Holtdale Farm on the Tuscy

Gr Grandfather Davis is a Boyd!!!!

2011-10-03T07:33:00.000-07:00

                                                    IMPORTANT DAVIS FAMILY UPDATE

     As many of you know, especially any of you who have been doing Joseph Davis family genealogical research, no one, up to now, has had any luck determining whom Great Grandfather, Joseph's father was. It was known that his mother, Irish immigrant, Agnus (Agnes) Leman?), was born in Ireland in 1820 and arrived in America before 1841 because that is the year her son, Joseph, was born in Pennsylvania.
     The very earliest record I have been able to find for Agnus Leman, 30 years old, an Irish immigrant, is in the 1850 Middlesex Twp., Butler County, Pennsylvania census living with a Samuel Davis 50, Head of household, born in Pennsylvania. Also living with Samuel but not shown as his wife, was a Marguetta Davis 64, born in Ireland. Joseph, Agnus ' son, who would have been 9 or 10 years old, was living with an aunt. Samuel and Agnus were married in 1850. They had children who were enumerated in the1860 and 1870 censuses. Interestingly, during those two censuses her name is shown as Nancy and Joseph is never shown living with them.
     By the time of the 1880 census they had moved and were living in East Deer Twp. Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and she is again listed as Agnus. Living next door during that census is Joseph Davis, an invalid, with his wife and children which included my grandfather, Herbert, and several of his sisters. In 1884, a two year old child named Rebeca Leman is buried in Samuel Davis's cemetery plot.Two weeks later, a J. L. Leman is buried along side of her. There are no other citing's of either a Joseph Davis or Joseph Leman in the records there. And to complicate matters a bit more, neither my Grandfather or Grandmother Davis ever mentioned the child Rebeca.
     No researcher, that I'm aware of, ever knew what Joseph's true surname was, up until now. In 2009, my first cousin, Frank Davis, a direct, male, lineal descendant of Joseph's had his DNA done and the name Boyd was a 37 marker exact match to Frank's DNA. And just within the last month or so the niece of the Boyd donner, who is the family researcher, contacted me. Her ancestor was a James Boyd, b15 Aug. 1815, in County Antrim, Ireland. He arrived at the Port of New York in 1840. James and his pregnant wife immediately migrated to Nebraska where there son was born in 1840. This implies that either Agnes immigrated at the same time as James and his pregnant wife did and she and James got together on board a very small, crowded with immigrants, ship. Or, she had a relationship with a very close Boyd relative of James who would have arrived in America earlier. That seems more logical to me. My problem is, I don't know when or what port Agnes arrived in when she came to America. If any of you out there know when she arrived, I would really appreciate that information. We're getting close. But this is a big step forward.

DNA Importance in Genealogical Research

2011-09-12T18:44:00.000-07:00

                                                   DNA IN GENEALOGY
     It would be difficult to over estimate the importance of DNA in confirming and or assisting in one's genealogical research. I make this statement from a positive experience in two of my four primary descendant lines, Holt, my father, and Davis, my mother.
     Ten or twelve years ago,  Mott Holt, from Hawaii, a direct lineal descendant of John Holt, son of Thomas Holt, the only proven direct lineal descendant of the immigrant, Henry Holt, and I compared our Holt line records research. I descended from Thomas, the youngest son of Thomas Sr. He descended through John, the oldest son of Thomas Holt Sr. We had both, unbeknownst to each other, worked our way back along our individual lines and ended up with Thomas, Henry's son as our common ancestor.
     Five or six years later, we each, again, unbeknownst to the other, had gotten our individual DNA done. When we again got in contact and compared results, it was a perfect 37 marker match, absolutely confirming our individual record's research.
     For at least 35 years I have been researching my Davis ancestry and for 35 years I have had an absolutely, impregnable stone wall. My great Grandfather, Joseph Davis, seemed to have appeared out of the mist. I knew his mother's name, Agnes Leman, but that is all I knew. I knew she was born in 1820 in Ireland and that Joseph was born in 1840 in Pennsylvania. Who was his father? I had absolutely no clue.
     My cousin, Frank Davis, is a direct line male descendant of Joseph so we had his DNA done. The result floored us both. Joseph's true biological father's surname was Boyd and it was a perfect 37 marker match. No ifs, ands or buts, Joseph's father's surname was Boyd. What Boyd family? We don't know yet but we think he was a member of one of the three or four Boyd families living in Middlesex Twp., Butler Co. Pa. in 1840. We believe Agnes was living there in 1840. Unfortunately, women were only counted and listed in age groups in a family and not named in the 1840 census. We are in touch with the Boyd match person but have not completed our research on his family's whereabouts in 1840.

I'm back----I think

2011-09-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

Finally, for the first time in over a week, I am able to get back on my blog--I think. Who the heck ever runs the show on blogs has made changes that an old bird like me has found difficult to impossible to cope with. Why in the h--- they don't just leave things alone is beyond me. This won't be a long one, I'm just trying to find out how to use this new format.

Everything is familiar to me, its just as though I were working on my memoirs in Word which, incidentally, was a big change from my preferred Word Perfect. Why did I change? After fifteen years of using WordPerfect, my last version was the 2005 one, it crashed and I almost lost the 200 page memoir that I've been working on for ten or more years. Aha, now you know, I'm a mite slow in getting things done. Hmmm, everything looks OK and could make a little difference, maybe. So, I'll give it a try and see if I can publish this thing. I may have to wait until my wife, Genie, gets home so she can lead me through the how to's.
What would we guys do without our women folk?

Very Tough Assignment---Keep the Blog Interesting---Really Tough to do!

2011-08-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've been blowing it big time lately on keeping the blog interesting and moving along. At first I published articles on various, older families. Then I awakened to the fact that even if I went back only three generations---in some families I have them back eight to as many as twelve generations---and picked a family to write about, only 1/16th of the visitors to my site would be interested in that particular family. Not a good way to keep readers interested in visiting the blog. As to my genealogy, it is already public and there is a link in this blog to take you to it.
What will I write about? Well, because I have found interesting things about certain individuals in my genealogical lines their stories will be told. But mostly I intend to write about topics other than family that I find of interest to me that I hope will be of interest to you. Also, and I want to emphasize this, I would really appreciate in-put from my readers.

Peripheral Neuropathy---Inherited---I have it---Do any of You?

2011-08-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

I was diagnosed with Peripheral Neuropathy in my early seventies. My sister Virginia, who is 14 months younger than I, followed right on time, one year later. There is very strong evidence that ours is the inherited variety. I don't know whether our two younger brothers, Rodney nee Frank, or Lee had it. Both died in their early seventies so it may not have been far enough advanced for them to have noticed it or had it diagnosed.

Peripheral Neuropathy? What is it? I don't know whether it is a disease or an affliction but it has to do with the ends or periphery of your nerves literally dying. You lose a great deal of the physical ability to feel things with the surface of your body. In my case, my feet became numb which in turn caused me to lose my balance. At first you don't notice it because you compensate with your vision. Your balance is a combination of feeling--sensing through your feet--and seeing. As long as there is a light source somewhere within your vision you're okay. But if it's very dark and there isn't a light source, even a tiny one, you will quickly lose your balance. There is no known cure or even a modestly effective treatment for it yet. Research is in high gear to find both but as of now, nothing.

I don't know which family line it came down through. That is why I'm asking all of you related to me whether you or any member of your family, past or present, may have, or do have it. My personal knowledge of the affliction came when I was diagnosed with it fifteen years ago. I'd never heard of it before.

Your response would be greatly appreciated. I will pass along to you the results of this request just in case it might be of some help to you or a member of your family.

ECOFF--.A Long Line of Distinguished Warriors

2011-08-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

A few years back, 2007 I believe, after I had started work on my memoir, I got in touch with one of my relatives who had served as a pilot in WW ll, David W. Ecoff. Dave had a twin brother, Daniel, who had also served in WW ll and was also a pilot but in the Navy. I finally reached Dave and had a wonderful old-home-week conversation with him. Dave and Dan born July 10, 1920, which made them almost exactly six years older than I so I didn't really know them at all.

Dave was sworn in as an aviation cadet on the 25 of February, 1942 and soloed on June 19th of that same year. and was discharged October15, 1945. That same year, he enlisted in the Air force reserve and served until 1980 when, at age 60, he received an honorable discharge.

In 2007 I contacted Dave to help me with the genealogy of that side of the family. During our conversation I became aware of the long line of Ecoff men and relatives who had served our Country from the war of 1812, actually the Revolution, through WW ll. He had collected copies of pictures of most of them including pictures of the12 Ecoffs who served in WW ll, one of whom was an Olaf G. Beestrum, who I believe was the husband of an Ecoff female. He very kindly sent me a copy of his collection of Ecoff warriors and several years later, a copy of a book covering his years in WWll which will be the subject of an upcoming blog. For now, though, I want to show you his colledtion of the Ecoff Warriors:

Politics, Keep out of the Blog ? Hmmmnnnn

2011-08-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ohh my, the temptation is so great for me to launch into current politics on my blog. But, good sense (my good wife, Genie) is sitting on my shoulder counseling me to keep my politics to myself. When I'm thinking rationally, I know she is right. But when politics get really dicey, as they are now, it takes all the will power I possess to keep my big mouth shut. Holt males, at least all of the ones I have known over the many years of my life, are vested with a very active and very vocal political gene. It causes their faces to get red, their eyes to snap and sparkle, their arms to wave wildly with a finger pointing menacingly at whom ever they are lecturing on the topic at hand---political topic that is. And they are right by d---. Ohh, it's bad, bad bad.

So, good common sense tells me to keep on the straight and narrow environs of our familial past and pass along to you what I know or have found out about our collective ancestors. Believe it or not, some of our ancestors were very active politically, especially the Holt folks. And many many of our ancestor males participated in our countries wars that occurred in their life times. I'm very proud of our ancestor participants in the nations battles over the centuries. We've had them in every war since the French and Indian war of 1755/58 right down, I suspect though I don't know of any, to the current mess in the middle east. We lost at least one Davis cousin, Ronald, during the Battle of the Bulge in WWll. He was a dispatch currier whose Jeep was blown up. There were probably others in those many wars and I would like to know who they were so we could honor them. If you know of any, please send me the information and I will compose a blog naming them.

My Davis Family Surname Quandry Solved at Last

2011-08-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

I've been battling my Davis surname quandary for at least thirty-five years, ever since I started doing genealogy. Davis?, What quandary? I could never find the paternal line for Joseph Davis, born 1840/41 in Pennsylvania. I finally met a cousin and fellow researcher, Ethel Daley, who had an old, Kennedy family bible that gave Joseph's name as Leeman--bible spelling--when he married Sarah Ann Kennedy in 1869 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

See my blog of about the Davis quandary.
Frank Davis, a direct, lineal, male descendant of Joseph's, had his DNA done and low and behold, it provided a 37 out of 37 marker match to the family name of Hamilton. I immediately emailed Mr. Hamilton and learned that his birth name was indeed Boyd and that he had been adopted at the age of 2 by a Hamilton family. So, Joseph's father was a Boyd. Unfortunately, women are only counted in the 1840 census and not named, so I'm not aware of the families living close to her or, indeed, where she was living in 1840. My suspicions are she was living in Middlesex Twp., Butler County, Pa. since that is where she shows up in the 1850 census living in the Samuel Davis household. They married that year. But that doesn't give me Joseph's father. I need to find her living either with or near a Boyd family in 1839/40 and I suspect it was in Middlesex Twp., Butler County, Pennsylvania. The search is on. Join me, I need the help.

Excuses from the old Gas bag

2011-08-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

Just a line or two to let you know I'm still among the living. Cranky as all get out, but still here. Genie, my wonderful wife, is about to sweep me out the door to get me moving. I'm in a terrible slump and grouchy. Summers are suppose to be spent in such wonderful---and cool--places as Yellowstone Park, or thereabouts, where sneaky trout are hiding in wonderfully cool and inviting streams. Or maybe wandering around in some weedy, long ago abandoned grave yard looking for an ancestor whose name I have just found in some moldy old records. You know, exciting things like that.

Even my Memoir writing has been suffering from neglect. Speaking of my memoir, I've decided to break it up into two and maybe three items, it's right at 170 pages now. Gassy old bugger--but slow. I've been working on it, off and on, for the last fifteen years. You read that correctly, fifteen years. You weren't aware that my middle name is Procrastination were you? Well you are now.

Wanted Posters errr!!!!! Pictures of the old folks

2011-07-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

My own collection of old family pictures has many, many holes that I would like to fill. I'm talking about pictures of our nineteenth and twentieth century ancestors as well as their children, siblings and homes. What I would like to do is amass a photo gallery of as many of our collective ancestors, both sides, right down the line from as old as we can get right up to today and make them available to their descendants--you.

I would want to restrict their availability to only family. Disseminating the pictures widely within the individual families would help preserve absolutely irreplaceable images of our familial past. I'm sure, many many, wonderful images of our families historical past have already been lost.

I have been able to acquire a few pictures of several of my nineteenth century ancestors and relatives and a bit more of my twentieth century close relatives. My father, John Holt, left a wonderful legacy to his children. He was always taking pictures of family and friends, unfortunately, there are not as many pictures of him as I would like. But I have lots and lots of pictures of family and friends he took over the years that I am forever thankful to him for.

I Would Like Stories and Pictures of the "Oldtimers" that we can share

2011-07-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

Visitors to the blog have declined precipitously over the summer primarily, I believe, because of my absence and it is understandable. I hope to make up for the absence in the coming months. Genie and I traveled many, many miles in the five weeks we were gone. We visited many family sites on the trip, her's and mine.

Genealogy is a marvelous hobby but it does require a lot of work and travel. Some folks try to do it all on the Internet but that's really not possible. There is so much more data and information available on site where your ancestors lived and died than can ever be accessed on just Internet sources. And sometimes, in your actual visits to family sites, you can even see and touch things they saw and touched. There is really no comparison. Both, working on the records and visiting, are valuable and necessary. Pictures can help to some extent and in many cases are all we have. So I would like all of us, through this blog, to share that part of our families that we each own, records and above all, family stories and pictures.

Rod and Johnny the Pig

The stories need not be great histories, just stories of family incidents that have been preserved within your family. Stories can be tales of hardships, tragedies, moves, family members participating in wars, or as mundane as one that I put in my memoir about one of my brothers, Rodney, raising a 4-H pig. He named it Johnny and fed it all spring, summer and fall. It was in the family orchard and Rod moved its pen all over the orchard so it could get fresh feed and dropped apples. In the late fall when it came time to butcher the pig, no one could kill it. We're talking about a farm family that over the years had raised and killed and butchered dozens of pigs for family use. Finally a neighbor did the deed and helped butcher it. But no one in the family could eat Johnny. So the meat was given away that Thanksgiving and Christmas to needy folks in the community.

Any story that has been passed down through your family is also my family history. I want t hear it, so do all those who are related to you. So lets have the stories and pictures of the folks, your folks, their places and their time here on this old planet. I want this to be "our family blog."

Need Help finding Harold N. Davis/ Jock A Davis Missing since 1924

2011-07-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

Harold Newton Davis, son of Albert Hooker Davis and his wife, Jessie Virginia Thornhill, my Grandparents, was born in January of 1900 in New Brighton, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. He lived there until he ran off from home in 1917 after a shouting match between him and his mother. Sadly, he never returned. He did write letters home occasionally and always maintained that he was coming home soon. Several letters are said to have been from Wichita Falls, Texas but the last two that I have which are the last known letters written by him to his parents, are from Okemah and Three Sands, Oklahoma. In both letters he signed his name as Jock A. Davis. The Okemah, Oklahoma letter is dated April 26, 1924. Okemah is 40-some miles due east of Oklahoma City. The last letter ever received fom him was ten days later from Three Sands, Oklahoma, dated May 6, 1924. Three Sands is 30 or 40 miles due north of Oklahoma City and is located between present day Tonkawa and Blackwell. According to the Tulsa, OK marriage certificate that I have, Harold N. Davis 21, of Rochester, Beaver County, Pennsylvania married Emma Sherrill, 19, of Heavener, LeForte County, Oklahoma on October 19, 1920.

Three Sands, Oklahoma, from all I can find, was a wild and woolly oil boom town in 1924 with a population of some 8,000 intrepid, fortune-hunting souls. It was cited on top of what is known today as one of the largest oil pools in continental United States. Unfortunately, Three Sands must have been too wild and woolly for it no longer exists, having made its last gasp of life in 1957.

Harold's letter of May 6, 1924 was the last my grandparents ever heard from him or his family. His wife, Emma, never contacted the family either before or after he died. His death, I believe, would have occurred sometime within two years of the date from his last letter home on May 6, 1924. By then he had been gone from home over seven years. However, he always wrote home even if a little sporadically. It's not known whether they had any children. If they did they would now be in their late eighties or early nineties. Their children's children would now be in their sixties or seventies. If you think you might be related, I would be delighted to communicate with you. Any and all help in this search will be greatly appreciated.

Gonzales, Texas--Honoring the Alamo Defenders

2011-07-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

One of the places Genie and I visited on our holiday last month was Gonzales, Texas, the town from which many of the Alamo defenders marched from to help in that defense. From the little information I have it appears that both William Dearduff and James George, one a Thornhill descendant and the other the spouse of a Thornhill were part of that rescue effort. (see blog post July 1, 2010)

Many years ago the community of Gonzales erected a large museum and commemorative honoring those 32 brave men led by Major Williamson of their town who marched past the huge invading force of over 7,000 Mexican soldiers led by Mexican General Santa Ana to join the roughly 150 defenders already in the Alamo. There is very little question in my mind that those brave men knew, as they marched by Santa Ana's huge force, that they were marching to their death. Such courage is almost unimaginable.

Here are several photographs of the museum and commemorative plaques.

Idea Time--I need your help

2011-05-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

The number of hits on my blog has dropped dramatically the last few months, with good reason; I haven't been as diligent as I should have been in keeping new things posted. I've discovered that it isn't as easy as it seems to keep cranking out family historical items that interest a large spectrum of readers. For instance, the people in my father's line couldn't care less about the folks in my mother's line and vice versa.

I recently perused the various blogs I have written over the year or so I've been publishing and it started me to thinking about how to make it not only more interesting, but how to make it interesting to everyone who visits the blog. Going down family lines as I have done in the past is okay, if the particular blog happens to be your family line. If it isn't, bye bye, and justifiably so. After a few such visits, you won’t bother coming back and I understand. I don't want that to happen, I want you to find something interesting in each and every new post I make. But how to do that and still be exploring and writing about family history is a real challenge. After all, going back just three generations produces sixteen different family lines. It makes you realize your related to a huge chunk of the world’s population but that there is an even more enormous group out there that couldn't care less about half of those ancestors you are writing about.

I don't know whether I can keep it up but I have decided to try and write and publish two blogs a week, one on each family line. Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of circulation for the next month. Genie and I are heading back across the country to visit family on both sides and to collect as much family history as we can by visiting areas we know where long ago family members lived. I am dedicated to finding and recording as much family history as I can in the time I have remaining. Genie's computer is portable so I'll try to publish a bit now and then as we go along. So, I hope you will stay with me on the journey through our families past.

As an aside, I'm writing about my own life's happenings and find it very difficult not only to keep it on track but to make it interesting reading. Very difficult indeed. So far, I've written 175 pages single spaced. One week ago the program I was using, an old version of Word Perfect, crashed and I thought for sure all was lost. I've been working on the project on and off for eight or nine years. Talk about devastated, I could have crawled under a snake’s belly wearing with a tall silk hat. My wonderful wife, Genie, came to my rescue and has been able to salvage most of that work. For that I will be forever grateful.

Thornhills at the Battle of the "Cowpens."

2011-05-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

The American Revolutionary War was hotly contested from the first battle in 1776 until its final major engagement at Yorktown in 1781 when British General Lord Cornwallis was defeated by General Washington. The conflict, in the late stage of the war, was being fought mostly in the south. American General Horatio Gates attacked the British Army that was ravaging the southern landscape led by General Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina and was soundly defeated. Gates was relieved of command and replaced by General Nathanael Greene, nicknamed the "Carolina Swamp Fox." At this same time, a ragged band of American militia trapped and defeated a small contingent of Tories at Kings Mountain. The war had now dragged on for over five years but was still being fought with vigor in the South. The British, though, were growing weary of both the fight and the expense. To make matters worse, the French had openly begun assisting the rebellious Colonists and had an Army coming to the aid of General Greene's forces in the South.

On his march south to engage Cornwallis, Greene recruited fighting men wherever he could find them. It was while going through southern Virginia that William Thornhill and his oldest son William joined Green's forces. William Sr. must have impressed General Greene, for he soon advanced him to the rank of Ensign and then Lieutenant. William Jr., after a few months, was promoted to the officer's rank of Ensign.

General Greene soon moved his forces south from Virgina into South Carolina. He purposely avoided any major head-on confrontation with the much larger and better trained British force. He divided his forces between himself and General Daniel Morgan and the two contingents raided independently throughout the countryside as they advanced. It must be remembered that much of the South was loyal to the British so Generals Greene and Morgan had their jobs cut out for them.

The Thornhills served under General Morgan and on January 17, 1781, in South Carolina, General Morgan's troops fought and won a significant battle against a large contingent of General Cornwallis's forces. That battle comes down to us in history as the battle of the "Cowpens" because it was fought, literally, in a large clearing made for livestock grazing, with an extensive set of cow holding pens.

Serving with the British force was a Colonel Banistre Tarleton, one of Cornwallis's best fighting officers. In an earlier engagement, which Tarleton's forces had won, 120 Continental soldiers had been captured and disarmed. When asked what should be done with the prisoners, Tarleton ordered that they be shot on the spot. No wonder those serving in the American armies hated the British. Unfortunately, Colonel Tarleton was treated much more humanely by General Morgan and survived the Revolution and was able to return to his family in England when the war was over.

The two William Thornhills served on for a few more months under Generals Greene and Morgan. After their agreed upon term of service was completed they returned home much to the great delight of their families I am sure. William Sr. lived another seven years, dying in September of 1788. William Jr., easily the longest lived Thornhill I can find, indeed the longest lived male in my entire genealogy, lived to the amazing age of 98. He died in Breckenridge County, Kentucky on December 3, 1855.

Hello Folks, I'm Back--Ohh I've been lazy!!!! Yes But----

2011-04-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

I have no real excuse for being absent from the blog for so long--lazy? No, I think it had to do with the lack of responders to my output. It's hard to know whether any one is reading the thing or not. I have a lot of information, and I mean a lot, on the many families and different family lines that make up our heritage. Over many years of research I have accumulated an enormous amount of data that I want to pass on to other family members. So, I thought of using the Blog format to do that. I had hopes that other family members would add additional information as we went along, but that didn't happen. I know, it's my thing not the reader's, so I should quit belly-aching and get on with it or wrap it up. But what excites me, is the potential for adding so much more knowledge of our families history through OUR communicating, that I just can't quit. So if you have taken a peek back to see whether there has been any activity since you last visited, nope, but there will be soon. So I hope to see you soon--and to hear from you.
Undoubtedly the most difficult thing in writing a family blog is to keep the follower's interest as the expanse of family lines that occur within a few generations is mind boggling. If I move back just three generations, to the parents of my great grandparents, of whom there are eight, my family lines have now expanded to sixteen different family lines. And I have several lines back at least ten generations. Even my first cousins, the children of my aunts and uncles, couldn't give a hoot about eight of those family lines. They aren't related. So how do I write across this spectrum of my, our, ancestry and still keep you interested enough to visit the blog to read about our ancestors on a regular basis? I don't know, but I'm going to give it a try. I look forward to your regular visits. Drop in and let me know your thoughts. Lets make this our family blog.

BRRRRrrrrrr! 16 Last Night

2011-02-22T14:08:00.000-08:00

OOOPPPS!!!! I wrote that little bit below on the weather about ten days ago. Since then we've had a touch of snow and more cold weather. Nice today though, February 22nd.

     It's not easy to keep coming up with things to write about our ancestors but there is more out there to be had than you think. For instance, I learned that William Holt, an older brother to our ancestor Thomas, lost his wife, Mary Means, to Rabies in 1788. She was just twenty five years old. I can't imagine such a tragedy.

      It was 9* night before last and my water line froze) Guess what, it's still frozen. It's now 11:05 and still only 26*. Yesterday it reached a high of 25---Brrrrr. I was out digging a little this morning but dedided to wait until it gets above freezing at least.  Still no water in the house. Ahhh, 2pm, not even a trickle but temp is 38, maybe by dark---I hope.

     YIPPEEE, I have a volunteer for Beaver County Gravesites for my Gravestone picture taking project. I just tried to add it to my blog but it disappeared. At almost 85--4 more months---I'm not the most accompolished character with the computer, but I'm trying so stick with me. As soon as I find it I'll add it. Thank you for volunteering. We can have a lot of fun with this project. I'll get busy now and get my site set up---lets hear from volunteers anywhere, we have long-gone relatives all over the place, not just Beaver County, Pa. This could be fun and also informative as too where our roots are. Any of you out there who read this can send pictures of Gravestones of their ancestors graves to be added to the file whether I ask for them or not. In fact, that would be great. Also, any family stories about any of our ancestral lines that you have would be great. I'll publish every one I get. Be sure to give me permission to publish the pictures and/or story when you send it.

Back At Last, also, with a "FIND A GRAVE" proposal

2011-01-27T18:20:00.000-08:00

I haven't the foggiest notion whether there is anyone still visiting my blog. I hope there is as I'm finally back---for awhile anyway. Part of the long delay time was the computer and part was just plain laziness on my part. And, part on my reader's shoulders. It's not easy to keep coming up with family data. I'm using what I have and had hoped to get a few followers to participate to enlarge the info about our collective families.
     I've come up with a thought as to how you can participate. My wife, Genie, has begun working as a local picture-taker volunteer with an outfit called "Find a Grave." Upon request by "Find a Grave" she takes photos of the requested gravestones in cemeteries locally which are then published on the "Find a Grave" site. It's a large national organization. It's all done on the Internet. I had a brainstorm the other day: why didn't I do the same thing but getting my blog readers---you know who---take pictures of gravestones of our own long-gone relatives and publish them on my blog site, or on another site with a link to my site as well as a link to the picture providers site if the picture provider so chooses. Crazy? Maybe. But could be interesting and informative.
     It would work something like this: One of you, anyone reading my family blog, would request a photo of a grave of such and such ancestor who is buried in this or that cemetery in "anytown." Any blog reader who is in the vicinity of that grave site would take a photo of the grave and send it to me on the Internet for publication on the blog.
     I'll be back real soon with another ancestral family data item. Boy it would be great to have pictures of at least some or even one of their gravestones to go along with the history. By golly, I have pictures of a few of our ancestors' graves. I'll do one so you can get the idea of what I'm after. I'm not after you to write a blog, although that would be nice. I want to set up an affiliated site with family photos and photos of graves of ancestors---some who passed away long before photography was even invented.
     Let me know what you think.

Computer Problems

2010-12-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

This is not an excuse for tardiness, this is actually happening. I'm not sure what's wrong but my computer has been going wacky lately so if the young lady that keeps the thing going can take it, off it goes for a check up.
With a little luck I'll be back to you in a few days. I know you can hardly wait---hmmmnnnn!!!!!
To do this upsets me no end, especially with the holidays coming up. Be back as soon as I can, Bob

Christmas Just Around The Corner

2010-12-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe the year is almost over. It's even harder to believe that this will be my 84th Christmas. It seems that it was only yesterday when we kids trooped down the stairs in wild excitement to see what Santa had left us under the tree. Ohh those wonderful tree's. Color beyond belief and packages galore spread everywhere under the heavily decorated branches. Such wonderful memories. Ahh, but there is always a negative side when you are old, you remember those who where there then but are no longer with us. You know though, it's nice to remember them and renew your love for them.

I've been pondering about what to put in my blog to commemorate those wonderful Christmas's past. I'm open to suggestions. My sister Virginia, Sis, and I are the only two remaining of the immediate family who participated in those wonderful Christmas mornings there at Holtdale so long ago but yet so fresh in my mind. I am working on my memoirs and have put a section in them on those wonderful mornings. I may just use that.

I get quite a few visitors to the blog but very few comments. I'd hoped to work up a dialog with those who are remembering along with me in the blog. Unfortunately and to my great disappointment that hasn't happened. I suppose I'm partially to blame by not being more prompt and prolific in my submissions. I'm going to try and do better next year so stick with me. Maybe I'll somehow entice you to join me verbally. I hope so. Bob

"Values, The 30's and Now"

2010-12-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

Winter, summer, fall or messy spring, one particular treat we used to enjoy when I was a kid in the 1930's was going to the movies. It was usually always the Saturday afternoon matinee. Mostly we went to either the Beaver theater, the Majestic (dubbed the “Bucket of Blood”) or the Oriental in Rochester. We were usually given $0.16 cents, $0.11 cents for the show and $0.05 cents for a hot dog or ice cream cone afterward. The movie was either a “shoot-em-up western,” “Tarzan and Jane,” a spook thriller with “Boris Karloff’s fangs leering hungrily at his intended victim,” “Our Gang,” Shirley Temple or the Three Stooges, but always the good guy wins. Rochester and the “Bucket of Blood” was most often the choice. Besides, Grandad Holt had his Dental office just across the street from the “Bucket” and frequently worked on Saturday, so we could get a ride home after the movie. Otherwise, it was a five mile walk each way.

Because of the enormously increased violence and the apparent sea-change, negatively, in the moral values in our society these days, I have tried to think reflectively in comparing the entertainment for young folks then with now. Yes, we certainly were exposed to violence in the movies then, but no where near as violent, sexual, vulgar and graphic as that viewed today. Even when someone was shot, which was rare and even then always the bad guy, and he was usually only wounded. Indeed, sort of roughing up the bad guy was usually the extent of the violence. We practically never saw blood, never heard even mild cursing, the sex act was rarely even vaguely alluded too, even in adult movies.

Today, shooting, stabbing, bloody murder, unspeakable violence and sex are explicitly performed not just publicly in the Theater but on the television screens in our homes.

The only comparative conclusion one can come too is that our society has coarsened enormously over the eighty-four years of my lifetime along with the concomitant weakening of our all important moral values. And at the risk of being thought of as just a negative, old bellyacher, I don’t see positive change on the horizon anywhere. In fact, just the opposite, it appears to be getting worse. I saw an extremely disconcerting statistic just this last week, “ in just slightly over 48% of families with children are the parents married.” And even where there is a marriage, the parents aren’t always living together.

I submit that such a society cannot long endure. And unless we begin acting immediately to repair our sorely damaged moral values, even my generation’s grandchildren will not ever see or experience the wonderful, vibrant nation we were up until about forty years ago when the downward spiral began. Even our music has degenerated into nothing more than two and at most three instruments, a drum, guitar and maybe a violin. It consists mostly of rhythm (drum) noise and gyrations by the performers. "Country Western" still has a little of the old values but even there the deterioration is evident..

Am I just an old man unwilling to change? I don't think so. I first became disturbed years ago by the deterioration of our music from the wonderful sounds of many instruments playing collectively, rhythmically together and frequently supporting wonderful singing voices, individually and or collectively. The sound was the important thing not their gyrations and costumes.

The children of Ralph and Agnes (Baxter) Ecoff, my Gr Gr Grandparents

2010-11-18T18:49:00.000-08:00

      The genes of the long and illustrious line of the Ecoff family were brought to the Holt line by Agnes Baxter Ecoff when she married John Childs, and whose daughter, Agnes Gertrude Childs, married Frank Raymond Holt in 1898 in Beaver, Pennsylvania.
       Ralph Ecoff and his wife Agnes Baxter migrated from Harmon County, Maryland to Borough Twp, Beaver County, Pennsylvania sometime in the 1830's. Their son, Ralph (9 Sep. 1818- 24 Jan 1855) was the first of the line to marry in Pennsylvania when he married Margaret Alaman (15 Jun 1822- 18 Apr 1854) on 9 Dec 1840, in Borough Twp., Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Ralph's and Margaret's first child appeared on the scene not quite 13 months later when they were blessed with the birth of their first son, Samuel, on the 29th of Dec 1841. Five more children were born at fairly regular intervals, starting with  Asa b 28 Nov 1843, Rochester, PA; John Henry, b 14 Dec 1848, Rochester; Agnes Baxter, b 28 Jan 1848 - d 22 Jun 1930, Beaver, PA; Mary Crawford, b 12 Nov 1851, Rochester, PA; and Margaret Alaman, 15 Apr 1854, Rochester, PA.  Unfortunately, the children's mother, Margaret Alaman Ecoff, died three days later on 18 April, 1854, probably from complications during the birth of her daughter, Margaret Alaman. As an interesting aside, at least to me, my oldest sister Miriam, who lived just two short months in 1921, is buried on the grave of her Gr Gr Grandmother, Margaret Alaman Ecoff.
     My Gr Grandfather, John Worrell Marshall Childs, married Agnes Baxter Ecoff, the oldest daughter of Ralph and Margaret Ecoff, and their daughter, Agnes Gertrude Childs, married Frank R. Holt, who were the parents of my father, John, and my Uncle Frank.
      Ecoff males served in every American War from from the War of 1812 through WWll. One may have served in the Revolutionary War, however, I have not been successful in my search for the immigrant Ecoff. The name Ecoff is reasonably common, historically, in Germany, Norway and Sweden but our immigrant Ecoff's country of derivation and when he arrived in America is still a mystery, at least to me.

Joseph Leman/Lehman/Davis Update---DNA

2010-11-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

          I want to bring you up-to-date on the attempts of my first cousin, Frank Davis, and myself to determine just whom Joseph Davis's father was. Joseph, you might recall, was the lineal ancestor, actually Grandfather, of my mother, Naomi (Davis) Holt. We know that Joseph's mother was an Irish lass named Agnus Leman. (The name has been spelled several ways: Leman/Lehman, Leeman.) She was born c1820 somewhere in the Emerald Isle. We also know she had a son, Joseph, born c1840 who stated in the 1880 census that he was born in Pennsylvania. Where?  To date, no one knows. Nor does anyone know whom his father was. My grandfather, Albert Hooker Davis, always said his grandmother's name was Agnus Lehman/Leman/Leeman.   He never mentioned a grandfather, and I never thought to ask.
          Enter DNA testing. DNA testing requires a direct line male descendant in order to acquire the same DNA as Joseph's, which is exactly what Frank Davis, Joseph's Great Grandson, is. I am also a Great Grandson but through my mother so my DNA wouldn't get it done. When the results came in, low and behold, not Davis, nope, but Boyd. Boyd??? Where the heck did that come from? Joseph's father, obviously. Or so we thought. The results were 36 markers exactly and 1 was not.  Bingo, 99.9% certain Joseph's father was a Boyd. Well, maybe.
          Months later, after searching for Boyds, another match came in. This one with 37 markers right on, and an absolutely perfect match, none of this minus 1 business. Perfect fit, but the name is Hamilton. Here we go again. The Boyd is a few generations back---probably. I have big questions about her pregnancy.   1) When did Agnus arrive in America, and was she pregnant when she arrived? I don't know. 2) Did she get pregnant in Ireland or America? I don't have a clue. If in America, where? Pennsylvania? I really don't know. I need to know where and when she lived near a Hamilton in late 1839 to have a prayer of finding Joseph's father.
          I am assuming she became pregnant here in America. Ok then, where was she living in late 1839? Where there any Hamiltons living close by? There is some question about Joseph's exact birth date since the 1840 census gives only male, head of household names, unless the female was the head of household.  In the 1850 census (when finally everyone is named) Agnus is living with her to-be husband, Samuel Davis, in Middlesex Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, and is listed as Agnus Leman, single, born in Ireland. No Joseph in sight. In fact he doesn't show up until the 1880 census living next door to his mother, Agnus and her husband, Samuel Davis in East Deer Twp, Allegheny County, PA. As an interesting aside, in 1850 she is listed as Agnus, in 1860 and 1870, she is listed as Nancy and in 1880 she again is listed as Agnus. She died in 1881 and is buried as Nancy.
       By then, Joseph had married twice, first to a young lady whose name, (I think but have no proof) was Susan Potts, who died, possibly during the birth of Joseph's oldest daughter, Laura. He then married Sarah Ann Kennedy in 1869 and had four children by her. Interestingly, in 1869, his Father-in-Law, William Kennedy, in his Bible, listed his name as Joseph Leeman (sp). In the 1880 census of East Deer Twp., Allegheny County, Pennsylvania he was calling himself Joseph Davis.
         I put all this in an earlier blog hoping to get a little help from an interested reader. I'm again calling for your help. The DNA data clearly establishes that his father's surname was Hamilton. The only thing I know to do is assume that Agnus got pregnant in Pennsylvania. The DNA Hamilton family whom Joseph matches have a long history of living in Pennsylvania. Indeed, in Western Pennsylvania.
           My guess is Joseph was an out-of-wedlock child, born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, father ---- Hamilton, mother, Agnus Leman. He obviously was farmed out, possibly to relatives on either side, somewhere in Allegheny County in 1850 because he doesn't show up with her in the 1850 census when she is living with Samuel Davis.
         He married Sarah Ann Kennedy in 1869 and his first child in this second marriage was Martha Bell Elizabeth, born 23 October, 1870. She was followed by Amy Nancy, Anna Theresa and Hooker Albert aka Herbert Albert. The last two are not mentioned in the Kennedy Bible.The birth information on his new family is listed in his Father in Law William Kennedy's Bible, and the 1880 census.   I doubt he lived very far from his mother at any time from his birth in 1840 or early 1841 until her death in 1881 in East Deer Twp. (or Tarentum) Allegheny County, Pennsyvania.
         Where oh where was he in 1850, 1860 and 1870? Leman immigrants from Ireland show up in Allegheny, Butler,and Armstrong Counties during those years. I really would like your help in finding our Hamilton relative.

Find-A-Grave--We dId

2010-11-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

          Good morning everybody, I hope you had a good weekend. We did. Genie signed us up with an interesting group called http://www.findagrave.com/. So yesterday we responded to a request to "find a grave," actually two graves, both in one of the local cemeteries, Skull Valley Cemetery.
We successfully photographed them with Genie's digital camera and sent them along to the "Find a Grave" folks. This morning there was a grateful "Thank You" in our email. You know, doing something for others benefits both parties.
          The Skull Valley Graveyard is a tiny little graveyard, I'd say maybe fifty or so graves at most, with two recent burials and the oldest around 1900. As you might imagine, Skull Valley isn't a great big community. How did it get its name? Well, we are told when the first white folks, a couple of trappers, visited the area some time in the mid 1850's they found a lot of human skulls laying around. It is suspected that those skulls were all that remained of bodies left unburied after a battle between two rival Indian groups many years before. But no one really knows.
          Sometime after the Civil War, in the 1870's, people began to move into the area and it has been occupied ever since. Current population? Oh maybe fifty or so. The tiny village now boasts a post office, grocery store, one tiny, tiny restaurant, one pump service station and a small building occupied by the local Historical Society. Neat place.
          I just know you folks are all excited now about Skull Valley. As an interesting aside, last fall when Genie and I drove through the area on our way to Prescott, we saw a small Elk herd just outside of town with two really nice Bulls. That alone recommends the place to me.
          Okay, okay, I'll move on to other things. My next family blog should be ready to go either tomorrow or the next day if something doesn't come up, like photographing a grave somewhere in another tiny rural cemetery around here. Yes, we live in a tiny community out in the boonies ourselves and drive thirty miles to Prescott to do our shopping once a week. Fun huh? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
          I'd really like to hear from any of you that read my blog. It would help me a lot to know what you think and get your suggestions as to how I can make it better--write to me more often. See ya tomorrow. Bob

!!!!!!!!HAPPY SPOOKS DAY!!!!!!!!!

2010-11-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

     When I was a kid--uh boy, here he goes again--Halloween had a dual meaning. Go out and knock down corn shocks, soap car windows, knock on doors and run. Or, dress up as a spook, dress up as a bum, or fairy, you name it. Then knock on doors with your goodies sack held out in front of you and delight at what the folks put in it. Nibble on it all the way around the neighborhood as you beg for more, then go home and compare to see who got the most and the best of the wonderful, usually sweet, goodies.

     When your old, dottery and grumpy like me, you try and remember the good times you had tearing down a neighbor's corn shocks, soaping his car windows, you name it, anything devilish. You tell anybody who will listen your funny stories, at least you think they're funny. They may have heard them all before, indeed if it is a family member, I'm sure they have heard it all before.

     You remember that you got lots and lots of goodies, some homemade, others store "boughten," but you didn't really mind just so you got something.

The Passing of a Friend, Ed Criley

2010-10-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

     I recently learned that I have lost probably my oldest friend, Ed Criley. Ed and I attended Kent State University in Kent Ohio together from 1948 through graduation in 1951. We both received degrees in geology, specializing in hard rock geology. Ed continued on and became a leading geologist in the United States Geological Survey specializing in volcanology. I went to the University of Utah and specialized in Mining Geology with an emphasis in mining.

      The summer between our Junior and Senior years at Kent State we participated, along with seven other geology students, in a required class mapping geology on Mt. Desert Island, Maine. The course was taught by our leading professor at Kent, Carleton Savage, a Maine native. To say we enjoyed ourselves would be the understatement of the year---we enjoyed every second of it.

      Without a doubt the highlight of the fun part of the summer was a nasty hurricane that slammed into the Maine coast. The winds blew everything that wasn't tied down ashore or out to sea. Many of those "things" were Lobster Pots. The shore line was mostly irregular and smoothed granitic rock outcrop. After the storm all along that rocky shore were storm-tossed lobster pots. And in most of those tossed-up pots were wiggly, big-clawed lobsters and still alive---feast makers if there ever was such a thing. And, according to Professor Savage, they would be considered salvage---anyone could harvest them. And boy we did.

      The motel we stayed in had a special lobster holding well which we filled to the brim with reaching, clawing lobsters. The pots we gave back to the lobster men who were happy to just retrieve their pots. We then proceeded to have a lobster boil to end all lobster boils and gorged ourselves on those delicious but rich, rich, super-rich wonders of seafood. And, everyone of us got sick, sick and sicker. But, you guessed it, a happy sick. Not once, not twice, but three times, and still had lobsters left over. Ed and I reminisced about that lobster feast as often as we contacted each other. He will be missed not only by me but everyone who knew him. I've lost a wonderful friend.

      Most geologists have a hard time with the concept of God and life after death. But, if there is such a being as God and a place such as Heaven, I know he took Ed home. And if I luck out and make it, I'll look forward to reminiscing again with Ed. My Friend.

Ancestors of William Thornhill, b 1735

2010-10-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

     I have searched many years for the ancestors of Revolutionary War Veteran William Thornhill, who fought at the Battle of Cowpens and who resided in Bedford County, Virginia. His wife was Sarah, maiden name unknown. They had eight children: William, Ezekial, Rachael, Briant, Edna, Sally, Leonard and James. Virtually all of the researchers I have communicated with over at least thirty years have maintained that William was born in Maryland. In fact, it was stated that William had actually made such a statement. How that could be known I have no idea. No one that I am aware of though ever found his parents there or, as a matter of fact, any where else-- up until now.
     Just within the last month I received information stating that William was not born in Maryland but in Rappahannock County Virginia to Bryant Thornhill b1705 also in Rappahannock Coutny, Virginia and _______ Thompson. Bryant was the son of Bryan Thornhill, the immigrant, who was  born abt 1670 in Yorkshire, England and Elizabeth Phillips.
     It is interesting to note that William named his third son Briant . The second son was named Ezekial. Could  that have been his wife Sarah's father's name? As an interesting aside, I've seen three spellings, Bryant and Briant and Bryan for the family name. I haven't the vaguest notion which is correct. Maybe all three were used to help determine which was which. I do suspect, however, that all will be found to have the same name, Bryant or Briant or Bryan. As the old saying goes, "you pays your money and you takes your pick."
     I would really appreciate some input on this family lineage.

Thomas Holt, First of the line born in America

2010-09-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

      I am not absolutely certain as to what day in August of 1733, and where, Thomas Holt Sr. was born. I am certain that he and his parents, Henry and Dorcas, were present in the Episcopal, Christ Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 27 September, 1733 when he was christened at "one month of age". It is recorded in Christ Church baptismal records. My guess is he was born in Philadelphia.
     As an interesting aside, Benjamin Franklin was also a parishioner at that church at that time and is buried in the church graveyard. Wouldn't it be interesting to know whether he was present at the church when the christening took place.
     It's not certain how long the family remained in Philadelphia. The next recorded occurrence of the family's whereabouts was in 1735 when Dorcas, Thomas's mother, was reprimanded  in court  in newly founded Lancaster, Pennsylvania for beating up on one of her neighbors. It appears he had slapped around one of her female friends. That Scotch-Irish fire is still alive and well in her descendants today.
     Thomas's father Henry disappeared c1735. It's not known whether he died in Pennsylvania or was lost at sea returning home to England as the inheritor of his deceased father's estate. His mother remarried in 1738 to Arthur Buchanan, another Irish immigrant. She and Arthur had five children.
      On February 3, 1756 in St James Episcopal Church, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Thomas married eighteen year old Elizabeth Mitchell, daughter of John and Jane Ross Mitchell. Thomas and Jane soon followed his mother and Arthur Buchanan to the vicinity of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Arthur died there in 1759.  Dorcas and her five Buchanan children and Thomas and his little family moved into the Pennsylvania wilderness where Lewistown is now sited on lands each had purchased from William Penn's sons.
       Thomas and Elizabeth had nine children: William, November,1756; John, 1 February, 1758; Thomas Jr. April 1761; James 1762; Elizabeth 1764; Mary 1766; Jane 1769; Dorcas 13 March 1772; and, Eleanor 22 September 1774.
        Over time, Thomas became influential in the area and was elected to several posts of importance in the local governing body. By mid 1776 the causative political currents that eventually fomented the American Revolutionary War against England were nearing fever pitch and the local Militia was formed. Thomas as a matter of course joined the Militia. Some time during the summer of 1777 the militia personnel were afield honing their shooting skills. According to George F. Stackpole, a descendant of Thomas, "Thomas was shooting mark with, among others, his half- brother, Robert Buchanan on what is now Dorcas Street, Lewistown, Pa. Thomas was marking shot locations. He was concealed behind the target tree, Robert was shooting and for some reason, possibly a hang fire, he was slow in getting his shot off. Thomas stepped from behind the tree, possibly to determine why his half brother hadn't shot, and was hit in the head and killed."
       Elizabeth lived on in what eventually became Lewistown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania until her death in 1798. Most of those members of the Holt and Buchanan families of the time are buried in the downtown Lewistown cemetery that is dedicated to Thomas's mother, pioneer woman Dorcas (Armstrong)(Holt) Buchanan. About fifteen years after Dorcas's death, several admirers erected a large, homemade, dark bluish-gray, shale headstone over her grave that is still standing today, 200 years after her death. Thomas and Elizabeth's graves were lost to posterity when the Erie Canal was built through the area during the first half of the 1800's.

Smokin' a Seegar & Chawin' Tabakee---eeeyuk--oooffff

2010-09-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

      I don’t recall how old I was, I suppose eight or nine, when I tried smoking. We were still living at Granddad Holt's house so it was before 1936. Bob Buckley had gotten several cigars and a partial pack of Mail Pouch chewing tobacco from his father’s supply and came and got me. We went down over the hill to the spring house that covered the spring that at one time supplied the family with fresh water. We crawled up on the roof for some reason or the other for our great adventure.
      Bob had smoked before so he started on the stogie and gave me the Mail Pouch for openers. He showed me how to form a plug and put it in my mouth, which I did. The stuff had a sweet, not totally unpleasant taste and made spit real fast. I "splooshed" a few streams of juice off the roof and decided, heck what’s the big deal, and ask Bob for a puff on his cigar. He obliged by giving me one of my own. He lit it for me and I began to puff, choked, gasped for air, then swallowed smoke, tobacco, juice and all. Bob thought that was real funny. All of a sudden I felt dizzy, so dizzy in fact, I couldn’t stand up. So I slowly collapsed down on the roof with my head hanging over the side and began heaving, and heaving and heaving some more until I was sure everything including my toenails would soon go over the side. I couldn't stop. I just wretched and wretched and wretched some more.

     Bob got scared and ran up the hill and brought Mom down. By the time she got there I had, at last, stopped heaving and recovered somewhat. Although, I guess I was whiter than the provervbial ghost and more than a bit "willowie" on my feet.  Boy did she ever give Bob a reaming. I don’t know whether she ever told his parents, but one thing I do know, he never offered me a "seegar" or a "chaw" of tobacco again. I owe him a debt of gratitude for that experience. I never tried smoking or chewing tobacco again, right up to now.

STARTING UP AGAIN----HONEST

2010-09-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

I have no excuse for being away from my blog so long, only an explanation—It’s been brutally hot in these parts this summer, even though we live at 5200'. Hot summer heat has always enervated me. So why do I live here? Good question. Up until recently, all my immediate family lived in Arizona. Also, Genie teaches in the Wickenburg School District. But believe me, during the summer, she would rather be some place else—around Yellowstone and Grand Teton Parks National Parks.. We both like Montana and Northern Wyoming. Especially in the summer and fall. We’re devoted fly fishing fans and it’s hard to beat the areas in and around the two parks. In fact, we lived in Bozeman, Montana several years trying to get a magazine off the ground servicing the motels and hotels around the two Parks. And boy did we love the fishing. Unfortunately, we decided after 18 months that part of the franchise conditions were just not to our liking so we dropped the franchise.

Enough crying—on with the blog. With a little luck and the “Lord willin and the creek don’t run dry,” I’m going to try and meet a twice-a-week publishing schedule. Until I get rolling that schedule is going to work me “ah” mite hard. So please bear with me.

I’d like to toss the ball into your court a little. I had plenty of visitors to the blog but very few comments pro or con. I was hoping for a bit of participation from the blog readers; Could you do this family or that family or, did you know gr gr granny had this funny thing happen to her, or, flesh it out more, or, I did or didn’t like it because----I’d really appreciate reader participation. I know, it’s my blog and it’s up to me to carry the ball. I will but I sure would like to hear from you,

That old Pennsylvania Bugger livin’ in Arizona, Bob

Eakin School, A Little Red Brick School House

2010-08-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

Eakin School, 1932-33

Names read from left to right beginning in the front row

with Bob Holt (me), then beginning at the left for the next

row back. Read the list vertically beginning on the left..

My first seven years in school were attended in a one-room, red-brick school house. One lonely teacher taught all eight grades, maintained discipline over as many as 32 students, keep the school clean, the fire going in the winter--with some help from the older boys--and somehow, with the help of the good Lord, I'm sure, maintained his/her sanity. First, always, came the Lord's Prayer followed immediately with the pledge of allegiance to the Flag and Country. Once the day got underway, each grade, in turn, would be called up to stand by the teacher's desk for their lesson in a particular subject. Recitation and questions would be given out loud. For some reason or the other, it didn’t seem to interfere with the studying of those other students in the room. The subjects were standard, reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, geography, history and some form of art.

The spelling, writing and arithmetic would frequently require the student to work at the blackboard.

I remember one time when my class was up at the teacher’s desk doing our thing when my close friend, Bill Bailey, put a tack on the teacher’s chair while the teacher, Harold Ivell, was working at the blackboard with another student. To say that, after he sat down, the teacher rose to his subject would be the understatement of the year. Those of us who were aware of the reason for the bellowing outburst when he sat down, were petrified. It had to be one of us because we were the only ones standing close enough to his chair to accomplish the deed. When it began to look like we were all going to be hung out to dry, Bill manfully confessed, much to all our relief, for none of us would have exposed Bill. We all would have accepted our punishment without a word.

Bill Bailey became a lifelong friend. We attended Kent State University together 1948/49. As kids, we used to sleep over at each other’s home. I remember one cold winter day while still in grade school, when I was staying with Bill, his father, Jess, who was part Menominee Indian from Wisconsin, made each of us a Bow and Arrow using limbs from a hickory tree. He first fashioned them with a hand ax, then shaved them to their final shape with a piece of broken glass. Talk about two proud boys. You can’t imagine how we felt about those bows. That was at least seventy-five years ago, and it is still strong in my memory. Bill died in Tucson in 1991 and is buried in the cemetery on East Grant Road. Bill’s mother, Dicey, became like a second mother to me. She lived to be 97 years old.

Within the first ten days of class at Eakin School I fell hopelessly in love with a sweet, little, blue-eyed blond named Betty Merriman. She remained my special girlfriend from first through the fifth grade. She lived with her family on a small farm in Mudlick Hollow. We would sometimes eat together at lunch and if she was on my side when we played prisoner’s base and she got caught, I’d work especially hard to get her free. The love affair died on the vine when I was transferred to Stokes School where they had a teacher they were sure could keep me in line.

At Eakin,the entire school would go on a picnic at the end of each school year. We would walk from the school across a meadow west of the school and down through the woods to Four Mile Run where we would eat our lunch and spend the day. That was always a special time.

Did we enjoy school? You know we did. Did we learn anything? That’s the more important question. I can speak only for myself. I came away from my seventh grade in school with an outstanding ability to read and comprehend, do arithmetic easily in my head, was well versed in history and geography, and was as wild as a march hare. As an attendee in such an environment though, I became a prankster supreme. I ran Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer a good race in grade school.

I attended two one-room schools, Eakin and Stokes, and was sufficiently incorrigible that the school board, with the concurrence of my parents, sent me to the much larger Beaver School System for my eighth year to try and get me under control. I never had a bit of trouble there, possibly because they had a big, big library with all kinds of wonderful books to keep me busy.

I recently learned that the Beaver grade school I attended, Fort MacIntosh, was built from bricks made in a brickyard owned or leased by my Gr Gr Grandfather, William Taylor. And, some of those same bricks were hauled from the brick yard to the school site by my Gr.Grand Father, Samuel Jacob Holt.

Thornhill Relatives at the Alamo

2010-07-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

My lovely wife, Genie, was helping me this week research the early Thornhill folks—in all honesty, she was doing it all—when she discovered a clue that a descendant of an early Thornhill, and the husband of that descendant’s sister, had perished at the battle of the Alamo and her research talents tingled. She hit the research trail in earnest. Genie is a died-in-the-wool Texan and when she got a hint of such a thing her excellent genealogical instincts soared. If it were true, she would no longer have to apologize to her Rebel kin for her Yankee husband. And wonder of wonders, it was true. She found that the daughter (Edna) of one of my fourth Great Grandparents, William Thornhill, had a son and son-in-law killed in that great Texas battle. I must admit that I was absolutely thrilled at the discovery. And—well, here is the background and story of those two brave individuals, relatives of ours, along with 30 of their companions who selflessly went to the aid of their countrymen, in the Battle of the Alamo in early March 1836.

Edna (Edney?) Thornhill, born in Virginia circa 1769, the middle daughter of three girls of William (1735–1788) and Sarah Thornhill (1740–Sept 1802), married widower Henry Dearduff (Deardorf) in September of 1802. It was Henry’s and Edna’s son William, born c1811, who was killed at the Alamo along with his brother-in-law, James George, husband to Elizabeth Dearduff. William was probably named after his grandfather William Thornhill, and had followed his sister and her husband to south Texas. There the two men joined DeWitt's Rangers to go to the aid of the men at the Alamo. To me, the fact that their small unit of 32 men under the command of a Major Williamson chose almost certain death as they marched past the Mexican army of possibly 7,000 men to join about 150 Texians already inside the Alamo. That’s courage way beyond the call of duty.

You can get a more detailed account of the Dearduff and George families before and after the battle at these links:

DeWitt’s Colony, DeWitt's Rangers: http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/gonreliefframe.htm

William Dearduff: http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/gonzalesrangersa-e.htm

Elizabeth and James George: http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/gonzalesrangersf-k.htm

George Washington Thornhill & Martha Ann Blake

2010-06-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

George Washington Thornhill, the eighth child of the ten children of James Lewis Thornhill and Polly Corley (Cauley), was born in Roanoke, Roanoke County, Virginia 3 May, 1831. George moved to Gauly Bridge, Fayette County, Virginia in 1855 where he married Martha Ann Blake, born 16 March, 1836, in Roanoke, Roanoke County Virginia, also. She was the oldest child of the eight children of Lewis and Margaret (Wiseman) Blake. I'm not certain when the Blakes moved to Fayette County, but what information I have states that George and Martha Ann were married in Gauly Bridge on the 10th of September, 1856.

One year minus one day, in Gauly Bridge, on the 9th of September, 1857 their oldest son, James Lewis, was born. His picture is immediately to the left. Then on the 27th of January, 1860 John Newton was born. Their next child, William Hammond was born the 28th of February 1862 in Gauly Bridge also. The family must have been pro North because sometime during that year they moved north to Steubenville, Ohio, just across the Ohio River from then Virginia, now West Virginia. That northwestern part of Virginia refused to secede from the Union and became the state we now call West Virginia but it was obvious the Thornhills weren't taking any chances, they were Unionists.
Mary Margaret, their first daughter was born near Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio on 4 November, 1864. Hiram Bates was next in line and was born 17 September, 1866 in Jefferson County, Ohio. The terrible Civil War was finally over and life could at least begin to get back to normal. But, the family moved still again and Eunice Ellewood was born 31 December, 1868 in Washington County, Pennsylvania. On 2 December, 1870, Emery Emmit arrived on the scene. Martha Ann had been having children almost every two years since they married in 1856, however. this time she waited four years and on the 6th of May, 1874 Charles Albert was born. And last but not least, Elmer Ellsworth was born 3 March, 1877. My records are silent on where Charles and Elmer were born but I believe it was in that portion of Ellwood City that is in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. George and Martha had nine children in 5 different locations in 21 years finally ending up in Ellwood City, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania where they lived the remainder of their lives. George passed away on the13th of November 1901 and Martha November 2, 1910.

Charles died 11 January, 1881 in New Cumberland, Hancock County, West Virginia. Elmer was killed in September, 1913. Unfortunately, my notes are silent as to where and how he was killed.

Eakin School, my early years

2010-05-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

I entered first grade at Eakin School in September, 1932. We lived about a mile from the school and, except for the first day when Mother took me in the car, I walked. That first year I walked with Bob and Marion Buckley, neighbors who lived about a quarter of a mile from us on the way to school. Bob was two years older than I was and Marion, four years older.

Eakin School was a one room, red brick building that housed all eight grades and had been around since before the Civil War. It had actually been used as a recruiting barracks during the Civil War. In the late 1800's my Grandfather and his brothers and sisters had gone to school there. Grandfather's brothers, Smith (Richard) and Clyde, taught there as young men. The red building bricks for the school were quarried and made on site. The building was approximately 12' x 40'x 60' inside dimensions. It had a fairly steep roof with two gable ends. There was only one door in the building and it was located in the front. Outside, there were four or five steps up to the door. There were four large rectangular windows with multiple panes on each side.

Inside, the room was divided roughly in thirds down its long dimension with, I believe, nine rows of seats except the back-center half was open to the entry door. In front of the door as you entered was a large, round, pot-bellied stove about mid-way in the room that sat on a piece of metal which protected the oily-floor timbers from the heat of the stove. Almost the the entire front wall on the inside, from about three feet above the floor to a height of seven feet, was a large black piece of slate that functioned as a blackboard. The teacher's desk was centered in the front of the room, just in front of the blackboard. Along one side wall near the entry door were three rows of wooden pegs, one above the other, used for hanging hats and coats when school was in session. The other wall had shelves and was used as a library. There might have been forty or fifty feet of shelf space for books.

Outside, in front of the school, was a large graveled area about ten feet wider than the building on both sides and maybe fifty feet deep. Near the far end of this graveled area was the school water supply, a drilled well capped by a long-handled pump standing about four feet high. To drink from this well one had to either have a personal cup somewhere, or as most all of us did, someone pumped while you cupped your hands below the spout to form a cup and drank. A few fussy girls would wash their hands before drinking. The rest of us thought they were showing off and "uppity."

Along the right hand side of the building when facing the school, and about two thirds of the way back, were two large, slanting cellar doors covering the passage way to the area under the school floor. These opened to several steps that led down into a dank, dark, dugout-space beneath the school floor where coal for the stove was stored for use during winter.

Behind the school, and about twenty feet away from the building, were the outhouses–two-holers- one for Boys, one for Girls. Each outhouse had a shielding, wooden wall in front and side of its entry door and a low, sloped, hinged, wooden cover extending out from the back from which the waste material could be removed. As you might imagine, these could become quite aromatic in the early fall and late spring. We boys used to get large, flat rocks, sneak up behind the girls outhouse, quietly lift the covering door and hurl the rocks into the “maggoty” mess hoping to splash some poor unsuspecting girl seated inside.

One time, unknown to us, the school teacher, a woman, was using the facility when some of us older boys did our thing and the flat rocks did their thing. We gloatingly waited for the customary screams, which had always happened with every gal we had caught. Surprisingly, silence. No one in there? Hmmmm. In about a minute, and to our total surprise and chagrin, one angry lady teacher came boiling out of the outhouse. As you might guess, no one would talk, so eight or nine of us were punished severely for that little caper.

On the north side of the school where the school’s long dimension was east-west and the entry door was on the west side, there was a grassy, upward sloping area with about ten very large old oak trees that provided wonderful shade under which to eat our lunches and for horsing around. Mudlick Hollow Road was about one hundred feet from the south side of the school and parallel with it. Going east from the school the road ran flat for just a short distance and then turned down as it wound its way down into “Mudlick” hollow. The road went from the school, where it intersected Sebring Road, all the way to Vanport, a distance of about five miles. During the winter when the snows were deep, this became a prime sled-riding slope. It was so long down to where it first leveled off that we could usually only make one or two runs during our lunch break.

Behind the school was a very large field that was farmed by the Hogue family who were my relatives. The Hogues living there when my syblings and I attended school were descendants of Grandfather’s Aunt Rachel (Holt) and Uncle John Hogue. Corn was frequently the crop of choice and after it was harvested and the slalks cut there remained about a six or seven inch "stob" sticking above the ground. These became flying missiles during recess and lunch times. Believe it or not, no eye was put out during my six years attendance there and "stob" slinging every fall. Don't tell me there wasn't a guardian angel watching over us kids.

The school year in those rural schools was from the day after Labor Day until April 15th the following year, reflecting the fact that the community was still in the transitional stage between being a rural farming community where all available manpower was needed to help with spring planting to more modern times when machinery replaced manpower. Change was in the air everywhere, but in those little one-room schools, time seemed to stand still. World War ll changed all of that almost overnight.

Thomas Holt ll & Elizabeth (Humphry?) Walker

2010-05-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

Thomas Holt II, third son of Thomas Holt and Elizabeth Mitchell's nine children, was born in April 1761 in Oliver Twp (?), Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. Mifflin County at that time was still very much frontier country and was recovering from the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Thomas was just 16 when his father, Thomas, on the eve of the American Revolution in 1777, was shot and killed during a target practice session of the local militia. It is hard to imagine the trials and tribulations his mother Elizabeth and the family must have gone through over the next ten or fifteen years. Her youngest child was just three years old at the time.

Thomas II was the oldest male in the household after his two older brothers, William and John, joined the local military unit and marched off to war. Even then, he did serve in the home guard or militia completing four short tours, mainly chasing roving bands of Indians. For that service he was granted in 1840 a Revolutionary War pension #S4400. He was living in Trumbull County, Ohio at the time.

Thomas lived at home untill his mother died in 1798 in Lewistown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. He was still a batchelor living at home so his syblings permitted him to continue using his mother's iron cooking ware. It's interesting that such a mundane item as the pots and pans would be considered important enough to list in the final settlement papers. Some time after that he moved to western Pennsylvania and then on to Ohio. Somewhere along the line, either in Mifflin County or Ohio, he met and married a widow?, Elizabeth Walker, b1778, seventeen years his junior. Elizabeth is thought to be the daughter of another Mifflin County couple, William and Jane Humphry.

In the first week of June, 1806, Elizabeth gave birth to twins, William Humphry and Dorcas. Interestingly, William used the birth date of June 4 and Dorcas used June 2. Elizabeth apparently had a very difficult time giving birth to the twins for she died either during the children's birth or shortly thereafter. I have no information on where they were living when the children were born, the date of her death, nor where she is buried. Her death left forty-four year old Thomas with two newborns on his hands. He had been a bachelor for forty-two of those years and obviously knew absolutely nothing about caring for children let alone infants. So the babies were parceled out, William to his grandparents(?), the Humphrey's in Mifflin County Pennsylvania, and Dorcas to Thomas's sister, Eleanore (Holt) Windle and her husband, Francis, who lived in rural Trumbull County, Ohio.

As an interesting aside, the Windles had eight children and shown here is a picture of the second of the six Windle daughters, Mary. The Windle children were, Elizabeth, b25 Oct. 1796, Mary, b3Mar 1799, Dorcas, b7Aug 1801, Eleanore, b15 Jun 1804, William b2 Jan 1808, Rebecca b10 Apr 1810, Francis b6 Apr 1812, Martha Jane bJun 1817.

I'm not certain whether Thomas was living with the Windles or just near them. He lived on in Ohio until his death on the 29th of September, 1848. He was buried in the Eckis Cemetery, Milton Township, Trumbull County, Ohio as were the Windles and several of their children. The cemetery is in a rural area in the southern section of the county and is at the end of a fairly long lane leading in from the highway. As you come up on the cemetery the first thing you notice are four, fairly tall. black slate stones. These stones mark the graves of Thomas and the Windle family members buried there.

Spring, Spring, Beautiful Spring at Last.

2010-05-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

By now, in rural Brighton Twp, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, on May 9th in the 1930s, school would have been three weeks behind us and long forgotten. Shoes, shirts and long pants would have been abandoned, some hanging in the closet or, more probably, under the bed waiting for Mom to find them. Garden planting and watering time for Rod and me. Sis's assignment would of been to kinda watch baby "Leezer--Squeezer--Squirt,---never Lee" take your pick. The orchards would have been harrowed by Dad or Uncle Frank on the old Fordson Tractor with its steam-emitting radiator and giant, bladed, rear driving wheels churning away.

We would have tested the ponds still-much-too-chilly, murky waters just in case. Little fuzz-ball "peepies" would be clustered around their almost-constantly clucking and scratching old mother hens leading them in search of weed seeds, bugs and, if lucky, a worm. And the mighty majordomo of the yard, big-daddy-turkey-gobbler, would be strutting his stuff for his small harem. Many of the fruit trees would be in blossom and some of Granddad's many flowers would have already exhibited their beauty for everyone's pleasure.
Spring on that old farm was was always a wonderful time for me and my siblings. It wasn't just that we were free of our school chores, we were free to just enjoy and explore everything around us. That kind of feeling is exclusive to youngsters and we had it in abundance.

We had a half-dozen or so neighbor kids to hobnob with: the Buckleys, the Bevingtons, the Gillespies, the Killians and Bankovitches, as well as a half-dozen or so cousins. The cousins were my Uncle Guy's kids, the "Davis Glenn" clan, from over on the Dutchridge Road. Ruth was the oldest, Ronny, next in line, whom we saw only occasionally because he was in the "CCC" (Civilian Conservation Corp), Cleo, Herb, and Ann, the baby of the bunch. We saw them a lot. We either visited them or they visited us.

By then the crows and songbirds would be nesting and Granddad Holt would be watching the skies for the purple martins to arrive and take up residence in the special boxes he had made for them and erected on great high poles. At least they were great high poles to us kids. Small dirt mounds appeared in many of the fields and if you were observant you could catch sight of Momma groundhog and her babies out of their holes enjoying the sunshine and eating the abundant fresh clover. There was "new" everything everywhere, confirmed by the old Burma Shave add which announced: "Spring has sprung, grass has Riz, where last year's wreckless drivers is." What wonderful memories.

Jeremiah & Rebecca M. (Evans) Smith, Hancock Co,, WVA

2010-05-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah E. Smith, son of John and Annie M. Smith, first saw the light of day in County Kildare, Ireland in the year 1825 ( according to his entry in the 1860 census, Fairview, Hancock County, Virginia). I have not been able to find when the family migrated to America. What I do know is that he married and that his first wife, Ann, died in Hancock, County, West Virginia on 8 July,1859 and is buried in the Methodist/Protestant Church Cemetery, New Manchester, Hancock County, West Virginia. I could not find any record of children or whether she was from Ireland or America.
Two and a half years later, on the 21st of January, 1862, in New Cumberland, Hancock County, West Virginia, Jeremiah married Rebecca M Evans daughter of Isaac W. and Ruth (Dawson) Evans. The marriage lasted until Jeremiah's death thirty eight years later in very early 1900. He wrote and signed his will on August 7, 1899 and it was submitted for probate on July 14, 1900. He was not listed in the 1900 census. He is buried in the New Cumberland Cemetery, New Cumberland, Hancock Co., West Virginia.

They had ten children over a period of twenty years, all born in Hancock County, West Virginia, Ann b1862, Isaac Kirby b18 February, 1864, Fanny Bell b23 March, 1866, John H b1868, George R. P. b5 January, 1870, Benoni Edward bNovember 1873, Ida bJanuary 1876, Blanche. b1878, Samuel, b1880 and last but not least, Bessie May, b13 January, 1883. I have death dates for only three of the ten, Isaac, 24 August 1864, Fanny Bell, 3 December, 1926 and George R. P., 24 October, 1928. In the 1900 census of the Clay District, Hancock County, West Virginia, only three were still at home with their mother, George, Samuel and Bessie. Rebecca lived on another twenty years until 2 February, 1820. She is buried along side of Jeremiah in the New Cumberland Cemetery. Interestingly, her daughter, Fannybell lived only four more years dieing in Redondo Beach, California 3 Dec 1924. She is buried alongside her husband, John Newton Thornhill in the Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood Park, Inglewood, California, Los Angeles County, California.
If anyone who reads this has any information on any one in this family, marriages, children,
pictures, deaths ,etc. I would really appreciate receiving it. Also, I have come across pictures of Jeremiah and Rebecca and will add them as soon as I get them.

Send Me Your Pictures, Please

2010-04-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

Family Pictures. How important are they? Are they worth a special effort to preserve? Where do you keep them? Are they all identified? Why spend the time to identify them? I know who they are. I can go on and on with such questions but the simple answer is--you bet they are important. Human memory, while excellent in some regards, remembering precisely how someone looked even a few years ago is difficult to almost impossible without some sort of an aid---a picture. Over time, pictures can reveal a lot of information about someone and if that someone is a long-ago, deceased ancestor, say a hundred and fifty years ago, without a picture you haven't the foggiest notion of their physical appearance, what their face looked like, kindly, friendly, fat, skinny, happy or sad. A picture that has been preserved of that person almost lets you know them.
The individual farthest back in time of any of my genealogical lines of whom I have a picture is that of Elizabeth Windle, b25 Oct, 1796, daughter of Eleanore Holt and Francis Windle. With regard to my oldest direct ancestors I have a picture of William Humphrey Holt, born in 1806. He is one of only three of the 16 great, great Grandparents of whom I have pictures. He appears to be friendly, tall, well built, not skinny or fat, obviously dressed for the picture taking occasion and I got the feeling that he was a competent person from his countenance. How about his wife, Mary Noss? I know little or nothing of what she looked like, was she tall or short, skinny or fat, dressed well or was sloppy. All I know is my Grandfather Holt described her as being small, fairly agile, enjoyed sitting on her front porch in the evenings smoking a small, white-clay pipe. A picture of her would be worth more than a thousand words of description. The other two you haven't seen yet: Jeremiah Smith b1831, and his wife Rebecca Evans, b l844, are the only pictures I have of any of my sixteen great, great Grandparents.
I am fortunate I have pictures of five of my eight great Grandparents, Mary Ann (Taylor) Holt, John and Fanny Bell (Smith) Thornhill and John and Agnes Baxter (Ecoff) Childs. I would really appreciate getting pictures of the other three, Samuel Jacob Holt and Joseph and Sarah Ann (Kennedy) Davis. Unfortunately, few people smiled for their picture taking in the early days of photography, it took too long to take the picture, so most were solemn, almost pensive, while they waited for the blinding flash and the photographer to say okay. But that doesn't matter, I can still form an image of what they looked like if I have a photo of them.
If any of you out there have photos of any of the folks listed above, or their ancestors or descendants, I would really appreciate having a copy. I'll happily pay for the reproduction. I'd just like to know what they look like. I don't want to restrict my desire for photos to just my direct ancestors, I'd like photos of any of their descendants right up to today. Photos can be exchanged via the Net without any cost. If I publish a photo that you would like a copy of, just ask and it will come flying your way. I promise you I will not publish a photo of any living person without that person's consent. I'll wait awhile and then publish the pictures I have as a group.

Lorenzo Childs, my Great Great Grandfather

2010-04-21T18:23:00.000-07:00

Lorenzo’s birth place has long been an enigma for me. I first find him in the 1830 Brooklyn, Kings County, New York Directory as proprietor of his own store. He does not show up there in the 1830 census. Why?, Who knows? It was here that Lorenzo met the love of his life, Ann Caroline Marshall. She was born 8 May, 1813, the fifth child of John Marshall and Sarah Dayrell, all of whom were born in Barbados, British West Indies. Both John and daughter Ann Caroline were born in St. Thomas Parish and Sarah was born in St. Michael Parish, Barbados. As an interesting aside, back along the Dayrell line one of the Dayrell women was the mother of Jane Seymore, one of King Henry the 8th's many wives.
In those years Barbados had a large population of black slaves who from time to time revolted resulting in many deaths of both whites and blacks. Several years after one such revolt and with rumors flying of another, John, in 1821, moved his family to the United States, settling in Brooklyn, New York. It was in Brooklyn where Lorenzo and Ann Caroline met. At some point, John and Lorenzo decided to joint-venture Lorenzo’s grocery store and in the 1833 Brooklyn Directory, the store is listed as “Childs & Marshall Grocery.” Tragedy struck soon after the joint venture was consummated. John Marshall died..

I’m not sure whether it was before or after John’s death, but Lorenzo and Ann Caroline married April 30, 1833 in the Episcopal Church, Jamaica, Long Island, New York. The family continued to reside in New York where the two boys, William O., August 1836 and John Worrell Marshall, 1 January 1838, were born. The family left Brooklyn in 1839, going first to Cleveland, Ohio then on to Pittsburgh and finally, settling in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

In the 1840 Beaver County census I find Lorenzo enumerated with an adult female and two young males under ten. The family then moved to Fallston to take advantage of the waterpower provided by a lively set of falls on the Beaver River. The third child, Nancy Anna, was born 5 December, 1840, a nice Christmas present. Unfortunately, Ann Caroline never really recovered from Nancy’s birth and tragically died the following 21st of March, 1841.

A few years later, Lorenzo married Sarah Mehaffey and had two more children, Charles C, born in 1844 and Caroline in 1847. Tragedy struck Lorenzo’s life again when Sarah died on the 28th of April 1859. Several years later, he married Deborah E. Green, and had two more children,both of whom died in infancy. I can’t imagine such a string of sorrows.
In 1861 the Civil War broke out and in 1862, William, Lorenzo's oldest son marched off with the local regiment. Upon leaving, he had Lorenzo made Guardian of his children. He fought in many battles but was wounded in the face in the battle of Spotsylvania. He eventually was transferred to a hospital in Pittsburgh. About that time Lorenzo contracted the deadly scourge, Small Pox. Within weeks, it proved fatal and he died in Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, 19 August, 1864. William immediately went AWOL because of his children and never returned to his unit. That cost him a pension in later years.

Lorenzo was obviously a hard worker and a hustler, trying all kinds of things to make a living. In many ways he had a good and successful life. He went into the machinery business with considerable success, establishing his operation in Smith’s Ferry, Pennsylvania. Another of his entrepreneurial ventures was drilling for oil, interestingly, it was at the same time as Colonel Drake, who was credited with bringing in the very first oil well anywhere. Drake made his momentous discovery near Titusville, Pennsylvania, not far from where Lorenzo’s efforts were taking place. As they say, close counts only in the game of horseshoes.

One of the long standing enigmas in my research on Lorenzo has been identifying whom his parents were and where he was born. In the 1850 census in Beaver, Lorenzo stated that he was born in Massachusetts . Surprisingly, in the 1860 census he stated he was born in Vermont. I have a bit of data from his son William’s research into where Lorenzo was born and he came up with Vershire, Orange County, Vermont. Unfortunately, he gave no indication where he found such data. I’ve queried both Orange County and Vermont historical entities and they have no record of a Lorenzo Childs born there, or that he ever lived there. But, there are two other items of interest. Lorenzo named his oldest child William. And living and enumerated in Thetford, Vermont, not far from Vershire, in both the 1810 and 1820 census, is a William Childs. The only catch, in censuses prior to 1850, dependents are listed in gender and age brackets only, not named. And discouragingly, there was nothing listed for Lorenzo's age bracket as we think it was. Or, could he have been born after the census was taken. I don't have a verifiable birth date for him, however, there were two males in the next bracket up. Could one of them have been Lorenzo? And lastly, in the 1841 issue of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania City Directory, there is listed a "Lawrence Childs, Machinist." Remember, he was in Pittsburgh just before going to Beaver. Makes you think about the fact that the name Lorenzo was popular in those days and he just started calling himself, Lorenzo.

Rhetta Hogan: Teachings Best of the Best

2010-04-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

My Early School Years

We lived in the rural part of western Pennsylvania when my brothers and sister and I were growing up and our early schooling was in a small, one-room, red brick schoolhouse in Brighton Township, Beaver County known as Eakin School. First through eighth grade was taught by only one teacher. In fact, everything pertaining to that school from sweeping the floors, washing the windows, keeping the stove fired up in the winter and meting out punishment to an errant youngster was handled by that same teacher.

Those teachers, in Rural America who taught all eight grades by themselves had to be saints beyond belief. One such teacher whom I remember well and who lived about two miles from us and had been raised next door to my Grandfather, Frank Holt, was Miss Rhetta Hogan. Miss Rhetta, who had taught almost countless years in such schools and would often substitute for our regular teacher. She herself, had gone to Eakin School as a youngster. She continued her education finishing up at nearby Piersol Academy in Bridgewater, Pennsylvania. She died 21 November, 1945. She was a first generation farm lass who never married.

I had her only as a frequent substitute. When she was there, she would ring the bell promptly at eight to bring us all in from playing outside. She would quiet us down by going to the front of the room, turn around and stand, ramrod-straight, with an open Bible cradled in her hands just above her waist. There was always a wisp of iron-gray hair curling like a coiled spring over her heavy eyebrows, which shaded two of the most piercing, steely, blue eyes you ever saw. Those eyes would rivet all thirty-two of her first-to-eighth grade students to full attention as she recited, from memory, passages from the divine book that ruled her life. Next came the Lord’s Prayer. That completed, she would make a half-turn, lift her eyebrows slightly, and as one, she and the obedient class would pledge allegiance to that great symbol of this bold, brash, young country we all loved.

Rhetta was then, when I had her, a seventy-five year old spinster who had taught school for fifty-eight years and would never have dreamed of opening a school day without that ritual. Her entire career was lived out in one-room schoolhouses. Many generations of local Brighton Twp kids were drilled in the three R’s by this stern but gentle, caring woman. Farm born and raised by immigrant Irish parents, Thomas and Hannah (Mullins) Hogan, she lived, worked, and died within one county, Beaver, in western Pennsylvania. When she first started teaching, school was reached by either walking or driving a buggy. When she died, the skies over Europe and Japan were alive with angry, roaring airplanes.

Stories were legion around Beaver county about how this wiry, little woman managed to maintain discipline over pupils, some of whom towered over her by as much as a foot. Everyone, including students, referred to her with typical country familiarity as Rhetta, but no student dared to be so bold to her face. It was either “ma’m” or Miss Hogan.

I remember one warm, spring day when all the windows were open, and except for lesson recitations by students standing around Miss Rhetta’s desk, not a sound could be heard. Suddenly, titters interrupted the silence. Heads turned, first toward the sound and then toward Rhetta. The cause of the tittering was a wasp, with a string hanging from its waist, flying level, about eye-high, around the room. At one point, it flew straight toward a giggly little girl who let out a piercing screech that ignited screeches from half of the other little girls in the room. Pandemonium broke loose. Instantly Rhetta was on her feet and the clack! clack! clack! of her eraser against the black-slate blackboard restored order. Smoke seemed to curl from her eyes and up from her collar as she glared at the bib-overall clad boys one-by-one until something told her this was the culprit.

How did she know? I suppose the pink flush from cheeks or ears, the downcast eyes, or the bare toe scribing circles on the floor had something to do with it. The young man’s demeanor abruptly changed when he was commanded, by a deep, authoritarian voice, to report immediately to the front of her desk. Your obedient servant, who had been thoroughly chastised in front of everybody, was then dispatched to the woods behind the school to cut an appropriate switch with which to have the dust whacked not-too-gently from the seat of his pants.

Woe betide the clown who had the temerity to bring in an inappropriate switch. He would be nailed to his desk for the entire day for a week. His parents would be summoned for a conference and to mete out the required punishment in front of the class. She didn’t fool around and everyone knew it.

This caring woman, who dedicated all of her productive life to teaching had passively but positively, influenced a long line of young people, was of the last and best of the old. I count myself exceptionally fortunate to at least have had her from time to time as a substitute teacher. Also, I went to school with her niece and nephew, twins, Leona and Leo Hogan. Leona was a WAVE during WWll. In the summer I use to earn a little money by picking strawberries on the farm where she lived with her brother, James Hogan, Atty at Law, and his family. What wonderful memories.

William Humphry Holt & Mary Noss: 1803 through 1896

2010-04-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

Together, they lived almost the entire 19th century. Mary was the longest lived, 8 may 1803 to 8 August, 1896, 93 years and 3 months to the day. She entered this world during Thomas Jefferson's firtst term and left during Grover Cleveland's term just 4 years short of the beginning of the 20th century.
William Humphrey Holt (left) and his twin sister, Dorcas, of whom, unfortunately, I have no picture, were the only children of Thomas Holt Jr. and Elizabeth (Humphrey?) Walker. Thomas was a batchelor for 44 years and was 45 when the twins were born. It is thought, but is by no means certain, that Elizabeth, who was the eldest daughter (?) of William and Jane Humphrey, had been previously married to a fellow named Walker who had died. It appears that Thomas, for whatever reason, gave the twins to his in-laws(?), William and Jane Humphrey. They apparently kept Dorcas to raise and William was raised by their daughter, Margaret and her husband, Thomas Fritz. William's twin sister Dorcas married Francis Windle and moved to Ohio. At some point in William's youth he was "bound" out for his keep. To whom is not clear. What is known is that when Margaret Humphrey, wife of William Humphrey, died, she mentioned in her will her daughter Peggy, wife of Thomas Fritz, and "bound" boy William Holt, to who she left a sum of money. William named his first male child Thomas Fritz. Could he have been bound to Thomas? Probably.

William married Mary Noss, daughter of Jacob Noss, on 2 September, 1828 in McVeytown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. I have made the assumption that Mary was the daughter of the Jacob Noss who died in the Mifflin County, McVeytown area c1820 without a will. I make that assumption because she named one of her sons Samuel Jacob. Unfortunately, Mary could neither read nor write. She was described by her grandson, Frank Holt, as a small, very active individual, who in her declining years loved to sit on her porch and smoke her small, white-clay pipe. I would love to have a picture of her.

William's life span was a little shorter. He came along during Jefferson's second term, 4 June 1806 and lived to 31 July 1877, 71 years and 27 days. Both he and Mary lived through the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson's two turbulent terms, the Mexican War, and the very trying times of the Civil War. During that time, communication took a giant leap forward with the advent of the telegraph. William died one year after Ulysses S. Grant's administration came to an end.

Mary, most of whose life was lived during the period when candles were the primary source of illumination, lived to see the very beginning of the use of electricity for lights and the very begining of the shift from the horse and buggy for transportation to that new fangled thing called an automobile. They lived through one of the most dynamic centuries of all times.

William and Mary Noss were married on the eve of the beginning of Andrew Jackson's tumultous two terms as President of the United States. It is my understanding that in those pre-Civil War days, the Holt males voted Democratic. If that was the case,William, if he voted, voted for one of the country's most dynamic, and controversal, President's of all time. They didn't waste much time in consumating their marriage as their first child, Mary Jane was born the 22nd of June, 1829. She was followed by Thomas Fritz Holt (at left) on 26 October, 1830.

The family then moved to Vanport, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Living in Vanport, at that time was a Jacob Noss whom I believe was one of Mary's brothers. I have no proof of this however. I suspect the family may have lived with Jacob while William was building their cabin home several miles away in the then wilderness of Mudlick Hollow. As I stated previously, I had a grade school chum, Bill Bailey, that I visited regularly,who was raised about 300 yards from that cabin. I frequently passed the remains of the old cabin on my way to visit Bill, totally unaware of its family significance to me, and would occassionally poke around the old crumbled logs and tumbled down fireplace stones. It wasn't until I began doing the family genealogy some forty years later that I became aware of its significance.

On November 24, 1834, in the family's newly constructed cabin, a set of twins, John C and Samuel Jacob Holt were born. It was nine years later,17 November 1843, before the next child, Rachel Ann, was born. Then last but not least, Dorcas was born 13 May 1848. Tragedy struck the very next day when one of the twins, John C., now 13, died. I have never been able to determine the cause of his death.
If anyone reading this has a picture or pictures of anyone mentioned in my blog along any of the family lines at any time, or anyone related to anyone in this blog, I would greatly appreciate a copy of that picture. I would gladly pay the cost of duplication and mailing. Also, if anyone has additional information on anyone or their descendants please do not hesitate to send me that iformation.

Spring is in the air

2010-04-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

     "Spring has sprung, grass has riz where last year's wreckless driver's is." Compliments of an old Burma Shave add of 70 or 80 years ago. Another old proverb fits this year in central Arizona; "March roared  in like a lion but is sliping out like a lamb." Beautiful weather these last few days.
     I've been working on several family histories to publish here over the next several days. Much to my sorrow, I don' have photo's for a lot of the folks I will be writing about. For example, I have a photo of William Humphrey Holt, Sr. but not of his wife, Mary Noss. I have a photo of their son's, Samuel Jacob, wife, Mary Ann Taylor, but not of Samuel Jacob. And of their children I have photo's of only Smith (Richard), Mary, Frank and Clyde. I'm sure pictures exist for William and maybe, Jane and Jeffrey, the two who died a day apart and are buried together. And if any of you have pictures of any of the older generations, and would like to share them, I'll run a special edition devoted to family pictures. I would like photo's of all lines, Holt, Davis, Childs, Thornhill etc., especially those going back to the Civil War time and this way, say up through at least 1950.  You can send them to me via email at hawkholt@aol.com . If you would prefer to "snail mail" them drop me a line via email and I'll give you my mailing address. They tell me I shouldn't put my "snail mail" address on such a public forum as my blog. Sigh!!!! what a society we have become.

Mike; to your question about Agnus Leman's date of birth

2010-03-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

Your question indicates I made a typing error when giving Agnus's age. She was born c1820 in Ireland. Where in Ireland? I don't know. The fact that she was enumerated with Samuel Davis, who was living next door to his father, John Davis, an Irish immigrant from Bridgend, County Donegal, Ireland, suggests the possibility that John may have been a family aquaintence back in Ireland and when Agnus migrated, she sought him out when she came to America. John was living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania when Samuel was born in 1800. Just when the family moved to Butler County, Pennsylvania, I'm not sure. I need to check the 1810, 1820, 1830 and 1840 census and nail that down. Thanks for pointing out my error, I really appreciate the help. Tell your Mom howdy, Cousin Bob

This time I'm really back----Update on ancestor Joseph Davis

2010-03-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

We finally thawed out here and I am able to not only get to the computer, I can sit long enough to type. It's been colder than-------here and my computer is in our non-heated basement so I literally froze out. I know, I know, being in Arizona I don't even know how to spell the word cold. Wellll anyway, I'm really back and so shall remain. I hope to get you up to date on the family genealogy I've been doing over the winter---on Gene's portable computer in a warm room of the house.

     ON WITH THE SHOW.
I have a little bit of new information on Joseph Davis--not much---but every little bit helps though
     I had a small breakthrough on the Joseph Davis conundrum and just, I mean like yesterday, was able to get in touch with a desdendant of one of Joseph's half-sister's through his mother's (Agnus/Nancy Leeman/Leman/Lehman) marriage to Samuel Davis with whom she and a Margarita Davis (widow of one of Samuel's brothers?) were living in 1850. He confirmed the marriage of Agnus and Samuel Davis and provided me with the names of Samuel and Agnus's (Nancy) children.  In that census in Middlesex Twp., Butler County, Pennsylvania. Joseph, 10 at the time, was nowhere to be be found. Where Agnus had him stashed then is a mystery to me and has been for 35 years. If anyone out there has a clue, I'd sure appreciate it.

     As an interesting aside, living almost next door in 1850 was Samuel's 80 year old father, John--wife dead by then---who hailed from the town of Bridgend, County Donegal, Ireland. Living with John was one of Samuel's younger brother's and his family. It seems the family had moved from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where Samuel was born, to Middlesex Twp, Butler County, Pa.  Why is this important? Well, just maybe, Agnus also hailed from the same place, Bridgend, County Donegal, Ireland, and when she came to America she needed a place to go to so went to the home of a family aquaintenance who used to live next door in Ireland before migrating to America. A common happening in those days. I haven't checked this idea out yet but I sure intend to.

     As I stated above, in the 1850 census and living with Samuel Davis, Agnus is listed as Agnus Leman(census spelling of her name). In the 1860 and 1870 censuses, now listed as Samuel Davis's wife, she is shown as Nancy Davis and in the 1880 census, still shown as Samuel's wife, but now as Agnus Davis. I have very little doubt that Agnus and Nancy are one and the same. I must admit though, I have no paper trail to back that supposition up. She died the following year, 1881, and is buried as Nancy Davis in nearby Prospect Cemetery in the plot owned by Samuel Davis. According to data from Prospect Cemetery, buried alongside her in the same plot, are children, Baby Davis, died 1863, John Davis d1872, Robert Davis d1872, (both children of Samuel and Agnus)  Rebecca Lehman, age 2, born 1884, Wilkins, Pennsylvania, died in Hite, Pennsylvania of Brain Fever (typhoid fever?), 6 February, 1886, and last but not least,  J. W. Lehman, born Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, 1840, died of Typhoid Fever, 12 February, 1886 in Hite, Allegheny County,Pennsylvania.

     All seems to fit, except, in the 1880 census---the only census that I can definitely say it is Joseph---he calls himself Joseph Davis. And, more puzzling, there is absolutely no family lore of the existence of a child of Joseph and his wife Saran Ann (Kennedy) named Rebecca. Compounding this, in the 1900 census Sarah Ann stated she had six children five of whom were still living. If I use Rebecca I can come up with six children, William Stevick, Martha Bell, Amy Nancy (?), Anny Theresa, Albert Hooker aka Herbert Albert and Rebecca. However, in 1900 two would be dead instead of one, Amy Nancy and Rebecca.  Martha Bell and Amy Nancy are listed in William Kennedy's bible however, Anny Theresa, Albert Hooker and Rebecca are not. And remember, living with Joseph and Sarah Ann at the time was his daughter, Laura, from a previous marriage of his. Was Sarah Ann referring to Laura as the fifth living child even though she was not her's by birth and either Amy Nancy or Rebecca as the dead one? If so, whose child was Rebecca?   If any of you out there are working on this family I could sure use your help.

     I suspect Joseph Davis and J. W. Lehman are one and the same and that Amy Nancy and Rebecca are the children of Joseph and Sarah, but I have no proof, especially for Rebecca. Amy Nancy is at least listed in Sarah Ann's father's, William Kennedy, bible.

Apology for Tardiness

2010-01-31T09:12:00.000-08:00

I have an excuse rather than a reason for being absent from the blog for such an extended time: Genie, my wife, just went through an operation to repair a broken cuff in her right shoulder and I've been attending to her needs the past week. How was the cuff injured? She was taking our new German Shorthaired Pointer, Ruff2 on a walk, when Ruff spotted a rabbit and leaped after it. Gene was jerked so hard she hit the ground on her right shoulder, while still holding on to the leash. The fall resulted in tearing the cuff in her arm and when the arm failed to respond to healing she went to the Doc. He gave her the bad news, the cuff has been torn and you will have to have surgury to repair it. Thus the surgery. And thus my absence. As I said, its more of an excuse on my part for my absence rather than a reason. I'm back and working on a new blog entry which should get posted either later today or tomorrow at the latest. I promise you I will do better in the future, Bob

Kindly Neighbors

2010-01-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

As I've noted previously, I grew up in a time and place where the change was underway between the non-electrical past and the modern mechanical, electrical everything of today. Here, I've chosen a family of the past who were our neighbors and have described for you a bit of of how they lived and the things they used everyday which are now not on,ly things of the past, but today can only be seen in museums. I am a little windy this time, but wanted to show your part of the distant past I actually interfaced with while growing up. I hope you aren't bored with my windy description of some of those things.
A typical neighbor and farm in the community I grew up in those day would have been that of our neighbors, John and Ada Gillespie, in their mid-seventies , veritable personifications of the past. It would be impossible to find a more kindly, neighborly, devout, honest pair than they. Their son Bill lived next door and had several children that were my contemporaries. Their home was more ancient than they and was a weathered, dark gray, clapboard house of one story. It did not have running water or a bathroom and I’m certain they did not feel deprived one least bit.
Their drinking water was drawn from a dug well located just off one corner of the house. It was outfitted with a hand-cranked windless, set on a small rectangular, cemented-chunks-of-rock enclosure about four feet high. The enclosure was covered with a shingled-roof erected several feet above that. The windless was a horizontal round wooden shaft, six or eight inches in diameter and three feet long, that extended across the well opening. A rope was attached to the shaft. A wooden bucket was attached to the rope and could then be lowered rapidly, or tossed into the water in the well so it would sink when it hit the water’s surface, and fill. The crank handle attached to the windless was then turned and the rope wound itself around the large shaft bringing the bucket, with its cool refreshing contents, to the surface. That water, which was always sweet and cool, was to me the best there ever was.
Adorning the well and the house were ancient, flowering vines. The well and the house were sitting within an oasis of large shade trees and a carpet of exceptionally green grass. No matter what the summer temperatures, that oasis was always cool and inviting.
West of the house was a two storied workshop and granary and west of that, a very large black, two-story bank-barn (entry to three sides at ground level with dirt built up on the remaining side to the second floor for entry to that floor). Just north of the barn was a smaller building used as a butchering plant. The horses and cows were stalled in the lower floor of the barn and the hay and grain was stored on the upper floor. Hay stored in the great mows above could then be tossed down through openings for the animals below.
To harvest the hay and put it into the great mows was one of my pleasures as a kid. On a typical work morning I would help old John harness the two ancient white horses, Bob and Dick, and depending upon which operation was being undertaken, hitch them to a mower, rake, or wagon.

John wouldn’t let me use the mower, I was too young. I could use the dump rake--more modern folks had a side delivery rake. The dump rake had great curved set of tines probably four foot in radius, attached to a bar running the width of the rake between its two large, spoked, metal wheels. Centered on the width of the rake and extending at a right angle to it was a tongue about ten feet long, with a double tree extending across it with two single trees attached. Two harnessed horses, called a team, one on each side of the tongue, their harness traces attached to the double trees, pulled the rake.
When the gathered hay filled the inside of the curved tines the bar was pivoted by shoving your right foot down onto a lever pedal which would raise the tines and dump the hay. These dumped piles would be connected forming long “windrows” across the field. The windrows would then be pitched by hand into hay doodles--small piles of hay four or five feet across and three or four feet high--using a three tined hay fork. Later, The doodles where later hand-pitched up onto a large, horse-drawn hay-wagon. My job, at first, was to drive the horses between the doodles. Later, when I could pitch up hay, I learned the horses had done it so often that a driver wasn’t necessary. John would cluck to them and they would move to the next doodle and stop.
Frequently, the monotony of pitching the hay up on the wagon where another person would distribute it, was broken when a snake, usually a black snake that had crawled under the doodle for warmth at night, was tossed up with the hay. Everyone was always sure it was a copperhead, a poisonous rascal. Much shouting and jumping would occur, followed by laughter at the escape-antics taken by the recipient of the snake.

When the loaded wagon was brought to the barn, one of the horses would be hitched to a “single-tree,” a wooden shaft about three feet long, six inches wide and two inchdes thick with metal hoops attached to the ends and another positioned in the middle. The middle hoop had a rope attached to it which in turn was attached to a large, two-pronged fork. The rope then went up to a pulley system in the rafters of the barn. The large U-shaped fork was three feet high and three feet across. Each tine of the fork had a recessed prong on the inside that was retractable. These prongs could be opened after the fork was buried into the hay on the wagon and a large “jag” of hay could easily be lifted off the wagon. As the horse moved away, the jag of hay would then be pulled by the rope up to a special pulley attached to an extension to the top of the barn where it would then move horizontally on the pulley over the mow. When the desired location was reached, a smaller rope that hung from the tine frame and attached to a lever connected to the inside prongs, would be pulled retracting the inside prongs permitting the hay to fall in place. My job was to ride that horse and stop him when the jag of hay was in the right place for dropping into the mow. To put my job in prospective again, later when I was big enough to work in the mow and there was no one to ride the horse, the horse had performed that ritual so many times that when old John would "up Dick,or Bob," whichever one was hooked up, off the horse would go and stop when John called again, then turn around and come back and patiently wait until the next jag was ready.

I wonder how many folks today would have that kind of patience to work with a neightbor's kid who unquestionably slowed down the progress of the work at hand. I doubt there are very many. Those were different times.

Hi Folks, I'm finally back

2010-01-03T16:54:00.000-08:00

I hope the New Year brings great joy to all of you. Genie and I spent the last several weeks visiting her family living in the Houston area, including lovely daughter Amy, our new family lawyer. We drove the 2400 hundred mile round trip in our 2004 1/2 ton, Chevy Pickup. We added 800 miles while there visiting family. And, thanks to the extended family's hospitality, we really enjoyed our stay.
Driving in and around Houston is something else again. Traffic was so dense in the Galleria area where Amy currently works it took far more Patience than I posses just to go around the block. Gene handled that chore. I guess she didn't really want a husband with a blown top. Houston streets appear to have been blown out of a funnel attached to the back of a cement truck onto an unprepared track of dirt and just left to dry. Bad, Bad, Bad. Other than that, we really enjoyed our stay.
With a little luck I'll get my new blog posted either tomorrow---I have to go to town and do a bit of shopping--we like to eat--or certainly by Tuesday.
Thanks a heap for your patience. Bob

Samuel and Mary Ann Holt, My Great Grandparents

2009-12-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

It was a chilly, snowy, November 21, 1834 When Mary (Noss) Holt gave birth to twins, Samuel Jacob and John C, in the small cabin that she and her husband had built on their tiny farm in Mudlick Hollow, Brighton Twp., Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Sadly, John C lived only a few short hours. Mary and her husband, William Humphrey Holt and their two children, Mary Jane and Thomas Fritz, had migrated from McVeytown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania c1830.
Unfortunately I do not have a picture of Samuel Jacob. I'd really like to have one.

Four years later, 1838, in the 8th Ward, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Eliza Jane (Hunter) Taylor, gave birth to her second child, Mary Ann. Eliza Jane and her husband, William B. Taylor, had migrated from County Down, Ireland to the south side of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh in 1830 where their seven children were born and raised. Mary Ann has been described as being petite, very nice looking, lively and in-charge.

Mary Ann (Taylor) Holt
I have little on the childhood of Mary Ann or Samuel Jacob. The Holt farm where Samuel grew up was too small to provide employment so Samuel sought work in the nearest community, Vanport. He found a job transporting bricks from a brickyard south of Vanport to Beaver. The bricks were to build a new school called Fort Macintosh School. I went to 8th grade in that school in 1939. I had no idea that my Great Grandfather Samuel Holt had helped haul the bricks to build it and that my Gr-Gr-Grandfather, the Irishman William Taylor, helped make those bricks. It was during this period that Samuel met and fell in love with William Taylor's daughter, Mary Ann. They were married 12 November, 1857 by the Rev. Joshua Monroe, in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Beaver.

Photo below is Mary Ann Taylor Holt with her children Thomas and Mary Elizabeth (Mamie), c. 1871.

Samuel and Mary Ann soon moved into a small home along Sebring Road that runs northwest out of the town of Vanport. They later purchased a small farm and home (Kaufman or Hereford farm) just off that road where their eight children were born:

1. William Humphrey, 18 Sep., 1858
2. Smith Richard, 15 Dec., 1860
3. Thomas Fritz, 1863
4. Elizabeth Jane, 1865
5. Jefferson, 1867
6. Mary Elizabeth, 5 June, 1870
7. Franklin Raymond, 14 Feb., 1875
8. Clyde, 18 Dec. 1877.

Two of the children, Elizabeth Jane and Jefferson, died one day apart in the summer of 1873. Janie died of Diphtheria and Jeffie died of Cholera Morbis—what ever that was. They were buried together in the same casket in the Beaver Cemetery. I can’t imagine such a tragedy. Just the thought brings tears to my eyes.

According to Grandad, his mother was insistent that all the children be educated. High School was the ultimate for most those days, but five of the living six children went on to receive college degrees. In her push to get her children educated the family left the little farm and moved out onto Tuscarawas Road several miles from town. She then decided that was still too far out so they bought a house on the south side of Fifth Street in Beaver, very near Sharon Road and not too far from the Christian Church the family regularly attended. Once the children were educated, she and Samuel moved back to the farm. She was only 60 when she died 9 June, 1898. She is buried in the Beaver Cemetery. Samuel lived on another eight years until 5 September, 1906 when he joined his beloved Mary Ann and was buried beside her in the Beaver Cemetery.

2009-12-12T08:30:00.001-08:00

Hunting Dogs at Holtdale

2009-12-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

Dogs were a way of life on the farm, but three of them stand out above the others, Pat, Nick and Mugs. Pat was a large, Black and Tan, and other, reddish-brown, female, rabbit dog. She was, at least (mostly), a Black and Tan hound. She had long, dangling ears, a sad face and the most baleful howl you ever heard when tracking game. She remained a fixture on the farm for at least eleven years because she was a rabbit dog of the highest caliber. She had to have been good, for about every seven or eight months, she would blow up like a large sausage, with her feeding spigots practically dragging the ground, and present us with from eight to as many as fifteen pups at a time, to the complete delight of we kids. And, I am sure, to the complete annoyance of my long suffering mother.

Every neighbor, hunting buddy, friend of the family, itinerant salesman, and anyone who even had a fleeting thought of owning a dog, had one of her pups. During hunting season, the month of November, pups or not, when anyone emerged from the house with a shotgun old Pat would come running, sometimes with pups hanging on to the spigots or trailing behind. It mattered not, she was going hunting. How we all loved that old hound dog.

Nick was also a, mostly, Black and Tan hound hunting dog we owned at the time. He, presumably, was Mug’s father. No one could be sure of that though because Pat was not exactly the most faithful of wives. When she was in heat, the crowd following her about in her wanderings was something to behold. At least Mugs was hound like old Nick and very few of Pat’s many suitors could claim that exalted distinction. Nick was a bit surly, but an outstanding rabbit dog, so he too, earned a place at the scrap feeding pans at the back door that Mother kept generously filled for our dog family.

During the tail end of Pat's productive years she produced a black, male pup that won the hearts of everyone, but most importantly, my Mother's. Even before he was fully mature Mugs was running rabbits. He was born in early spring and during that fall's hunting season he was next only to Pat in finding rabbits. He quickly became "Mr. Rabbit Hound Supreme." He was the hunting Icon of the neighborhood and his offspring--if we could be sure they were his offspring--were in great demand by all the local rabbit hunters in the area.

Theoretically we owned him. Mugs, at best, could only be described as a "rake." He had a regular calling list and grooved trails between the many homes that he called upon. He had no peer in the garbage consumption and strewing profession. Ordinary lidded garbage cans, even if they had a latch, were absolutely no challenge for him. All the neighbors claimed a part of him. Indeed, they did help feed him. His rabbit hunting prowess was legendary and every one took turns using him. He had two great loves; Mom because she fed him most, and Grandad, because he hunted with him the most. There are probably more posed pictures with more people with Mugs than anyone else in
the neighborhood at that time.

Mugs and Me, 1939

I suspect he also could brag of more offspring than any other dog of his day. He was a true canine Casanova. To get to his intended paramour, he climbed fences, dug under fences, tore down fences, went through screen doors, crawled through windows and,----- oh well, you get the idea: He was a world class, canine Lothario. We all loved Mugs.

Great Great Grandparents, John and Fanny Bell Thornhill

2009-12-03T09:14:00.000-08:00

On the 27th of January, 1860 in Fayetteville, Virginia, George Washington Thornhill was wearing out the carpet as he paraded back and forth waiting when he was told that his beloved wife, Martha Ann (Blake), had given birth to their second child John Newton. The young family would soon be caught up in the throes of the Civil War. The family lived in the mountainous part of Virginia that remained loyal to the United States and was soon renamed West Virginia. The family moved sometime after John was born but before Nov 1864 when their daughter was born in Cadiz, Ohio.

Jeremiah E Smith, an Irish immigrant then residing in New Cumberland, West Virginia,, was elated when his wife, Rebecca (Evans) presented him with his very first daughter, Frances Rebecca , later known by everyone as Fanny Bell. Jeremiah and Rebecca had ten children in all.

I am not certain where or how John and Fanny Bell met but on the 6th of October, 1881, they married. Jessie Virginia, their first child and oldest daughter. was born in now, long abandoned, Rocky Side, West Virginia. She was followed by two other daughters, Bessie and Ivy May, both of whom died in infancy, and lastly, in New Cumberland, Claudis Earl. See Blog

In the ensuing years, John and Fanny Bell purchased a home on College Avenue in Beaver, Pennsylvania. . In 1924 John and Fanny Bell joined Claud in California. The Thornhill family was very close knit and in that same year they were joined by Jessie Virginia and her husband Albert Davis and their daughter Naomi and husband John Holt. Albert. and Jessie’s son, Cleo, had followed Claude out in 1922 to go to college. Albert and Jessie and Naomi and John returned to Pennsylvania the following spring of 1925.

Fanny Bell died at their home in Redondo December 3rd, 1924 and was buried in Inglewood Cemetery, Inglewood, Los Angeles County, California. John lived on in California another seven years before joining Fanny Bell on the 6th of February, 1931. As an interesting aside, in 2000 my brother Rodney and I purchased a stone for John’s, until then, unmarked grave.

Headquarters, Holtdale

2009-11-28T13:33:00.000-08:00

The earliest memories of home of my syblings and I were of the original family home at Holtdale. The house sat in the middle of three acres of beautiful lawn dotted with numerous flower gardens and many shade trees. I remember large, red-maple trees, a mulberry tree, hickory nut trees, sweet cherry trees and several wild cherry trees. Hanging from many of these trees were bird boxes. Other bird boxes perched on large poles placed about the yard, some of which were made especially to attract a bird called a Purple Martin that came to the area every summer. I can recall the delight of the adults when the first purple martin was sighted in the spring that chose one of our boxes for its home.

I can name only a few of the great variety of flowers that provided beautiful blooms from early spring well into late fall. In the flower garden itself were peonies, iris, hollyhock, sweet William, many species of roses, gladiolus and so many others. Many of them were aromatic and a walk through the lawn could be like a walk in a perfume factory. Placed here and there throughout the lawn/garden area were benches where one could sit quietly and just enjoy the serenity of the place. On Sundays, it was common to have complete strangers drive up to the house and ask if they could walk through the gardens.

We always had a vegetable garden large enough to supply much of the year’s vegetable needs. The orchards took care of our fruit needs and were on the hilltops. The "hollow" between the hilltops, was fenced off from the orchards and functioned as pasture for the two to five cows we usually had for our milk and beef. We occasionally had a pig or two, always chickens and frequently turkeys. It was a reasonably self sufficient operation. It had to be during those depression times when we kids were growing up.

Dad and Mother worked long hard hours on the farm. Dad and, sometimes, Uncle Frank, performed most all of the required physical labor and Mom helped harvest the fruit to some extent, but she mainly took care of the home and stand. Her big area of responsibility was the family. She kept house, prepared all the meals, canned everything in sight, did everyone's laundry, including ironing white shirts for Grandfather's office work, and took exceptional, loving care of four wild, runny-nose kids. All in all, it was a pretty hard life for both of them, but they felt they were securing their future, and it was worth it.

John and Agnes Childs, my paternal Gr Grandparents

2009-11-27T06:59:00.000-08:00

John Worrell Marshall Childs entered this world January 1, 1838 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, second son of Lorenzo and Ann Caroline (Marshall) Childs. He was given his maternal gandfather’s full name, John Worrell Marshall, to honor Ann Caroline’s recently deceased father (d. 1833). Brooklyn remained Lorenzo’s home for the next few years until the family moved to Pittsburgh and then to Fallston, Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

Agnes Baxter Ecoff was born 28 January 1848 in Rochester, Beaver County, Pennsylvania to Margaret (Alman) and Ralph Ecoff, both long time Pennsylvanians. I have no knowledge of Agnes’s childhood. As an aside, my sister Miriam’s casket lies immediately on top of Margaret (Alman) Ecoff’s casket. The plan was to move Miriam when the family purchased a burial plot. Three months later, Grandmother Holt died, a plot was purchased and here we are, 88 years later, and Miriam is still with Gr-Gr-Grandmother Ecoff. May they both rest in eternal peace.

On the 30th of September, 1869 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, John and Agnes married. Why Pittsburgh, I’m really not sure. John joined his father, Lorenzo, in the machinery business in Smith’s Ferry, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. One year later, 30 September 1870, John Worrell Marshall Childs, Jr. arrived on the scene followed by daughter Grace in January, 1875, Agnes Gertrude, my Grandmother, 6 December 1879, and finally, Blanche in July, 1883. The family was now complete

The business prospered and John built a lovely home there for his family on the banks of the beautiful Ohio River. This was before all the dams were built on the river and each spring during run-off the river could be very treacherous as witnessed by this picture of John’s and Agnes’s home after one of those rambunctious spring floods.

John, working closely with his father, Lorenzo, over the few short years before Lorenzo's untimely death in 1864, acquired Lorenzo's highly developed entrepreneurial bent. The business grew exponentially during the years of his stewardship. The business exists to this day, although much diminished in scope. John died February 5, 1920 and his beloved wife, Agnes, survived him living until June 25, 1931. They are buried in the Childs plot in Beaver Cemetery, Beaver, Pennsylvania.

Spoofing Grandad Holt

2009-11-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

Grandad Holt-middle, Clyde Holt, right.
Grandad Holt had two Hobbies that he pursued
avidly almost until his death, fishing and hunting. I can’t prove it, but I believe he was born with a fishing pole in one hand and a gun in the other. He was without a doubt one of the most accomplished squirrel hunters ever to lift a gun. His marksmanship was legendary. His favorite weapon for squirrels and rabbits was a small, Fox, 20 gauge, double barreled shotgun. Rarely did any of us who hunted with him bring home more game. When he and his younger brother, Clyde, were in their eighties, each bought a beagle rabbit hound so they would have a dog to hunt with in the morning and another fresh one in the afternoon. He shot his last deer when he was ninety-one. In his last few years of hunting, he was a little hesitant and a bit unstable on uneven ground so Uncle Frank would walk with him to a tree or stump then leave him for awhile. If Frank heard a shot or after a half hour or so had elapsed he would return and they would move to another vantage point.

One Thanksgiving, in the mid-1930's, the family was sitting around digesting one of Mom’s wonderful holiday dinners and talking about the morning’s hunt. Rabbit hunting Thanksgiving morning was a ritual with the males of our family. The season would end on the last day of November and Thanksgiving was most likely the last day we could hunt together. That day the subject got around to whom could shoot best and whose gun patterned best. In typical Holt argument mode, each stoutly defended his weapon and prowess.

To settle the question, Dad proposed we drape a newspaper over the wire fence that set off the back yard from the cow pasture, back off and pattern each weapon. Dad went first and did real well. Uncle Frank was up next and duplicated Dad’s prowess. Dad, who had carried Grandad’s weapon out for him, snapped the gun open, inserted a shell then handed him his trusted 20 gauge. Grandad stepped up to the toed mark in the dirt, quickly mounted the gun and shot. Both Frank and Dad hurried to the newspaper and with much fanfare announced that Grandad had missed the entire newspaper. Grandad frowned in total disbelief, then hurried to the target certain that his two sons were spoofing him. They weren’t. "What the devil?" Must have been the dang shell, "I’ll try again," he said. Back we all trooped to the line. Dad gave him another shell and he reloaded. Again, only this time with great deliberation, he mounted the gun, and did something he never did--carefully aimed--and fired. The whole gang excitedly trooped down to the target. Not a single pellet in the paper. Then the laughter exploded as Uncle frank and Dad literally had to sit down they were laughing so hard. They had taken the shot out of several of Grandad’s shells and then carefully replaced the end wad. We laughed heartily about that incident every Thanksgiving for years. Such wonderful memories.

Meet My Parents: John & Naomi (Davis) Holt

2009-11-13T17:42:00.000-08:00

My father, John Childs Holt, had to have been a wonderful Christmas present for his parents, Frank Raymond Holt and Agnus Gertrude (Childs) when he arrived that cold, snowy, 23rd day of December, 1900 in Butler, Pennsylvania. The family didn't remain in Butler very long and soon moved back to their home territory, settling in Rochester, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Fourteen months later, minus six days, on an equally cold and snowy day, the 17th of February, 1902, in Fallston, Pennsylvania, Jessie Virginia (Thornhill) presented her husband, Herbert Albert Davis, with a beautiful daughter whom they named Naomi Alberta. Can't you just see the pride and love in his eyes? After all, not only was she his first (and only) daughter, she was named for him.

According to Grandad Holt, Dad was always a very curious, mischievous, into everything, youngster. Even during his toddling stage he was a handful so it is incongruous to see him as grandmother dressed him for his 1903 or 1904 trip to the photographer. But I guess that was the way it was done. Grandfather was a very successful dentist those days and provided a comfortable living for his family. And, I've been told, Grandmother was one who always wanted things done "just right." As with all the Holts I've known, hunting and fishing was an important part of male family socialization as is amply demonstrated by this picture of Dad taken c1914.

Athletics played a large role with Dad in school. According to my Uncle Cleo Davis, who went to school with him, Dad was an outstanding football player. His kicking prowess was apparently legendary and he could, even under pressure, kick a football consistently + 70 yards in the air. His reputation was such that his picture and one of the footballs he kicked was still on display in Rochester High School in the 1970's when Uncle Cleo Davis visited the school.

Mother's childhood was quite different. The family moved constantly though staying within, roughly, a 30 mile radius of Beaver Valley where Grandmother's parents, John and Fanny Bell Thornhill lived. Mother's brother, Cleo, stoutly maintained that he had gone to twenty different schools by the time he entered Rochester High School. Because Grandad frequently had jobs in remote places Mother usely stayed with the Thornhills in Beaver. This picture of her in 1909 at 7 years old in first grade in Beaver, was taken one of those times. One of the many places the family lived that was fairly remote was Lime Kiln Hollow. The children attended school there for several years. In 1936 when Uncle Cleo and his family visited from California we visited then completely abandoned Lime Kiln Hollow School and took a picture of Mother and Uncle Cleo in its long-abandoned remnant.

One of the more permanent jobs Grandfather Davis had was managing the very large swimming pool at Rock Springs Park (no longer in existence) at Chester, West Virginia where the photo of him on the moon was taken. (see Blog # ) This is a picture of Grandmother and Uncle Cleo, the first two in the back row. in that pool. While living there the family attended the Christian Church and this picture of mother, 12 or 13 years old, was lifted from a group picture taken of her Sunday School class.

The family had moved to Rochester, Pa. by 1918 when Mother started her Freshman year in Rochester High School where she was soon glamor struck by the school's rising, athletic star, Sophomore, John Childs Holt. Two years later, the two eloped and married in Cumberland, West Virginia, Sept 15, 1920. Dad played football that fall but the two never completed their High School education.

My sister, Miriam Ruth, was born 2 1/2 months prematurely, 7 March, 1921. She lived just 2 months and 4 days and died 11 May, 1921. That was an exceptionally tragic year for the family, Grandmother Holt died of an aneurysm on September 6, 1921. Mother contracted pneumonia that fall and they moved to the farm where, on the family Doctor's orders, they slept outdoors for the next two years. My brother, John Childs Holt, Jr. (Jackie) was born August 15, 1924. Shortly after he was born, Dad left by train for Stanford, California, where, by invitation from legendary Coach Glen "Pop" Warner, Dad was recruited to play football for Stanford University.

I must add here that the Offensive line Coach at Stanford then, was Claude Thornhill, an equally famous coach, who had also been an All American football player at the University of Pittsburgh, was my Mother's uncle. Predictably, because Dad had failed to complete his High School graduation requirements in 1921, the Stanford Office of Administration officials informed him he could not continue at Stanford. By then Mother, and their new son, John Jr. ("Jackie,") had joined him in Stanford. John and Fanny Bell (Smith)Thornhill, Claud's parents and Mother's Grandparents as well as her parents, Virginia (Thornhill) and Herbert Davis, were living there at the time so the little family stayed with them until the following spring when they returned to Pennsylvania.

There is a tragic climax to this chain of events. My brother, Jack, while playing around a barn being built on the farm, fell and struck his head on the head of a nail protruding from a discarded board, and died that night, the 15th of August, 1924, of a brain hemorrhage. Dad completed his High School requirements in 1925 but never returned to Stanford. I have his High School Diploma.

Life and Death on the Farm

2009-11-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

The stretch of Tuscarawas road extending from our neighbor on the East, John Gillespie, to the West edge of our property was maybe a half-mile long and relatively straight. For whatever reason, it attracted speeding and was very dangerous for both us kids and animals.

I can't remember the number of dogs and cats we owned that were killed on that particular stretch of road. Some were killed outright, but the most devastating were those that were badly injured and had to be shot. Their loud, screaming howls of pain seemed to penetrate your very existence. Those anguished screams, which held we kids transfixed, would go on until usually either Dad or Grandad would come running with a shotgun. At the bang of the gun those anguished screams of pain abruptly stopped but were followed by equally heart wrenching sobs and tears for a dear friend lost. No one wasted money on veterinarians for dogs in those tough financial times. We kids learned about paved roads, fast traffic and life and death at a very young age.

One of those days that taught us a first-hand lesson occurred when we kids were watching the fruit stand for Mom. We were out in front of it playing---not on, but very close to, the pavement. All of a sudden we were literally frozen in place by a blaring auto horn and the screaming, screeching of tires. Our heads whirled to face a barreling, rocking, skidding automobile almost upon us. We were frozen in fright where we stood. The driver, going much too fast, had swerved to miss a bunch of dogs that had tumbled out of the weeds alongside the road, milling around a bitch in heat. As you can imagine, we were transfixed with fear where we stood. The careening vehicle, with horn screaming, hit my brother Rod, slamming him down and running over him. It stopped with him under the back axel. By then, we all were screaming and crying in abject fear. Sis ran for Mother and I ran to Rod. The driver was totally devastated and couldn't even get out of the car. I heard Rod screaming from underneath, toward the back of the car. Just as I started to crawl under to get him Mom arrived, yanked me out of the way and dived under the car to where Rod was laying. She pulled Rod out from under the vehicle and, except for a few serious bruises and scratches, he was just fine. Terrified, as we all were, but fine.

We also learned about birth and life there on the farm. Mom always raised chickens and turkeys. Eggs were cheaper than peeps, and we had plenty of eggs, so Dad purchased several incubators for hatching them. Also, many an old hen hid her nest out in the weeds and would eventually come in clucking proudly, leading her little brood of running fuzz balls. I enjoyed watching the hatching process in the incubators best. Several times during the incubation period, each egg was "candled," to determine whether it contained a fetus, or was still alive and well. Candling--actually looking through the shell using a light source to silhouette the fetus--was done by cutting a small oval hole in the base of a round Quaker Oats cereal box and putting either a candle or low wattage light bulb under it. An egg would be taken from the incubator and placed on the lighted oval hole. It always seemed like a miracle to me to watch the changing fetus until the baby chick pecked it's way through the confining shell and emerged all wet, gooey and hungry.

There have been a hundred or so folks visit the blog but only two have commented. I really would appreciate your comments as to the blog's focus and content, good or bad, or suggestions as to where you think it could be improved. There is a link providing an avenue for your comments just beneath the last sentence of each blog. Hope to hear from you. B.

Henry and Dorcas Holt to America--1730

2009-11-04T08:53:00.000-08:00

Henry Holt emigrated c1730 from Ireland with his new wife, Dorcas and her parents William and Jane Armstrong. This information is from Dorcas's obituary, however, it did not name either Henry or her parents, saying just, "with her husband and parents." A Mrs. Vashti Seaman, a descendant through their grandson, John Holt, gave data to the DAR suggesting that Henry came from Thames, England and was the son of Rowland Holt (and Priscilla Ballow) brother of Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of the British Supreme Court, both sons of Sir Thomas Holt. There are two christening's recorded for the Henry Holt who is definitely of the the English family: Source, IGI Index c302, Event: Father: Rowland Holt, Mother, Lucretia, Christening 12 Oct 1701, Saint Botolph Without Aldersgate, London, England. #2: Event: Father. Rowland Holt, Mother, Presca or Persca, Christening, 12 Oct, 1701, Charterhouse Chapel, Finsbury, London, England. I have no explanation for the different names cited for the mother. There is no firm documentation linking our Henry to this Henry, but the circumstantial evidence is exceptionally strong.

Rowland, Henry's father, had Estates in both London and near Dublin, Ireland. The Armstrong family lived in County Monaghan, Ireland, so there was no more than 40 miles between them. And, as the story handed down through successive generation's goes, Dorcas was either working for the Holt family or living nearby when Henry and she married. Some believe they eloped. At least that story is extant within the family lore of their more modern descendants. Dorcas must have been both exceptionally beautiful and bright, as she could neither read nor write and Henry, wealthy and educated, had attended prestigious Cambridge University, and according to University records, matriculating there in 1720 at age nineteen. There is no record of his graduating, however.

Several family researchers, over the 280 years since their arrival in Colonial America, have made the statement that Henry was indeed an English gentleman. He is also supposed to have been a silversmith in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The first documentation I have of the family in America was the 27 September 1733 Christening of Henry's and Dorcas's son, Thomas, in the Episcopal Christ Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As an interesting aside, Benjamin Franklin and his family were attending members of that church then. Franklin and wife are buried there.

Family lore indicates that, sometime between 1733 and 1735, Henry disappeared while on a business trip. There is no confirmation of that either. Another speculation is that Henry might have gotten tired of the frontier and looked for greener pastures elsewhere. It has also been speculated that he learned of his brother's death and realized that the home estate in England was now his and headed for England but his ship was lost at sea. Who knows. All we know is that in 1735, Dorcas was hauled into court in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and scolded for beating up a male who had beat up one of her female friends. Henry was not mentioned.The next documented incident in her life was her marriage to Arthur Buchanan, another Irish immigrant, in 1738 in Gloucester County, New Jersey.

Consumate Prankster Grandaddy Holt

2009-10-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

My Grandfather Holt use to regale we kids with the antics of his youth. One particular tale he would tell was an incident with his Grandfather Taylor, an old, very overweight, Irish immigrant from County Down. Grandfather Taylor enjoyed sitting in front of the fireplace smoking his pipe. Occasionally, the pipe would either die out if the old fellow fell asleep, or just burn out. When this would happen he would usually get whomever was near to either bring his tobacco or have them refill his pipe. This particular time Granddad and his brother Clyde and sister Mamie were handy and offered to refill the pipe. The entire procedure was hatched before hand and the conspirators had a small container of black gunpowder stashed in the next room where the tobacco was kept. They alternated layers of gunpowder and tobacco, tamping the last layer of tobacco nicely into the bowl, and then gave the pipe to the old man.

Grandaddy Taylor leaned back in his chair, carefully tamped the tobacco down, lit it and comfortably relaxed. After a few puffs, the pipe gave little "piffft" and a few sparks flew out. The old gentleman grunted, re-lit the pipe and leaned back again to enjoy his smoke. "Pffft" again. He took the pipe out of his mouth, looked at it, tamped it down even harder, and again leaned back to enjoy. This happened several more times to the annoyance of the old fellow but he would just re-tamp it and continue enjoying his smoke. Of course, all the while Grandad and his co-conspirators watched, giggling quietly. All of a sudden, the pipe literally exploded with a loud bang, singeing Grandad Taylor’s eyebrows and blackening his face from the lips up. I guess pandemonium broke loose in the Holt household and Grandad, Clyde and Mamie headed for the hills. He never did tell us the final outcome of this shenanigan. He couldn't, the memory was still so vivid he couldn't stop laughing.

End of the Line?

2009-10-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

My great grandfather, Joseph Leman/Lehman/Davis, born c1840 in Pennsylvania, is a family conundrum of sizable proportions. In thirty years of searching I find him only in two records, the 1880 census for East Deer Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and in his father-in-law William Kennedy's Bible. In the Bible he is listed as Joseph Leeman (sic). Joseph is the end-of-the-line progenitor in my research on my Mother's (Naomi Alberta (Davis) Holt), male family line. His mother, it is believed, is Agnus/Agnes Leman, born in Ireland c1820. My Davis grandparents always maintained that Joseph's mother's name was Agnus Leman. There is only that and the entry in his father-in-law's Bible, cited above, as to the validity of the name Leman.

Joseph married Sarah Ann Kennedy in 1869 bringing with him his daughter, Laura, b1861, from a previous marriage, possibly to with Susan E. Potts, an immigrant from England. In the 1880 census cited above, he said his name was Davis, that he was born in Pennsylvania, that his father was born in Pennsylvania and his mother born in Ireland. Children listed were Laura 19, Martha 10, Annie 4 and Albert 3. Living next door was a Samuel Davis, born Pennsylvania and wife, Agnus, born in Ireland. Moving back in time on Samuel we find his wife's name to be Nancy in 1870 and 1860, both times shown as born in Ireland. In 1850, living with Samuel, 50, is an Agnus Leman, 20, born in Ireland, and Margareta Davis, 63, born in Ireland. In 1881, Samuel's wife Nancy is buried in Samuel's cemetery plot. In 1886, buried in Samuel's plot are a Rebecca Lehman 2, and two weeks later, a J. R. Lehman 46. Remember now, in 1880, the entire family was listed as Davis.

In the 1900 census, Sarah Ann is living with her now married daughter, Annie Wills, in New Brighton, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Sarah states she had 6 children and 5 were living. Remember, Laura is only her stepchild. We know of William Stevick (Wee Willie), a child born out of wedlock in 1865, Martha, Annie, Amy (lived only a few short months) and Albert. My guess is she must have been referring to Laura as one of her children also.

Now in 2007, the plot really thickened. A direct male descendant of Joseph's, a great grandson, had his DNA done and low and behold, most of the 37 marker individuals in that testing program have the surname Boyd. In the 1850 census living next door to Samuel Davis and Agnus Leman was the large family of John Boyd 83. John hailed from Ireland. And interestingly, Agnus's son Joseph, who would have been 9 or 10, is nowhere to be found. Indeed, I know of him only in the Kennedy family Bible, 1869, and in the 1880 census in Pennsylvania. I have no idea where Agnus was living in 1839 when she became pregnant. It could have been in Ireland or Pennsylvania or any place in between.

Blog's Chief Jackanape

2009-10-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

That jackanape you see to the immediate left, me, Robert E. Holt, is the person responsible for the information you will read in this blog. I started my family research some thirty years ago out of a growing curiosity about who I really was and where did I come from. My Geological work was taking me all over the world and the location of my roots became of interest to me. Maybe I could visit the places my ancestor's came from. First, though, I needed to know who they were and where did they come from.

History provides the information that permits us to know who we are and where we have been. By studying our ancestors within the context of history we learn of the many dynamic cultural forces that impinged upon them and helped shape whom they became and where they lived. Extended family, familiarity and place have an enormous magnetism consequently, a major relocation, even within a country, let alone a continent away, constitutes a major life and culture change. Thus it is fascinating to study our ancestral tracks and the forces that brought them to the American shores and how we, their descendants, arrived at where we are.

I'll begin, in turn, with my four principal lines of family, Holt, Childs, Davis and Thornhill. As we move along in my research on the various family lines you will see that I have not always been successful in finding the immigrating individual or indiviiduals. Indeed, in one case, Davis, I have gotten back just three generations beyond myself. It is my hope that as we go along interested readers of my data will fill in the gaps and there are gaps. Also, do not hesitate to pass on constructive criticism or suggestions. Pictures of ancestral family members would be greatly appreciated. In short, I want you to join me in making this blog into a discover-our-extended-historical-family enterprise. Some of the family lines won't be of interest to you, but join me in those that do.

One of Grandad's Stories

2009-10-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

My memories of Grandfather Holt are all positive and brimming over with warmth. He was a warm, loving and caring person. His sense of humor was outrageous and his talent for practical joking was rivaled by few. When we were all living together there on the farm Grandad,"POP" or "DOC" as we called him, frequently functioned as a baby sitter when Mom and Dad went to town. He would gather all four of us kids around the big fireplace in the living room, which from mid-fall to mid-spring always had a warm welcoming fire flickering and glowing in it, and tell us stories. And what stories they were.
One of the stories I remember very vividly occurred on one of those baby-sitting evenings long ago. The lights were out and only the flickering fireplace silhouetted the closer objects in the room. We five were as one in his big overstuffed chair. Soon, very quietly at first, came a muffled tumm, de-tumm, de-tumm, then, clump clump clump, the sound slowly increasing in intensity and finally featuring the clattering and clanking of chains amid the now very loud clop, clop of horse’s hooves announcing the coming out of a dark, misty night of a rider on a tall, black horse. "Look Look," was rendered in a low, hoarse, quivering whisper, "he doesn’t have a head!" What’s that he’s cradling tight against his left hip with his left hand? Oh NO! Its his head! Look, looook at those dark,glistening, staring eyes and that long, stringy, black hair blowing in the wind at his side." By then, as you might imagine,we had snuggled and hugged in even closer for his protective presence. Then, almost imperceptably, came a long, hissing moan that rose in intensity then trailed off ending with a groaning, moaning sigh . Long before the moaning trailed off, we had all squeezed so close to him we were literally pushing him into his chair, as we knew full well that bloody apparition was going to appear somewhere in that room in person. A long, very pregnant silence ensued accompanied only by a faint, wheezing, slightly-hissing sound. Then, loudly, "Oh Yuck POP!" as a brown, warm, stream of tobacco juice slithered between Rod’s toes from a well aimed splitooe. Grandad chewed and/or smoked a wiry tobacco called "Five Brothers," whose slimy, oily, pretty-brown juice now was slithering over the top of Rod’s toes and down over his foot which was sticking straight out from the chair.

I could go on and on with shenanigan after shenanigan such as this that our very much loved grandfather Holt played on us kids there on the farm as we were growing up. Indeed, I do intend to get back to you from time to time with more of his fun-loving shenanigans involding others as well as us kids .

Eulogy for John

2009-10-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

EULOGY
JOHN ROBERT HOLT
6 November 1955---19 October 2008
October 18, 2009
Evergreen Cemetery, Tucson, Arizona

I come here today, not to mourn John’s passing but to honor a wonderful, loving and productive son. I clearly remember John’s coming into our life in Radford, Virginia, around 2:30AM the morning of November 6, 1955. We were expecting him to be born sometime within the coming week. But certainly not that day, let alone 2:30 in the morning.

About 1:45AM, Frances shook me awake with the startling news she thought the baby was about to be born. I was completely fuzzed out but managed to get dressed and helped Frances get into the car and took off for the hospital. Several times along the way Frances, in a very worried and almost desperate voice informed me she was sure the baby was coming right there and then. Of course, I was already a-dither and merely drove faster. The hospital finally hove into view and we came to a screeching halt in front of the door. I threw my door open, ran around to her door to help. A nurse came running out, shoved me, a mere discombobulated male, out of the way and helped Frances into the hospital.

I hurriedly parked the car and came running. When I got inside, I was informed Frances was in the delivery room. A few minutes later, a smiling nurse came out and informed me that I had a beautiful new son. For the next fifty-two and a half years I had the joy and pride of watching a wonderful, successful and happy life unfold.

As a youngster, he had more scratches, bruises and tumbles than any kid in the neighborhood. He was, in many ways, shy. But he was also, in his own way, gregarious and had lots of friends. He became a Boy Scout and almost attained his Eagle Scout badge. However, he discovered girls and the badge faded away.

His first year in college at the University of Arizona was, academically, an unmitigated disaster although he managed to pass most of his classes. The problem? Girls, Girls and more Girls. We put him on his own and told him we would reimburse him, semester by semester, only if he successfully passed all his classes. He did and we did.

After a discover-the-world junket in Europe he arrived home, broke and unemployed. I owned the Owl Head Ranch at the time and was traveling considerably in my job so I put John in charge of the Ranch. Cattle ranching then was a distinctive and different way of life. In many ways harking back in time a hundred years. John quickly adapted to moving between the past on the Ranch and the present when away, clearly preferring the former.

During his tenure there, he hired, fell in love with and married, Suzellen Young. She had two wonderful children, Michele and Justin whom he instantly considered his own. Michele lived at the ranch permanently and their relationship was so extraordinary and loving that John soon made of her his by legally adopting her. Indeed, to him, both were his children and so remained all his life.

To John and his family the Ranch was not only home, it was a way of life. They literally moved in and out of the past to the present and back again almost on a daily basis. To me, they all seemed to enjoy round-up, branding and shipping the most. Round up of between 500 and a 1000 half-wild cattle and their calves and/or a 1000 or more steers on 120 square miles (76,800 acres), even though fenced, is no small undertaking. The largest pasture was 45 square miles and the smallest, 10. The work could be hard, dangerous and fun all at the same time. I remember a truculent, sour tempered, old Brahma bull John had nicknamed "Gotcha" that would charge you at the slightest provocation, especially if you were a-foot. We were on horseback, weaning calves from their mothers, and when we put the last calf in the smaller corral, I got down from my horse and started to close the gate. John yelled "Dad, ‘Gotcha’." I whirled around and saw charging me, the meanest, tail-high, head down, ill-tempered old range-grouch around. Up and over the corral fence I went, landing in a heap in a large pile of cow dung on the other side. Poor John and Suzellen could hardly stay mounted they were laughing so hard. And so it was on the ranch, hard work, low pay, danger and joy all wrapped up in a wonderful way of life. But, good things all come to an end and we had to sell the Ranch.

After leaving the Ranch John moved to Tucson and began teaching at Mountain View High School and taught the rest of his life. It was in his teaching career that he positively touched so many lives. So as to better counsel them he got his Master’s degree at Northern Arizona University and was just one year short of attaining his Doctorate at the University of Arizona. Student after student after student has written wonderful letters attesting to his positive influence on them and how time after time, he selflessly helped them overcome, either or both, their academic or personal problems. They attested to the fact that he was never too busy to stop whatever he was doing and listen to them. Nor did he ever belittle them or their problem. He always tried to help.

To me, he gave great pleasure because he was my son. He also gave me another daughter, Suzellen, three wonderful grandchildren, Michele, Michael and Justin, and three absolutely delightful, great grandchildren, Jordan, JohnAlan and Joshua. Loving memories of him will be with me until we meet again and meet again we shall.
Dad

My First Steps at Holtdale

2009-10-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

I have many good memories of the first ten years of my life which were lived in that old frame house. Even though it was in the middle of the depression, we never felt deprived. Life was normal to us children even though the adults were acutely aware of the difficulties of the times.
I'm never certain where true memories begin and repeated telling of incidents by family members either fortifies or provides memories for pre-retention times in young people. Some of the things I will relate, particularly about my preschool days, have to be provided memories. Others, I'm sure are true memories, however, I won't attempt to differentiate, I'll just relate the incidents.
On my nine-month birthday a neighbor, Jap Groscrost, was visiting and all were sitting around the living room talking. My father was holding me up and moving me about in a practice walk when Jap' got on his knees and coaxed me to come to him. They tell me that after several false starts, I took my first unassisted steps and toddled to him. A monster had been freed from its tether and nothing down low was safe thereafter.
Late in my toddling stage, I’m told, I would run about the yard sucking a bottle-nipple as a pacifier, which I called a "tipple." On the farm we had chickens, ducks, turkeys, cows and pigs. The chickens, ducks and turkeys had the run of the place and one old gobbler considered himself the yard major-domo and lord-protector of the harem. It seems that I was in the habit of chousing the hen birds to see them run and squawk. Old Mr. Gobbler decided one day that enough was enough and caught me in mid-chouse, downed me, and took the tipple out of my mouth and ran off. I guess my new found courage "got up and went" for off I ran to Mom screeching that the mean old gobbler had taken my tipple. The moral of this little tale is, no matter how big and self important we become, there is always someone just a little bigger and more important.

My Uncle Frank--at Holtdale

2009-10-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

Frank Raymond Holt II--now there was an uncle to brag about. Frank was born 19 March 1911 in Rochester, Pennsylvania to Agnes Gertrude Childs and Frank Raymond Holt Sr. According to Grandad, Frank was an absolute joy around the house. He was mischievous, bubbly, in to everything, and on the farm no Indian was known to yell louder, run faster, or poke his nose into more things or places. Somewhere around 1919 or 1920, he contracted polio and it settled in his right, lower leg leaving him crippled for life. But that didn't slow Frank down even one little bit. He use to say that he passed high school---"through the front door and out the back," so his formal education was minimal at best.

Sometimes Uncle Frank, who was an unrelenting practical joker and tease, would help with spraying the fruit trees. One of my earliest memories of Uncle Frank was when Dad, Grandad and Uncle Frank were spraying in the orchard. Dad had built a seat for me up on top of the sprayer tank so I could ride along. The sprayer was wheeled and pulled by the farm's Fordson tractor. Frank was always full of the old nick. This time, Dad was driving the tractor and Frank and Grandad were spraying the trees on their respective side of the sprayer. Somehow Frank always managed to spray me with the stinking lime-sulfur spray. More than once, I went screaming to Mom who, in turn, gave all three a tongue lashing for soaking me. In spite of that, Frank and I became great friends and constantly played practical jokes on each other.

One time, when I was eight or nine years old, Uncle Frank was painting the chicken coop, which was near the “three-holer” outhouse. Always the practical joker, he painted a ring around each seat in the outhouse. Shortly thereafter, I came down to bug him a bit and while there, needed to take care of the call of nature. I popped into the half-moon house, dropped my drawers and sat down. Squish! Arrgh! I had been had. I heard Uncle Frank howling with delight at my plight. He made sure, to my great annoyance, that everyone else knew about it too. What to do to even the score? I had been assigned to pull weeds in the garden and I remembered some nice big Scottish thistles that had given me trouble in the weeding chore. I pulled the heads of some and carefully placed them in Frank's bed. He, as usual, had gone sparking (courting the ladies) that evening. I was sound asleep when a loud and explosive curse awakened everyone. Uncle Frank had found my thistles. Oh, what sweet revenge.

In Frank's early twenties, Grandad helped him purchase an airplane, a two seater, bi-wing Waco. He kept it at the airport in Patterson Height's, up on the mountain top behind Fallston. His instructor, Vic Berge, became a family friend. Because of his crippled leg, Frank could never get his pilot's license even though he was proficient at flying his plane. He would frequently fly over the farm and buzz the place as well as the neighbor's homes. On one of those sassy, buzzing jaunts, he knocked a brick out of our neighbor Jack Engle's chimney. Now that was the talk of the neighborhood for awhile. All we kids, as well as Dad and Mom, rode in the thing with him from time to time. I have a great memory of him in that airplane, pulling up to park after a flight, with his tight, leather helmet strapped snugly under his chin with the big goggles and his nice, white, flowing-in-the-breeze scarf. He survived his airplane phase in grand style.

Some time in the late 1920's or early 1930's Uncle Frank left the farm. Then in 1934 and out of work he returned but was now married to Mildred (Crumrine) Walter's, who had a child, Mickey, from a previous marriage. Grandad gave him an acre and helped him financially to build a home on it. The family moved into their only partially finished home which was adjacent to Grandad's house.
Mother and Dad had lived in the house that came with the farm since their marriage in 1920 and Grandad lived with them after Grandmother died. Dad had been told the farm would eventually be his if he stayed and help make it into a viable entity. It had been a tough fourteen or so years but it had started to pay off. Then, when Frank returned, Grandad decreed that Frank would be a full partner with Dad on the farm. That arrangement, flawed at best, lasted until the late summer of 1936 when Dad, after an argument with Grandad about the money situation, abruptly quit the partnership. That very day he moved Mother and us kids into the unfinished home he was building on the other side of the farm. He found a job as a wire drawer in the J&L steel mills. Frank also left the farm and started his welding career which in time, led to a very successful career for him.

Growing up on the Farm

2009-10-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

My mother, Naomi Davis Holt, myself, and Sandy at left

Growing up on that farm during the depression years of the late twenties and thirties of the twentieth century was an exceptional experience. This was a rural community in transition from the horse and buggy past, to modern times. Many of the local farmers, such as our nearest neighbors John and Ada Gillespie, still used horses for their farm work. By then, though, most folks used automobiles to get back and forth to town and for their social lives. Not everyone had electricity, but interestingly, just about everyone had an old crank telephone hooked up to a twelve or fifteen party line. If I remember correctly, you could ring others on the line by ringing, for instance, two longs and four shorts for a certain individual, or one long for the operator. Not too classy or convenient, but real neighborly. The favorite pastime, of course, was eavesdropping which, with every extra ear, caused the volume to decrease sometimes to an almost inaudible level.

Homes ranged from those with all modern conveniences including running water, septic system and electricity such as ours, to those without anything, not even running water. But everyone got along just fine and we learned to make allowances for each other. Just by being there and interacting with the neighbors was participating in the past. I was actively involved in neighbor helping neighbor, learning how to use tools which were remnants of the past, some already found in museums. I used horses just as my ancestors had done, learned to harness them and what to call the various harness parts. I actually drove horse-drawn wagons in work situations and rode in buggies. I pumped the blacksmith’s bellows, and used his tools. I was involved on a daily basis either at home or at a neighbors in the care and handling of cattle, sheep, chickens, butchering, harvesting and even subsistence and sport hunting and fishing. However, at the same time I learned to take modern conveniences such as electricity, telephones, radio and airplanes for granted. It was all there, the new and the old, and like the sponges we are as children, I soaked up every tiny tidbit and made of it my character.

The community at large was like an extended family. Every one knew every one else or were at least aware of whom they were. In one sense, I was raised in a huge, warm, fuzzy cocoon. A youngester acting up in that community would be reminded, by a complete stranger to him, that if he didn't straighten up his parents, by name, would be told. I could walk down any street or along any road at night and be perfectly safe. It was big band time. Our major means of being in touch with the world was the radio and out of it flowed some of the greatest music ever heard. It was our communicator on the world as well. It brought the world, for the very first time, together. The first commercial radio broadcast was made by KDKA Pittsburgh in 1926, the year I was born. Silent "Cal" Coolidge was President. Just over the horizon, unseen yet, was the greatest depression our country ever experienced. In was in those soon to be depression years that I was raised.

My Ramblin' Davis Grandparents

2009-09-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

No two people were more peripatetic in life than they, Herbert Albert (Hooker?) Davis and his beloved wife, Jessie Virginia Thornhill. In fact, their youngest son, Cleo Francis Davis, always claimed he had gone to over twenty different schools before entering Rochester High School in Rochester, Pennsylvania. Interestingly, most of that shuffling about took place in two counties, Hancock in West Virginia and Beaver in Pennsylvania. In the mid 1920's Grandmother's young brother, Claudis Earl Thornhill, was an All American football player at Pitt University. Claud (Tiny) became an assistant coach under "Pop" Warner and finally, Head Coach at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The family including her parents, John Newton Thornhill and Fanny Bell Smith, moved to California.

Herbert (Grandmother called him Bert) and Jessie married the 30th of April 1897. She was just fifteen years old and he not quite nineteen. They had a family of four children which was complete with the birth of Cleo Francis in Sharon, Beaver County, Pennsylvania the 25 of March, 1904. Not one of their four children, Guy Earl, Harold Newton, Naomi Alberta and Cleo Francis, had been born in the same place, but all were born within a fifty mile radius of each other.

Granddad began life as Hooker Albert Davis, 20 August 1878, the only son of Joseph Davis and Sarah Ann Kennedy. Sarah Ann in the 1880 census stated she had six children , five living. We can only find records for five. Much more on Joseph and Sarah Ann in a later entry. Granddad was not at all happy with the name Hooker. Oh, it might have been okay as his middle name, well, not really. After several stabs at renaming himself, he ended up finally as Herbert Albert Davis. Where Herbert came from no one knows but Hooker was definitely discarded. But now the big question is, where did the name Hooker come from? I have Sarah Ann's family back quite a ways and no Hooker there. Was it a name from Joseph's family? Maybe, but Joseph's lineage is a bit muddled as you will learn in a later blog entry.

Grandad Davis was a small man, 5' 3" or 4'' inches tall and no more than 140 pounds soaking wet and with a few rocks in his pocket. His countenance was very gentle. His soft, almost sparkly, blue eyes, well-positioned in his nicely shaped and well-tanned face, were always welcoming. He was so soft spoken that if you weren't looking at him you would never have known he had spoken. He was so fastidious when eating he drove Grandmother crazy. When he ate, each item on his plate had a separate spot and each item was eaten separately and slowly. He was always the last to finish. Long before he would finish it was not unusual for the dishes of those who were eating with him to already be in the sink and washed. But oh how we kids loved him. He fit the old appellation "a jack of all trades" perfectly: He had run a bath-house in an amusement park, was an accomplished stonemason, carpenter, farmer, dairy farmer and--well you get the idea.

Grandmother Davis and her family

Grammaw, as we kids lovingly called her, was another kettle of fish. She was several inches taller than Granddad, a few pounds heavier, very witty, sometimes to the point of being sharp-tongued as they use to say. She could toss a barb with the best of them and frequently did. She was ruddy complexioned and had almost-impish, wonderfully-twinkling, grayish-blue eyes. She began life July 27, 1882 in a now vanished village called Rockyside, Hancock County, West Virginia. There were four children, three girls, of whom only Grandmother survived, and one boy, Claudis Earl. Grandmother and Claud are shown above (center) with their parents, John Newton and Fanny Bell (Smith) Thornhill.

Grandmother not only kept house and cooked wonderful meals, she planted and cared for the family garden, helped milk the cows and cared for the milk that was a large part of their income in later life. Grammaw churned butter regularly and always filled four or five very fancy, one pound butter moulds. She took took the moulded butter to the Farkas Brother's grocery market in Beaver and traded it for groceries. Her butter was so well liked there was always a waiting list at the market for it. She was devoutly religious and rarely missed a Sunday at the Christian Church in Beaver. I guess you would say they both were Jacks of all trades. They were part of the tail-end of subsistence farming as it was practiced in the early part of the twentieth century, prior to WWll.

Heartbreak and Tragedy

2009-09-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

Grandmother, Agnes Gertrude Childs Holt, and son Franklin Raymond Holt, Jr.

The first decade and a half on the farm proved to be tragic almost beyond belief. First, I believe it was 1919, my Uncle Frank contracted polio, which at that time was deadly as they had no reliable medication for it. Fortunately he survived but had a crippled right leg for the remainder of his life.

My folks, John Childs Holt and Naomi Alberta Davis, in the passion of a high school love affair, eloped and were married in New Cumberland, West Virginia. Their first child, a lovely young daughter, Miriam Ruth, arrived on the scene the 7th of March, 1921, two and half months before she was due. Two months later Miriam contracted pneumonia. There were no respirators in those days so she lived only a few days before passing away.

Tragedy struck again on the 6th of September that year. Grandmother Holt had been working in the yard in the afternoon and came into the house with a severe headache. She suffered all evening long and at 12:30 A.M. died of an aneurysm.

On the 15th of August, 1924, my brother, John Childs (Jack) Holt, Jr., was born. Jackie, as they called him, was an alert, bright, little fellow and began walking when he was just ten months old. Father entered Stanford University that fall and Mother and Jackie moved to California with him. Mother's uncle, Claud Thornhill, was the assistant football coach at Stanford. Most of Claud's family moved to California at the same time: my Grandmother Davis (his sister), Grandfather Davis, as well as Grandmother Davis's parents, John Newton and Fannie Bell Smith Thornhill. The University, belatedly, discovered that Dad had not finished his senior year at Rochester High School, located in Rochester, Pennsylvania, and gave him his walking papers at the end of the fall semester. Dad, Mother, and Jackie returned to Rochester and moved into the house at Holtdale that spring. During that summer and fall they were building a large storage barn and garage adjacent to the house. On September 10, 1925, Jackie was playing alongside the new building . Dad heard him cry out and went to him. Jack was crying and rubbing the back of his head. He had fallen backwards striking the base of his skull on the head of a nail protruding from a discarded board. Dad took him into the house and told Mother what had happened. By then, Jack had quit crying and was playing around in the house. Late that evening he went into a coma and they rushed him to the Rochester Hospital where he died. It has always been my belief that a kind and benevolent God, knowing what was coming, had started the healing process as Mother was unaware yet that she was pregnant with me at the time of Jackie's death.

Dr. and Mrs. Frank R. Holt

2009-09-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

Dr. Frank Raymond Holt and Agnes Gertrude Childs Holt

My grandparents were the original owners of Holtdale Farm. Very few photographs of my grandmother exist, she thought she was ugly and destroyed all those she found. I have only three of her, this one and another a little later in her life and one when she was seven or eight. The photo of Grandfather was taken around 1896 when he graduated from the College of Dentistry at the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. They were married in 1898 in Rochester, Pennsylvania and purchased the farm around 1910.

Things I intend to talk about

2009-09-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

I am brand new at blogging and hope you will bear with me during my learning phase. I've spent the last 35 years or so working on the genealogy of my family and in doing so have uncovered some interesting family history along the way that I would like to share. I also want to relate to you how it was for me growing up in a rural community during the time of transition from the horse and buggy to the automobile, airplane and enhanced communication--the telephone. I must confess, too, I am totally addicted to national and international politics and have been known to bloviate (a favorite term of Mr. O'Reilly of Fox News) rather heatedly on current political affairs. I've been around on the planet a little over 83 years so it would be impossible for me not to give you an earful of my opinion on the political situation as I see it every now and then. I promise you though, I'll stick mostly to family history tales involving the multiple ancestral lines I've uncovered in my genealogical research and what it was like growing up on that farm. I welcome any and all comments, information, or corrections--better be sure of yourself, I've been known to "Harrumph" pretty loudly--on anything I publish here.

Some time around 1910 Grandfather (Franklin Raymond Holt, later shortened to Frank Raymond) and Grandmother (Agnes Gertrude Childs) purchased the 100 acre farm located on the south side of Tuscarawas (the Tuscy) road, about 2.5 miles west of the town of Beaver, Pennsylvania. At the time of purchase, there was a small two-story wooden-frame home located about a hundred yards south of the road on the east side of the farm. They soon named the place "Holtdale." Interestingly, near Leeds, England, there is a place called Holtdale. The name Holt is primarily of English origin, but it has also been in use in Ireland since the early 1200's. They later enhanced this place considerably making it into a very comfortable home in which to live. At the time though, they lived in down-town Rochester, on the same street but on the opposite side as the Oriental Theatre.

Grandfather, called Grampa, Grandad or Pop by us kids, set about clearing the place and putting in an orchard. He planted at least a half-dozen types of apples, cherries (both sweet and sour), plums, peaches and grapes. A Holt lived on that farm continuously from 1920 until 1995 when the last Holt, my brother Lee's daughter, Ellen and her family, moved away. Today, only my sister Virginia (Sis Holt) Hume and I together own two small pieces of the farm.

Welcome

2009-09-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of a blog intended to do several things: (1) Follow the first twenty years of my life spent on a small farm in Beaver County, Pennsylvania at the tail end of the transition from the horse and buggy to the more modern forms of travel and electronic communication, and (2), have you meet my family and ancestors as I have come to know them through research in the Holt, Childs, Davis, Thornhill and other family related lines such as Kennedy, Ecoff, Fry, Blake, Corley, Holmes, Smith, Critchlow, Windle and others. In some of the lines they have been traced to the immigrant, and occassionaly, to those who remained in the old country. My hope is that some of you who find your way to my blog can help me further my research into any and all of my family ancestral lines. Above all, I want your comments, critical, informative, identifying mistakes, adding to my research or telling me you like what I'm doing or don't and why. I look forward to hearing from you.