Announcements

10 Year Anniverary & New Releases Winners: Carrie Fancett Pagels' Butterfly Cottage - Melanie B, Dogwood Plantation - Patty H R, Janet Grunst's winner is Connie S., Denise Weimer's Winner is Kay M., Naomi Musch's winner is Chappy Debbie, Angela Couch - Kathleen Maher, Pegg Thomas Beverly D. M. & Gracie Y., Christy Distler - Kailey B., Shannon McNear - Marilyn R.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Drums Along the Mohawk, Reviewed by Pat Iacuzzi

Drums Along the Mohawk DVD Cover


Drums Along the Mohawk

            Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck—20th Century Fox 1939
            Director: John Ford
            Stars: Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert

For the next few months, I’d like to review movies based on historical eighteenth century colonial settings. One of the reasons I’ve chosen these films is that many of us (including myself!) have used them as a quick alternative for researching information on the period. I’ve found this could be a major mistake—and while we may find these stories entertaining, I strongly advise you to investigate the facts of certain historical events and characters through well-researched non-fictional works. Another reason I’ve chosen to review this film genre is because there are so few American historicals made in Hollywood today.
            Drums Along the Mohawk is a favorite of mine because I read the book, a work of fiction, by Walter D. Edmonds in middle school. Based on a major event in the valley (where I grew up) I was well-acquainted with locations and descendents of people mentioned in the book, like Schuyler, Petrie, Bellinger, and Helmer, to name a few. So I felt an instant connection with the story.
            Newly-weds Gil (Fonda) and Lana (Colbert) Martin move out to the rich and fertile land of  Mohawk Valley frontier, a “breadbasket” of the colonies, to build a home and begin their new life.
            Most of this story revolves around the couple as they try to establish a family and home while confronted by danger and unrest caused by Tories (British sympathizers) and their Iroquois Indian allies. Under the threat of constant attack, Gil and Lana and other settlers must survive by escaping to Fort Herkimer in German Flatts.
            A crisis arises when the men of the settlement are forced to  defend their homes against St. Leger’s army coming from the west. The colonists meet the British forces and Indians at Oriskany Creek, on August 6, 1777. Though the patriots, led by General Nicholas Herkimer, lose nearly eight hundred men, the largest loss in the American Revolution, they do win the battle, driving St. Leger back toward Canada. Herkimer, correctly portrayed in the film, is wounded and soon dies.
Another incident occurs when Gil Martin makes a run to save his wife and other settlers trapped in Fort Herkimer and low on ammunition. He is chased by a fleet-footed Mohawk scouting party, but manages to out-run them, arriving at Fort Dayton in time to get help and save the settlers.
This is another true incident, but the actual run was made by Adam Helmer, in September of 1778. He ran thirty miles ahead of an Iroquois and Tory raiding party led by Chief Joseph Brant, to warn the people of the valley to take shelter at Fort Dayton. Though Edmonds stayed true to the actual event, the character was changed for the movie version.      


My rating for this movie: 4 out of 5 stars. Enjoyable, “clean”, and for the most part well done as far as story line goes. Acting is good; strongly “patriotic” considering problems with Germany and looming World War.

GIVEAWAY: Carrie will be giving away a gently used copy of the DVD to a person who responds to this post PLUS attends the CQ Tea Party on Friday.

Have you ever seen this movie?  What did you think?
 

By: Pat Iacuzzi

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The Art of Colonial America

by Roseanna White

Today I thought I'd do something different (for me) and present a visual post. Below you'll find some paintings done in Colonial America...a few of figures you'll recognize, and a few that simply caught me eye. Like this one.

The above is Portrait of Deborah Hall, painted by William Williams in 1766.

This is a more familiar subject. Paul Revere was painted between 1768 and 1770 by John Singleton Copley. Of course, at this point is history, Revere was known mostly for his silver smithing...and not for any midnight rides.


Planter and his Wife, with a Servant is circa 1780, by Italian painter Agostino Brunias.

Portrait of a Woman by American painter John Feke, circa 1748.

Another by John Singlton Copley, this one done in England in 1778, when Copley had fled America to avoid the tension between his Whig and Tory patrons. This is Mrs. John Montresor.

And finally, I'll give you one of George Washington. There are so many to choose from, but I figured I'd go with one I used in my research of Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland. Painted by John Trumbull, this is his immortalization of Washington resigning his commission once the war was finally, officially over in 1783. In my story, Lark was one of those women up in the balcony. ;-) (In the painting, Martha Washington and other family members are pictured behind him. In reality, they were still in Virginia. Artistic license...)




Monday, September 22, 2014

Jenny Diver, The Queen of Pickpockets

Picture was found on – http://john-adcock.blogspot.com
      One of the characters in my post-Revolutionary War novel, entitled Laurel, is modeled after Jenny Diver, a notorious pickpocket.
      Jenny was born as Mary Young around 1700 in Ireland. She was the illegitimate daughter of a lady’s maid who, after being forced to leave her job, gave birth to Jenny in a brothel.
     At age 10, Jenny was taken in by a gentlewoman who sent her to school where she learned needlework and to read and write. Once she had mastered needlework, she moved to London to become a seamstress.
     There she met the leader of a gang of pickpockets and learned the skills of a street criminal so well she soon became their leader. Though she was caught several times, imprisoned in Newgate, and sent to the American colonies, she managed to return to London under assumed names.
     Eventually at the age of about 40, her luck ran out, and she was caught and put on trial for street robbery.
     The following description is from The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2, by Camden Pelham:
     "After conviction she appeared to have a due sense of the awful situation in which she was placed; and employing a great part of her time in devotion, she repented sincerely of the course of iniquity in which she had so long persisted. On the day preceding that of her execution, she sent for the woman who nursed her child, which was then about three years old, and saying that there was a person who would pay for its maintenance, she earnestly entreated that it might be carefully instructed in the duties of religion. On the following morning she appeared to be in a serene state of mind. The preparations in the press-yard for a moment shook her fortitude, but her spirits were soon again tolerably composed. She was conveyed to Tyburn in a mourning--coach, being attended by a clergyman, to whom she declared her firm belief in the principles of the Protestant Church. Her execution took place on the 18th March, 1740. She was hanged from London's Tyburn Tree. Her remains were, at her own desire, buried in St. Pancras churchyard."

Susan F. Craft is the author of the Revolutionary War romantic suspense, The Chamomile, which won the SIBA Okra Pick award. Laurel will be released January 12, 2015, by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. Susan is represented by Linda S. Glaz, Hartline Literary Agency.



Wednesday, September 17, 2014

British Prison Ships

When talking about the atrocities of the British during the Revolutionary War, many times, one of the worst abuses is never mentioned - the British Prison Ships.

It all started after the Battle of Brooklyn and the capture of Fort Washington by the British in the Fall of 1776. They had so many prisoners, over five thousand by the end of the year, that they didn't know what to do with them all. After filling every available space in the prisons and opening prisons in other buildings, they decided to house many of the prisoners of war on cattle ships and anchored them off the Hudson and East Rivers.

Often more than a thousand on each ship received poor provisions, bad water, and scant food rations. There was no medical care, and disease, starvation, and dysentery claimed the lives of most of the prisoners before the war was over. The overcrowding problem disappeared. The conditions were so bad that the prisoners set fire to one ship even though it meant many of them would burn to death before the fire was contained.

On July 4th, 1782, some of the prisoners tried to celebrate Independence Day by singing patriotic songs, The guards opened the hatch and hacked at them with knives and swords, wounding as many of them as they could reach. They locked the hatch up and left the wounded without food, water or medical attention until the next afternoon. In that time, 10 died of their wounds. Many other wounded survived the attack but were badly wounded.

General Washington complained of the conditions to British General Howe, but Howe couldn't be bothered to investigate and denied the charges. Howe was the same man who, after the execution of Nathan Hale, tore up the letter Hale was permitted to write to his mother before marching to the gallows.

It is estimated the tens of thousands of patriots died on these ships. But the British gave them a way out. Any prisoner who signed an oath of allegiance to Great Brittan and agreed to fight in the British Army was granted a full pardon. Even with the horrible conditions and almost certain death, very few took advantage of that offer.

Friday, September 12, 2014

GWYNN'S ISLAND ~ A Refuge For Two Royal Governors

There is an island in the Chesapeake Bay, 4 miles long and 3/4 miles wide that was the scene of one of the first naval battles of the Revolutionary War. It was the outpost that the last Royal Governor of Virginia, John Murray, the fourth Earl of Dunmore, used as his base of operations before fleeing the colonies forever.
 
Gwynn's Island
Gwynn’s Island is less than half a mile from the Virginia mainland, on the shores of the Piankatank River in what is now Mathew’s County, VA.

After Dunmore and his ships bombarded Norfolk in January of 1776, he retreated and occupied Portsmouth using it as an operating base for raiding for several months.
Lord Dunmore then sailed 40 miles up the Bay, along with 2,000 soldiers, marines, loyalist friends and hundreds of members of the Ethiopian Regiment. This regiment was made up of escaped slaves that he had promised freedom if they pledged their allegiance to the Crown. On May 27, 1776, with a fleet of nearly 100 ships, he invaded Gwynn’s Island. There, Dunmore and his men confiscated some of the islander’s homes, and plundered their businesses and other personal property. Now entrenched, the British built redoubts along the shore to fortify themselves. That summer, Gwynn’s Island would also briefly become the refuge of the last royal governor of Maryland, Robert Eden who fled Annapolis in his ship, HMS Fowey, before eventually departing for England.  

General Andrew Lewis was sent to dislodge Dunmore. He set up fortifications on the mainland at what is now known as Cricket Hill and mounted his guns.  Opening fire on Dunmore’s ships, he caused considerable damage. Overwhelmed, the last royal governor of Virginia was forced to evacuate the island and sailed for England.

Gwynn’s Island was originally established as a hunting ground by the Powhatan Indians. It was also explored by Captain John Smith. It was in this locale that Smith was stabbed by a stingray. He remained on the island while he recovered and named it Stingray Island. Coincidentally, the island is somewhat shaped like a stingray.

Sir Hugh Gwin, a Welshman and part of the Virginia Company of London, received a royal grant and settled the island to establish a plantation and trading post given its location in an expanding shipping lane in the Chesapeake Bay. He received additional land grants for property on the adjacent mainland. Gwin settled his family there in 1643. Soon additional families received land grants as well. Those names of the original settlers are still common in the surrounding area and the island’s population today.
The name Gwynn can be found around the island spelled numerous ways.
Gwynn's Island Museum

One Sunday afternoon, I went to Gwynn’s Island, to satisfy my curiosity. I wondered how the British could hope to remain out of harm’s way on an island so close to the Virginia shore. At that time, ferries were the means of travel to the island. Later, in 1939, a bridge only a third of a mile long was built to join the mainland to the island. With a protected harbor suitable for ship anchorage, Gwynn’s Island has a proud history of boat building. Its location also favors watermen involved with the seafood industry.


The Seabreeze Restaurant

The island has farmland, homes, a marina, restaurant, two post offices and a fascinating museum. There have been numerous  archaeological excavations around the island and some of their findings are housed at the museum. Apparently, the Powhatan Indians were not the first residents. 
mastodon molar

An immense mastodon upper third molar and tusk were found on the island. The museum also showcases many arrowheads and a copy of the Cinmar Blade, the oldest known man made tool found in the Americas. The original Cinmar Blade from the island is housed in the Smithsonian Museum.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Researching Saratoga


by Elaine Marie Cooper


Researching for a historical novel set in Colonial America is both daunting and fun. Daunting because you don’t want a knowledgeable reader saying, “Aha! That isn’t accurate!” Fun because seeing how the people lived so long ago is both amazing and, at times, frightening (think: Colonial medicine).


And then there are the moments that bring a pause with a sigh, when a researcher longs for the simpler times. When you envision dinner by candlelight—every night—a warm fireplace to warm your toes, and the faith cradled in prayer that seemed so much stronger then. God was looked upon as the Great Defender. Along with a musket and gunpowder. :)

There is something even more inspiring to me, personally, when I tread on the ground where my great grandfathers trod—literally. Such was the case last May when my husband and I visited Saratoga National Historic Park.  It was the location of the turning point in the American Revolution that led to the colonists winning freedom from England.


It was also the turning point in my lineage. One of the British soldiers escaped after the surrender. He met and married my fourth great grandmother in western Massachusetts where they settled and raised a family.

While visiting this National Monument, small seeds of a novel began growing in my mind. It slowly took root in the next days and weeks until the blooms of characters and dialogue were ready to burst from the fields in my head. I knew the novel was ready for harvest, and the writing has now begun.
 
View near Freeman's Farm
My focus on this current historical fiction is not my grandfather nor solely about the men who fought in the battle. It is mostly about the many people who were caught in its web of weariness, destruction and pain. There were not just soldiers who fought; there were women who nursed the wounded, washed the clothes, raised their children and tried to survive the war just like the men did.  There were surgeons, surgeon’s mates, cooks—an entire entourage of individuals functioning as a transient city run by a military general responsible for the success or failure of the mission.

There are several nonfiction titles that cover the details about this campaign. My favorite is simply entitled “Saratoga” by Richard Ketchum. The battle took place in September and October of 1777, and the British hoped to divide the New England colonies from the rest of Colonial America. The endeavor was a miserable failure, partly due to English pride. It was assumed that a band of farmers couldn’t possibly win a war against the best-trained army in the world.


There were some who did not underestimate the abilities of the Continental Army however. The much loved Baroness Riedesel , wife of the German general fighting with the British, was far more astute in her observations of the Americans:

“The thought of fighting for their country and for freedom made them braver than ever.”

So this author reads books, double-checks facts and sits at her laptop creating characters that I love or hate (or sometimes both). I hope and pray that my readers love them as well. Mostly I hope and pray that my writing is pleasing to the One who created the craft of writing and planted the passion for it in my heart.




Elaine Marie Cooper is the author of the Selah Award Winning Fields of the Fatherless. Her upcoming release, Bethany's Calendar, will be available in December.


Monday, September 8, 2014

The Southern Campaign of the Revolution: Myth and the Mists of Time


Before I continue my mini-series on colonial myths, I’d like to offer an overview of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution. How many know what that refers to? Unless you’re a serious American Revolution buff, chances are you don’t.
Kershaw-Cornwallis house, Camden, SC, British headquarters 1780-81
The history taught in schools is sketchy at best, and sometimes  riddled with myth. Where the Revolution is concerned, we’re familiar with the Boston Massacre, Lexington and Concord, the Declaration of Independence, Valley Forge, and Yorktown. What happened in between is fuzzy at best, or missing completely.

We also know individual legends like George Washington and the cherry tree, Betsy Ross, and Molly Pitcher. We’ve also heard of Benedict Arnold’s treachery, and we know the difference between Whig and Tory.

The average person is willing to let their knowledge of history be informed solely by grade-school textbooks, or films like The Patriot. Those of us who have an interest in blogs like this one, on the other hand, thirst to know more ... to get the facts right. :-)

I shared already how a common reenactor myth sparked a story idea, then sent me in search of solid provenance for said story.  As I got deeper into the research, it took my breath away at how little I knew of the Revolution as a whole.

Like the fact that the whole second half of the war took place in the southern colonies.
Siege of Charleston display at the Charleston Museum
The war had gone as far as it could in the northern colonies—the British held New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the major cities. The British cast their eye to the South—for the second time, since an attempt at taking Charleston had failed in 1776. (Much is made of that in Charleston colonial history, in fact, with barely a mention of later events.) This time the effort began with Savannah, Georgia, a lesser port than Charleston, but also an easier target. Savannah fell to the British in late 1779, and the British then turned their sights on Charleston, arguably the most important port and the richest city in the colonies. With a combined offensive on land and sea, the British caught Charleston in a pinch and held it under siege for nearly two long months, March-May 1780.

When the city fell, May 12, 1780, Lord Earl Cornwallis was left to implement the next stage of the "Southern strategy": push into the backcountry while holding Savannah and Charleston. A good part of the populace was believed to be loyalist, but not as many as the British counted on. Their initial plan to establish a network of outposts went smoothly enough at first, but then trouble flared in the backcountry of South Carolina in particular, around Camden, with what became known as the Presbyterian Rebellion. (The trouble was chiefly among the Scotch-Irish Protestant population.)

General Washington sent a force southward, headed by Horatio Gates, and in August 1780 the two armies met just north of Camden, in the wee hours of a moonlit night. Fighting broke out at dawn, and a hot battle turned into a complete rout of the Continental forces, many of them unseasoned militia. Gates was summarily fired after having fled ahead of his troops, and Continental commissary officer Nathanael Greene, a former Quaker, was assigned the task of regrouping the Continental forces and finding ways of making the militia function under fire.

Greene, it turned out, had a genius for logistics—literally, wearing out the British army. Rather than win the war by military might, or number of battles won, he employed a strategy of cutting off supply lines and making it untenable for the British to hold their various outposts.

The force that turned the tide of a war ...
The patriot militia and Continentals won a few of their battles, notably Kings Mountain in October 1780 (a huge surprise, for being mostly Overmountain men untrained in battle) and Cowpens in January 1781 (where Greene found a way to persuade the militia to stand in the face of fire). Others weren’t a dead loss but also not a clear-cut victory on either side, such as Hobkirk Hill in May 1780 (the second battle at Camden) and Eutaw Springs in September 1781. Some were a nightmarish, bloody ordeal on both sides, like Guilford Courthouse in March 1781. Cornwallis reached too far and subjected himself and his troops to an awful, bloody race through North Carolina in the spring of 1781, which after Guilford Courthouse led to the British army limping off to Wilmington, North Carolina, until a fresh press northward to Yorktown, Virginia. By the time October 1781 rolled around, all British troops had withdrawn from South Carolina outposts and were holed up in Charleston. The British cause in the colonies was pretty well finished, and Cornwallis had little choice at Yorktown but to surrender.

These two years comprised possibly the bloodiest and most brutal of the war. Greene is quoted as saying, “Nothing but blood and slaughter has prevailed among the Whigs and Tories, and their inveteracy against each other must, if it continues, depopulate this part of the country.” The Southern Campaign is, I believe, what earned the Revolution the nickname of America’s first civil war. Not much calm and reason here, but passion and fury and vengeance, neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother.

Links of interest:

North Carolina Digital History's War in the South
Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution

All photos mine.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

A Revolutionary War-era Cemetery Inspires an Author by Cynthia Howerter

The colonial historical fiction novel that I’m currently writing is set in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania during 1777. It was a frightening time for the settlers, many of whom were Scot-Irish Presbyterians, on what was then part of the American frontier. Deadly, lightning-fast raids conducted by British-allied Iroquois war parties swept across the rural county while General George Washington and the ragtag Continental Army of ordinary men did their best to battle the highly-trained professional British army in the east.


The British burned American homes
 during the Revolutionary War (photo by Cynthia Howerter)


The story of the people who tamed and defended Pennsylvania’s backcountry and fought in the Revolutionary War is dear to my heart—mostly because my ancestors were among them.    

After conducting eight months of intensive research about that era on the Pennsylvania frontier, I needed to create the characters for my novel—and desiring to make them realistic, I knew where to turn for inspiration. 

A previous visit to the old Warrior Run Presbyterian Church and burial ground in Northumberland County had impressed me with the number of church members who not only lived during the Revolutionary War period, but who served their fledgling country as soldiers in the war for independence. You may recall my July 2, 2014 Colonial Quills article ("The Warrior Run Presbyterian Church in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania") about this church.

Warrior Run Presbyterian Church (photo by Cynthia Howerter)


The first time I visited the historic church grounds, a well-maintained stone wall near the church caught my eye—and I knew I needed to investigate the enclosed cemetery more closely. 

View of the stone wall and enclosed Warrior Run burial ground (photo by Cynthia Howerter)



After parking my car underneath several ancient shade trees, I spotted an old iron gate.The metal latch was frozen in place from infrequent use, but I persevered until it released and allowed me to swing open the heavy gate and enter the peaceful enclosure.

The burial ground's iron gate (photo by Julie Kane Trometter)


Inside the wall was a neatly laid out cemetery, the final resting place of many of the area’s early Scot-Irish Presbyterian settlers.

Warrior Run burial ground's neatly laid out graves (photo by Cynthia Howerter)


I was intrigued by the numerous American flags held in place by metal markers and wondered which war the honored person had fought in. Walking past flag after flag, I was stunned by the number of men who had fought in the American Revolutionary War.

The peaceful resting place of American Patriots (photo by Julie Kane Trometter)


These were the very men who defended their communities from Iroquois war parties and battled the British so the American colonists would be able to govern themselves.

These men were not professionally trained soldiers. They were ordinary men—farmers, shopkeepers, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and friends—who did extraordinary feats to defeat the Iroquois and British Army—the most powerful Army on earth.

American boys and men of all ages fought for our right to live free (photo by Cynthia Howerter)


While some of these brave men traveled east and fought the British Army, others stayed home in Northumberland County and fought the British-allied Iroquois Indians whose goal was to destroy the homes and crops and lives of the settlers trying to eke out a living in the wilderness.

The men and women whose final resting place is inside the protective stone wall of the Warrior Run Presbyterian Church’s cemetery are the people whose lives inspired the characters in my colonial historical novel. In their honor, my characters bear a mixture of some of their first and last names. 

Let’s look at the gravestones of several American patriots and spend a quiet moment honoring those who put their lives on the line so that you and I can live a free life.

Patriot Thomas Wallace (photo by Julie Kane Trometter)



Patriot John Montgomery (photo by Julie Kane Trometter)



Patriot Thomas Barr (photo by Julie Kane Trometter)



Patriot John Caldwell (photo by Julie Kane Trometter)


A special and heartfelt thank you to my cousin and fellow DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) member, Julie Kane Trometter, for driving to the Warrior Run Presbyterian Cemetery and taking photographs for this article.

Photographs ©2014 Julie Kane Trometter 
Photographs ©2014 Cynthia Howerter 



Award-winning author Cynthia Howerter loves using her training in education, research, writing, and speaking to teach and inspire others about a time in America that was anything but boring. A member of the Daughters of the American revolution (DAR), Cynthia believes history should be alive and personal.

Visit Cynthia's website: Cynthia Howerter - all things historical 




Monday, September 1, 2014

Devout Colonial Dog



On this Labor Day, I bring you a story about an ancestor's dog, originally posted on my genealogy blog, Relatively Speaking.

During the late 18th century, my husband’s five times great-grandfather, Lovell Clark and his wife, Mary, resided in the Milford, Massachusetts area. They were steadfast members of the Congregational church and adorned their profession by exemplary lives. They were sober, upright, industrious, unostentatious people, and justly held in solid esteem. Mr. Clark was a very strict observer of the Sabbath, and a devoted attendant on public worship. Nothing but absolute necessity would prevent his regular attendance on the services of the sanctuary.

The Clark family had a most remarkable dog — scarcely less pious than the rest of the household, especially in attendance on public worship, and deportment during the services. He equalled his master in punctuality and regularity. As surely as Sunday came and the Congregational church bell rung, he gravely proceeded to church, and posted himself directly under the pulpit, which was then supported by small pillars. There he remained during the services, invariably rising on his feet, as the congregation did, for singing, prayer, and benediction, and the rest of the time quietly sitting on his haunches, or lying recumbent. As to the Universalist church bell, he took no notice of it whatever — having due aversion for the heresy to which it summoned the reprobate.

At length his master was tempted so far from the path of rectitude as to tire of the dog’s company in the house of God. So he shut him up in close quarters at home during the hours of divine service. But this was too severe a privation for that canine devotee, who frequently made his escape, and repaired to his position under the pulpit, from which nothing but dire restraint could withhold him.
But he was getting old, and his master hired an executioner to dispatch him outright. One Thursday the exploit was attempted in the barn where the dog lay asleep. A terrible blow, presumed to be effectual, was given him on the head, which wounded him badly, but failed even to stun him. He leaped in agony from the presence of his would-be destroyer, ran away from the premises, and was supposed to have died on his flight. Yet he survived ; and lo! the next Sunday appeared at ch. again, to the astonishment of the family.

Poor abused worshipper! His master now relented, and tried to flatter him home with him, but could induce him to come only a part of the way. Finally one of the boys got him home, nursed his aching head, and it was unanimously resolved that his life should be held sacred. After this he lived several year., and attended church every Sunday regularly without molestation. Somehow at last he was lost on a journey to Providence, R.I., and never more found. Surely such a dog, if animals have immortality, ought to have a place among the blessed.

The transmigrationists might plausibly claim him as a strong illustration of their doctrine. Anyhow, he was no heterodox dog.

Source: History of the town of Milford, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1881