mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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Boris, Natasha, and the Cold War
June 26, 2013
— 4 Comments
When I was in elementary school we had air raid drills to teach us how to protect ourselves if Russians tried to blow us up during school hours. We went out in the hall and stood against the wall with our arms against the wall wondering why Russians wanted to bomb us. The cartoon spies Boris and Natasha explained this reality to us. Fearless Leader, a thinly veiled Nikita Krushchev, was out to destroy us by sending hacks like Boris and Natasha to spy on us. The cold war was about nuclear weapons, but we had no idea what they were. We only knew they made mushroom clouds in cartoons. Maybe some of us knew about Hiroshima, but generally the big conspiracy against us remained unexplained. We shifted our national hatred from Germany to Russia after WWII, and our effort was focused on keeping communists from ruling the world. We were not alive for the Nazis but saw them in movies plenty. We had heavy brainwashing about Europe, which we also did not understand. History for us was all about the western hemisphere and manifest destiny.
The details of communism and how it operated to destroy us were vague at best. We later became aware that James Bond also recognized Russia as evil, but sometimes slept with Russian spies to gain intelligence. The plot thickened. We needed to stop communism in Viet Nam by killing people in the jungle while tripping on LSD. Things went downhill from there, even though communism and capitalism looked exactly the same on the inside. When the Soviet Union imploded it was from the same kind of corruption and propaganda that the United States is known for now. This war will be the globally warmer war, in which the stakes are higher, the cartoons more sinister. Now Fearless Leader is Vladamir Putin, and the accent still fits perfectly.
Archibald Campbell, 14th Great-Grandfather
June 25, 2013
Archibald Campbell
Archibald Campbell tomb
My 14th great-gandfather was a powerful Marquess in Scotland who was beheaded by Charles I of England:
Archibald Campbell (1606 – 1661)
is my 14th great grandfather
Lord Neil Campbell (1610 – 1692)
son of Archibald Campbell
John Campbell (1633 – 1689)
son of Lord Neil Campbell
John Campbell (1662 – 1731)
son of John Campbell
Dugal Campbell (1699 – 1734)
son of John Campbell
Neil Campbell (1734 – 1777)
son of Dugal Campbell
Henry Campbell (1769 – 1863)
son of Neil Campbell
Elizabeth Campbell (1784 – 1861)
daughter of Henry Campbell
Mary McGill (1804 – 1898)
daughter of Elizabeth Campbell
John Wright (1800 – 1870)
son of Mary McGill
Mary Wright (1814 – 1873)
daughter of John Wright
Emiline P Nicholls (1837 – )
daughter of Mary Wright
Harriet Peterson (1856 – 1933)
daughter of Emiline P Nicholls
Sarah Helena Byrne (1878 – 1962)
daughter of Harriet Peterson
Olga Fern Scott (1897 – 1968)
daughter of Sarah Helena Byrne
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Olga Fern Scott
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, 8th Earl of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell, (1607 – 27 May 1661) was the de facto head of government in Scotland during most of the conflict known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He was the most influential figure in the Covenanter movement that fought for the Presbyterian religion and what they saw as Scottish interests during the English Civil War of the 1640s and 1650s.
Family and early lifeHe was eldest son of Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll, by his first wife Agnes Douglas daughter of William Douglas, 6th Earl of Morton, and was educated at St Andrews University, where he matriculated on 15 January 1622. He had early in life, as Lord Lorne, been entrusted with the possession of the Argyll estates when his father renounced Protestantism and took arms for Philip III of Spain; and he exercised over his clan an authority almost absolute, disposing of a force of 20,000 retainers, being, according to Baillie, by far the most powerful subject in the kingdom.
In the Covenanter movementOn the outbreak of the religious dispute between the king and Scotland in 1637, his support was eagerly sought by Charles I. He was made a privy councillor in 1628. In 1638, the king summoned him, together with Traquair and Roxburgh, to London, but he refused to be won over, warned Charles against his despotic ecclesiastical policy, and showed great hostility towards William Laud. In consequence, a secret commission was given to the Earl of Antrim to invade Argyll and stir up the MacDonalds against him. Argyll, who inherited the title at the death of his father in 1638, originally had no preference for Presbyterianism, but now definitely took the side of the Covenanters in defence of national religion and liberties. He continued to attend the meetings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland after its dissolution by the Marquess of Hamilton, when Episcopacy was abolished. In 1639, he sent a statement to Laud, and subsequently to the king, defending the General Assembly’s action. He raised a body of troops and seized Hamilton’s castle of Brodick in Arran. After the pacification of Berwick-upon-Tweed, he carried a motion, in opposition to James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, by which the estates secured to themselves the election of the lords of the articles, who had formerly been nominated by the king. This was a fundamental change to the Scottish constitution, whereby the management of public affairs was entrusted to a representative body and withdrawn from the control of the crown. An attempt by the king to deprive him of his office as justiciary of Argyll failed, and on the prorogation of the parliament by Charles, in May 1640, Argyll moved that it should continue its sittings and that the government and safety of the kingdom should be secured by a committee of the estates, of which he was the guiding spirit. In June, he was trusted with a Commission of fire and sword against the royalists in Atholl and Angus, which, after succeeding in entrapping the Earl of Atholl, he carried out with completeness and cruelty.
It was on this occasion that the Bonnie Hoose o’ Airlie was burned. By this time, the personal dislike and difference in opinion between Montrose and Argyll led to an open breach. The former arranged that on the occasion of Charles’s approaching visit to Scotland, Argyll would be accused of high treason in the parliament. The plot, however, was disclosed, and Montrose, among others, was imprisoned. Accordingly, when the king arrived, he found himself deprived of every remnant of influence and authority. It only remained for Charles to make a series of concessions. He transferred control over judicial and political appointments to the parliament, created Argyll a marquess in 1641, and returned home, having, in Clarendon’s words, made a perfect deed of gift of that kingdom. Meanwhile, there was an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Argyll, Hamilton, and Lanark, known as The Incident. Argyll was mainly instrumental in this crisis in keeping the national party faithful to what was to him evidently the common cause, and in accomplishing the alliance with the Long Parliament in 1643.
[edit] English and Scottish Civil WarIn January 1644, he accompanied the Scottish army into England as a member of the committee of both kingdoms and in command of a troop of horse, but was soon compelled, in March, to return to suppress royalists in the Scottish Civil War and to defend his own territories. He forced Huntly to retreat in April. In July, he advanced to abet the Irish troops now landed in Argyll, which were fighting in conjunction with Montrose, who had put himself at the head of the royalist forces in Scotland. Neither general succeeded in obtaining an advantage over the other, or even in engaging in battle. Argyll then returned to Edinburgh, threw up his commission, and retired to Inveraray Castle. Montrose unexpectedly followed him in December, compelling him to flee to Roseneath, and devastating his territories. On 2 February 1645, while following Montrose northwards, Argyll was surprised by him at Inverlochy. He witnessed, from his barge on the lake to which he had retired after falling from his horse, a fearful slaughter of his troops, which included 1500 of the Campbells.[1] He arrived at Edinburgh on 12 February and was again present at Montrose’s further great victory on 15 August at Kilsyth, whence he escaped to Newcastle. Argyll was at last delivered from his formidable antagonist by Montrose’s final defeat at Philiphaugh on 12 September. In 1646, he was sent to negotiate with the king at Newcastle after his surrender to the Scottish army, when he endeavoured to moderate the demands of the parliament and at the same time to persuade the king to accept them. On 7 July 1646, he was appointed a member of the Assembly of Divines.
Up to this point, Argyll’s statesmanship had been highly successful. The national liberties and religion of Scotland had been defended and guaranteed, and the power of the king in Scotland reduced to a mere shadow. In addition, these privileges had been still further secured by the alliance with the English opposition, and by the subsequent triumph of the parliament and Presbyterianism in the neighboring kingdom. The king himself was a prisoner in their midst. But Argyll’s influence could not survive the rupture of the alliance between the two nations on which his whole policy was founded. He opposed in vain the secret treaty concluded between the king and the Scots against the parliament. Hamilton marched into England and was defeated by Cromwell at Preston. Argyll, after a narrow escape from a surprise attack at the Battle of Stirling (1648), joined the Whiggamores, a body of Covenanters at Edinburgh; and, supported by John Campbell, 1st Earl of Loudoun and Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven, he established a new government, which welcomed Oliver Cromwell on his arrival there on 4 October.
War with the English Parliament and personal ruinThis alliance, however, was at once destroyed by the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649, which excited universal horror in Scotland. In the series of tangled incidents which followed, Argyll lost control of the national policy. He describes himself at this period as “a distracted man…in a distracted time” whose ” remedies…had the quite contrary operation.”
He supported the invitation from the Covenanters to Charles II to land in Scotland, and gazed upon the captured Montrose, bound on a cart to execution at Edinburgh. When Charles II came to Scotland, having signed the Covenant and repudiated Montrose, Argyll remained at the head of the administration. After the defeat of Dunbar, Charles retained his support by the promise of a dukedom and the Garter, and an attempt was made by Argyll to marry the king to his daughter. On 1 January 1651, he placed the crown on Charles’s head at Scone. But his power had now passed to the Hamiltonian party.
He strongly opposed, but was unable to prevent, the expedition into England. In the subsequent reduction of Scotland, after holding out in Inveraray Castle for nearly a year, he was at last surprised in August 1652 and submitted to the Commonwealth. His ruin was then complete. His policy had failed, his power had vanished. He was hopelessly in debt, and on terms of such violent hostility with his eldest son as to be obliged to demand a garrison in his house for his protection.
Later life and writings
Archibald Campbell During his visit to Monck at Dalkeith in 1654 to complain of this, he was subjected to much personal insult from his creditors, and on visiting London in September 1655 to obtain money due to him from the Scottish parliament, he was arrested for debt, though soon liberated. In Richard Cromwell’s parliament of 1659 Argyll sat as member for Aberdeenshire.
At the Restoration, he presented himself at Whitehall, but was at once arrested by order of Charles and placed in the Tower (1660), being sent to Edinburgh to stand trial for high treason. He was acquitted of complicity in the death of Charles I, and his escape from the whole charge seemed imminent, but the arrival of a packet of letters written by Argyll to Monck showed conclusively his collaboration with Cromwell’s government, particularly in the suppression of Glencairn’s royalist rising in 1652. He was immediately sentenced to death, his execution by beheading taking place on 27 May 1661, before the death warrant had even been signed by the king. His head was placed on the same spike upon the west end of the Tolbooth as that of Montrose had previously been exposed, and his body was buried at the Holy Loch, where the head was also deposited in 1664. A monument was erected to his memory in St Giles’s church in Edinburgh in 1895.
While imprisoned in the Tower he wrote Instructions to a Son (1661). Some of his speeches, including the one delivered on the scaffold, were published and are printed in the Harleian Miscellany.
He married Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of William Douglas, 7th Earl of Morton, and had two sons and four daughters
Betrayal and Trust
June 24, 2013
— 3 Comments
The decision to trust is a risk. Calculating risk should be a skill we develop and improve over our lives. The influence of relationships on our faith in others is central. Early betrayal can be a blessing because it can prevent deeper problems by showing true colors. Trust and the possibility of betrayal arise together. If we trust the government, or our spouse, or boss, we may find that faith has been misplaced. Few of us have the ability to accurately judge or predict the behavior of our closest companions. Being blind to imperfections is neither healthy nor honest. If we are honest we can admit our own imperfections, and our own potential to betray others. With perspective we can see how our national anger has damaged the entire society.
The rose-colored glasses version of America was a risk. The more we spun ourselves into the greatest country in the world, the more we found ourselves betrayed as a nation. The more we fought for our way of life around the world (whatever that meant), the more undesirable our way of life became. The more we declared war on everything from drugs to terror, the more ground we lost in the global trust department. Now American security is breeched on a regular basis in fairly spectacular fashion. It is lucrative, I imagine, for some, but it is becoming a badge of courage. If the seed of betrayal is trust, then it must also follow that after betrayal trust becomes mature and discerning. It is a cycle, gentle reader.
The Spies Who Love Us
June 24, 2013
— 1 Comment
Garbo Mata Hari
Does it sound like a compliment to you to be called a traitor by Dick Cheney? Do you wonder what espionage is? Do Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden appear to be more or less trustworthy than the United States government? Do you trust the military to police itself? My personal theory is that leaking is the new journalism. More high profile leaks will be celebrated with caviar and vodka faster than you can say Vlad’s your uncle. Shortly a woman will join the ranks of leaky whistle blowers, and the balance will shift. You do not need any psychic abilities to predict this. You simply need to wake up and smell the data.
Dorothy Thatcher Jones, 10th Great Grandmother
June 23, 2013
— 3 Comments
Sears family graveyard
My 10th great grandmother married a Mayflower Pilgrim, Richard Sears. Dorothy Jones was born about 1603, daughter of George and Agnes (_____) Jones of Dinder, Somerset. She married Richard Sears of Plymouth Colony by 1637. “Cady [i.e., Goody] Seares was buried the 19th of March [16]78[/9]” at Yarmouth.Their 3 children: i PAUL, b. about 1637 (d. Yarmouth 20 February 1707/8 in 70th year [gravestone]); m. by 1659 Deborah (eldest child aged thirteen on 3 July 1672, said to be daughter of George Willard. ii DEBORAH, b. about 1639 (d. Yarmouth 17 August 1732 “within about one month of 93 years of age;” m. by 1661 Zachariah Paddock (eldest child aged seventeen on 2 February 1678. iii SILAS, b. say 1641; m. by about 1665 Anna, probably daughter of James Bursell of Yarmouth
Dorothy Thatcher Jones (1603 – 1678)
is my 10th great grandmother
son of Dorothy Thatcher Jones
son of Silas Sears
daughter of Silas Sears
daughter of Sarah Sears
daughter of Sarah Hamblin
daughter of Mercy Hazen
son of Martha Mead
son of Abner Morse
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
son of Jason A Morse
son of Ernest Abner Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
There is some confusion and question about details of her parentage and perhaps more:
Notes for Dorothy Jones” ‘Cady [i.e., Goody] Seares was buried the 19th of March [16]78[/9]’ at Yarmouth [Yar VR 125].” 318She was also said to have “died March, 1678/9; married 1632, Richard Sears”. 579“Her parentage, her birthplace and the date of her birth are as yet unknown. Mention of ‘my brother Thacher’ in the will of Richard sears has led to the erroneous conclusion that Richard Sears’ wife was Dorothy Thacher, sister of Rev. Anthony Thacher. The Sears Genealogy by Samuel P. May, contains this error. But Mr. May, in pen-and-ink notations, has corrected the copy of his book in possession of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, Boston, Massachusetts, and the case now stands as follows: Richard Sears and Anthony Thacher married sisters, Dorothy and Elizabeth Jones, who were of Dinder, co. Somerset, England, Dorothy marrying Richard in 1632, Elizabeth marying Anthony, early in 1635. Their brother was Richard Jones who came to New England in 1635 and settled in Dorchester, Mass.” 579She was the sister of Richard Jones of Dorchester and of Elizabeth Jones Thacher, wife of Anthony Thacher of Yarmouth.318“Dorothy [Jones], b. ca. 1603, m. Richard Sears or Sares, probably in Masschusetts about 1635. They accompanied the Thachers and others to Yarmouth, and Dorothy died there: ‘Goody Sares was buried Mar. 19, 1678-9’ (Descendants of Richard Sares pp. 23 f., 31).”567“It is not certain that she was his only wife, or the mother of all, if any, of his children.” 188“His wife has been identified as Dorothy, sister of Anthony Thacher. Richard referred to Anthony as ‘my brother’ and Anthony’s son John called Richard ‘my Uncle Sares,’ but in all Thacher family records, wills, baptisms and births, etc., no appropriate Dorothy has been found. It is possible that Sears married either Dorothy Jones, the sister of Anthony’s wife, Elizabeth, or Dorothy Batt, sister of Christopher Batt, and of Anthony’s sister-in-law Alice, second wife of his older brother Peter Thacher.”293“He married by 1637 Dorothy Jones, born ca. 1603, at Dinder, co. Somerset, England; and as ‘Goody Sares’ was buried 19 March 1678/9 in Yarmout (VR, 125; Sares, 14-15; TAG, 58 [1982]; NEXUS, 5:14). She was the daughter of George and Agnes (___) Jones.”511“Dorothy Jones, daugher to George and Agnes (___) Jones, was born at Dinder Somersetshire, in 1603 (Bishop’s Extracts for 1603). . . .She was executor of her father’s estate.” 511“Jones, Dorothy (____ – 1679) of Plymouth, MA. English home: ‘The Ancestry of Thomas C. Brainerd’, by Dwight Brainerd, 1948 (p. 219) says she was a sister of Richard Jones who came from Dinder, Somerset with Rev. Joseph Hull’s group in 1635. She m. Richard Sears in England in 1632 and he was taxed in Plymouth, MA the same year.” 458“Jones, Richard (1598-1641) of Dorchester, MA, Jones, Dorothy (___ – 1679) wife of Richard Sears & Jones, Elizabeth (1603-1670), wife of Anthony Thacher Volume 22, p. 50.It has been claimed, for many years, that Richard Jones of Dorchester, MA came from Dinder, Somerset, in 1635, with the group led by Rev. Joseph Hull. See Search Series Volume 22, pp. 50-51. It has also been claimed that he had two sisters who came over, Dorothy, who married Richard Sears and Elizabeth, who married Anthony thacher. According to Robin Bush the origins of this Jones family from Dinder have never been satisfactorily researched. He had now compleed an extensive search of the Dinder records and has found the baptisms of Richard and Elizabeth Jones. The earliest surviving voluem of the Dinder parish registers covers only burials from 1578 to 1637 (the second volume of baptisms, marriages and burial dates only from 1695). . . . The following entries were located in the Dinder Bishop’s Transcripts: . . .Richard son of Georg Jones Bapt. 25 June 1598 . . . Elizabethe dau of George Jones Bpt. 1 Jan. 1602/3 . . . ” 541“It has been claimed for many years, that Richard Jones of Dorchester, MA came from Dinder, Somerset, in 1635, with the group led by Rev. Joseph Hull. See Search Series Volume 22, pp. 50-51. It has also been claimed that he had two sisters who came over, Dorothy, who married Richard Sears and Elizabeth, who married Anthony Thacher. Acording to Robin Rush the origins of this Jones family from Dinder have never been satisfactorily researched. He has ow completed an extensive search of the Dinder records and has found the baptisms of Richard and Elizabeth Jones. The earliest surviving volume of the Dinder parish registers covers only burials from 1578 to 1637 (the second volume of baptisms, marriages and burial dates only from 1695).” 542“Richard Jones, the emigrant, has previously been identified with the son of John Jones of Dinder, clothier (evidently buried 24 May 1605), as recorded on a brass placed in the Dinder church by an American descendant in 1899. The above documents, however, include no evidence that John had children named Dorothy and Elizabeth: only a daughter named Susan (baptised 25 June 1598, buried 14 Jan. 1604/5), possibly by a wife named Susan, who evidently remarried John Hodges of Dinder, yeoman, by 1619. The documentation does, however, show that George Jones had children named Richard, Dorothy and Elizabeth and is thus likely to be the father of the emigrants. George’s wife was named Alice, not Agnes, as stated in the Search series, volume 22, p. 50). George was certainly son of Dorothy Jones, widow, buried 19 June 1614, and his father was probably teh Richard Jones who had a daughter Alice buried on 22 Feb. 1579/80 and who was buried on 10 Mar. 1585/6.”542“The manor of Dinder pass by marriage from the Hicks family to that of the Somervilles in teh 18th century. The Somerville manuscripts (DD/SVL) have been temporarily depositied at the Somerset Record Office (71 boxes) but have never been box listed, let alone catalogued in depth. Most of the records proved to be 18th and 19th century in date and Robin Bush failed to find any manor court rolls of surveys. By rapid sampling he managed to locate two boxes (DD/SVL, boxes 35 and 36) which contained earlier deeds and leases. These he searched in detail and located the following Dinder items relating to the surname Jones – rearranged in chronological order: . . . 1 Nov. 1615. Lease by Edward Rodney of Rodney Stoke, esquire, and Rice David of Backwell, esquire, to George Jones of Dinder, yeoman, Alice his wife, and Richard Jones and Dorothie Jones, children of the said George and Alice, in consideration of a surrender by Henry Foster of Wells, tanner, and William Foster, his brother, of a tenement, garden and curtilage in Dinder, with 8 acres of arable land, 2 rods of meadow in the common mead, 1 acre in severalty and half an acre pasture called Bottle Close, occupied by Henry and William Foster, and of a surrender by John Hodge of Dinder, yeoman, who held the reversion of the same, rent 2s 4 1/4d. DD/SVL, box 35).” 542“Dorothy Jones – Born in England, but baptism not found. Died 1679. She married Ricahrd Sears, whose will was dated 10 March 1667, codicil, 3 Fe. 1675 and probated 15 Nov. 1676. ” 542
Swimming is a Con Game
June 23, 2013
steps
flippers
stylin gear
play on steps
small group
lots of floatation
shade
deep end inspiration
watch and learn
options
facing mom
Confidence and floatation are close relatives. To swim is to move across the water, and it requires coordination and skill. To make learning both fun and effective for young swimmers they need to feel very good most of the time, and challenged to practice some of the time. I have learned from teaching hundreds of kids (and adults) to swim that the confidence it takes to control the breath is the heart of the swimming game. You honestly can’t teach breath control to tiny kids, and you would be foolish to use words like breath control or face in the water to older kids. You need to first recognize that you have completely different agendas.
Kids want to go off the diving board, do underwater flips and go touch the bottom. Very few kids care if they swim properly or master stroke technique. The ones who are fine technical swimmers usually don’t care about that at all. They just like to have fun at the pool. If a swim teacher wants to have fun at the pool that natural desire must be harnessed, never rushed. Making a drill too harsh or demands too tough can be a turn off for a shy student. It is important to alternate between what is already easy and what is yet to be learned. My new students are ideal because they already know each other. This saves much wear and tear since the girls are friends and know what to expect from each other. The older, taller ,more confident one is ready and able to inspire the younger more timid one without any showing off or ill temper. Lucky me. I am also fortunate that our young new swimmer is always in the pool with a parent, so she will not feel stranded in a new situation.
We also have the major stylin’ gear. The mermaid kick board, the floating raft, the matching pink goggles and the flippers are all worth trying. Some work better than others, and some are just there to make them feel they are real swimmers with real swimmer items. I believe in using all the tools and gear that might be helpful, but not allow the stuff to become the major focus, as it can easily with kids. It is natural and easy to switch from kick board exercises to floating to practicing bubbles while walking across the pool. One activity or tool does not become stale when you move through the lesson offering enough variety. Know that they only want to learn enough to swim away, so provide a safe setting in which they can do that. Keep it light because, after all, floating is all about trust and ease.
The New 15 Second Rule
June 22, 2013
— 4 Comments
We have been liberated from long boring presentations we don’t watch anyhow. The new 15 second rule is not about food that has been on the floor. It is about editing. If you can’t express your idea in 15 seconds, you need editing. Instagram has met the public where their attention span is. It is a fun , effortless way to find if you really have content or if you are just taking up digital space. Artemisia, coon hound, was keen to try it out to portray her content.
Olga Scott Morse, Education Pioneer
June 20, 2013
— 1 Comment
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- Olga 1916
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- Olga in school with sister
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- Sarah Helena Byrne
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- Tonkawa Shorthand class
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- Olga in her 20s
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- with Ernie 1933
My grandmother, Olga Scott Morse, was a teacher of business skills. She graduated with her masters in education after she had four kids. She left them at home on the oil lease with their dad during the week to attend classes at Oklahoma State University. I believe that in the 1930s this was a bold feminist move. After graduation from OSU she taught typing and shorthand at a junior college near their home in Tonkawa,OK. Learning to type was a bold femenist move, believe it or not. Her students learned shorthand and typing and other current secretarial skills. The school to day is called Northern Oklahoma College. I stopped at the campus when I went to Oklahoma on an ancestry hunt a few years ago. I found her name in an old yearbook in the library, which was fun. I also looked through a lot of photos from the history of the school, where my dad and his brothers were students, but I did not find them. I walked around on campus, taking a break in my drive. Later, I found a picture of her with her students in the 1930’s in front of the central building at my uncle’s house in Wichita. I easily recognized the building since I had just been there.
Her mother, Sarah Helena Byrne, was a teacher and her great-grandfather , Amos Nichols,was also. My father was a university professor. The teacher archetype is all over my father’s family. I wonder if this is a DNA situation or all the reading and discipline that teachers represent. She was a farmer when I met her, having long since retired, but I remember her typewriter on the farm that had black keys..no letters. She could wail on that thing, but she had little reason to to so. I asked her to because I liked to watch her do it. She was a woman of many skills and talents, including flower and vegetable gardening. Most of the fruits and vegetables we ate in the winter in Pittsburgh were grown on my grandparents’ farm in Arkansas and frozen. I picture her in a sun bonnet, like all her friends wore, on the farm. Visiting the college where she taught before I was born was a really cool experience that showed me a part of her I never knew. For her day and place she was super highly educated and accomplished.
Olga Fern Scott (1897 – 1968)
is my paternal grandmother
son of Olga Fern Scott
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Hannah Mead, Kent, England to New Haven, Connecticut
June 20, 2013
— 2 Comments
British flag
Hannah Mead was widowed in England before she sailed to America. She arrived in Boston in 1637 with her son Isaac:
John BEECHER was born on 28 Mar 1594 in Kent, England. He died in 1637/38 in New Haven, Connecticut. He immigrated on 26 Jun 1637 to Boston Harbor. Arrived April 26, 1637 from Steldhurst County, Kent, England. In Governor Eaton’s Company. The first Beecher to reach New England was John Beecher, who came from Kent, England in 1637. He was in the company led by Rev. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton who had been the Ambassador to Denmark and Deputy-Governor of India. The company crossed the ocean on the “Hector” and another sister-ship. These two ships, after a two month voyage, dropped anchor in Boston harbor. The company consisted of 50 men and 200 women and children and was the most prosperous that ever arrived in New England. Unfortunately, they landed in the midst of a quarrel about Anne Hutchinson who had set herself up as a preacher, irregardless of her sex. Not wishing to become involved, they sent out a scouting party to find another location to settle. They decided upon Quinnipiack on the Long Island Sound, the site of present day New Haven, Conn. The party built a hut and left seven of their men to hold the post for the winter and to prepare for the arrival of the rest of the company in the spring. John Beecher was one of the seven and he failed to survive the winter. Hannah arrived in the spring with her son Isaac and found her husband in an unmarked grave. Since she was the only midwife among them, and thus relied upon by the others in the company, she was given her husband’s allotment of land for herself and her son Isaac. One hundred and twelve years later, in 1750, when David Beecher was a boy of twelve, workmen who were digging a cellar for a house at the corner of George and Meadow Streets in New Haven came upon human bones, believed to be those of John Beecher.
(43) Hannah Beecher sailed from England with her son Isaac and was a widow at the time she left England. Husband John Beecher, one of the seven whom Eaton sent to New Haven in advance of the colony ,died before the colony arrived. He did not survive the first winter. It is established that this ship load of people was rather wealthy landowners from Steldhurst County, Kent, England. Since the company was rather young, it was felt that Hannah’s services of midwife would be greatly needed. She therefore was offered her husband’s land right in the new world if she would agree to go and fulfill this need, which she did. ——————————————————————————The will of Hannah Beecher was proved April 5, 1659 and is recorded in first part, vol i., p 80 of New Haven Probate Records as follows: “I Hannah Beecher of New Haven, expectying my great change do make this my last will and testament, I bequeath my soul unto the hands of my Lord Jesus Christ by whose meritt I hope to be saved and my body to be burried at the discretion of my Son William Potter my Executor. And for my worldly goods I give unto John Potter my Grand child twenty shillings and to Hannah Blackly, my Grand child twenty shillings to be paid to them within three months after my decease. And for the rest of my estate I give one third part to my son Isaac Beecher and two thirds to my eldest son William Potter, making him my Executor, desiring him to be as a father to his younger brother and his children. And in dividing my goods my will is that my son William should have my feather bed with that belongeth to it, unto his part and that the rest be divided at the discretion of my Overseers with the assistance of Sister Wakeman and sister Rutherford and I desire my loving friends Mr Mathew Gilbert and Job Wakeman to be overseers of this my last will whereunto I have set my hand this 13th day of June, Anno 1657. Witnesses, the mark of Mathew Gilbert, Hannah Becher John Wakeman, Sarah Rutherford. This source also indicates that the inventory of Hannah’s estate following her death in 1659 amounted to 55 pounds, 5 shillings, and 6d. ——————————Hannah (Potter) Beecher appears in early New Haven as a widow with sons: John Potter, William Potter, and Isaac Beecher. She has been considered to be the mother of Isaac Beecher, for she calls him her son in her will and gave him one third of her property, but recent investigations (source unproven ) suggest that Isaac was a step son, the son of her second husband by a former wife. SEE NOTE ON ISAAC BEECHER ENTRY. ————————————————– Note: There was in New Haven, says G.F. Tuttle, as early as 1641, a widow Hannah Potter, known as widow Potter the midwife. In 1643 she had two persons in the family, thirty pounds estate and twenty and one quarter acres of land. She is called “sister Potter the midwife,” in seating the meeting house in 1646. She is supposed to have been akin to the other Potters, but there is no record to show it. She has often been confounded with the widow Hannah Beecher, but the records clearly show that they were two different persons. ————————————————— Per “Families of Ancient New Haven”
Hannah Mead (1584 – 1659)
is my 10th great grandmother
William Potter (1608 – 1684)
son of Hannah Mead
Hannah Potter (1636 – 1700)
daughter of William Potter
Benjamin Mead (1666 – 1746)
son of Hannah Potter
Mary Mead (1724 – 1787)
daughter of Benjamin Mead
Abner Mead (1749 – 1810)
son of Mary Mead
Martha Mead (1784 – 1860)
daughter of Abner Mead
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
son of Martha Mead
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
The question of Hannah’s parents is not fully resolved:
Mrs. BEECHER was voted a portion of land by the New Haven colony for her services as physician and midwife. The land remained in the BEECHER family until 1879. The New Haven Hospital, built in the late 1800s stood on part of it, about a half mile west of the old Green.
SURNAME CONFUSION
One researcher has Hannah’s surname as BEECHER. But it is clear that she married a BEECHER, and I think someone confused BEECHER as her surname. I believe that Hannah was a MEAD who married a POTTER before BEECHER.
But another source claims she was Ann/Hannah LANGFORD. This Hannah was also born in Kent, ENG. But she died FEB 1658 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. (I need to determine which was the right Hannah. They were both listed as midwives.
Hannah was widowed in England and married a second time there. She is believed to have married John Beecher who was a member of the advance party which was sent to prepare for the settling of New Haven, CT. John died in New Haven before the arrival of the colony. The well known Beecher family (Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, being two of the clan) descend from Hannah’s son Isaac Beecher.
MacParody
June 20, 2013
— 5 Comments
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