Stock buckle

We were snowed in after a blizzard in Virginia.  My dad finds an old box from somewhere and we dig in to find family treasures galore.

What in the world is this? (Next to the pen.)

We had no clue.  Good thing it was inside a labeled envelope. 

"Silver stock buckle.  This stock buckle was made from Mexican silver dollars and worn by Jonathan Pearson, father of Isaac, therefore great-great grandfather of the Webber Quartette."

My grandpa Roger Pearson Webber was the eldest of the Webber Quartette.

Family member name: Jonathan Pearson 
Lifetime: 1766-1841
Tree branch: Pearson
Relation: My 4x great grandfather

Now we know who, but still, what is a stock buckle?  It's a buckle for a stock.  Duh.  When looking at paintings of men from the 1700s and early 1800s, it's common for them to be wearing a wrapped, folded white linen cloth around their necks.  It's the predecessor to the neck tie, and it's called a stock.  It was the most formal of neckwear.  The stock was wrapped around the neck and had tabs like buttonholes in the back where the stock was secured with a stock buckle.  A stock buckle was often silver and sometimes embellished with gems.  It was jewelry for men.

We don't know what Jonathan Pearson looked like, but here is a photograph of his son, Isaac, wearing a stock.  I like to think he's wearing his father's stock buckle.  I realize how rare it is to possess something that belonged to a great great great great grandfather.  I'm grateful.

Now, the question remains, where did a family in the early 1800s from Maine procure Mexican silver dollars in order to make this stock buckle?  The plot thickens.

Dowry or trousseau?

A 4x6 piece of 200-year-old paper outlines some "money and other things" belonging to my great great great grandmother.  It was found in an envelope labeled by her granddaughter "doubtless the dowry of Miriam Harris".

Family member name: Miriam Hall Harris Pearson 
Lifetime: 1807-1878
Tree branch: Pearson
Relation: 3x great grandmother

dow·ry

ˈdou(ə)rē/

noun

1. property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage.

Dowries are not used much today. In India, dowries were officially outlawed in 1961, but sadly are still used as income for the groom's family. Obviously, they have the negative connotation that a woman is only worth the money she brings into a marriage.

trous·seau

ˌtro͞oˈsō,ˈtro͞oˌsō/

noun

1. the clothes, household linen, and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage

Over time, the tradition of the dowry in the US first evolved into a trousseau or hope chest.  Sometimes a mom or grandma wanted to pass along some family heirlooms for use when her daughter is married, or the single maiden collects or sews handmade housewares for her future married self.  Those articles were added to the hope chest.   Today that tradition has evolved again into online bridal registries.

Miriam Hall Harris was born in 1807 in North Yarmouth, Maine, not far north of Portland.  She married my great great great grandpa Isaac Pearson, a young widower, in 1837. Since she was almost 30, she would have been considered an old maid by that time.  Research suggests that dowries were still in limited use in New England in the mid-1800s.

Dowry or trousseau?  Decide for yourself. (A transcribed version follows the pictures in case the handwriting is difficult to read.)

Memorandum of money and other things for Miriam Harris: Viz (definition: as follows)
Cash one hundred and twenty one dollars. $121.00
2 packed (?) Bed Quilts  16.00
2 Coverleads  9.00 (perhaps coverlet, meaning bedspread)
2 Bed Quilts  9.00
1 Bed Quilt 3.50
1 Bed Quilt 2.33
1 Counterpin 1.50 (definition: bedspread)
2 Bed puffs 3.00
4 pairs of bed blankets 20.50
2 table cloths 3.00
6 table cloths 8.64
2 table cloths 1.00
2 table cloths 2.25
2 Bowler (?) towels 1.20
6 hand towels 2 hand cloths 2.63
6 hand towels 1.50
6 hand towels 1.00
207.05

Memorandum for Miriam Harris continued
Cash Fifteen Dollars 15.00
1 Dineing table 5.00
1 Breakfast table 4.00
1 Light Stand 1.50
1 Bed Stid 5.00 (perhaps a bedstead, meaning a bed frame)
One Silver waist bukel 1.50 (perhaps a belt buckle?)
32.00
Brought over 207.05
$239.05

The only reason I would lean towards this indeed being a dowry is the fact that cash is included in the assets.  A trousseau would not have included cash.  Calculating for inflation, the $136 in 1830 would  be worth $3,515.00 as of 2018.  Not too shabby.  Go Miriam!  No wonder she held out and nabbed a hottie who later became a lawyer.

Here is my great great great grandma later in life.

The Snow Row

Do you want to go kayaking?  In Boston Harbor? In March?  Kinda frosty, right? Why would someone do that year after year?  The Snow Row!

A yearly boat race is held in Hull, Massachusetts and it's called the Snow Row.  It is for many kinds of boats without a sail or a motor, including kayaks. It seems that the race was named because most participants need to row, and there's usually snow on the ground in March in Boston.  But no!  It was named after a man named Edward Rowe Snow.

Edward Rowe Snow was born in Massachusetts in 1902.  He wrote over 40 books, mainly chronicling New England maritime history.  The Hull Lifesaving Museum is also devoted to preserving New England maritime history, and they sponsor the Snow Row as a tribute to Edward.

My dad has been racing in the Snow Row for over 20 years. It's become a family tradition.  I've had the chance to be the front person in his tandem kayak on a few occasions. We've been known to bring home gold or silver medals.  Here we are.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing research on my family tree and I found a Snow! I decided to trace the Snow family and found we have the same Pilgrim ancestor as Edward Rowe Snow. I should have known that all people in Massachusetts are related somehow.

Family member name: Edward Rowe Snow

Lifetime: 1902 - 1982
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 9th cousin, 3x removed

My 11th great-grandfather is Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower.  Stephen Hopkins is Edward Rowe Snow's 8th great-grandfather.

Yeah, we're family.

My dad is all signed up for the Snow Row again in 2018.  I'm sad I can't join him in the race this year.  But now he has an added bonus of knowing the race is named after his cousin Ed.

While telling my dad about this research, he said he met Mr. Snow in the early 1970s while taking a Boston Harbor Cruise.  Here is the famous Edward Rowe Snow.  Photo credit: Dad.

I've always wanted an Opa

We all have 16 great-great-grandparents.  Two of mine were born in Germany, and one was born in the US of German parents.  Three out of 16 great-great grandparents means I'm 3/16 German.  Wunderbar!!

I randomly Googled the following ancestor and had a surprise.

Family member name: Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Goesch
Tree branch: Goesch
Relation: My 2x great grandpa.  My mom's mom's mom's dad.

Turns out there is another crazy person out there (probably a lot of them) who blog about their ancestry.  They had an entire post about Grandpa Ernst!  In fact Ernst was his great grandfather, but through Ernst's first wife Amelia.  Ernst is my 2x great grandpa through his second wife, Bertha.
Ernst was born September 8, 1848 in Grammentin, Pommern, Prussia which today is known as Mecklenburg – Vorpommern, Germany.  On March 17, 1869, at the age of 20, Ernst sailed from Hamburg, Germany on the ship Saxonia bound for New York.

They moved between Chicago, Minnesota and finally Nebraska, where generations of Goesch family members were born and still live.  Ernst had 6 children with Amelia then another six with Bertha.  The 12th child was my great-grandmother Martha.

The German word for grandfather is Opa.  Here's my great-great Opa.

And this is Ernst and Bertha's home in 1915 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Building a 19th century resumé

Was Grandpa Smith a go-getter? An intentional seeker of new horizons? Or did life just happen? You decide as you read his resumé below.

Family member name: Charles H. Smith
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 3x great grandpa.  My dad's mom's dad's dad's dad.

The carpenter - Young Charles' first occupation was a carpenter. He lived in Chatham, Massachusetts which is the elbow of Cape Cod. (Make a fist and flex your bicep. That's Cape Cod. Now use your other hand to point at the flexed arm's elbow.  That's Chatham.) Chatham was a fishing and whaling town, so perhaps he made a good living repairing boats. We can't really know for sure. But this skill surely would have helped him in his next jobs.

The lighthouse keeper - Light house keepers have always held a beloved position in their community. Their role was to keep the town's mariner sons and husbands safe.  Grandpa Smith was entrusted with this position for over ten years, three of which were during the Civil War.  Normally lighthouse families were isolated because their homes are often located on islands or on remote peninsulas. Not so with Chatham Light. It is on Main Street in the middle of town. So I imagine their interaction with the community was as normal as their neighbors. Speaking of neighbors, Angeline Nickerson lived next door with her children. She is a local Chatham legend. Her husband was the light keeper until his untimely death. She took over the post and "manned" (pun intended) the station for 10 years until she was about 50 years old.

The twin lights as they would have looked in the 1860s.

I have yet to locate the lighthouse logs from Grandpa Smith's tenure. The logs generally recorded how many ships passed by daily, significant storms, sea rescues and lighthouse repairs. The Chatham Historical Society does not have them, the Chatham Eldredge Library does not have them. I have not yet contacted the current lighthouse keeper (the US Coast Guard), but often the logs were thrown away when the Coast Guard took over in 1943.  The result of these missing logs is that we know almost nothing about his service. In fact, he is barely (if ever) even mentioned in books about lighthouse histories. But he's on Wikipedia, so... it's all good.


The inn keeper - Grandpa and Grandma Smith transitioned from the rescue business to the hospitality business.  The Chatham Monitor local newspaper shows the chain of events.

Advertisement for Nauset House

Newspaper announces sale of Nauset House Aug 1872

Monthly advertisement for Nauset House

Nauset House is often listed in the paper as hosting town events on their large front lawn.  Unfortunately, Grandma Smith died just three years later, yet was remembered as a gracious hostess to town visitors in her obituary. 

Nauset House is still an Inn 150 years later (not run by family members that I know of). Consider staying there on your next trip to the Cape.


The tax collector - Holy career change Batman!

Here is Grandpa Smith's obituary, kindly sent to me by the Chatham Historical Society.

Looks like as the new tax collector, he whipped them into shape! Was he the type of person who could recognize a problem, devise a solution and had the power and energy to implement it? I admire those people.

From his various careers over his lifetime, it seems that Grandpa Smith was always reinventing himself, a catchphrase from the 2010s. What a diverse and interesting person.

Hingham

Hingham, Massachusetts holds a special place in my heart. It’s where I would visit my Grandma and Grandpa Webber and spend much time with my two cousins. My dad grew up in Hingham. I had no idea of our connection to Hingham other than knowing that my grandparents moved their young family there in 1952/53.

Family member name: Ralph Smith
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 10x great grandpa.  My dad's mom's dad's dad's dad’s dad’s dad's dad's dad's dad's dad

Why did my grandparents move to Hingham? They grew up in Needham and New Bedford. Maybe they just wanted to be commuting distance to Boston?  My Grandma Webber’s maiden name was Smith. Normally a difficult surname to research, but there have been mountains of information on this family with deep New England roots.

When reading a history of the Smith family in New England, many generations lived on Cape Cod, in the towns of Chatham and Eastham. But when going back further, a Ralph Smith lived in Hingham for almost 20 years, from1635 to 1653. He lived on Main Street and ran a store. When researching the history of the town of Hingham, it was founded in 1635. In fact, Ralph Smith, his three brothers and four other men originally arrived there in 1633 to begin clearing land and building huts in order to cultivate the land the following spring. Though it was called Bare Cove at that time, when they set up a town government, they renamed the area Hingham. Why? They had just arrived in the new world from their hometown - Hingham, England.

It’s so exciting that my dad grew up in the town that was founded by his direct ancestor, who was a pioneer of distinction.

Here is a plaque placed by the Association of the Descendants of Ralph Smith.  Disclaimer: I did not take this picture.  I copied it from another website. :)  But I hope to visit it someday.

Tree Branches

What is a branch of a family tree?

Is it the family line through my grandparents?  If so, each person would only have four tree branches.  And while this is technically a true statement, for this blog's purposes, I'm going to narrow it down a little further.

Going forward, when I reference a branch of my family tree, I'll be referring to the branch beginning with my (or Dru's) great-grandparents, as shown in the red box below.

Therefore, we each have eight branches.  Mine are: Webber, Pearson, Smith, Bromley, Boyle, Anderson, Sullivan and Goesch.

Meredith's Family Tree's branches

Dru's branches are: Hargreaves, Cottam, Jones, Newman, Kekos, Papoutsaki, Stevens and Papas.

Dru's Family Tree's branches

Each post will also be tagged with the tree branch so as to find information easily.  Hopefully this will add some clarification to what may be a bunch of random family stories and research findings.