My wife's researching has turned up some wonderful stuff. A dozen Revolutionary War soldiers, among them one Captain Amos Hall, buried at New Ireland, Quebec who enlisted in the 7th Connecticut Line in 1777 at age 16. He served for seven years n the Continental Army as an enlisted man and was a NH militia officer after the war. He was at Valley Forge, Morristown and Yorktown, and present at the surrender of Cornwallis.
I never knew. pl
My wife likewise is a great tracker of our respective families. We also have had some wonderful surprises. Hope for you that more of the same comes your way.
Posted by: frank durkee | 22 January 2011 at 08:08 AM
It's interesting Pat that you should mention this.
My siblings and I have chasing down our ancestors lately via Ancestry.com.
My great, great grandfather from County Galway stepped off the boat on Feb. 15 1849 as a 24 year old Irishman fleeing the Great Potato Famine.
I even managed to search out and find the ship, the packet ship Jamestown, and its Manifest of Passengers listing his name.
As well as a picture of the ship.
Like you, until this past December, I never even knew his name.
Posted by: Mad Dogs | 22 January 2011 at 10:02 AM
Our youngest daughter is our family researcher. The things she turns up are quite amazing, but one has to learn to take the good with the bad and not be too judgmental, My wifes side has links to Jefferson Davis and to a couple of Revolutionary veterans while my side has a person who murdered a couple and was executed for the crime. Oh well....
Posted by: MikeB | 22 January 2011 at 01:41 PM
Ah, but how did he wind up in Quebec?
Posted by: WILL | 22 January 2011 at 02:11 PM
Will
Amos Hall was a prosperous farmer at Hopkinton, NH after the RW. He was an officer of the NH militia. In 1804 he bought 1000 acres of land and a "mill" near Sherbrooke, PQ and moved there. Several years later he bought land near present Thetford Mines and moved to that area. There he lived for nearly fifty years and became a prominent local figure once again. A number of other New England families moved into that area as well. They are pretty much all my relatives. This is about fifty miles SE of Quebec City. In 1843 he applied for and received a US pension for the RW. About that time some of his children and other families living in that part of Quebec Province decided to "remove" as they would have said to western Wisconsin. Amos died n Canada in 1854 age 95. His tombstone is marked "Captain Amos Hall, veteran of the revolutionary army." Why they moved around like this is not clear to us at present. before the 1804 move the Halls and their kin had been in New England since 1620 (Mayflower and Mass. Bay). pl
Posted by: Patrick Lang | 22 January 2011 at 03:34 PM
Colonel,
Do you know if you have any 'brew masters' in your family tree? I know that I had some first rate ridge-running corn squeezin brew masters long before it was considered illegal in our U.S. to make your own. It's sad that a person almost has to have a license anymore just to pass gas.
Hope you're feeling better. Remember that Turkey101 cures all ills.
Posted by: J | 22 January 2011 at 03:50 PM
i have just listened to His Excellency, George Washington by Joseph Ellis with all its wonderful detail of the Continental Army and the Revolution ; i now can think of your ancestor at Valley Forge (was he shoeless ?) and the other battles / really brings it all home / smile
Katherine
Posted by: Katherine | 23 January 2011 at 09:21 AM
katherine
I don't know about the shoes but if he was like most of my kin in military service, HIS MEN would have had shoes no matter how he got them. The officers of the French Expeditionary Corps described the enlisted men of the Continental Army as "old men, Negroes and boys." I suppose he was one of the "boys.' pl
Posted by: Patrick Lang | 23 January 2011 at 09:33 AM
Ah yes, but what do the descendants of the Am. Rev. do when the following realization hits and hits hard: the USA is on the wrong side of history in the 21st century?
At some point a threshold is crossed and that which our ancestors fought and died is no longer honored but indeed desecrated to the point of depravity. To me, one of the greater signs, as reported by Glenn Greenwald, is that now the USG can assassinate its own citizens.
Speaking of Greenwald and where he spends time, the tempo of the following music is not mine, but the images may give a hint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8dH-TIen8I&feature=related
Greenwald’s fascination with Brazil differs from mine. As for myself, maybe Our Lady of the Confederadoes will help one discern. The history of the Confederadoes, now totally racially mixed, may offer the best proof of what could have been if nature had been allowed to take its own course in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederados
Advantage Brazil. They did not suffer from an unnecessary war to end slavery, and unnecessary wars sow the seeds of a nation’s self destruction. For more info, see US Foreign Policy, circa 21st century, in large part implemented by Southerners totally disconnected from their finer traditions.
Posted by: Sidney O. Smith III | 23 January 2011 at 10:42 AM
Sidney,
George Washington vowed, in a December, 1795 letter, that there must never be immunity for wrongdoing by high government officials: "The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/14/lawlessness/index.html
Such legal protections that the founders fought for are so quant, kind of like the Geneva Convention:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article426900.ece
Posted by: Fred | 23 January 2011 at 01:00 PM
Fred
Thank you very much for the references. Helps broaden my perspective.
As a side note, my take on a code of civility is somewhat different than that discussed in Greenwald’s article but Greenwald’s point is tangential to his hard hitting argument and, besides, the difference may really come down to semantics.
That probably irrelevant point aside, I appreciate your sending the link, as the Madison and Washingon references particularly provide a guiding light and they do so at no better time.
Posted by: Sidney O. Smith III | 23 January 2011 at 07:14 PM
The Brits must have been so insufferably arrogant. And well, they just considered Americans inferior.
Of my husband's family lore - Colonel thomas Fitch was ridiculed by the Brit soldiers for putting chicken feathers in his hat. Maybe the original Yankee Doodle Dandy! A put down to them, a compliment to US!
Also, another hubby ancestor John Fitch supplied arms, rum and beer to troops at Valley Forge,Philly, Trenton. A gun and rum runner! (He later went on to invent steamboat.)
Posted by: charlottemom | 25 January 2011 at 09:38 AM