Here's another set of blogging prompts, courtesy of Amy Johnson Crow (thank you, Amy!) that, if I keep up with them, might help me keep this blog more active. Since I'm starting a week late, I'll do two this week.
Number 1 on the list is Samuel Packard (c. 1610-1684), who emigrated from Stonham Aspal, Suffolk, England to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638, during the "Great Migration."
Samuel was my eighth great-grandfather and the progenitor of most of the Packards present in the United States. He is directly in my paternal line, my descent being, in the Packard surname:
Samuel
Zaccheus
Zaccheus
Eleazer
Richards
John Allen
Matthew Hale
Oscar Merry
Walter Heatherington
Arden (my father)
Samuel left England as a separatist, a protestor against the Chuch of England and the excesses of Archbishop William Laud. When I was a kid, I had a Puritanical streak, and always wondered where it came from until I started delving into my family history and discovered myself to be a direct descendant of Massachusetts Puritans! So I come by it honestly!
His wife was named Elizabeth, though the most reliable family research has failed to turn up her maiden surname. Samuel and Elizabeth were married in Suffolk, and boarded the ship Diligent with an infant girl, Mary.
Samuel was a farmer and keeper of an ordinary, a word used in those days for a tavern located in one's home. A room on the first floor of the house would be opened to the public for purchase of libations of an alcoholic nature (Puritans weren't all that pure!), and I would imagine for some lively conversations, too. He also served the town at different times as surveyor of highways and collector of minister's rates (that is to say, taxes).
Samuel and Elizabeth had fourteen children. Two of them, twin girls Jane and Abigail, died young. One, Israel, lived to young adulthood and then disappeared from records. He was a soldier, and may have lost his life in that role.
Samuel's will was made 29 October 1684, nine days before his death. Though Samuel was a literate man, Puritanism being a literate movement and his municipal offices also indicating literacy, he signed his will "by mark," which may indicate that he was too infirm in his terminal illness to have signed his name.
He bequeathed to his "loveing wiff Elizabeth" (ya gotta love the creative spelling of those days before orthography) all of his lands, buildings, and possessions for the rest of her life, then they were to be divided among their children as stipulated in the will. There was apparently one no-good son-in-law among the flock, at least as Samuel saw him, for there is a stipulation in the will that provides that the inheritance of his daughter Jael, wife of John Smith, should not be delivered to John, but be given directly to hand to Jael. John apparently was not to be trusted with money.
Samuel worked hard and left his family well enough off. Good Puritan.
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massachusetts. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Election Day 2010 -- Family History and General History
Today's meme was suggested by Thomas MacEntee in his daily "Geneabloggers" e-mail. We are to talk about voting in our family, any traditions, or any ancestors who may have run for office.
The last ancestor I can point to who held public office would be my 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard, who emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts (Plymouth Colony) in 1638 from Suffolk, England. He was, at various times, Collector of Ministers' Rates (tax collector, basically) and Surveyor of Highways. Most of the rest of us have kept a low profile, politically speaking.
I have made a point of voting in each election since I became eligible to vote in 1968 -- primaries, general elections, special elections, whatever. My husband had an unbroken streak until last spring's primary, when he ended up in the hospital on voting day, and had not taken advantage of early voting.
Early voting is what we have here in Florida, and I'm sure other places must have it, too. Polling places are established at various venues, usually the local public library or a school. The polling place is run exactly as the usual Tuesday-election-day polling place, under the direction of the county Supervisor of Elections. The early voting goes on for something like a week (maybe 2, not really sure) before the election. My younger daughter and I even voted on Sunday this week! The library itself was closed, but the meeting room was open, and set up just like the regular polling place. And the best sight of all was that we had to wait for a voting booth. There were at least 10 of them set up, and every one of them was full, with a line waiting. I hope this kept up all week. We need bigger voter turnouts.
So with voting going on even on the weekends, there's no excuse for anyone able to do so not doing so! And for the rest, absentee ballots are good, too. They just require a little planning.
Elections themselves, and the polling places, are quieter than in the past -- at least on election day. The run-up to the election is pretty doggone noisy these days, but the election itself is not. No more do party hacks and other malefactors ply voters with liquor, or attempt to bribe them to vote a certain way. (It's a secret ballot and always has been. How did these crooks know whether or not a voter was just taking their money and voting how they pleased?) Polling places are policed by the pollworkers, and poll-watchers can observe and report any shenanigans. Political signs have to be a certain distance from the polling place (50 feet in Florida; lots of near-sighted oldsters like me who can't see that far!) And no "electioneering" is allowed within that 50-foot perimeter. Nobody can accost you in the polling place and urge -- or threaten -- you to vote a certain way. That is a change from the early days of the Republic, and a good one.
Now if we could just get the screamers and thumpers on the extreme ends of the spectrum to dial it down a bit!
The last ancestor I can point to who held public office would be my 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard, who emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts (Plymouth Colony) in 1638 from Suffolk, England. He was, at various times, Collector of Ministers' Rates (tax collector, basically) and Surveyor of Highways. Most of the rest of us have kept a low profile, politically speaking.
I have made a point of voting in each election since I became eligible to vote in 1968 -- primaries, general elections, special elections, whatever. My husband had an unbroken streak until last spring's primary, when he ended up in the hospital on voting day, and had not taken advantage of early voting.
Early voting is what we have here in Florida, and I'm sure other places must have it, too. Polling places are established at various venues, usually the local public library or a school. The polling place is run exactly as the usual Tuesday-election-day polling place, under the direction of the county Supervisor of Elections. The early voting goes on for something like a week (maybe 2, not really sure) before the election. My younger daughter and I even voted on Sunday this week! The library itself was closed, but the meeting room was open, and set up just like the regular polling place. And the best sight of all was that we had to wait for a voting booth. There were at least 10 of them set up, and every one of them was full, with a line waiting. I hope this kept up all week. We need bigger voter turnouts.
So with voting going on even on the weekends, there's no excuse for anyone able to do so not doing so! And for the rest, absentee ballots are good, too. They just require a little planning.
Elections themselves, and the polling places, are quieter than in the past -- at least on election day. The run-up to the election is pretty doggone noisy these days, but the election itself is not. No more do party hacks and other malefactors ply voters with liquor, or attempt to bribe them to vote a certain way. (It's a secret ballot and always has been. How did these crooks know whether or not a voter was just taking their money and voting how they pleased?) Polling places are policed by the pollworkers, and poll-watchers can observe and report any shenanigans. Political signs have to be a certain distance from the polling place (50 feet in Florida; lots of near-sighted oldsters like me who can't see that far!) And no "electioneering" is allowed within that 50-foot perimeter. Nobody can accost you in the polling place and urge -- or threaten -- you to vote a certain way. That is a change from the early days of the Republic, and a good one.
Now if we could just get the screamers and thumpers on the extreme ends of the spectrum to dial it down a bit!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
52 Weeks to Better Genealogy: The Local Public Library
Today, in the first installment of this year-long blogging theme, we were supposed to go to our local library and jot down titles of books which might be useful in our genealogical searching. I have four library cards, counting my University ID card. I'm going to choose not my nearest library, but the one with the largest genealogy collection. For one thing, I'm not from around here, though my husband is. He has Florida connections that I lack. So I'm more likely to find something useful in a larger collection. That collection is at the Jacksonville (FL) Public Library.
Some possibly useful items, be they sources or finding aids:
GEN 929.3768 T297b reel 1
Births 1908-1912, index [microform]
Florida births, which may be useful in locating birth information on my husband's father's family (mainly some of pa-in-law's uncles and aunts).
929.1 ELLIOTT 2009
Finding anyone, anywhere, anywhen by Noel Montgomery Elliott
Sounds like something any genealogist could use!
GEN 929.1025 E133e 1964
East Tennessee historical and genealogical directory by the East Tennessee Historical Society
Possibly useful in tracing my mother's mother's family, who hailed from East Tennessee. The family was there about 100 years before uprooting and going to Indiana.
GEN 929.509744 L222g 2009
A guide to Massachusetts cemeteries by David Allen Lambert
I have a lot of ancestors buried in Massachusetts!
GEN 929.1072 I72f
Finding your Canadian ancestors: a beginner's guide by Sherry Irvine and Dave Obee
Even those of us with some experience can find new information and methods from beginners' books, and I have Canadian ancestry.
GEN 929.1 D225g
The genealogist's guide to researching tax records by Carol Cooke Darrow and Susan Winchester
Tax records are an excellent resource; I can use new information on where to find them and how to use them.
AE 1.102:W 89/2 [government document]
Finding information on personal participation in World War II (National Archives and Records Administration)
My father was a Naval officer; my husband's father and mother were shipyard workers. Can we find out more about them?
929.374 RAPAPORT
New England court records: a research guide for genealogists and historians by Diane Rapaport
Another resource that would be good for info on my New England ancestors.
That is just a scratch-the-surface list, but I don't want to make a huge blog entry! Suffice it to say that browsing the library's collection can yield some impressive results.
.
Some possibly useful items, be they sources or finding aids:
GEN 929.3768 T297b reel 1
Births 1908-1912, index [microform]
Florida births, which may be useful in locating birth information on my husband's father's family (mainly some of pa-in-law's uncles and aunts).
929.1 ELLIOTT 2009
Finding anyone, anywhere, anywhen by Noel Montgomery Elliott
Sounds like something any genealogist could use!
GEN 929.1025 E133e 1964
East Tennessee historical and genealogical directory by the East Tennessee Historical Society
Possibly useful in tracing my mother's mother's family, who hailed from East Tennessee. The family was there about 100 years before uprooting and going to Indiana.
GEN 929.509744 L222g 2009
A guide to Massachusetts cemeteries by David Allen Lambert
I have a lot of ancestors buried in Massachusetts!
GEN 929.1072 I72f
Finding your Canadian ancestors: a beginner's guide by Sherry Irvine and Dave Obee
Even those of us with some experience can find new information and methods from beginners' books, and I have Canadian ancestry.
GEN 929.1 D225g
The genealogist's guide to researching tax records by Carol Cooke Darrow and Susan Winchester
Tax records are an excellent resource; I can use new information on where to find them and how to use them.
AE 1.102:W 89/2 [government document]
Finding information on personal participation in World War II (National Archives and Records Administration)
My father was a Naval officer; my husband's father and mother were shipyard workers. Can we find out more about them?
929.374 RAPAPORT
New England court records: a research guide for genealogists and historians by Diane Rapaport
Another resource that would be good for info on my New England ancestors.
That is just a scratch-the-surface list, but I don't want to make a huge blog entry! Suffice it to say that browsing the library's collection can yield some impressive results.
.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
SNGF -- REALLY late: Surname Distribution
I'm really late this week with Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but it is getting toward the end of the term, and I have lots of reading to do (including the entirety of Boccacio's Decameron, which was considered terribly salacious in ages past, but is mild compared to what we see on television these days!) and papers to write and other stuff going on.
So here it is: This week, according to Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, we are to look at the geographic distribution of one of our surnames.
1) Find out the geographical distribution of your surname - in the world, in your state or province, in your county or parish. I suggest that you use the Public Profiler site at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/, which seems to work quickly and easily. However, you cannot capture the image as a photo file - you have to capture the screen shot, save it and edit it.
2) Tell us about your surname distribution in a blog post of your own (with a screen shot if possible), in comments to this post, or in comments on a social networking site like Facebook and Twitter.
Searching on my paternal surname/maiden name of Packard at the website recommended by Randy in his instructions, reproduced above, I found that the worldwide distribution shows the surname mainly in Europe and North America, with a smattering in India, Australia, and a bit more densely in New Zealand. Europe shows the surname distributed thus:
What stuns me is that the name shows up in Spain and a tiny bit in Italy. What is even more surprising to me is that in Spain, the surname is present in Andalucia, which is where I was in the month of May a couple years ago, when I went to Seville to research at the General Archive of the Indies. If I'd known that, I would have grabbed the phone book and done some looking. It would have been big fun to have met my primos españoles (Spanish cousins).
Another stunning thing about the map is Great Britain, where my 8x great-grandfather was born. The concentration of the surname is shown as being very low in England except for the teal spot on the Channel coast. That is East Anglia, part of which is the county of Suffolk, where my ancestor Samuel Packard was born. He emigrated to Massachusetts in 1638, to join other separatists (which we call Puritans) who could no longer stand the Church of England. (And here's another irony -- I was raised in the Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican -- that is, Church of England -- Communion.)
The next map has a lot to say about where the Packards are most heavily concentrated now:
On the world map, the most dense concentration of the Packard surname is in the United States. There are some also in Canada -- where my father's line spent three generations, in between being residents of Massachusetts and ending up in Illinois. In the U.S., we Packards are in every state except North Dakota. My own line went from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Vermont, which was my 4x great-grandfather Richards Packard (yes, there is an "s" on his first name, which is from the maiden name of his mother, Mercy Richards) in an ever-northward quest for land after the American Revolution, in which he fought in two different Massachusetts regiments. This search for land ended him up in Canada. Not every American who went to Canada after the Revolution was a Tory -- many of them went because in Canada they were giving land away and they didn't much care who they were giving it to!
After a couple or three generations in Canada, my great-great grandfather and a fistful of his siblings came back to the U.S., some by way of Massachusetts, some (including my ggf) by way of New York (Chautauqua County), and some directly to end up all of them in Bloomington, Illinois. From there, my great-grandfather Oscar Packard, who was a real estate developer, went to California in the early 20th century, a great time to have been in real estate in California!
Me, I live in Florida, and here's where the surname occurs in the Sunshine State (which, with the remnants of Ida meandering around, is not experiencing much sunshine this week!)
There are some in the panhandle, and the rest distributed from northeast Florida, where I live, down the peninsula. See Jacksonville up in the upper right? See the county which is completely white -- completely devoid of the surname -- just below Jacksonville (which comprises nearly all of Duval County)? That blank county is Clay County, where I live. I don't count in this because my surname for the past 38 years has been Rhodes! By the way, the surname Rhodes is shown to be present in Clay County in moderate density -- including one reprobate listed just below us in the telephone book, who apparently did not pay his bills and for whom we were getting collection calls for a while. I had to resort to recommending that the caller employ a straight-edge when looking up numbers in the phone book!
I have to say I was unaware that there were any Packards in Bradford County, which is the little triangle just to the west of Clay County, but apparently there are. None of these Packards are close relations to me. But I suppose I should at least try to get in touch with them and see if any of them are interested in genealogy and share some ancestors with me.
.
So here it is: This week, according to Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, we are to look at the geographic distribution of one of our surnames.
1) Find out the geographical distribution of your surname - in the world, in your state or province, in your county or parish. I suggest that you use the Public Profiler site at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/, which seems to work quickly and easily. However, you cannot capture the image as a photo file - you have to capture the screen shot, save it and edit it.
2) Tell us about your surname distribution in a blog post of your own (with a screen shot if possible), in comments to this post, or in comments on a social networking site like Facebook and Twitter.
Searching on my paternal surname/maiden name of Packard at the website recommended by Randy in his instructions, reproduced above, I found that the worldwide distribution shows the surname mainly in Europe and North America, with a smattering in India, Australia, and a bit more densely in New Zealand. Europe shows the surname distributed thus:
What stuns me is that the name shows up in Spain and a tiny bit in Italy. What is even more surprising to me is that in Spain, the surname is present in Andalucia, which is where I was in the month of May a couple years ago, when I went to Seville to research at the General Archive of the Indies. If I'd known that, I would have grabbed the phone book and done some looking. It would have been big fun to have met my primos españoles (Spanish cousins).
Another stunning thing about the map is Great Britain, where my 8x great-grandfather was born. The concentration of the surname is shown as being very low in England except for the teal spot on the Channel coast. That is East Anglia, part of which is the county of Suffolk, where my ancestor Samuel Packard was born. He emigrated to Massachusetts in 1638, to join other separatists (which we call Puritans) who could no longer stand the Church of England. (And here's another irony -- I was raised in the Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican -- that is, Church of England -- Communion.)
The next map has a lot to say about where the Packards are most heavily concentrated now:
On the world map, the most dense concentration of the Packard surname is in the United States. There are some also in Canada -- where my father's line spent three generations, in between being residents of Massachusetts and ending up in Illinois. In the U.S., we Packards are in every state except North Dakota. My own line went from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Vermont, which was my 4x great-grandfather Richards Packard (yes, there is an "s" on his first name, which is from the maiden name of his mother, Mercy Richards) in an ever-northward quest for land after the American Revolution, in which he fought in two different Massachusetts regiments. This search for land ended him up in Canada. Not every American who went to Canada after the Revolution was a Tory -- many of them went because in Canada they were giving land away and they didn't much care who they were giving it to!
After a couple or three generations in Canada, my great-great grandfather and a fistful of his siblings came back to the U.S., some by way of Massachusetts, some (including my ggf) by way of New York (Chautauqua County), and some directly to end up all of them in Bloomington, Illinois. From there, my great-grandfather Oscar Packard, who was a real estate developer, went to California in the early 20th century, a great time to have been in real estate in California!
Me, I live in Florida, and here's where the surname occurs in the Sunshine State (which, with the remnants of Ida meandering around, is not experiencing much sunshine this week!)
There are some in the panhandle, and the rest distributed from northeast Florida, where I live, down the peninsula. See Jacksonville up in the upper right? See the county which is completely white -- completely devoid of the surname -- just below Jacksonville (which comprises nearly all of Duval County)? That blank county is Clay County, where I live. I don't count in this because my surname for the past 38 years has been Rhodes! By the way, the surname Rhodes is shown to be present in Clay County in moderate density -- including one reprobate listed just below us in the telephone book, who apparently did not pay his bills and for whom we were getting collection calls for a while. I had to resort to recommending that the caller employ a straight-edge when looking up numbers in the phone book!
I have to say I was unaware that there were any Packards in Bradford County, which is the little triangle just to the west of Clay County, but apparently there are. None of these Packards are close relations to me. But I suppose I should at least try to get in touch with them and see if any of them are interested in genealogy and share some ancestors with me.
.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Where there's a will, there's often paleography
My cousin Ginger, who has been a museum director (and therefore appreciates good research and good citations), returned not long ago from a trip to England, the lucky dog! I wanted to stow away in her luggage, but that would have far exceeded the weight limit!
She went to Suffolk, ancestral home of our 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard. She brought back copies for both of us of a few wills from ancestors a little further back, including one from probably our 10x-great-grandfather Moses Packard, who died in 1604. The writing is florid, though it is a hand I am familiar with from paleographical studies in connection with the course of study I took from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies, Toronto, Ontario Canada (through the University of Toronto, which records the grades and issues the transcripts and the certificates of completion). I can read a little bit of it right off, but to read it completely will take study and time I do not have right now.
Many of the letter forms used in these documents are similar to those I find in the Spanish documents I sometimes work with. The scribes who wrote these documents were not isolated and insular fellows. Many of them traveled around Europe. Many of them were taught by instructors who had traveled around Europe, and who might be from a different country. So they used many of the same letter forms and often the same or similar abbreviations.
Abbreviations were used to save penstrokes, because after all, they were doing this all day -- writing documents laboriously by hand. With quill pens. It makes my arthritis-riddled hands ache to think of it!
The other fun of paleography is the lack of orthogaphy - that is, there was no regularized spelling, no "correct" way to spell a word - in those days. Thee other funne of palaeographie is ye lacke of orthographye - thatt is, there was noe regularized speling, no "corect" way to spelle a worde - in thos daies. That's how the sentence might have looked in the 16th or 17th century. Makes for interesting reading, for sure.
I'm looking forward to continuing to be a blatant history nerd (and genealogy nerd, of course) and studying the wills over the holiday break in December. Ginger and I are hoping they will open up new leads to the study of the family, especially of those who remained behind in England while Samuel - an outcast because he had abandoned the family's affiliation to the Church of England and become a Separatist - left England for Puritan Massachusetts.
She went to Suffolk, ancestral home of our 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard. She brought back copies for both of us of a few wills from ancestors a little further back, including one from probably our 10x-great-grandfather Moses Packard, who died in 1604. The writing is florid, though it is a hand I am familiar with from paleographical studies in connection with the course of study I took from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies, Toronto, Ontario Canada (through the University of Toronto, which records the grades and issues the transcripts and the certificates of completion). I can read a little bit of it right off, but to read it completely will take study and time I do not have right now.
Many of the letter forms used in these documents are similar to those I find in the Spanish documents I sometimes work with. The scribes who wrote these documents were not isolated and insular fellows. Many of them traveled around Europe. Many of them were taught by instructors who had traveled around Europe, and who might be from a different country. So they used many of the same letter forms and often the same or similar abbreviations.
Abbreviations were used to save penstrokes, because after all, they were doing this all day -- writing documents laboriously by hand. With quill pens. It makes my arthritis-riddled hands ache to think of it!
The other fun of paleography is the lack of orthogaphy - that is, there was no regularized spelling, no "correct" way to spell a word - in those days. Thee other funne of palaeographie is ye lacke of orthographye - thatt is, there was noe regularized speling, no "corect" way to spelle a worde - in thos daies. That's how the sentence might have looked in the 16th or 17th century. Makes for interesting reading, for sure.
I'm looking forward to continuing to be a blatant history nerd (and genealogy nerd, of course) and studying the wills over the holiday break in December. Ginger and I are hoping they will open up new leads to the study of the family, especially of those who remained behind in England while Samuel - an outcast because he had abandoned the family's affiliation to the Church of England and become a Separatist - left England for Puritan Massachusetts.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Carnival of Genealogy 75: Justice and Independence -- Richards Packard, Revolutionary Soldier
My fourth great-grandfather Richards Packard enlisted for the American Revolution when he was only 17. He was born, son of Eleazer Packard and Mercy Richards, 7 April 1763 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts (the part that is now Brockton). In his Revolutionary War pension file, he is described as standing 5' 2" in height. He was short, even in those days. I picture him as a feisty bantam rooster of a young man.
Richards mustered in at Springfield, then in Hampshire County, in Captain Wade's Company, Colonel Jackson's Regiment. According to his pension file, the company went to West Pont, New York, and to King's Ferry. As he himself says in his pension application papers, he was at Haverstraw "when Andre was hung," referring to the execution of British spy Major John Andre on 2 October 1780.
He re-enlisted in February of 1782, at Leverett, Massachusetts, and again ended up in New York, at West Point, this time in Captain Smith's Company in Colonel Rufus Putnam's Regiment. During this time, he suffered from smallpox, but apparently recovered. Richards Packard was discharged in February o f1783.
His pension application was filed from Vermont, and by the time he applied for the pension, he was raising his family in Canada. No, he didn't decide to become a Tory, and it is a myth that those American colonists who ended up in Canada after the Revolution were all Tories. Richards Packard engaged in an ever-northward migration searching for land. He went first to Winchester, New Hampshire, where he worked in a foundry, and where he met and married his wife, Sarah (Sally) Coats/Coates. They removed to Vermont, where Richards tried a couple different plots of land but apparently was not happy with them. Canada was practically giving land away, and he settled near Georgeville. Packard cousins still live on the same plot of land Richards Packard settled in around 1798.
Richards Packard died 25 February 1840.
Sources:
Richards Packard and Sarah Coats/Coates Packard, widow, Revolutionary War, Application for Pension, W21886, Records of the Veterans Administration, Record Group 15, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
"The Globe May Be Sold on the 'L' Word, but Earlier Bostonians Knew Better," The Georgeville Enterprise: An Occasional Publication. Georgeville, Quebec: The Georgeville Historical Society, Vol. 12, Number 1, Summer 2003, pages 1-3. [The 'L' word in question is 'Loyalist.']
Richards mustered in at Springfield, then in Hampshire County, in Captain Wade's Company, Colonel Jackson's Regiment. According to his pension file, the company went to West Pont, New York, and to King's Ferry. As he himself says in his pension application papers, he was at Haverstraw "when Andre was hung," referring to the execution of British spy Major John Andre on 2 October 1780.
He re-enlisted in February of 1782, at Leverett, Massachusetts, and again ended up in New York, at West Point, this time in Captain Smith's Company in Colonel Rufus Putnam's Regiment. During this time, he suffered from smallpox, but apparently recovered. Richards Packard was discharged in February o f1783.
His pension application was filed from Vermont, and by the time he applied for the pension, he was raising his family in Canada. No, he didn't decide to become a Tory, and it is a myth that those American colonists who ended up in Canada after the Revolution were all Tories. Richards Packard engaged in an ever-northward migration searching for land. He went first to Winchester, New Hampshire, where he worked in a foundry, and where he met and married his wife, Sarah (Sally) Coats/Coates. They removed to Vermont, where Richards tried a couple different plots of land but apparently was not happy with them. Canada was practically giving land away, and he settled near Georgeville. Packard cousins still live on the same plot of land Richards Packard settled in around 1798.
Richards Packard died 25 February 1840.
Sources:
Richards Packard and Sarah Coats/Coates Packard, widow, Revolutionary War, Application for Pension, W21886, Records of the Veterans Administration, Record Group 15, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
"The Globe May Be Sold on the 'L' Word, but Earlier Bostonians Knew Better," The Georgeville Enterprise: An Occasional Publication. Georgeville, Quebec: The Georgeville Historical Society, Vol. 12, Number 1, Summer 2003, pages 1-3. [The 'L' word in question is 'Loyalist.']
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Carnival of Genealogy 73: The Good Earth Belongs to Someone Else
I do not have any particular ties to any particular plot of land, unless you include cemetery lots where relatives are buried.
My parents did not have any ties to any land, either. My father's family moved a few times during the early 20th century in the Los Angeles area. My mother's family occupied a couple different houses in Pensacola, Florida. Together, my mother and father never owned a house. They always rented. Rats to that, because I can not use property records and tax records to locate them in any particular place. I've had to depend on city directories, for the most part. And even that is not terribly accurate, as they were known to move a couple times within a year. I know they were in Florida at the time of the 1945 state census, but I have not found them in that enumeration yet. I am waiting to see where I might find them in the 1940 census.
My husband and I now have an acre in the country that backs up to a state forest. It is nice for the most part -- until the deer meander out of the forest into the yard and eat every edible and ornamental plant I ever planted. So these days, I do not even have a garden.
I have not found that my ancestors were landed, either, to any great extent. There were some farmers, but it was a tradition that did not continue in the subsequent generations. My great-great grandfather Nelson Reed McKee, about whose disappearance I blogged the other week, is shown in the 1860 census as a farmer in Allen County, Indiana. He apparently did not make much of a go of it, because in the next census he is listed as a silversmith living in Portland, Jay County, Indiana.
Through a query in a Canadian newspaper, as I reported in my blog on cousins the other day, I contacted distant cousins in Quebec who still live on land settled by our mutual ancestor, my fourth great-grandfather Richards Packard, sometime around 1798. Reading his revolutionary war pension file reveals a constant northward trend from his native Massachusetts (he was born in Bridgewater, that portion of which is now Brockton), up to New Hampshire, where he met his wife Sally Coats, thence to Vermont, where my third great-grandfather John Allen Packard was born, and on into Quebec, where they were giving land away. He did not want to remain in New Hampshire, where he worked in a foundry. Apparently he was not satisfied with the lands he found in Vermont. He seems to have been more content with the plot he settled in Quebec, near present-day Georgeville.
My husband's father's family did not seem to be tied to the land very closely, either, though I do not have too many facts about his great-grandfather Samuel Rhoades. My husband's grandfather was a railroad conductor, as was my great-grandfather Francis Harvey ("Frank") Reed. My grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Reed, also called Frank, was a railroad switchman.
In my husband's mother's family there is a farm, no longer active as one, near Darien, GA, which is still in the family. My husband's maiden aunt Lil lives there now, and the property has been divided among some of her siblings. That is the closest thing I've seen, up close and personal, to a plot of land which has been handed down over a century and a half, the original family members having settled the land around the time of the Civil War.
There is not a real tradition of landholding in my family, certainly not as far back as nearly 200 years. I sprang from city and suburban folk, in neat little houses with neat little yards.
But even the humblest plot is home, and was to our ancestors who were not large or even modest landholders.
My parents did not have any ties to any land, either. My father's family moved a few times during the early 20th century in the Los Angeles area. My mother's family occupied a couple different houses in Pensacola, Florida. Together, my mother and father never owned a house. They always rented. Rats to that, because I can not use property records and tax records to locate them in any particular place. I've had to depend on city directories, for the most part. And even that is not terribly accurate, as they were known to move a couple times within a year. I know they were in Florida at the time of the 1945 state census, but I have not found them in that enumeration yet. I am waiting to see where I might find them in the 1940 census.
My husband and I now have an acre in the country that backs up to a state forest. It is nice for the most part -- until the deer meander out of the forest into the yard and eat every edible and ornamental plant I ever planted. So these days, I do not even have a garden.
I have not found that my ancestors were landed, either, to any great extent. There were some farmers, but it was a tradition that did not continue in the subsequent generations. My great-great grandfather Nelson Reed McKee, about whose disappearance I blogged the other week, is shown in the 1860 census as a farmer in Allen County, Indiana. He apparently did not make much of a go of it, because in the next census he is listed as a silversmith living in Portland, Jay County, Indiana.
Through a query in a Canadian newspaper, as I reported in my blog on cousins the other day, I contacted distant cousins in Quebec who still live on land settled by our mutual ancestor, my fourth great-grandfather Richards Packard, sometime around 1798. Reading his revolutionary war pension file reveals a constant northward trend from his native Massachusetts (he was born in Bridgewater, that portion of which is now Brockton), up to New Hampshire, where he met his wife Sally Coats, thence to Vermont, where my third great-grandfather John Allen Packard was born, and on into Quebec, where they were giving land away. He did not want to remain in New Hampshire, where he worked in a foundry. Apparently he was not satisfied with the lands he found in Vermont. He seems to have been more content with the plot he settled in Quebec, near present-day Georgeville.
My husband's father's family did not seem to be tied to the land very closely, either, though I do not have too many facts about his great-grandfather Samuel Rhoades. My husband's grandfather was a railroad conductor, as was my great-grandfather Francis Harvey ("Frank") Reed. My grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Reed, also called Frank, was a railroad switchman.
In my husband's mother's family there is a farm, no longer active as one, near Darien, GA, which is still in the family. My husband's maiden aunt Lil lives there now, and the property has been divided among some of her siblings. That is the closest thing I've seen, up close and personal, to a plot of land which has been handed down over a century and a half, the original family members having settled the land around the time of the Civil War.
There is not a real tradition of landholding in my family, certainly not as far back as nearly 200 years. I sprang from city and suburban folk, in neat little houses with neat little yards.
But even the humblest plot is home, and was to our ancestors who were not large or even modest landholders.
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