Followers of this blog and my work on the early Leveretts know that I believe that the secret of our lost ancestorship lies in unraveling the mystery of Ipswich Mary, who I believe was the sister of John Leverett, President of Harvard, and probably the mother of William and a string of Williams going right up to the William who died in Boston in the early 1800's, leaving his wife to send Joseph up to Maine where he would lose touch with most relatives except for his Aunt Walker, and grow up in the country near what's now Livermore Falls.
Back to Mary: she was the full sister of John, president of Harvard, and therefore her father was Hudson and mother was Sarah Peyton. Sarah was sick most of her life, and when Hudson remarried Elizabeth Gannett they moved out to Brookline/Brighton, which was way out in the country, and disappeared. Mary would have been a stepdaughter in this situation, though her brother John was already on his way to Harvard and fame, being about 18 when Hudson remarried. My first job would be to put a very accurate timeline onto this picture, because being out in Brookline/Brighton everyone disappeared, and the stepmother Elizabeth, who probably had his son Thomas the Barber, was never quite accepted by the Puritans downtown (she was of Pilgrim stock), and never wanted to live downtown with the high-society world that had brought up John. So here's Mary, stepdaughter, out in the country, then disappeared, completely.
I believe she's the Mary who reappeared and married a farmer, Johnathan Moulton, in Wenham in 1713 (that's up by Ipswich), and that she might have had the William who was founder of our line. He would be the first of several Williams. He would be the one who married Mary Whiteridge (many spellings) and one thing you can say about her was that there were hundreds of Whiteridges up on the north coast, and almost none in Boston, so to me it's very likely he grew up up there, met her, married her and moved to the family country estate and from there to Chelsea, or perhaps his son did.
There could be several Williams between that one (who would have been born in the late 1600s) and the one who grew up in Chelsea and Medford in time to marry Rachel Watts in 1740 at the age of about 16. That William, founder of our line, could only say that he was born in Boston, and we know that when he died on his farm in Needham, father of eleven, family members brought him back to Medford to be buried. He had apparently grown up among some Leveretts who were sons of Knight, son of Thomas the Barber, by that time undisputed carrier of the Leverett name.
To get back to Mary, she would need a reason to move to the north coast, and I believe her reason is to get away from Boston with her out-of-wedlock William and hide until he could grow up. I suspect Spencer Phipps, son of William, who died around the late 1600's, but the reason I suspect him is that John, in dividing his Lincolnshire Patent, gave one share to all his step-aunts (six altogether) but two for himself, and two for Spencer. Could it be that Spencer had harbored Mary and her child, up there in Ipswich, all those years? Or that William, a very colorful character of the late 1600s, was actually the father (he died right around then) or at least involved enough in getting Mary up there to safety, that she would name her son after him? I suspect. I have absolutely no proof. BBut the geography alone is very interesting. And the fact that Wihiteridge/Whitridges are almost uniformly from up there.
I'll say it again: I have absolutely no proof yet. The coincidences pile up and seem to beg for me to do more research. The Otis/Hodge theory of ~1960 says that the ancestor was a late child of Hudson's, born after his will but right before his death in about 1694, but I don't buy that. The reason they even needed that theory is that it was well known that William the Needham farmer was descended from John the Governor but not John of Harvard. OK. But family members placed their ancestry through Thomas the Barber, Knight, and hone of is sons, the last of whom could not have been father of William the Needham farmer. They had some facts wrong, it's just. a question of how many.
For now the facts remain: We don't know who William the Needham farmer's parents were, so we can't establish for certain the connection to Hudson. We know that the ancestor line as given by Joseph and his brothers cannot be totally accurate though they could have come through Thomas the Barber and Knight. We also know that Knight's boys, Colonel John and Thomas the printer, took in some stray Leveretts from around town as they were both wealthy enough to do it, especially Thomas the printer, who printed grammar primers (among other things), made good money, and lived in privacy somewhere in Medford. To me, it's likely that a young William, born in Chelsea or perhaps Brookline/Brighton, was taken in by that Medford family until he came of age and ended up in Needham.
It was the times of hardship: starvation, privation, blockade, no food or goods entering Boston. One can't blame him for hightailing it out to Needham where there was more room and one could grow a potato. He joined the Revolution as an officer, but didn't get paid well, and his son William took to drink and moved to town.
All of this is in Eighteenth Century Leveretts but that book needs updating, mostly so I can do more research on the characters above.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Pioneer Leveretts
Pioneer Leveretts - true story of a Nebraska homesteader - KINDLE SPECIAL 99c through September
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Saturday, August 15, 2026
Puritan Leveretts
Puritan Leveretts - KINDLE SPECIAL - 99c through the month of August
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Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Walking Boots
Walking Boots & Pleistocene Geology
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KINDLE SPECIAL - -99c through July https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B1LNNMZ
Sunday, July 5, 2026
A story from the Revolution
I've been telling my kids and friends this story because it's very revolution, very 1776, very Leverett. The hero of this story was not my ancestor; he died before he could create descendants. He was a Leverett during the Revolutionary War.
Thomas and his cousin John Leverett graduated from Harvard in 1776, the year they moved Harvard over to Concord, Mass. so that the soldiers could use the old buildings as a barracks. Concord was unacceptable as a replacement and many suspected that they cut some corners to make it possible for the class of 1776 to graduate, but they did. Thomas was to become a surgeon while his cousin John was a lawyer and would therefore be known as John Esquire, though he never practiced much as a lawyer.
Thomas would have become a surgeon but the war broke out and, as a doctor, he was placed on a boat heading to Maine to fight the British. But the boat was captured, and all the prisnoners were deposited in the Jersey, an old boat that was sitting and rotting in Brooklyn harbor, a boat that the British were using as a prison.
The British were very aggravated at the rebel soldiers and took it out on them. They figured that if they mistreated these prisoners badly enough it would teach everyone a lesson. The boat was rotting and wet and unsafe below, and they brought only scraps of unhealthy food to them. Soon the prisoners started dying, but they didn't care. The orders were treat them like hell and everyone followed the orders.
Thomas, being a doctor and all, was appalled by the conditions, and protested to the Captain of his own boat, who was also a prisoner. Status however didn't seem to matter. Everyone was suffering appalling conditions.
Finally the captain got Thomas and one other guy to join him, and plead to offer a deal to the Americans. You free some British prisoners, and the British will free these and save their lives. It was their only hope. The British agreed to let them talk to the appropriate authorities, who would be generals under Washington, along with British authorities, and see if some kind of humane trade could be arranged.
They did it at a bad time in the war, though. The Americans weren't interested. They weren't making deals with anyone for anything. They felt like they were about to win the war and any deal would look like accepting the permanent status of prisoners and those who would soon be free anyway. No deals were happening, and Thomas went back to being on the prison ship.
Many died on the Jersey and its documentation rebuilt a very horrific scene. A recent book has been written about it called Ghost Ship of Brooklyn, which documents the horrible conditions and the number of people who died, in some cases seven or eight a day.
Others, like Thomas, were simply so damaged they could never live a normal life again. After the war the prisoners were released and Thomas did have a chance to practice as a surgeon, but he died after only six or seven years, unable to recover his full health. Of course he received lots of recognition as a surviving prisoner of war.
Some said that the harsh treatment of prisoners actually backfired on the British and made Americans more likely to defend the rebels, more likely to join the war efforts, less likely to have any sympathy for the British at all. For years bones would wash up onto Brooklyn Harbor's beaches and people would tell stories about the prisoners. So many of those prisoners didn't survive, or if they did, couldn't have descendents, so we don't know what to make of the stories when we encounter them.
Thomas's cousin John had an interesting tale. During the war his parents were very sick and he moved them to Connecticut, where they could be cared for more properly. His mother would inherit a farm up in Windsor, Vermont, whereas his father, Colonel John, who had given up printing to run an imported goods store, only to find that the 1760's was a terrible time to run an imported goods business, had simply left Boston after years of being an Overseer of the Poor. They had seen enough of the "Times of Hardship" and the "Times of Suffering" where Bostonians had starved and been unable to import food legally due to a chokehold tariff by Britain...anyway, from Connecticut, when he finally did join the war it didn't amount to much. And when his mother inherited that farm in Windsor Vermont, he would move up there and occupy it.
An odd thing happened, though. His second wife was a cousin, Thomas the surgeon's sister Hannah. Thomas the surgeon would have inherited his father's printing fortune, but he, being dead, could not, so Hannah had inherited it, and now all the wealth was combined in John Esquire's household, soon to move to Vermont, and John Esquire would never have to work again. He became a gentleman farmer and a kind of vocal intellectual.
I'm not sure if he was haunted by knowing what happened to his close cousin, Thomas, on that boat in Brooklyn. It was like the people on those boats were the martyrs of the revolution, having died for the cause, and not only died, but suffered quite a bit in the process. Making the book probably helped memorialize them. It's an unpleasant topic, though, because their treatment was so horrific.
I think of the story sometimes when people remind us that 250 years is a long time, and we often forget what happened and why.
Thomas and his cousin John Leverett graduated from Harvard in 1776, the year they moved Harvard over to Concord, Mass. so that the soldiers could use the old buildings as a barracks. Concord was unacceptable as a replacement and many suspected that they cut some corners to make it possible for the class of 1776 to graduate, but they did. Thomas was to become a surgeon while his cousin John was a lawyer and would therefore be known as John Esquire, though he never practiced much as a lawyer.
Thomas would have become a surgeon but the war broke out and, as a doctor, he was placed on a boat heading to Maine to fight the British. But the boat was captured, and all the prisnoners were deposited in the Jersey, an old boat that was sitting and rotting in Brooklyn harbor, a boat that the British were using as a prison.
The British were very aggravated at the rebel soldiers and took it out on them. They figured that if they mistreated these prisoners badly enough it would teach everyone a lesson. The boat was rotting and wet and unsafe below, and they brought only scraps of unhealthy food to them. Soon the prisoners started dying, but they didn't care. The orders were treat them like hell and everyone followed the orders.
Thomas, being a doctor and all, was appalled by the conditions, and protested to the Captain of his own boat, who was also a prisoner. Status however didn't seem to matter. Everyone was suffering appalling conditions.
Finally the captain got Thomas and one other guy to join him, and plead to offer a deal to the Americans. You free some British prisoners, and the British will free these and save their lives. It was their only hope. The British agreed to let them talk to the appropriate authorities, who would be generals under Washington, along with British authorities, and see if some kind of humane trade could be arranged.
They did it at a bad time in the war, though. The Americans weren't interested. They weren't making deals with anyone for anything. They felt like they were about to win the war and any deal would look like accepting the permanent status of prisoners and those who would soon be free anyway. No deals were happening, and Thomas went back to being on the prison ship.
Many died on the Jersey and its documentation rebuilt a very horrific scene. A recent book has been written about it called Ghost Ship of Brooklyn, which documents the horrible conditions and the number of people who died, in some cases seven or eight a day.
Others, like Thomas, were simply so damaged they could never live a normal life again. After the war the prisoners were released and Thomas did have a chance to practice as a surgeon, but he died after only six or seven years, unable to recover his full health. Of course he received lots of recognition as a surviving prisoner of war.
Some said that the harsh treatment of prisoners actually backfired on the British and made Americans more likely to defend the rebels, more likely to join the war efforts, less likely to have any sympathy for the British at all. For years bones would wash up onto Brooklyn Harbor's beaches and people would tell stories about the prisoners. So many of those prisoners didn't survive, or if they did, couldn't have descendents, so we don't know what to make of the stories when we encounter them.
Thomas's cousin John had an interesting tale. During the war his parents were very sick and he moved them to Connecticut, where they could be cared for more properly. His mother would inherit a farm up in Windsor, Vermont, whereas his father, Colonel John, who had given up printing to run an imported goods store, only to find that the 1760's was a terrible time to run an imported goods business, had simply left Boston after years of being an Overseer of the Poor. They had seen enough of the "Times of Hardship" and the "Times of Suffering" where Bostonians had starved and been unable to import food legally due to a chokehold tariff by Britain...anyway, from Connecticut, when he finally did join the war it didn't amount to much. And when his mother inherited that farm in Windsor Vermont, he would move up there and occupy it.
An odd thing happened, though. His second wife was a cousin, Thomas the surgeon's sister Hannah. Thomas the surgeon would have inherited his father's printing fortune, but he, being dead, could not, so Hannah had inherited it, and now all the wealth was combined in John Esquire's household, soon to move to Vermont, and John Esquire would never have to work again. He became a gentleman farmer and a kind of vocal intellectual.
I'm not sure if he was haunted by knowing what happened to his close cousin, Thomas, on that boat in Brooklyn. It was like the people on those boats were the martyrs of the revolution, having died for the cause, and not only died, but suffered quite a bit in the process. Making the book probably helped memorialize them. It's an unpleasant topic, though, because their treatment was so horrific.
I think of the story sometimes when people remind us that 250 years is a long time, and we often forget what happened and why.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
old letters
It was during the Depression I think that Frank Leverett, famous geologist, got interested in family genealogy, and actually went to Boston to see what he could dig up. My great grandfather Will was in his generation, and also interested, and saved many of the letters from Frank, among which this is one. You can see that it comes from Ann Arbor, and its date is 1940. It's a classic.
In it he claims that Will's father James W. had made a mistake. James W. had come through Boston when he was four; had received some children's things from one of his aunts who was taken with how cute a child he was, and had named that aunt as one of the two that were living there with his grandmother, who he met only that once. They had a stagecoach at the time (1834), had it all decked out, and were on their way from Maine to Illinois.
So this aunt, Frank said, was a relict, or surviving widow, of a Leverett, brother of James W.'s father. But the one who had lost two children was different from the one James W. had named. Frank figured this out.
But my question is this: Is it possible that James W. was right, even though he was only four, and the two lost children should have been attributed to the aunt he named, not the other aunt? These trees are sometimes reconstructed on very flimsy evidence, and are often reconstructed wrong. A child who died, well who knows who its actual parents were? I guess it's just a question. We are using one tree to call James W. wrong, while maybe we should be using James W.'s personal witness to question that tree.
Not sure if anything will come of this. I'll show you the letter if you're interested.
Sunday, April 12, 2026
Catherine Mauer
My father, James R. Leverett Jr., once said that most people have pleasant memories of their maternal grandmothers, but he had no pleasant memories of his. His grandmother, Catherine Mauer, moved in with his mother and father and, according to him, made their lives absolutely miserable. As an example he said that his mother was sick and needed medical advice, but couldn't talk to her brother, my dad's Uncle Roy, because grandmother had a feud with him and wouldn't allow him into the house. I was curious about how somebody could become that angry, that difficult, that unpleasant, so I did research into her life.
Born into a family of Ostfrisians, originally from that northern land between Netherlands and Germany, she was born in Ogle County, Illinois, which had a kind of Ostfrisian community. It's not clear to me whether her father, John Singelmann, served in the Civil War or not, but she was born right after that, the third of four daughters all born in Illinois. Her mother, Katharine, may have used the German spelling but named her Elizabeth Catherine with her middle name clearly being the same as her mother's. The family moved to Hancock, Iowa, on the Nishnibotna River, in Pottawattomie County, not too far from Council Bluffs.
As far as I can tell life was difficult out there; it was isolated. I am not sure whether the girls were able to help John with the farming, or whether they were able to hire anyone, but the best I can figure, no, no. The second daughter married a prominent local farmer in the Minden area; Charles and the Mauer clan were from York township, near Minden.
Minden was a German town with lots of Ostfrisians and even a Dutch Reformed Church, which is no doubt where Catherine met Charles. They married in 1893. But John, her father, died that same year. I may have to get the exact dates nailed down here but this is my understanding.
She went with Charles to live at his family's farmhouse in York Township. The house was large but his older brother was already married (to another Kate or Catherine Mauer) and also had several children. She soon had her three children, Leona, Roy, and Verna, while still in that farmhouse. It would be crowded.
If Charles wanted to farm, he'd have several choices. His parents Henry and Anna would surely split their farm into two and let him build on the empty half, given that his older brother wanted the farm and, as oldest, was in line to get it. They could also save money and buy a nearby farm, though cash was hard to come by and this appears that it would be more difficult.
But the last option would be for him to take that Hancock farm once the father died. She may have even hoped or expected him to, since they were family. With her father dead, her mother and two sisters were in trouble. The first sister married and moved out, now leaving her mom with a young teenage girl, her young sister.
Charles would take his share of the farm (I presume) and buy into a hardware store in Council Bluffs, and work there through the early years of the 1900s. He would take Catherine and the three children and move to Council Bluffs where they would live on Harrison St. I am still trying to work out whether this is what he wanted, or whether it was his only choice, given that his brother would inherit the main farm that he grew up on.
Not all people are made for farming; in that era it was mostly running horses, and attaching plows to them, or figuring out how to bring in crops somehow and get them to market. Hancock being isolated, it would take more work, with less reward, than the Mauers were used to, but the Mauers had a fairly successful farm in Minden, and Charles could see what farming would be like in the area. It's a little competitive, brothers on farms isolated day after day, and maybe he couldn't handle that. But also it requires a lot of skills and hard work. Maybe he thought it was too much work.
But here's the tragedy: a couple years later, in early January, the teenage girl, the youngest sister, died. There is no record of what she died of. She is buried at the Dutch Reformed Church near Minden, next to her father. The mother moved out soon after, to move in with the second sister, and died in her sixties soon after (the father died in his fifties). The family was gone.
Charles, after many years running the Swaine-Mauer Hardware store with his partner, Mr. Swaine, decided to open a store where customers checked themselves out, like an Aldi's setup. It was quite revolutionary at the time and I believe he did it with groceries, not hardware. We are talking Council Bluffs here, early twenties, the Roaring Twenties. It failed. He gave up, got a traveling salesman job, and died in Watertown South Dakota (on the road) in the late twenties. My dad's grandmother Julia said she always suspected that Catherine had driven him into the grave.
When he died, she had no place to go except in with her youngest daughter Verna, my grandmother. She wasn't talking to her son. Her older daughter was out in California in a small apartment. Verna took her in because she could. She made Verna's life miserable and Verna died early; my dad said he suspected dying was the only way she could get out of it. By this time there was nothing pleasant or loving of her at all.
How could she be this way? I finally concluded that the answer lies out in that Hancock farm, or in the story of what happened to it. By the way I'm not exactly sure what happened to it, so I could be wrong here, but the lack of records or clear testimony suggests that they just sold it out and left it; if nobody could or would farm it, it would go to someone who could. Could she be mad at him for not doing that? Could she have deep down expected him to take and run a farm and take care of her mother and little sister? The bitterness of her sister's death must have eaten away at her, I figure.
There may be more to the story that I haven't uncovered, given that records are scarce and not enough to go by anyway. I keep wondering what I'm missing, or if what I've found is really enough to justify the turn in her life. My father didn't know her until the thirties when it was the Depression and everybody was miserable. Apparently the fight with her son was over handling of Union Pacific stock, the family fortune, and would have been right around then. I have yet to really look into that. Maybe being hungry during the Depression was enough whether her son-in-law, my grandfather, provided for her or not.
Born into a family of Ostfrisians, originally from that northern land between Netherlands and Germany, she was born in Ogle County, Illinois, which had a kind of Ostfrisian community. It's not clear to me whether her father, John Singelmann, served in the Civil War or not, but she was born right after that, the third of four daughters all born in Illinois. Her mother, Katharine, may have used the German spelling but named her Elizabeth Catherine with her middle name clearly being the same as her mother's. The family moved to Hancock, Iowa, on the Nishnibotna River, in Pottawattomie County, not too far from Council Bluffs.
As far as I can tell life was difficult out there; it was isolated. I am not sure whether the girls were able to help John with the farming, or whether they were able to hire anyone, but the best I can figure, no, no. The second daughter married a prominent local farmer in the Minden area; Charles and the Mauer clan were from York township, near Minden.
Minden was a German town with lots of Ostfrisians and even a Dutch Reformed Church, which is no doubt where Catherine met Charles. They married in 1893. But John, her father, died that same year. I may have to get the exact dates nailed down here but this is my understanding.
She went with Charles to live at his family's farmhouse in York Township. The house was large but his older brother was already married (to another Kate or Catherine Mauer) and also had several children. She soon had her three children, Leona, Roy, and Verna, while still in that farmhouse. It would be crowded.
If Charles wanted to farm, he'd have several choices. His parents Henry and Anna would surely split their farm into two and let him build on the empty half, given that his older brother wanted the farm and, as oldest, was in line to get it. They could also save money and buy a nearby farm, though cash was hard to come by and this appears that it would be more difficult.
But the last option would be for him to take that Hancock farm once the father died. She may have even hoped or expected him to, since they were family. With her father dead, her mother and two sisters were in trouble. The first sister married and moved out, now leaving her mom with a young teenage girl, her young sister.
Charles would take his share of the farm (I presume) and buy into a hardware store in Council Bluffs, and work there through the early years of the 1900s. He would take Catherine and the three children and move to Council Bluffs where they would live on Harrison St. I am still trying to work out whether this is what he wanted, or whether it was his only choice, given that his brother would inherit the main farm that he grew up on.
Not all people are made for farming; in that era it was mostly running horses, and attaching plows to them, or figuring out how to bring in crops somehow and get them to market. Hancock being isolated, it would take more work, with less reward, than the Mauers were used to, but the Mauers had a fairly successful farm in Minden, and Charles could see what farming would be like in the area. It's a little competitive, brothers on farms isolated day after day, and maybe he couldn't handle that. But also it requires a lot of skills and hard work. Maybe he thought it was too much work.
But here's the tragedy: a couple years later, in early January, the teenage girl, the youngest sister, died. There is no record of what she died of. She is buried at the Dutch Reformed Church near Minden, next to her father. The mother moved out soon after, to move in with the second sister, and died in her sixties soon after (the father died in his fifties). The family was gone.
Charles, after many years running the Swaine-Mauer Hardware store with his partner, Mr. Swaine, decided to open a store where customers checked themselves out, like an Aldi's setup. It was quite revolutionary at the time and I believe he did it with groceries, not hardware. We are talking Council Bluffs here, early twenties, the Roaring Twenties. It failed. He gave up, got a traveling salesman job, and died in Watertown South Dakota (on the road) in the late twenties. My dad's grandmother Julia said she always suspected that Catherine had driven him into the grave.
When he died, she had no place to go except in with her youngest daughter Verna, my grandmother. She wasn't talking to her son. Her older daughter was out in California in a small apartment. Verna took her in because she could. She made Verna's life miserable and Verna died early; my dad said he suspected dying was the only way she could get out of it. By this time there was nothing pleasant or loving of her at all.
How could she be this way? I finally concluded that the answer lies out in that Hancock farm, or in the story of what happened to it. By the way I'm not exactly sure what happened to it, so I could be wrong here, but the lack of records or clear testimony suggests that they just sold it out and left it; if nobody could or would farm it, it would go to someone who could. Could she be mad at him for not doing that? Could she have deep down expected him to take and run a farm and take care of her mother and little sister? The bitterness of her sister's death must have eaten away at her, I figure.
There may be more to the story that I haven't uncovered, given that records are scarce and not enough to go by anyway. I keep wondering what I'm missing, or if what I've found is really enough to justify the turn in her life. My father didn't know her until the thirties when it was the Depression and everybody was miserable. Apparently the fight with her son was over handling of Union Pacific stock, the family fortune, and would have been right around then. I have yet to really look into that. Maybe being hungry during the Depression was enough whether her son-in-law, my grandfather, provided for her or not.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Frank Leverett Day
A word should be said about Frank Leverett Day, March 10, which oddly enough I celebrated this year in my own kind of way. I like to tell my family stories about Frank Leverett, though I didn't really have much chance to do it, so I'll do it here.
Frank Leverett was probably the most famous of the Leveretts, a geologist who was in the first Who's Who in around 1900, and then set the record for being in more consecutive Who's Whos than anyone else; he was in that Who's Who until well into the 1920's. That's because a geologist rock star doesn't turn up every year, but he wss solid, deserving, and as famous as he always was every time they went looking for a geologist. He had walked 100,000 miles of the midwest looking for evidence of where the glaciers had receded because he had figured out, based on surface features, what could predictably be found beneath. His methods were particularly useful to the oil boys but that story I will save for later. He at one point went to Chicago for the Columbian Exposition and showed off through his exhibit "Soils of Illinois" everything he had found up and down the lake, and out this way, toward the Mississippi Valley. Though he had grown up in the Iowa Territory, born during the Civil War, his work convinced him that during the Ice Age the Mississippi actually flowed down to the west, down through Columbus Junction Iowa, so his little cabin in Denmark down by Burlington would have actually been to the east of it. Today I live in that territory, more or less, east of the river.
He's a family hero because toward the end of his life he started collecting "data" about the family, and investigating the tenuous connection between the western Leveretts and the original Puritan ones from Massachusetts colony fame. He even went back there, found an old lady living in a house full of antiques in Boston, and inquired about the line, carefully writing down everything he found. When he got to Harvard a friend gave him his edited chapter on The Great Leverett, about John Leverett the President of Harvard in the early 1700s. With this came a general overview of how the Leveretts could have been related and who we really had going back as far as we could. But in this process he became interested in longevity. How long had everyone lived? Was it a genetic trait or what? What kind of averages were out there? Where would he fit in, i.e. how long would he live?
His birthday was on March 10, and so was his second wife's, and together they made a habit of celebrating, every year, having made it to another one.
This year I made it to Chicago, picked up one son near Lakeshore Drive, and went to see two others, also on Lakeshore Drive, to celebrate their grandpa's turning 100 on Mar. 10. A longevity party. This was my ex-wife's father, not mine; in fact longevity is not really a trait of our line. We, like Frank, can expect to make it to about 90 if we're lucky. But what's luck? To me it was to be able to drive on Lakeshore Drive, see the big city at its best, be in a room with three sons, and make it home all in one piece. Here's to Frank Leverett, great map-maker of the midwest. Picture is Frank and Charles, his brother, in Iowa, around the Civil War.
Frank Leverett was probably the most famous of the Leveretts, a geologist who was in the first Who's Who in around 1900, and then set the record for being in more consecutive Who's Whos than anyone else; he was in that Who's Who until well into the 1920's. That's because a geologist rock star doesn't turn up every year, but he wss solid, deserving, and as famous as he always was every time they went looking for a geologist. He had walked 100,000 miles of the midwest looking for evidence of where the glaciers had receded because he had figured out, based on surface features, what could predictably be found beneath. His methods were particularly useful to the oil boys but that story I will save for later. He at one point went to Chicago for the Columbian Exposition and showed off through his exhibit "Soils of Illinois" everything he had found up and down the lake, and out this way, toward the Mississippi Valley. Though he had grown up in the Iowa Territory, born during the Civil War, his work convinced him that during the Ice Age the Mississippi actually flowed down to the west, down through Columbus Junction Iowa, so his little cabin in Denmark down by Burlington would have actually been to the east of it. Today I live in that territory, more or less, east of the river.
He's a family hero because toward the end of his life he started collecting "data" about the family, and investigating the tenuous connection between the western Leveretts and the original Puritan ones from Massachusetts colony fame. He even went back there, found an old lady living in a house full of antiques in Boston, and inquired about the line, carefully writing down everything he found. When he got to Harvard a friend gave him his edited chapter on The Great Leverett, about John Leverett the President of Harvard in the early 1700s. With this came a general overview of how the Leveretts could have been related and who we really had going back as far as we could. But in this process he became interested in longevity. How long had everyone lived? Was it a genetic trait or what? What kind of averages were out there? Where would he fit in, i.e. how long would he live?
His birthday was on March 10, and so was his second wife's, and together they made a habit of celebrating, every year, having made it to another one.
This year I made it to Chicago, picked up one son near Lakeshore Drive, and went to see two others, also on Lakeshore Drive, to celebrate their grandpa's turning 100 on Mar. 10. A longevity party. This was my ex-wife's father, not mine; in fact longevity is not really a trait of our line. We, like Frank, can expect to make it to about 90 if we're lucky. But what's luck? To me it was to be able to drive on Lakeshore Drive, see the big city at its best, be in a room with three sons, and make it home all in one piece. Here's to Frank Leverett, great map-maker of the midwest. Picture is Frank and Charles, his brother, in Iowa, around the Civil War.
Friday, January 23, 2026
Harvardinates
True story of the beginning of secular education in the colonies.
KINDLE SPECIAL FRI-SUN Jan. 23-25
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNC4X71R
Friday, December 26, 2025
Will
Finally got started writing about Will again. I did it because I was so dreadfully stuck on my fantasy. It worked. Will is totally in-history, real, a part of the living condition. It makes me happy to talk about him.
He was born right after the Civil War in northwest Illinois, but grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and then went to high school in South Dakota. He went to Hillsdale, loved literature, married Julia Reynolds, and headed west.
They made Council Bluffs their home, and that's why the book is called Bluffs Leveretts. His son James was my grandfather; his grandson James Jr. my father; all three were Bluffs Leveretts, as was his sister, and of course the women they married. Because he had only one son, who. himself only had one son, Leveretts are pretty thin in our line, His brother Fred had maybe six or seven and a lot more Leveretts came out of that.
Nevertheless he will be of interest to. lov ers of history and of how events and people can shape it. When he got to Council Bluffs it was still the early years and everyone had great hopes for its future, and that of Omaha, right across the river. Little did they know a big depression would hit from which that section of plains would never quite recover. Omaha never outgrew Chicago, never became the center of the known financial universe, never took over economically. The Panic of 1893 did it in because it did in the railroads which were just reaching Omaha and beyond, just stretching into South Dakota and the eastern part of those plains states which could fool you with their productivity. I say fool you because it dries out pretty much a third of the way into Nebraska, South Dakota and even Kansas, they just don't produce that much after a while. In the western part of those states it takes hundreds of acres to support even a handful of cows, so it's not like the breadbasket would ever have been able to take itself from Chicago and plant itself in Omaha. This was something that was destined not to happen.
Will and Julia made Council Bluffs their home for their entire life, even after my grandpa and father gave it up and moved to Des Moines sometime around WW II. I never met him though he lived to know of my arrival in 1954; my brother however did get to meet him, or so he says.
Really his contribution to the world, or at least to Council Bluffs, was as a historian. When he got out there, he looked into the fact that the Bluffs was in Pottawattomie County, and lo and behold found that the Potawatomie (many different spellings) had been extinguished from their homes in Michigan, Illinois and Iowa, and were now, what was left of them, holed up in Kansas. Sure enough this was true of many indigenous tribes, cleared out from Illinois and Iowa, anywhere back east, and now holed up on useless land down in Oklahoma (Indian Country) or thereabouts. Some people wondered about keeping track of these tribes. Who were their leaders? What did they have to say about what had happened? How many had died in the "Indian Wars" and the clearing of the west of all its buffalo and natural sources of food?
Will was on the side of the genuine historian, who simply wants to record the facts and be respectful to all the players. Then as now not everyone was as respectful. Many said, who cares, or, glad to be rid of them, since they fought with hatchets and never could wear a suuit. RAcism was rampant. Will was a minority.
The rest of us rely on them, though, for getting the facts as straight as they can, and what we know today, we know because people like Will did keep records and record what people had to say about what had happened. That era saw the clearing of the indigenous tribes throughout west, almost as thorouughly as they'd been. cleared from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Will attracted historical writing; he published it; he cultivated an awareness of where Council Bluffs/Omaha had been, who had passed through it on their way beyond.
I think my account may lean into the American historian's general dilemma, which is that even a factual account of such a huge massacre sounds overdramatic and is in some ways too much to read. I found this when I borrowed "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" and was unable to finish, too gruesome.
Maybe that's your fate if you have empathy, or some respect for your fellow humans.
He was born right after the Civil War in northwest Illinois, but grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and then went to high school in South Dakota. He went to Hillsdale, loved literature, married Julia Reynolds, and headed west.
They made Council Bluffs their home, and that's why the book is called Bluffs Leveretts. His son James was my grandfather; his grandson James Jr. my father; all three were Bluffs Leveretts, as was his sister, and of course the women they married. Because he had only one son, who. himself only had one son, Leveretts are pretty thin in our line, His brother Fred had maybe six or seven and a lot more Leveretts came out of that.
Nevertheless he will be of interest to. lov ers of history and of how events and people can shape it. When he got to Council Bluffs it was still the early years and everyone had great hopes for its future, and that of Omaha, right across the river. Little did they know a big depression would hit from which that section of plains would never quite recover. Omaha never outgrew Chicago, never became the center of the known financial universe, never took over economically. The Panic of 1893 did it in because it did in the railroads which were just reaching Omaha and beyond, just stretching into South Dakota and the eastern part of those plains states which could fool you with their productivity. I say fool you because it dries out pretty much a third of the way into Nebraska, South Dakota and even Kansas, they just don't produce that much after a while. In the western part of those states it takes hundreds of acres to support even a handful of cows, so it's not like the breadbasket would ever have been able to take itself from Chicago and plant itself in Omaha. This was something that was destined not to happen.
Will and Julia made Council Bluffs their home for their entire life, even after my grandpa and father gave it up and moved to Des Moines sometime around WW II. I never met him though he lived to know of my arrival in 1954; my brother however did get to meet him, or so he says.
Really his contribution to the world, or at least to Council Bluffs, was as a historian. When he got out there, he looked into the fact that the Bluffs was in Pottawattomie County, and lo and behold found that the Potawatomie (many different spellings) had been extinguished from their homes in Michigan, Illinois and Iowa, and were now, what was left of them, holed up in Kansas. Sure enough this was true of many indigenous tribes, cleared out from Illinois and Iowa, anywhere back east, and now holed up on useless land down in Oklahoma (Indian Country) or thereabouts. Some people wondered about keeping track of these tribes. Who were their leaders? What did they have to say about what had happened? How many had died in the "Indian Wars" and the clearing of the west of all its buffalo and natural sources of food?
Will was on the side of the genuine historian, who simply wants to record the facts and be respectful to all the players. Then as now not everyone was as respectful. Many said, who cares, or, glad to be rid of them, since they fought with hatchets and never could wear a suuit. RAcism was rampant. Will was a minority.
The rest of us rely on them, though, for getting the facts as straight as they can, and what we know today, we know because people like Will did keep records and record what people had to say about what had happened. That era saw the clearing of the indigenous tribes throughout west, almost as thorouughly as they'd been. cleared from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Will attracted historical writing; he published it; he cultivated an awareness of where Council Bluffs/Omaha had been, who had passed through it on their way beyond.
I think my account may lean into the American historian's general dilemma, which is that even a factual account of such a huge massacre sounds overdramatic and is in some ways too much to read. I found this when I borrowed "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" and was unable to finish, too gruesome.
Maybe that's your fate if you have empathy, or some respect for your fellow humans.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Pioneer Leveretts
Story of Joseph Leverett, and the childhood of James Walker Leverett
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Genealogy updating
Recently. I was asked by my brother about the two genealogies, Wallace and Leverett, because his daughter, my niece, was interested. Actually I think a lot of us are interested, and a lot has changed on them.
But they were in bad condition. The version that my parents passed along - they were the last ones to actually work on them - I had put online, and they are still there. I could for example link to the Leverett one on the template of this blog, and to the Wallace one on the Wallace blog. But I don't, partly because I know they are outdated and incomplete.
That's about to change. For one thing I am actively working on both, so I will have an updated version for anyone who asks. Almost whatever I do will still be incomplete, as I always find incomplete things virtually whenever I open them.
But I am interested in geography, for example where were they born, and where were they married, and I'm putting those in as I go, where I know them. If I learn more I'll put that in too. I'm in an ideal position to do it because I've researched so much of each family.
In fact I've written six books on the Leveretts, and one on the Wallace side, so that's my excuse for not getting to the painstaking detail work involved in putting in birth dates, death dates, marriage dates, etc. But all that information is there and waiting to be harvested.
In a way I find it reassuring in these troubling times to work with people who somehow survived things like the depression and the Civil War. In some cases they didn't survive, like Percival Nott, who had eleven children and died in Shiloh. I've found lots of interesting people, most of them distant relatives as I don't focus narrowly on the ancestors themselves. There are also the women's families: they enter the picture at the marriage, but they have their own funnel: two parents, four grandparents, going all the way up. As they enter our genealogy we are of course entering theirs. It's a funnel dance, like when Sufis get together.
This post is to say, if you are a Leverett, and have therefore found this blog because you are on that genealogy, or should be, or are interested in the descendants as they came down, Write me with updates or to have a copy, electronically, of what I've got so far. I know a lot of changes I can make to the Leverett one right away, but haven't done it, because I've been mired in the Wallace one where I have to familiarize myself with the main characters.
But they were in bad condition. The version that my parents passed along - they were the last ones to actually work on them - I had put online, and they are still there. I could for example link to the Leverett one on the template of this blog, and to the Wallace one on the Wallace blog. But I don't, partly because I know they are outdated and incomplete.
That's about to change. For one thing I am actively working on both, so I will have an updated version for anyone who asks. Almost whatever I do will still be incomplete, as I always find incomplete things virtually whenever I open them.
But I am interested in geography, for example where were they born, and where were they married, and I'm putting those in as I go, where I know them. If I learn more I'll put that in too. I'm in an ideal position to do it because I've researched so much of each family.
In fact I've written six books on the Leveretts, and one on the Wallace side, so that's my excuse for not getting to the painstaking detail work involved in putting in birth dates, death dates, marriage dates, etc. But all that information is there and waiting to be harvested.
In a way I find it reassuring in these troubling times to work with people who somehow survived things like the depression and the Civil War. In some cases they didn't survive, like Percival Nott, who had eleven children and died in Shiloh. I've found lots of interesting people, most of them distant relatives as I don't focus narrowly on the ancestors themselves. There are also the women's families: they enter the picture at the marriage, but they have their own funnel: two parents, four grandparents, going all the way up. As they enter our genealogy we are of course entering theirs. It's a funnel dance, like when Sufis get together.
This post is to say, if you are a Leverett, and have therefore found this blog because you are on that genealogy, or should be, or are interested in the descendants as they came down, Write me with updates or to have a copy, electronically, of what I've got so far. I know a lot of changes I can make to the Leverett one right away, but haven't done it, because I've been mired in the Wallace one where I have to familiarize myself with the main characters.
Saturday, May 3, 2025
The old Thomas and John
I found and started reading a genealogy from my mother's side (the Wallaces), and in there were a couple of twins, Euphalia and Orpha, who appeared three times. Once I think it was repeated from another, but basically the way they appeared twice in the first place was, both their parents were Wallaces on the same genealogy. Well, I'd seen that before in fact I saw it on the Leverett side. Here's the story.
Back in the early 1700s Knight Leverett became aware that he was the main inheritor of the Leverett name and was proud of it; he was a metalsmith but he took his boys, John and Thomas, to the Church to be baptized (unlike his dad and grandpa) and participate in the community.
When they grew up they went into the printing business. Knight had married a bookseller's daughter, and they more or less inherited her interests as well as her father's trade. As printers they ordered a ream of paper from Ben Franklin in Philadelphia, who they most likely knew from his Boston days (he'd grown up in Boston); the paper never made it to Boston, and he promised to send more. As an aside we know this mostly because Franklin's papers and letters were so assiduously saved and preserved.
But John soon went into the booming women's goods business, selling things like buttons, zippers, and bows, from the Town Dock, and pretty soon both boys were making a fortune. Coming into about 1750 Boston was prosperous and materialistic, and John was making money hand over fist at the Town Dock while Thomas was printing grammar books and every other kind of book that was being used throughout the colony.
John, being the oldest, got the family home where John the President of Harvard grew up, whereas Thomas bought an estate out in Medford where they made good rum. Both had lots of kids. John's oldest was named John, while Thomas's oldest was named Thomas.
John's fate took a turn for the worse when selling British goods became the wrong business to be in. Pretty soon his store had been caught on fire by a mob and in fact mobs were damaging British goods all over the place as in, Tea Party. John was forced to become an Overseer of the Poor, which is kind of like a social worker, but a job usually done by established business people. Thomas went on printing grammar books and making a fortune. Both sent their eldest to Harvard, and there they were, young Thomas and John, inseperable, in Harvard in the class that would graduate in 1775, the year of the revolution, when Harvard actually moved to Concord so as to lend their buildings to the soldiers.
Those had been tough years in Boston, and by the way my ancestor seems to have been there too, in the shadows, as I'm not directly related to either the young John (who would become known as John Esquire, as opposed to his father, Colonel John), or the young Thomas, Thomas the surgeon. When they graduated Thomas the surgeon joined the war, but he got captured on a boat. The prisoners were brought back to Brooklyn harbor by the British and treated so poorly that many of them died. So poorly that they made a movie about it, Ghost ship of Brooklyn Harbor or some such thing. It was terrible. He survived, came out, started being a surgeon again, then died early, probably from his prisoner-of-war experience.
Thomas, remember, had been from Medford. His father also died during the war. His stepmother had to unload a couplle of young children which may have included my ancestor who seemed to be in the shadows of Medford but I'm not sure. But what happened to John Esquire?
John Esquire had studied to be a lawyer as his cousin Thomas was studying to be a surgeon. His father the Overseer and his sick wife moved to Connecticut, and John Esquire went to Connecticut to help take care of his mother. His father died too. At one point he joined the war effort but it was later, and it was easier for him to survive, and he did. Finally they moved to Windsor Vermont where his mother had been from.
His cousin had died, but he, having a fortune, was able to just have kids and be a gentleman farmer up there in Vermont. He ended up having like thirteen. But his second wife was Thomas's young sister Hannah. Hannah had apparently inherited the printer's fortune from Medford and was quite wealthy. John Esquire and Hannah. never had to work. He had a big library and argued about baptism, which was the issue of the day. He took his children to church on Sunday in a carriage; his third wife was Congregationalist. He was Baptist.
What happened to the children he had with his cousin? You aren't supposed to marry your first cousin, but he did. I know that it was also somewhat common back in earlier days, like John the President's day. It had happened several times in our line. But to tell you the truth, I don't know what happened to those. They were the middle ones of the thirteen, like maybe five through nine. Not sure how it worked out.
Of the Windsor Vermont Leveretts several had positions in government and one or two were well-known. They kind of faded away after a while; I don't think there are still Leveretts around Windsor today although that Robert Leverett, a famous ecologist of the Berkshires, may be related. This is not our line so I kind of lost track. But it's interesting. Hannah had the fortune from the grammar books, and it alll went up there with Hannah and into a fabulous library of imported books on various topics.
Somehow marrying one's cousin went out of style. It wasn't such a big deal in those post-revolution days, I didn't even see anyone raise an eyebrow.
Back in the early 1700s Knight Leverett became aware that he was the main inheritor of the Leverett name and was proud of it; he was a metalsmith but he took his boys, John and Thomas, to the Church to be baptized (unlike his dad and grandpa) and participate in the community.
When they grew up they went into the printing business. Knight had married a bookseller's daughter, and they more or less inherited her interests as well as her father's trade. As printers they ordered a ream of paper from Ben Franklin in Philadelphia, who they most likely knew from his Boston days (he'd grown up in Boston); the paper never made it to Boston, and he promised to send more. As an aside we know this mostly because Franklin's papers and letters were so assiduously saved and preserved.
But John soon went into the booming women's goods business, selling things like buttons, zippers, and bows, from the Town Dock, and pretty soon both boys were making a fortune. Coming into about 1750 Boston was prosperous and materialistic, and John was making money hand over fist at the Town Dock while Thomas was printing grammar books and every other kind of book that was being used throughout the colony.
John, being the oldest, got the family home where John the President of Harvard grew up, whereas Thomas bought an estate out in Medford where they made good rum. Both had lots of kids. John's oldest was named John, while Thomas's oldest was named Thomas.
John's fate took a turn for the worse when selling British goods became the wrong business to be in. Pretty soon his store had been caught on fire by a mob and in fact mobs were damaging British goods all over the place as in, Tea Party. John was forced to become an Overseer of the Poor, which is kind of like a social worker, but a job usually done by established business people. Thomas went on printing grammar books and making a fortune. Both sent their eldest to Harvard, and there they were, young Thomas and John, inseperable, in Harvard in the class that would graduate in 1775, the year of the revolution, when Harvard actually moved to Concord so as to lend their buildings to the soldiers.
Those had been tough years in Boston, and by the way my ancestor seems to have been there too, in the shadows, as I'm not directly related to either the young John (who would become known as John Esquire, as opposed to his father, Colonel John), or the young Thomas, Thomas the surgeon. When they graduated Thomas the surgeon joined the war, but he got captured on a boat. The prisoners were brought back to Brooklyn harbor by the British and treated so poorly that many of them died. So poorly that they made a movie about it, Ghost ship of Brooklyn Harbor or some such thing. It was terrible. He survived, came out, started being a surgeon again, then died early, probably from his prisoner-of-war experience.
Thomas, remember, had been from Medford. His father also died during the war. His stepmother had to unload a couplle of young children which may have included my ancestor who seemed to be in the shadows of Medford but I'm not sure. But what happened to John Esquire?
John Esquire had studied to be a lawyer as his cousin Thomas was studying to be a surgeon. His father the Overseer and his sick wife moved to Connecticut, and John Esquire went to Connecticut to help take care of his mother. His father died too. At one point he joined the war effort but it was later, and it was easier for him to survive, and he did. Finally they moved to Windsor Vermont where his mother had been from.
His cousin had died, but he, having a fortune, was able to just have kids and be a gentleman farmer up there in Vermont. He ended up having like thirteen. But his second wife was Thomas's young sister Hannah. Hannah had apparently inherited the printer's fortune from Medford and was quite wealthy. John Esquire and Hannah. never had to work. He had a big library and argued about baptism, which was the issue of the day. He took his children to church on Sunday in a carriage; his third wife was Congregationalist. He was Baptist.
What happened to the children he had with his cousin? You aren't supposed to marry your first cousin, but he did. I know that it was also somewhat common back in earlier days, like John the President's day. It had happened several times in our line. But to tell you the truth, I don't know what happened to those. They were the middle ones of the thirteen, like maybe five through nine. Not sure how it worked out.
Of the Windsor Vermont Leveretts several had positions in government and one or two were well-known. They kind of faded away after a while; I don't think there are still Leveretts around Windsor today although that Robert Leverett, a famous ecologist of the Berkshires, may be related. This is not our line so I kind of lost track. But it's interesting. Hannah had the fortune from the grammar books, and it alll went up there with Hannah and into a fabulous library of imported books on various topics.
Somehow marrying one's cousin went out of style. It wasn't such a big deal in those post-revolution days, I didn't even see anyone raise an eyebrow.
Wednesday, December 25, 2024
More from the Trans-Miss
I have now typed out two articles from the old Trans-Mississippian and a few things have become clear.
One is that what I have is not really in very good shape, so it's now or never. Can I give it, as is, to someone who will type it or scan it better than I can? It strikes me as being almost unable to survive another move. It crinkles when I touch it. another is that the print is so small that i am becoming unable to read it without visual help, i.e. a magnifying glass or something. it is not easy to type it out on paper.
I have three full volumes of it, but recently founnd two more and there is a chance I have more that I don't know about. The Council Bluffs Public Library has not answered my query. I have two copies of the first issue, Feb. 1897, both crinkly. In Dec. 1897 he seems to have gone to a smaller format, half-size, or a single sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 rather than being the whole cover, now folded over sideways. So I have Dec. 1897, the first of the small ones, then found two other small ones from August 1898, both August but different.
It seems, though I'm not sure, that one of those is a special edition created just for the peak of the exhibition season. This might explain then how they seem to have the same date and everything yet be entirely different; I haven't fully examined them yet. Both are crinkly. I'm not sure if I have any more anywhere but will keep looking.
there are places i have yet to look.
One is that what I have is not really in very good shape, so it's now or never. Can I give it, as is, to someone who will type it or scan it better than I can? It strikes me as being almost unable to survive another move. It crinkles when I touch it. another is that the print is so small that i am becoming unable to read it without visual help, i.e. a magnifying glass or something. it is not easy to type it out on paper.
I have three full volumes of it, but recently founnd two more and there is a chance I have more that I don't know about. The Council Bluffs Public Library has not answered my query. I have two copies of the first issue, Feb. 1897, both crinkly. In Dec. 1897 he seems to have gone to a smaller format, half-size, or a single sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 rather than being the whole cover, now folded over sideways. So I have Dec. 1897, the first of the small ones, then found two other small ones from August 1898, both August but different.
It seems, though I'm not sure, that one of those is a special edition created just for the peak of the exhibition season. This might explain then how they seem to have the same date and everything yet be entirely different; I haven't fully examined them yet. Both are crinkly. I'm not sure if I have any more anywhere but will keep looking.
there are places i have yet to look.
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Articles from the old Trans-Mississippian
Along comes the question of whether I should do more to preserve the articles from the old Trans-Mississippian.
Will Leverett was the editor and publisher of the Trans-Mississippian, which had a brief life from February 1897 until I'm not sure when exactly, but not more than two or three years. It published monthly. It had a historical bent - he did, really - and some of the better, longer articles are historical, but not written by him.
I have only three editions in front of me. Two are the size of standard paper but one is significantly smaller. I'm not sure if I have more in the crates of genealogical information that I have preserved. I am using one or two articles in the book I am writing about Will and that period of history. Those of course will be saved - I will type the second one out as soon as possible. My plan was to put those two in the back of the book.
The question really gets to whether the Trans-Mississippian is available anywhere else. At one point I believe I found a library that had copies of it. Maybe the next step is to go visit that library (Omaha?) and inquire if anything is being done to save those copies.
We are in the generation where, if one takes crinkly old paper documents like these, and pitches them, they are lost forever. One article that is in question is written by D.C. Bloomer, husband of Amelia Bloomer. He was an interesting character, a Council Bluffs supporter, and my dad's elementary school was named for him. His article is about the early days of Council Bluffs. I really have no idea whether 1) he has anything in there that isn't already known; 2) there is another copy of Vol. 1 No. 1 out there in the Omaha library or elsewhere, or 3) whether the article can be considered accurate and good writing. He was a reputable man; he had no enemies that I know of in his historical arena.
My sense is that I should gather what I can find, and see if any such copies exist in Omaha or elesewhere. It is after all my great grandfather's legacy.
And put pictures of it on this blog.
Will Leverett was the editor and publisher of the Trans-Mississippian, which had a brief life from February 1897 until I'm not sure when exactly, but not more than two or three years. It published monthly. It had a historical bent - he did, really - and some of the better, longer articles are historical, but not written by him.
I have only three editions in front of me. Two are the size of standard paper but one is significantly smaller. I'm not sure if I have more in the crates of genealogical information that I have preserved. I am using one or two articles in the book I am writing about Will and that period of history. Those of course will be saved - I will type the second one out as soon as possible. My plan was to put those two in the back of the book.
The question really gets to whether the Trans-Mississippian is available anywhere else. At one point I believe I found a library that had copies of it. Maybe the next step is to go visit that library (Omaha?) and inquire if anything is being done to save those copies.
We are in the generation where, if one takes crinkly old paper documents like these, and pitches them, they are lost forever. One article that is in question is written by D.C. Bloomer, husband of Amelia Bloomer. He was an interesting character, a Council Bluffs supporter, and my dad's elementary school was named for him. His article is about the early days of Council Bluffs. I really have no idea whether 1) he has anything in there that isn't already known; 2) there is another copy of Vol. 1 No. 1 out there in the Omaha library or elsewhere, or 3) whether the article can be considered accurate and good writing. He was a reputable man; he had no enemies that I know of in his historical arena.
My sense is that I should gather what I can find, and see if any such copies exist in Omaha or elesewhere. It is after all my great grandfather's legacy.
And put pictures of it on this blog.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Will Leverett
I don't know his years, or I'd put them in the title. He was born soon after the Civil War, when his father came back from serving, and lived in Warren, Ill. for a short stretch before moving to Wisconsin for twelve years. He would say that he grew up, most of that time, on a farm in Garden Valley, Wisconsin, where the family was relatively isolated and his older brothers kind of competitively and aggressively learned farm skills especially using technology as it arrived on the scene and became available to farmers. They would walk to town for their mail or for supplies but that was a huge endeavor, and even riding the horses there would be no small deal but would be possible; they were in Jackson County, in the middle of the state.
His parents were talked into moving to South Dakota and settling in the new town of Sioux Falls, which had only a couple thousand residents but was likely to expand and become a hub for the entire region. A pretty place with a waterfall in the middle of it, it was full of the kind of hope that new towns had, boom towns, places where everyone wanted to build and get in on the boom. Dad started a lumber business, bought trees from Wisconsin and Minnesota, lumbered them up and sold them to homesteaders and housebuilders in town; he did this in partnership with the wealthy guy who had talked them into moving out there, and that guy knew what he was doing; they made money hand over fist for ten or twelve years. The guy got out of the business, sold his share to his son, went on to build a city block and become a founder of Sioux Falls, but Will's father hung on, until a huge panic/crash came along in the winter of 1893. The railroads crashed and many of them went bankrupt. Their promises to build new lines out into the prairie of eastern South Dakota went under as did most of the lines they'd already established; thousands of farmers were left stranded. Prices of farmed goods crashed too so that even if they could get their food to market they'd lose money. Most of them gave up and came back east where they could at least eat. Dreams of a boom in the prairie disappeared; the lumber business dried up.
Will went to Hillsdale College, married, and moved out to Council Bluffs to accept a job at her brother-in-law's bank. That bank was his main form of sustenance for years, but he also ran a magazine, became a historian, and raised a child, along with his wife Julia Reynolds, who would become my grandfather. This book will go as far as that grandfather, and even my dad, but it's already so full I have to figure out ways to cut back, or perhaps turn it into two books. I'm roughly at the Trans-Mississippian Exhibition now, but lots more happens, and soon it turns into the Great War, the Roaring Twenties, and the Depression. They live through a lot. Council Bluffs is no more or less than any other small midwestern town, but it's the center of the universe for them.
Will died in the fifties; my brother says he remembers him vaguely, though we would have been very small when they met. I don't remember a thing. And I have a hard time writing about people I do remember, since I can't show it to them to verify it, or attribute feelings to them. So this will be the end, this book.
I'm thinking of calling it Bluffs Leveretts: An American Tragedy. I'll explain what the tragedy is, by the end.
His parents were talked into moving to South Dakota and settling in the new town of Sioux Falls, which had only a couple thousand residents but was likely to expand and become a hub for the entire region. A pretty place with a waterfall in the middle of it, it was full of the kind of hope that new towns had, boom towns, places where everyone wanted to build and get in on the boom. Dad started a lumber business, bought trees from Wisconsin and Minnesota, lumbered them up and sold them to homesteaders and housebuilders in town; he did this in partnership with the wealthy guy who had talked them into moving out there, and that guy knew what he was doing; they made money hand over fist for ten or twelve years. The guy got out of the business, sold his share to his son, went on to build a city block and become a founder of Sioux Falls, but Will's father hung on, until a huge panic/crash came along in the winter of 1893. The railroads crashed and many of them went bankrupt. Their promises to build new lines out into the prairie of eastern South Dakota went under as did most of the lines they'd already established; thousands of farmers were left stranded. Prices of farmed goods crashed too so that even if they could get their food to market they'd lose money. Most of them gave up and came back east where they could at least eat. Dreams of a boom in the prairie disappeared; the lumber business dried up.
Will went to Hillsdale College, married, and moved out to Council Bluffs to accept a job at her brother-in-law's bank. That bank was his main form of sustenance for years, but he also ran a magazine, became a historian, and raised a child, along with his wife Julia Reynolds, who would become my grandfather. This book will go as far as that grandfather, and even my dad, but it's already so full I have to figure out ways to cut back, or perhaps turn it into two books. I'm roughly at the Trans-Mississippian Exhibition now, but lots more happens, and soon it turns into the Great War, the Roaring Twenties, and the Depression. They live through a lot. Council Bluffs is no more or less than any other small midwestern town, but it's the center of the universe for them.
Will died in the fifties; my brother says he remembers him vaguely, though we would have been very small when they met. I don't remember a thing. And I have a hard time writing about people I do remember, since I can't show it to them to verify it, or attribute feelings to them. So this will be the end, this book.
I'm thinking of calling it Bluffs Leveretts: An American Tragedy. I'll explain what the tragedy is, by the end.
Saturday, September 14, 2024
Thursday, September 12, 2024
The Prence situation
Recently I was challenged, and actually it was a challenge I had already faced and thought about to some degree. The challenge is this: You research your Leverett ancestor, from eleven to thirteen generations ago, but if you go back that far there are over two thousand people who played an equal part, genetically, in who you are. Are you going to research any of them? Obviously none of them were Leveretts; only one out of the 2048/4096 was a Leverett.
The fact is that I had already started in on one of them: William Brewster. And there are stunning things about him that will easily make a book. So after this particular conversation I googled him again and came out with a simple kindle unlimited book on the Mayflower that reviews some of the things we know about him. He's an amazing guy. Here are some things I've found:
First, we are related to him through Harriet, my great-great grandmother who I just wrote a book about (see below). This line is apparently all women; in other words, it was his daughter Patience who had a daughter, who had another, who had another, etc., and if you go down through Harriet, she had a daughter (Carrie) who had daughters (Belle had only sons) - so there are women around today, my third or fourth cousins, who would have come down a direct line of women (you may have to let me check that for sure, or document it carefully) - from Patience, survivor of the early days of the colony.
Patience arrived after her father William, who with his sons Love and Wrestling arrived on the Mayflower itself, in 1620 (?). She arrived in 1623. There are remarkable things about her story. First, she married Thomas Prence, Governor of the Massachusetts Colony. Second, she died of smallpox early on, but after she'd had a couple of kids including a daughter.
Her marriage to Prence is important for many reasons. Of the Anglos who came to Massachusetts in the early days, Puritans (including the Leveretts) were the majority and by far the dominant strain. They settled Boston, Charlestown, Salem, Dedham, most of the towns along the Mass. Bay in the 1630s in what is called the Great Migration. But the Pilgrims were important too for several reasons. One was that their ardent separatism was distinct from the Puritans who wanted to purify the church but stay in it. The Pilgrims settled in Plymouth and dominated that area but were not the only people who lived in Plymouth and Duxbury and down along the south shore. Their desire to be separate caused them to make an effort to make their own distinct government as they were determined to survive and run things themselves outside of any oversight by the crown.
William Brewster was, in these early days, the leader of the Pilgrim band. His younger compatriot William Bradford would get a lot of credit and would be easily confused with him, as they were both all over the place with their political and religious leadership. But the main point was that they survived. And that the marriage of Patience to Prence put the two colonies together; it joined them.
Years later history would grab onto that "religious freedom" idea of the Pilgrims and make the Pilgrims heroes of the early settlement of Massachusetts and the colony. Those separatists were actually a minority on the Mayflower itself, and definitely a minority in Massachusetts when they finally got established there. The majority (Puritans) had no use for religious freedom or tolerance although they weren't about to go wipe the Pilgrims out. The Mass. colony and Plymouth colony were separate, simply survivors in those early days. The people who filled the boats just looking for ways to make money, to run across the oceans, etc., filled out the background. They had no particular religious orientation but were opportunists to some degree - if you establish a town, with a church, I'll live in the town. And maybe go to church. Those were the majority of the Mayflower. But the Mayflower had its problems and a lot of its people didn't make it through that first winter. William and Love were among the lucky ones.
Once again, Patience had an unbroken string of daughters leading down to the present and crossing our line of Leveretts in about 1857 with the marriage of Harriet to James Walker. I'll have to research this a little better. I find all aspects of her life to be interesting, but I'm not surprised to find her dying of smallpox as so many people did. Lots to document here. And there are books out there about William Brewster, the leader, father of Fear, Love, Patience, and Wrestling (and another?) - those were the days.
The fact is that I had already started in on one of them: William Brewster. And there are stunning things about him that will easily make a book. So after this particular conversation I googled him again and came out with a simple kindle unlimited book on the Mayflower that reviews some of the things we know about him. He's an amazing guy. Here are some things I've found:
First, we are related to him through Harriet, my great-great grandmother who I just wrote a book about (see below). This line is apparently all women; in other words, it was his daughter Patience who had a daughter, who had another, who had another, etc., and if you go down through Harriet, she had a daughter (Carrie) who had daughters (Belle had only sons) - so there are women around today, my third or fourth cousins, who would have come down a direct line of women (you may have to let me check that for sure, or document it carefully) - from Patience, survivor of the early days of the colony.
Patience arrived after her father William, who with his sons Love and Wrestling arrived on the Mayflower itself, in 1620 (?). She arrived in 1623. There are remarkable things about her story. First, she married Thomas Prence, Governor of the Massachusetts Colony. Second, she died of smallpox early on, but after she'd had a couple of kids including a daughter.
Her marriage to Prence is important for many reasons. Of the Anglos who came to Massachusetts in the early days, Puritans (including the Leveretts) were the majority and by far the dominant strain. They settled Boston, Charlestown, Salem, Dedham, most of the towns along the Mass. Bay in the 1630s in what is called the Great Migration. But the Pilgrims were important too for several reasons. One was that their ardent separatism was distinct from the Puritans who wanted to purify the church but stay in it. The Pilgrims settled in Plymouth and dominated that area but were not the only people who lived in Plymouth and Duxbury and down along the south shore. Their desire to be separate caused them to make an effort to make their own distinct government as they were determined to survive and run things themselves outside of any oversight by the crown.
William Brewster was, in these early days, the leader of the Pilgrim band. His younger compatriot William Bradford would get a lot of credit and would be easily confused with him, as they were both all over the place with their political and religious leadership. But the main point was that they survived. And that the marriage of Patience to Prence put the two colonies together; it joined them.
Years later history would grab onto that "religious freedom" idea of the Pilgrims and make the Pilgrims heroes of the early settlement of Massachusetts and the colony. Those separatists were actually a minority on the Mayflower itself, and definitely a minority in Massachusetts when they finally got established there. The majority (Puritans) had no use for religious freedom or tolerance although they weren't about to go wipe the Pilgrims out. The Mass. colony and Plymouth colony were separate, simply survivors in those early days. The people who filled the boats just looking for ways to make money, to run across the oceans, etc., filled out the background. They had no particular religious orientation but were opportunists to some degree - if you establish a town, with a church, I'll live in the town. And maybe go to church. Those were the majority of the Mayflower. But the Mayflower had its problems and a lot of its people didn't make it through that first winter. William and Love were among the lucky ones.
Once again, Patience had an unbroken string of daughters leading down to the present and crossing our line of Leveretts in about 1857 with the marriage of Harriet to James Walker. I'll have to research this a little better. I find all aspects of her life to be interesting, but I'm not surprised to find her dying of smallpox as so many people did. Lots to document here. And there are books out there about William Brewster, the leader, father of Fear, Love, Patience, and Wrestling (and another?) - those were the days.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Great review
for Prairie Leveretts
from a blog I love and trust!
https://booksthatmakeyouthink2.co.uk/2024/09/11/prairie-leveretts-thomas-leverett/
from a blog I love and trust!
https://booksthatmakeyouthink2.co.uk/2024/09/11/prairie-leveretts-thomas-leverett/
Friday, August 16, 2024
Prairie Leveretts
Finally!
The kindle version is here, worth every penny, a lot of work went into this. The paperback is in review, and the hardback is coming. I am still cleaning up a few minor errors. I find it impossible to publish something without getting at least one year wrong.
James Walker Leverett (1830-1916) was important to our family and important, I think, to the region as a whole. He was one of the earliest settlers of both Nebraska and South Dakota, and grew up basically on the frontier when Illinois was the frontier. This book tells the story of him and his wife and children as they moved around in the very early days.
It is the first thing I have finished in a while, since I've been busy on other family things - not just busy, but seriously sidetracked.
Those of you who follow this blog know that I'm well past 1916 (his death date - this book ends here) by now and yes, I'm partly done with the next book in the series, Bluffs Leveretts. That book will have a narrower more specialized audience since there are only a hundred or so of us who are descended from or related to Bluffs Leveretts. James Walker, however, has thousands of descendants by now, I think, and they're spread out pretty well.
Finally, I promise to put all of them on the template of this blog. The first three, Puritan Leveretts, 18th Century Leveretts, and Pioneer Leveretts, take you right up to this one so this is the fourth in a direct line. The two about famous Leveretts, Walking Boots/i> and Harvardinates, are in the series but not in the line.
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Along comes the question of whether I should do more to preserve the articles from the old Trans-Mississippian . Will Leverett was the edit...
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Finally got started writing about Will again. I did it because I was so dreadfully stuck on my fantasy. It worked. Will is totally in-histor...
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It was during the Depression I think that Frank Leverett, famous geologist, got interested in family genealogy, and actually went to Bost...