Ramping up for another pilgrimage

There are moments, some of them very long, when I feel crazy for trying this again.

After failing to execute the Michigan pilgrimage in May, here I am again, knocking myself out preparing and planning. And this one, rather than being four very quick days, is sixteen days long, involves four states and 21 cemeteries.  Seven nights we’re staying with family & friends and eight nights in hotels.

BUT, I’m very excited about this trek.  In addition to cemeteries we’re visiting The Roswell P Flower Memorial Library in Watertown, New York, Sage Chapel at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Greenwood Gardens in Millburn, New Jersey.

Flowers Rotunda by Frederick Stymetz Lamb

ROSWELL P FLOWER MEMORIAL LIBRARY

Through Mark’s 5x great-grandfather William Rollinson, the family is connected to Joseph & Richard Lamb who began J & R Lamb Studios in 1857.  They were known as church decorators, or ecclesiastical interior artists, but their specialty was, and remains, stained glass.   Joseph’s sons, Charles Rollinson Lamb and Frederick Stymetz Lamb, along with Charles’ wife Ella Condie Lamb, were responsible for a great deal of the interior of this Library, completed in 1904.  Photos cannot possibly do it justice; we want to see this work in person.

SAGE CHAPEL at Cornell University

The mosaic decoration of the apse at the east end of Sage Chapel was created by J & R Lamb Studios.  As it was being completed in 1900 it was considered “the largest series of figure mosaics ever executed in America”. *

GREENWOOD GARDENS

There are so many angles from which Mark is connected to William Whetten Renwick.  The simplest is that he was Mark’s grandmother’s uncle.  At any rate, WWR was an architect and artist whose self-designed estate, Vine Clad, was a showcase for his highly creative mind.  In 1906 his neighbor, Joseph P Day, commissioned WWR to work his magic designing Day’s estate.  The result was Pleasant Days, a 28-acre wonderland.  Through financial decline the property changed hands and was parceled out.  Greenwood Gardens was created from the remaining grounds, including the main house and several out-buildings; in 2003 it  became a nonprofit and has been recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as significant for its history, design & beautiful execution.

How fortunate are we that we get to visit these amazing works of art?

*  http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/3164/14/002_13.pdf

J & R Lamb Studios:  http://www.lambstudios.com/
Roswell P Flower Memorial Library:  http://www.watertown-ny.gov/index.asp?NID=466
Sage Chapel:  http://www.curw.cornell.edu/sage.html
Greenwood Gardens:  http://www.greenwoodgardens.org/index.php

The images are from:

http://www.watertown-ny.gov/index.asp?NID=454
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cazatoma/4918235860/
http://tinyurl.com/2fcnhdf

Over-reaching

I set out almost 10 days ago on a pilgrimage and it was only partially successful.

Helping unearth buried treasure at our aunt’s house did yield some results which I’ve only begun to clarify and catalog.  Some of it is quite exciting and once I’ve figured out precisely what it is I’ve learned I’ll get it posted on the family tree and perhaps write about it a bit here.

The other part of the journey was to be a road trip through Michigan, visting many cemeteries along the path and meeting my father-in-law’s second cousin (father-in-law’s grandfather’s niece’s son).  Unfortunately, I had the traveling equivalent of eyes bigger than my stomach, biting off more than I could chew, believing that my energy could hold up and it really could not.

So I’ve spent the last five days with one of my oldest, dearest friends, the woman who was to accompany me on the Michigan road trip.  It’s been a wonderful visit and I’m leaving here tomorrow morning.

How will I ever do all the things that are required to recreate the ancestral path that led to my husband and his siblings?  I am committed…. but will my body obey?

Another pilgrimage

4 days in May, 2010.

CALL ME CRAZY

In May a friend and I are planning a whirlwind road trip through Michigan.  She’s driving and lives in Columbus OH so that’s our jumping-off point.

The destination for the first day is Cadillac.  On the way there are three cemetery stops: Battle Creek, Martin & Wayland.  In Battle Creek are graves of descendants of Rensselaer Gideon and Mary Elizabeth (Bradley) Smith, aunt and uncle of Mary C (Smith) Moulton.  East Martin Cemetery hold many ancestors.  Wayland holds the remains of Harriet Newell (Moulton) Carpenter, her husband Asa Alton Carpenter, and their three children.  Harriet was a daughter of Belah Gray Moulton, aka Belah the elder, grandfather of Mary C Smith’s husband Belah Gray Moulton.

Moulton plot at Maple Hill Cemetery

In Cadillac we’re to meet with Mark’s father’s second cousin; their grandfathers were brothers.  I need to hit the Cadillac library to photograph some obituaries.  And we’re visiting two cemeteries: Maple Hill for many Moultons and Huckles and Karchers; Mt Carmel for Communals.

On the way BACK to Columbus I really want to stop at Oakwood Cemetery in New Baltimore to photograph the grave of Othelbert Smith’s first wife, Charlotte Jane Chase Westfall Smith Van Akin.  Charlotte was a widow with two small children when they married in 1875.  Though they divorced in 1879, her presence in his life and the conditions under which they married, figure into Othelbert’s life story….. which I’ve yet to tell.

After New Baltimore, on to Oak Hill Cemetery in Owosso in Shiawassee county; the Gillett family plot is there, and the graves of Forest Ray Moulton’s first wife and two of his children.

Then I’m hoping to be able to stop in to see Ralph Moulton, who Mark and I visited on our 2008 pilgrimage.  If he’s up for a visit, I’ll be there!

The next day we stop at Greenwood Cemetery in Aurelius and the grave of Vern Valentine Moulton, brother of Forest, and uncle of Ralph.  Vern’s wife Effie Louise (Campbell) Moulton is likely also there but I’ll have to see.

On to Grass Lake West Cemetery in Jackson county for six gravestones in the Tucker family.  Mary Clarissa Smith Moulton was born of Cortland Brown Smith and Clarissa Snyder.  Cortland’s sister Ranavalina and Clarissa’s sister Cleopatra both married Tuckers and they’re both buried there, along with Ranavalina’s husband’s parents and two of their children.

Then we head straight back to Columbus.  A very long, action-packed four days.  I ask you again: AM I CRAZY?  Mark thinks so…….

Another “pilgrimage” – Becket, Berkshire, MA

Mark and I traveled east for the holiday, staying with his father in Groton, MA. For our last full day we made a “pilgrimage” to Becket, ancestral home to the Harris side of Mark’s family. The weather was not unreasonable; the high temp of the previous day had been 11 degrees plus wind but Wednesday was partly sunny with a high of 20.

After a pleasant drive into the area we found the road and drove out to the end, after which a walk of some duration and challenge would lead to the ruins of the old farmstead and, somewhat closeby, the Harris Burying Ground, thought to be the oldest cemetery in the greater Becket area (which includes Becket, West Becket, and a few other dots on the map that we didn’t see).

Harris Burying Ground

Daniel Harris and his wife Lucy (Fox) and their first two children moved from Plainfield CT to Becket in 1788 and it is their farmstead that was somewhere beyond the road. Given my physical limitations, I declined to join my husband and father-in-law in their downhill trek of yet unknown distance, terrain and duration.

A couple weeks before our trip I “met” Don Harris online, very likely a cousin several times removed; he decends from Isaac Harris whose father was Daniel but who was born after Daniel’s wife Lucy had died. Don grew up near Becket (in Dalton) and, when the farmstead was due to be logged a few years back, he knew the logger and lovingly watched over the burying ground to make sure that it was protected.

A few weeks prior to leaving California I had received a hand-drawn map sent by a very distant relative (one of his ancestors and one of our ancestors were married to the same woman – not at the same time, of course!) which he got from a local man many years ago. Then, a few days before our trip, we received a PDF which included a thorough description, topographical maps of the area and coordinates for the farmstead and for the burying ground (thanks to Henry Harris, a geologist, who had visited the sites with his family 8 or 9 years earlier).

With this information (particularly the coordinates) and GPS on an iPhone, my two determined men went off down the hill, leaving me to myself, my book, and a lovely car blanket. From my safe little nest I received the first text message “found homestead”. It was probably an hour later that I learned that they’d found the burying grounds. By that time I’d gone under the blanket and was dozing.

My phone rang when the intrepid explorers were back up to the bottom of the hill, the first spot where I could see them and they could see me. The entire journey was about 2.5 hours in duration, complete with forged streams and tangles with fallen logs discovered when feet plummeted through the surface of the snow. Bones could have snapped….. but they didn’t. Luckily Dad found a walking stick to help with his trek back; he was a sore puppy the following day!

Mark’s iPhone was a great help in homing in on the burying ground, which was not at all visible from the farmstead. And, true to his word, Don did protect the burying ground from damage by falling logs.

A nearly complete set of photos from this journey can be seen at:  http://community.webshots.com/album/576236991SqTtND