Times of Hardship

By the time the Times of Hardship were over, everyone in Boston was united against the British. Dock workers, businessmen, shippers, the man in the street: they hated the British occupying soldiers. Boston became the Cradle of the Revolution. No town was more united in spirit than Boston.

I had three relatives, one an ancestor, who lived through them; they had grown up in the city. The Times of Hardship were actually a period of time in which England occupied Boston with troops who were rude, uncouth, and disrespectful. The troops would beat up or kill locals in gangs and get away with it. They were also allowed to compete for jobs on the docks that were already scarce. And they did this obviously because they weren't being paid enough. They showed great disrespect to the dock workers, beat them up regularly, and said whatever they wanted about who started it or whose fault it was.

The dockworkers were a rough and tumble bunch who had started out burning effigies of the Pope or of Guy Fawkes, but soon turned into anti-British mobs who would gather in gangs and attack British-oowned enterprises; such was the Tea Party, though it didn't come until later. Let's just say that the dockworker culture became visibly and violently anti-British and it was for very good reason. All through the colonies, people were generally ok with being British, ok with being a colony, until it became economically punishing to be aligned with them, so the business class, which was much more numerous and prosperous, was slowly joining the rebel cause as the various taxes took their toll. For his part, the King was arrogant and liked to use the taxes to punish the rebels. You attack our ships, we raise your tariffs that much more. You don't like this, screw you, give me your money. It seemed like robbery to people who were used to a well-ordered system of trade values.

John Leverett, an ancestor of mine, had an import business that he'd set up back in the days when British goods were really popular. It was in the old Town Dock in the heart of Boston's business district, and it sold things for women who made their own dresses: buttons, hems, lace, that kind of thing. He sold the newest of what came off the ships from England, and he'd done this for years, and made a lot of money. He lived right downtown behind the First Church, where Hudson had once lived, because as the oldest son of Knight the metalsmith he inherited it. He had his kids baptised in the church and was proud that his line could be traced up to John the Governor of the Colony in the 1670s. He was so entrenched in his business that he couldn't do much when the Times of Hardship snuck up on everyone and turned the city virulently anti-British.

So it was that a mob burned and destroyed his entire store one night. Some people have said that it was British soldiers who did it in revenge for anti-British mobs, but the more I study the event, the more I believe it was just anti-British mobs destroying everything that had any connection to Britain and looting everything they could. I'll admit I don't know who did it, but it doesn't matter; his store, his livelihood, his identity were all gone in a single night. He became an Overseer of the Poor.

Overseers of the Poor were like social workers tasked to make sure that widows and single mothers, and their children, didn't starve in hard times. Most of them had come from the business community and, like John, had enough money themselves. The community would give them a territory and then give them surplus food or money to spend to feed the people who were starving in it.

The problem was that the Times of Hardship included an economic blockade that was so bad that that money and those supplies had dwindled to nothing. It became practice for Boston children to be sent out to the countryside to be adopted by farm families who at least had food to eat, as even the adults in Boston proper were starving and whoever could do it was sneaking out to the countryside to get food and smuggle it back. Of course soldiers would stop them and harass them on the roads in and out of Boston: show me your papers, give me that food or I'll beat you up, this kind of thing. It was ugly. Everyone hated the Times of Hardship.

John's oldest son John was growing up and due to go to Harvard in 1773. By that time the whole city was aligned very strongly against the British. There were a few Loyalists, but it was getting so if you were a Loyalist you'd better just shut up or go back to Britain quick while you had time.

John had a brother Thomas, who was a printer, and whose son Thomas was also due to go to Harvard in 1773. John Jr. and Thomas Jr. had in essence grown up together, baptised in the same church, cousins the same age, both oldest boy in the family. Thomas the printer had made a fortune too, printing grammar books for people in the countryside and printing just about everything that needed printing. Printing was a lucrative business at that time though it involved importing paper and put one in the crosshairs of a freedom of speech fight that was getting pretty nasty. Thomas had done well financially and had an estate in Medford or somewhere north of Boston.

When it came time for the boys to go to Harvard, they did. They were the same age, were cousins, and were inseperable in their Harvard years. But in their senior year, Harvard moved itself off to Concord so that the rebel troops could house themselves in the Harvard buildings. By that time it was war time and people contributed whatever they could to the cause.

There was another Leverett who appeared to live in the shadows; this one was my ancestor. I'm still not sure exactly where he came from or what his timeline was. At the time John Jr. and thomas Jr. were at Harvard and in Concord, he had moved out of town and established himself in Needham on a small piece of land. He had possibly grown up in Thomas' estate in Medford, being a relative but not a son of Thomas the printer, and was a little older than John Jr. and Thomas Jr. The first of his children were born in Boston but then they began being born and recorded in Needham.

The Times of Hardship had a very strong effect on Boston and on the political climate. The Boston Massacre happened on docks that were once part of the Leverett estate, though that whole downtown estate had to be sold when John Leverett the President of Harvard died, having been starved into debt by Puritans who wanted him to give up making Harvard a secular school back in the early 1700s. The original estate, which went from what is today the Sears Building down Congress Street to the harbor (what was known as Leverett Lane, then Quaker Lane), was also the home of the Tea Party and is today where the Tea Party museum stands. It was called Gray's dock back then, and the Grays married into the Leverett family (Thomas the printer's wife) and were very prominent and important people at the time. There were a lot of land transfers between the sale of the estate and the Revolution, so I can't prove any of this, but it's well known that both the Massacre and the Tea Party happened roughly at Gray's dock so I'll stand by my claims for the moment.

Thomas the printer died during the revolution; John the Overseer of the Poor got sick and his son John Jr. moved with him and his wife to Connecticut. Both John Jr. and Thomas Jr. graduated from Harvard, in Concord; Thomas became a surgeon, but was drafted and captured on a boat, and spent years imprisoned by the British in Brooklyn Harbor, on a boat that they made a movie out of, because conditions were so horrible that people died left and right. To the colonists the conditions on that prison boat somewhat represented the contempt that Britain had for the rebels from the start, that raised everyone's ire and made them that much more patriotic to split off from a country that there was otherwise no reason to be so angry about. Why, you might ask, would the colonies need to fight and kill to be free of their British heritage? Well, put yourself in the Times of Hardship and you'll see why.

John Jr. was busy taking care of his father and mother in Connecticut, but joined the Army at one point; his service was short and late in the war. Thomas Jr. died early from his experience in Brooklyn Harbor. William, the guy in Needham, was recruited to be an officer, and fought in the Battle of MOnmouth (I believe) and the Battle of Rhode Island, but officers weren't being paid very well, and this created an issue for his family back home in Needham. It was rough times and everyone was in pretty bad health but somehow one of his sons survived, and through him apparently my line sprung up. Somehow the memory of the Times of Hardship is still in our bones. The right to free speech, the right to protest, the right to associate with whomever you want, the right to not be kidnapped and beat up randomly, the right to have whatever religion you want, or no religion at all, the right to carry arms and fight back against armed thugs, the right to keep and eat the food you grow, these are rights that we had written into the Constitution the minute we got the chance to write it. And when we did, John Hancock, first of the big ship-owners and businessmen, was the first to sign it, or maybe just signed it the biggest. Everyone was against the armed thugs by that time, there wasn't anyone who actually still wanted to see them around, taking everyone's food and beating them up at will. That had gone on for years, too many years. To be free of that was a joyous occasion, worthy of a shout out.

Local Author Fair

White Elephant

(my new one) White Elephant: A folktale retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Magical realism in a well-known story. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FSXS741M

Be Our Guest

Same book, new cover
Be Our Guest: A retelling of Beauty and the Beast
I can now say that it's part of a set of three, all retellings of Beauty and the Beast; second one's done and coming soon.
Paperback $7.39, kindle $2.99, free on ku
https://www.amazon.com/Be-Our-Guest-retelling-Beauty/dp/B0FM82CSKX

Be Our Guest

Be Our Guest
A retelling of Beauty and the Beast

Now available on Amazon:
Paperback $7.39 + shipping
Kindle $2.99
Free on Kindle Unlimited
(paperback link not working temporarily for some reason)

This tale is part of the Global Beasts Series in which every book features a different country. This one is set in Thailand, against the government shutdown of Tiger Temple, a famous tourist theme park in Kanchanaburi. It's a tale as old as time, but it can be seen in many ways, with a wide variety of characters. The original tale was written in 1740, and this one brings the original to light against the traditional ideas of karma, reincarnation, and animism that have been in Thailand since before Buddhism ever arrived.

Geneva Jane (cont'd)

This story is similar to the last one, but it incorporates new information and is told with a focus on Geneva Jane, who is one of my favorites.

The legend of our family's arrival in the US revolves around two boys who stole a pig in Scotland, and in running from the authorities, sought shelter in Northern Ireland, whereupon they ultimately continued on to Pennsylvania. The story may be more complicated than that but that's what we have to work with. There may be three brothers. They may have stayed in Northern Ireland for longer than we'd think.

Geneva Jane and Elizabeth were the daughters of a fisherman in County Donegal, Ireland, near Londonderry. This is important partly because it's a political boundary; Donegal is part of Ireland, while Londonderry is part of Northern Ireland. Back in about 1780 it may not have mattered so much.

But even then, there were many Protestants in Northern Ireland, put there by the king for his own reasons. They survived but living wasn't easy. The rest of Ireland disliked and distrusted them. They could not go back to Scotland; there was no work or land there. Poor people were literally being squeezed off the land back in Scotland. Such was the fate of the Wallace boys who found their way across the channel. No work, no money, no land back in Scotland.

Elizabeth and Geneva Jane's father was a Crawford, and thus associated with the Scots in the north. But he fished waters that could be said to be off the coast of Donegal as well as Londonderry. One time a terrible storm came through, and he told his sons and friends to stay home; sure enough, it killed almost the whole village, and widows and orphans grieved on all sides of them. So he was known as a wise man and a survivor, at least of bad storms like that one.

This story may have been told in the family partly to explain why Geneva Jane and Elizabeth could choose to leave. There were no men to marry! Life was hard enough in their small village, living off the fisherman's catch. But they had to have something to look forward to.

Now along came two brothers, or possibly three, looking for relatives of theirs from Scotland. They'd escaped Scotland because they had stolen a pig (supposedly), and were being chased by authorities. It's possible that one of these brothers, John, caught Geneva Jane's eye. But he found his relative, and, after a short refuge from the pursuing authorities, set out for Pennsylvania. I am not sure about which brother or how many may have gone with him. Perhaps it was just him.

Actually it was in 1770 that four Wallace brothers - William, Hugh, James, and John went to America, where they ended up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. From the fact that the four went together I surmise that 1) one or two or even three were already in Ireland when John (and brother(s?) crossed the channel; and, 2) they were looking for the brother(s) when they crossed, having no money. Somehow the four brothers got up the money to go to America and did.

I would like to think that John met Geneva Jane while crossing the channel. It would make sense that the father helped with the transport across the channel, or was on shore when they landed, helping them find their way to their brother(s). She could very easily have been there, but there's no way to know for sure.  

In any case he landed in Pennsylvania somewhere, married, and had a boy. But his wife died, and he was heartbroken, presumably. He left the boy with grandparents and took the next ship home.

But he didn't return to Scotland, where there were no jobs, no land, and the law was still presumably on his trail. Instead, he went to Donegal, and found Geneva Jane. He married her (I think) and had six children, all there in Donegal/Londonderry. I'm not sure what he did, or how he got by. The youngest of the children was Robert (1796), who we are interested in because he became a patriarch of a large Walllace family in Wallace Run, near Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

Scot irish were leaving all the time for the new world. Northern Ireland, and Scotland, had bleak economic times, and there seemed to be easier living in the new world. For the Scots, it was even more important to be free of religious tyranny. Elizabeth had married a guy named John Scott. He said something against the Church and was thrown in jail. Elizabeth had enough, and announced she was going to the new world. When they finally released him, he could come join her in exile. Life would be no fun for him in Ireland anyway, what with the place controlled by Catholics who held grudges.

John Scott would eventually join her, and they would end up in Wallace Run. They had a daughter who married a Wallace, as Wallace Run was full of Wallaces, so they would be relatives in several ways. Elizabeth was to get a disease or condition that hunched her over badly - but she was well loved by the entire family, as was Geneva Jane by hers.

Meanwhile John Wallace had married in Carlisle, and had a son, but his wife died. Presumably heartbroken, he left the child behind, to be raised by the grandparents, and set off to go back across the sea.

But now he picked Northern Ireland, instead of Scotland, and when he got there he found and married Geneva Jane. That's why I suggested that he'd met her crossing the channel already, though I couldn't say that for sure. It would make sense that he already knew her and perhaps was even looking for her - or maybe they had corresponded? By now she was tired of an isolated fishing village, and he was worldly, having seen Pennsylvania. They stayed in Northern Ireland and had six children, Robert being the youngest, before they would decide to go to America.

John and Geneva Jane picked 1799 to go to the new world, and they settled in Cecil County, Maryland. Of their six children Robert, the youngest, would have been only about three when they moved. It was a new life, and I'm not sure of how many of the other five children went with them; some were already grown or almost grown. We know very little about these six, except for Robert, the youngest, and an older brother named John Jr. 

John's first son William, had by now grown up in Carlisle (according to sources), while the other three brothers had scattered. Carlisle was not too far from Cecil County; but it's not clear why John and Geneva Jane chose that location; they could have chosen Beaver County as her sister had. 

Of their other children, only Robert and John had any clear tracks. Robert would fight in the War of 1812, enlisting at the age of 16, and end up in Wallace Run, while John, eight years older, ended up out in a small town in Ohio. Both were familiar with Wallace Run, though; that's where their Aunt Elizabeth llived. After the war John married a local woman and moved to Wallace Run; he would have ten children.

The names Jane and Geneva Jane run down the genealogy of these Wallaces as if Geneva Jane was a well-respected matriarch whose memory would last generations. Cecil County, however, has pretty muddy tracks. I'm not sure I could tell you where exactly she was buried, or whether there were other Wallaces around to greet them when they got there.

It is hard to track down these people becuase there were Wallaces all over the countryside, especially in the mountains of Pennsylvania, but also in North Carolina, Maryland, anywhere. They were leaving Scotland and Ireland in droves. "Wallace" actually meant "Welsh" in Scottish Gaelic, but also could mean "foreigner," so virtually anyone could have been a Wallace, and could have been shoved out of the place when times got tough, for no better reason than being a foreigner or being part of a large family with not enough money to feed everyone. And though every Wallace claims direct descent from William Wallace the Great, savior of Scotland and victor over England, none them are direct descendants, as he had no sons, and though some people claim he had a daughter, that claim is somewhat spurious. Most likely the Wallaces spread far and wide were of different clans and mostly unrelated to each other, and it makes doing genealogy somewhat difficult, like tracking down Johnsons or Smiths.

There are Roberts and James and Williams and Johns all over the place, and they tend to muck things up, cloud up the genealogical waters. Doing Wallaces. we have to keep track of middle names and always know the birth year and place. So many in Beaver County alone! They're hard to untangle, and people keep associating one with the other, by some ancient convention that if they had the same family name, they had. to be related, somehow.

It was Robert's ten that did good work filling up New Castle; the first seven were boys, so there were indeed Wallaces all over the place from his family alone. Every kid came with a first name (Robert, William, John and James being most common) and a middle name which would then help you figure out which one someone was talking about. 

Their memories of Northern Ireland I think cut them off from their memories of Scotland. Very few stories remain from their Scotland days and that's partly why we've had trouble tracking down who actually still lived back there. The father of John Sr. and the other three boys was a Willliam, but one source said they thought he'd been moved over to Northern Ireland with all the other Scots. Well if that was true, how was it that he left a son or two behind to steal a pig? Answers aren't easy. And who knows about the pig? It may or may not have squealed. 

In the late 1700s Scotland had way too many people and no land, no opportunity, no jobs for the young. John and Robert at one point were driven to steal a pig, so the story goes. The authorities were after them and they took a boat of some kind over to Northern Ireland.

Life wasn't much better over there, but there were plenty of Scots there, called the Scot-Irish. Many of them were moving to America because they were settling the mountain areas and the Scots knew they could make it there. In fact, John and Robert had an uncle James who was already over there, I believe. He had settled in a part of Pennsylvania, Beaver County, that was rugged and mountainous, a little isolated. They knew they could stay with Uncle James and his kin.

They crossed the ocean I believe sometime around 1810. Robert would have been only 14 but John was 22. They'd have to make their way over to Beaver County, in the western part of the state. The War of 1812 broke out and Robert enlisted; he was barely 16 if even that. John made his way out to Ohio. I'm not clear on the order of how these things happened.

After the war Robert married a New Castle woman, settled in Wallace Run (Uncle James' valley), and had ten children. He became a pillar of the community. Several of his boys became doctors, Several of his sons became doctors. One of those was my grandpa's grandpa.

Becoming a doctor was one way of getting out of the valley, Wallace Run. In uncle James' clan one woman's parents were first cousins; her father's parents were also first cousins. I'm not totally clear on that or how that happened, but it shows that Wallaces were so common you could marry a cousin and consider them an outsider. Grandpa wanted out. He tried farming but the soil was too rocky, so he gave it up and moved out to Iowa.

His own son my Uncle Bones ended up in the deserts of Nevada and Utah. Several generations from Scotland, he no longer had the hills, the fog, the sea, anything. An outlaw spirit, is what he had left. In Scottish "Wallace" meant "Welsh" but was also used for "outsider" or "foreigner" - in fact it was used for just about anyone. Once you left, though, there was no going back.