To our Mothers!

                                                                          Happy Mothers Day!

1955 Terry Forman holding Kathi, Annie E. Forman with Linda, unknown child on right

Here's to the Mothers in our family tree! JOSEPHINE TERESA MAGURN FORMAN (TERRY), mother of Linda, Kathleen, Claire, Annette. 

JOSEPHINE DECIMA CANHAM MAGURN (DESSIE), mother of TERRY, Joan, Philip, Margaret, Peter.  

JANE MANGAN CANHAM, mother of Josephine Decima (DESSIE), Beatrice Louise (Louie), Mary Ellen (Mable), Ethel, Addie, Alec.

 ANN GIBNEY MANGAN, mother of JANE, Peter, John, Catherine, Bridget.

BRIDGET MAGURN, who makes me sad because we know nothing about her - mother of John Magurn (who married DESSIE).

ANNIE ELIZABETH BARAGWANATH FORMAN, mother of Ward (my father), Ross, Ivan, Mildred.

FLORENCE CAMILLA ROSS BARAGWANATH, mother of ANNIE and Florrie.

ANN ELIZABETH SPIECE ROSS, mother of FLORENCE, William, Henry, Benjamin F, Edwin S, Ann Elizabeth.

CHRISTIANA STOLTZ SPIECE, mother of ANN ELIZABETH, Christiana, Louis, Caroline, Rebecca.

And that my friends, is as far as we can go tracing just through our female lines. If we traced our mothers on our father's lines, we would go much further back especially with the Harneds (Grandpop Forman's maternal line, which leads to our Mayflower connection as well as other notables). So Happy Mother's Day to all these mothers who made it possible for us to be here today. And while we're at it - Thanks, MOTHER EVE for making the choice that gave us all a chance.

Trail of the Copper King - Orlando Baragwanath (1872-1972)

 

We’ve talked about our Baragwanaths in Cornwall, England, but what about the branch that traveled to South Africa?

We aren’t closely related to Orlando Baragwanath, the subject of the book“Trail of the Copper King” by T. V. Bulpin – he’s my second cousin 7 times removed! Our common ancestors are Richard Baragwanath (born 1699) and Zenobia Stevens (born 1705), of Cornwall, England. 

 Jump forward 5 generations and we encounter John Albert Baragwanath who took his family on the trip of a lifetime – from Cornwall, England to Durban, South Africa, in 1850. John had been a Cornish sea captain. His first wife, Elizabeth Jane Trise, mother of Elizabeth Grace, Orlando, John Albert Jr., and Emily E., passed away the year before the voyage. He quickly married Wilmot Baragwanath (a cousin) later the same year. The family set sail in February 1850 on the “Lady Bruce.” 

They joined 150 other settlers intent on a new life in a new land, with the promise of land at the end of the journey. “Each adult will be provided with an intermediate passage, including provisions on a liberal dietary scale, for the sum of 19 pounds, or a steerage passage for 10 pounds, and on arrival in Natal [Durban] have secured to him twenty acres of freehold land.” The passage monies had to be paid in advance and each passenger needed their own knife, fork, tablespoon, teaspoon, metal plate, a hook-pot, a mug and bedding. Each ship was required to carry a doctor. 

John and Wilmot’s first child together, Charles, was born on the ship, but died a few weeks after arriving at their destination, aged 8 weeks. They reached their destination on 9 May 1850. John, Wilmot and the 4 living children settled on a farm called “Isipingo” just south of Durban. Son John Albert was later apprenticed to a saddle maker. He opened his own trading store, ran the Concordia hotel, and had some prospecting operations. He was very successful and prosperous. 

He married Elizabeth Adelaide Trennery and together they had ten children. Oldest son Orlando (Orrie), born in 1872, was the stuff legends were made of! Orlando lived to be 100 years old (photo right,) and on the occasion of that milestone, an article was written about him in the “Rhodesiana” publication. “In the autumn of 1894 a solitary passenger climbed off ...[an] ox-drawn Cape cart in Fort Victoria. . . He was Orlando Baragwanath, a young man of 22 years with some mining experience, a prospector’s zest for the unknown and an explorer’s nature.” For the next few years he worked at different mines, learning and yearning for adventure. 

 In May 1899, Orrie and his partner Frank Lewis, set out, their supplies packed in 50 lb. loads packed on two wagons and a four-ply canoe. They had six pack donkeys and ten armed natives. They had no need of money so they took white calico called “limbo” for currency. They had contracted for a 3-year stint with the Tanganyika Concessions Company, earning £25/month. The surface copper had been known, worked and traded long before. But these men were the first to use dynamite to find more beneath the surface in Northern Rhodesia! They pegged and named many copper mines on their travels, and in 1901 discovered the vast copper field on the Wusikili river, which later became the great Nkana Mine and the heart of the fabulous Copperbelt. 

 At the spot where John Albert had his farm and hotel now stands Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in what is now the black township of Soweta in Johannesburg, which opened in World War II to care for British soldiers. It once held the Guinness World Record for the largest hospital on earth with almost 3300 beds but has been edged out by at least 3 others by 2016. 

 Some of this material was found in an article from: http://www.rhodesia.nl/rhodesiana/volume28.pdf “Orlando Baragwanath: A Centenarian Pioneer of Rhodesia” by Roger Howman. “Rhodesiana” Publication No. 28, July 1973, The Rhodesiana Society, Salisbury, Rhodesia.

Drawings are from the book pictured above, Trail of the Copper King. This copy was given to my dad by his parents in 1961. It is presently in my possession.

So Far Away - Swanton Morley and Abraham Lincoln

 

I’ve previously written about Joseph Canham, his home named Clondalkin, and the cemetery in Swanton Morley. Did you know that through Swanton Morley we have a connection to Abraham Lincoln??

 

Swanton Morley is a village located at the geographical center of Norfolk County in England. This small village has a long history; it was documented in the 11th-century Domesday Book*, and was home to the ancestors of Abraham Lincoln. And since at least the early 1700s, it has been the home to many of our ancestors. The Canham line alone can be found there as far back as 1789 when Zachariah Canham married Mary Fish in All Saints Church (pictured) which was built in the 1370s. Other family lines branching off from the Canhams in more recent generations, such as the Harvey line which extends from the wife (Mary Ann Dawson Smyth) of John Canham (son of Zachariah Canham) can be traced as far as Christmas Eve 1706 when William Harvey was baptized in All Saints Church. And chances are if the proper records are located, this line will extend even further back in Swanton. “Swanton” is derived from the Old English for herdsman’s enclosure, and “Morley” refers to the fact that the parish was held by Robert de Morli in 1346. The oldest recorded objects found in the area include items from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and the Roman occupation. The Angel, a pub run by Canham family members in earlier times, was probably named for a medieval stone carving of a genuflecting angel found in a nearby well house.

Oh, and about that Abraham Lincoln connection? So far, I haven’t found out we’re family, but it could yet happen! Richard Lincoln (1550-1620), a local churchwarden who built the above-named Angel public house was the wealthy grandfather of Samuel Lincoln.

Richard Lincoln disinherited Samuel’s father Edward in favor of his fourth wife, thus throwing the Lincoln family into penury and forcing young Samuel to flee from Swanton Morley to Hingham, Massachusetts. His great-great-great-great-grandson was none other than Abraham Lincoln!

Such a far-away place with a connection to our very genes! How far away exactly? Well, obviously this will vary for each of us, but from my home to the church in Swanton Morley is 4,803.55 miles.

Many of the details of this piece are from Wikipedia. 

 *A record of the “Great Survey” of much of England and parts of Wales, completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conquerer.

Quaker Conundrum - Benjamin Taylor III (1751-1832)

 

Recent photo of Makefield Friends Meeting House, built in 1752

What is a young Quaker man to do when the Revolutionary War comes to his doorstep? Benjamin Taylor III, my 5th great-grandfather, faced this difficult decision. Should he join in the conflict or remain strictly aloof according to Quaker principles? This must have been a trying time for him and other young (and not so young) Quaker men in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

  Since its beginning the Society of Friends (Quakers) had always maintained a position of strict opposition to war, forbidding its members to have any participation in it. They stressed active, peaceful solutions to all disputes, whether personal or national. It was their duty to uphold the Christian principle of non-violence. Those who acted against the religion’s tenents and refused to repent were usually expelled from the faith. But when actual warfare occurs they are in a particularly difficult situation. In the Revolution they faced the trial of choosing which loyalty to uphold: the Patriot cause or the Christian cause. Most Friends of the time were sympathetic to the Revolution. Staying clear of the conflict, they helped in other ways, such as providing food and clothing, and caring for the wounded. It is not generally known how heavily the Quakers were fined for non-participation in the war. Benjamin Taylor I (my 7th great-grandfather), who was eighty-three in 1778 was fined £100 (worth at least $5000 today.) In many cases Friends’ homes were raided. It was a difficult time to stand by ones principles.

 In the fall and early winter of 1776, the country around Taylorsville was the scene of preparations for the momentous Battle of Trenton to come. We all know about Washington crossing the Delaware but we know little about the preparations for it. Soldiers were quartered in all the farmhouses of the area. Durham boats, used for transporting iron from the Durham Furnace in northern Bucks County, were commandeered and hidden in the dark seclusion of Taylor’s Island in the Delaware River. On Christmas night the little army crossed the ice-filled Delaware and surprised the British, garrisoned at Trenton, early the next morning.

This crossing was made from the shore of ancestral property belonging to Benjamin Taylor III. Little is known of Benjamin’s part in this episode in history, but the question could easily be asked, “Could a young man of twenty-five have witnessed the preparations for battle and not be inspired to take action?”

 From The Taylors of Washington Crossing by Arthur Edwin Bye: “There has always been a tradition handed down in the family…, that Benjamin Taylor ‘helped Washington cross the Delaware.’ He probably was one of the enlisted men, and his ‘help’ was merely that he was one of the party. This is corroborated by documentary evidence, for there is a record that he was paid $60 for two months service in Captain Henry Van Horn’s company of militia commanded by Joseph Kirkbride, January 1777. So he was among those who rowed across the icy river and stealthily marched to Trenton.” So what happened to Benjamin Taylor in his Quaker community for his participation? Historian Arthur J. Mekeel calculates that between 1774 and 1785, 1,724 Quakers were disowned from the faith for participating in the Revolution in some way, shape or form. But it seems that our ancestor was never disciplined for his participation in the Revolution. It had most likely been of short duration and he never made an issue of it with the Friends’ Meeting. “One is not apt to get into trouble if one keeps quiet.” Much of this information comes from the book listed above, The Taylors of Washington Crossing which is now in the public domain and can be accessed at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005769426. We are related to most of those mentioned in the book. Our ancestry from Benjamin Taylor III>>Lydia Taylor>>Benjamin Taylor Yardley>>Hannah Anne Yardley>>Harriet Yardley Harned>>Edgar Charles Forman (and from there through his sons Edgar Ross, Ivan Lake, and Ward Harned Forman.)

What's in a Name? Mary Forman (1831-1869)

 

Samuel L. Forman (died in 1844) and Eliza Lake had 4 living children according to the 1850 Census: William, Mary, Emma, Isaac. Found both the boys and their stories (it’s so much easier with males!) But what about Mary and Emma? There’s a marriage between a Mary Forman and Samuel Lukens in 1857. Could it be her? We see an Emma Lukens living with her (probable) grandmother Eliza L. Forman in 1870, so the name is familiar. But it took Mary’s death to fill in the gaps and assure us we were on the right track.

  I found this Death Notice for 2 March 1869 in the Philadelphia Public Ledger [newspaper]:

 LUKENS - At Gloucester [NJ], on the 1st inst, after a lingering illness, Mrs. Mary Lukens, in the 38th year of her age. Due notice will be given of the funeral. 

 Other information, including the fact that Eliza and her son Isaac are living in Gloucester, NJ, later make this seem to be likely our Mary Forman. But is there more to be found?? The fact that the death notice said “due notice will be given of the funeral” made me think there must have been another announcement a day or so later in the paper. But my searches at Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank were returning nothing. So… I had to dig a bit and look through the papers myself, but I found this in the 3 March 1869 Public Ledger (and boy, am I glad I kept digging!):

LUKINS - On the 1st inst. at Gloucester, N.J., Mrs. MARY LUKINS, widow of Samuel Lukins, and daughter of Eliza Lake and the late Samuel L. Forman, aged 38 years. The relatives and friends, and Southwark Union No 11 U.C. of B and S are respectfully invited to attend her funeral, from the residence of her brother, Mr. Wm L. Forman No 609 Fisher Street, near Tasker street, Philadelphia, on Thursday afternoon, at 2 o'clock. to proceed to Ebenezer Vault. 

 Here are the things we learn from that short listing:

 1 - On the short and simple obituary her surname is spelled “Lukens”, which is how it is spelled in every other document found except on the detailed obituary, when it was spelled “Lukins” so it didn’t show up in my searches. So a lesson for the researcher there! 

2 - Mary was in fact married to Samuel Lukens. (He died in 1863, leaving their only living child, Emma, an orphan.)

3 - Mary is the daughter of Eliza Lake and Samuel L. Forman. We have no doubt now that this is the right family. 

4 – Eliza’s maiden name is used here – Lake – only the 2nd record I have found which uses it. 5 – Mary’s brother is William L. Forman, who we have discussed several times before. 

So what’s in a name? Quite a lot when you consider various spellings that can hide information.

  Something that struck me after learning of Mary’s early death is what her mother Eliza lived through in her 90 years: - Husband Samuel Longstreet Forman died at age 39. - Daughter Emma Forman died in 1856 at age 20, unmarried. - Daughter Mary Forman Lukens died in 1869 (see above) at age 38. - Both her daughters-in-law died young (William L.’s wife Amanda died in 1875 at age 39. Isaac’s wife, Hannah died in 1872 at age 27.) - 2 grandbabies (at least) died very young. (Samuel L. and George, who we talked about before.) - In 1870 Mary’s daughter, Emma (probably named after Mary’s sister, Emma), is living with her grandmother, so it’s likely that Eliza had to take over mothering the child when she was already in her late 60’s. I can’t imagine how it would be to bury a loved one every time you turned around! And we haven’t yet figured out who Eliza’s parents or siblings are, so there could be even more heartbreak in her life. While we’re on that subject, pray for us to find Eliza’s family please! The Lake family has deep roots in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas, but I haven’t yet been able to place her in any of the off-shoots.

The Civil War Fife - Louis D. Spiece (1840-1895)

 

   In early January 2017 I received a message through Ancestry.com from someone who had a photo of Louis D. Spiece (brother of Ann Elizabeth Spiece who married John Ross, and who was my 2nd great-great uncle.) She was anxious to place it with his family and offered it to me. I was thrilled. Sadly, a few days later she decided to keep the photo along with the other artifacts related to her ancestor. (She sent a photo of the picture.) The story though is still of interest: Louis D. Spiece, age 23, an unmarried teacher, enlisted as a private to fight in the Civil War in August 1862 in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, and was promoted to First Sergeant. After his mustering out in May 1863, he raised a company and was elected Captain of Co. C, 205th Regiment. Meanwhile, Samuel B. Fluke, who had tried to enlist but was rejected, was finally accepted on the promise of Captain Louis D. Spiece that he would not bear arms. So he was assigned to the 205th regiment as a Chief Musician, then promoted to fife major of the regiment. Samuel’s duties saw him up at 5 a.m. making the rounds with the drum major, sounding reveille, guard mount, sick call, roll call, and so on through the day until the final “Lights Out” signal at 9 p.m. He also did the cooking - “hard tack and pork one meal and pork and hard tack the next.” The silver fife which he played was presented to him by the officers of his company. It bears the inscription - Presented by Capt. L. D. Spiece and Lieut. Lower of Co. C, 205th Regt. P.I. To S. B. Fluke Musician of said Regt. At Harrisburg, Pa., Sept. 3rd, 1864

(Information from “Recollections of Bygone Days in the Cove” by Ella M. Snowberger, posted by the Fluke family on Ancestry.com)

  Many years later Louis applied for a disability pension that required many letters from those who had served with him in company C. One letter-writer was the fife player Samuel B. Fluke who told what he remembered and wrote, “I had no reason to doubt his word for he was and is still a man of truth and temperate habits.” Another wrote that he saw the Captain struck on the side of the neck with the butt of a gun by a rebel. Louis suffered in his later years with severe neck and back pain, and lingering effects of the ague he contracted in the swamps of Virginia. His disability claim was denied because there was no company surgeon’s report regarding his injury or illness. He passed away in 1895 at age 55. According to his obituary he had a ‘brilliant war record.’ “Captain Spiece was a brave and honorable soldier and a generous, whole-souled friend...Just 30 years after he laid down his sword and returned to his home in Bedford county, his life’s battle ends and his spirit takes its flight to the land of endless peace.”

In the early 1960's Dad was a teacher of preschool and kindergarten deaf children at Maple School in Tulare, California. The program at Maple School, which began in 1960, was unique in the United States. The 3-classroom unit was the only unit built for education of the deaf with local funds and under local authority. Without this facility in Tulare, the deaf children educated there would have had to attend residence schools for the deaf - away from home and families.

  We don't know how Ward became involved in this branch of education. His Bachelor's degree was in business. He worked on his Masters degree, something related to deaf-education, at San Francisco State before securing the position in Tulare. We have an old recording of sounds Claire made as a baby (she was born in 1958) that he made as part of his course work. I believe the sounds were to be compared to those made by a deaf baby. Ward was the only male teacher of pre-school deaf children in the United States. Many of these details come from a newspaper article printed 10 Mar 1962 in the Tulare Advance Register titled "Science, Loving Care Make the Difference." According to the article, he taught six 3-4 year olds in the morning, and in the afternoon he taught 5-6 kindergarten children. "With toys, paint sets, rock collections, a large mirror and lots of patience, he succeeds in giving them audiometer tests, teaching them the fundamentals of lip reading, and preparing them for the instruction they will get in the future."

 Though the article doesn't mention sign language I'm pretty sure that's what he is doing in the first photo, even though the kids are more focused on the photographer! From an American Sign Language site, it looks like he could be saying 'sign' or 'do a sign.' But it's hard to know for certain! I remember him teaching us some signs, but all I can remember is how to sign "You are pretty."