse in 1815. (This Henry Stratford Persse was the great-grandfather of the American Henry Stratford Persse whom I wrote about in September. ) The distillery operated throughout almost the entire 19^th century and was the largest producer of Irish whiskey outside of Dublin. For many decades it was Galway’s largest employer and it’s output was exported to England and throughout the British Empire.

Henry Stratford Persse’s first distillery was located in Newcastle, Galway, and was later moved to Nun’s Island, near the banks of the Corrib, between O’Brien’s bridge and the Salmon Weir bridge. In the years before The Great Famine of the 1840s, the market towns of Galway, Loughrea and Tuam were well supplied with grain. The local economy hummed along as the Nun’s Island distillery grew, and farmers and traders earned top commodity prices.

The distillery continued to expand and be the largest employer in Galway throughout The Famine, despite the ever-increasing competition from moon-shine producers and the hugely successful temperance campaign of Father Theobald Matthew. In 1838 there 213,000 taverns in Ireland. By 1860 there were only 22 taverns in the entire country. The 1860s, however, would be a period of huge expansion for Persse’s Whiskey. The distillery, now run by Henry Straford Persse’s grandson Henry Sadlier Persse had long supplemented its income with beer production. Henry Sadlier streamlined the physical plant’s operations and, in a marketing coup, hired Patrick McDermott, M.P. for Kilkenny, to act as a sales representative in England. The Galway Whiskey was introduced into the House of Commons bar and Persse’s adopted the slogan “Favourite in the House Commons”, which it emblazoned on posters, jugs, mirrors and a West of Ireland travel guide.

The turn of the century, however, marked the end of production of Persse’s Galway Whiskey. The three largest Dublin distillers had combined their efforts and improved rail networks meant the end of Persse’s virtual monopoly in the west of Ireland. By this time Scotland had surpassed Ireland as the spirit of choice for overseas drinkers. Whiskey consumption in Ireland continued to decline and knock-off brands continued to spring up. In 1908 the Nun’s Island distillery closed its doors for the last time. By 1921, and the creation of The Irish Free State, all of the Persses had left Galway. The old Nun’s Island building still stands and The King’s Head Bar displays Persse Galway Whiskey mirror. And if you are willing to pay over $5,000 for a shot, an English spirits merchant can arrange for you to taste some of the best 100 year old whiskey around.

Henry Stratford Persse was my 4x Great Grandfather

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) - Allen Lowe Martin - Margaret Persse (daughter of) - Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of) - Dudley Persse - Theophilus Blakeney Persse - Henry Stratford Persse

Builder of "The Leviathan of Parsonstown": Lord William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800-1867)

2010-10-27T05:15:00.000-04:00

The “Leviathan of Parsonstown” was a sixty-foot giant, with an eye more than six feet across. For most of the 19^th century it had provided the most magnified view of the sky possible in that era, and attracted astronomers from all over the world to an otherwise sleepy Irish village.

William Parsons, the creator of the “Leviathan” was an individual who was quite different from many of the stereotypical images associated with the men and women who have made great scientific breakthroughs. Although he was a talented mechanic and a diligent student, he was not a prodigy or a genius. He began his university career at Trinity College, Dublin and then went on to earn first-class honors in mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1822. If anything set him apart from his fellow students, it was not his abilities, but his innate curiosity and love of the learning process. In addition to his scientific pursuits he had a great deal of interest in social questions and was a profound student of political economy.

Parsons’s decision to devote the focus of his attention to astronomy was a deliberate one. No great progress in astronomy had been made since the discoveries of Frederick William Herschel, the great astronomer and telescope builder of the previous century. William Parsons believed that new breakthroughs in astronomy would depend on a man who not only had vision, but also the time and the financial wherewithal to pursue that vision. William Parsons, also known as Lord Oxmantown, was the eldest son of Sir Lawrence Parsons, 2^nd Earl of Rosse, a distinguished member of the Irish Parliament and holder of one of the wealthiest estates in Great Britain or Ireland. The wealth and leisure that he was born into would allow William Parsons to put his mechanical skills to the great scientific endeavor of building the world’s largest telescope.

Great scientific endeavors often isolate men of vision from the individuals and the community around them. This was not the case with Parsons. Lord Oxmantown’s curiosity led him to create bonds and friendships, not only with likeminded scientists, but also with people from nearly all walks of life. A story that was often told about Lord Oxmantown during his life was that when he was being given a tour of a large mechanical works in the north of England, the owner of the works stated that he was in great need of a foreman, and hoped that his visitor would accept the position. Lord Oxmantown gave the man his card and gently explained that he was not exactly the man for the job, but that he appreciated the compliment. This interaction led to a pleasant dinner and was the start of a lasting friendship.

Like his intellectual predecessor Herschel, William Parsons had a female companion in his scientific pursuits who was of equal, if not greater ability than her male counterpart. Herschel’s sister Caroline had both acted as his assistant and had independently discovered eight comets, three nebulae and improved formulae regarding the position of stars. William Parsons, Lord Oxmantown, married Mary Field, the daughter of a wealthy estate-owner, in 1836 and without her assistance the “Leviathan” would never have become a reality. Lady Oxmantown was an accomplished blacksmith, an extremely rare skill for an upper-class woman of the time. She constructed most of the iron work used to support the giant telescope, and this project kept more than 500 men employed during the depths of the Great Famine that devastated Ireland from 1845 to 1847. This mother of eleven children was also an innovator in photography. She was one of the first photographers to use wax paper negatives. Many of her photographs serve today as an important chronicle of the building of the “Leviathan”.

Construction of the “Leviathan” had begun in 1842, and by 1847 it was in service. Despite the advancements that Lady Oxmantown and others were making in the field of photography during this period, any observations made with the giant telescope had to be sketched by the observer. News of William Parson’s discovery of the nebula M51 (today known as the Whirlpool Galaxy) and observations of the Crab Nebula spread throughout the British Commonwealth. Many of Parsons’s hand-drawn sketches are amazingly consistent with modern spectroscopic images.

The “Leviathan” was truly a mechanical marvel. Another Irish Member of Parliament, Thomas Langlois Lefroy, is quoted as saying “The planet Jupiter, which through an ordinary glass is no larger than a good star, is seen twice as large as the moon appears to the naked eye . . . But the genius displayed in all the contrivances for wielding this mighty monster even surpasses the design and execution of it. The telescope weighs sixteen tons, and yet (Parsons) raised it single-handed (sic.) off its resting place, and two men with ease raised it to any height.”

At the death of his father, William Parsons was elevated to the title of Third Earl of Rosse. For many years Lord Rosse filled with marked distinction the position of President of the Royal Society, the premiere institution of scientific discovery in Britain and Ireland. Lord Rosse’s home, Birr Castle, hosted monumental exhibitions of optical skill and attracted throngs of visitors from all over the world. Lord Rosse himself was always available to those who sought his assistance and advice, and endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact. On one occasion, when an assistant dropped and broke a mirror on which the great man had spent several hours of personal labor, Lord Rosse shrugged his shoulders and said, “Accidents will happen.”

The “Leviathan” remained the largest telescope in the world until 1914, when a larger one was built in California. By this time the monster telescope was virtually obsolete, and was allowed to fall into disrepair. In the 1970’s a television program, book and lecture by the documentarian Patrick Moore revived interest in this 19^th Century marvel. Reconstruction work began in 1996, and as the original plans for the telescope had been lost, the reconstruction team relied heavily on contemporary photographs taken by Lady Rosse. In 1999 a new mirror was installed in the reconstructed telescope, and the “Leviathan” again attracts curious observers from all over the world to this sleepy Irish town.

Lord William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse was my 3rd cousin, 5 times removed

The Murder of a Patriot: Douw Fonda (1700/1-1780)

2010-10-20T12:34:00.000-04:00

The widower was in his eightieth year and he lived in large stone mansion with a small number of servants. In his long life in the Mohawk River Valley he had witnessed a great many battles, some carefully orchestrated campaigns and some minor skirmishes or raids. He had never before seen, however, a winter as harsh as the one that had just passed. It was May now, and spring was returning to the valley. The widower and his neighbors knew that the blue skies and warmer temperatures were a mixed blessing, as they would probably be accompanied by an invasion from the Redcoats who were encamped a few days march to the north in Quebec.

The British Governor-General Haldimand had received intelligence reports that the Rebels were forcing men of fighting age to take up arms against the British crown. The Governor was upset by this persecution of Loyalists and began to work with Sir John Johnson to muster a unit to safely escort these men to British-controlled Quebec. Johnson was in full agreement with Haldimand’s sentiment, and also saw the mission as a chance to strike a blow against the rebelling colonists.

The Mohawk River Valley was a Whig stronghold, and the community fully supported the cause of Independence. They had received word that the British were planning a raid, but they didn’t know when and they didn’t know how. The widower, Douw Fonda, volunteered his home as a makeshift fortress, and stakes and pickets were planted around its circumference. Not only was the mansion a formidable structure, but its owner was a patriarch of a family that was respected throughout the region, by Whig, Tory, and Indian alike, and perhaps this respect would temper the actions of the raiding forces.

In the middle of May 1780, Johnson put together a raiding party of 528 whites and Indians. The party made its way south, down Lake Champlain and then marching southwest from Crown Point. As the invaders began to pillage the northern settlements, the alarm was sounded. The young men of the village who would have otherwise protected their farms, homes and families were off fighting the British as part of the Continental Army or militia. Because the settlement had been left defenseless, its residents ran for the protection of the wooded hills, knowing that their homes would be destroyed, but that, perhaps, their lives would be spared. The British and the Mohawks did not pursue the terrified villagers, but those that refused to abandon their property were locked inside their burning homes.

The elderly Douw Fonda, however, refused to flee. When the alarm first sounded he grabbed his gun and turned to the young Scottish girl who was his personal attendant and said, “Penelope, do stay here with me, for I will fight for you with the last drop of my blood!” Penelope Grant did her best to talk him out of this foolish plan, and encouraged him to escape with her to the hills. When she realized that her protestations were to no avail, she knew that if she wished to survive she would have to leave the old man to his fate.

At first the Mohawks intended to spare the Douw mansion and the old man who owned it. Many of them knew Fonda personally, had enjoyed his hospitality in the past, and were aware that he was a close friend of Sir William Johnson, the head of Indian affairs in the northern colonies. The Tories, however, were intent on inflicting as much suffering as possible to this Whig stronghold, and commanded their Mohawk allies to do the same. As the invaders burst through the blockaded front door, the musical clock that stood in the front hall began to play its chimes. On a marble table was a statue of Indian, whose head was on a pivot, which from the slightest motion was “Niding, nodding, and nid, nid, nodding.” The Mohawks believed that the strange music and the nodding statue were signs that the spirits approved of their rampage.

Douw Fonda was relieved of his weapon before he had fired a single shot. He was led from his home, carrying a book and a cane, by an Indian known as “One-Armed Peter,” and then taken to the river and tomahawked and scalped. When Peter was later chastised for this murder, he protested that he believed that Fonda’s fate had already been sealed and that “he might as well get the bounty for the scalp as anyone else.”

Several other villagers were killed that day, and ten dozen barns and homes were burned. Sir John Johnson gathered 143 Loyalists, including women and children, and twenty slaves and made the trek back to Quebec. The Rebels mustered Continentals and militias to pursue Johnson’s party, but the pursuit had to be abandoned due to rumors that the Mohawk chief Joseph Brandt was planning an attack from the south.

Two days after the raid the dogs of several families whose homes had been ravaged and burned, and whose masters had been killed or taken prisoner, gathered on a hill just north of the Slingerland home and began to howl. A howling by a greater number of dogs has never been heard before or since. The unearthly baying began at sunset and continued for several hours as the dogs mourned their lost masters. Eventually, the surviving villagers returned and rebuilt the town that would become known as Fonda, New York.

Douw Fonda was my Great (x6) Grandfather

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) - Allen Martin - Margaret Persse (daughter of) - Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of) - Margaret Alida Schuyler (daughter of) - Maria Wemple - Douw Wemple (son of) - Margrietje Fonda (daughter of) - Douw Fonda

Trained the Tetrarch, the Greatest Thoroughbred of the 20th Century: Henry Seymour “Atty” Persse (1869-1960)

2010-10-13T06:30:00.000-04:00

The foal was chestnut with black patches, and his owner, Edward Kennedy of County Kildare, hoped that the newborn horse he had named The Tetrarch would bring back the Herod line of thoroughbred champions. As months went by the foal’s black patches turned grey with white splotches, and the young horse did not seem to be living up to the hopes of his owner. The Tetrarch had unusual coloring, an unusual build, and an unorthodox running style. Several horsemen dismissed him before he was discovered by Atty Perrse.

Henry Seymour “Atty” Persse had trained The Tetrarch’s half-sister Nicola and decided to buy the chestnut colt from Kennedy for 1,300 guineas. Over the months The Tetrarch’s long legs, which had first been seen by many as a liability, had become the source of speed that the Irish trainers had never before seen. The famous jockey Stephen Donghue would say, “To be on him was like riding a creature that combined the power of an elephant with the speed of a greyhound.” The horse that had been previously been called “The Rocking Horse” was now referred to as “The Spotted Wonder.”

The Tetrarch’s racing success as a two year old was unprecedented and has never been matched. As a two-year old he won the Maiden Plate at Newmarket, the Woodcote Stakes, the Coventry Stakes, the National Breeders Produce Stakes, the Rous Memorial Stakes, the Champion Breeders Foal Stakes and the Champagne Stakes. He won all seven races in which he was entered. The Tetrarch won six of those races easily, simply blowing away the competition. The only challenge came at the National Breeders Produce Stakes where, despite a mix-up at the start that left him four or five lengths back, he managed to win by a nose. Atty Persse said “I don’t think that he would ever have been beaten, over any distance. He was a freak and there will never be another like him.” After the Champagne Stakes The Tetrarch rapped himself badly on his off-fore fetlock joint, and he spent the winter that spanned 1913 and 1914 recovering. Early in the spring of 1914 he rapped the joint again, and his racing career was over.

The Tetrarch ended his racing career undefeated and began a stud career that was marked by quality rather than quantity. The champion expressed very little interest in mares and only sired 130 foals. To his progeny he transmitted both stamina and speed, although not necessarily at the same time. Out of the 130 foals, 80 were winners, and The Tetrarch was named Champion Sire of 1919. The Tetrarch died at Ballylinch in 1935 at the age of twenty-four.

The Tetrarch was lauded for his greatness during his time, and after his death his legend continued to grow. Although there are questions whether he would have continued to dominate the competition as a three-year-old or over longer distances, the United Kingdom’s National Horseracing Museum called the Tetrarch a “phenomenon” and named him Britain’s two-year-old of the century. The American National Sporting Library’s Thoroughbred Heritage website says he was “probably the greatest two-year-old of all time” and “possibly the greatest runner ever.” He is an ancestor of both Seattle Slew and Secretariat, and countless other legendary thoroughbreds.

Atty Persse was in his early forties, an experienced rider and trainer, when he bought The Tetrarch in 1911. He had been a very successful amateur rider under National Hunt rules and a Master of Foxhounds in Ireland. As a horse trainer he was known as a stern man, and it was said that “woe betide the stable lad who ‘blabbed’ about a horse’s prospects." The fact that he was able to keep a horse’s potential a secret is proven by the fact that The Tetrarch, maybe the greatest runner ever, entered his first race at 5 to 1 odds.

Henry Seymour Persse, the second son of Henry Sadlier Persse, was born at County Rahoon, Ireland, on the 17^th of June, 1869. Although he came from a long and distinguished line of equestrians, it was widely thought that he would one day devote his attentions and efforts to running the Persse distillery, which at the time was the largest whiskey manufacturer in the west of Ireland. At the age of 20 he matriculated to Brasenose College, Oxford. After leaving the university, he embarked on a career that would take him to America, where he found success as a cross-country rider, and then to England where his exploits would make him a legendary figure in the history of Irish and British horseracing.

Persse would stay active in the horse racing game until his retirement in 1953, when he was eighty-four years old. He lived until 1960, and is still regarded in Irish and Britsh horseracing circles as an icon of a golden age.

ATTY PERSSE RETIRES (LAMBOURN)

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Adam Lowe Martin (son of) - Allen Lowe Martin - Margaret Persse (daughter of) - Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of) - Dudley Persse - Theophilus Blakeney Persse - Henry Stratford Persse (father of) - Matilda "Mattie" Persse (mother of ) - Henry Sadleir Persse (father of) - Henry Seymour "Atty" Persse

The Founder of The Irish Times: Maj. Lawrence Edward Knox (1836-1873)

2010-10-04T17:22:00.001-04:00

“There are seventy million Irish, and only one Irish newspaper,” is the somewhat hyperbolic tagline of The Irish Times. Although the paper has a significantly smaller circulation than its main rival, The Irish Independent, the historically controversial Irish Times is commonly considered to be Ireland’s paper of record.

Lawrence Edward Knox was only twenty-two years old when he founded The Irish Times in 1859. He named the paper after both The Times of London and the successful, but short-lived, Irish Times that had existed from1823 to 1825. The paper was originally established as a moderately liberal Protestant paper, but when it changed ownership after Knox’s death less than two decades later, the paper became the voice of Irish Unionism.

Knox, who was born in 1836 at Kemp Town, Brighton, England was the eldest of the five children of Arthur Edward Knox and Jane Parsons. Arthur Knox was a Life Guards (an elite all-officer regiment of the British Army) officer from Castlerea, Co Roscommon, Ireland. Jane Parsons was the daughter of the famous Irish astronomer Lawrence Parsons, the 2nd Earl of Rosse.

Lawrence Knox began a life in the military at the age of sixteen, when he joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman. Two years later, at the start of the Crimean War, he became an ensign in the 63^rd Regiment of Foot and was made a lieutenant shortly thereafter. Eventually he became captain of the 11^th Regiment, but left the army less than half a year later at the age of twenty.

After leaving military life, the young Lawrence Knox founded the newspaper that would become known as The Irish Times. It was a time of prosperity in the newspaper industry, and The Irish Times was an immediate success. It was originally published only three days a week, but in less than four months it became a daily. Its moderate and balanced coverage of the major issues of the day set it apart from competing papers, and it was a major factor in The Times’s success.

The paper’s readership, revenues and reputation continued to grow for the greater part of the next decade, and it became the nation’s largest paper. Knox, who retained control of the paper, returned to military life, becoming a major in the 2^nd Royal Tower Hamlets Militia. He also served as a Justice of the Peace for County Dublin, and then was elected Tory MP for Sligo borough, only to be unseated by petition. He was known as a sportsman, and held the position of Commodore of the Irish Model Yacht Club, a club for racing small boats of 18 feet in length.

Knox was cut down by scarlet fever in the prime of his life, and died in 1873 at the age of thirty-six. After his death the paper he founded was sold to the widow of former MP Sir John Arnott. The headquarters of the paper was moved and its politics became staunchly Unionist. The paper retained its Unionist bent for decades, and critics of The Irish Times still refer to the fact that the paper, along with The Irish Independent and several regional newspaper, called for the execution of the leaders of the failed 1916 Easter Rising insurrection by Irish republicans.

In the 1930s the editors of The Irish Times angered the Catholic Church because the paper strongly opposed General Franco’s Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II, the Irish DeValera government often censored the paper when it criticized the government’s position of neutrality. Perhaps the most controversial episode in the paper’s history occurred during The Troubles in the late 1960s, when the paper’s chairman, a former British Army officer, called its longest running editor, Douglas Gageby, a “white nigger” for not taking a harder line against the republican cause.

In recent years the paper has suffered from the industry-wide reduction in newspaper readership and now has a daily audience of slightly over 100,000 readers. In an attempt to adapt to this shrinking market, The Irish Times has acquired local newspaper groups and, in 1994, became the first newspaper in Ireland or Britain to establish a presence on the Internet. The paper’s management has also expressed its intention to launch a mobile phone application version of the paper in the near future. The paper’s ownership of the website address, Ireland.com, is symbolic of its continuing role as the nation’s news authority.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) – Allen Lowe Martin – Margaret Persse (daughter of) – Edwin T. Persse (son of) – Dudley Persse – Theophilus Persse – Henry Stratford Persse (1769 -26 Oct 1833) - William Persse (1730 – 1803)– Elizabeth Parsons (1710 – 1768) (daughter of) – William Parsons, Esq. (1685 – 1740) (son of) – Sir William Parsons, 2^nd Baronet (1661 – 1740) (father of) – Sir Lawrence Parsons, 3^rd Baronet (1707-1756) - Sir William Parsons, 4^th Baronet (6 May 1731 – 1 May 1791) - Lawrence Parsons, 2^nd Earl of Rosse (21 May 1758 – 24 Feb 1841) - Jane Parsons (d. 31 Dec 1883) (mother of) – Maj. Lawrence Edward Knox (1836 – 1873)

A Steward of Land and of History: Henry Stratford Persse (1837-1918)

2010-09-29T10:22:00.000-04:00

Three hundred million years ago the Rocky Mountains began to push their way up through the earth and created the spectacular red sandstone formations that exist along the front-range today. At the end of the Nineteenth Century Henry Stratford Persse, originally from the Mohawk River Valley in New York, bought several hundred acres on land that was then known as Washington Park, fifteen miles from Littleton, Colorado. He re-named the park, which is noted for the rolling foothills and dramatic red rock formations that mark the landscape, Roxborough Park after his family’s ancestral estate in the west of Ireland.

Henry Stratford Persse, who shared his name with his Irish grandfather, had made a name for himself in politics in upstate New York. In his first political campaign he ran for Town Clerk in the heavily Republican Amsterdam, New York, as an anti-war Democrat. Persse was declared the upset winner of the hotly contested election and the Republicans called for a recount of the vote. It turned out that Persse had actually lost by eight votes. When Persse conceded victory his opponent said “if a Republican can’t win an election in a Republican county by more than eight votes, he shouldn’t take the job”, and Persse became the Town Clerk. In his political career Persse went onto associate with some of the great names in New York politics in that era, including Horace Greeley, Samuel Tilden and Gordon Emmett.

Persse eventually followed Horace Greeley’s famous words of advice and headed west. He made the round-trip between New York to Denver at least twenty-six times, before finally settling with his wife and two daughters in Colorado in 1892. Shortly after making Colorado his home he was elected Justice of the Peace of Douglass County, but he never tried a single case.

Henry Stratford Persse was a family historian and immensely proud of his heritage. His home in Denver was full of heirlooms and old family portraits, and he owned a large collection of ancient family records. He was descended from the Moyode Castle and Roxborough Persses who had come to Ireland in the 1500s. The family traced their lineage back to the Percys of Northumberland, England, who had participated in every historic battle in England back to the time of William the Conqueror. Perhaps the most famous Percy was Hotspur, the Henry Percy immortalized in Shakepeare’s Henry IV, Part 1.

Persse claimed that the family changed the spelling of their name from Percy to Persse to commemorate the service of the French in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The Irish (and Australian) branches of the family continued to pronounce the name “purSEE”, but the American branches would pronounce it “PURSE”. Persse was also a cousin of James Smithson, son of the Earl of Northumberland, for whom the Smithsonian institute in Washington, D.C. was named.

In 1889 Persse acquired the land south of Denver known as Washington Park, named for a distinctive formation that resembled the first American president. In 1902, after renaming the park for his family’s ancestral Irish estate, Persse and two partners established the Roxborough Land Company to develop the property into a premiere tourist destination. One vision for development included “a first class 200 room hotel, golf links, a club house, a well stocked lake and comfortable cottages.” Visitors would be able to travel to the park from Englewood aboard an electric train.

Although this grand vision was never realized, the simpler amenities that Persse did construct attracted members of Denver’s high society, who could take the South Park & Pacific Railroad from downtown Denver to Kassler, very close to Roxborough. Many visitors were relieved that the full-scale development never took place. One guest commented “A Park made by Nature’s hand alone – The Arts of Man could only mar it.” Another wrote that the park “should be owned by the city for the free use of the people.”

Henry Stratford Persse died in August of 1918 when a tramway car struck him as he crossed the intersection of Milwaukee and Twelfth Avenue in Denver. Almost sixty years later the Colorado State Division of Parks bought five hundred acres of the Persse family property, forming Roxborough State Park. Since then the park has expanded to over 3,319 acres and has been designated a National Natural Landmark, a National Cultural Landmark and contains an Archaeological District. The Persse family home still stands on the park grounds.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of ) – Allen Lowe Martin – Margaret Persse (daughter of) - Edwin Theophilus Persse – Dudley Persse – Theophilus Persse (father of) – Henry Stratford Persse

Witness to the Revolution: Ashley Bowen (1728-1813)

2010-09-21T17:07:00.002-04:00

Ship "Argo" of Marblehead Bound Home, by Ashley Bowen (1783)

Ashley Bowen, an Eighteenth Century resident of the coastal town of Marblehead, Massachusetts, was the first American maritime diarist. His writings provide contemporary, first-hand insight into New England life in the period leading up to, during, and following the American Revolution. His political, religious and personal writings are heart-felt and complex. He was sympathetic to the overwhelming revolutionary fervor of the citizens of Marblehead and their grievances against the British Crown, but he was also loyal to the Anglican Church that housed his religious faith. His journals give graphic accounts of his personal adventures, successes and failures, and his emotional inner life.

Bowen was the son of ambitious justice of the peace and almanac writer Nathan Bowen. When the younger Bowen was twelve years old, his beloved mother died during child-birth, an event he would later describe “as the greatest part of my ruining”. Less than a year later he was bound into an apprenticeship with a cruel ship captain who gave the boy regular beatings, treated him as a personal servant, and taught him little or nothing about running a ship. A friend of the Bowen family who witnessed this cruelty arranged for Ashley to be released from his servitude before the term of apprenticeship was completed .

Ashley Bowen was a sailor from before he was a teen until he was in his late thirties. He had a wide variety of duties and occupations both while at sea and while ashore. He visited all of the major ports of the Atlantic and the Caribbean, and wrote detailed narratives about his journeys.

In 1754, the ship that he was serving on, The Swallow, was captured by pirates and he was held prisoner on the island of Hispañola. Bowen and his fellow prisoners were treated well by their captors, but the tropical climate took its toll. When Bowen fell ill, he was allowed out of the prison to regain his health. Soon after being released on this sick-leave, he found a house cat. The cat’s owner was a wealthy island merchant, and when he discovered that Bowen had the lost cat in his care, he invited the sailor to his home for a meal and eventually arranged for his passage back to New England.

After over a quarter century as a sailor, Ashley Bowen never fulfilled his ambition of becoming a ship's captain. As he reached middle-age he left the seafaring life and became a sail maker, a somewhat lucrative but unstable career. He was widowed twice, married a third time, and fathered fourteen children.

Ashley Bowen lived during perhaps the most tumultuous times in American history. He enlisted in the expedition against Quebec in 1759 and witnessed the Battle on the Plains of Abraham, and saw the French surrender Quebec to the British a few days later. He saw epidemics sweep through Boston and Marblehead, taking the lives of many of his family and neighbors. From 1766 until the outbreak of the American Revolution, Bowen wrote almost a daily account of his activities and life in Marblehead.

According to Bowen, the Revolution was an ill-conceived idea. He had served in the British Army a decade and a half before, and he believed it to be an undefeatable force. He had a strong allegiance to the Anglican Church, of which King George III was head. Marblehead, however, had a stronger anti-British sentiment than any other community in the Colonies. When Bowen believed that the Anglican structure in Marblehead, St. Michael’s, was threatened, he copied The Book of Common Prayer by hand, word-for-word, so that the text would survive the wrath of the angry mob. In August of 1776 he wrote the following poem:

On Religion and Revolution

As for opinions, I confess

I never upon them laid stress

Sometimes a Whig, sometimes a Tory

But seldom steadfast in one story.

The reason is, I’m not yet fixed

So my religion is but mixed.

Yet, most of all, I do incline

The Old Episcopalian Line:

Yet not so fixed on this head,

But I can turn my coat for bread,

Yet don’t mistake my meaning, as

If from the truth I meant to pass;

The essential parts of my opinion

Is not in any sect’s dominion

Nor will I e’er be tied to think

That in one spring I ought to drink.

In Christendom we all affect:

The Christian name in some respect:

Yet to our shame and our derision

Were full of schisms and divisions

Some are Papists, some are Prelates

Some are Quakers and some Zealots.

Some Anabaptists, some Aquarians,

Some Antinomians, some Arians;

Some are Free Willers, some Ranters:

Some Presbyterian covenanters;

Some Erskinites to gain probation:

Some Glasites, some for presentation

Though these all aim at Heaven at last

There diff’rence puts me in a gast;

To follow which I cannot tell;

Therefore I bid them all farewell;

Because I knew, that faith and love

The sphere is wherein I should move.

For sure without true Charity

None can enjoy Felicity

But Charity, now at this day

She is obliged to fly away.

Instead of which envy and hate

Contempt, resentment, and debate,

Is most in each society,

This makes me all these sects deny

Tis not in word as I do read

But Christians, must be so in-deed;

So Madam, this is all my creed.

In addition to being a diarist, Ashley Bowen was also a watercolor artist. Several of his maritime paintings are currently displayed in New England museums. Through his prose, poetry and painting, Ashley Bowen has provided modern historians with one insightful witness’s account of the historic events and everyday life that occurred during the period of the American Revolution.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of ) – Allen Lowe Martin – Allen Littlefield Martin – Frank Martin – Elbridge Gerry Martin, Jr. – Elbridge Gerry Martin, Sr. – Ambrose Bowen Martin – Elizabeth Bowen (daughter of ) – Nathan Bowen (father of) – Ashley Bowen

A Life in the Arts, A Death at Sea: Sir Hugh Lane (1875-1915)

2010-09-16T13:17:00.001-04:00

Sir Hugh Lane was a true connoisseur of fine art, and his gift for recognizing artistic genius had brought him the admiration of the art world, as well as a vast fortune. In the spring of 1915, Sir Hugh travelled to New York in hopes of finding support for a project that he believed would be the crowning achievement of the Irish Revival of art and culture.

In the twenty-plus years since he had begun his career as a trainee painting restorer for a London art dealer, Lane had established himself as a “gentleman art-dealer”. He had become an expert on Impressionist paintings, and had been appointed a director of the National Gallery in London.

Lane’s career was based in London, but his heart was in Dublin. He spent most of his time and fortune supporting fine art in the Irish capital by raising funds and donating works from his own private collection. He called upon his influential circle of friends and relations – including his aunt Lady Gregory (founder of The Abbey Theatre), poet William Butler Yeats, Douglas Hyde (founder of the Gaelic League), political activist and playwright Edward Martyn, and Lane’s fiancée, the portraitist Sarah Cecilia Harrison – to aid him in this work.

Lane’s largest contribution to Irish arts came in 1908, when he donated over 300 paintings to the City of Dublin. The collection, which was originally displayed in Clonmell House, on Harcourt Street, was described by the Paris newspaper Le Figaro as “an entire museum rich in beautiful works, a museum envied by the most prosperous states and the proudest cities.” Lane was honored as a Freeman of the City, and knighted the following year.

This gift had been made on the condition that Dublin build a permanent museum of modern art that was worthy of holding the collection. The plans for this new building ran into difficulties from the onset. Lane had asked Sir Edwin Lutyens, whom many critics considered the greatest of all British architects, to design the museum. The Dublin architectural community was outraged at the idea that such a prestigious building would be designed by a foreigner, and blocked the project at every turn. An exasperated Lane would later write, “I hate the place, the people, and the Gallery.”

By 1915, little if any progress had been made on the new museum. Lane hoped that a trip to New York would provide the opportunity to renew interest in the project. The Americans did not support the project in the way that Lane wished, but he was able to sell two of his most important paintings – Man in the Red Cap by Titian and Hans Holbein’s Portrait of Thomas Cromwell - to the American art collector Henry Clay Frick.

Lane booked his return to Britain on the cruise liner RMS Lusitania. The Lusitania and her sister-ship The Mauretania were the most luxurious ships of the era, and perhaps in history. In addition to the ships’ opulence, they were the fastest on the seas, regularly setting ocean crossing speed records.

Britain and Germany were at war in Europe. On April 22, 1915, the German embassy in Washington, D.C., had issued the following warning:

NOTICE!

TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY

Washington, D.C. 22^nd April 1915

Despite the fact that it was a time of war, and that the German warnings had been made public, few of the crew or passengers aboard The Lusitania feared for the safety of the ship.

On the eastward bound voyage Sir Hugh made a £10,000 contribution to the Red Cross war relief effort. It would be the last of the 39-year-old’s many charitable acts. In the early afternoon of the 7^th of May, the German submarine U-20 fired a torpedo that hit The Lusitania starboard side right before the bridge. There was a huge explosion, the ship stopped immediately, and keeled over to the starboard. The Lusitania sank in eighteen minutes, taking 1,198 lives with her, hundreds of who were children.

Sir Hugh Lane’s body was listed among the nearly a thousand which were never recovered. Also lost on that day were the paintings by Monet, Rembrandt, Reubens and Titian that Lane had taken aboard with him. In 1994, diver Polly Tapson claimed to have located the container where these paintings were stored. The paintings were being transported in lead tubes, and may have survived. The Irish Arts Ministry has placed a Heritage Protection order on the wreckage, thus preventing recovery of these works of art.

Today the museum known as The Hugh Lane, in Dublin’s city center, houses one of Ireland’s foremost collections of modern and contemporary art. It contains works ranging from the impressionist masterpieces of Manet, Monet, Renoir and Degas to works by leading contemporary artists. The Hugh Lane plays a pivotal role in Ireland’s cultural life and has gained worldwide acclaim, both for itself and the city.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) – Allen Lowe Martin – Margaret Persse (daughter of) – Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of) – Dudley Persse – Theophilus Persse – Henry Stratford Persse – William Persse (father of) – Robert Persse – Dudley Persse – Adelaide Persse (mother of) – Sir Hugh Lane

The Greatest Knight That Ever Lived: William Marshal (1146 – May 14, 1219)

2010-09-07T18:06:00.002-04:00

Civil war raged throughout England, and the period that would become known as The Anarchy was entering its thirteenth year. John Marshal, who had once been the staunch ally of King Stephen, had switched allegiance and was now guarding Empress Matilda’s retreat by holding Newbury Castle. In a ploy to save time, John agreed to surrender the castle to Stephen. He gave the King his five-year-old son William as collateral. John had never intended to surrender and used the time to fortify the castle. When Stephen realized that he had been duped, he demanded that John surrender immediately, or watch William be hanged in front of the castle gate. John replied, “Do your worst. I still have the hammer and the anvil to make more and better sons!” Stephen could not bring himself to slaughter the young boy.

William was the second of his father’s sons, and as such had no land or title to inherit. At the age of twelve, he was sent to a wealthy cousin’s estate in Normandy to learn combat skills. In 1166, at an unsuccessful street skirmish at NeufChatel-en-Bray, he earned his knighthood. Two years later, in a battle with Guy of Lusignan, William was taken prisoner, and then ransomed by Eleanor of Acquitaine. Eleanor was impressed with the young knight’s tales of bravery, and she entered her new charge into tournaments.

It was in the tournaments that William found his true calling. Tournaments in that era were dangerous staged battles that were often fought to the death. The financial rewards for the victor were substantial. In his later life William claimed to have won over 500 battles, and to have never lost a contest. History shows that, although his record was unparalleled, William did occasionally lose, and he did not take losing lightly.

After earning a name for himself on the tournament circuit, William Marshal became a tutor to the son of King Henry II. The relationship between William and the King’s son was a tumultuous one. William was a gifted guide and mentor, but his ambition caused friction between him and his master. William’s personal motto, “God Aids The Marshall”, was seen by many to be disrespectful to the royal heir. William was at his master’s side when the prince died at Limoges in 1183. He fulfilled his dead protégé’s crusade vow, going to Jerusalem with the approval of the bereaved King Henry.

When William returned from the Crusades in 1186, the king immediately rewarded him with numerous titles and substantial estates. His greatest prize, however, would not come until after the king’s death. Henry’s successor, Richard, gave approval for the 43-year-old William to marry Isabel de Clare, the 17-year-old daughter of Sir Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke. This marriage made William, who had once been a landless knight from a minor family, into one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom.

During the reign of King john, William was one of the few barons to remain loyal to the crown and he was present at the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. When King John died, William was entrusted to oversee John’s nine-year-old son, Henry III’s, ascension to the throne and the regency.

William’s health eventually failed him, and he died at his estate at Caversham in Oxfordshire at the age of 73. Shortly after his death, his eldest son commissioned a biography. This book, entitled L’Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, solidified William Marshal’s place as one of the most legendary figures in English history.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of)- Allen Lowe Martin-Margaret Persse (daughter of)-Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of)-Dudley Persse-Theophilus Blakeney Persse-Henry Stratford Persse-Col. William Persse-Elizabeth Parsons (daughter of) -William Parsons (son of)—Sir William, 2^nd Baronet Parsons- Frances Savage (daughter of)-William Savage (son of)-Sir Arthur Savage-John Savage-Lawrence Savage-Ann Bostock (daughter of)-Elizabeth Dutton-Anne Touchet-James Touchet , 5^th Baron Audley (son of)-JohnTuchet, 4^th Baron Audley- John Tuchet-Joan Audley (daughter of)-James, 2^nd Lord Audley (son of) -Nicholas, 1^st Lord Audley-Nicholas of Aldithley-Ela Longespee (daughter of )-William Longespee (son of)-Ela, Countess of Salisbury (daughter of)-William, 2^nd Earl of Salisbury (son of)–Patrick, 1^st Earl of Salisbury-Walter of Salisbury (father of )-Sybil of Salisbury (mother of)- William Marshal

Although not an historical documentary by any means, "A Knight's Tale" (2001) did draw on many events in William Marshal's life.

The Wrath of Saints: Christopher “Kit” Carson Fancher AKA: “Charley” (1852-1873)

2010-08-31T15:27:00.000-04:00

“The scene was too horrible and sickening for language to describe. Human skeletons, disjointed bones, ghastly skulls and the hair of women were scattered in frightful profusion over a distance of two miles.” This was the account of a traveler passing through Mountain Meadows, in the Utah Territory, in 1859, two years after the worst massacre of American civilians in nineteenth century .

The 1850’s were a tumultuous time for the Mormon settlers, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the western territories. Under the leadership of prophet Brigham Young, whom some called the “Mormon Moses”, they had escaped the persecution of the “American Gentiles”. It was in Utah that they had decided to make their stand, and they were now in a declared war against the United States of America.

In the autumn of 1857 the Fancher-Baker party, a wagon train of over 140 Arkansan men, women and children was making its way across the Utah Territory on its way to California. By all accounts it was one of the richest and best equipped wagon trains of the era, with nearly 1,000 head of cattle and several horses. The journey west had been a long one, though, and when the party reached the Salt Lake City area, its supplies ran low.

There were many children in the Fancher-Baker party. Five year-old Kit Carson Fancher and his twenty-two month old sister Tryphania were the youngest of Captain Alexander “Piney” Fancher’s nine children. As it would turn out, their infancy would be what saved their lives.

Word reached the outlying Mormon settlements that the wealthy wagon train would soon be passing through. The Mormons knew that the Fancher-Baker party would need to water its cattle and horses at Mountain Meadows, a relatively unprotected area. That is where they planned for their ambush to take place. A group of 50 men, led by local Mormon militia leaders Isaac C. Haight and John D. Lee disguised themselves as Paiute tribesmen, and set off to the hills surrounding the meadow.

In the early morning of September 7, 1857, the Mormons began to shooting at the unsuspecting Gentiles as they regrouped by the stream that ran through the meadow. Seven men in Fancher-Baker party were killed and sixteen were wounded in this first siege, but the survivors were able to quickly circle the wagons and arm themselves. They sunk the wagon wheels deep into the ground and chained them together creating a barrier. The party was able to hold off their attackers, but after four days they had no access to food or fresh water, and their ammunition was running low.

On September 11^th, two Mormon militiamen approached the besieged emigrants with a white flag. They told the wagon train leaders that they had negotiated with the Indians, and that the Indians would allow them safe passage out of the valley under Mormon protection in exchange for all of their livestock. Accepting this, the emigrants were lead out of their fortification.

When the Americans left their enclosure, a signal was given and every male member of the Fancher-Baker was executed by the Mormon militia member standing by his side. The women and children were then raped and slaughtered. According to Mormon teachings, children under six years of age were considered “Innocent Blood”, and eighteen young children, including Kit and Trypahnia Fancher, were spared.

The bodies of the victims were gathered together, looted for valuables, and then left to rot on the open ground or in shallow graves. The cattle and wagon train supplies were taken to the Latter Day Saints tithing house and auctioned off. The eighteen children were taken by local Mormon families.

Two years later the children, with the exception of one girl who lived out her life amongst the Mormons, were reclaimed by the United States Army and reunited with their families. The Mormons demanded compensation for the time that the slaughter victims’ children were under their care.

Kit, who had been called “Charley” by the Mormons, and his sister Tryphania were raised by their cousin Hampton Bynum Fancher and his family in Osage, Arkansas. Five years old at the time of the massacre, he was quoted by Army investigators as saying “The men who killed my father were Indians, but when they washed their faces they were white men.”

Christopher “Kit” Carson Fancher died at only twenty years of age in the home of his cousin Hampton Fancher, and was buried in the historic Fancher-Sietz Cemetery in Osage.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of )– Allen Lowe Martin – Margaret Persse (daughter of)1907-2004 – Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of ) 1881-1962– Margaret Schuyler (daughter of) 1847-? – Thomas Schuyler (son of) 1815-1899 – Richard Schuyler 1789-1867- Martha Fancher (daughter of)1765-1853 – Richard Fancher, Jr. (son of) 1731- 1778 - Capt. Richard Fancher, Sr. (father of) 1705-1764- David Fancher 1738-1787 -Richard Fancher 1756- 1829 - Isaac Fancher 1788-1840 - Capt. Alexander Fancher 1812-1857- Kit Carson Fancher 1852-1873

The Nation Could Scarcely Have Lived: Private Giles Louis Greenman (1821-1862)

2010-08-25T00:54:00.007-04:00

The summer of 1862 was coming to an end and autumn was close at hand in northern Illinois. Late August in Will County usually meant making sure everything was in order to bring in the harvest. But not this year. A gangly lawyer from Springfield was in the White House, and the Union was coming apart at the seams , if it had not come apart already.

Enlisting volunteers to help bring the rebellious Confederacy back into line was not an issue. There were plenty of young men eager for adventure, and looking for any excuse to get off the farm. But Giles Louis Greenman was not a young man. He was on the downhill side of forty years old. He was the father of three sons, two of whom were almost old enough to fight, and three daughters. He had survived two wives, and married a third. No one doubted that he had experience. Just not fighting experience.

The 100^th Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry rendezvoused at Camp Irwin in Joliet, and was almost immediately called to the front. Private Greenman was among the ranks of nearly a thousand men sent by railcar to Springfield and then to Louisville, Kentucky. Almost none of the passengers aboard those trains had ever seen a battlefield.

Murfreesboro was a small town in the Stones River Valley in central Tennessee. Confederate General Braxton Bragg decided that it was there that his troops would make a stand against the advancing Federal forces, and stop the Yankee horde from taking Chatanooga. The locale, however, offered nothing in terms of natural defenses and his Army of Tennessee would be outnumbered.

The Rebels did have the advantage of knowing that the Union troops were on their way. General William Rosencrans, and his Army of the Cumberland were harassed by Bragg’s troops as they made their way towards Murfreesboro. Rosencrans’s supply wagons were destroyed and over 1,000 Union prisoners were taken before the inevitable battle had even begun.

As dawn broke on December 31, 1862, the Confederates launched the first attack of what the North would call the Battle of Stones Creek and the South would name the Battle of Murfreesboro. Private Greeman, and several thousand other men, would not live to see the first day of 1863.

The battle would continue without relief until the waning hours of January 3^rd, when Bragg retreated through Tullahoma, Tennessee and Rosencrans took Murfreesboro. In the four days over which the battle took place, over twenty-three thousand men lost their lives; over ten thousand Confederate soldiers and over thirteen thousand Union soldiers. The battle was tactically inconclusive.

The Battle of Stones River was, however, strategically important in that it removed the Confederate threat to Middle Tennessee and significantly improved Union morale. President Lincoln would later write to General Rosencrans: “You gave us a hard earned victory., which had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over.” At war's end, the Stones River National Cemetery was established, with more than six thousand Union graves.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) – Patricia Ann McGinn (daughter of)– Beverly Helen Kelley- Agnes Greenman Burnap - Herbert Thayer Burnap (son of)– Agnes C Greenman (daughter of)- John Wesly Greenman (father of) – Giles Louis Greenman

American Civil War in the UK - Taking Sides from Jay Seawell on Vimeo.

Jay Seawell takes an intriguing look at British American Civil War reenacters, and why they do what they do.

Next Week's Post: The Wrath of Saints

My Grandmother Was a Saint : Queen Margaret, Patroness Saint of Scotland (1045-1093)

2010-08-18T02:00:00.018-04:00

As the small ship rocked violently in the North Sea storm, the twenty-year old Saxon princess sent a prayer to heaven. If The Lord Our God found, in His infinite wisdom, to allow her and her family to survive the journey to the Continent, she would devote her life to humbly serving His Name.

The ship had set out from Northumbria to sail across the brackish waters to carry what remained of the Saxon Royal line, and a small band of loyalists, into exile on the Continent. William, the Duke of Normandy’s, successful invasion of England meant an interruption to the House of Wessex’s years of rule. But their dynasty had been deposed and restored twice before. It was unknown if it would be restored again.

The storm drove the ship north rather than east, and it washed up on a rocky outcropping that, years later, would become known as Saint Margaret’s Hope. The passengers of the ship were taken to the court of Malcolm III, King of the Scots, where they received a warm welcome. Malcolm had been an exile himself in the past and had found refuge in the Wessex royal court.

Years earlier Malcolm’s father Duncan had been murdered in a coup that Shakespeare would dramatize centuries later in Macbeth. Malcolm showed hospitality to all of the shipwrecked refugees, but he gave special attention to Princess Margaret. Malcolm was forty years old and widowed. If he was able to marry the twenty-year old princess, he would be uniting two royal dynasties, and perhaps all of Great Britain would follow.

Margaret had been preparing herself for the nunnery, but after deep prayer and meditation, and consultation with earthly advisors, she consented to the marriage. The marriage had obvious political benefits for Malcolm, but by all accounts and evidence, he was genuinely enamored with his young bride.

As Queen Consort, Margaret never forgot the promise that she had made to the Divine Power on that fateful stormy day. And because of her husband’s adoration, and the respect of the Scots as a people, she wielded a great deal of power. Almost immediately she organized a synod, which resulted in the regulation of the Lenten feast, observance of the Easter communion, and reform of many corrupt and abusive church practices. Before Margaret, mass was conducted in the dozens of local Scottish dialects that were spoken during that era. Margaret established the Latin mass in Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland), which helped to unite the nation.

Malcolm was illiterate, and had not been a particularly religious man, but he had great respect for his wife’s piety and faith. He could not read her holy texts, but it is said that he would often kiss the books, and arrange for them to be gilded and encrusted with jewels. Margaret’s influence on the king only increased his popularity amongst his people.

Margaret spent much of her reign in service to the poor. She frequently visited the sick, and had hostels constructed for the indigent. During Advent and Lenten feats she would host as many as 300 commoners in the royal castle. Her charity extended to the clergy, and her introduction of the Benedictine Order to Scotland helped to bring closer union between Rome and the Celtic Church.

In late 1093, Malcolm and his son Edward went off into battle against the forces of King William Rufus, the son and heir of William the Conqueror. Both Malcolm and his son were killed in battle. Queen Margaret had been ill, and when she was told of the death of her husband and son, she was devastated, and died three days later.

The memory of Margaret’s charity, piety and just rule remained clear in the hearts and minds of the Scots. She was canonized in 1250 by Pope Innocent IV, and was made Patroness Saint of Scotland in 1673. In Scotland today there are scores of churches, hospitals, schools and streets named in her honor. Her bloodline would continue through the Royal Houses of England and Scotland for centuries.

My link to St. Margaret: Adam Lowe Martin (son of)-Allen Lowe Martin-Margaret F. Persse (daughter of)-Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of)-Dudley Persse-Theophilus Blakeney Persse-Henry Stratford Persse-William Persse-Elizabeth Parsons (daughter of)-William Parsons (son of)- William Parsons -Frances Savage (daughter of)-William Savage (son of)-Arthur Savage-John Savage-Laurence Savage-Ann Bostock (daughter of)-Elizabeth Dutton-Anne Touchet (daughter of)-5^th Baron Audley (son of)-4^th Baron Audley-John Tuchet-Joan Audley (daughter of)-2^nd Baron Audley (son of)-1^st Baron Audley-Nicholas d’ Audley-Ela of Salisbury-William II Longespee-3^rd Earl of Salisbury-Henry II-Empress Matilda (daughter of)-Matilda of Scotland-Saint Margaret of Scotland

Illustration: Saint Margaret with the Children

As The Weekly Dash enters its third week of existence, the readership and the number of followers continues to steadily increase. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to look at this blog, and special thanks to those of you who have made comments and given other feedback.

I know that many of you have had issues with the “follow” button. I have accosted many of you, both through Facebook and in person, asking you to follow this site. Some of you think you have signed up, but your name never registered. IF you could just take a moment, right now, and see if your name is on the list. If it is not, (I know how annoying this is), if you could please give it just one more shot. If it still does not work, please let me know. If any of you are experienced bloggers, any advice would be appreciated.

Next Week’s Post: “If Defeated, the Nation Could Scarcely Have Lived”

The Irish Airman: Maj. William Robert Gregory (1881-1918)

2010-08-11T08:46:00.005-04:00

Me & Nu: Childhood at Coole Me & Nu: Childhood at Coole

In 1915, a thirty-five year old accomplished Irish artist walked away from his career in order to join the British war effort. He became a member of the 4th Connaught Rangers. A year later he joined the Royal Flying Corps. In the last days of January 1918, the fighter plane that Maj. William Robert Gregory was piloting was mistakenly shot down by an Italian pilot and he was killed.

William Butler Yeats’s poem “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory” has been called the greatest elegy in the English language, comparable only to Milton’s Lycidas, which had been written nearly three centuries before. In this poem Yeats describes Robert Gregory as the epitome of manhood, excelling in all pursuits so magnificently that it was inevitable that he would be cut down in his youth.

Robert Gregory was the son of Sir William Henry Gregory, a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland representing County Galway, Ireland, and a former British governor of Ceylon. Robert Gregory’s mother was Isabella Persse, who in married life and widowhood was known as Lady Gregory, a leading figure in the fin de siecle renaissance of Irish arts and culture .

Robert Gregory attended Harrow and matriculated at New College, Oxford. He later attended the world renowned Slade School of Fine Art in London. He worked as an artist in the design studio of Jacques Emile Blanche and had his own exhibitions of paintings. As an athlete he excelled in bowls, boxing, and horse riding. He played cricket for Ireland, and his bowling performances in international competition are ranked among the greatest in Irish cricket history. Through his gallantry in battle, he earned the Military Cross and became a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur. In Yeats’s words, “his very accomplishment hid from many his genius.”

Maj. Gregory’s early death devastated his mother and the Irish arts community. In the poem “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”, Yeats contemplates why someone like Maj. Gregory would risk a seemingly charmed life fighting for a cause that would benefit neither him nor his Irish countrymen.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

This poem would become a staple of the poetry curriculum throughout the English speaking world for the remainder of the Twentieth Century and after. Whether the narrator of the poem and Maj. Gregory shared a common philosophy, it is impossible to know. Yeats said that he once asked his friend Robert Gregory why he joined the war effort. Gregory’s reply: “Friendship.”

My connection to Maj. William Robert Gregory: Adam Lowe Martin (son of)- Allen Lowe Martin- Margaret F. Persse (daughter of)- Edwin Theophilus Persse- Dudley Persse- Theophilus Persse- Henry Stratford Persse-William Persse (father of )-Robert Persse-Dudley Persse-Isabella Persse (better known as Lady Gregory, mother of ) -Maj. William Robert Gregory

Photograph: William Butler Yeats

The Weekly Dash has been up and running for a week now. The blog has more than twenty followers, and has been visited more than 500 times. Thank you to those who have taken time to read the blog, and to those who have conveyed kind words of encouragement.

My Uncle Skip was the first to respond to last week’s post on Capt. Dixey. He is a Revolutionary War buff and was pleased to learn about his connection to General Glover. Kathy Sproles also told me of her Glover family connections. Chris Totty let me know that he grew up in Mobile and been out to the Dixey sand bar and to the Magnolia Cemetery.

This week I learned about Johnny Corcoran’s grandfather Eddie Corcoran’s accomplishments as a speed skater in the 1930’s, and I was able to find a New York Times column describing one of his victories. Kristen Ayre’s grandfather, Arthur G. Sorlie, was Governor of North Dakota in the 1920’s. We were able to pull up his World War I draft card and learned that the Sorlie Memorial Bridge in Grand Forks was named in his honor. Catriona Anderson told me how, in her own genealogy adventure, had found Scottish census reports from previous centuries, and how the ancient reports required British subjects to disclose how many windows they had in their homes.

I know that some readers have been having problems with the “follow” button on this site. If you tried to click the “follow” button, but are not on the list of “followers”, I appreciate your patience and ask that you try again, as it really helps with the success of the site. As always, I appreciate any feedback any of you have to give.

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Next Week’s Post: “My Grandmother, the Saint” (No, she was literally a saint.)

The Captain of a Ship Named for His Brother: Capt. Richard William Dixey (1809-1860)

2010-08-04T06:57:00.004-04:00

It is a difficult marker to find. In Mobile, Alabama's Magnolia Cemetery there is a broken memorial stone to mark the grave of a Yankee sea captain who died in the Mobile Harbor 150 years ago.

Richard William Dixey was an experienced mariner, from a long line of mariners. Growing up in Marblehead, Massachusetts in the early years of the 19th Century, it was preordained that he would spend most of his life at sea. He was the great grandson of General John Glover, the leader of the 14th Continental Regiment, or "Amphibious Regiment", that was most famous for ferrying General Washington across the Delaware on Christmas Day, 1776. He was the son of Capt. John Dixey, Sr., a ship master who had spent time in a Paris prison after being captured at sea by the French and in a London prison after being captured at sea by the English.

Capt. R.W. Dixey continued the nautical adventures of his forefathers. He was present when the first American Flag was raised at the United States Consulate in Foochoo (now "Fuzhou"), China, after captaining the ship that brought the new American Consul General to China across the Pacific. During his era, he was the most famous seafaring son from a famous seafaring family.

In the autumn of 1860, R.W. Dixey was captain of a ship named for his brother, Robert H. Dixey. The "Robert H. Dixey", or "Dixey", had been built five years earlier in East Boston, and had traveled as far as St. Petersburg, Russia. She was a 165 foot double top-sailed clipper ship, and said to be fast for her class, if not as fast as some of the larger ships of the day.

On the evening of Friday, September 15, 1860 the "Dixey" arrived at Mobile Harbor, after a two week journey from New York City. As the ship crossed the sand bar which marked the harbor, Capt. Dixey turned over control of the ship to the harbor pilot, Capt. Samuel Smyly. All hands on board felt a sense of urgency, as they were just ahead of a major hurricane.

The ship had made its way up the harbor, when heavy winds suddenly shifted to the north-northwest and Capt. Smyly made the decision to drop anchor. The anchors held until 10 o'clock the following morning, but as the eye of the storm passed and the north winds hit, the smaller anchor chain broke away. The crew worked furiously to cut down the masts and sails. After an hour, with the ship taking on water, the main anchor broke, and all hope was lost.

The crew made for the forecastle and lashed themselves to the ship. The "Dixey" bounced down the channel, and then drifted eastward out of the bay before breaking up on what is now known as the Dixey Bar. Capt. Smyly and four other crew members were able to escape to land. Capt. Dixey and the 18 man Bahamian crew stayed with ship. Capt. Dixey's last words to the pilot were "Goodbye. I hope we shall meet in Heaven."

Capt. Dixey's body was recovered and buried in Magnolia Cemetery. In 1995, the United States government renamed the sand bar that runs from Fort Morgan into the gulf "The Dixey Bar". Today, the Dixey Bar is one of the most popular fishing sites on the Gulf Coast. Many locals and tourists assume that it's name is "The Dixie Bar", and that it was named for its southern locale. It is however, named for a ship that wrecked there a century and a half ago.

Richard William Dixey was my first cousin, 5x removed
Adam Lowe Martin (son of) - Allen Lowe Martin - Allen Littlefield Martin- Frank L. Martin - Elbridge Gerry Martin, Jr. - Rebecca Homan Dixey (daughter of)-Peter Dixey (son of) - Richard Dixey - Capt. John Dixey, Sr. (father of ) - Richard William Dixey

This is first of what, I hope, will become weekly blog posts, each one telling a different story about one of my ancestors. I have been researching my family tree for nearly a decade now, and the fascinating stories I have been able to find are endless. Any feedback, corrections, and comments will be greatly appreciated.