At 06:43 PM 9/14/00, you wrote: >Hello List, > > I don't want anyone to think I am against our ancesters. I just >want to know the how and whys of their lifes, and anything to do with how >they lived.I come from 9 generations of Chester Co. dairy farmers. I know >they had a hard life. Somtimes I think our farmers, of all types are very >much over looked. I support them completely. With great truth do you speak!!! Any farmer, anywhere, has (and had) it rough. My Whites and Givens' families were farmers (who wasn't?) that left West Nottingham and Oxford just before the Revolutionary War for the fertile Piedmont of North Carolina. Before 1770, I'm told, 640 acres of land in Penn. would go for $300, in North Carolina, $30. Many Germans had come before them. In the late 1740s, they began to stream, down the "Old Wagon Road"--from Lancaster, York, Berks counties to the land "West of the Catawba." Catawba and Lincoln counties were their primary settlements. The Northern Irish and British settled a little west of them, in what is today Gaston and Rutherford counties. With the exception of the French & Indian War, which affected these lands west of the Catawba, betwen 1752 and 1764 travel was almost continuous until the Revolution. Many of these folks arrived in time to participate in the war. Whites and Givens' served at the Battle of Charleston, Cowpens, King's Mountain and the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. >I suppose if I had been taught about Native Americans and African Americans, >I may not have this deep desire, to know how are lifes, reflected each other. Those, of whom you speak, face almost insurmountable hurdles. I have discovered a Choctaw Hartshorne that lived till nearly 100, in former Indian Territory in Oklahoma. >When I found that I had a Lenape grandmother, I was even more curious about >her life.I wondered such things as, was she loved by my grandfather. Was she >a gift from some connection between her people the Lenapes, and this English >man. All kinds of things I wanted to know. I know most of you have probably >been doing geneology for many years. But only in the last couple of years has >it been so easy to find records. One of our Hartshorne brethren, Richard Hartshorn, a prominent Quaker fleeing England, settled in Monmouth Co., New Jersey. He initiated many friendships with the Lenape and he speaks kindly of them in many existing letters. There is still exists a deed with his signature next to that of several Lenape chiefs. >Not only that but, we now have the best oppurtuity in our lives to see what >Educators are teaching, and putting out there for all to see. Gone are the >days of only visiting our archive offices and having to buy a book ( if you >could find it) on history.Now we have history and records at the press of a >few buttons. We also have links to our Goverment, we never had before. They >have some of the best info out there. We get to see the old laws and copies >of treaties, and records we may never have had an oppurtnity to look at. I had the opportunity to see actual copies of the letters William Hartshorne's letters to George Washington. I have found photos of long distant cousins. I never fail to be amazed at what I can find. > I am >sorry if I was a bit hard on a past President, who was a slave holder. And >also on my remark, reguarding the Constitution. But the truth of the matter >is, these things are being taught in our Universitys today. My son is in the >third year of colledge, and he said, that it was White, land owning , men, >that were equal, when that statment about ALL MEN ARE EQUAL, in our >Constitution, was written. Well I guess that ticked me off a bit. How many >other non-land owning men, were brakeing their backs to build this land. My >grandfather, maybe yours? I know I cannot change history, but I feel if I >don't speak out, then I in my existance would only be a part of it and a >lie.To many men, have died and suffered to build what we have today. > > Mary Jane, Bright Star In researching my surname, Hartshorn, I discovered that there were few slave owners. I have been able to help black Hartshorns discover much more than they could on their own. These few slave owners, (all three that I have found), all released their slaves at a stated time after their deaths, and certainly upon the death of the wife which was in the 18th century, long before the Abolutionist movement began.. It is interesting to speculate what would have been. In spite of our weaknesses and past errors, we have become the model, in some eyes, of the perfect republic. I think, in no small part, much of the credit goes to those early pioneer ancestors that all of us descend from. Derick S. Hartshorn Asst. State Coordinator, NCGenWeb Page owner - Catawba Co. NCGenWeb page - Burke Co. NCGenWeb page - Hartshorn Family home page List owner - Catawba-West-L - NCBURKE-L - NCLINCOL-L - NCTRYON-L - HARTSHORN-L - WHITE-PA-NC-L