It’s All in the Setting
March 18, 2008
Spring House: Book 1 in the Westward Sagas is featured at It Is All in the Setting.
Hope you enjoy reading more about the setting of my story.
A Tribute to Ancestors and Patriots
March 15, 2008
Two hundred and twenty seven years ago today, my ancestors’ farm was turned into a battlefield.
According to the National Park Service Web site Guilford Courthouse: A Pivotal Battle in the War for Independence:
The morning of March 15, 1781, was clear and cold. A light frost had disappeared under the first rays of the sun, but the ground underfoot was soft and spongy from long winter rains and snows. In the damp woods of what had been an isolated farming community in the Piedmont on a major east-west road through North Carolina, some 4,400 American troops, in various uniforms and country clothes, waited for battle.
This backwoods county seat of Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, was the site of a pivotal battle in the Revolutionary War’s decisive Southern Campaign. The engagement set the stage for the region’s liberation from enemy occupation and impelled British general Lord Charles Cornwall to take the ill-fated road that led him to final defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, seven months later.
My fourth great grandfather, Adam Mitchell, was one of the local militia in country clothes that day. As the battle spread, the nearby Mitchell Farm became part of the battlefield. Adam’s mother, wife, and children hid in the spring house, where Margaret Mitchell defied a British soldier to save the family pewter, which would have been made into bullets if captured.
Spring House: Book 1 in the Westward Sagas tells the whole story of the battle, Adam’s capture by the British, his mother’s negotiations for his release, young Robert being compelled to bury the dead, and the effects on the battle on the children.
Today, I just want to pay tribute to a famous battle on an infamous little farm in Guilford County – a little farm that is now part of the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park.
[tags]Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Revolutionary War[/tags]
A Tribute to Rebeckah Mitchell Smith
March 11, 2008
March is National Women’s History Month, and the topic of the next Carnival of Genealogy is A Tribute to Women. Last year, I recognized my fifth great grandmother Margaret Mitchell for her heroic actions during the Revolutionary War. Now it is time to recognize Margaret’s granddaughter, Rebeckah.
When I first mentioned Rebeckah, daughter of Adam and Elizabeth Mitchell, in Spring House, I spelled the name Rebecca, as several records indicated. However, as I described in What’s in a Name?, I later learned the correct spelling of the name from the family Bible. I’ve spelled it correctly in Adam’s Daughters, my current work-in-progress and the second book in the Westward Sagas. The third book will be titled Rebeckah and will tell my great great great grandmother’s story.
Rebeckah married Thomas W. Smith in Tennessee and in 1836 moved to Stephen F. Austin’s colony in the village of Bastrop, Texas. After Mirabeau Lamar chose Austin as the capital, Rebeckah and Thomas moved to the new city in July 1840. They bought two outlots in the town that had been laid out by Edmond Waller in 1839. Lots 17 and 18 were the furthest north lots in the city, just north of today’s Hancock Golf Course.
Shortly after the move to Austin, Thomas Smith was scalped and killed by Indians about three miles from home. Not long before that, his brother had been killed and his nephew Fayette Smith captured by Comanches.
Following the strong tradition of the women in the Mitchell Family, Rebeckah managed to keep the household together and assist her sister-in-law Angelina Smith in finding Fayette. It took the women almost three years, but they located Fayette, paid a ransom, and secured his return to Austin.
Living in the primitive conditions of the time required endurance and courage, and it took a special kind of woman to be able to support a family and rescue a loved one from captivity by Indians.
The more I research the lives of my ancestors in the early days of Austin, Texas, the more amazed I am by the strength of the women in my family.
[tags]Carnival of Genealogy, Austin, Rebeckah Mitchell Smith[/tags]
Best of the Internet for Genealogists
March 3, 2008
DearMyrtle, who has been online since 1984 and giving practical, down-to-earth advice for family historians since 1995, recognizes outstanding genealogy resources on the Internet each week.
She lists best blog, instruction, database site, scanned image site, podcast, video, commentary, innovation, most interesting thread, and ethnic studies. All good resources to check out … and I especially liked #9 on this week’s list.
[tags]DearMyrtle, genealogy[/tags]
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