A to Z Blogging Challenge 2025 -- Whatever! G is for Good Grief!

I'm trying to catch up with the A to Z blogging challenge.  Events the last several days have derailed my blogging.  Today:  antics some of my ancestors and relatives got up to have me saying:  Good grief!

A collateral ancestor of mine, Colonel Josiah Edson, born 24 January 1709, was well-respected in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  He held several positions of trust in the town.  But for some reason, just before the Battle of Bunker Hill, he went over to the British, being characterized in town records as "a rascally Tory."  He died in a British encampment in Long Island, New York in 1776.  Two years later, his lands were confiscated, giving him the dubious distinction of being the only person in Bridgewater to have lost his lands for having turned his coat.(1)  Good grief!

My great-great grandfather, Nelson Reed McKee, left his home in Monticello, White County, Indiana, the evening of 4 June 1879, and was never seen there again.  His jewelry store was intact; none of his customers' goods were missing.  He had taken only the day's profits to which he was entitled.  He gave some of it to his wife, Sarah Ann (Sunderland) McKee, walked out the door, and was gone.  He showed up in Clinton, Wisconsin, in the same profession he had practiced in Indiana, a jeweler and watchmaker.  1 August 1880 he married Ida Josephine Colby in Beloit, Wisconsin.  Trouble was, he was still married to Sarah Ann Sunderland.(2)  Good grief!

My brother Ned, when he was a junior or senior in high school (about 1960), would tell our mother he was going over to Toby's (not the real name; I don't remember it).  Mom, of course, thought that Toby was one of Ned's friends.  This went on for several weeks until Mom found out that Toby's was a pool hall down on Bay Street -- not a nice part of the city of Jacksonville.  He was grounded.  Good grief! (3)

My sister Betty wanted to go to the beach with her best friend Mary Ann.  She asked Mom if she could borrow the car, a 1951 Packard convertible.  Mom gave permission with one strict condition:  Betty was not to take the car onto the beach sand, because the salt in the sand would corrode the body and undercarriage of the car.  So Betty and Mary Ann went to the beach and had a good time, taking lots of pictures.  When Betty got the pictures developed, and brought them home from the drug store, she showed them to Mom.  There was the car sitting on the salty beach sand.  Betty was grounded.  Good grief! (3)

 (1) Recopied Bridgewater town record, Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryuicontent/view/ 10890485:2495?ssrc=pt&tid=12481845&pid=132366600143 (accessed 16 March 2022). 

 (2) Recounted in my blog entry Black Sheep Sunday -- The Mystery of Nelson Reed McKee 

(3) Both from personal recollection.

 "A rascally Tory"

Captain Josiah Edson, born about 1683, married Sarah, daughter of Zaccheus Packard the elder, my seventh great-grandfather.  He was in possession a goodly portion of the estate of his uncle Josiah, for whom he was apparently named.(1)

Captain Josiah and Sarah had seven children:  Sarah (1705), Abiah (1706), Josiah (24 Jan. 1709), Huldah (1713), Abiezer (1715), Freelove (1718), Elijah (1720).

Their son Josiah, known as Colonel Josiah Edson, was "a very distinguished man before the Revolution, Justice of the peace, Deacon of the church, and Col. of the regiment of militia and representative of the town."(2)  But right before Bunker Hill, he slipped a cog and became "a rascally Tory."  He went over to the British, taking refuge in one of their camps.  He was with the British at Long Island, and died there in 1776.  Under an act of the General Court in 1778, Colonel Josiah's lands were confiscated and he became the only person in Bridgewater whose disloyalty caused his lands to be taken under that act, for his having gone over to the enemy side.

He was a black sheep, if ever there was one.  I maintain that it is the black sheep of our families who make our genealogical inquiries interesting, however much we may deplore the behavior that earned them that title. 

(1) Nahum Mitchell, History of the Settlement of  Bridgewater, in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Including an Extensive Family Register.  (Boston: Kidder & Wright, 1840), 152.

(2) Recopied Bridgewater town record, Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988
Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryuicontent/view/10890485:2495?ssrc=pt&tid=12481845&pid=132366600143 (accessed 16 March 2022).  [The quoted entry appears below the list of Captain Josiah's children with Sarah Packard.]