Significant events in American history that touched our family

1607 Jamestown 

1620 Mayflower

    We are descended from at least six of the original Mayflower passengers. Through the Abbott-Whitfield-Godfrey families, we are descended from Stephen Hopkins and his daughter Constance. Through the Allen-Bosworth families, we are descended from John Howland who married Elizabeth Tilley, and Elizabeth's parents, John and Joan Tilley. 

1625 New Amsterdam established, Dutch West India Company

    Johannes Wandell arrived from Holland in 1737. The Wandell family was instrumental in establishing and building New Amsterdam, including the Dutch colony Gravesend and the original wall in lower Manhattan that predated Wall Street. They became wealthy and well-connected through their shipping business on the Hudson River. Wandell, Haight, Stillwell, Hall, Allen, King, and Connable are among the notable names in early New York City. 

1628 Augustine Warner arrives in Virginia, brought by Adam Thoroughgood. 

    Augustine and his wife Mary Townley were the grandparents of George Washington. They are also ancestors of Queen Elizabeth II, Meriwether Lewis, Robert E. Lee, and George Patton. He was a prominent planter and politician. His grave is at his home, Warner Hall in Gloucester, Virginia. Queen Elizabeth visited the home of her "American Cousins." We are direct descendants of him through his son Augustine II and Mildred Reade (whose father was Governor of Virginia) and their daughter Elizabeth, who married John Lewis. John and Elizabeth's son Colonel Charles Lilburn Lewis sold Chemokins plantation in Hanover County and moved to Goochland. Their offspring were connected to the Randolph and Jefferson families of Virginia. 

1636 Providence, Rhode Island founded by Roger Williams

    Roger Williams came to America with his new wife, Mary Barnard from London, England in 1631. The young clergyman was welcomed to the new colony in Boston by Governor Winthrop. He would not join the congregation at Boston because of their support of the Church of England. As a Separatist he joined the pilgrims at Plymouth. There he befriended the natives and wrote a book about their language. During heated controversary about the King giving away native lands, he fled in exile to the Narragansett country of what later became Rhode Island. He founded the first Baptist Church in America. We have a double descendancy from Roger Williams through his son Daniel and his daughter Mary.

1644 Indian uprising in Virginia; Opecancanough captured.

    Nicholas Stillwell fled to Holland from England due to religious persecution and became a soldier for Queen Elizabeth (Queen of Bohemia, The Winter Queen). He married the Queen's lady in waiting, Abigail Hopton in 1630. By 1635, he owned a house and plantation on the "east side of West Creek" (now Felgate's Creek) on the York River in Virginia. He served in the military in Virginia and was instrumental in the defeat of Powhatan Chief Opecancanough in 1644. He abandoned his plantation and moved to NY closer to the Dutch settlers. 

1645 Gravesend charter, Dutch Colony; Deborah Moody

1653 Wall built across lower Manhattan

1655 Peach Tree War - Indians vs Dutch, New Amsterdam

1720 Hanover County established, breaking away from New Kent

1772 Gaspee Affair, RI, Sons of Liberty

1776 Revolutionary War

1777-78 Continental Army at Valley Forge

1779 Loyalist Frederick Philipse III arrested for treason and vast land holdings seized. Philipsburg, NY

1781 Jack Jouett’s ride; Jefferson warned. 

1780-1820 Post-War movement west (depleted land)

1803 Louisiana Purchase

1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition

1813 War of 1812

1830 Book of Mormon published

1850 American Bible Union is established, breaking away from the American Bible Society and developing a new translation of the Bible. 

1862 Homestead Act

1861-1865 Civil War

1871 Railroad tracks across the Red River; Fargo

1874 Custer’s Expedition to the Black Hills; Gold discovered

1874 Grasshopper/Locust plague

1876 Battle of Little Bighorn

1877 U. S. violates the 1868 Fort Laramie agreement, seizing Lakota and Dakota lands

1883 Railroad connects Danville to Franklin to Norfolk

1885 Iowa State fair, Des Moines.

1888 Railroad extended to Jerusalem from Petersburg

1889 Ghost Dances

1890 Wounded Knee

1896-1916 Sisters Of Mercy establish hospital and nurses training school in Paris, Texas

1899 Railroad extended from Norfolk to Munden Point

1900 Land Rush in Kansas; TB outbreak in Wichita

1908 Old Fort Supply in Woodward, Oklahoma opens as a mental hospital

1912 Saint Joseph orphanage burns down in Wichita Kansas

1916 fire in Paris Texas; Saint Joseph Hospital is spared

1929 Stock Market Crash; Great Depression

1939-45 WWII

FINALLY FOUND THEM! …NOT.

I have just had the most astounding revelation…a major AHA! moment, right here in my bed in the wee hours of the morning! I’ve suddenly, unexpectedly discovered something that has solved one of the most intriguing mysteries of all my years of ancestry research. 

My insomniac self was just now scrolling through some previous posts on my “Teresa’s Family Tree” page on Facebook. I came across this MAP showing the Bryant family farm on Blackwater Road in Virginia Beach. In that particular post I had casually noted my curiosity about the number “11” at the corner of the Bryant property on Blackwater Road. I had even circled it in RED! Oh, Lordy. ELEVEN?!!! REALLY?!! Silly, silly me. Ridiculous, stupid, blind, silly me. What if that is NOT the number “11,” but is actually the markings for the long-sought, elusive GRAVE SITES for my great-great grandparents, the Bryant’s?!! 

Eureka! Bingo! Ding, ding, ding! I’ve been searching for so long and THERE IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. I’ve had this map for years. YEARS! This is BIG news! HUGE! What an exciting discovery! How could I have missed that? Eley and Margaret have finally been FOUND! 

So… what now? Do I notify someone?

DISAPPOINTING UPDATE: And… disappointing to find out that I was wrong. It is the number 11 after all and not the grave markings. However, this has led to a potential resource for finally resolving this question. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Their mission is to preserve and protect landmarks and historic spots such as cemeteries and family burial grounds.

Family Artifacts - who will take them when I die?

I have a collection of documents and other artifacts from our family dating back in history to at the least the 1800s. Carpentry and lumberyard tools, Masonic pins, watches, jewelry, books, Homestead papers, and many other vintage items need to be identified and assessed, and most importantly decisions made as to who will take responsibility for them when I am gone. I've thought of creating a photobook of them all, which would be a fairly easy project. But who will take the actual artifacts themselves?

Then there is the awareness that my sister has an equal amount of such memorabilia in her possession. 

I'm getting close to corralling everything. I hope to catalog it all somehow and then educate my sons about the entire collection. Maybe attach a letter of instruction. If my sons don't wish to inherit the items, perhaps my niece and nephews would be interested.

As obsessive as my mother was, there is information she missed sharing with us about some things. She left us a whole bin of random memorabilia with an attached note that said, KEEP FOREVER. It was sad to go through the items in that bin and have no idea what they meant to her. 

This and That: random discoveries that I have yet to process.

 In no particular order:

New information! There was a Catholic orphanage in Wichita, established in the 1880s that burned down in 1912. It was possibly established to handle the number of orphans created by the tuberculosis pandemic.This is likely where my orphan grandmother was raised rather than an orphanage in Paris, Texas, as I have believed up to now. Evidence proves that she did go to boarding school and nurses training in Paris, Texas, but probably as a young adult, not as a child.

A birth announcement in a Kansas newspaper tells of a baby girl born to Mr. and Mrs. A.D. Allen of Wichita in 1911. Did my grandmother have a half sister that she never knew about? Note to self: there was another A. D. Allen in Wichita at that time who owned a shoe store.

Discovered a volume of the complete works of Shakespeare published in 1852 that traveled with my pioneer ancestors to the west in a covered wagon, according to family lore. An inscription says, “H. Wandell, Chicago, 1856.” I have not been able to identify H. Wandell. 

I ordered a large family photo of the Powell family of Henrico. Efforts to match ages and dates have not been entirely successful. Two persons, an old man, and a young man that could be my father’s twin, cannot be identified. My best guess is that they are a brother and nephew of my great great grandfather Jefferson Monroe Powell. Another family photo of a picnic at Afton Mountain has several people that cannot be identified. One older woman, sitting in the middle of the family group could possibly be Jefferson Powell‘s mother, Mary Ellen Stevens Powell. It will take some work to find proof.

Mary Ellen Stevens was married to George James Powell, a POW from the Civil War. His gravestone shows the name George Littleton Powell. Where did the Littleton name come from? Who are George’s parents? 

Burning questions:

The Bryant family used the name Fenton multiple times. Fenton is a common name in other southside Virginia families. Where did that name come from?

Of course, there’s the question of Eley and Margaret Bryant’s graves The graves were still being maintained according to a letter from Charlie Bryant to Bluke Fletcher in 1926, but the property in Blackwater was no longer owned by the family.

Elizabeth Judd… When did she die and where is she buried? Was she the acclaimed doctor from family lore? See her daughter Marie Louise Powell’s obituary.