Following up on the Forsythes, my current favorite story is one in Virginia where a James McCormick was serving under a Capt. Paterson. Like many of us (present company included) he had a mouth that got him in trouble. He debutes in "Summer Soldiers, A Survey & Index of Revolutionary War Courts-Martial" for "Striking Colonel Putnam's horse and saying at the same time, "Damn you, who's there, clear the road;" leaving the camp without orders: thirty-nine lashes." Apparently he ran off. Apparently he was retrieved by Colonel Sargent's Regiment for a man with the same name was found guilty of desertion and mutiny and sentenced to death by hanging. However then a Capt. DeWitt of Colonel Humphries' Regiment liberated James McCormick, a soldier in Colonel Sargent's Regiment, from the main guard, who was under sentence of death: acquitted because no crime had been lodged against the prisoner on the captain's list. I am not sure this is the same guy but seems to be.....in any case just remember when on guard duty to not strike the Colonel's horse while yelling: Damn you, who's there, clear the road". A big mistake!!!! Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net

Linda Merle wrote: > Following up on the Forsythes, my current favorite story > is one in Virginia where a James McCormick was serving > under a Capt. Paterson. Dehra Parker/Chichester/Kerr is gong to be a bit like that. A understand that her mother was a gambling addict, and the man she married was addicted to morphine, something he picked up when treated with morphine for malaria while in the British Army. So she was, by today's standards, co-addictive. As a politician, she seems to have been secretive in the extreme about her personal life. She left no personal papers, and one would have had to be mad to operate in the mad-house that was Ulster in the 20s to 60s of last century anyhow. Story goes that she was born at Dehra Dun, northern India (and named for the location). How does one get to do that when one's parents are based in America and one has an American childhood? A long honeymoon? Returning to America via India? That might be okay today, but in the 1880s all I can say is "dream on"! It's a pound to a penny that what few details are available about her background are designed to obfuscate her actual background. All her father's papers are said to have been lost in the great fire of Chicago in 1871, which seems overly convenient to me. So I just hope the story about Annie Forsyth's rellies living on the Brandywine River at the time fo the American War of Independence isn't another invention. Too convenient that the location chosen was that of the largest, and one of the best known, engagements of the war, one which the British won. But having said all that, there's only one way to find out, I suppose. About the first thing I downloaded from the Rootweb PACHESTER list archives was a request for info on a William Forsyth who came to Chester County about 1739 from Londonderry, IRE, with his two brothers James and John. They are said to have gone IRE>PA>KY>IL. Chicago is in IL, and the story goes that she was a Chicago girl when she married James Kerr Fisher, so his going back to Co Derry would have been a homecoming of sorts, back to roots for Annie Forsyth. But robertsmith@comcast.net has not so far answered my email request, so it's square one with that lot Charlie