Saturday, December 31, 2016

Saturday Serendipity (December 31, 2016)



It struck me that this will be my last post and last Saturday Serendipity for the year 2016. I also realized that it was exactly four years ago today that Filiopietism Prism ("The Prism"for short) was born! [See the first post here.] These four years have flown by and, with the vicissitudes of modern living, the rate of posts have ebbed and flowed over that time (admittedly ebbed more than flowed recently). And yet I still look forward to working on this blog and appreciate all who spend a portion of their precious time in reading and perhaps commenting on pieces published here.  THANK YOU all!

Without further ado, here are a few recommended reads for today -- or for next year if you wait until tomorrow!  ;-)


1.  Not exactly a read for everyone, but if you -- like me -- have been a user of Family Tree Maker® software to grow and preserve your family tree(s) -- and to sync them with your tree(s) in the cloud with Ancestry.com -- then you will want to be aware of the announcement today about FTM from Software MacKiev. Finally, the free update for users of FTM 2014 and Mac 3 is here and available for download! The free update was first promised as long ago as March 2016 . It was stated on March 4th, "Users of FTM 2014 and Mac 3: Hang in there! FREE updates are coming. They will be available in about a week or so through the built-in update feature. We will send you an email to let you know as soon as they are available." If you have not seen the announcement and you use FTM, you should go to the Software MacKiev FTM website and get the needed information to upgrade for free. I now know what at least a part of my day tomorrow will be spent on -- updating my version of FTM. A sincere thank you to MacKiev and I hope and trust the updates will be everything promised and as easy to install as described.

2.  For you map lovers out there. . . have you heard that the Library of Congress is making available some 5,000 items from its map collection? The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS brought this to our attention recently and you can read more about this development here.  

3.  This week The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS also brought the news to us that the George Eastman Museum has launched an online platform that will allow searching through over a quarter million photographic objects in its collection. Learn more about this new resource here. [I already located an amazing portrait of Amelia Earhart (my 6th cousin 2x removed) done in 1931 by Edward Steichen.]

4.  Rebecca Onion at The Vault blog (on Slate.com) has posted at the end of each year since 2013 the top digital history projects she has come across during the year. Her picks for 2016 can be viewed here.      

5.  In a previous Saturday Serendipity item, I suggested a read at Wait But Why blog by Tim Urban
titled "It's Going to Be Okay." Now Tim has posted a follow up to that post about the 2016 presidential election with the appropriate title, ""It's Going to Be Okay -- Follow Up." If you read the original post, you might be interested in Tim's follow up, which can be seen as a sort of mea culpa in some ways. I happen to like Tim Urban's writing and his take on things almost always causes me to pause and think.  I like that! You can access Tim's follow up post here. [The usual cautionary note -- Tim occasionally uses what some may consider inappropriate, unnecessary, profanity.]    

6.  Most people who spend a lot of time diving deep into their ancestry will eventually come across a marriage between cousins of some degree. James Tanner had an interesting post yesterday titled, "Can you marry your cousin? What is or was the law?" You can read the post here.  
  
7.  And finally for those who have roots in New England, Elizabeth Handler of From Maine to Kentucky blog recently posted a notice and reminder that the next biennial conference of the New England Regional Genealogical Consortium (NERGC) will take place at the end of April in Springfield, Massachusetts.  Read some of the particulars and get a link to the 20-page conference brochure here.  [This might be the year I get to attend this conference for the first time!]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

Copyright 2016, John D. Tew
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Saturday Serendipity (December 17, 2016)



After an absence of six weeks due to some pressing family matters, Saturday Serendipity returns with a few recommended reads for this weekend (only two more weekends left in 2016 after this one!) . . .


1. The Weekly Genealogist newsletter of NEHGS recently mentioned a story of extreme rarity -- a Canadian woman who at age 96 just became a great, great, great grandmother.  This means that the family is able to capture a photograph of six generations all living at the same time.  How rare is that?? Read more here and see a photograph of the oldest and youngest as well as all six generations of the family. N.B. If you are curious, you can also guess what the Guinness World Record is for the most living generations in an unbroken line.  [Write down your guess before you read the article . . . and no cheating! ;-) ]

2.  The Vault posted a piece that genealogists will find not only very interesting, but also quite useful for adding "color" to the picture of what everyday life cost ancestors back in the early 19th Century. Read here the post titled, "What Things Cost in an American Country Store in 1836."    

3.  Do you know if you have any ancestors or relatives who lived in New York City in 1776? If so (or if you just like reading historical documents), have a look at The Vault's post titled, "Washington's 1776 Warning to the City of New York: "Get Out While You Can."  You can read it here. 

4.  Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, has an interesting post about copyright, missing copyright notices, and newspapers this week. You can read Judy's post here.    

5.  Ahh those Christmas memories of years past.  They stay with us a long time and even the ones that were seen as utter catastrophes at the time, can become the subject of family humor as the years pass.  Bill West of West in New England blog shared one such memory with us this past week. Need a chuckle?  Have a read here.  

6.  Finally, The Weekly Genealogist also brought us a link to a wonderful seasonal story about Alfred Carlton Gilbert, a toymaker who had 15 minutes to actually save Christmas in 1918.  If you have not already seen, read, or heard about this bit of U.S. history, you need to read it here.
  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

Copyright 2016, John D. Tew
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Who knew . . . but is it true? (December 17, 2016) : The Mayflower; Benjamin Church; King Phillip's War; Anawan Rock; and Me??



Several years ago I was finally able to complete the research and documentation necessary to prove the family lore that held we were Mayflower descendants through my mother's line. The problem had been that while my maternal grandmother maintained that we were descended from Richard Warren of the Mayflower, I was never clear about whether it was through her Cooke line or through the line of her husband, my grandfather Everett Carpenter. [I have blogged previously about how I finally had the "Eureka Moment" when all the pieces of the centuries-old puzzle fell into place and I was accepted by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. You can see that post from May 23, 2013 here.] As it happens, there are actually two known lines of descent from Richard Warren to me and they both pass through my mother's mother and her Cooke line. 

Tracing in reverse order one of the meandering lines of connection from me to Richard Warren, the path eventually comes to the marriage of Richard Warren's fourth daughter Elizabeth Warren (1616 - 1669) to one Richard Church (1608 - 1668). Richard and Elizabeth Church are my 9th great grandparents.

               Me 
               Shirley Carpenter m. Arnold G. Tew, Jr.
               Ruth Eaton Cooke (1897 - 1979) m. Everett Shearman Carpenter (1891 - 1962)
               Walter W. Cooke (1869 - 1944) m. Florence L. Flagg (1870 - 1904)
               George H. Cooke (1843 - 1872) m. Susannah C. Appell (1844 - 1906)
               Russell Cook (1810 - 1884) m. Mary Vinal Otis (1806 - 1881)
               Benjamin Cook (1768 - 1846) m. Abigail Church (1771 - 1845)
               Ebenezer Church (1726 - 1825) m. Hannah Wood (1734 - 1815)
               Caleb Church (1701 - 1769) m. Deborah Woolworth (1703 - 1733)
               Joseph Church Jr. (1663 - 1715) m. Grace Shaw (1666 - 1737)
               Joseph Church Sr. (1637 - 1711) m. Mary Tucker (1641 - 1710)
               Richard Church (1608 - 1668) m. Elizabeth Warren* (1616 - 1669) 

               * Elizabeth Warren was the fourth child and fourth daughter of 
                     Richard Warren and Elizabeth Walker, his wife.
               
Elizabeth Warren and Richard Church had at least ten children according to the Mayflower Families series. The second son of Elizabeth and Richard Church was Benjamin Church (1639 - 1718), the immediate younger brother and sibling of my 8th great grandfather, Joseph Church Sr.




Benjamin Church is my 9th great uncle. He was a very interesting character and Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (New York: Penguin Group, 2006), devotes considerable space in his book to the person and character of Benjamin Church. According to Mr. Philbrick, Benjamin was a thirty-three-year-old carpenter who became "the first Englishman to settle in the southeastern tip of Narragansett Bay at a place called Sakonnet [Little Compton, Rhode Island today], home to the female sachem Awashonks and several hundred of her people." Benjamin was a man who wanted to create his own home from scratch out of what was then wilderness in Indian territory. As Philbrick put it, "Church was a throwback to his maternal grandfather, Mayflower passenger Richard Warren. By Moving to Sakonnet, he was leaving his past behind and beginning anew in Indian country." (Mayflower, p. 233)

It took Benjamin Church little time to realize that his dream of establishing a home at Sakonnet for himself, his wife Alice Southworth, and their two-year-old son Thomas (who were left behind in Duxbury) depended on establishing a good relationship, if not a friendship, with the sachem Awashonks. In time he succeeded in establishing such a friendship with Awashonks that at some point in June 1675 she warned Church that Metacomet, the second son of Massasoit of the Wampanoag's (by then known by his adopted English name of Phillip), was about to start a war with the English colonists. Philip wanted her Sakonnets to join him, and Awashonks wanted Church's advice first. Church advised that she and her people look to Plymouth Colony for protection and promised her he would go to Plymouth to warn the governor and return with instructions. Before he could do so, the predicted war broke out and eventually spread throughout New England. The war -- known today as "King Philip's War -- lasted from 1675 to 1678. More than half of New England towns were at one time or another attacked by Native American warriors and in southern New England more than 1,000 colonists and 3,000 Native Americans were dead.



Benjamin Church became a captain for the first Ranger [1] force in America in 1676 when he was commissioned by Josiah Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth Colony, to form a ranger company during King Philip's War. He was one of the principal leaders among the settlers. Today he is considered the "Father of American Rangers." [See, "United States Army Rangers" at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Rangers#Colonial_period] Church played an active and leading role in the war that Philbrick (Mayflower, p. 357) summarizes as follows . . . 

               [N]o matter how desperately our nation's mythologizers might wish
               it had never happened, King Philip's War will not go away. The
               fourteen bloody months between June 1675 and August 1676 had a
               vast, disturbing impact on the development of New England and,
               with it, all of America.



On August 12, 1676, Church's company of rangers conducted an operation that resulted in the killing of King Philip by one of Captain Benjamin Church's allies -- a Native American named John Alderman. Philip's body was "then butchered in a manner standard with English punishment for treason."[2] The body was drawn and quartered. The war effectively ended soon after the death of King Philip though skirmishes continued in far northern New England into 1678. In the greater part of the war theater in southern New England, the war ended on August 28, 1676 when Captain Benjamin Church succeeded in capturing one of King Philip's chief captains, Anawan, the war chief of the Pocasset people at the site of what is now known as "Anawan Rock" in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Philbrick tells the full story of the capture of Anawan in Mayflower at pages 338 - 344 and it does not end well for Anawan for he was beheaded while Church was away discussing the possibility of his taking a company to Maine to assist in hostilities against the Abenakis. Church had hoped to turn Anawan to his side as an ally in the fight against the Abenakis, but that was not to be.



Philbrick's closing words about Benjamin Church are as follows (Mayflower, 357-58) . . .

               Out of the annealing flame of one of the most horrendous wars ever fought
               in North America, [Church] forged an identity that was part Pilgrim, part
               mariner, part Indian, and altogether his own. That so many characters 
               from American history and literature resemble him -- from Daniel Boone to
               Davy Crockett to Natty Bumppo to Rambo -- does nothing to diminish the
               stunning originality of the persona he creates in [his] Entertaining Passages
               Relating to Philip's War. That Church according to Church is too brave, too
               cunning, and too good to be true is beside the point. America was destined
               to become a nation of self-fashioned and self-promoting men. What makes
               his story so special, I believe, is that he shows us how the nightmare of
               wilderness warfare might one day give rise to a society that promises liberty
               and justice for all.




*     *     *

There is another interesting line of descent that passes through my mother to me, but this one comes via my mother's father, Everett S. Carpenter. Tracing this somewhat less meandering line of descent to a 4th great grandmother and her father and grandfather onto the farm they owned at the time of the American Revolution, the line is as follows . . .

               Me 
               Shirley Carpenter m. Arnold G. Tew, Jr.
               Everett Shearman Carpenter (1891 - 1962) m. Ruth Eaton Cooke (1897 - 1979) 
               Samuel Eber Carpenter (1853 - 1929) m. Sarah Etta Freeman (1858 - 1945)
               Samuel Carpenter (1828 - 1904) m. Ruth Ann Miller (1828 - 1893)
               Joseph Carpenter (1789 - 1880) m. Nancy Mason Bullock (1793 - 1880)
               James Carpenter (1767 - 1812) m. Lucy Bliss (1769 - 1817) -- my 4th great
                    grandmother
               Jonathan Bliss (1739 - 1800) m. Lydia Wheeler (1737 - 1803)
               Ephraim Bliss (1699 - 1778) m. Rachel Carpenter (1699 - 1784) -- my 6th great
                    grandparents

As the descent line above indicates, Ephraim and Rachel Bliss had a son named Jonathan who married Lydia Wheeler. One of the numerous children of Jonathan and Lydia Bliss was Lucy Bliss who married James Carpenter in Rehoboth, Massachusetts on March 6, 1789. Their son Joseph Carpenter married Nancy Mason Bullock and they had 14 children, one of whom was my great great grandfather Samuel Carpenter. Another of their children was Lucy Bliss Carpenter who was named after Joseph's mother Lucy Bliss. Lucy Bliss Carpenter (my 3rd great aunt) married Everett Leprilete Sweet on March 6, 1851.

I posted recently about Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet and the written Memorial to her compiled by Mrs George St. John Sheffield sometime after Lucy's death on December 13, 1910.  A copy of the Memorial was kindly provided to me recently by my 4th cousin, Neysa [Carpenter] Garrett.  [See, my post of December 13, 2016 here.] It was a portion of the Memorial to Lucy that provided the inspiration for some research that led to this post of previously undiscovered historical connections in my genealogy . . . as will now be revealed below.


On page 2 of the Memorial to Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet, her lineage to the Bliss family of Rehoboth was summarized and the fact that she got her name from her grandmother, Lucy Bliss, was explained. In the summary of Lucy Sweet's Bliss lineage, it was stated that Lucy's grandmother, Lucy Bliss, was the daughter of Captain Jonathan Bliss; and, in turn, Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet was the great great granddaughter of Lieut. Ephraim Bliss -- both Jonathan and Ephraim served during the "War of the Revolution."

Most of this Bliss connection through my Carpenter line was previously known to me, but it was the following passages from page 2 of the Memorial (shown and highlighted below) that really caught my attention . . . 

               [Lucy Bliss] was the granddaughter of Lieut. Ephraim Bliss, who, when the
               War of the Revolution broke out, "though seventy-five years old, shouldered
               his musket, and with his two married sons," -- one of them Captain Jonathan
               Bliss, the father of Lucy, -- "marched away, and joined the Continental Army."
               After a year, [Ephraim] was compelled to return home, but a grandson took his place
               to keep the family number intact. His own services were not ended, however,
               for, one day, when working in a distant field, he heard the note of danger sounded
               from the horn always kept on the bench beside the kitchen door, and, leaving his
               plough in the furrow he hastened on his horse to the house, to learn that a 
               messenger had brought news that the enemy were burning a nearby town . . . At
               once [his saddle bags] were thrown over the horse . . . and the horse was turned
               toward the enemy. *  *  * On this Bliss farm was the celebrated Annawan Rock,
               around which cluster Indian legends. It was the lodge of the chieftain of that name,
               who was under-chieftain to the famous King Philip, and the story of his capture is
               one of the thrilling tales of Philip's War. This romantic spot, -- the rock and some land
               surrounding it, -- was deeded to the Antiquarian Society of Rehoboth, by a
               descendant of Lieut. Bliss, "after it had been in the family over two hundred years."  


Who knew that there was a historical and genealogical connection between my Cooke/Church line through my maternal grandmother and my Carpenter/Bliss line through my maternal grandfather . . . and that it involved the famous Anawan Rock in Rehoboth, Massachusetts too? The only thing that  remains is definite proof of the Bliss ownership of a farm that once included the land on which Anawan Rock sits and its transfer by deed to the Antiquarian Society of Rehoboth.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

[1]   Rangers were men who were hired by colonial governments on a full-time basis to do reconnaissance and to patrol the boundaries of the colonies to provide early warning of troubles.

[2]  See, Wikipedia, "Benjamin Church (ranger)," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Church_(ranger)

Photograph of the Mayflower II underway from WikiTree at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:The_Mayflower

The image of an engraving of Benjamin Church from a 19th Century edition of his narrative, Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War, is from the author's copy of Nathaniel Philbrick's book Mayflower (p. 234).

The image of Captain Benjamin Church by unknown artist circa 1675 -- New York Public Library,  Stephen Schwarzian Building -- is in the public domain. It was obtained from Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Church_(ranger) 

The image of a 19th Century engraving depicting the capture of Chief Anawan ("Annawon") is from the author's copy of Nathaniel Philbrick's book Mayflower (p. 341).

The photo of the entrance to Anawan Rock is from the website SGC (SouthCoast Ghost): Investigating the Paranormal in Southeast Massachusetts http://southcoastghost.weebly.com/king-phillips-war.html

The fall photo of Anawan Rock in Rehoboth, MA is from the blog Wicked Yankee at http://wickedyankee.blogspot.com/2011/11/anawan-rock-rehoboth-ma.html
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Copyright, John D. Tew
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 



Friday, December 16, 2016

Wallingford, CT World War II Honor Roll -- close-up photos Part 1 (December 16, 2016)



In my blog post of November 10, 2016, I contributed to the 2016 call for additions to the Honor Roll project of Heather Rojo.  My contribution for Veterans Day 2016 was to begin the process of transcribing the hundreds of men and women from the Wallingford, Connecticut area who served their country during World War II (my father being among them).

As the above photograph of the WWII memorial on the grounds of the Wallingford Town Hall illustrates, there are seven panels each with triple columns of the names of those who served. My 2016 Veterans Day post covered many, but not all, of the names listed on the first panel. The names are in alphabetical order across the entire seven panels and the first panel contains all the surnames beginning with A through B and some of those beginning with C.  

While my post of November 10th transcribed and listed all the names on the first panel from George C. Abbott, Jr. to Joseph E. Buza -- 244 names all together -- I stated in the post that I intended to take several blog posts in the future to publish the close-up photographs of the memorial panels from which I worked. This is the first of the panel close-up photographs that will be published as follow-ups to the name transcriptions . . . and this is the process that will be followed for the remaining six panels over time in order to keep the transciption posts to a manageable size.

I am very indebted to my cousin, Bruce Marquardt of Wallingford, for so willingly photographing the panels in close-up for me after my efforts to do so failed.  Thank you Bruce!

The following six close-ups cover the first panel of names on the Wallingford WWII memorial. Please note that in order to be sure all names were photographed, the photos overlap and some names are therefore shown twice and can thus be used to orient the precise order of the names from Abbott to Buza.  The alphabetical order flows down the first column and then up to the top of the second column and finally up to the top of third column on the first panel. The surnames starting with B end in the third column of the third close-up photo below and then some surnames beginning with the letter C (so far untranscribed in a blog post), are shown in photos three through six in the third column. To follow the complete list of surnames from A through B in alphabetical order, you will have to look at the first column in each close-up from photo one through six, then go back to photo one and follow the alphabetical order of surnames in column two down through photo six.  Finally, go back up to photo one and follow the third column of surnames down to photo three where the B surnames end and the C surnames begin with the name Cachucho

Photo No. 1 ( Memorial Panel 1)

Photo No. 2 ( Memorial Panel 1)

Photo No. 3 ( Memorial Panel 1)

Photo No. 4 ( Memorial Panel 1)

Photo No. 5 ( Memorial Panel 1)

Photo No. 6 ( Memorial Panel 1)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

All close-up photographs of the first panel of the WWII memorial are by Bruce Marquardt of Wallingford, Connecticut.

Photo of the entire memorial is by the author.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Copyright 2016, John D. Tew
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
      

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Immortality (December 13, 2016) -- Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet



"Immortality Lies in Being Remembered by Family and Friends." -- John D. Tew



I have been on a rather extended "sabbatical' from blogging for several weeks while I focused on assisting my elderly parents up in Pennsylvania, and while I devoted concentrated time to trying to catch up with publishing my blog in book form for long-term preservation purposes. Since October 29th, I have only posted here three times including the last post, which was for my father's 94th birthday on November 28th. I am still trying to catch up on my blog book project, but a recent gift and the calendar made it imperative that I take time to post this today . . . as you will see. 



Very recently, a 4th cousin of mine via my mother's Carpenter line kindly sent me a copy of "A Memorial to Mrs. Lucy Bliss Sweet" that was compiled by Mrs. George St. John Sheffield in late 1910 or, more likely, early 1911. Mrs. Sweet was born a Carpenter and she was the 6th of the 14 children of Joseph and Nancy Carpenter. 

Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts on August 1, 1824 and she died in Attleboro, Massachusetts on December 13, 1910 -- 106 years ago today! Since Lucy was an older sister of my great great grandfather, Samuel Carpenter, she is my 3rd great aunt.  

I have written previously about my 3X great grandparents, Joseph and Nancy [Bullock] Carpenter.  [For example, see my February 21, 2013 post here and my February 18, 2013 post here.] Joseph Carpenter was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts on September 8, 1789. He was the eldest child of the seven children of James Carpenter (1767 - 1812) and his wife Lucy Bliss (1769 - 1817). James and Lucy Carpenter are my 4X great grandparents. Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet, my 3rd great aunt, was named after her father's mother -- her paternal grandmother -- Lucy [Bliss] Carpenter.

Lucy [Bliss] Carpenter, wife of James Carpenter, was born on June 23, 1769 in Rehoboth and she died in Rehoboth on September 21, 1817. Her parents (my 5X great grandparents), were Jonathan Bliss (1739 - 1800) and his wife, Lydia Wheeler (1737 - 1803). 

On March 6, 1851, Lucy Bliss Carpenter was married to Everett Leprilete Sweet (1828 - 1868) in Norwich, Connecticut. Lucy's older brother, Rev. George Moulton Carpenter a Methodist minister who was living in Norwich, performed the ceremony in his home. Everett Sweet was the son of Leprilete and Lydia [Dunham] Sweet of Attleborough. Everett and his wife Lucy had five children: Leprilete Sweet (1853 - 1941); Lydia Dunham Sweet (1854 - 1869); Lucy Carpenter Sweet (1855 - 1922); Everett Henry Sweet (1858 - 1893); and Newton James Sweet (1860 - 1941). According to the Memorial to Mrs. Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet, her husband Everett "spent much of his time at the South [after the Civil War], superintending the getting out of dogwood and persimmon timber, which he shipped North, to be made into shuttles." 

Sadly, Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet lost her husband Everett just 26 days shy of his 40th birthday in August 1868. Upon her husband's death, Lucy was left as the single parent to five children, the oldest of whom was 15 and the youngest only 8.  Again, as the Memorial states, she, "was left with the entire responsibility of her large family . . . with but slender means, the greater part of which (through some bank failure) was soon lost. Her main asset was a home, but beyond that she had only herself to depend upon for their care and maintenance."

Fortunately for Lucy, her father (and the Carpenters before him) were interested in having educated children.  It was said in the Memorial that Lucy's father Joseph "justly estimated the value of education for his children, and gave to them all that was in his power." On the particulars of that education, the Memorial states . . . 

               "The little red schoolhouse" was the only 'hall of learning" for country children,
               and to it they gathered from far and near, and of all ages, from five to twenty
               years. There were no "grades" in those days, but all the scholars sat together
               on hard benches, in the one not over-heated room; -- nor were there any covered
               barges to transport those living at a distance; there were only the sturdy limbs of
               the youngsters themselves, with which to trudge the long miles, or in winter, rude
               sleds, on which some of the boys, if they were gallant, would draw their favorite
               girls. * * * Here Mrs. Sweet went to school . . . The "little red schoolhouse"
               curriculum comprised chiefly "reading, writing and ciphering," and oral spelling,
               and the girls often worked on their samplers in school. * * * In addition to this
               public instruction a teacher was employed for the Carpenter children in their
               home, -- Miss Fidelia Thompson -- a daughter of the then minister of the 
               Congregational Church, in Rehoboth, and to her, Mrs. Sweet has said, she
               owed her thorough "instruction in English and her love for literature."

So it was that when Lucy lost her husband and much of the family savings, and was left basically with just a home for herself and her five children, she relied on her early education and training with Fidelia Thompson and "her pen became the means of support" for her and her children. She developed some talent as a writer in verse and prose. She became a regular contributor to the Central Falls Visitor and later wrote extensively for the Attleboro Advocate that was bought by her two sons Everett and Newton when they reached adulthood.

Of her writing, the Memorial reported . . . 

               Her prose writings were clear, fair, and sincere, and characterized by her practical
               commonsense, which, as she said of a friend's was "uncommon good," and her
               poems were instinct with the genuine piety of her nature, and, written in easy,
               unaffected diction, possessed a womanly charm "all their own." From early life to
               the very latest years, she was repeatedly called upon to write for special occasions,
               both public and private, and "our own town poet," as she came familiarly to be called,
               could always be depended upon to respond in a manner appropriate and acceptable.
               No matter for what the call might be, __ a hymn for children, a family gathering, a
               dedication, a religious anniversary, a public celebration, the thought would be the
               right one, and the words chosen to express it, would be suitable and in good taste.

So today I raise a glass in memory of Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet, my 3rd great aunt, a strong and talented woman who left this world 106 years ago today!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

Thank you to my 4th cousin, Neysa [Carpenter] Garrett, who found the Memorial to Mrs. Lucy Bliss Sweet in the Attleboro Public Library, and kindly sent me a copy. It is very much appreciated and is now an important part of my Carpenter genealogy "library."

The photograph of Lucy Bliss [Carpenter] Sweet is taken from the Memorial to Mrs. Lucy Bliss Sweet and is the only verified photograph of Lucy that I have.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Copyright 2016, John D. Tew
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _