Tuesday, July 31, 2018

How the Simpson family (no kin to me) rid western Dade County MO of wolves

Wolves were a menace to the settlers' stock and became so bold that steps had to be taken to combat them. The Simpson boys began the work of extermination. They secured a quantity of poison, and would kill a deer, and after thoroughly poisoning it, would drag it over the prairie, and hundreds of wolves were killed in this way.

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Have you ever had to deal with bureaucrats? Pity Henry Pettit.



Have you ever dealt with bureaucrats?

Henry Pettit in Spartanburg, SC—old and broken at 69 and frustrated by the interrogation he was subjected to as he applied for a pension under the 1832 law.



In fact, for me to undertake to give in detail my service during the Revolutionary War is not in my power but one thing I do well know that from sometime of the Summer 1776—to the end of the War I was engaged in the defense of my Country. I then lived in the hottest part of the Tory Country on the Indian Boundary and a great place for the British to assemble. We that belonged to the Liberty party were compelled to be in readiness at all times. We were hunted after as for the Doe in the Woods. I am Wounded. I am Old. I am Infirm and in want of something to sustain me for the services I rendered my Country in the Revolutionary War. As for any discharge, if I ever had any I have no Recollection what I have done with them.



This is a bit of Pettit’s application transcribed by the heroic William Graves.






A transcription about a 1660 crime which was slowly and comparatively lightly punished.



This William’s son William married an aunt of mine, Elizabeth Tucker. Sometimes it’s fun to leave the male ancestor’s name aside and look at the descendants of daughters. William and Elizabeth provided several Revolutionary sons and grandsons.



The word “ord” obviously means ordered.

“Gust” I would like to read for myself from the manuscript.

The word “dept” = deponent.

“French falls”? Falls could be mistranscribed.

Tucker Cousins in 1932 (from Pettypool or Pool family)


Monday, July 23, 2018

The Rock, Early


Not all paddleboarders are mere boys.

This man, probably the one I have been photographing, is 57,
and allowed me to take this for my landlocked cousins. He's a quarter century younger than me. You know that a lot of the surfers you see by the Rock are his age or older. This is California. 

Cousin Solomon Prewitt, who Fought in the Black Hawk War

His father Martin at 15, in 1767, went into Kentucky in a party with Daniel Boone.

Cousin Solomon Prewitt on Wildlife around Alton Illinois in the early 1800s


 There were some elk here when we came. My brother and I killed a four-snag elk above Alton, where Major Long now lives, (n. e. sec. 33, 6-10,) with horns four feet long. There were plenty of them on the Okaw. There were no Buffaloes, but we used to find their horns perfectly sound. A Frenchman named St. John showed me the place once where he saw the Indians kill seven buffalo on the Okaw. Deer were abundant; I have killed five in a day. Panthers were plenty; I killed two once on Pad dock's Creek. They had killed a deer and covered it up with leaves and trash. I noticed the female had been suckling, and looking about found a young one that had climbed up a small tree, caught it and brought it home. I killed another near Wiley Prewitt's; and two, an old and young one above Starkey's. Wildcats would come and catch chickens in open daylight. I shot two as they were watching at hollow logs for rabbits. There were two kinds, the larger which we called catamounts was the most troublesome. Foxes also were troublesome. I caught one once in a steel trap. We had Gray and Prairie Wolves, with occasionally a black or dark colored one. I caught thirteen in one pen, when it was burned up by the woods taking fire. I used sometimes to hamstring them and turn them out of the pen and set the dogs on them. Sometimes we used to get wolves into the prairie and run them down on horseback. There were a good many Otter on the creeks, and a few now. There were Beaver and a beaver dam on Wood River. They would cut down cottonwood trees six inches in diameter. 

       Paroquets (Carolina Parrot) used to live in hollow trees on Indian

Creek. I have seen a dozen come out of one tree in a winter morning.

They fed on cockleburs and used to crack small hichory nuts with their

bills; sometimes they ate the apples. They were greenish yellow, and a

handsome bird. There were Eagles here formerly, but I have seen none

for years. Also Ravens: they were larger and blacker than our common

Crow. Robins and Pheasants have come in since settlement. Several

flocks of Pheasants were raised around me, and I tried to save them, but

the hunters I think have killed them all off. Waterfowl used to be very

abundant. I think I have seen as many as ten thousand a day flying

north in the spring.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Will today's 2 miles be a one-day thing?


In April 1978 I started running slowly, moving from jumping rope to doing 1000 strides, then 2000 and then went to the Beach (Santa Monica) and the Palisades and quickly found that the Palisades were ideal. Park at 7th on San Vicente and you got 3/5 miles it you went to the Pier. Before the end of the month, there we were, me and Bruce Dern (a truly unpopulated Palisades in 1978), going. And after that I ran in Chicago, and in Japan and England and Austria and Italy and probably other places, and had 3 and a half mile routes in Delaware and than a 3 and a half mile route in Pennsylvania and was a regular, except for time out for surgeries (rotator cuff, ribs, &c.). So here in Morro Bay at first 2 and a half then for a long time 2 miles until the eye surgery in 2014 when I started walking. But I “finished” my last official book late last Tuesday 10 July 2018 and realized that I am now, at more than 82 and a half, retired. And for no reason other than being retired I began running between Duck Creek and the Boardwalk, a quarter of a mile, and today 2 miles. I tend to be obsessive, and habitual. We will see.

830 or so Wednesday Morning

Stopped running in 2014 after eye surgery. Retired last Tuesday, week ago, and started running a quarter of a mile a day during the walk, then yesterday half a mile. Today "Ran" 2 miles. Saw only Jan, and asked her not to laugh at me. She did not laugh. Tomorrow and the next day and week? 83 years old this Fall. Better do it now.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Monday Noon--Private Beach Regained


Video on the Internet--Dentist Lawrence Stewart discusses Oral Health

How do I put up a link?
I would love to get in touch with him because (if I have the right man) he is one of our few Stewart DNA cousins. I would love to know how far back he can trace his Stewarts. I only know back to late 1700s in Laurens District (later County) South Carolina.

Saturday, July 14, 2018

Here is the information on the run. It was real.

49th Annual Brian Waterbury Memorial Rock to Pier Run and Half Marathon

July 14, 2018
The date for the 2018 Brian Waterbury Memorial Rock to Pier Run and Half Marathon will be July 14, 2018.   Registration will begin April 30, 2018. 

Updated tide charts list list low tide at 7:03 am.  The races will begin at 7:15 am.
Online registration is open at:



2 Photos--Half Marathon This Morning. As throughout my academic career, I was the only one going the right way.



How negro slaves were accommodated in the new Dials Church in Laurens County SC 1860

 One of the founders of the church in 1808 was Gideon Thomason, son in law of John Stewart who made his will in 1806. And of the 13 founding members in 1808 two, Dinah Wolfe and Easter Dial, were "Negro Slaves."

They must have consulted Deuteronomy 27 for the shape of the ceiled partition, do you think?


New building in 1860 for Dials Methodist Church:

"16 ft. of the house cut off for negro slaves by a ceiled partition 3 ft. high, pulpit to be in the center of the house, joining the partition for the blacks. Pulpit to be of fashionable style. Altar to be 10 ft. in diameter, circular, raised 4 inches from the floor, banistered round 18 inches, high pulpit and altar to be painted mahogany color."

Friday, July 13, 2018

Cousin Wash Steward (the spelling he used) was one of the most romantic of us all.



Rebecca Jane Hinton had been widowed two times in 1862 when Cousin George Washington Steward came to see her—a widow with some unmarried children at home. There was a connection. Rebecca’s daughter had married Steward’s son Jeremiah in 1860.

When Wash Steward rode up to the Widow Whitaker’s home in Falls County, Texas he was blunt: He said, "Mrs. Whitaker, I've come down here to ask you to marry me.  Tonight I'm gonna leave my saddle bags here in the hall.  If I come down in the morning and they're still here, I'll know your answer is "No" and I'll leave.  If they've been put somewhere else, I'll know your answer is "Yes and I'll stay". 
In the morning the saddle bags had been moved. The new Mrs. Steward and her unmarried children moved over to Steward's Mill soon after that.  

The new Mrs. Steward did not live long after her third marriage. We know how long it took the widower to remarry because that friend John reproached him for remarrying so fast after her death. That’s when Cousin Wash said, "Well, John, she is just as dead now as she will ever be."
When people wonder how Nancy Ann Stewart Costner's descendants came to behave so smoothly in all their personal dealings we just say it's all because of what the family learned from her cousin Wash.



Mystery Rock--2 views



Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Morro Rock at 10 am

The young man with two beautiful dogs politely turned back when I pointed out that he had gone over into the no-dog area. I repaid his courtesy by taking 2 pictures of him and his dogs, just past the Saw-Horse pointing out where the State Park section starts.