I love free webinars. They are a great way to pick up new tips and tricks for better genealogical researching. Female ancestors can be one of the toughest challenges in family history research. Check out this great free webinar that might provide a great tip to work through these often challenging ancestors with the use of secret societies.
Source: FREE WEBINAR Decoding Secret Societies: Finding Your Female Fraternal Ancestors
Well it’s Monday so it must be time for a Matriarch Monday post. I have been researching more into the lines of my paternal 3rd Great Grandmothers, sisters Harriet Cornell Eckler and Cornelia Cornell Ashley.
While researching their lines I discovered the tale of a woman by the name of Cassandra Burnell Southwick. Cassandra Burnell Southwick was the 5th Great Grandmother of the Cornell sisters and my 10th Great Grandmother twice over.
Cassandra Burnell was born in England in 1598. She married a man by the name of Lawrence Southwick and together with their children they immigrated to the American colonies in 1638. They set up home in Salem, Massachusetts where Lawrence was one of the first glass makers in the new world.
Most people recognize the name Salem, Massachusetts for its dark history involving witch trials in the late 1600’s but Salem has a dark and tragic history of crazed persecution that dates back even farther than the witch trials. Long before Rev Cotton Mather’s name became famous another dark man terrorized the people of Salem. His name was John Endecott, he was the Governor of Massachusetts, and his victims were the Quakers.
The Puritans came to America to escape religious persecution but that did not create compassion for others suffering the same fate. The Puritans were known for harsh treatment of anyone who did not follow the strict doctrine of their faith. The Quakers were a frequent target of Puritan ire.
During the year 1657 Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick were living in Salem and were found to be associating with Quaker preachers, a crime in Puritan Massachusetts. Lawrence and Cassandra were both arrested. Lawrence was released but Cassandra was imprisoned for 7 weeks and fined for possessing a paper written by the visitors, a heretical act under Puritan law.
In 1658 the Southwicks were once again found to be breaking Puritan law for being Quakers. Lawrence, Cassandra, and adult son (my ancestor) Josiah were all arrested and sentenced to serve 20 weeks in jail. The family’s personal property was confiscated to pay for the fines levied on them and their younger children still at home were left penniless with no livestock or goods to sustain them.
The following year, 1659, the youngest children of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, a daughter named Provided and son Daniel, were ordered sold into slavery in Barbados to pay outstanding fines related to the families Quaker activities. The children were hauled up to the auction block but no ship captain would agree to transport them forcing Gov. Endecott to rescind that part of his punishment. The tale of Endecott attempting to sell the children into slavery led to the Ballad of Cassandra Southwick written by John Greenleaf Whittier which details the experience from the perspective of daughter Provided.
In 1660, Endecott managed to finally get rid of his problem with the Southwick family of Quakers. After the failed attempt to sell the Southwick children into slavery he had the family banished. Lawrence and Cassandra were both in their 60’s at the time and their physical condition was no doubt much deteriorated after their long ordeal which involved being whipped and starved during their imprisonment. The family sought refuge on Shelter Island in New York where Lawrence and Cassandra died in the spring of 1660.
Inscription on the memorial placed in 1884 at the Sylvester Manor Burial Ground on Shelter Island, New York.
“LAWRENCE AND CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK
Despoiled, imprisoned, starved, whipped, banished,
Who fled here to die.”
By John Greenleaf Whittier
To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise today,
From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away;
Yes, he who cooled the furnace around the faithful three,
And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His handmaid free!
Last night I saw the sunset melt though my prison bars,
Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars;
In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night-time,
My grated casement whitened with autumn’s early rime.
Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by;
Star after star looked palely in and sank adown the sky;
No sound amid night’s stillness, save that which seemed to be
The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea;
All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the morrow
The ruler said the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow,
Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold,
Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold!
Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there¯the shrinking and the shame;
And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came,
‘Why sit’st thou thus forlornly,’ the wicked murmur said,
‘Damp walls thy bower beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed?
‘Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and sweet,
Seen in thy father’s dwelling, hoard in the pleasant street?
Where be the youths whose glances, the summer Sabbath through,
Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father’s pew?
‘Why sit’st thou here, Cassandra? Bethink thee with what mirth
Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm, dark hearth;
How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads white and fair,
On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair.
‘Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for thee kind words are spoken,
Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laughing boys are broken;
No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid,
For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hunters braid.
‘O weak, deluded maiden!¯by crazy fancies led,
With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread;
To leave a wholesome worship, and teaching pure and sound,
And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and sackcloth-bound,
‘And scoffers of the priesthood, who mock at things divine,
Who rail against thy pulpit, and holy bread and wine;
Bore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the pillory lame,
Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in their shame.
‘And what a fate awaits thee!¯a sadly toiling slave,
Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave!
Think of thy woman’s nature, subdued in hopeless thrall,
The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all!’
Oh, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feecle Nature’s fears
Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears,
I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer
To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed wert there!
I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi’s call,
And how from Peter’s sleeping limbs the prison shackles fell,
Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an Angel’s robe of white,
And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight.
Bless the Lord for all his mercies!¯for the peace and love I felt,
Like the dew of Hermon’s holy hill, upon my spirit melt;
When ‘Get behind me, Satan! ‘ was the language of my heart,
And I felt the Evil Tempter with all his doubts depart.
Slow broke the gray cold morning; again the sunshine fell,
Flocked with the shade of bar and grate within my lonely cell;
The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and upward from the street
Came careless laugh and idle word, and tread of passing feet.
At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was open cast,
And slowly at the sheriff’s side, up the long street I passed;
I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but dared not see,
How, from every door and window, the people gazed on me.
And doubt and fear fell on me, shame burned upon my cheek,
Swam earth and sky around me, my trembling limbs grew weak;
‘Oh Lord, support thy handmaid, and from her soul cast out
The fear of men, which brings a snare, the weakness and the doubt.
Then the dreary shadows scattered, like a cloud in morning’s breeze,
And a low deep voice within me seemed whispering words like these:
‘Though thy earth be as the iron, and thy heaven a brazen wall,
Trust still His loving-kindness whose power is over all.’
We paused at length, where at my feet the sunlit waters broke
On glaring roach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock;
The merchant-ships lay idle there, in hard clear lines on high,
Treeing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky.
And there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped and grave and cold,
And grim and stout sea-captains with faces bronzed and old,
And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel clerk at hand,
Sat dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land.
And poisoning with his evil words the ruler’s ready ear,
The priest leaned over his saddle, with laugh and scoff and jeer;
It stirred my soul, and from my lips the soul of silence broke,
As if through woman’s weakness a warning spirit spoke.
I cried ‘The Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of the meek,
Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler of the weak!
Go light the cold, dark hearth-stones,¯go turn the prison lock
Of the poor hearts though hast hunted, thou wolf amid the flock!’
Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a deeper red
O’er Rawson’s wine-empurpled cheek the flash of anger spread;
‘Good people, ‘ quoth the white-lipped priest, ‘heed not her words so wild,
Her Master speaks within her¯ the Devil owns his child!’
But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff read
That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made,
Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring
No bonded knee of worship, nor gainful offering.
Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning, said¯
‘Wish of ye, worthy seamen, will take this Quaker maid?
On the Isle of fair Barbados, or on Virginia’s shore
You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or Moor!’
Grim and silent stood the captains; and when again he cried,
‘Speak out my worthy seamen!’ no voice, no sign replied;
But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met my ear,¯
‘God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear!’
A weight seemed lifted from my heart, a pitying friend was nigh,
I felt it in his hard, rough hand, and saw it in his eye;
And when again the sheriff spoke, that voice, so kind to me,
Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the sea.
‘Pile my ship with bars of silver, pack with coins of Spanish gold
From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold,
By the living God that made me! I would sooner in your bay
Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away!’
‘Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their cruel laws!’
Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people’s just applause.
‘Like the herdsmen of Tekoa, In Israel of old,
Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold ?’
I looked on haughty Endicott; with weapon half-way drawn,
Swept around the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and scorn;
Fiercely he drew his bridle-rain, and turned in silence back,
And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track.
Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bitterness of soul,
Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his parchment-roll.
‘Good friends,’ he said, ‘since both have fled, the ruler and the priest
Judge ye, if from their further work I be not well released.’
Loud was the cheer which, full and clear, swept round the silent bay,
As, with kind words and kinder looks, he bade me go my way;
For he who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen,
And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men.
Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed changed beneath my eye,
A holier wonder round no rose the blue walls of the sky,
A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream and woodland lay,
And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay.
Thanksgiving to the Lord of life! To him all praises be,
Who from the hands of evil men hath set his handmaid free;
All praise to Him before whose power the mighty are afraid,
Who take the crafty in the snare which for the poor is laid!
Sing, O my soul, rejoicingly, on evening’s twilight calm
Uplift the loud thanksgiving, pour forth the grateful psalm;
Let all dear hearts with me rejoice, as did the saints of old,
When of the Lord’s good angel the rescued Peter told.
And weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty men of wrong,
The lord shall smite the proud, and lay His hand upon the strong.
Woe to the wicked rulers in his avenging hour!
Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven and devour!
But let the humble ones arise, the poor in heart be glad,
And let the mourning ones again with robes of praise be clad,
For he who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the stormy wave,
And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to save!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_and_Cassandra_Southwick
https://archive.org/stream/essexinstitutehiv16esse#page/2/mode/2up
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=6783049&PIpi=48313012
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Cassandra_Southwick_(poem)
Lucy was born on Feb 6, 1897 in Greenbrier County, West Virginia to James C. Brown and Laura Hanshew. She was the 3rd of 4 children. When Lucy was young her parents divorced. Records are scarce on Lucy’s childhood but family stories indicate she was “adopted” out to a couple to be raised after her parents separated.
Lucy found love with a man named Archie Jamison. The couple married in 1914 in Nicholas County, West Virginia. Four children, Steward, Orelo, Archie, and Juanita, were born to the couple between 1915 and 1921. The 1920 census shows the family living in Richwood, Nicholas County, West Virginia and Archie is reported as being a cook in a restaurant.
During August of 1921 the town of Richwood experienced a massive fire which destroyed blocks of the town. According to accounts of the event it appears the fire stopped blocks from where the young family of six lived during the period.
In 1926 Lucy wed for the second time to Dallas Finley Shuck in Nicholas County, West Virginia. Over the next decade the couple would have 6 children, Dallas, Mary, Elden, Wilson, Laura, and Jeannetta, bringing their family to size to 12. Her husband, known as Finley, supported the family working in the coal mines.
Adversity was not behind her as Lucy settled into her life as a coal miner’s wife. Life was a daily struggle in the poverty stricken mining communities. Even opportunity was a double edged sword when three of her sons enlisted in the military and all three were sent to the Korean War at the same time.
At some point Lucy began to develop dementia. I can only wonder if its onset helped lead to one occasion where Lucy became the star of the local news. She was 78 years old when while out squirrel hunting with her husband she became lost in the woods in October of 1975. Rescue parties were formed, and searchers looked for her all night long before she was found the next morning. Apparently, between her faithful hounds and trusty shotgun she was unfazed by her ordeal and planned to continue hunting. Lucy yet again faced adversity and somehow managed to handle a situation that would have devastated a lesser person.
Lucy and Finley celebrated over 55 years of marriage before Finley passed. They had buried 3 children by his death in 1982. By the time he passed she was suffering pretty heavily with dementia.
1984 saw the death of another of Lucy’s children when Steward died.
I have hazy personal memories of when Uncle Steward died. As was still the custom in that area at the time, they had the funeral at home. A downstairs room was used to set up the body and afterwards it would be buried in the family cemetery across the road.
I don’t know if Lucy was ever truly aware of the fact that it was her son they had set up in the parlor. I remember conversations of her being upset telling people to get the body out of the parlor before Finley got home from work. Finley was two years dead and that body was her son. Perhaps dementia was fates way of sparing her even more grief in life.
Lucy lived out the final years of her life in the house of her daughter, Mary, in the same little area known as Hell’s Half Acre where she had lived a majority of her life. She died in 1989. Her funeral was held in the White Oak Methodist Church on the same road she had lived and she is buried in the P.A. Shuck Cemetery next to Finley.
If fathers are the foundation on which a family is built then it’s the mothers that are the backbone which keep it standing. History is full of strong matriarchs who kept the home fires burning through adversity and hardships. Though they are frequently lost to history, matriarchs play a huge part in any families’ heritage.
Virginia Osborn, also known as Jennie, or Mother Brown late in life, was likely born on Oct 15, 1839 in what was at the time Greenbrier County, Virginia[1]
Jennie Osborn is pictured here, sitting in the middle wearing black, surrounded by some of her female descendants
.
Jennie grew up in a time of turmoil for the young American county, and Greenbrier County sits on the dividing line between southern sympathizers who felt compassion for the southern cause and northern unionist who felt loyalty to the fledgling country.
The year of 1860 found young Jennie married to a man by the name of David Fox[2] but the union was not one fated to stand the test of time
War broke out in the United States in 1861. Virginia was a state of divided loyalties which led to the formation of West Virginia in 1863. Greenbrier became part of the new state but many of its native sons felt the call to join their southern brothers and quickly joined the Confederate forces.
David Fox marched off to war[3], leaving a young bride and child behind. David Fox was ultimately taken prisoner and held at Johnson’s Island before being returned to the south in a prisoner exchange. After being returned to the south he was sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi where he died on Dec. 31, 1862[4].
Jennie Osborn Fox was left a widow with a young child to care for in an area that was still in the midst of a bloody civil war. Jennie did what many women of her day did under her circumstances, she remarried. As luck would have it Tinsley Brown was a neighbor man nearly twice her age that had also recently lost his spouse and was trying to raise kids on his own. Tinsley Brown and Jennie Fox married on Mar 3, 1864.[5]
Life would once again throw a curve ball at Jennie only 18 year later when once again she was left a widow when Tinsley died on May 26, 1882.[6] The couple had 9 children in their blended family; the youngest was only 2 when his father died.
Jennie was 42 the second time she found herself a widow. Tinsley left her with a farm and she continued to live on and work the land he left her as she raised her family. She never remarried and continued farming while raising her children, and later several grandchildren until she was in her nineties.
According to Jennie’s obituary she was 105 when she died on Jan 31, 1937.[7] Historic documents place her age more accurately at 97 at the time of her death.
During her life Jennie had a lot of amazing and adverse times.
Virginia Jane “Jennie” Osborn Fox Brown was my Great-great-great grandmother.
[1] (Ancestry.com, US Federal Census Year: 1850; Census Place: District 18, Greenbrier, Virginia; Roll: M432_947; Page: 311B; Image: 309 , 2009)
[2] (Ancestry.com, West Virginia, Marriages Index, 1785-1971, 2011)
[3] (Ancestry.com, U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865, 2011)
[4] (Findagrave.com, 2006 http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13180392&ref=acom)
[5] (Ancestry.com, Dodd, Jordan, Liahona Research, comp. Virginia Marriages, 1851-1929 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. )
[6] (Ancestry.com. West Virginia, Deaths Index, 1853-1973 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data:”West Virginia Deaths, 1853–1970.” Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah. From originals housed in county courthouses throughout West Virginia. “Death Records.”2011)
[7] (Ancestry.com. West Virginia, Deaths Index, 1853-1973 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data:”West Virginia Deaths, 1853–1970.” Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah. From originals housed in county courthouses throughout West Virginia. “Death Records.”2011)
Dusty Roots & Forgotten Treasures 