Traveling On

Having spent the last few days on the first in a series of ancestral travelers along this dusty trail, I am moving on. Leaving Margaret Lynn and John Lewis isn't easy. I find their story captivating. Speaking of "captivating", the dire circumstance I mentioned yesterday had to do with a kidnapping that left the family temporarily bereft of hope.  More on that and on their life in general appears in my Southern Bypass book.  My information came solely from the copy of Margaret's journal I found in "the box" mentioned at the onset of this blog. My research to find the original manuscript led to a dead end, but the contents of her diary that relate to early Staunton and to the Lewis family are well-documented.

To complete my coverage of this early tale, I'll use Margaret Lynns' summation of her children as adults. She wrote that Charles, the youngest son, died in battle at Point Pleasant, and William was confined by sickness, but had thirteen sickness. Apparently his sickness came late in life. At the end of her journal she wrote:

"...I feel like a traveler whose way was laid by a devious and uphill road, now in some sweet peaceful day, turns to survey the way he has come... Dear Andrew, who is known as General Lewis, still follows the fortunes of his great chief, Washington...Thomas is in the honorable House of Burgessess."

The fate of dear Alice is somewhat a mystery, but the journal says she married and every now and then, with a far away look, retold the story of her days as White Dove.

The photo is of the clip made from the knee-buckles worn by Andrew Lewis when he served under General George Washington.  The description was written by my grandmother. The initials on the clip are EG, Elizabeth Lewis Gilmer, the granddaughter of Margaret Lynn and John Lewis.

Adieu for now to my great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, Margaret Lynn Lewis. She died in 1773, eleven years after her husband's death in 1762.
Tomorrow, a new member of the cast will be introduced.

Following in a Mother's Footsteps

Continued..

Yesterday, I left Margaret Lynn wondering about the fate of her young daughter, Alice, affectionately named White Dove by her Indian admirer. Margaret, lamenting the fact that youth is often taken by romance, was reminded of her own youthful love quest when she wrote:

"...Then I set me thinking.  The child is fourteen in May and that's just two years younger than I was when I became a married woman. The reflection gave me pain, but I will think of it no more. There is nothing gained by shunning the fixed truth, whatever it may be... It's like going up to a white object in the haunting dark, taking hold of it and proving it to be no ghost..."

Isn't she marvelous?!  I think she is. I like her approach to an uncomfortable situation. She looked at her early marriage at age sixteen and dismissed the possible reflection or implication of the past bearing an impression on her daughter's fate. Certainly seeing Alice's innocence at fourteen made the thought unbearable, but the added stress of any romantic entanglement with the new strange neighbors gave rise to Margaret's degree of "pain".

Unfortunately, the matter did not pass. Omayah's father paid a visit to the Lewis home to speak to John Lewis about the love abloom within his son's heart. Margaret wrote this:

"...The father of Omayah has sought the father of White Dove, as he calls our sweet Alice, for his son's wife. He says that the Tiger King's oldest son pines to hear her voice cooing among the wild pines about his cabin. It made me tremble to hear him speak, almost as though I thought John Lewis could be persuaded thereto and give away my tenderly reared lamb. He wished to treat it as a joke though, and seated Alice at the spinnette whereon I had taught her to play with some skill. "'That"'said he, '"is all white women are good for!...You don't want them!"'...
'"Fingers jump quick'", said Tiger King. '"gut fish"'...My husband still joked with him, which was perhaps the better policy, but Oroonah retired discomfited I could see..."

Apparently the joking ploy didn't bode well with Margaret although she saw her husband's wit as a reasonable attempt at dissuading the alliance of his daughter with Tiger King's son. But the father of the love-smitten young Indian was not set back a bit by the jovial nature of their visit. Unfortunately, the relatively lighthearted situation turned rapidly into one with serious consequences.

More tomorrow.

Family Tree

It seems appropriate and helpful to include a tree of some kind outlining where this pilgrimage is headed.  Ergo, here it is.  The red and blue entries veer from the maternal line to give both parental links because in my book I include something about them along with all the families listed in black print. In a future post, I'll include a more precise family picture of the Porter, Kennedy, Dunlap line. Governor James D. Porter left many letters, etc. and much has been archived with Tennessee's Department of Archives and History. The letters  I have, and  the documents  by one prominent historian and another by a poet and feminist of the day have never been published or seen as far as I know.

Doth a Home Maketh a Soul?

Continued..
While I agree with my great X 6 grandmother on many things, I'm not sure about her take on what made a more effective home or particularly, soul, especially in  the retrospect that we all know to be the best view of all. Perhaps when I was as young as Margaret when she wrote this next entry, and I was making a comfortable nest for my family, I  might have aligned with her philosophy of home and soul.  Thinking back, yes. It was important to have comfort then. And "ornamentation" of sorts.   But these days, I'm more inclined to look for ways to dismantle and disseminate ornamentation. The part about the soul's development being tied to beauty of home? Think I'll leave that leaf unturned for now or I'll write about it in my own personal journal. Margaret, keeper of the written word and home, had this to say about that:

"…When our stone dwelling is done I shall feel something like ornamentation, it may be, for my children’s sake, and especially I shall like to make things enticing. I think people get beauty of soul with growing up among pretty things, particularly girls, but all, indeed, should have their homes beautified so that they may love to stay in them, as the case may be… The holy Pascal said not much of any more than these words: "“Most of the evil of this world grows out of the people’s discontent to stay home.”" This is true."

Well, I think she and Pascal made a good point about straying from home being a possible cause of problems. Perhaps in her time some elemental social stratagem weren't that different from our modern ways. Obviously, there are more factors feeding our discontent with home. Right?
Margaret's philosophic bent continues to endear her to me.

In her journal, she wrote that Staunton continued its steady progression under the enterprising leadership of her husband, John. And she wrote about their newly acquired not-so-friendly neighbors. Her worries went far beyond having "savages" around them to a much more personal and specific one. Margaret wrote:

"…Oroonah, or Tiger King’s son, a lad of sixteen, has crowned Alice with a prairie rose wreath. “Queen of White Doves” he calls her, and has given her a fawn which has become domestic now. I did not like to hear Thomas say last night, (he is older than Omayah)---"“Suppose Sister Alice should grow up and marry Omayah.”" Youth is romantic and thinks strange thoughts. I hope she may have none such."

Are there yet more similarities between times past and present?  And how were Alice and her mother linked in a possible youthful love interest?
More on Margaret and Queen of White Doves in my next post.

Miles and Miles

Continued...
Margaret Lynn Lewis, her husband, John, three sons--William, Thomas, Andrew-- and daughter, Alice (or Margaret Lynn) traveled the seas to land in their new home in Virginia. Margaret briefly described her Scotish born offspring in her journal as she lamented the loss of her heathered homeland, but was soothed somewhat as she wrote:

"...for the blue heather, the eyes of my two boys, Andrew and William, and their sister, Alice, glad me more than acres of such. Poor Thomas, my eldest born, he hath a defect in his sight, but for all this, he looks into his mother’s heart deep down enough, leaving there--which is better than shade of blue heather-- sunshine. He is a noble lad."

And "poor Thomas", the one with defective eyesight, is my ancestor. More on that in the future.

Here is a brief excerpt from Margaret's journal on the new land:

"...The new settlement begins to look quite lively now, with the gardens around the cabins, the patches of grain and all. About thirty of our tenantry have clung to us, through evil and good report, and they are for the most part hale and efficient work-people..."

Ah, she must have felt some feeling of home as the gardens and family grew and her home took root. Margaret's words:

"…The broad prairie before our door at the front looks like miles and miles of gaudy carpeting, with its verdure and flowers. Our cow, Snow Drop, as the children call her, is fastened every day on the meadow border, by a tether many a fathom long. They drive her in when required for the use of little Charles, our new-world baby, and her white feet are continually dyed with the wild strawberries."

She paints a lovely portrait of a simple life with Snow Drop and her strawberry colored feet leaving imprints on the miles of "gaudy carpeting" surrounding them. I'll close for today with that impression and hope it taps me again as I wander through this cold, yet well-heated 3rd day of 2010.

On New Soil

Yesterday, I introduced the earliest traveler on the dusty road- Margaret Lynn Lewis, Scottish wife of John Lewis who "slew the Irish Lord, settled Staunton, VA.,"and yadayada...read yesterday's post. These two and their covey of children apparently fled Loch Lynn and "its crown rocked summits and purple heather" after Margaret's castle burned and John became a fugitive. Margaret says it better. In her words:

"Bidding farewell to the bonny Loch and knows of Lynn, though along with the gallant Huguenot I had taken for my husband, caused surely a woman’s grief to my heart, nay something like a child’s I might say. It was not for the band of retainers, the powerful clans and castle splendors I had grown up withal surrounded, but I almost cried aloud for my mother, for good Dame Darley, our blessed English tutoress, and for Old Elliot, my nurse. I thought the first night I came to my husband’s mother’s, and was set up as a lady, to receive Court, I should blubber like a great child. This with remembrance, that at that very time, my mother was taking her cup of comfort, as she called her tea, ---that the children were with her in their place, and that my chair, the one that was my sainted father’s, stood empty. I stood as long as endurance was good, then stole away to a more retired apartment. Then they sought me, and after a time found me sleeping in a great chair, like an overgrown baby. I did not like to give cause of offense, but I thought then as I have often since, of the significance of the Blessed Apostles sleeping for sorrow and heaviness of heart, as the Master’s time drew nigh."

Alas, Margaret Lynn and her gallant Huguenot set sail for the new country, Margaret with heavy heart and her journal as her most intimate companion, the only one with whom she could share her most sacred joys and grief. Here's her comment about her trusted keeper of truth:

"The commonplace book of me, Margaret Lynn Lewis, Nee Lynn, of Lock Lynn, Scotland, being a rest for my soul’s repose in the troublous times which hath befallen. Here nothing burdening myself with style ornate, I can retreat when toil and tumult of the day are past---Speaking as into a faithful ear, some of my woman’s sorrow. So shall I not add to their weight who have, heaven knows, enough of woe to bear for themselves."

Tomorrow, more on the early days of Margaret, her five or seven(records vary on the exact number) children and their new neighbors, Ungeewah-wah and his tribe.

Speaking of Early Routes

Here we go in 2010- a road yet to be traveled except for these early minutes of the new year. So far, so good.

Back to my book and the past. My people and I get to be the voices in my chronicle of times and lives, and at times, they (my people) may rue the day I became one of theirs, wishing I had kept my mouth shut and their lives, too. On the other hand, some could possibly feel exonerated through my revelations.

Their letters, books, and logs of all sorts of trivia and trials, victories and heart-wrenching defeats, might make one wonder if saving penned testimonies serves a good or regretful purpose. I'm certainly wondering about all the journals I've kept through the years. No decision yet on that one.

The truth'll set you free, so they say. I toast freedom on the cusp of a New Year and tomorrow, Margaret Lynn Lewis, my great times six grandmother, takes the lead in my cast of travelers as she reveals her truth from her journal circa 1700's. Here's what was etched on her husband, John Lewis', tomb in Staunton, Virginia:

“In 1732, John Lewis with his family, found a home in the then wilds of the Shenandoah Valley, where he resided for thirty years, then died, and found a grave where he had found a home. His tomb, two miles East of Staunton, is on a hill overlooking the Valley of Lewis River, and about three hundred yards from Fort Lewis, reared by himself, a portion of which structure still stands. His grave is marked by a marble slab, six feet in height, and three inches in thickness, on which is the following inscription:

‘Here lie the remains of
John Lewis,
Who slew the Irish Lord, settled Augusta County,
Located the town of Staunton
And furnished five sons to fight the battles of
The American Revolution,-
He was the son of Andrew Lewis, Esq., and Mary Calhoun,
And was born in Donegal County, Ireland, 1678
And died in Virginia Feb. 1st, 1762
He was a brave man, a true patriot, and a firm friend
Of liberty throughout the world.’ ”

More on "Liberty" and such in the next posting when John's wife speaks.
Happy New Year!