Favorite Ancestor Feedback We continue with reader submissions to the questions "Who is your favorite ancestor? Why?" If you would like to contribute information on your favorite ancestor, please send your story in 300 words or less to Lynn Betlock at <A HREF="mailto:enews@nehgs.org"> enews@nehgs.org</A>. Thank you to all past and future contributors! Two family witches By Jean Owens of Landsdale, Pennsylvania Picking a favorite ancestor is a very tall order, so instead I have picked a favorite — but long and convoluted — story that I am sure has happened in many families with New England ancestors who arrived early and fanned out to settle New England and other parts of the country. To begin with in this season of Halloween I have chosen two family witches, Susanna North Martin and Mary Perkins Bradbury. Susanna was an ancestor on my grandfather's side of the family and Mary on my grandmother's. Actually, our direct descent is through sisters of these women. On my grandmother's side of the family we also count amongst our ancestors the Colbys, Sargents, and Bagleys. It is interesting that Orlando Bagley was the constable who arrested Susanna North Martin. The Sargents had accused her of witchcraft earlier in her life and been involved in a lawsuit over the matter. It seems likely that all of these people were acquainted with one another. Mary Perkins was more fortunate than Susanna in that she survived the ordeal by being rescued by family and friends and died in 1700 at the ripe old age of 85. Eventually, people moved on. The North descendents went to Rhode Island and the name turned into Gardner. The Gardners moved to Pownal, Vermont, and eventually Otsego County, New York, where Margaret Marilla Gardner married Lewis D. Smith; that was my grandfather's side. The people on my grandmother's side followed a different route. They migrated to New Hampshire and Maine and eventually Oneida County, New York, and areas farther to the north. Names changed again and eventually Mary Edna Morse was born in Oneida County. She also had relatives in Otsego County and eventually married George Smith. It took from the 1600s until 1910 to unite in marriage people who had actually started out in the same place in this country. I have always been fascinated by history, but being able to relate it to my own family makes it come alive. I'm sure that over time I will discover more of the interesting details of my family's background. I can't wait!!! He "contributed to the advancement of the neighborhood" By Claire C. Louden of Scottsdale, Arizona My favorite ancestor is Abraham Hazelton Read (1821–1892), born in Canada to Lotan and Elvira (Hutchins) Read. Fourth in a family of ten children, he came with his parents to Crawford County, Pennsylvania, in 1835. Here he helped clear land, purchased land, married the Scotch-Irish Lenora Allen, then with his wife and three children, left for Wisconsin in 1857. After spending three years in Grant County, he joined a small wagon train, forded the Mississippi River at Dubuque, Iowa, and continued on to Linn County, Missouri, where he is listed as a "laborer" in the 1860 census with possessions valued at $270. In 1862, he purchased eighty acres of land for $6.25 per acre. Finding wealthy slave-holding neighbors to the south, and conditions in this border state most unsettling, he took his family to Illinois, a free state, and remained there until after the close of the Civil War. Upon his return to Missouri, the original land purchase was sold for $11.25 an acre, and about 200 acres was acquired one and a half miles west. This turned out to be adjacent to the village of Forker and later, on the railroad — an ideal location. For a short time, A.H. Read owned the general store, helped build the community meeting house, and contributed to the advancement of the neighborhood. A structure, used as a home for the family, was erected along with a deep well for family and livestock. Sheds and other necessary buildings were built in due time. In 1877, the site for a new dwelling house was chosen about 400 feet east of the original structure, which, in turn became the barn. (Yankee ingenuity!) The new house had shutters on the windows, a one-room basement, and eave-spouting, which piped water in a cistern, furnishing water for household use. Drinking water still had to be carried from the deep well, some distance from the house. The youngest son became a victim of a drowning accident at age seventeen. The oldest son and the daughter were each given eighty acres of land, free and clear, when they were about twenty-one years of age. The son expanded his holdings, raised a large family, and now sixth-generation descendants live in the vicinity of this ancestor's foresight, thrift and hours of labor. The "being difficult" gene By Sharri Whiting of Amsterdam, Netherlands My late father was an irascible man, something that was whispered to "run in the family." When I began reading the records of the town of Dedham, [Massachusetts], I found evidence of that irascibility in the late 1630s, when my favorite ancestor, Nathaniel Whiting, grumbled that his mill at Mother Brook was being threatened by competition. Old Nathaniel turned up several times in those archives, always with his prickly personality showing through. He must have passed the "being difficult" gene down over three centuries to my father who passed it to . . . . NEHGS Contact Information We strongly encourage you to email this newsletter to others who might be interested. To subscribe, please visit <A HREF="http://rd.bcentral.com/?ID=317597&s=56351935"> www.newenglandancestors.org/articles/research/?page_id=659&attrib1=1& seq_num=6</A>. To view the website of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, please visit <A HREF="http://rd.bcentral.com/?ID=317605&s=56351935">www.newenglandancestors.org/</A>. To become a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, please visit <A HREF="http://rd.bcentral.com/?ID=317594&s=56351935">www.newenglandancestors.org/membership/main/</A>. If you have questions, comment or suggestions about the enewsletter, please contact Lynn Betlock at <A HREF="mailto:enews@nehgs.org">enews@nehgs.org</A>.