Paying it Forward

Karma

Generalized Reciprocity

My favorite charity, the Heifer Project, calls it “Passing on the Gift”

For three weeks I was home sick, and didn’t do any new research or new blog posts. I posted some other things I had saved for a rainy day, and some photos of tombstones, etc. I lazed around in my PJs, read the comments, blew my nose constantly, chatted on Facebook and thought I was doing nothing…

However, even just answering comments and chatting on Facebook was not really a mindless activity. Things were brewing. Ideas were exchanging. Stories developed into blog posts without any effort. Best of all, lots of folks became very happy. Sometime the best stories just happen…

First, a simple comment on a blog post led to lots of photos and stories being sent my way by a “new cousin” in Wisconsin. If you read the post on The Uicker House on January 12th you can see that just a few emails back and forth easily became a photo essay. Several members of the Uicker family contributed to this story. And I had never even met them! There are more photos and more stories coming, all related to this first comment on my blog.

Then, Midge Frazel, at the “Granite in Blood” blog, wrote and asked me a few questions about Mayflower lineage applications. It was easy, just a few messages via Facebook, and she was so happy to get the scoop on the sources and help available from the Mayflower Society. I was so happy to help. All whilst sitting here with my slippers and box of tissues.

Still stuck at home, I took advantage of a discussion tab at the Genealogy Blogger group on Facebook, and asked if anyone knew how to print out a newspaper article found on Google News archives. There were a few suggestions and then out of the blue Carol Yates Wilkerson of the blog “iPentimento” offered to capture the image and put it into an email-able file for me. Now I have a copy of a very interesting article from 1910 about an Italian immigrant in Boston’s North End neighborhood and his hurdy gurdy business. This immigrant is the 2x great grandfather of my daughter’s new beau. Thanks, Carol, for introducing me to the software called SnagIt! This might make it into a blog story, too.

Another reader just emailed that we share Mayhew, Doggett, Thompson, Tetherly, Abbott, Hinckley, Emery, Webster, Shatswell, Northend lineages, and a few more. I can see some emailing back and forth in the near future with this “new cousin”.

Best of all, four of us Genealogy Bloggers are meeting up for lunch next week. Two of these women I have never met in person before. I’m looking forward to this lunch most of all. Not because I’m finally getting out of the house, but because I feel that it’s about time my online friendships become real life friendships. After all, we’ve been chatting for a year or more now. Carol and Midge, you’re going to be next someday!

Give a little, Get a little…

And I thought I was just sitting home, blowing my nose!

Ralph Waldo Emerson, my favorite Emerson cousin, wrote, "In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody."

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Cleopatra’s Barge, from Salem to Hawaii

Cleopatra's Barge painting by George Ropes, 1818 ,
exhibit M-8255
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts

My 2nd cousin six generations removed, Retire Becket, built America’s first pleasure yacht, Cleopatra's Barge.  He was a ship builder in Salem, Massachusetts, and he was one of the more prominent men in his trade. In 1816 George Crowninshield commissioned a pleasure boat unlike any other ever built. It had a 100 foot deck and cost $50,000 (in 1816 dollars!) to build out of mahogany and gold trim, and another $50,000 to furnish with artwork, fine silver and porcelain.

The log book of Cleopatra’s Barge is available at the Peabody Essex Museum’s Phillip’s library. A reconstruction of the grand salon is on display, and gives visitors an idea of the splendor of the ship. Some of the furnishings are on display, too.

According to the PEM website “One telling exhibit in the Peabody Essex Museum that illustrates the fabulous wealth that had accrued to Salem is a reconstruction of the lounge of Cleopatra's Barge, a pleasure yacht built in 1816 by entrepreneur George Crowninshield. Some call it the country's first cruise ship. He had it constructed with the finest craftsmanship available and outfitted it with fine furnishings in the Federal and Neo-Classical styles and all the accoutrements of royalty. His intention was to sail Cleopatra's Barge to Europe with the express hope of hosting Napoleon himself on board and becoming the toast of the continent. He received quite a bit of attention as his yacht, gilded and herringboned on one side and striped on the other sailed into European ports, but Napoleon snubbed him, and Mr. Crowninshield returned home only to die unexpectedly the following year.”

After Crowninshield died, in 1817, Cleopatra’s Barge was sold to two Boston merchants in 1820. They sailed it to the Sandwich Islands, then known as the Kingdom of Hawaii, to sell it. King Kamehameha II took one look, and bought it for 8000 piculs of sandalwood (more than one million pounds of wood) worth $80,000 in 1820 dollars. The King renamed his ship the Royal Yacht Ha’aheo o Hawai’i. The ship began to slowly rot in the Pacific climate, so Captain Thomas Meek was hired to fix it with lumber from the Pacific Northwest. In 1824 it ran aground near Hanalei Bay off the coast of Kaua’i.

Some interesting facts about this ship and my family history:

1. Retire Becket’s house, which used to stand on Becket Street in Salem, was moved to the grounds of the House of Seven Gables museum in 1924. It now is used as a gift shop. My Becket ancestors lived on Becket Street, possibly in the same house. It was built in 1655 by John Beckett, my 9x Great Grandfather. My Great Great Grandparents lived one block over on Bentley Street. Retire Becket also built the schooner Fame which was commanded by another ancestor, Abner Poland.  Click here for my blog post about the ship Fame.

2. Captain Thomas Meek (mentioned above) was born 27 November 1791 in Marblehead, Massachusetts and died 29 January 1875 in Marblehead, where he returned after living in Hawaii. He married a native woman and left numerous descendants in Hawaii.  During my research trip to Hawaii’s Bishop Museum I met a man who was a descendant of Thomas Meek. When I got back to the hotel to check my database on my computer I found that Captain Thomas Meek’s son John married Elizabeth Kaluapapohana Kamsi, a member of the Hawaiian nobility. The Meeks are my cousins through my Gardner lineage in Salem.

3. The connection between my family in Massachusetts and Hawaii keeps growing stronger. King Kamehameha was a distant relative to Queen Lili’uokalani, whose husband was the nephew of my 4x great grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Younger.

4. Many members of my immediate and extended family tree have donated things to the Peabody Essex Museum, or their possessions and papers now are part of their collections. I suppose this isn’t unusual since I have so many Salem ancestors. I have blogged about the Pope Cabinet here, which was sold to the museum in 2000. Also in the collections is a book written by Great Great Grandfather Abijah Franklin Hitchings. His book is Ship registers of the district of Salem and Beverly, Massachusetts, 1789-1900, with annotations by Stephen Willard Phillips, published at Salem by the Essex Institute in 1906. The only other library I know to have a copy of this book is the library at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. I blogged about Abijah Hitchings here at this post from 26 July 2010  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/07/amanuensis-monday-abijah-fanklin.html .

The Becket Family Tree:

                                                 John Becket
                                                 b. abt. 1626
                                                         I
                                              William Becket
                                                    b. 1665

John Becket                                                         Retire Becket
b. 1684                                                                   b. 1704
         I                                                                          I
John Becket                                                        William Becket
b. 1715
         I                                                                          I
Hannah Becket                                                    Retire Becket
b. 1751                                                            (Built Cleopatra’s Barge)
         I                                                                     b. 1754
Mary Cloutman
b. abt 1775
         I
Abijah Hitchings
b. 1809
         I
Abijah Franklin Hitchings
b. 1841
(my 2x Great Grandfather)

Retire Becket's home in Salem, Massachusetts
now the gift shop at the
House of Seven Gables Museum

For more information:

The House of Seven Gables Historic Site Website http://www.7gables.org/

The Peabody Essex Museum Website http://www.pem.org/

An interesting proposal to reconstruct the Royal Yacht Ha’aheo o Hawai’I http://www.eb-5investors.com/POHF%20Summary.htm , with an estimated cost of over $7 million dollars to rebuild today.

The Schooner Fame http://www.schoonerfame.com/ a replica was rebuilt in 2003 by Harold Burnham (another cousin!) of Essex, Massachusetts. Now you can sail aboard the Fame to see Salem Harbor and the Massachusetts coastline on their day tours.

A genealogy of the Becket family can be found at The Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, Volume 8, page 139 - 144, by the Essex Institute of Salem, Massachusetts, 1868, available for full viewing at Google Books.

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Ancestor Approved Award

Last spring I was lucky enough to win three nominations for the "Ancestor Approved Award" from Leah Allen at "The Internet Genealogist", Theresa at "Tangled Trees", and Hummer at "Branching Out Through the Years".

This winter I was lucky all over again with three new nominations from Bill West at "West in New England", Polly Kimmett from "Polly Blog" and from Jennifer at "On a Flesh and Bone Foundation".

Not only am I triply blessed with generous readers, now I am sextuply blessed with more wonderful new blog readers. Only a year ago I was thinking that just my Mom and my husband were reading my blog. Thank you very much, every one of you!

Please follow the links to these blogs and check them out. If you like my genealogy posts, you will enjoy their stories, too.

PS The woman pictured on the badge for the "Ancestor Approved Award" is Mary Edwards Cannon, the 3x great grandmother of Leslie Ann, the author of the blog "Lost Family Treasures" You can read about the woman behind the photo at this link http://lostmementos.blogspot.com/2010/04/ancestor-approved-award.html


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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Not So Wordless Wednesday- The Uicker House, Derry, NH

Last week a "new cousin", Dorothy Uicker Winger,  emailed me a nice message about my blog.  She is related to me through the Reading, Massachusetts Flint family founded by Thomas Flint (1619 - 1663), and she is also descended from Derry residents.  It is always fun to hear from readers, and she sent me enough information about her family to write a few blog entries.  Dottie Winger sent some images of her ancestral home on 17 -19 Griffin Street in Derry, built by Joseph Aloysius Uicker of Derry in 1907. 

According to Dottie "....Joseph Aloysius Uicker who built the house in the first two pictures (which is actually a two-level flat) that is now listed on the historic register. He was a carpenter and died at the age of 43 from lockjaw (from tetanus) after getting scratched on a iron wagon wheel. He also built a number of the businesses in Derry. He left a large and young family, so my grandfather (the oldest child) John Uicker,sr. quit school to work and support the family. After working a few years, he went back to school and finished at the University of New Hampshire. John was the number one engineering student in his class while continuing work! He began teaching and later earned a Mechanical Engineering degree at New Hampshire which was equivalent to a doctorate at that time. He worked as an Instructor in Mechanical Engineering at University of New Hampshire, then moved to teach at Pennsylvania State University, and finally went to University of Detroit where he eventually became the Dean of Engineering before his retirement in 1970. John Uicker married Elizabeth Flint of Lyme Center, NH in 1934... She was well educated (a Master's degree in Mathematics from Harvard!) but worked in the home raising eight children and following her husband's career from state to state.  They moved to State College, PA in September 1937 then to Detroit, MI in September 1940, and finally retired to Harbor Beach, MI where they built a home on Lake Huron that has passed down to their youngest daughter.  John Uicker passed away in 1988 and Elizabeth in 2003.  They've left a large number of Uicker/Flint descendants now spreading out from the midwest! "

Dottie forwarded a preview of this blog post to her father, John Joseph Uicker, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, and he added the following information: "I was the oldest boy of eight children, but I was the only one born in Derry. We visited that house many times when I was young. Actually, the house next door (13-15 Griffin Street) was nearly a twin and was also built by Joseph A. Uicker, before he built the one pictured. The upper flat in that one was the home of my aunt Lenore for many years, but is no longer in the family."  Joseph Aloysius Uicker was his grandfather.

Photo circa 1960



rendering by Betty Trombetta in 1993



My photo, 9 January 2011

The current resident of the Uicker House is
Harvey Cote, first cousin once removed
of Dottie Winger

Thanks to Dorothy Uicker Winger for images 1, 2, and 4.

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Taylor Family Reunion

The Taylor Saw Mill
located at Ballard State Park, Derry, NH

A friendly reminder from Betty Taylor Aube of Nova Scotia, Canada.

The Taylor family reunion scheduled for the 29th, 30th & 31st of July, 2011, in Derry, New Hampshire is for ALL descendants of Matthew Taylor & Jennat Wilson. We will be celebrating the 290th arrival of this family to America. For further info, see our website  http://www.taylorfamilyreunion2011.myevent.com/

A blog post from June 2011 about the Taylor Reunion, with more information about Matthew Taylor, Scots Irish immigrant to Nutfield:
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/06/matthew-taylor-descendants-reunion-in.html

Tombstone Tuesday- Samuel and Mary Burnham, Derry, New Hampshire

Samuel Burnham, born 30 August 1767 in Chebacco Parish, Ipswich (now Essex), Massachusetts, died at Derry, on 1 November 1834; son of Samuel Burnham and Mary Perkins; married Mary Dalton of Derry. Samuel’s grandparent, John Burnham and Martha Story, were my 7x great grandparents. Most Burnhams live in Essex, Massachusetts, so I was surprised to find these gravestones in Derry's Forest Hill Cemetery, not too far from the "First Settlers" gravesites.

Samuel Burnham graduated from Dartmouth College in 1795, and his brothers Abraham (1804), John (1807), and Amos (1815) were also Dartmouth Alumnus. Samuel Burnham was a deacon of the Derry church and was the first preceptor of Pinkerton Academy after teaching for many years at a local classical school.

“I think no family has furnished as many educated members
as the Burnhams. A short time prior to 1775 Deacon Samuel
Burnham came from Essex, Mass., to the south part of Dunbar-
ton. Of his thirteen children, four sons graduated at Dartmouth
College. In 1865 fourteen of his grand and great grand child-
ren were college graduates. Not all of them lived in Dunbar-
ton, but Samuel's son, Bradford, and most of his children lived
here. Henry Larcom, son of Bradford, was a successful teach-
er and land surveyor ; he represented the town in the Legisla-
ture and was also State Senator. The last years of his life
were passed in Manchester where he died in 1893. His son,
Henry Eben, is a lawyer in Manchester, and was for a time
Judge of Probate. He was born November 8, 1844, in the Dr.
Harris house, and is an honored son of Dunbarton. He was
elected United States Senator by the Legislature of 1901, for
the term of six years and succeeded Senator William E. Chandler.” (Mills, 1902)


Sketches of the Alumni of Dartmouth College: from the First Graduation in 1771 to the Present Time, With a Brief History of the Institution, by Rev. George Thomas Chapman, Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1867, page 77.

A Sermon, Occasioned by the Death of Elder Samuel Burnham, Delivered at Derry, 9 November 1834, by Rev. Edward L. Parker

“Sketches of Dunbarton, New Hampshire”, by Miss Ella Mills, Manchester: Manchester Historic Association, 1902, page 10


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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Carl A. O'Brien, 80

Carl Avard O'Brien September 7th 1930 - January 7th 2011

Husband to Mary Louise (Eaton) O'Brien, sister of my Aunt Shirley (Eaton) Wilkinson

Links to Carl O'Brien's obituary, posted today, 10 January 2011, at the Gloucester Times

or at the Campbell Funeral Home website

A Fall through the Ice

This post was inspired by the view out my window this morning. There is a large pond in my backyard, and two young men were testing the ice for ice fishing. Seeing them on the ice made me very nervous!

14 March 1879
Cape Ann Advertiser

"Essex Jottings.
Rescued from Drowning- Last Saturday, Percy,
aged six years, son of Mr. Hervey Allen, came
near being drowned while playing on the ice
in the river. He was caught by the arms, and was res-
cued by Annie Burnham, a young miss of eleven
years."

Percy Eugene Allen was born 10 September 1873 in Marblehead, Massachusetts and died 3 March 1942 in Beverly, Massachusetts. He was the son of Hervey Allen (1841 – 1905) and Adeline Jane Andrews (1839 – 1886) of Essex, Massachusetts. Hervey was the brother to my 2x Great Grandfather, Joseph Gilman Allen (1830 – 1908). Essex Massachusetts is located on the coast, with marshland and the winding, tidal Essex River runs through the center of town, right near where the Allens lived. No doubt this is where little Percy fell through the ice.

In the 1910 Federal Census of Beverly he is listed as a laborer, for the city Street Department, living alone. On his World War 1 Draft registration he was living at 257 Cabot Street, Beverly, alone, and was an employee of the city of Beverly as a laborer. He listed his next of kin as Adeline Leighton, a cousin, of Beverly. In the 1920 census he is living in Oakland, Kennebec County, Maine, as a farmer, with a wife named May and a mother in law, Ellen M. McCartney. By the 1930 census of Oakland, he is a widower, no children, living alone again as an RFD currier for the Post Office.

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo