Notes from the Field: Fortie Acers of Land

A Note to My Readers: A large part of my genealogical research has included locating the burial sites of my ancestors and eventually making a pilgrimage…single rose in hand…and spending quiet moments in front of the monument contemplating the life of  the individual who shaped my future.  For a good number of us it is the only tangible reminder of a life.  Estates and personal goods are dispensed and a lucky few of us have been gifted with those treasures handed down through the generations by the sentimental hearts in our families.  Buildings disappear.  Farms are bought and sold and subdivided and the knowledge about a long ago landholder is tucked away in civil archives.  A burial site is the one and final piece of property that gives the researcher…a place to go.

Crab medowe necke

I am entering a brave new world of my own….learning to parse the land records of my ancestors and relating the records to the bigger picture of history!

Researching my Ingersoll lineage has been an interesting journey through early American history…beginning with my 7th Great Grandfather and English immigrant, John Ingersoll of Huntington, New York.

A recorded deed states

” A Record of ye Land & medowe of John Inkersoll at Crab medowe…”

A land survey recorded on 11 Oct 1689 declared

“Laid out ye day above sd. fortie acers of land on Crab medowe necke in too parcels the eastermost lying between land of Thomas Scidmore beeing ten acers the other parcell thirtie acers beeing in length eaightie Rod ajoining to the Cart way on the north side and sixty Rod in breadth, southward from ye Cart path: wee saie Laid out by us for John Inkersolle.   Joseph Bailly  Thomas Wickes  A True Coppy as it was given to mee by the survaors, Isaac Platt Reco”.

Of course, like any curious descendant would do, I GOOGLED “Crab Meadow Neck and Long Island” and found some history…much of it entailing the cultural misunderstandings between the Europeans and sachem Nassaconseke and the years of complication about the purchase of the lands.  Eventually the disputes were between the European settlers and that means court records to read.  I will save that for further research and reading since it promises to be a complex history.  And the weather is beautiful calling for field research….outdoors.

So. What is there now?  It appears to be primarily a lovely beach and park…and a golf resort. Will there be any historic buildings or remnants of that long ago community?  Definitely more field research to do there…and if I don’t find anything…a trip to the beach will be a pleasant experience.   If my preliminary reading serves me right…the early settlers had a ferry between Crab Meadow and Stamford.  No doubt the Ingersolls traversed Long Island Sound when they migrated…and perhaps often for trade.  Yes, I will go to Crab Meadow Neck to stand at the beach and look out upon the Sound and imagine the journey to Stamford, Connecticut.

Long Ridge Road

John Ingersoll’s grandson, Samuel,  who is my 5th great grandfather bought land from his father

” On 19 Nov. 1735, soon after his marriage, Samuel purchased from his father for £250 ” a Certain Tract of Lannd in ye Bounds of Stanford at ye Long Ridg, Commonly so Called, viz., ye one half of that Lott Lying onn ye West side of Bedford Road, Bounded south by Nathanniel ingersoll and nnorth by Land that was formerly James Whites, east by Bedford Road and west by mianus River.” (Stamford Land Records, C:503)

Though I have just begun to delve into the Long Island and Connecticut history of my Ingersoll family and to hone my skills at researching land records, I did find a lovely surprise in Stamford.

Stamford Historical Homes Samuel Ingersoll. Photo taken circa 1984.

Samuel Ingersoll’s colonial home still stands and is on the National Historic Register.  Built in 1756 it is situated in the Long Ridge Historic District of Stamford (405 Old Long Ridge Road).  The photograph was taken in September of 1984 and is on file at the Connecticut Historical Commission.

Another 30 years has passed and I wonder about Samuel and Elizabeth Rowley Ingersoll’s historic home…and if I knock on the door…will the homeowner welcome a friendly stranger.  Perhaps it has been over 200 years since an Ingersoll crossed the threshhold.

What is ONE more?

Last year I stood in the parlor of the New Paltz homestead of my Huguenot 9th great grandfather, Hugo Freer.  The original part of the stone building was built in 1694 by Hugo Freer the Patentee.

I had long ago found an image of the deed of the property..from Antoine Crispell to Hugo Freer, but it was written in the language that the Hugenots spoke…French.  I studied four years of Latin and tried to translate Old French…found a word here or there, but the trip to New Paltz and historic Huguenot Street… Tres Joie, Arriere-grand-pere.

I was fortunate that though the museum was closed that day,  a wonderful docent learned of my visit and on her day off, hurried over to personally  escort me to the FREER HOUSE and gave me a most wonderful afternoon of Freer family history.

It was gently raining and still.  Standing in the parlor on the original wide plank floors and staring up at the old beams that still bear the soot of a thousand hearth fires, I felt such a part of American history and my Freer family.

Hugo’s son… Hugo,  who is my 8th great grandfather and his wife, Maria Anna LeRoy,  raised 15 children in that small room. One of them was my 7th great grandfather, Simon (Zymon) Freer.

I figured one more Freer in the parlor wouldn’t matter.

The Log Cabin at Taughannock Falls

Samuel Weyburn New York State Historical Marker

When I stood at the base of Taughannock Falls where Samuel Weyburn,  my 4th great grandfather built his log cabin, I was in the company of my daughters, their husbands, my brother and my first cousins.  I had been reading and researching about Samuel Weyburn, the Connecticut Yankee who first settled in northern Pennsylvania as part of the Susquehanna Purchase…survived the Wyoming Massacre and fought in the Revolutionary War.  An impressive history to be sure, but what always captured my imagination was Samuel and his wife, Jane Bratton, packed up their young family and migrated to the wilds (then) of New York State in the late 1780′s.  Samuel had gone ahead with his eldest son, Samuel, Jr.,   and cleared a wooded area and built a log cabin at the base of what is now known as Taughannock Falls.

An old publication “New York State Historical Collections” published in 1844 features an account contributed by George Weyburn.  The old man relished the story telling as it was his struggle for survival as much as it was his father’s in the year of 1793.

Samuel, accompanied by his dog, had come upon a bear and her two cubs on the north side of the creek.  The pair tracked the bears to one of the falls when the cubs took to a tree.  Samuel ran to the cabin and returned with his gun where he found the mother bear against the tree “standing on the brink of a gulf, defending herself from the attacks of the dog.”  Samuel fired and wounded the giant animal, but she disappeared “into the gulf”.  Jane and her children, alarmed by the commotion ran to the site and urged Samuel to come back to the safety of their cabin. The cubs who were now without their mother were shot by Sam Weyburn and the family returned home.

The next morning Samuel with his sons Samuel and George and their dog went in search of the wounded animal.  Samuel was only armed with a pitchfork  “having expended his only charge of powder the evening previous”.  Of the boys only George was armed “with a small ax; but my brother not being equipped for war, was allowed to accompany us bare-handed.”

When the Weyburns finally came in sight of the bear and the dog who had made chase, they were ascending the precipice …across the basin…a distance of eighty or one hundred feet.  Due to the animal’s wound…Samuel had broken her leg with the gunshot of the evening before…he was able to intercept the bear and engage in a most ferocious battle.  Wielding the pitchfork, he struck at the animal and she in turn rushed at him, knocking him over injuring his chest.  Repeatedly the two grappled in a free fall descent to the bottom of the ravine during which time the bear had bitten Samuel in his legs and arms.

When the pair came to rest at the base of the ravine, Samuel with his last strength wedged the bear between rocks…his back to hers bracing with all the might he had left.  George meantime had rushed to the fallen pair and struck a blow with his ax.  Samuel bleeding profusely from each limb, retrieved his pitchfork and ignoring his wounds joined George in the conflict and eventually the father and son finished off the bear.

I had just found a copy of the old tale a month before my trip to Ithaca in 2009.  When I walked along the trail from Cayuga Lake where the New York State historical marker stands…to the base of the falls,  I was walking where Samuel walked…where he and his sons once fought for existence…theirs and eventually mine.  It is a majestic spot to the nature lover and sight seeing visitor, but it is a place of real destiny to me.

Author’s Note:  Each pilgrimage has significance to the descendant researcher.  It is at once grounding and uplifting…a reminder of the march of life and that we each have a place in it. As an historian, I like to think that it has the potential to make us a better person…providing us with scope, perspective, humility and inspiration.   We are all enthusiastic researchers…reveling in the “finding”…so I like to encourage all to leave the confines of the computer, iPAD,  library and courthouse and walk among your ancestors with all senses open.

The Man who Named His Daughter Maha-shalal-hasbaz

A Note to My Readers: Lately I experienced genealogical burnout and posted that comment on my FaceBook page.  Years of research and writing and the constant influx of discovery…inquiries from others for corroboration…left me overwhelmed and I needed to take a break.   The responses ranged from the commiserating and comforting words of “been there” to the astonishingly hyper “never” post that had ten exclamation points.  Somewhere in the “in between”, a number of people recommended I go to another family branch and research there.  A nice thought, but I needed a real break…not a new research project.

One of the best and recurring bits of advice was to put down the research and garden…shop…hang out with some new people. All sound thinking, but I was in such a funk, it all sounded too easy. Until last weekend.

I went to a baby shower for my son-in-law’s sister where I ran into a group of women who had  just lost their grandmother. She was the family historian and the dad-to-be’s grandmother. She had kept treasure upon treasure…HER grandmother’s Quaker bonnet and schoolbooks and journals. The women began telling me about what they had and their memories of her and how they missed picking up the phone to talk with her. I told them what I did and we couldn’t stop talking about family history. My gift to them was to tell them THEY were her legacy and she had passed the baton. Their fresh grief washed away when they realized that she was still with them. Their gift to me was to re-energize my enthusiasm. Though I never met their grandmother…she felt like a friendly spirit. And I AM BACK!

Exploring my Quaker Roots

Of course, the conversation about Quaker heritage steered me to Obadiah J. Downing and his wife, Lydia H. Titus.  They were the last practicing Quakers of my ancestry and though I have been working on them and their ancestral lines for years, it was with the most rudimentary understanding of Quakerism and their contribution to American History.

In an effort to learn more, I contacted Swarthmore University which houses the Friends Historical Library.  They are in my backyard so to speak so I can spend as much time as I would like exploring Quaker history.   I called and spoke to an archivist and the five minute phone conversation energized and intrigued me so much that I had to restrain myself from jumping in the car and diving into their archival material then and there.

From experience I know that you don’t just go to a resource without preparation and I had better organize my work.

Gathering my Quaker materials and tidying up the Downing files, I realized I had unfinished business.  I had good records going back to George Downing who migrated from Warwick, R.I. in the late 1600′s to Oyster Bay, Long Island.  For some reason, I had stopped there…probably distracted by another ancestor…they are a noisy bunch and it happens more often than not.

The Downing files are a hodgepodge which included the family material of his first wife, Mary Coles.  Somehow I had ignored the abundant and interesting information on her family.  George Downing is my 6th great grandfather. Mary was his first wife.  I am descended from his second wife, Phebe Valentine.   But the Coles had a story to tell and had waited patiently for me while my ancestors quieted down until I was at their doorstep in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Samuel Gorton “One of the Noble Spirits”

Samuel Gorton

Mary Coles was the daughter of Daniel Coles and Maha-shalal-hasbaz Gorton.   Her grandfather, Samuel Gorton was born in Lancashire, England to well-heeled Thomas Gorton and his wife, Ann.  Samuel was privately tutored and classically educated, fluent in Greek and Hebrew.  His command of both languages served him well as he studied the bible in its original language.  He left England “to enjoy the liberty of conscience in respect to faith toward God and for no other end.”  Traveling with Samuel was his wife, Mary Maplet “a lady of education and refinement”.

When Samuel arrived in  Puritan ruled Boston in March of 1636, it became clear that his personal interpretation of the bible and his politics made his presence undesirable.  At one point he was jailed for his religious and political views and once freed, he and his followers were thrown out of Boston.  They made their way to Portsmouth, Rhode Island, but the “Gortonists” now numbering around 100 souls, suffered more from the hands of the Massachusetts Puritans.  William Arnold (Benedict Arnold’s father) was a prominent Portsmouth citizen and appealed to Boston to “rid him of the Gortonists”. Samuel’s house was burned and as they fled,  Massachusetts soldiers fired on them until they surrendered.

A trial was held…the group being charged with being “blasphemous enemies of the true religion” and escaped death by one vote.  Sentenced to wear chains and leg irons, Samuel and his followers were rescued from their fate by a secret supporter of Samuel Gorton…Massachusetts Governor, John Winthrop.  The sentenced was reduced to banishment.

In 1640 the Gortonists left Plymouth in a raging snowstorm and made their way to what was called Providence.  In 1642 they purchased the lands of Shawomet from the Narragansett Sachems.  The little community became friends with the Indians and settled down.  It was shortly after Samuel and Mary and their children arrived that their daughter, Maha-Shalal-Hasbaz was born.  According to the “History and Genealogy of the Cock, Cocks, Cox Family”, her name was a commemoration of “Gorton’s hegira from Boston to Warwick” referring to the Bible passage of Isaiah VIII:1, 3 which recounted a similar travail.

But Massachusetts was not done with Samuel and continued to harrass him and his followers, imprisoning him again only to release him upon condition that he leave the land that the Grotonists had purchased.

Samuel was released and a man of his word, in 1645 he returned to England sailing out of Manhattan.  His family remained behind living with nearby Indians.  While in England, Samuel met an old friend, Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick.  The two fashioned a manuscript “Simplicities Defense against a Seven Headed Policy” and presented it to Parliament.  As a result, in 1847 Samuel was granted a Royal Charter and received an “order of safe passage”.   He set sail for the New World and much to the displeasure of the Massachusetts government, they were required to provide him with military escort to Rhode Island and were ordered to never interfere with the Gortonists again.

Upon arrival to his Rhode Island home, he named the land Warwick after his friend.

In 1649 Samuel was elected General Assistant to the Governor and in 1651 he was elected as the first President of the towns of Providence and Warwick.  He also held offices as Commissioner and Deputy Governor.

On December 10, 1677 Samuel died at the age of 85 and is buried in Warwick behind a home off Warwick Neck Road.  The Gortonist sect continued for 100 years after his death.

All of this research and reading came about because Samuel named his daughter, Maha-Shalal-Hasbaz and in the New England of their day…and  given the Puritan propensity to name one’s daughters Patience, Thankful, Silence…the name of Maha-Shalal-Hasbaz Gorton compelled me to learn more about her and her parents.   Samuel and Mary Gorton’s daughter led me to the remarkable history of the founding of the colony of Providence and Rhode Island Plantations and the realization that along with Roger Williams, Samuel Gorton played a major role in its existence.

Now where was I?  Oh yes…back to the Downing files.

Resources:

1. “The History and Genealogy of the Cock, Cocks, Cox Family”. Compiled by George William Cocks. Privately Printed 1914.

2. “The Life and Times of Samuel Gorton. The Founders and The Founding of the Republic, a section of Early United States History and a History of the Colony of Providence and Rhode Island Plantations in The Narragansett Indian Country now The State of Rhode Island 1592-1636-1677-1687″.  By Adelos Gorton.  Published:Philadelphia, 1907.

3. Derivation of Maha-Shalal-Hasbaz.   “Hurry to spoil!” or “He has made haste to the plunder!” -Marhar Shalal Hasbaz was the second mentioned son of the prophet Isaiah.^[2] The name is a reference to the impending plunder of Samaria and Damascus by the king of Assyria. Maher-shalal-hash-baz is mentioned in the Bible in Isaiah 8:1-4, which section was later quoted in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 18:1-4. This is the longest name (and word) used in the Bible.

The City That Lit the World

I am the granddaughter of the sea faring folk of New Bedford, Massachusetts…a direct descendant of the Bennetts, the Jennings, the Tobeys, the Spooners, the Grays and the James families.  It was a fascinating and uniquely new experience to me as I began the research in Bristol County, Massachusetts. And the voyage had just begun.  Most of my genealogical research has been based upon the farmers, merchants and tradespeople that populate my ancestral lines.  Folks whose lives centered around the income they could tease from the land or by providing products and services. Those that trod solid earth every day of their existence. Farmers. Masons.  Blacksmiths.  Innkeepers. Stage Coach drivers.  Tailors.

I understand those ancestors.  I am an earthbound spirit.  I dig in the earth and tend my growing things and count my travels by miles instead of leagues.  But somewhere in my DNA there is a primal gene that activates a shivering pleasure when I smell water…fresh or salt.    I grew up in the Finger Lakes area of central New York where everyone I knew had a boat, fished or swam in “the lake” and where my New Bedford, Massachusetts ancestors settled in the early 1800′s.

When I first discovered my Jennings roots going back to Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the early days of the New World and into the mid 1800′s of a young America, I began to research their whaling communities and their seafaring merchants.   My copy of Nathaniel Philbrick’s “In the Heart of the Sea” became dog eared from re-reading passages as I began the process of understanding life in the whaling communities of New England and the precariousness of a life at sea.  A stack of books began to accumulate for further reading.  And then…like every other genealogist I know, another ancestor discovery had me off to another place and time and the Jennings waited.

I received my great great grandmother’s death certificate a few weeks ago and was pulled back to New Bedford in short order.  I learned that Harriet J. James Jennings’ parents were Webster James, Jr. and Orinda Bennett.  Webster and Orinda were from Rhode Island and Massachusetts – an area where the boundary lines are dotted lines through deep water as opposed to land….where you were apt to traverse the waterways and bays to conduct your business, ply your trade, visit your kith and kin.   Where young men traveled to court New England’s lovely daughters.

After days of gathering information on Webster James and his family, I took up the challenge of Orinda Bennett of New Bedford.  Her son, John Tobey James, gave me the first insight into the possibility that “Tobey” was the surname of one her grandparents.   In “Tobey (Tobie, Toby) Genealogy, Thomas of Sandwich and James, of Kittery and Their Descendants” on page 74, I found Salvina Tobey married to Daniel Bennett.  Salvina…the daughter of John Tobey.   At place to begin.

The New Bedford and Fairhaven records at this point are not as revealing about all relationships, but the Bennett’s daughters Harriet and Ardelia and Sophia are recounted in New Bedford birth records, but no Orinda or her sister, Almira.  Orinda named her daughter, my great great grandmother, Harriet…and Harriet’s older sister was Almira.  All roads…or shipping lanes…point to the Captain and Salvina as Orinda’s parents.  And to New Bedford for more detailed, local research.  For the moment, I work with the assumption in search of proof.

Cobblestones and Sails

A number of seaports in New England supported the whaling industry, but one town – New Bedford, Massachusetts – became known as the world’s center of whaling and for a time was one of the richest cities in the world.  More than 700 whaling ships sailed on the world’s oceans in the 1840s and of those 700…more than 400 called New Bedford their home port. Wealthy whaling captains built large houses in the best neighborhoods, and New Bedford was known as “The City that Lit the World.”

The cobblestones of New Bedford knew the footsteps of Herman Melville and Frederick Douglass.  Between 1840 and 1860 three hundred to seven hundred escaped slaves were living in New Bedford.  Frederick Douglass was one of those escaped slaves.  In 1838 Mr. Douglass arrived in New Bedford from Baltimore carrying another sailor’s protection papers.  In the 1860′s Herman Melville was a frequent visitor to his sister, Katherine and her husband, engineer and poet, John Hoadley.  The restored Italian Empire house in New Bedford now serves as a bed and breakfast.

And what of the women of New Bedford…what of my grandmothers?  While the men were away at sea…for months and sometimes years at a time, the women of New Bedford were critical members of the commercial life…not as retiring women of a household..NO INDEED.  They ran the business of real estate and finance and trade with a sharp eye and keen minds.  After all, there was a great deal of wealth involved and managing it and safeguarding it was a way of life in New Bedford.  Salvina Tobey Bennett, my 4th great grandmother, was one of those New Bedford women.  She was the daughter of John Tobey and his wife, Mary Bennett.  The alliances of the Tobey and the Bennett families formed some of the most prosperous mariner enterprises and merchant and real estate entities in the history of the area.

New Bedford Mercury 2 October 1807 Notice

When Captain Daniel Bennett died in 1807 in the old port city of Newry, Ireland, during one of his many trading voyages, Salvina took up the family business and over several years headed the business of settling Daniel’s estate.  She was forty-nine years old and  had given birth to four daughters, Almira, Sophia, Harriet, Orinda (my 3rd great grandmother) and Ardelia.   What Captain Daniel’s financial circumstances were, I do not know at this point.  Risk on the high seas was a reality…of life and limb…and fortune.  One disastrous voyage could be ruinous.

The NOTICE in the New Bedford Mercury on October 2, 1807 has Salvina acting as administratrix to Daniel’s estate “represented insolvent”.  Essentially that indicated the inability to pay debts as they fall due in the usual course of business.  Three years later, Salvina is still managing Daniel’s estate declaring to Creditors that “a third Divend (sic) of said Estate is made and they are hereby requested to call upon the subscriber and recieve (sic) their dues.”

It seems reasonable to conclude that the settlement of the personal estate was protected by this process and a business or interest was sheltered that generated money so that Salvina could pay creditors as the revenue came in.  Perhaps this was standard practice that the voyagers had in place to protect their family’s security.

More Research?  Lobster…Perhaps?  Certainly!

While I research online, read through countless hard copy books, haunt archival material, I hear my grandfathers…Captain Jeremiah Bennett and his son, Captain Daniel Bennett…calling me to New Bedford.  Salvina’s history awaits me.  Somewhere in archival records..a will perhaps…I hope to find the names Salvina and Orinda…mother and daughter.

How exciting to read the old log books housed there…written by the hand of a mariner that is my ancestor.  Perhaps turn the tender pages of old broadsides, search through the Bennett Family Papers and spend time among the cobblestones wandering through the port and down to the docks where Daniel’s ships, the “Keziah” and the “Dolphin” once were moored.

The more I write the words “seems” and “perhaps” when recounting a piece of history, the greater my need becomes to learn more.  Generations of my ancestors lived and worked in and out of New Bedford.  Of interest…the  New Bedford Whaling Museum houses the Bennett Family Papers which contain business records and personal papers of Thomas, Robert and James Bennett of Fairhaven and New Bedford.

Will I learn about Jeremiah or Daniel from these papers…what of the log books of the “Keziah” and the “Dolphin”….and why did Daniel die in Ireland at the age of 47?   Perhaps my questions will not be answered or  perhaps I will learn something that never occurred to me. It seems likely that it will be a bit of both.

What is certain is that I will travel to New Bedford and the good historians of the “City That Lit the World” will once again provide illumination…to one of their daughters of New Bedford.  Accompanied by steamed lobster and a side of butter, of course!

What Kept Ya?

A Note to My Readers: Brick walls can drive any genealogists…well…UP the wall!   And we all know that brick walls are a big part of our reality.  So most of us are at one point or another…digging around it or climbing up it or trying to tear it down.  Sometimes brick by brick and sometimes with a big old stick of dynamite.  And sometimes…you just have to walk around it and be prepared to visit the neighborhood because there is no “aha” moment waiting on the other side.  And no ancestor waiting there patiently who asks,  “What kept ya”?

My latest brick wall has a big old sign on it…

ORINDA BENNETT – PRIVATE PROPERTY.  Darn.

Actually it’s not so much a brick wall as it is a gated community.  The family name is on the gate and I can see the quaint buildings of the old whaling seaport with the bobbing masts in the harbor through the fence.   BENNETT, TOBEY, JENNEY, JENNINGS, ESTES, CHACE, JAMES, WING are all familiar names in my ancestral stomping grounds of Dartmouth/New Bedford/Fairhaven, Massachusetts and Tiverton, Rhode Island.   They are all “in there” and my family free pass is still good…aren’t I the fifth great granddaughter of  New Bedford pioneers Isaac Jennings and Ruth Estes?  That practically makes me Yankee Royalty.

Several years ago I tackled my Jennings ancestry beginning with my great great grandfather, Daniel J. Jennings.  Daniel and his wife, Harriet J. James Jennings had settled in Auburn, New York in 1851.  I grew up in Auburn and never knew that my father’s family history took me back so far in Auburn’s history.  Daniel was born in New Bedford in 1820 to Samuel B. Jennings and his wife, Betsey Albert.  The Jennings were typical of the other folks in New Bedford…tradesmen, merchants, seamen, tailors, bankers, doctors and the occasional farmer.  And ultimately very transparent to research.  Births, marriages and deaths and the family relationships all as neatly situated as the row of buildings along Water Street in New Bedford.

“Good Day, Grandfather Jennings and many thanks for the comfort of your hearth and home.”   My Jennings brethren fairly flung open the doors to their home on 84 Linden Street and shared a meal with their granddaughter as if they knew the distance was not mere leagues of sea and miles of land, but across the expanse of time itself.  Whatever wall appeared, it seemed that a Jennings was there to dismiss it and take me onto the next generation.

I began to know not just the Jennings, but the expanding tree of family as the marriage records revealed my New Bedford roots.  Daniel’s brother, Adoniram, walked the streets of New Bedford with me…past his blacksmith shop and down to the harbor where their seafaring brother, Master Mariner Edmund Estes Jennings,  greeted us from his ship the “E. Nickerson”.  Their footloose brother, David H. Jennings, a mason by trade…and an accomplished inventor and tinkerer…made his home alternately in his New Bedford home and  in Union Springs, New York with the fifth Jennings brother, Nathan S. Jennings, and for a time with his sister Clarinda and her husband, Nathan Adams in Altoona, Pennsylvania.   Many thanks, Uncle David, for your wandering nature.  It cinched together your family as neatly as one of your clever inventions.

As fortune would have it, the family history of Daniel’s wife, Harriet J. James,  seemed to be as spare as a Yankee’s purse.  The Jennings came and went in each other’s lives with utter regularity in central New York and indeed in New Bedford.  Try as I might, using all of my best skills and resources, Harriet was just Harriet J. James, wife of carriage maker, Daniel Jennings.  She was born in New York state, but interestingly, she was married in New Bedford on May 21, 1843.

New Bedford Register 24 May 1843

That left me with two places to search for the James family.  It was a start.  A very meager one…as meager as the notice of her death.  Not even a mention of her children, never mind siblings.

New York state is a big place to research, but the best place to start.  The Federal Censuses were very nice and all, but not revealing so I was on to the New York State Censuses of 1865 and 1875.  1865 was more of the same information…affirming, but no new insight.  In 1875, the first brick fell.  There was Daniel with Harriet.  Harriet born in CAYUGA COUNTY!  and the Jennings children…and one “Elmira Jennings”…SISTER!  And so fell the second and third bricks. Elmira, the tailoress…spinster…born in Massachusetts….living with her SISTER!

Another wanderer, my Aunt Almira James!  And like my Uncle David Jennings…a critical thread to complete the family tapestry.  Following Almira through the previous censuses, I found her in 1870 living in Ithaca, New York with Cornelius and Eliza Personius.  No relationship is given and the birth state is said to be New York, but Almira is a tailoress.  And not to be dismissed, Eliza is just a couple of years older and children in the household with the last name of Russell.  Russell is the middle name of one of her sister Harriet’s daughters.  Working backward to the 1860 census, I found 45 year old Almira living with her brother, Edwin W. James in Ithaca, New York who is a painter.   She is a tailoress, born in New York state and a “pauper”.  Edwin is also cited as born in New York state.

One more federal census to go before women in a household are not specifically named and become a hash mark in a male headed household!  On to 1850.  And Newfield, Tompkins County, New York and the household of John T. James and his family.  John is a painter.  A PAINTER! and next door to him is HIS younger brother, William who is also a PAINTER…and William’s father-in-law, Samuel Martin…ANOTHER PAINTER!  John’s birth location is Connecticut, and William is New York.   And Almira James  is there.  Hello, Aunt Almira.  It’s so nice to see you again.  A timeline of the birth dates and places is in order because clearly the James’ parents had been migrating from Massachusetts through Connecticut and on to New York state.

Brother, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

But first.  Could there be some other James men in Tompkins County or Cayuga County? After all, some of the  known James men were born in New York, not to mention Harriet who was reported to be born in Cayuga County.  And there in 1850 living in Tompkins county…bordering Cayuga County….were Almira and John and William and Edwin James!  A quick trip to my Nespresso machine and I was ready to tackle the search for James male siblings in 1850.  I barely stung my lips with the steaming coffee when I found an Arnold James in Caroline, Tompkins County…just a short distance from Newfield…a distance hardly worth the term “distance”.  Arnold was enumerated as a farmer…but doggone-it…he was born in Massachusetts and was of the right age to be a sibling of John, Almira, William, Edwin and Harriet. (And someday if I can prove it…Eliza Personius of Ithaca!).

The Timeline Analysis

While there is information “out there” that there are other siblings…sisters…,  I don’t have anything concrete on those individuals so I took what I had and created a timeline of birth dates and places to confirm this family group and to analyze the migration of this James family.

• Arnold James was born in Bristol County, Massachusetts in 1808.
• John T. (Tobey) James was born in Connecticut in 1811.
• Almira James was born in New York (0r Massachusetts depending on what she reported in the census) in 1815.
• Harriet J. James was born in Slaterville, Tompkins County, New York on 20 August 1820 according to her death certificate.
• William Henry James was born in Cortland, New York according to the 1855 New York State census.  His birth date according to his death records is February 5, 1826.
• Edwin W. James was born in New York state circa 1829.

Almira (also spelled Elmira) is the unifying James sibling.  Unmarried, she lived with all of her James family siblings and is a tailoress all of her adult life.  Her age remains consistent to her birth year in each census though she states both Massachusetts and New York as her place of birth.  She is called “sister” in Harriet’s Auburn, NY household in 1875.  That will do.

Three of the brothers, John, William and Edwin were all painters.  An important clue.  I followed the James brothers and discovered that the word “painter” was a bit too generic.  They weren’t slapping paint from Home Depot on barns or frame homes situated in the drumlins of central New York.  They were artists – graining…guilding…painting frescoes and applying decorative plasters in churches, public buildings and in the homes of newly rich.  And just to add one more delicious stroke of the James brush….21 year old Edwin James lived with Nathan S. Jennings…his sister Harriet’s brother-in-law…in Union Springs in 1850.  And Nathan was a noted painter in his area…specializing in graining, guilding, frescoes and decorative plastering.

But what of the farmer, Arnold James, from Newfield?  Is age or place of birth…or proximity of residence….proof enough of the relationship?  Further research…back to the 1865 New York state census which gives his occupation as PAINTER.  And his burial notes from YATES Cemetery in Caroline states that Arnold was Justice of the Peace in 1868 in SLATERVILLE…the birthplace of his sister, Harriet.  Check.

The next generation of James family members in central New York provided more proof.  Visits with siblings, cousins and aunts and uncles are recorded in Ithaca and Auburn, New York area newspapers and further demonstrate their parents’ relationships.   Short of the availability of a descriptive obituary which recounts family members and/or a brief history,  details from a family bible…or birth or death certificates or a will,  the collected data provided a strong path to conclude that Arnold, John, William, Edwin, Almira and Harriet were siblings.

The James family obviously had a journey…at least from Massachusetts and their birth dates and places clearly show that they were very young when the trek began or were born in central New York where their parents finally settled.  And who are the parents?  And where are they?  Their children were a challenge to document and that makes their parents the next brick wall.

While all of this cobbling was going on, I had sent the wheels in motion in Albany, New York.  I sent away for the 1890 death certificate of Harriet J. James Jennings.  For some reason, the normal one month turnaround ended up being seven.  Blame it on government cutbacks…   Whatever the reason, I had done the work on Harriet’s family and when the certificate arrived, it provided the names of her parents…Webster James, Jr. and his wife, Orinda.

All Roads Lead to New Bedford

The envelope was barely open and the certificate read and I was on www.familysearch.org, ancestry.com, americanancestors.org, fultonhistory.com, genealogybank.com and GOOGLE to search for anything on Webster and his wife.  One record.  Just one, but it was enough.  Webster James, Jr. married Orinda BENNETT in New Bedford, Massachusetts on March 7, 1807.  That’s it.  No “son of” or “dau of”.  But enough.  This was Bedford after all.  And I cut my teeth on Jennings research in New Bedford.  Yeah, right.

I did find a Webster, Sr. in a 1779 broadsheet ad in Providence, Rhode Island…as a bookbinder…and where Webster, Jr. was reportedly born.  That’s good.

U S Chronicle 7 Jul 1803 Norwich Connecticut
Webster James Paper Hanging Manufacturing

Perusing more old New England newspapers and hoping to find more on Webster James,  I found a notice in the July 14, 1803 U. S. Chronicle out of Norwich, Connecticut that Webster James….sailing from Providence to Norwich, Connecticut “lately arrived and moored in good harbor”…”The suscriber’s intention is to try once more to establish the Paper Hanging Manufactory, praying the public would encourage our home manufactures”.    Further research, of course, must be done…this could be Webster, Sr. or Jr., but it most definitely provides a connection to the birth of John T. James and his stated birthplace of Connecticut.  AND the very likely family trade of artisan painters that John, William, Edwin and at one time, Arnold embraced.

Orinda Bennett James lived until at least 1850.  She is in the 1850 federal census in Whitestown in the Whitestown Asylum in Oneida County, New York…an insane pauper.  While I have no concrete information, lore is that she died there alone in 1852.  And what of Webster?   A trip to the Ithaca area is in order and hopefully a random archive will surprise me with the fate of Webster James and his wife, Orinda Bennett.  Once and for all.

Which leads me to New Bedford.  And BENNETT. And the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library and the BENNETT family papers (1765-1908).  And finding my BENNETT ancestors waiting and asking…

“What kept ya?”

The Evolution of Communications and the Forbidden Fragrance of TABU

I continue to figure out this “media thang”…at 64 and counting…it is a far cry from the old telephone my parents had.   At first when we lived in Ithaca, New York, my parents called the operator and she rang a number…and vice versa to receive a call.  AND kids…the phone was NEVER ours to use. I remember the iconic, Bakelite black phone with its own throne in the hallway of our Ithaca, New York home on 710 South Plain Street.  One of my earliest toddler memories is enveloping myself in my mother’s voluptuous skirts…baby fingers tenderly clutching her silken slip, breathing in her TABU perfume and listening to her answer the phone.  Funny how I recall her voice…not HELLO…but

“MARTIN RESIDENCE, Mrs. A. E. Martin speaking”.

I think she took her cue from her paternal grandmother who referred to herself as “Mrs. E. A. Smith”. Grand…simple and in the etiquette of the day.

The phone was hard wired into the wall…and the “cord” was thick and covered with a woven textile and it WEIGHED around 2 POUNDS vs. today’s 2 plus OUNCES. And it SMELLED.  I don’t know how to characterize it…other than it was “electric”.  My brother, Dave,  still has the maple, gate-legged table…the THRONE…in his possession.

We…the Martin children….weren’t even allowed to ANSWER the telephone…not “phone”!  I was never even aware of it without the context of my mother.  And it only “rang” when the caller had something critical to communicate.  Long distance calls were major events…saved for holidays…birthdays and emergencies…usually fraught with intense worry or joy. And everyone shouted into the phone as if the long distance required it.  Long distance was never like today’s time and geography leap of  SKYPE’s easy and free “howdy doo”.

When I was just shy of five years old, we moved to Auburn, New York and then we had a party line of three people…the cheapest option.   Our first phone number in Auburn, New York was five digits with an exchange…8579 were the last digits as I recall.  The BELL telephone operators were on Court Street and eventually on South Street.  I remember seeing the women at the “boards” connecting callers through the warm light of the big windows.  My mother knew so many of them.   Funny how it was acceptable to walk down the street or ride the city bus and peer into windows without the hint of impropriety or threat.  Friendly. Home.

If someone in the party line was using the telephone…you picked up the telephone and could listen in though the sensitive person would gently put the “receiver” back in the cradle.   It was acceptable to interrupt and ask them to “give you” the line.  And they usually did.  People cooperated in a neighborly way.  AND if you were persnickety…or your party line neighbors were…or you were an adolescent like my sister, Mary, intent on occupying the line for hours….your parents had a “private” line.  You PAID for that…but incoming and outgoing was YOURS and your neighbors were not inconvenienced.  Very important in those days to be polite.

After my father’s death and our severely reduced income, it was a dear expense in our household to have a private line.  But then…my mother was intent on propriety and we shared our party line with our neighbor, the diminutive widow,  Tillie Irish.  Widows were especially held in high regard by my mother who was a member of that terrible sorority and she was not about to “create a scene”.   Mary was a teenager by the mid 1960′s and the phone was becoming the purview of America’s youth.  The phone had left its throne…still the maple, gate-legged table… and following the now longer cord…to the coat closet,  the young teen was ensconced with her homework, her girlfriends…a flashlight and the hallowed family telephone.  I was just five years older than my sister…and it might as well have been a Jurassic difference…my friends and I still walked to  each other’s homes and communicated with one another in school.  I barely touched the still black…still heavy…telephone.  It was a harbinger of emergency use only for me and, indeed, when my father had suffered a fatal heart attack in 1958, I ran to my mother…not the telephone.  I was 10 years old and it was not for children to dial the operator.  It was a long time for me to regard the telephone…let alone what was to come…as mine to use at will.

I think my mother’s phone number remained the same for the decades she lived in Auburn…with some “exchange” and area code additions.

Where am I going with this?   I can be online on my laptop…on my iPhone (and if I can swing it this year…on an iPad) with what I appreciate as dizzying speed and multilevel communication.  I am an old geek…multi-tasking anywhere I am,  if you will.  And the “anywhere” could be in Philadelphia, London, Tokyo, Florence, Italy or in the familiar surrounds of my hometown of Auburn or where I was born and toddled on Plain Street in Ithaca, New York.

Am I more efficient…happier…smarter?  I don’t honestly know.  In my lifetime…I have gone from blissfully walking down the street of my hometown..riding the city bus to school or work…daydreaming and alone without feeling lonely…to commuting with only the AM/FM radio in my car to keep me company and eventually to the current day manic constant availability.  Today…alone and feeling lonely more than I would like to admit.  I LOVE my iPhone…my laptop is my constant companion….and if I get an iPad…I am as lost as the first primitive that went from the lone spirit drawing with resins on cave walls in the flickering light of ancient fires to rhythmic and syncopated drumming on logs…to sending signals by smoke and fire to a neighboring clan.  I do admit to the tin can and string thing when I was a kid.

Perhaps if today’s technology felt like silk and smelled “electric” with the forbidden fragrance of TABU.

Excuse me..I mean XME.   I have an incoming message on FB and three emails…and a VM on my iPhone…gotta go.  LOL.

Good Pioneer Stock

A Note to My Readers:  At first I intended to write primarily to my fellow historians…to share my experiences researching my family and to share analyses and tips…to be scholarly with a personal perspective, if you will.  Over the past two years, it has occurred to me that I am channeling the matriarchs of my family and their love and pride in their family history.  I am fortunate that my mother saw fit to trust me with her childhood memories, the Williams-Purdy family bible, boxes of photos from the 1800′s,  the days of the Roaring Twenties when she was a young “flapper”, the “Depression”, World War II, the Fifties…my childhood days, and the Sixties, my teen years.  She kept my report cards…from kindergarten on up.  I thought she was “weird”.  Now I am so grateful.  I suppose at some point I told my growing children about me…and my mother…maybe threw in an ancestor story or two.  But then they grew up and there was so much to tell and they are off into the busy world and making their own history.

Enfield Days

Oliver S. Williams, son of Dr. Parvis A. Williams and Lorinda King, was born in 1816 at Applegate Corners…just a short walk down Mecklenburg Road from the home of his future bride, Mary Van Dorn.  Mary’s parents had migrated from Somerset County, New Jersey and built a tavern in 1820 on what was then (as it is still) called Van Dorn corners.  Oliver took Mary as his bride on July 3, 1842 and the pair set up house and a business on land given to the newly weds by Dr. Williams.

Map of Applegate Corners in Enfield New York 1853

In 1843 Oliver and Mary welcomed their daughter, Mary Lorinda to their Enfield farm, followed by Henrietta, Elizabeth and Emiline.  The joyful early years were followed by a series of heart and spirit breaking events.  Before 1850 Oliver’s home and business had burned to the ground and part of the farm was sold at a Sheriff’s Sale.  In 1853 Henrietta and Emiline died within a few months of one another.  Their grandfather was a well known doctor, not just in Enfield, but in New York state as one of the charter members of the New York Medical Society.  It must have been a terrible experience to tend to his granddaughters to no avail.

But…as my mother would always remind me…”we are from good pioneer stock” and so the Williams family persevered and indeed flourished.  Daughters Mary Lorinda and Elizabeth…Libbie to family and friends…knew a comfortable life, a good education and the love and support of the Williams and Van Dorn families.  And the confidence that comes from the knowledge that they were “from good pioneer stock”.

So much of the family lore was passed down to me by my mother…along with Libbie Williams’ family bible, a smattering of old photos and Libbie’s petite rosewood chair.  Mom spent a good deal of time with her grandmother in the three story home perched on the hill on 307 Eddy Street in Ithaca. Afternoons of tea in the formal parlor crowded with marble topped tables and delicate china were accompanied by the childhood stories of “Mrs. E. A. Smith”, as she loftily referred to herself.  Tales of Libbie’s grandfather, Peter Van Dorn, and the early days of the tavern were a favorite.   Libbie’s father was a bit of an enigma, however.  That they were considered “well-to-do” was a certainty and if one had any doubt, Libbie would straighten up her tiny frame, pat her perfectly coiffed white hair and with the air of a “lady born of the manor” voice,  soundly cast doubt from your mind.

“Farmer” has a connotation of a hic, a hayseed, a bumpkin, a rube…that can get in the way of historical knowledge of the folks in an agrarian culture of the 1800′s and the boon of opportunities that our young nation provided.  Though Oliver’s occupation was listed as “farmer” in each of the federal census records, I knew from my great grandmother’s musings to my mother that Oliver had been some kind of speculator and that he had an adventurer’s spirit.  I am not sure what my mother thought that meant…just that it was another impressive word her grandmother would roll around her tongue.  And one never interrupted Grandma Smith when she was favoring you with her childhood reminiscences.

Oliver’s obituary tells that he spent some time in California.  Was he prospecting for gold like his brother-in-law Norman Van Dorn?  Or part of the land speculators of the early 1840′s and 50′s?  Young men from that area bought land in the rich Sonoma and Napa valleys during that period.  Perhaps one.  Perhaps both.

If you Blink, You will Miss It.

While I found the Van Dorns and the Williams and the Purdys (Libbie’s future husband’s family) all in their Enfield homes and businesses in the New York state census of 1865, Oliver S. Williams and his family were nowhere to be found.

Was the census record incomplete?  Not unheard of.  Or…were they living somewhere else?  Why would a successful farmer and produce buyer leave his boyhood home? The New York state census of 1865 is not indexed so a researcher has to know precisely where an individual lives and winnow down to the location and read each enumerated page to find them.  As my mother would say, “Huh”.

Being a genealogist…a family historian…requires a laser focus at times…and the agility to temper it with global perspective.  A chain of events will impact family members and provide all manner of clues.

Case In Point

Estate of Peter Van Dorn

In 1866 Mary Williams’ father, Peter Van Dorn died.  In his 1867 estate probate record, Mary’s residence is given as “Corning, Steuben County, New York”.  Had I only focused on Oliver as the pivotal figure, I would have created my own brick wall.  It was with this critical piece of information that I went to familysearch.org and delved into the 1865 New York state census in the city of Corning, New York.

And there they were…Oliver, Mary, Mary Lorinda and Libbie with their servant, Ralph Reynolds, on page thirty-one.  The family was living in their wood frame home valued at a $3000.00 which in today’s commodity value would be $41,000.00…and one of the most expensive homes in the Corning area.

Oliver S. Williams of Enfield, New York, had moved his family to live in Corning, New York and had become a petroleum agent in Oil City, Pennsylvania.  A speculator, if you will.

By 1870 the family was back in their Enfield home.  Mary Lorinda had married dashing Colonel Albert Johnson and Libbie was now Mrs. Elbert Purdy.

Ithaca Days

Oliver S. Williams died in his Enfield home in 1887 and daughter, Mary Lorinda, would die at the age of 45 the next year leaving behind her husband, Albert and twelve year old daughter, Libbie Mary Johnson.   That same year Libbie Williams lost her husband, Elbert Purdy.  So Mary Van Dorn Williams packed up her Enfield home as did her daughter and moved to Ithaca where the two women oversaw the raising of my grandfather, Burt Purdy and his brother, Wilmot.

Mary Van Dorn Williams died in her daughter’s Ithaca home on Pleasant Street in 1901 at the age of eighty-five.  She had fallen and broken her hip the year before and never really recovered.  Libbie had remarried to widower Charles R. Smith.  Upon Charles’ death in 1913… from that day forward she became Mrs. E. A. Smith…each letter and word pronounced distinctly from the other.  I wonder if I was the first to reclaim her as “Libbie” in scores of years.  When Grandma Smith died, she was ninety-two years.  She died in her bed, stubbornly propping her head up with her hand.  She hadn’t laid down and died in all the years of highs and lows and I guess she wasn’t about to give the Grim Reaper much due either.

My mother was born in Ithaca..as was I…and the pull of that place seems to be stronger for me every day.  The Eddy Street home

Libbie Williams Purdy Smith with her son Burt S. Purdy of Ithaca New York

is long gone…razed by Cornell University to make room for one of its buildings, but my older cousins and brothers remember it…and Mrs. E. A. Smith well.  I was born seven years after her death so she is alive through my mother’s stories and those of “the boys”…my cousins and brothers.  These days we all share stories and memories of our parents and Ithaca and go back periodically to see one another from our scattered homes across the country.  I like to think that Libbie would approve.  Her grandchildren…”good pioneer stock”.

Authors Note:  Much of what I know about the illustrious Libbie Williams…daughter of Mary Van Dorn and Oliver S. Williams…wife of Elbert Purdy and with the self anointed title of  “Mrs. E. A. Smith”…comes from the precious moments my mother would share with me when I was young.  I dearly wished that I didn’t just listen with youth’s restless mind, but then the young girl that was to become my mother, no doubt, sipped her tea and dreamily watched the dust motes drift in the parlor while her grandmother gave up her most precious treasures to her granddaughter.  Her childhood memories.

And so I write.  For my children and my grandchildren.

Channel Changer

A Note to My Readers: Last night I accessed Comcast’s XFinity and watched a History Channel program on my laptop….while I had another live broadcast of the pop juggernaut, American Idol, on my flat screen TV…I was flipping around my iPhone reading FaceBook and checking my email.  In a startling moment of recall,  the image of the first television set in my childhood home of the early 1950′s flashed in my mind and memory of the reverent and rapt attention to that single wonder in our home.

Single Tasking

On our trips to downtown Auburn, NY in the early 1950′s…there were no malls…we would stand mesmerized on the sidewalk in front of the appliance store and watch the flickering black and white images.  It wasn’t uncommon for a crowd to gather when there was an important broadcast…store owners and clerks stood shoulder to shoulder with shoppers…hushed and polite as if they were guests in a neighbor’s living room.
My father surprised us one day when not one but THREE television sets arrived at our home.  He hadn’t paid for anything.  This was the 1950′s and honor was a given.  And so we had THREE sets in our living room on consideration before purchase.

The furniture was rearranged and the sets were placed side by side on the makeshift “entertainment” center. Our dining table’s function had been re-purposed.  After the obligatory rabbit ear fiddling…up, down…north, south…left…right.  There!  There!  Oop…no..Wait…OK, the images settled down with the occasional and accepted roll or flip.

I was almost five years old and everything in life was new so this was on the same thrill level as the introduction of Frosted Flakes to our breakfast table after years of Nabisco Shredded Wheat and Quaker Oatmeal.  A bank of televisions in my living room was fascinating, but in my short experience…it was a thing for adults.  My parents and brothers sat in the dark…not speaking…the television was on!  The televisionS were on.  Multiple images of a nice man my dad said was Mr. Jack Benny danced like gray ghosts.

The Channel Changer

Admiral TV advertisement 1952

Eventually my father arrived at a decision as to which of the three wonders would take front and center in the Martin household.  It seemed to me that the discussion was not about its aesthetic appearance, but on reception.  Though I pride myself on my photographic “Wayback Machine” memory, I shudder when I think I am accurate about our first television.  It was an Admiral brand table model with a Bakelite cabinet.  By today’s standards…an unlovely squat box…but it was a thing of magic in my childhood and its “technical” operation was solely under my father’s management.

On. Off. Volume. Vertical.  Horizontal. The Channel Changer.  The CONTROL knobs.

” There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to — The Outer Limits.
— Opening narration, The Control Voice, 1960

Like our weekly menu…Spanish Rice on Sundays with a green salad…oil and vinegar dressing and a slice of bread…and my mother’s lemon meringue pie for dessert…or Wednesday’s spaghetti with one meatball….more green salad with oil and vinegar and a slice of bread…desserts were for Sundays…the television viewing choices were unchanging.  Dave Garroway and Jack Lescoulie, of the new NBC “Today” show were breakfast guests.

Dave Garroway on the NBC Today Show set

Grabbing his car keys and with a flick of the knob, my father would be out of the door and the squat box sat mute and still on its throne until he came home.  My mother dusted it careful not to meddle with the position of the rabbit ears lest the evening’s entertainment would be delayed with unnecessary tuning.  But tuning happened anyway.  No matter what my father did, the mysterious air waves wandered and the evening ritual continued unchanged.

The humorous offerings of Mr. Benny’s variety show along with Milton Berle’s “The Texaco Hour”,  “I Love Lucy” and My Little Margy” balanced the evening’s entertainment with Edgar R. Murrow’s “See It Now” and Ralph Edwards’ “This is Your Life”.  Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town” variety “shew” was a Sunday night staple.  I remember my father’s uncharacteristic outbursts of laughter at the frantic performances of Johnny Puleo and the Harmonica Gang.  Johnny ran between the performers, grabbing the microphone…playing a few bars…each one fighting for a spot and still creating a perfect tune.  It sometimes ended with Johnny getting a swift kick in the pants.  Mr. Sullivan and his live audience loved it…laughing and applauding.  I didn’t get it…grown up stuff.   I liked it more than the lady with a big bosom who sang with her mouth open so far that I could see the back of her throat.  But I was a kid and opera was never going to win over a bunch of guys running around switching harmonicas.  Besides the harmonica guys made my serious dad laugh.

With just three channels and a broadcast day from 7 A.M. to 11 P.M. the selection of programming was mostly a melange of news, variety shows, sitcoms, teleplays from Fireside Theater and a smattering of kid’s shows.  My earliest memory of what I would call “my” show was Kukla, Fran and Ollie…a Sesame Street ancestor.  Historians of the show have stated that more adults than children watched the show and that makes perfect sense from my childhood experience.  The clever skits were satirical on multiple levels and were sponsored by adult marketplace entities like RCA, Life magazine and Ford Motor Company.  Commercials were performed by the Kuklapolitan players.  As a kid, the irony was lost on me, but Ollie’s snaggle-toothed endearing repartee with pretty Fran Allison was gentle and fun.  Who wouldn’t love a dragon with a name like Ollie?

Which brings me to changing the channel.

It was a knob…that clicked…3, 5 and 9…Syracuse channels…and if you wanted to waste precious time and tune in to a Utica channel…the rabbit ears would get a nasty workout.  After a few “Oh, Al”s from my mother, Dad would quit his need to find a clear reception from faraway Utica and settle down to a Syracuse offering.   Changing the channel was another thing.  Up from your favorite chair and across the room…the wise man knew that you didn’t sit closely to the television.  “It will ruin your eyesight.” Click, click up and down the knob to the desired channel and that meant more rabbit ear tweaking…more swearing….and more “Oh, Al”s.  On occasion an open handed smack on the Bakelite drove away the snow or steadied the flipping images.   And no guarantees that you could get the picture back clearly if you strayed to another channel.  Television viewing could very well have been the first aerobic sport in America if you didn’t just choose a channel and stick with it.

Today I have three television sets in my home with REMOTE controls.  I watch television programming and videos on my iPhone and laptop…work, write and communicate….while munching  on a BLT sandwich and sipping a Pelligrino and talking on the phone.  I guess it’s a bit like Johnny Puleo and the Harmonica Gang…running between the multiple harmonica players, executing a bit of slapstick while trying to keep a tune.  I am waiting for the kick in the pants.

Authors Note: If you have a moment, please visit the Kuklapolitan Website for more wonderful history of Burr Tillstrom’s legacy and check out the DVD’s available.  Thanks to the Burr Tillstrom Copyright Trust!