https://www.persuasion.community/p/lessons-of-a-black-pioneer?fbclid=IwAR02elBi0lBXrfVwhZ7YOwkhdH0_125hJJQWuDs0wEvpwUVw9WoyilyFqIM
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/12/us/rep-chisholm-s-angry-farewell.html?fbclid=IwAR2Gfzgn2JI_d0Vsc0m7xSepGotx8OTE9klt1UZq7zwWWAfkAoi8iqx0EIo
https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/1213/121310.html
From Barbara Winslow, Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2013.
Monday, December 14, 2020
Sunday, November 22, 2020
1200
Everyone had left Cahokia because the tyrant had made the place run out of corn, and nobody felt like bringing him more deer meat. He was way up on that city of the sun, in the center of all those rivers, and he had everything - gold, women, trinkets, wood, you name it. But it was too easy to wander off and nobody felt like hanging around taking the brunt of his temper, risking dying, why? Just for a little city life?
Back then the rivers all had water. The Rio Grande came up through Texas and then up through central New Mexico to Albuquerque, or what is Albuquerque today, and there was water all the way, birds and fish, and you could sail boats up there. There was a town at Chaco Canyon and they knew how to boil down metal and make jewelry that shone in the sun. You'd bring them plenty of food and they'd give you jewelry and it was a pretty good deal for everyone. They talked about the city of gold down in Mexico, well, that was it. People came from all over.
There were other cities as well; one was out in Nebraska, another in Kansas, and they've just found some of them. If you didn't like Cahokia, you could head out west, eat a few buffalo, land in one of these places, and then just go and pick up some jewelry. Lots of other choices too.
Everyone had boats and knew how to use them. That's why, you could go down to the Caribbean, or Cozumel, if you wanted. The rivers had water.
Of course you had to work out the details of the language. Half the time you were using your hands, or looking at drawings carved on rock. It was hard enough getting stuff to eat. But trying to figure out these rock drawings, that was crazy. Nobody really knew what they meant. Sometimes they would send you in some direction and you'd be thinking there was food right around the corner, but instead, nothing. Like those rock drawings were just messing with you.
But that's the way it was. If they'd made it easy, we would never have invented cars.
Back then the rivers all had water. The Rio Grande came up through Texas and then up through central New Mexico to Albuquerque, or what is Albuquerque today, and there was water all the way, birds and fish, and you could sail boats up there. There was a town at Chaco Canyon and they knew how to boil down metal and make jewelry that shone in the sun. You'd bring them plenty of food and they'd give you jewelry and it was a pretty good deal for everyone. They talked about the city of gold down in Mexico, well, that was it. People came from all over.
There were other cities as well; one was out in Nebraska, another in Kansas, and they've just found some of them. If you didn't like Cahokia, you could head out west, eat a few buffalo, land in one of these places, and then just go and pick up some jewelry. Lots of other choices too.
Everyone had boats and knew how to use them. That's why, you could go down to the Caribbean, or Cozumel, if you wanted. The rivers had water.
Of course you had to work out the details of the language. Half the time you were using your hands, or looking at drawings carved on rock. It was hard enough getting stuff to eat. But trying to figure out these rock drawings, that was crazy. Nobody really knew what they meant. Sometimes they would send you in some direction and you'd be thinking there was food right around the corner, but instead, nothing. Like those rock drawings were just messing with you.
But that's the way it was. If they'd made it easy, we would never have invented cars.
Monday, October 12, 2020
Patience, My Dear
I couldn't help but do some preliminary research on William Brewster, elder of the Plymouth Colony, who is one of my distant ancestors. Of his children, Jonathan, Patience, Fear, Love, and Wrestling, several died of smallpox in the New World, and they brought some adopted charges, the More children, with them; there are a lot of stories in here. We are descended from Patience, through a number of daughters, down to a son or two, and through a daughter who married my great-great grandfather.
So unlike the Leveretts, the line of descent is clear. And unlike the Puritans, the Pilgrims were more like the Quakers - they simply dropped out of the Church of England and paid the price. The price was living in the Netherlands for many years and ultimately going to the New World.
I got most of my information here as Wikipedia seems to compile the generally known, generally uncontroversial details. From this page you go off and find where people argue one way or another, and point out interesting facts about the nature of the Pilgrim community. Much is written about the Mayflower, for example, as it had the distinction of being the first, so early, and I think if anybody wrote anything about it whatsoever, it very well may have already been dug up and examined many times.
Although William Brewster arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, Patience and Fear did not arrive until three years later. I was surprised to find out that Love was a boy, but he was. Plymouth Colony had as one of its major settlements a town called Duxbury, and we have other ancestors who started out there, which leads me to wonder about the different motivations of Puritans and Pilgrims, especially with regard to tolerance. The Pilgrims, having dropped out of the church altogether, had a general tolerance I believe that we don't see in Boston or parts up there.
But what about the personal aspects? Starting up a new life on the Plymouth peninsula would be a hard choice for Patience and Fear, both of whom were women, I believe.
The list of famous Americans who are descended from Elder Brewster is long; it includes Katherine Hepburn, Ted Danson, Julia Child, Bing Crosby, Howard Dean, George McClellan, Sarah Palin, Nelson Rockefeller and Adlai Stevenson. These are just the ones who stand out to me, but what it means is that, basically, when their name comes up, I can say that they are a distant relative. If we share Elder Brewster as a common ancestor (albeit fourteen generations up, or something like that), then they may even be cousins, like fourteenth cousin, etc. Not that I would want to claim each of them, but hey, that's true even of my first and second cousins.
There could be more in here than I suspect.
So unlike the Leveretts, the line of descent is clear. And unlike the Puritans, the Pilgrims were more like the Quakers - they simply dropped out of the Church of England and paid the price. The price was living in the Netherlands for many years and ultimately going to the New World.
I got most of my information here as Wikipedia seems to compile the generally known, generally uncontroversial details. From this page you go off and find where people argue one way or another, and point out interesting facts about the nature of the Pilgrim community. Much is written about the Mayflower, for example, as it had the distinction of being the first, so early, and I think if anybody wrote anything about it whatsoever, it very well may have already been dug up and examined many times.
Although William Brewster arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, Patience and Fear did not arrive until three years later. I was surprised to find out that Love was a boy, but he was. Plymouth Colony had as one of its major settlements a town called Duxbury, and we have other ancestors who started out there, which leads me to wonder about the different motivations of Puritans and Pilgrims, especially with regard to tolerance. The Pilgrims, having dropped out of the church altogether, had a general tolerance I believe that we don't see in Boston or parts up there.
But what about the personal aspects? Starting up a new life on the Plymouth peninsula would be a hard choice for Patience and Fear, both of whom were women, I believe.
The list of famous Americans who are descended from Elder Brewster is long; it includes Katherine Hepburn, Ted Danson, Julia Child, Bing Crosby, Howard Dean, George McClellan, Sarah Palin, Nelson Rockefeller and Adlai Stevenson. These are just the ones who stand out to me, but what it means is that, basically, when their name comes up, I can say that they are a distant relative. If we share Elder Brewster as a common ancestor (albeit fourteen generations up, or something like that), then they may even be cousins, like fourteenth cousin, etc. Not that I would want to claim each of them, but hey, that's true even of my first and second cousins.
There could be more in here than I suspect.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Like a Comet
Celeste was a young girl of about fourteen who ran away from home one winter day in Los Angeles. Things were crazy where she lived and she left, determined not to go back. She met a nice man in a park who gave her some food, and the park was full of hiding places, so she decided to stay near that park. The man came to recognize her, and would feed her if he had any food with him. He didn't seem to be a bad guy; on the contrary, he cared about her, though he tried to find out about her home. But she wouldn't tell him details; in fact, she didn't even know exactly where her home was, compared to the park.
She lived in a compound about two and a half miles away, of a cult called Heaven's Gate, which was overseen by a strong-willed religious leader. There had been some friction in recent days. Her parents were suffering from that friction, and therefore had not been very attentive to her problems. Like most parents, they were concerned when their child was missing, very concerned. But unlike most parents, they didn't go to the police to report her absence. They didn't get along with the police. They lived in their own world, and the police were not part of it. They would be out there looking for her, yes, but the police probably didn't even know about her.
The man who befriended Celeste was an astronomer, and worked very hard at studying the skies, at least as much as could be done in a place like Los Angeles, where it is smoggy and you don't see so many of them. He would drive way up to an observatory in the mountains outside of L.A. at various times, and at least there, he had a chance. A comet had just been seen. It was the Hale-Bopp comet, discovered by two men; one of these is my own neighbor, which is why I know this story. But this comet had just been discovered, so this man was busy. Like most astronomers, he worked to explain the heavens and the things they saw. When he got home he would take another walk in the park near his house. This was the park where he met the girl, and the park where the girl had decided to stay. They would meet by a bench as she would be watching for him when he walked by, and after a while she would just appear, and they'd sit on the bench and eat and talk. At first he gave her some snacks he was carrying with him, but after that he'd bring her food deliberately, which she always devoured and thanked him heartily for.
To her, clinging to survival, it was of utmost importance not to go home, as she sensed there was danger there. She told him a little about a life full of abuse and tyranny, but it was enough that it was clear she would not go home no matter what. And she really did not trust the authorities either, as they would probably take her home, or get her parents or the cult involved in whatever happened. But she was quite good at staying out of sight and surviving, and living off of whatever she could get both from him and just from the wild fruits back in the park. She had blankets and various clothes with her, and was able to get enough supplies so that she could hide for hours at a time, and that's what she needed. She needed for some time to go by, so that they would give up looking for her. She explained all this to the astronomer.
For his part, he wondered whether to turn her in to authorities, but decided not to as part of an agreement he had with her. She would be friendly and talk to him, if he only agreed not to turn her in. He studied her and decided not to tell anyone, but rather to just feed her, both mornings and evenings, so she could survive. In a fairly short time they became good friends. They talked about astronomy, and the comet, and the drive up into the mountains; those were the big things in his life. In her life were the wild animals, the people she'd met, and the constant danger of being turned in to authorities. She was actually quite good at survival; this was clear to him.
Though it was just after Christmas, L.A. was warm at night, and they could sit on the bench sometimes for over an hour talking. Cars would rush by, as L.A. traffic is ever-present and relentless. She did not seem concerned that someone in a car would recognize her, or that the police would be looking for her. She had gotten used to being relatively free to come and go, in a state of being relatively presentable and, when she was out, always looking like she was going somewhere. But usually, she spent her days hiding and reading. She read voraciously, and eventually got the astronomer to lend her some books and magazines which she devoured in her plentiful free time.
The astronomer, however, was paying attention to the news, and on the news there was a stunning development. The people of the Heaven's Gate cult had committed mass suicide, convinced that at the comet's closest point to earth, it would take them with it, and they would be free from the travails of this earthly life. As a trick of fate this cult and its mass suicide would be associated with the comet forever. It happened on about the fifth day of their acquaintance; she had been away from home perhaps five or six whole days.
The astronomer told the girl the day after he'd read the news. It was unmistakably the same cult that she'd escaped from. He watched her face for her reaction; no doubt her parents were involved, as was everyone she had known before she'd escaped. There was no telling if there were other people like her who had escaped and somehow avoided that fate. When she heard the number of people, he could tell she was calculating and counting in her head, as there were people she was sure who would do it, but others who may have slipped out as she did. She did not appear to be too surprised at what happened, only curious about whether anyone else had survived.
Her waiting was over. There was no longer anyone who could come and find her and take her back to her wretched life. There were relatives somewhere, albeit distant, who she could now find and who would take her in so she could finish high school. She was no longer afraid of the authorities either, as they could not take her home; they would now take her to those relatives. The astronomer could tell that she was relieved and ready to move on to another stage of her life.
My neighbor, who also is an astronomer, is philosophical about the comet he discovered being associated forever with a suicide cult. He of course did not know the girl or anyone in Los Angeles at the time. He did, however, meet the California astronomer at a convention a couple of years later, and they talked about their experience during the time of the comet. That man told him about the girl, and how they'd become good friends over a period of about a week, and then how she'd pretty much disappeared, never to return to that park or even to L.A. as far as he knew. Sometimes you just want to get away from a bad memory, and the best way to do it is to just leave everything behind and not look back. They talked about how a comet would be bright, and would preoccupy them, and then it would disappear, not to be seen again for many, many years. At its closest to the earth, it would dazzle them, as they were used to the same old view, day in and day out, and a comet would seem bright, different, sparkling. To the astronomer, it was a reminder that even in the heavens, things would happen that you never would have guessed. And you had to admire the tenacity, the life and the spirit of the natural world and the creatures in it.
She lived in a compound about two and a half miles away, of a cult called Heaven's Gate, which was overseen by a strong-willed religious leader. There had been some friction in recent days. Her parents were suffering from that friction, and therefore had not been very attentive to her problems. Like most parents, they were concerned when their child was missing, very concerned. But unlike most parents, they didn't go to the police to report her absence. They didn't get along with the police. They lived in their own world, and the police were not part of it. They would be out there looking for her, yes, but the police probably didn't even know about her.
The man who befriended Celeste was an astronomer, and worked very hard at studying the skies, at least as much as could be done in a place like Los Angeles, where it is smoggy and you don't see so many of them. He would drive way up to an observatory in the mountains outside of L.A. at various times, and at least there, he had a chance. A comet had just been seen. It was the Hale-Bopp comet, discovered by two men; one of these is my own neighbor, which is why I know this story. But this comet had just been discovered, so this man was busy. Like most astronomers, he worked to explain the heavens and the things they saw. When he got home he would take another walk in the park near his house. This was the park where he met the girl, and the park where the girl had decided to stay. They would meet by a bench as she would be watching for him when he walked by, and after a while she would just appear, and they'd sit on the bench and eat and talk. At first he gave her some snacks he was carrying with him, but after that he'd bring her food deliberately, which she always devoured and thanked him heartily for.
To her, clinging to survival, it was of utmost importance not to go home, as she sensed there was danger there. She told him a little about a life full of abuse and tyranny, but it was enough that it was clear she would not go home no matter what. And she really did not trust the authorities either, as they would probably take her home, or get her parents or the cult involved in whatever happened. But she was quite good at staying out of sight and surviving, and living off of whatever she could get both from him and just from the wild fruits back in the park. She had blankets and various clothes with her, and was able to get enough supplies so that she could hide for hours at a time, and that's what she needed. She needed for some time to go by, so that they would give up looking for her. She explained all this to the astronomer.
For his part, he wondered whether to turn her in to authorities, but decided not to as part of an agreement he had with her. She would be friendly and talk to him, if he only agreed not to turn her in. He studied her and decided not to tell anyone, but rather to just feed her, both mornings and evenings, so she could survive. In a fairly short time they became good friends. They talked about astronomy, and the comet, and the drive up into the mountains; those were the big things in his life. In her life were the wild animals, the people she'd met, and the constant danger of being turned in to authorities. She was actually quite good at survival; this was clear to him.
Though it was just after Christmas, L.A. was warm at night, and they could sit on the bench sometimes for over an hour talking. Cars would rush by, as L.A. traffic is ever-present and relentless. She did not seem concerned that someone in a car would recognize her, or that the police would be looking for her. She had gotten used to being relatively free to come and go, in a state of being relatively presentable and, when she was out, always looking like she was going somewhere. But usually, she spent her days hiding and reading. She read voraciously, and eventually got the astronomer to lend her some books and magazines which she devoured in her plentiful free time.
The astronomer, however, was paying attention to the news, and on the news there was a stunning development. The people of the Heaven's Gate cult had committed mass suicide, convinced that at the comet's closest point to earth, it would take them with it, and they would be free from the travails of this earthly life. As a trick of fate this cult and its mass suicide would be associated with the comet forever. It happened on about the fifth day of their acquaintance; she had been away from home perhaps five or six whole days.
The astronomer told the girl the day after he'd read the news. It was unmistakably the same cult that she'd escaped from. He watched her face for her reaction; no doubt her parents were involved, as was everyone she had known before she'd escaped. There was no telling if there were other people like her who had escaped and somehow avoided that fate. When she heard the number of people, he could tell she was calculating and counting in her head, as there were people she was sure who would do it, but others who may have slipped out as she did. She did not appear to be too surprised at what happened, only curious about whether anyone else had survived.
Her waiting was over. There was no longer anyone who could come and find her and take her back to her wretched life. There were relatives somewhere, albeit distant, who she could now find and who would take her in so she could finish high school. She was no longer afraid of the authorities either, as they could not take her home; they would now take her to those relatives. The astronomer could tell that she was relieved and ready to move on to another stage of her life.
My neighbor, who also is an astronomer, is philosophical about the comet he discovered being associated forever with a suicide cult. He of course did not know the girl or anyone in Los Angeles at the time. He did, however, meet the California astronomer at a convention a couple of years later, and they talked about their experience during the time of the comet. That man told him about the girl, and how they'd become good friends over a period of about a week, and then how she'd pretty much disappeared, never to return to that park or even to L.A. as far as he knew. Sometimes you just want to get away from a bad memory, and the best way to do it is to just leave everything behind and not look back. They talked about how a comet would be bright, and would preoccupy them, and then it would disappear, not to be seen again for many, many years. At its closest to the earth, it would dazzle them, as they were used to the same old view, day in and day out, and a comet would seem bright, different, sparkling. To the astronomer, it was a reminder that even in the heavens, things would happen that you never would have guessed. And you had to admire the tenacity, the life and the spirit of the natural world and the creatures in it.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Comin' 'Round to Lovin' It
Monday, August 24, 2020
Powder House Rock
Powder House Rock
My name is Lydia Fuller, or to be more accurate, Lydia Fuller Leverett Griggs. I married a guy named William, and had six children, and then he died, and I married Mr. Joshua Griggs and had two more. But all of that later. First I want to tell about growing up.
I grew up in Needham, west of Boston, and Needham is right near Dedham; in fact the boundaries shifted over the years, so I’m really talking about the same place. You could say I grew up in both. My father was Lieutenant William Fuller, and his father was Captain Robert Fuller. Everyone knew them. My father was on the Lexington Alarm Rolls, and helped to fortify Dorchester Heights against the British. By the time I was born, 1777, the Revolution was in full swing but my dad and grandpa had already done plenty of fighting already. Lexington, Concord, and all those places are not that far from Needham and Dedham.
I had this young friend, Eben Turner. He was five years older than me, but he got to Dedham about the time I was born, when he was five. We were young together, or rather, we were part of a group of kids that went everywhere together. We would go up to Powder House Rock, for example, in Dedham. The Powder House on that rock was built by my grandpa in 1766. Well, really, the whole town decided it needed to put its munitions up on that rock, right around that time, and my grandpa, being good at building and all, organized the building of that little house. It’s not so big, or fancy, but it has a great view, of the Charles, of Dedham, of the valley, of everything for miles around.
Back then people were sure that the British were coming and that they were going to destroy everything. They occupied Boston for all those years, and they took what they wanted, and caused a lot of trouble. By the time of Lexington and Concord, they’d already been around for years.
Lots of people went off to fight in the revolution. My dad, like I said, was on the Lexington Alarm Rolls, and served at the time of Burgoyne. Eben’s dad wasn’t so lucky. He was at Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, but died of smallpox in 1777, in Half Moon Bay, near Albany. That’s why Eben was sent to live with his Uncle Joseph in Dedham. His mom had been left with seven kids and no one to help her.
So we kids would go up to Powder House Rock and look around. We’d look at the Charles, way below, where there was a footbridge that my relatives had helped to make, and we’d climb up and down those rocks. We’d tell stories of things we’d heard from people around the area. We had a lot of stories. Our summers were really nice, and a lot of them, we’d be climbing all over those rocks.
Eben like I said was five years older than I was, so he graduated and felt like he had to move on right while I was still in school. It was not like we were romantically attached or anything, he was just a friend, but older than me. And when he was about twenty-five he married and moved off to Maine. His wife was Polly Sumner, but I didn’t really know her so well. The reason he could go to Maine was that he had another uncle, Uncle Reuben, who was already up there. Maine was still part of Massachusetts then, but it was frontier – all woods, and very cold in winter. He told me about it once. He was excited about going and he wanted to start all over.
So I didn’t hear from him for a long time, in fact we lost contact altogether. I married this guy, William Leverett, who grew up in Needham. We moved to Brookline, which is really closer to the center of Boston. He was trying to be a farmer on old land that belonged to the family. Times were tough. I had six children, as I said, and then he died of alcoholism, basically.
I remarried Joshua Griggs, but he already had children and we soon had two other boys. I could see that my six were in tough straits. We were farmers but they were always hungry and would soon get into trouble.
Now William, who I had married, had had a couple of sisters who had also ended up in Maine. I didn’t really know that this place they had gone was anywhere near where Eben was. One was his older sister Catherine, who married a farmer and was childless. Another was Rebeckah, who went up there and married, but then moved to some other part of Maine.
So Catherine, who was childless, kept after me about my young boys. The oldest
one was very attached to his great aunt, my sister’s mother-in-law; she was
Baptist and wanted him to be a Reverend, which he was. But his younger brother
Joseph was the one who I knew would really love Maine. So I sent him up there
to live with his Aunt Catherine. She and her husband brought him up up there,
in the woods, cutting trees and all, until he grew up, joined the service, and
got married.
I didn’t think much of it that he’d married a Turner, as there were Turners all over the place. And he told me that they were coming down through Brookline to see us on their way through to Illinois in a wagon. Sure enough, in they came one day, in a party of four or five wagons and lots of horses and everything they owned. Most of the wagons found some other place to park, but Joseph and his family stopped for a good long visit. They were moving to Illinois.
He introduced me to his wife, Mary Turner, and she was nice enough, but there was something familiar about her. They were both about the same age, born around 1803, and they’d already been married a few years, and had three young boys with them. There was William, named after my first husband, and then James Walker, named after the stepfather or rather uncle who had brought him up. But the youngest one was Eben. Oh, he’s named after Mary’s father, Joseph said. Her father’s on this trip, but he’s on one of the other wagons.
Turns out it was my old friend Eben Turner from Dedham. He was giving up on Maine and moving out to Illinois to start all over. Along with his daughter Mary and her husband, my son, he also had a few sons along on the trip. He was about sixty now, as I was about fifty-five, and I felt a little embarrassed. He looked at our crowded house in Brookline. I’d raised seven other children, and a couple of Joshua’s from his first wife. But I’d sent Joseph up there, and it turns out it was up to Maine to be in the hands of Eben, though I didn’t know it at the time. That’s because he’d grown up with the Walkers, but as soon as he was old enough to marry, he’d married right into Eben’s family. And now here they were, all on the same wagon train.
It was good to see Eben again, and remember all those times in our childhood, up at Powder House Rock and all, looking out over the valley. We were family now; his daughter had married my son. Way back at that time when I’d sent Joseph off into the woods, I’d been so worried about him. But it was the same woods that Eben himself had gone off into, and Joseph in some way was kind of like me; he’d just found that family as his most natural companions.
Little Eben was the cutest little boy. I’d kind of deprived myself of being their grandmother, since Joseph had been gone all those years, but I could see all of us in those little children, and I gave them all big hugs as they took their wagons out and started off on the 1600-mile trip out west. You can bet Eben and I told those little children the stories of Powder House Rock, first, though.
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
John Eaton & Powder House Rock
So let me see if I got this straight.
John Eaton, who came from a long line of John Eatons, and produced a long line of John Eatons, went insane. He was the one who had has affairs taken away from him so that he wouldn’t do anything irresponsible with the farm, the homestead, the family inheritance. His wife Alice was highly thought of. When she went to the local community, they supported her in taking away his rights.
This was in the town of Dedham, Mass., and it was in the late 1600’s or early 1700’s like the witch trials in nearby Salem and Boston. The case of this John Eaton is sometimes used to prove that the mentally ill in early Puritan New England were not always treated as witches, or isolated by the community, or ganged up upon.
But it’s not exactly clear what did happen to him. His son William seems to have gotten most of the estate. There was a place at Purgatory Point (?) a ways outside of Dedham where I believe they lived. Actually this one author believes this; I have no idea. There was also the original estate that was on the cliffs above downtown Dedham, on the Charles, where Powder House Rock now sits in a patch of woods with a beautiful view.
There is some interest in how this land, with Powder House and Powder House Rock, got into the hands of Robert Fuller or the Fuller family, which apparently built the Powder House in 1766. But that connection is fairly easy. William’s daughter Sarah married Robert Fuller.
Now there are some complications which I will get into. One is that Sarah’s father John had a father Nicholas, not a whole lot of Johns. So I’m not quite convinced that this Sarah is descended from the man who went insane in the early 1700’s. There were a number of John Eatons around.
The land was actually transferred from William Eaton to one Aaron Fuller, who they suspect was living there, as opposed to the Eatons; the Eatons were apparently already out at Purgatory. To the author of the book, John Eaton Alden, the mystery is why the land would be transferred to Aaron Fuller and so soon after, used by the city for a Powder House. The city apparently felt that having a powder house up on the ridge over the Charles and over Dedham itself, was a necessary defensive tactic in the runup to the war itself. Keep in mind that by 1766 Boston was already occupied by the British.
Captain Robert Fuller, who it is said built the Powder House, was a soldier in the Revolution (it has been said; I think he was too early). It was his son William who was on the Lexington Alarm Rolls and who therefore was a first responder to the revolution itself. There is a story here, obviously. Captain Robert I think had been a soldier in some previous war. And it could have been Captain Robert who had, as a soldier in the French & Indian War, got Fuller Hill in Maine, part of Livermore Falls which was once called Port Royal (Maine), as a reward for his service.
This stuff is real; it’s too wild to make up.
Now here’s the thing. The John Eaton who went insane, they don’t know when he died, or how. Somehow William Eaton just got his farm. And the Johns in the picture – there were actually several – don’t seem to have been around when this happened. William was the responsible son who watched the estate, who, along with his mother Alice, made amends after John Eaton went on his rages. But William did not necessarily want the Purgatory place OR the Powder House Rock. If the Fullers and the city wanted it, maybe that was ok with him.
Not sure how this all panned out, but I’m sure it’s a story.
Sunday, August 2, 2020
Hands Off That Pear
Hands Off That Pear
& 23 other short stories
Available on Amazon $5.29 + shipping
Available on Kindle $3.79
more coming!
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
novels
I have three novels on the table. One I am furiously working on; it's actually the third. The other two are half done. They will get done soon enough. I will explain.
I actually have a lot of novel ideas. I don't put them all on this blog. I have plenty of things I've already published but no novel yet. I started one I think on this blog once, and finally it just got buried by the sands of time and now it's way down there, in the heart of the blog.
That's the cool thing about blogs; they tend to hide things in order of year. So if you know when you had some novel idea, you could look up "November 2014" and find it. But most of us don't organize like that. A better idea, for me, would be to put the ideas themselves in the template, and click on them from there.
I do keep track of Quaker plays ideas. Those Quaker plays, I'm also producing, as we speak. The book won't be done right away. It might take a little while. I'll keep you posted.
I actually have a lot of novel ideas. I don't put them all on this blog. I have plenty of things I've already published but no novel yet. I started one I think on this blog once, and finally it just got buried by the sands of time and now it's way down there, in the heart of the blog.
That's the cool thing about blogs; they tend to hide things in order of year. So if you know when you had some novel idea, you could look up "November 2014" and find it. But most of us don't organize like that. A better idea, for me, would be to put the ideas themselves in the template, and click on them from there.
I do keep track of Quaker plays ideas. Those Quaker plays, I'm also producing, as we speak. The book won't be done right away. It might take a little while. I'll keep you posted.
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