Genealogy - Antebellum Ambrotype

 

Antebellum Ambrotype - 1856-1860

In a collection of things my wife received after her grandfather died in 1998 was this ambrotype. 

It was a small ornately decorated thermoplastic box containing an image of a young man in his twenties holding a large book - maybe a bible.  He was dressed in mid-19th century formal attire. His slightly ruddy cheeks are not a natural feature of the photograph but a result of the ambrotype development process, which often included subtle hand‑tinting. Ambrotypes themselves were actually negative images on glass; photographers added dark backings and artistic touches to make them appear as positive portraits.

As soon as I saw it, I knew it had history - but did anyone know the history? 

The only person living that might know who it belonged to was my mother-in-law.  Unfortunately, all she remembered about it was that it was a gadget to entertain her during church as a child. The evidence of that was clearly displayed on the box where purple and pink crayon wax was built up on the brass gilding and the box lining.

I turned to clues and possibilities.  Ambrotypes with thermoplastic cases were commercially popular between 1856 and 1860. The young man in the image appeared to be in his mid-20s.  This meant that it was a young man born around 1835. 

Next, this person was probably a relative of either John Robinson or Mary Jones - my wife's grandparents. It seemed most probable that it was a relative of her grandmother, since she would have had the image in her purse and been entertaining her daughter with it to keep her quiet during church. 

Here are the possibilities for ancestors of Mary.

Leonadis Jones, her paternal grandfather, was born in 1840.  If it was Leonadis he was closer to 18 years old when the image was made and the image looks as if he is older than that.  

John Meadows, her maternal grandfather, was born in 1836. John, therefore, is a reasonable candidate for an ambrotype.

If it were either Leonadis or John, why did Mary come into the possession of it?  Mary was the ninth of ten children. Mary's father was the second child of Leonadis.  Mary's mother was the last child of John Meadows and he had come to live with Mary's uncle Albert in his declining years. Nonetheless, the youngest child may have been the most appropriate person to have inherited an image of her grandfather.

Here are the possibilities of John Robinson's ancestors.

John's paternal grandfather, Balum, was also born in 1840. We have images of him that do not seem to be an aged version of the young man in the ambrotype.

John's maternal grandfather, Andrew Hunter, was born in 1855, so he is certainly too young to have been the young man in the ambrotype. Andrew, though, was the son of James Marshall Hunter who was born in 1826. James had died during the Civil War and was a Methodist minister. While it is tempting to imagine this as a portrait of this preacher, the path required for this to have passed down to this particular household makes him, at best, a romantic long‑shot.

All in all, John Meadows seems the most likely candidate for the ambrotype. In the end, I may never know the young man’s name. The ambrotype has outlived every person who once recognized his face, and now it sits in my hands as both a puzzle and a reminder. Objects like this contain the quiet, undocumented threads of family life. A child’s crayon marks, a grandmother’s purse, and a photograph saved for reasons no one bothered to explain.

It is fascinating - the smallest details are the first to disappear. We assume everyone knows what we know, until suddenly no one does. So, write things down. Tell the stories. Label photographs. Even the unimportant things matter, because they are the connections that keep a family’s history from slipping into silence.

American Revolution - Independent Green Mountain Boys!

Catamount Tavern, Bennington, VT

"I've never seen Vermont.  I bet it's nice, though - all that snow!" That was from White Christmas, but it fits my situation. So, all I have to show for a picture is this late 1800s photo of the Catamount Tavern in Bennington, VT that I collected from the internet.

Even though I haven't been there, I accepted the responsibility for maintaining a Wikitree space page related to the Revolutionary War on the Green Mountain Boys - who hailed from the region that became the State of Vermont, the fourteenth state of the Union. The region was originally named Vert Mont, which directly translates to Green Mountain, by Samuel de Champlain when he mapped out the region in the 1600s.

The Green Mountain Boys were individualist from the start. Ethan Allen (who you have probably heard of as a furniture brand), Remember Baker, and Seth Warner formed a militia, initially to defend settlers from those possessing New York land grants from taking "their" lands. So, to them the British were just another outsider trying to seize control! They saw an opportunity to strike at them at Fort Ticonderoga. Benedict Arnold joined forces with them as they had a common enemy. 

The capture of Ticonderoga occurred in May of 1775, very early in the American resistance. The success of Arnold and Allen was extremely consequential as it provided a much-needed supply of heavy guns and ammunition. Henry Knox quickly made good use of them. After the success at Ticonderoga some accompanied Arnold on a disastrous attempt to secure Quebec. Later in 1777, Seth Warner commanded many of them at Hubbardton and Bennington which contributed to the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga on 17 Oct. 1777. These early victories inspired hope and supplies that would be needed to sustain the colonist in the war that would wage on for six more years.

Vermont and the Green Mountain Boys, though they had fought with the other colonist did not immediately choose to join the Union. Vermont declared itself independent in 1777 forming the Vermont Republic. New York's continued claim on the territory delayed any admission. Until that was settled, with concessions from New York, they would not ratify the US Constitution. This happened in 1791.

I've never seen Vermont. Snow or no snow, I really didn't think I had any connection to Vermont. As I have looked over some of the individuals that were involved - I found that I did have some connections. One connection was quite close. I am a first cousin (seven times removed, of course) with Steven Fay. He owned the Catamount Tavern where the Green Mountain Boys exploits were planned.

Afterwards:  My connection to Stephen Fay is as follows -

My grandfather, Herbert Henry McCown is the son of Mary Ellen Wylie, the daughter of Robert White Wylie , the son of Elizabeth (Brown) Wylie, the daughter of Oliver Brown, (who made good use of the artillery Col. Knox collected), the son of Benjamin Wellington Brown, the son of Ruhamah Brown, the daughter of Benjamin Wellington - who was Steven Fay's maternal grandfather.  

 

Happy Thanksgiving - Pollo y Papas

Pollo y Papas 

Thanksgiving is nearing. Today we are already preparing some of the foods that can be made early. 

Thinking of Thanksgiving we usually forego thinking of the detailed historical aspects it, like was the first one in the new world in 1621 in Massachusetts with the Pilgrims or was it in 1619 in Virginia when John Woodleefe landed with thirty-five settlers in Berkeley, VA.  Maybe you go further back to 1565 when Pedro Menedez de Aviles participated in a thanksgiving celebration at Saint Augustine, FL.  It is highly unlikely that you even think about Rene Goulaine de Laudonniere's thanksgiving near Jacksonville, FL in 1564 or Tristan de Luna's initiation of a thanksgiving mass upon landing near Pensacola, FL in 1559.

Instead, what we usually think about is food.  Thinking of food recently, I was having a conversation about some unusual foods that I have eaten, for someone from the US anyway. (For the curious some of those include: Alligator, iguana, squirrel, rabbit, guinea pig, turtle and insects.) That conversation led to the most interesting meals that I've enjoyed.

Thinking about that I realized the most interesting meals have nothing to do with the quality of the food. Those interesting meals are interesting because of where I am or who I am with. Let me share some of them with you.

The first was in Chattanooga at a place called the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. I was about 10 years old. It was special because, at the time, we never went out to eat at anything resembling a fancy place - because of affordability and because we were children. I remember the food came out on something called a "Lazy Susan" - which seemed such a strange name to me.

The next highly memorable meal was in Trinidad, West Indies. I had gone there with a group from church on a mission trip.  One of the local families invited me to their home.  The mangos weren't ripe yet, but we peeled one in the yard and ate it with a little salt on it.  When we were invited inside, we ate a communal dish where we would dip the pita-like bread into the thick curry chicken.  We used no forks or knives - just our fingers.

A third memorable meal was in England.  I was visiting in the home of some friends my wife and her parents had made while they were living there.  The hostess brought out several courses as we laughed and shared subtle and humorous differences between Americans and the British.

The final and most cherished memory is the one pictured in this blog. I was, again on a mission trip, this time visiting Machachi, Ecuador. My one-on-one Spanish is and was good enough to facilitate necessary communication.  However, it was not and is not good enough to keep up with the conversations of multiple Spanish speakers in their conversations. I knew we were going to visit Laguna Limpiopungo, on Cotopaxi but other than that, I didn't know our plans precisely.

We had visited several families there. At one of them, the young man was just finishing cleaning a chicken. He was spraying the feathers out of the walkway near his house. I had no idea that I would soon be eating that same chicken.

Later that afternoon after driving to the lake and walking about portions of the nature walk there - we got back in our cars and trucks and made our way to a plateau behind some large boulders to shield us from the fierce cold winds.  There we sat down to handfuls (or in my case the pot lid for a plate) of boiled chicken and potatoes.  One of my hostesses broke off pieces of the chicken and passed it to each person there.

After eating we sat around enjoying the moments and watched the children as they played among the boulders. "King of the Hill" was the game to play.

I didn't understand all the conversation, but I relished in the moment, in the place, and in the welcoming hospitality. Though it wasn't Thanksgiving - it was a moment I am thankful to have experienced.

Happy Thanksgiving! Pass the relish and relish the moments!

 

American Revolution - Long Ago?

Tennessee Flag

I haven't blogged in a while about the American Revolution in my year-long celebration of the semiquincentennial. That is a word you don't see very often (except maybe this year) meaning half of five hundred years (250th anniversary). Today, though, seemed like a good day to revisit the topic.  This evening the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) will begin showing Ken Burns' The American Revolution. He promises to highlight the story in a similar vein as I have been presenting the subject - through the eyes of the populace. He has been working on the project for around 10 years with a team of historians - so the revelations it will highlight should be truly educational.  No doubt it will provide nuanced narratives and provocative perspectives that we never saw in our school aged history classes.

Today, I'm looking at one of my wife's ancestors through her adoptive line.  This ancestor is NOT an unsung hero. The lineage runs like this:  Tammy daughter of Jim, son of Zora Lancaster, daughter of Will Bob, son of James, son of Roxalina Cowan, daughter of Ira, son of Catherine Trousdale, daughter of James Trousdale.

James Trousdale was a Captain under the command of General Francis Marion (a.k.a The Swamp Fox). As such, James marched to Charleston, SC to defend the town and port from the British. He was wounded by a saber to the face at the Battle of Guilford Court House in March of 1781 and captured at the Battle of Hillsborough that September. However, he was able to witness the surrender of Cornwallis following the Siege of Yorktown in October.

Because of his service to the Revolutionary Army and its cause, he was granted 640 acres in North Carolina.  That part of North Carolina became part of Davidson County, TN.  Specifically, his farm is the town of Gallatin. His son, William, went on to become the thirteenth Governor of Tennessee from 1849 to 1851.

William died at the age of 81 in 1872.  We like to think of ourselves as far removed from those days 250 years ago.  But, I met my great grandmother, Wilma Moore Rose, who was born only 10 short years after William, the son of James Trousdale, died in 1872.  In the early 1970s, I sat on the lap of a celebrated American Indian, Chief Red Fox, who was born two years before William died.  Yes, I know, I'm getting up there - but our country's founding wasn't that long ago.

 

 

 

Crepe Myrtle???

 

Fifty Foot Crepe Myrtle

This Doug's Diversion strays from my normal genealogy and revolutionary war topic to a random diversion...woodworking.

Last winter, I decided it was time.  We had a crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) that had been planted too close to the house some forty years ago. (I counted 43 rings.) The house was built 45 years ago, so it may have been part of the original subdivision plantings.

In any case, this tree was dropping buds and flowers on the roof that were difficult to blow off if I didn't get to it before a rain. Normally, crepe myrtles are somewhat short bushy trees topping out around 25 feet tall or so.  But this one was a giant! After I cut it down, I measured it at 50 to 55 feet tall.

I contacted a friend that owns a mill to ask if he wanted any of the lumber.  His reaction - "Crepe Myrtle! You can't get lumber out of that!"  I said, "It has a four-foot trunk section that is almost two feet across." He said, "huh!" and agreed to take it, mill it, and see if it would sell. To date he has had few takers.

Milling the Myrtle

Now I am far from an accomplished woodworker. Dad did some home repairs, electronic, and mechanical work when I was growing up - but no woodworking.  My granddad and his father had been carpenters; but I had never had any hands-on instruction from them.  And...I never took woodworking in school. My first attempt at any woodworking was refinishing a crib for my daughter before she was born. (It doesn't meet current safety standards or the emerging standards of the time --- oops! She survived anyway.) I designed and built some bookshelves for children's books. I designed and built a couple functional, but ugly, corner desks.  I've refinished some chairs and a chest of drawer. I built an end table, a military coin rack, and a few other small projects. 

You add to minimum experience and lack of training to my propensity for not putting out cash for the latest gadgetry (In other words, I have a circular saw, a drill, a sander, a chop saw, sponge brushes made from foam packing egg crates, and some hand tools.) and a bit of impatience and you can get some rough end products. 

This crepe myrtle, though, captured my attention.  It is a medium hard and medium dense wood, but it easily sands to a very fine smooth and uniformly even surface. While little talked about, it is a highly versatile wood. What I found most interesting about crepe myrtle is its tiger striping pattern that shows up throughout the wood. 

Since the tree had been part of the house since its earliest days - I decided it needed to have a piece of furniture in the house that was made out of the wood. I had built two end tables out of sinker cypress some years before. One of them, however, I was never satisfied with. I decided to make a second end table out of the crepe myrtle wood. I got the mill owner to help me by running some of the rough-cut boards through a surface planer.  I then joined three boards to make the top and with a circular saw (not a table saw or a band saw) cut some veneer strips to cover up some "carpentry cheating" I had done to attach the unmilled legs more easily. 

I finished the whole project off with some simple polyurethane finish. 

End Table made of Crepe Myrtle Boards and Logs

I have some more boards left. One, from the main trunk and several 3x3 post-like pieces from the trunk.  I may use them to do another end table - but if I do one of them will have to be sold or given away, because I'm out of room for end tables.

American Revolution - Chance Encounters

Colonial Williamsburg, VA

Two hundred fifty years ago American Colonist began the struggle for self-determination that had been forged in the spirit of independence that had brought so many to the colonies to begin with. 

I have been highlighting various patriots that are believed to be ancestors of either me or my wife. These are, for the most part, people you won't find in the history books when you read or study the American Revolution. Nonetheless, they like over 200,000 people took up arms against the British serving in the Army or in State militias. 

A couple of my ancestors that moved to Ohio from Virginia in the early 1800s have deep roots in coastal Virginia and participated in the revolution there. James Terry my third great grandfather was from Amherst, VA. While I don't have anything in my possession that I know belonged to him. I do have an original receipt dated 1882 signed by James' son-in-law and my 2nd great-grandfather, Monroe McCown for an appraisement of James' estate following his death. Consequently, I have something of a tangible connection to him.

Monroe's wife, Henrietta, was the daughter of James' first wife, Sarah Robinson. James had come to Ohio sometime, but not long, after Sarah had died. Both James' father and Sarah's father had served in Virginia. James' father, Thomas, had served as a private in the Albemarle Guards Regiment. This unit was responsible for guarding the British and German prisoners of war near Charlottesville, VA beginning in January of 1779. He served as a guard for two years and afterwards was drafted into the Virginia militia where he participated in the siege of Yorktown and witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis.

Sarah's father, William, was a Lieutenant and also at Albemarle and at the siege of Yorktown based upon the testimony of pension request for Thomas Vines. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) simply list him as a soldier in the militia. 

Now, I don't know for certain what brought Thomas Terry and William Robinson together, but I know Thomas moved to Amherst where the Robinson family lived.  At least three of Thomas' children, Thomas, William, and James married daughters of William Robinson.

Given the connection to the Albemarle Guards and the proximity, Thomas may have demonstrated capacities as a guard under William's watch. As a landowner and a slaveholder, William needed someone he believed was capable. Unfortunately, it probably also meant that Thomas was managing William's slave labor.  There is only circumstantial evidence of this - but it is pretty compelling.

- Thomas was a guard

- Thomas and Lucy moved to Amherst before 1810

- Thomas was accused of killing a slave in 1818 and acquitted

- There is no evidence Thomas owned slaves himself.

- James, Thomas' son, is reported to have helped manage slaves at Jenkins Plantation at Green Bottom, VA just before the Civil War.

It seems, Thomas, a commoner, had skills and sons and from that he managed to insert his family into a prominent family in the region. William, conversely, had only one son, Simeon. William had served as an officer in the Revolutionary War.  His father, John, is recognized by the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) as having paid a tax towards the war effort. William's grandfather, William, is also recognized as a patriot. He is described as having been a Colonel (by SAR) and as performing patriotic services (by DAR and SAR).  Given that William was born in 1709, his service as Colonel was most likely from early pre-war militia service. William's father is memorialized on a Middlesex County, VA historical marker. His father had been a representative in the House of Burgess and served as a founding trustee of the College of William and Mary.

What does all that have to do with the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution? Well, seemingly, because of an encounter between two individuals during the course of the war - a relationship was born.  From that relationship between my third great grandparents was forged.  It is simply an observation about the happy interactions that random events played and play in the unknown future.

 

American Revolution and Heritage

Valley Forge Encampment (Replica Structures)

CAVEAT:  This blog, like all of my blogs, includes links so you can discover more about the subject.  Please do not consider any link to any source here (or in any other blog post I have written) an endorsement of everything written in the link or by the referenced author.

In my yearlong recognition of the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the United States - I am now

looking at the ancestors of my wife's family and their contributions to the Revolution.

There has been some political talk about Heritage Americans recently. The linked article by Ben Crenshaw in 2024 appears to be the first or one of the first to try to define the moniker.  It is a bit better articulated than J.D. Vance's statement in July 2025 at the Claremont Institute that described them as having ancestors that fought in the Civil War.

Mr. Vance may have been thinking about his 3rd Great Grandfather, Robert Sturgis Bowman who fought for the Union in Kentucky's 14th Regiment.

In any case, it is clear from Crenshaw's description of Heritage Americans as being united by language, religion, government, liberty, land, and law and the genealogical research I have been doing our families (my wife and mine) can easily be placed into that cultural box. Among our ancestors I have identified over forty participants in the American Revolution and ancestors that were on the Mayflower and part of the early Jamestown settlement.

One of Tammy's revolutionary ancestors was William Lancaster. William was from Henrico, VA and joined the 1st Virginia. William enlisted in April 1776. The unit fought in the earliest battles of the American Revolution and William was available for duty during engagements at New York, Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, and Germantown. Following Germantown William wintered with his unit at Valley Forge. William died in May of 1778 before the unit engaged at Monmouth in June. 

The army at Valley Forge was ravaged by Smallpox, Typhoid, Dysentery, and Pneumonia during the late winter and early spring.  The circumstances of his death are not precisely known, but disease is very likely the cause.  It is unlikely that William was sent home to Virginia where he later died, but rather he is probably buried in a cemetery at Valley Forge.

William wasn't a young man in this war.  He died at the age of forty-six.  He left a wife, Judith, and four children under the age of ten. His wife died only five years later. At least three of his children accompanied an aunt and uncle to an area in North Carolina that became Smith County, TN. My wife has many memories (some of which we shared) of time on a 100 plus acre property along the Cumberland River that was a small part of the acreages that William's brother and children came to own there, starting as early as 1790.

I don't know what real value there is in being a "Heritage American". Sure, the idea could give me roots.  It gives me a story.  It gives me a cultural foundation. It even explains the way I think about some things. It also has been used and can be used to divide instead of uniting the nation. We are a nation that set a beacon in its harbor to welcome the "tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free."  We have over time become a nation of many peoples and in many ways we are unique in the world.  

William, like many ancestors I have looked at, fought for freedom to decide his own destiny.  That destiny, for him was death, but for his children it was property and opportunity in Tennessee for generations. Those who have come to call America their home in the intervening years, for the most part, had the same dream, "freedom to decide their destiny." Maybe that is really what a "Heritage American" is. Sure, it is an elusive bluebird - but we have believed it from our founding when we stated it this way in our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."