A Pilgrim Story

Tracing my family history led me back four centuries to a pilgrim named Edward Bangs, the man said to anchor every Bangs family line in America.  Young Edward was born in 1592 in Panfield, England. He was a shipwright by trade and apparently had some education as he had signed his name on several documents over the years.

What exactly made Edward want to pull up stakes, get on a cramped wooden boat and sail over the Atlantic ocean to a completely foreign place is beyond me.  A sense of adventure? Tired of the lack of religious freedom in England?  We’ll probably never know but he tried three times to do it so we can say with some certainty that he really wanted to be here.

First, a quick and oversimplified explanation of the situation. The pilgrims, before leaving England, had an arrangement with investors who put up the capital for the soon-to-be-formed colony. The pilgrims, or “planters” as they were called, were to establish a settlement (Plymouth Colony) and build it up for seven years and at the end of that time the assets would be divided between colonists and investors.

Under the agreement, three ships brought these “planters”: the Mayflower in 1620, the Fortune in 1621 and the Anne in 1623.  No other ships brought passengers under this agreement for the next seven years.  It was the third ship, the Anne, that arrived in July 1623 with 32 year old Edward Bangs aboard.  Legend has it that in England, shipwright Bangs had been called upon to get the ship seaworthy for her voyage across the Atlantic, and decided to join them.

 Aboard the second ship was the Robert Hicks family.  Hicks had been a successful fellmonger (hide and wool merchant) in England.  Edward married his daughter, Lydia, in 1633 and they had a son, John, shortly after which Lydia passed away.  In 1635, Edward married Rebecca Hobart, whose widowed father came to the New World just two years prior with Rebecca and her brother and sister.  Edward and Rebecca went on to have nine children.

Edward served on numerous juries, and oftentimes acted as an overseer of others.  His name appears over and over in the Plymouth colony records in a number of different capacities. He served on the staff of Gov. Bradford with Captain Myles Standish, Thomas Prence, Mr. Howland, John Alden, Stephen Hopkins, William Collier, Manaseh Kempton, Joshua Pratt and Stephen Tracy.

When the seven years were up, the colony was divided between the men. It was the original settlers, including Robert Hicks and Edward Bangs, that became owners of the Plymouth Colony, in common.  However, there wasn’t enough land to divide. England granted them more land, and new settlements were made and new settlers came in.  There was a lot of fussing about rights, who paid what, etc.  Finally in 1640 an agreement was reached and the Colony was to reimburse settlers who had to pay out their own money to acquire land. Under this agreement the original settlers were to select 2-3 tracts of land that they wanted in specific areas and no one else could claim that land.  What was left over belonged to the Colony and the Colony Court would decide on the disposition of it. 

There was only one problem (well, two if you were Edward Bangs.) (But more on that later) First, the land was not exactly uninhabited.  Indians lived there.  Pilgrims were quick to concede that the Indians were the rightful owners of the land and that they could not just take it from them. It was concurred that they’d need to purchase the land in order to get rightful title.  These colonists were the only ones with a legal right to purchase the land, and there might have been no problem had they done so in a prompt manner.  But since they’d already established homes within Plymouth Colony, there didn’t seem to be any hurry.  The wording of the agreement said that the right to purchase the land was theirs and their descendants’ “for all time.”  And the ones who did promptly purchase the land weren't in a big hurry to occupy it. 

As more and more settlers came to the area, the interest in this “reserved” land was greatly increased. The chief of the Indians in this area was Mattaquason and the new settlers began purchasing this reserve land from him. Meanwhile, this land had been promised to the colonists in the earlier agreement; some had put off purchasing for years because they had been granted the rights “for all time.”  Others had purchased right away but not settled on it.  At any rate, new settlers were buying it.

Unfortunately for Edward Bangs, his land was in this reserve.  And just when you think things couldn’t get any more complicated, enter William Nickerson, another settler from England.  Nickerson was not a colonist but came over independently with his wife, minor children, and adult children and their families, desiring to found a new, private settlement for themselves.   They left England aboard the ship John and Dorothy in 1637.  He was tired of the oppression of the King of England. 

Great, but the only problem was he bought a lot of reserved land from Chief Mattaquason. And some of the land he bought had already been purchased by Edward Bangs.

And so began years and years of court hearings, trials, fines, and, due to William Nickerson’s extreme belligerence and disdain for the King's law, time spent in the stockade and jail.  Edward Bangs was found to be the wronged party, but his land was already settled by others so the Court awarded him land elsewhere and he eventually settled in Nauset, which was later renamed Eastham, Massachusetts. 

I mentioned before that if you were Edward Bangs, you had two problems. And the second problem? Edward’s granddaughter, Mary Bangs, married William Nickerson’s grandson Thomas Nickerson. That would have made for some interesting family reunions.

In the end, Edward Bangs lived a good and profitable life filled with community service in Eastham, as he had in Plymouth Colony.  And William Nickerson spent most of his life fighting for the land he believed was rightly his, and also a life filled with civic duty.  Edward died in 1678, at the age of 86 and William died about 1690 at about age 84 and is buried on the land he fought so hard for.

 

**Note: This is oversimplified and severely edited because no one wants to be here reading this into next week. :) Plus, all the "goings on" were complicated.  All images used were generated by CoPilot and are copyright-free.

Many of us have one - an ancestor who was a stinker, put quite frankly.  And this can be quite a can of worms when writing and documenting our family histories.

I descend from William Nickerson, a fellow who gave the colonial government quite a run for their money back in the 1600s, and was well-documented for it.   There are amply written, unbiased sources documenting his behaviors and punishments, and it's a part of who he was.  He poses no problem for me in writing the family history - he was a character, and his own person, and no one is likely to be offended by what I write about him.

Then there's Aunt L.  She's not so far back in history, having departed this life not quite 30 years ago.  Many in the family still remember her.  She left no descendants that might be more easily offended than the rest of us.  But still, how exactly do I handle her in the family history?

She was my grandfather's aunt, and out of his own mouth come the memories of her locking he and is brothers in a dark closet and terrorizing them, and calling them names, because she hated their father.   Or all of the Christmases that the girls got gifts and the boys got nothing. One of her nieces has less than fond memories of her as well, saying that she tried to cheat their mother out of anything that she could, be it family heirlooms, inheritance, or their brother's insurance money.

My own memories are much tamer, but then, Auntie was quite a bit older by the time I knew her.  Once a year, at Christmas, we would gather at her house for a Christmas dessert and open small gifts.  She got out the family china, and spent time trying to tell us about her father and mother, and trying to show a largely (unfortunately) uninterested bunch of people about the family history.  No one, including me, seemed to care at the time.  Under that tame exterior, though, still lurked the same anger and temper that she had as a young woman.

After a bad fall, she ended up having to go into a nursing home.  She was furious.  And it was my grandfather, the same little boy she terrorized as a child, who looked after her.  He and my grandmother went to her house those last few years she lived there, and mowed the lawn, took her shopping, helped her clean, and visited with her... and in the nursing home, they went out twice a week to see her.   One particular week, they took me with them.  I was standing in the doorway when Auntie L., in a fit of rage, suddenly kicked her trash can violently out into the hallway. Two older gentlemen with walkers were approaching when the projectile shot out of her room, ricocheted on the opposite wall and came to rest in the middle of the hall.  Without missing a beat, one of them said, "Well, looks like another one kicked the bucket!"  Nursing home humor... not a great situation, but it has ended up being one of my favorite memories of Aunt L.  It was so very... her.

So, do we try to leave future generations with positive impressions of their departed family members, or do we do our best to capture them as they were, warts and all?  Should the wishes of other family members be taken into consideration, and if so, to what extent?  Do we, as family historians, respect truth, or respect the dead?  Is there a way to to both?

Forebear Friday - Marrying the Enemy? Thomas Nickerson & Mary Bangs

Perhaps it was a bit of a Romeo and Juliet story.  But at the least it might have made for some interesting family reunions.  The union of Thomas Nickerson and Mary Bangs (my 8th great-grandparents) in 1696 had the potential to cause quite a stir among their families.  Thomas was the grandson of immigrant William Nickerson, and Mary was the granddaughter of Plymouth colonist Edward Bangs.
The problem goes back to land, and their grandfathers.  As a member of Plymouth colony, Edward Bangs was among those who had the first rights, given by the Court, for purchasing reserved land from the Indians.  William Nickerson, who sought to acquire land and create a settlement, purchased a great deal of this reserved land himself, illegally, a move said to have greatly angered the colonists.  Nickerson claimed ignorance of the law, and the matter was in court for many years.  While the land was granted to others, Nickerson eventually re-purchased much of it from the grantees, and so started the settlement of Monomoit (Chatham, Massachusetts) as he wished.
I wonder what the reaction of Edward Bangs and William Nickerson might have been to their grandchildren marrying, had they lived to see it...

Treasure Chest Thursday – Collars from Long Ago

This note, written by my great-grandmother, Elvirta Knutz Graves, explains the significance of these collars she had tucked away.  The lace collar belonged to her mother, Nettie Lair Graves (1861 – 1935), and the fabric collar belong to Nettie’s grandmother, Margaret Coble Nickeson (ca 1803 – 1854).
Margaret Coble Nickeson, owner of the fabric collar, married her husband, Joseph Nickeson, in Franklin county, Ohio in 1819, and in the 1840s they relocated to Peoria county, Illinois with their children.  She died in 1854 at the age of 56 in Princeville.  Her daughter Margaret Nickeson married Lawson Lair in 1858.  They spent the rest of their lives in Princeville, Margaret passing away in 1900 at the age of 59.  Their second child was Nettie Lair, owner of the lace collar.  Nettie married Tom Graves in 1883 in Princeville, and they remained in that area until 1906, when they moved to Esmond, South Dakota.  Their daughter Elivrta married Will Knutz in 1910, in Huron, South Dakota.  The collars were eventually given to Virta’s daughter Mabel, who passed away last year.  I would like to thank my cousins for sending me these, and other, remarkable treasures that their mother had so carefully saved.  I am truly blessed and honored to have them.

52 Weeks to Better Genealogy – the DAR Database

The last time I visited the DAR database was years ago.  Tonight, as part of the 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy challenge, I took another look at it, and I’m really glad I did.
I thought I had no direct line ancestor with any military service during the Revolutionary War.  I knew some of my Lair ancestors had brothers who served, but when I discovered that my immigrant ancestor, Matthias Lehrer/Lair, played a part during the war, I was thrilled.   At this time, I don’t know how significant his role was, only that he was paid for the loss of a gun. 
Also, more significantly, I discovered that another direct-line ancestor, Issacher Nicke(r)son, apparently had some service, under Capt. David Waterbury.  I will need to find more information on this, and joining the DAR based on this ancestor’s service will be difficult.  His son, Aaron, is said to be the father of my ancestor Joseph Nickeson, and even working with the Nickerson Family Association, I have not been able to find proof of that relationship.  But there’s hope!

Are you having a Ruhamah Day???

It is with great relief that I report that I'm not a blood descendant of Ruhamah Jones Nickerson.  I am, however, a direct-line descendant of her father-in-law, William Nickerson.  But he's a topic for another Black Sheep Sunday.

Ruhamah was born about 1650, and married Joseph Nickerson, and they lived in Massachusetts.  The Nickerson family is well known there; Joseph's father William (mentioned above) having founded the town of Chatham.  But Ruhamah was well-known in her own right.

While described as being a beautiful woman, she was also known as being, according to the Nickerson Family Association, "of a disagreeable nature," to put it mildly.  She *lived* for harassing people.  She was not burdened with the constraints of manners or polite social behavior.  Both the Indians and her white neighbors alike were afraid of her, and went out of their way to avoid making her angry.  If anyone provoked her, she would "play havoc with their washing, their choice plants, and the fruits of their harvest."  Any time, day or night, Ruhamah was Ready To Rumble, and never backed down from a confrontation. Oddly enough, Edward Bangs, an early colonist and a direct-line ancestor of mine, once argued with her, and his barn burned down a short time later.

Ruhamah outlived her husband, and another family took her in, while the townspeople were ordered to pay them for her support.  No matter what the compensation, I'm sure it wasn't enough!  She lived to a ripe old age, and had spent so many years sitting that when she died, it was "thought best to bury her in the same crooked position".  And they did.  Perhaps their way of getting the last laugh?

Sometimes we all have a Ruhamah Day, and would love uproot the tomato plants of the $#*()!! who just cut us off in traffic.  It's okay to savor the thought.  You aren't grumpy, you're just Getting In Touch With Your Inner Ruhamah.  Think about it all you like, just don't do it, or people might be remembering you, too, some 400+ years later!