By Charles H. Robinson, Great-grandson of Alexander McCracken I, and of Thomas Gillespie, Ancestors of the Families in America.  To be read at a reunion of the Families at Upper Sandusky, Ohio, August 10, 1923.

(this document is only partially transcribed)

RELATIVES and FRIENDS:

                When about the middle of July I received a letter from our cousin, Belle McCracken Cook, containing an earnest invitation to attend this pleasant reunion of the descendants of our first American ancestors, I feared that it would not be possible for me to be with you.

                The letter stated also that as I was the oldest living descendant of my Grandfather, Henry McCracken II, and my mother was his oldest child, it is more than likely I may have more knowledge or recollection of the family history and traditions than any other relative who may be present, and she hoped I would stir up the fountains of memory and tell the relatives and friends at this reunion anything of interest along these lines, which recollections might supply.

                Perhaps I may have inherited some of the loyalty to clan which made our far-away ancestors in Bonny Scotland promptly respond to the call of the “fiery cross” when it was rushed from valley to hamlet, commanding each clansman to arm and march at once to the rallying place, for I felt that I must be with you and so arranged my affairs; but whether my recollections shall prove of interest remains to be seen.

                I had much rather give you an off-hand talk than read a paper, but I found two reasons against simply talking.  I might undertake to make my speech immortal by making it eternal; second: Cousin Belle suggested that perhaps it might be desired to have the whole or a part of what I shall tell you reproduced in a printed booklet for distribution to relatives who may desire to have such recollections preserved.

                When I began to make notes for this paper I feared it must be a short one, but one memory prompted another and soon the question was, what can I leave out, rather than what can I find to put in:  for when these old memories were once stirred up they flowed in a torrent from my pencil point, and much more bubbled to the surface than a decent length to this paper will allow me to include.

                Our common ancestor, Alexander I-the first in American-was born in the North of Ireland-County Tyrone or Armagh, I am not certain, as he had lived in both-in 1763 (I think 1746; see Bible R.S.K) and died in Cambridge, Ohio September 9^th 1851, at the age of 104 years, 4 months and 15 days-a remarkable longevity, but, as I recollect, he met his death by accident.  He was living at the home of his son, William, was in good health and in active possession of his physical and mental faculties.  There were two doors side by side on the porch, one opening into the kitchen, the other to the cellar stairs.  In the dusk he opened the wrong door and stepped off, falling down the stairs and resulting in his death.

                A few years ago the Chicago Tribune reprinted an ancient map of Ireland, showing on the proper location names of the principal land-holding families of Ireland at the time of its original publication.  On this map, in County Tyrone a little west of the north end of Lough Neagh, appeared the name of McCracken.  I sent the map to my daughter in England, who contemplates a trip to Ireland, that she may find the ancient family location of her Scotch-Irish ancestors.  My Aunt Sarah Smith, who once made a visit to Ireland, told me she found McCrackens in this same neighbourhood, and was told that the McCracken coat of arms, when they had one, was a hand grasping a dagger which dripped great drops, supposed to be blood.  I told her I was much disappointed, for I had expected it to be a pig rampant in a field of potatoes.  (This beloved Aunt had gone to Ireland in search of the mythical fortune well known to be held in the Court of Chancery or Bank of England, and waiting to be claimed by every Irish family in this country.)  There seems to have been some foundation for the belief that the heirs of Margaret Marshall, who was our first American ancestress, could, had they moved early enough, have recovered considerable property; but vested rights, long adverse possession on the part of others, and the statute of limitations, had at that late date barred recovery.  Whatever there may have been of the Marshall fortune, the publication of the map I have mentioned is an assurance that the Irish McCrackens were not of the class which kept a pig in the parlour and had all their upstairs bedrooms on the ground floor, but were, at least, landed proprietors.

                Our Ancestor, Alexander McCracken I, was a mechanic-a master stonemason-and as told me by Aunt Sarah, had apprentices and employed journeymen.  He was a contractor and builder of fine homes for the landed gentry.  When he was about 25 or 26 he built a house for Henry Marshall, a landed proprietor of considerable wealth (tradition says he was a bishop of the Church of England).  The building requires some months, and our ancestor falls in love with Margaret, a beautiful daughter of the bishop and an only child.  My mother, who knew her before age had dimmed the lines of her beauty, told me her Grandmother was one of the handsomest women she ever saw.  Evidently our ancestor had an Irishman’s eye for beauty in women-a trait of character, I suggest, inherited by all his male descendants in an eminent degree-as far as I have known them.  Also among his descendants, when there were girls in the family, faithful copies of the beautiful Margaret have frequently appeared.

                Well, Margaret reciprocated the love of Alex, and they became engaged (plighted their troth is I believe the Irish way of expressing it) but this was without the knowledge or consent of her father, who, as soon as he discovered the condition of affairs, promptly confined his daughter to her room-incommunicado, as far as the young mechanic was concerned.  But, as you know, “love laughs at locksmiths”, likewise at cruel parents.  Margaret had  a maid who loved her mistress and became the post office department for the young couple; an elopement was planned and, what interests us the most, it was carried out.  One dark, stormy night our ancestor, Alex, accompanied by some of is workmen, came beneath Margaret’s bedroom window; they held and stretched a “winnowing sheet”, which was a piece of stout tow-linen several feet square, used to wave up and down and cause a breeze to blow the chaff from wheat which had been threshed with flails.  (This might have happened not so very long ago, for I used a flail many a day when a boy in Ohio).  The men held this sheet taut-Margaret jumped into it, and they started on foot for the village a few miles away where the minister was waiting for them.  It was necessary to cross a stream called “Blackwater”; there was no bridge and the river was in flood.  There were stepping stones, however, over which the water was but a foot or two deep;  Alex took Margaret on his back, pick-a-back, carried her safely over and, without waiting for dry clothes, went straight to the parsonage.

                It was fortunate that the Blackwater was too high for fording for the absence of Margaret was soon discovered by her father, who ordered out his carriage and gave pursuit, but was compelled to make a detour of several miles to a bridge and did not reach the village until the minister had said;  “Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Amen.”

                May I pause for a moment while we each silently consider where we would now be had the Blackwater not been too high for fording at that critical time in our history?

                Although they remained in Ireland for a year or more after their marriage, it does not appear that the Marshall family ever became reconciled to it and about 1784 our ancestor, Alex, and his wife came to America.  They settled in South-eastern Pennsylvania-the Columbia, York, and Gettysburg region- to which many Scottish and Irish Presbyterians were coming about that time.  They remained there many years, and our ancestor supported his large and growing family by working at his trade, I assume.

                Alexander and Margaret were the parents of thirteen children:  the copy of the family record  sent by Cousin Belle mentions but twelve, but the copy I had and which I sent to my daughter in England mentioned a son, names James, one of a pair of twins, who died in infancy.

                When I was between five and six years old we moved from Hartford, Guernsey County, to East Plainfield, Coschocton County, passing through Cambridge and remaining there for a few days on account of storms, and I then saw our ancestor, Alexander.  As I recall, he was small, rather than large, and although then past the century mark was lively and active.  He took me on his knee and talked to me.  It was the first time I had heard an Irish brogue, and I was much interested.  I think I saw him once more a year or two later when we visited Cambridge.  He was then living with his son, William, though perhaps it was the home of Dr. Clark, whose wife was his daughter, but they all lived in the same house.

                The first child of Alex and Margaret was born before they left Ireland, was named Henry, and died on shipboard on their way to this country.

                Their second, Sarah McHenry, was born in Pennsylvania in 1785.  She grew to womanhood there and married to Dr. McHenry.  They finally removed to Lima, Ohio.  In 1881, after the death of both, I stopped off between trains and called at their old home where some of the family were then living.  I do not know the date of her death nor her age at the time it occurred.

                The third child was Lillie McCracken Reid, who was born November 20^th, 1786 and died in Cambridge, Ohio, at the age of 97.  I well remember my mother’s Aunt Lillie and her family.  I think she was a widow when I first recollect her, but I knew her son John and two daughters-Margaret, I think, and Dorcas.  I have somewhat painful recollections of Dorcas, who was my school teacher for two or three years while we live in Cambridge.  My desk-mate was John, a son of Alexander McCracken II.  We were both very mischievous and perhaps we presumed a little upon our relationship to the teacher, and we engaged in many pranks; but Dorcas was impartial, and this was an educational period when the rod and ruler were among the principal text books.  Our teacher could wield a switch well, and knew several ways of spanking with a ruler.  John and I wore short jackets.  One day when I had been caught in some mischief, Dorcas drew a switch from her desk and said:  “Charles, come here”.  I had a slate without a frame, and I whispered to John to slip it up my back while I hesitated about starting forward.  I buttoned my jacket over it and went bravely to the teacher’s desk.  I rather enjoyed the first few strokes on the state, but when the switch caught me under the arm, unexpectedly, I gave a muscular start which broke the lower button off my jacket and the slate fell to the floor.  She dropped the switch, picked up a large ruler, turned me over her knee, and I still have painful recollections of the next few minutes.  Cousin Dorcas believed in corporal punishment, so discredited in these degenerate days, and she practiced it.  She was like the old coloured woman who, being asked how she had raised a large family of boys who had all turned out well, replied: “I raised ‘em wid a barrel stave, an’ I raised ‘em frequent.”  Cousin Dorcas “raised me frequent” and I rather think I deserved all I got.

                The fourth child of our American ancestor was William, who was born July 23, 1786, and died at Cambridge at the age of 84.  Uncle William was another of the first generation born in America.  My father was his partner in a general store in Cambridge, (McCracken and Robinson) for a few years in the early fifties, and I saw him daily.  I can only recall three of his children-Alexander, Margaret, (I think , who married Dr. Stephen Clark), and another who married Mathew Thompson.  If there were any others, I do not remember them.  Alexander’s wife was a cousin of my father and daughter of John McFarren of Cambridge.  His children were Will, who died in his young manhood; John, about my own age, who died, I think, in the army during the Civil War.  I saw him at Camp Chase in 1862, and corresponded with him until his death; Ella McCracken Taylor, who still lives at Cambridge; and James who is living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The last time I saw James was in 1907 when we met accidentally on Broadway in New York City, but I have had letters from him semi-occasionally.  For many years I have known but little of the Clark and Thompson families, but in 1882 I visited Dr. Will Clark when he lived in Omaha, Nebraska.  I have heard recently that he is still living in Los Angeles, California.  Alexander died in Cambridge a few years ago, within a few weeks of his hundredth birthday.

                Robert, the fifth child of Alexander I and Margaret Marshall McCracken, was born April 5^th 1790 and died at the age of 95.  I frequently heard my mother speak of her uncle Robert and his then whereabouts, but my memory is too dim to recall any details.  I have a vague recollection that he lived in Kansas and that he had a son William who had a large farm near McCracken Station in that state.  Some years ago my Aunt Sarah Smith sent me a copy of a paper published in the county, which gave a long account of a barbecue and picnic given by William to the whole county.  I have forgotten the number  of steers and sheep that were barbecued, and the thousand or more at which the picnickers estimated.  Part of the account, as I remember, was in very poor rhyme.  I think this is the William who once went to New York City on his way to Ireland to accept that mythical fortune.  He was induced to go by a very kind stranger who had looked into the aforesaid fortune and was to accompany him.  The kind stranger was arrested in New York on some criminal charge, and William returned to Kansas a poorer and wiser man.  Aunt Sarah Smith, when visiting me in Iowa, told me of the episode, but I cannot recall the details.  It should be known, however, to her daughter, Mary Stahl.

                The sixth child of the couple who came from Ireland was Henry McCracken II (named for the first-born who died on ship-board).  This Henry was my Grandfather, and my middle name is for him.  He was born July 17^th 1803 (probably July 20 or 30 1793 R.S.K.) and died on his farm at Little York near Monmouth, Illinois, at the age of 45.  My mother told me he had been in a severe snowstorm when out buying cattle and came home with pneumonia, dying in a few days.  He was buried in the churchyard at Little York.  His first wife was Harriet Louise Gillespie, daughter of Thomas Gillespie of Crawford County, Ohio.  (I am not quite sure as to her name, but think my Aunt Harriet Louise Patterson was named for her.)  I think this first wife died before they left Xenia, Ohio, and that he was married to Ann Law before they went to Illinois.  I do not remember that there were any children by the second wife; had there been my mother would have mentioned them.  She seldom spoke of her stepmother, and I think, had little love for her.  Grandfather Henry had considerable landed property in Illinois at the time of his death, but as I recall, the estate was badly or perhaps fraudently handled by the administrator, and the heirs finally received but a small sum each.  After her father’s death my mother brought the children to relatives in Ohio, coming by steamboat from Keokuk, Iowa, to Cincinnati. 

                My mother had the old family Bible with the record of the births and deaths of Grandfather Henry’s family.  On my father’s death my brother James took it, and it should be in the hands of some one of his children.  These dates I cannot now recall.  My mother, Cynthiann-she spelled it as a single word-was the oldest.  At the age of 16 she married Dr. Hugh Bryson Bruce, one of the first physicians of Monmouth, Illinois.  He lived but a few years, and their one child died in infancy before her return to Ohio.  In connection with his practice, Dr. Bruce had a small drug store which my mother attended when he was absent visiting his patients.  The Sac and Fox tribe of Indians then lived near Monmouth, and when I was a small boy my mother used to tell me of their coming to the drugstore, and giving stories of pony or squaw “heap sick”, to persuade her to let them have whiskey, which she never did.  Once when she questioned an Indian closely as to what it was to be used for, he said it was for himself “to make drunk come”. 

                Sarah Jane McCracken was the second child of our Grandfather Henry, and on her return from Illinois she went to her grandfather Alex or her Uncle William- I am uncertain which- in Cambridge, where she was raised and married Patterson Smith.  They had four children, Willis and Walter, who died before reaching maturity, and Maria and Mary.  After the death of Uncle Pat, aunt took the family to Leavenworth, Kansas, where I visited her in 1883.  Later, she went to the Western part of the State where they (she and Mary both) homesteaded some land and Mary taught school for some years prior to her marriage to Joe A. Stahl ; and Maria also married, but I have forgotten the name of her husband, and I do not remember Aunt’s age at the time of her death.  Mary and her husband lived for a number of years in Kansas City, Missouri, where I once made them a short visit, but have understood they are now in Los Angeles, California.

                The third child of Grandfather Henry II was Anna, who on their return from Illinois, went to her Grandfather Thomas Gillespie or into the family of one of his children.  She married Patterson Marshall of Bucyrus, Ohio, who was at one time Probate Judge of Crawford County, as I recollect.  I saw her a few times when she was on a visit at Cambridge with her sons James and John-I think the daughter Ida was born later.  I also visited her in 1883 when she lived at Chanute, Kansas.  The two boys were then in the railroad employ at Kansas City.  Soon after this they all removed to Portland, Oregon, where Aunt Anna died a number of years ago.  She wire me while I was living in Iowa that she was going East on a visit and would pass through Iowa on a certain date and time.  I met her at a railroad junction and rode with her to Davenport.  Ida died unmarried.  James died a few years ago at Seattle, Washington and I know nothing of his family except that I have heard that his son (James, perhaps) is an actor-movie and vaudeville-and has the stage name of Joe Kelso.  During the Civil War when my regiment was under General Burnside and was at Covington, Kentucky, starting on the East Tennessee campaign, my father wrote me that Uncle Pat had been put in command of the steamboat Aurora, in the service of the army.   Some weeks later my regiment was lying on the levy at Cairo, Illinois awaiting transportation to Chicago, where we were ordered to overawe a projected draft riot.  I saw the Aurora at the landing, went on board and had a visit with Uncle.  He was loading ammunition for a trip to Nashville with supplies for our army.  A few days later I read in a paper that the Aurora had been fired upon by a Confederate battery, setting off the ammunition and that Captain Marshall and several of her crew had been killed.  As he was a civilian employe in the service and not mustered in as a soldier, Aunt got no pension under existing law, but I assisted her to secure one under a special act of Congress.

                The fourth child of our Grandfather Henry II was Henry Marshall McCracken.  On his father’s death he went to his uncle William at Cambridge.  After his school days he went into the store of Clark & Rainey as a clerk, and remained there until several years after his marriage to Elizabeth Carlisle.  After her father’s death they removed to a farm inherited by her near Winchester, Gurnsey {Guernsey} County, where they lived until his death in 1894, and where Aunt Lizzie and the family resided until her death, many years later, at the age of 80.  Uncle Henry was a successful farmer and a highly respected citizen of Gurnsey {Guernsey} County until his death, and both himself and wife were valued and consistent members of the Presbyterian church at Washington, Ohio, for many years.  Their son, the Rev. Charles J. McCracken, was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Mt. Sterling, Ohio, at the time of his mother’s death.  His brothers are Harry M., Wm. Rainey and John, all of whom live in Gurnsey {Guernsey} County.  There were two daughters, Ida, who died unmarried, and Mrs. E. L. Stockdale of Illinois.

                During the winter and spring of 1858, when I was 15, I was a student at the Miller Academy, Washington, Ohio, but a few miles from Uncle Henry McCracken’s home.  I frequently went out to his farm on Saturdays and came in with the family to church on Sunday mornings.  Sometimes when there were short vacations I stayed several days.  On these occasions and also when they lived in Cambridge, Uncle Henry told me many things concerning his Grandfather, Alexander I.  He said his Grandfather and Uncle William were both very strict in regard to the observance of the Sabbath.  They lived fully up to the requirements of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms in regard to the Sabbath Day; all bathing, washing, shaving and most of the cooking must be done on Saturday; no walks or visiting on the day were permitted, and a boy was not allowed to have his ball, marbles, or other playthings in his pockets on Sunday, lest he be tempted to touch or even think of them to the peril of his soul.  While they probably would not have hung the cat on Monday for killing a rat on Sunday, the whole atmosphere of the day was one of Purtanical strictness, and my own boyhood was spent in a similar atmosphere.  Usually the whole family attend church-the Associate Reformed Presbyterian or “Seceders” as it was then often called.  Usually his Grandfather, Alexander I, was also an attender, but one Sunday when he was not well he stayed at home with Uncle Henry for company.  Grandfather must have forgotten what day it was, for he taught Uncle Henry when to darn a stocking without the darn showing.  As I remember Uncle Henry when I was a small boy, he was quite a joker.  He used to put me through a catechism of his own in regard to my knowledge of the Bible.  He would say:  “Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet; who was Japhet’s father?”  Then he would laugh when I could not give the correct answer.  There were many other puzzle questions in his catechism, which I will not take the space to recount.  He was the only one of Mother’s brothers whom I knew well, and I loved him very dearly.  For some years I corresponded with him a little, but it finally was dropped.

                The next of Grandfather McCracken’s children was Jesse Mitchel McCracken, father and grandfather of a number who are present.  These can give a better account than I can, and I hope they will be called upon to do so.  My recollection of my Uncle Jesse commences when he was a boy of 16 or 17 and was living in the family of his cousin, Alexander McCracken II at Cambridge, and I was learning the tanner trade at his tannery.  About the time we went to Cambridge (I think 1850 or 51) he became a hero to me, by joining a company which went to California to hunt for gold.  They went from New York or some eastern port on a sailing vessel around Cape Horn.  I remember the first letter my Mother received from him after they landed at San Francisco, in which he told of storms encountered at sea which drove them hundreds of miles out of their course, and the rations of the unfortunate passengers were reduced to a wormy biscuit or two and a cup of water per day.  Horrid, but interesting to a boy!

                The youngest of my Grandfather Henry McCracken’s children was Harriet Louisa.  She was born on January 25^th 1835, was married to William Patterson of Bucyrus on March 25^th 1856.  They had two daughters who died in infancy, and Uncle Will died November 2^nd, 1897.  She died in August 1922.  At the time of her marriage her husband was telegraph operator and station agent for the Pennsylvania R.R. at Bucyrus.  During the Civil War Uncle Will served as Superintendent of Military Telegraphs under General Thomas, and was very intimate with Andrew Carnaigie, who was Superintendent of an adjoining district.  At that time a domestic trouble had separated Uncle and Auntie and she was making her own living as an assistant to a photographer in Columbus, Ohio.  When I was in Camp Chase in 1862 I called on her in Columbus, and have a couple of tintypes of myself which she made.  After the war they re-married and lived happily until his death.  They removed to Muncie, Indiana, where he was again a telegraph operator and a respected citizen.  He left her a home and a small amount of life insurance, but when I again came in touch with her she was living at Winona Lake, Indiana, owned a couple of small cottages which she rented at that resort.  This was I think in 1904 or 1905, when I stopped off at Winona for a short visit.  I think I did this a couple of times, and then lost sight of her for a few years.  After I came to Chicago, in 1909, I found that she was living with the family of a Presbyterian minister at LaGrange, near Chicago, and I frequently went there on Sundays.  Later they removed to Logansport, Indiana and after a year or so there the minister and family removed west, and Auntie returned to Winona Lake.  She had made bad investments and lost most of her property, but still had the cottages at Winona.  These she deeded to an annuity association which had been organized by the good preachers at Winona.  The cottages were valued at $2,500 and they were to pay her seven percent annually during her life.  They apparently knew nothing of the life insurance business and never paid an annuity, and the business was put in the hands of a receiver and but a small percentage of their investments could be returned to the prospective annuitants.  I took up the matter and concluded that the promoters of the scheme, some of whom were wealthy, could be held individually, and I threatened a suit for the recovery of her money.  They became alarmed, and some of the offered to individually pay her $100.00 a year, in monthly instalments of $8.33 during her life, she to assign her claim against the association to them.  I advised her to accept the proposition and she did so and the annuity was paid until her death.  This was her sole income.  I had no home to offer her, and she went to board with a friend at Winona Lake.  Assisted to some extent by my sister Ella’s son, Captain R. R. Ross of Brookly, New York, I paid her board for some years and furnished money for her clothing and other expenses.  Uncle Will had been a 32^nd degree Mason, and when the Indian Masonic Home was completed at Franklin, Ind., she was asked by the Grand Secretary of Indiana to become a guest.  She hesitated and wrote to me to know if it was a public charity.  I told her no:  it was like life insurance for which her husband had paid dues for many years, and I advised her to go.  She did so and had a comfortable home until her death.  I still supplied her with some money for clothing and once bought her black silk for a dress.  I had bought it in Paris, and she told me she wished to be buried in it, but I do not know that this was done.  I visited her at the Home several times.  She wished to be buried at Muncie beside her husband, and I arranged for this with the Masonic Lodge at Muncie, of which he had been a member.  I also promised to attend the funeral and see that her wishes were carried out, and the superintendent of the Home promised to wire me of any dangerous illness or her sudden death.  This he failed to do, and she had been dead for ten days before I learned of it in a letter from Cousin Clara Morton; but later the Secretary of the Lodge at Muncie wrote that they had caused her body to be sent to Muncie, and she had been buried beside her husband.

                After Mother brought the children to Ohio, Aunt Hattie lived for a few years with a relative at Cambridge, but when in 1842 my Mother and Father were married, she came to live with them and remained until 1848 when she went to live with her sister, Sarah Smith, at Cambridge to have the advantage of better schools, and lived with her until her marriage.  She was at our home when I was born, and was my first nurse and playmate.  She always insisted that I was the smallest baby ever born, and said I weighed but one pound and a half, but I told her it was a vile slander, for my father said I been a hundred percent better for I weighed three pounds.  When we lived at Cambridge Auntie was a nearly grown school-girl.  She was something of a tomboy, and could outrun, out-jump, or lick any boy on the playground, and bat a ball as well as Babe Ruth.  A year or so before her marriage she taught our summer school at East Plainfield.  I was one of her worst pupils and she “raised me frequent”; not with a barrel stave but an old-fashioned switch.  Once when I had been particularly mischievous she sent me out to cut a switch with which to warm my jacket.  I brought in a long one which would have delighted the heart of a teacher of the period, but I had cut a spiral through the bark and partly through the wood from end to end.  She made me take off my coat, elevated the switch and brought it down.  Of course it flew all over the room.  There was great applause by the pupils, in which I joined, but soon laughed from the other side of my mouth for my ears were soundly boxed.  During the Fourth of July vacation of her school, she planned a horseback trip to Cambridge.  A young Presbyterian minister, pastor of our church, had relatives in Washington, near Cambridge, and he was going to see them at the same time and I was to go with him and visit Grandfather Robinson.  We started in a buggy and Auntie on the horse.  After we had gone a mile or two the parson asked me if I liked to ride a horse, and learning that I loved to ride horses he told Auntie that I was anxious to ride her horse, and suggested that she would please me much if she would ride with him and let me have the horse.  So she rode with the preacher, and I occupied the sidesaddle to Cambridge.  I was far ahead most of the time, and many years later she told me the minister proposed to her on the way.  She respectfully declined, and he soon after went to Tacoma, Washington, as a missionary to the Puyallup Indians.

                I have said but little of my Mother and her immediate family, and may be pardoned for going back to that subject again.  After my Mother brought the family back from Illinois she lived for a few years with her aunt Cynthia, for whom she was named.  Her aunt was the second wife of Dr. Willis Merriman, of Bucyrus, and there was one or more children by the first wife.  One of these was a son, Ed Merriman.  When I was  boy of nine or ten, Ed was married to a girl in Bucyrus, and my Great Grandfather, Thoams Gillespie, who will be mentioned later, drove the young couple in his large family carriage across the country to Cambridge on what was then called “a weddin’ trip”, passing through East Plainfield on the way and staying at my Father’s for a couple of days.  This was the only time after I was old enough to remember, that I ever saw our ancestor Thomas Gillespie.  I was a boy of perhaps ten or eleven, and as I remember him, he was tall and dignified looking, smooth-faced and with a heavy head of white hair.  He was blind in one eye, wore a frock-coat, tall silk hat and carried a gold-headed cane.  I stood rather in awe of him, and do not think that I walked with him much.  While Ed Merriman was not a blood relative, he was a family connection, and I should tell you more of that marriage.  After a few years the couple separated and were divorced; the wife secured a position as a writer for one of the Cincinnati newspapers, and was by them sent to Paris as European Correspondent.  There she met Pere Hyacinth, a Roman Catholic priest formerly of Montreal, Canada, who had repudiated some the doctrines of his church, especially the celibacy of the clergy.  He lectured a while in America and then went to France where he organized an independent Catholic church, and to show his faith by his works he married the divorced wife of Ed Merriman, and they lived happily together until his death a few years ago.

Transcribed by Linda Kaye McCracken June 2004