tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59295179453272125442012-02-13T11:03:04.133-06:00About a few immigrant ancestors who had to be thinking <i>wayyyy</i> outside the miter box to even <i>consider</i> crossing an ocean to an uncertain future, let alone DO IT.Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.comBlogger81100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-54721309437691395082010-01-30T01:05:00.000-06:002010-01-31T10:57:16.324-06:00

(Or so every tale about Marblehead is said to be prefaced...)Fifteen years after the Mayflower landed and 140 years before the United States was even thought of, my earliest known ancestors, the GATCHELLs, settled on Marblehead Neck, a spit of land across from Marblehead proper.Most history books gloss over (or ignore altogether) the next 50 or 60 years of American history, a time the Gatchells

Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-32165990659574487272010-01-28T07:44:00.000-06:002010-01-31T10:57:51.357-06:00

Imagine you're 24, and there's no future in the Somersetshire village where you grew up and where your family has lived for at least a hundred years. You, your bride, and your younger brother Samuel have decided to seek your fortune in the New World. The journey will begin at Weymouth on the coast of Dorset, which borders Somerset.As the coach at last crests the hill above Weymouth, you gaze

Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-20010774453969789062010-01-24T06:29:00.000-06:002010-01-31T10:58:13.415-06:00

John GATCHELL, wife "Wibera" (true spelling unknown), and brother Samuel sailed from Weymouth on the Hopewell in May 1635 for Massachusetts Bay, where John and Wibera settled on Marblehead Neck near present-day Salem. They "lived in that part of Salem which was incorporated as Marblehead in 1648" (History of Salem, MA: Vol. I (1626-1637), Heresy, p. 444).John was born about 1609 in Somersetshire,

Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-72348191146363062942010-01-23T05:46:00.000-06:002010-01-31T10:58:37.189-06:00

Charles Edward "C.E." Banks implies in his Topographical Dictionary of 2885 English Emigrants to New England, 1620-1650 that John and Samuel were born in the West Monkton area of Somerset, where there was a significant Gatchell family presence at the correct time. A fire in the West Monkton parsonage destroyed the parish's records, therefore no definitive birth records exist proving the birth

Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-13071335975081299902010-01-22T08:23:00.000-06:002010-01-31T10:59:02.774-06:00

Apparently not. The following always makes me laugh:In July 1879, Henry F. Waters wrote in the New England Historical and Genealogical Review: The Gatchell family were evidently not of puritan strain, as shown by the following extract from Salem records: "[at] a Towne meeting this 21th of the 6th month 1637"... "John Gatshell is fyend [fined] tenn shillings for building upon the Towne ground wth

Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-71304820267399903212010-01-21T09:04:00.000-06:002010-01-31T10:59:24.919-06:00

To encourage members to write about nefarious ancestors, GeneaBloggers sponsors something called "Black Sheep Sunday". Two categories that can qualify an ancestor for black sheep status are armed robbery and involvement in the witchcraft trials.In early 1684, the Gatchells were involved in the Great Corwin Burglary, which wasn't an armed robbery, but considering the column inches devoted to it

Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-50385777411409122182010-01-14T02:26:00.000-06:002010-01-31T10:59:48.469-06:00

At left, the house known as "the Witch's House" due to Jonathan Corwin and son George's involvement in the witch trials.According to Historic Salem, Inc., it was built in 1672 by Capt. Nathaniel Davenport of Boston, then purchased only partially completed in 1675 by Jonathan Corwin for himself and his family. In 1944, it was saved from demolition by the formation of Historic Salem, Inc. and "

Harold's Daughterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07105616709661027188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5929517945327212544.post-3378096228462196102010-01-11T13:55:00.000-06:002010-01-31T11:00:12.972-06:00

In 1682, Barnabas WILCOX, a Quaker from a family of shipbuilders and outfitters in Bristol, England, came to Philadelphia with 13-year-old son Joseph, arriving shortly before William Penn. Barnabas soon established the city's first rope walk to produce the heavy ropes every ship required.If you've ever made a "rope" of yarn, the process is a miniature of the making of nautical rope. The halfway

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