Giving Thanks, Part 2...

Some (ten) of our children and grandchildren were celebrating Thanksgiving in Utah, others (four) were in Minnesota, one was in the Carribean ...
But, thankfully, a few were still in Texas, far away from the snow, and happily gave thanks.
                     

We were very thankful that a few of our precious grandchildren (and children) were here to liven up our empty nest.

 These two pretty princesses posed so sweetly while their brothers were getting boxing lessons from their Uncle TaTa, home from Texas Tech.

 Thanksgiving weekend also marked the 2nd birthday of grandson Colby, whose arrival sent his mother to the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. It was the most exciting Thankgiving ever.

look at this little guy, minutes old, and looking around so alertly.

From sweet baby to sweet little boy in just 2 years!

                                                       
Grandpa had a Thanksgiving surprise for me. He spent some time researching my family line and was able to come up with a Pilgrim ancestor on my side. I've been bragging about his Pilgrim ancestors. Now I can brag about one of my very own (official and solidly researched and documented!). This Pilgrim comes through my 3rd great grandmother, Margaret (Peggy) M. Freeman, the wife of Paul Nye.  I am so thankful to know that my 9th great grandfather is William Brewster.

William Brewster, along with my husband's Pilgrim grandparents, came to America on the Mayflower. He was Patriarch and the ruling Elder of the group and kept them together in good times and bad.  He played a major role in planning and organizing the trip to America and the escape from religious persecution which they suffered in England.  He remained ruling Elder until his death in 1644. We have reason to believe that William took in my husband's grandmother, Mary Chilton, after her father and mother both died soon after landing in America.

 P.S. While researching my "Freeman" ancestors, my husband came up with another surprise. Not only are we husband and wife, but cousins!!!!  We are 7th cousins, 1 time removed. Our common ancestors are our great grandparents -- Edmond Freeman (born 1683 in Sandwich, Mass.) and his wife, Keziah Pressbury (born 1687, Mass.)

Gratitude for the lives of our Pilgrim ancestors

James Chilton and his wife Susanna are the 11th great grandparents of our children, through my husband's mother's line.
 James Chilton and his wife Susanna Furner were Separtists or Pilgrims -- a religious group who were dissenters from the Church of England.  With their three daughters, they fled to Holland. In 1620, James Chilton, his wife, and youngest daughter, Mary, set sail for America on the Mayflower, along with William Bradford and 40 members of the Leiden congregation (there were 102 total passengers ).  At about 64 years old, James Chilton was probably the oldest passenger on the ship.  Chilton's other two known surviving children, 21 year old Ingle, and married 33 year old Isabella, remained behind in Leiden.  Isabella came to Plymouth Colony around 1630, with her children and her husband, Roger Chandler.


The signers of the Mayflower Compact

     
When the Mayflower Compact was drawn up on Nov. 11, 1620, James Chilton was one of the signers.
James died on Dec. 8, 1620, while the Mayflower lay anchored in Provincetown Harbor.  He evidently died of disease, as William Bradford reported that he "dyed in the first infection."  There is no record as to whether he was buried at land or sea. His wife also died during the first winter, "in the first infection."
Chilton's daughter Mary (our childrens' 10th great grandmother), who was left an orphan at Plymouth, survived and later married John Winslow, brother of Edward Winslow. According to tradition, Mary Chilton raced John Alden to the front of the launch that was bringing the Mayflower passengers ashore.  She stepped off the boat and was the first woman to set foot on Plymouth Rock.

A memorial to the Pilgrims who passed away while the Mayflower was harbored in Provincetown.

This memorial lies to the western side of the small park below the Pilrgrim Monument tower. It reads:
     1620...In Memory of the five Mayflower passengers who died at sea
     And while the ship lay in Cape Cod Harbour
     William Butten Nov. 16th 1620
     Edward Thomson Dec. 14th 1620
     Jasper Moore Dec. 16th 1620
     Dorothy Bradford Dec. 17th 1620
     James Chilton Dec. 18th 1620
     James Chilton was the only signer of the Mayflower Compact
     Who died at Cape Cod

  

Little Houses

Last night, my husband said, "Come look at this little house", referring to a photo he found on Ancestry.com.

Francis Marion Cook is Carl's first cousin, 4 times removed. This little house, which was built about 1860 with their own hands, was in Henderson, Texas.  That got me thinking about little houses.

Like this one (on the left, in the late 1800's-- on the right, how it looks today with an addition to the left side).
This is the little 2 room red brick house that Heber Gunn built for his bride Effie Stonebraker Gunn.

Heber and Effie Gunn are my children's 2nd greatgrandparents.  Besides raising 7 children in that little house, the Gunns served as Hoytsville's postmaster and postmistress for 37 years (Effie serving after the death of her husband). The little postoffice was in that house (after an addition was put on). The original postboxes are preserved in the basement museum of the courthouse down the road in Coalville.

I also thought of the first house I lived in (after we stayed with my Grandmother for my first 9 months).  This was right after World War II. A lot of little houses were being built for the returning WW II vets and their new families (that's me on my father's lap in the photo). My father paid $2,000 for this house on Halsey Drive in Warwick, R.I.  All the new streets and schools in Warwick were named after WW II heros. Our street was named after Admiral William Halsey, commander of the U.S 3rd fleet during part of the Pacific War against Japan.  (I went to Warren A. Sherman Elementary School (another war hero), and graduated from Warwick Veterans Memorial Hight School.)
such a lot of history, heart and soul in little houses.

an exciting find!

Last week, I was so excited to finally, after many years of searching, find the birth and death dates and grave of my great great grandfather (on the Nye side), Joseph Sears. When I was a little girl, my grandmother showed me this little teakwood carving of a New England sea captain. She told me it is a replica of this grandfather, who was the captain of a clipper ship which sailed to the Orient. Since he was gone for long periods of time, he had this carving made for his wife to remind her of him. My searches on census records found him and his family (wife Hannah (Lincoln) and two daughters, Lydia and Mary Josephine -- my great grandmother) living in Provincetown, Mass. The next census record, shows Hannah, as a widow, with her two daughters. I was never able to get more information on him, until now..........because, just this year, a volunteer with "findagrave.com"took photos of graves in the cemetary pictured below. Because of previous research, which gave important pieces of the puzzle, I know that it definitely is his grave. And from this picture, I learned for the first time, that there was another daughter, Olive, who died as a baby, and is buried next to him. Joseph Sears was born in the Azores in Portugual,as was all of his crew, who boarded in the same house in Provincetown. My father remembered how his grandmother (Mary Josephine, daughter of Joseph Sears) hated foreigners -- probably from memories living around all those Portuguese sailors. (A geneologist, who uses the same geneology search engine as we do, had run into this branch of my family tree. Even though he discovered he isn't related to my line, he kept the infrmation he found and e-mailed me, telling me where to find the grave photo on the web, and the site at which he found Joseph's death records. I am so thankful to him. (He's from R.I. too)Joseph's grave is in the Winthrop Street Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Provincetown.

Here a painting of the cemetery from the 1800's. It'll be exciting to visit that cemetery when we go to the Cape on one of our upcoming retirement trips.

look who Dad found!

Kids-- meet your 10th great grandmother, Mary Chilton, who is depicted in this well-known 1877 Henry Bacon oil painting. She is the girl being helped ashore. According to Chilton family tradition, first recorded in 1744, she was perhaps the first pilgrim to step ashore at what would become Plymouth. She arrived on the Mayflower as young teen (age 15),whose parents died on board. She was taken in by other pilgrims and later married John Winslow. Young Mary Chilton, one of eleven under-age girls on the voyage, was among the nine that survived. By contrast, only four of the fourteen adult women on the Mayflower survived the first winter. So your great grandmother was at the first Thanksgiving feast!

Mary received three shares in the 1623 land division—one for each of her parents and one for herself. Her land was between that of Myles Standish and John Howland. Later, her sister Isabella came from England.
Mary Chilton married John Winslow, who arrived on the Fortune in 1621. John and Mary had 10 children: John, Susanna, Mary, Edward, Sarah, Samuel, Joseph, Isaac, an unnamed child who died young, and Benjamin. Sometime after Benjamin’s 1653 birth, the Winslows moved to Boston, eventually purchasing in 1671 “the Mansion or dwelling-house of the Late Antipas Voice with the gardens wood-yard and Backside as it is scituate lying and being in Boston aforesaid as it is nowe fenced in And is fronting & Facing to the Lane going to mr John Jolliffes” The house no longer exists but a plaque marks its place on today’s Spring Lane. John Winslow, a prosperous Boston merchant, died in 1674.
Mary (Chilton) Winslow died in 1679. Her will conveys numerous silver cups, tankards and spoons to children and grandchildren, as well as linens and furniture that would only have been found in a well-to-do family. The inventory of Mary’s estate equally bespeaks of a wealthy household containing perhaps as many as six bedrooms and at least nine leather chairs.
The Winslows are believed to be buried in the old Winslow tomb at King’s Chapel Burying Ground in Boston.

You kids and grandkids are directly related to her through Dad's mother (Granny)'s father's line.