Landed in Coke, Texas

 I was not sure what I would write about for this week's 52 Ancestors 2022 prompt, "Landed".  I was thinking of the obvious choices - where my family first landed or settled in America.  I took a short trip this past weekend with my husband and parents to meet up with some distant cousins to visit and go cemetery hunting.  I came home with so much more than photos of tombstones and warm fuzzy feelings of family reunion. 

One of my dad's favorite cousins, Clara, gave us a tour of cemetery locations, the old Lloyd school house, and "the old home-place".  If there was a rainbow in the sky, it would have landed at the creek bank of "the old home-place".  We pulled onto the property on a dirt/gravel road that stopped us at a double locked Texas-gate. (I have to include that part because my dad was sure to point this out to me and my cousin.)  Hopes were internally dashed about getting a closer view and finding the steps that were supposed to be the only remains of the home that once held so many of our ancestors. 

Leave it to the Queen of Winnsboro, our cousin, who knew the lady who owned the property now and knew the people leasing it.  After a semi-quick phone call, we had the go ahead to climb the Texas-gate and make the hike down the remaining road and look around.  I do not claim my age, but we two cousins with adult and college children were so excited to heave over the top rail and make our way down to our ancestral home - we were jogging!  

I am so glad we did!  There were no steps or posts remaining, but the home must have been somewhere in the center of a clearing that had some pecan trees around and a little behind it with the creek not too far away.  It is winter, so the trees were bare, but still so beautiful and huge.  I wondered how big they were in 1853.  

There is a barn there now near where an old home, that is not the original home, stands now. It is not the original barn, but it does look pretty in the photos. 

The creek had a fence around it, and the bridge is long gone, so we were not able to cross to go to the other side and view more of the original 300 acres.  I wondered how far away the second one room house was from the original spot.  I could only imagine.  The creek we were near was the place where the generations of kids played, where homes got water, and where our saints were baptized.  

Near the creek, and throughout the soft ground that we trudged through, we found the remains of small melons. Possibly sugar baby watermelons.  They were the remains of last summer and early fall and were like balloons that had popped open for the seeds to generate another crop for next season.  We wondered if our family had planted them, but likely not. It was a good visual though to imagine the area we were in being a kitchen garden, and then over a ways being a crop growing of something to sell. 

We decided not to take the gravel road back, but to go through the property "on the hypotenuse" as my cousin said.  She is a smart one.  I could not imagine walking that distance plus more to the main road, that may have been a pathway at the time, and then on to civilization. I hope they had a horse and a cart. We made it back, which made the rest of the group happy as they had waited in their cars. We went on to the next stop, and I was sorry to leave. 

I really felt so great standing in that spot where my great grandfather was born and grew up. He left home at least by the time he was 20 to help his mother's sister who was a widower, in a nearby town. I am sure he knew how to help her farm growing up on 300 acres of his family farm.  I regret that our generation and those after us won't have this legacy to enjoy and maintain it's many memories. I am very thankful that I got to see it and take some pictures of it to enjoy.  Maybe one day future generations will look at those and appreciate it, and maybe regret it a little as well. 

Photos by Laura Ríchard, 2/19/2022

Lloyds on the Map

 This week's #52ancestors family history writing prompt is "Maps".  After photos, maps are some of my favorite things to add to my families' stories.  I especially enjoy finding maps from the time period that are often colorful and full of interesting details.  I have found stabile cadaster maps of my family's villages in what was then Bohemia (see my Holy Family blog for that story).  

My cousin and I have been on a research journey with our Lloyd ancestors over the past several months. One of our like minded discussions one day was about taking a map and putting pins in to show where our ancestors lived.  It's scary how similarly we think :)   I actually had started plotting out locations for two other families I am researching a few years ago.  I found a N.G. quality map of the USA and had it mounted on a large piece of foam core.  I found some small pins that came in different colored heads to use that are perfect.  

The hard part to maps is that over time, places change, towns are no longer there.  Trying to find the exact location of Calms Neck, Virginia on my map was not easy, for example.  It was, and I think still is, a small town or village and finding where the pin should be placed was difficult.  I needed my phone camera on zoom to really get fairly accurate placement.  I think Baltimore is still in the same spot (ha ha). 

Baltimore was the point of entry for John Lloyd (Esq) as far as I know.  I am glad to have a starting point that was a major location that is easily identifiable and can locate on the map.  As you can see here, this area is close to so many important locations in American history. 

I have plotted the first known locations of John Lloyd and his family. 1. Baltimore, point of entry; 2. Talbot, MD where John Lloyd was documented to have lived; 3. Orange, VA (I am unsure if this is supposed to be Orange, VA or Orange County, VA?), where John married Prudence Emery; 4. Calms Neck, VA, where John and Prudence seemed to have settled down and remained.  I had a jar of crafty tags that I am thinking of using. Excuse my handwritten notes on this tag. I decided half way through that this will need to be typed up to look nice and just basically scribbled down the information I located so far. 

My plan is to have the pins connected with a string.  The string on this map is hard to see. I think I will use some thicker crafty thread that is white with a colorful thread twisted in it. They make a variety of colors and it will be fun to coordinate the colored pins with the colored thread.  This is an example of the thread I am thinking of:

I think that this work will make comparing locations of all my families easier to observe. I don't know how many times I have been knee deep in records and find a location for one family that sounds familiar for another of my families. This way, will also help me research the location for information as well as movement patterns of families. I have noticed some movement patterns in a few families associated with the Lloyds. These families moved from one location to one or more other locations, and eventually a marriage between the families would occur.  I also like researching the history of different places and understanding what happened there over time, and during the time my ancestors lived there.  

Calms Neck, Virginia

This is how magnified I had to get to find the best spot to pin this location. 

Benjamin Lloyd and His Primitive Hymnal and His Grandson's Writings

 

I do not know very much about my 4th Great Uncle, other than he was the 5th son and older brother to my Joseph Walter Lloyd. I will have to find out more about him. In reading the Lloyd history by Oliver Weaver, he mentioned this hymnal put together by Benjamin. I had no idea it would be identified over time as a piece of museum quality folk music history. 

This is an article from the Folklore section of the Encyclopedia of Alabama online - Click Here

Information from the article states, "Benjamin Lloyd, a successful businessman from Chambers County and later a public official in Greenville, was a prominent Primitive Baptist elder. He saw the need for a hymn book with selections that expressed—or at least did not conflict with—the beliefs of the new denomination. Thus he selected 535 hymns from other popular hymn books and published the words, without musical notation, in palm-sized books under the title The Primitive Hymns: Spiritual Songs and Sacred Poems, Regularly Selected, Classified and Set in Order and Adapted to Social Singing and All Occasions of Divine Worship."

Something else popped up in a search for Lloyd on this website, Benjamin's grandson, Francis Bartow Lloyd was a politician and author of published articles about life at that time. He wrote under a false name - Rufus Sanders. He was shot and murdered by a man who, after a judgement from the state supreme court was found not guilty! Whoa! 

"Francis Bartow Lloyd (1861-1897) is remembered primarily for Sketches of Country Life: Humor, Wisdom, and Pathos from the "Sage of Rocky Creek," a posthumous collection of his syndicated newspaper columns depicting rural life and featuring his alter-ego Rufus Sanders. Lloyd was a politician, a talented newspaperman, and an accomplished orator who spoke all over the South. Lloyd was murdered at age 36 in a case that drew media attention from across the state."

Through the efforts of his wife and others, his Rufus articles were published as a collection. Another book I need to add to my Family history library!  Here is the article on Francis - Click Here

Curious: Week 4 topic from 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (by Amy Johnson Crow)

 I think if you are a family historian or genealogist, you are naturally curious and, more than likely, your curiosity is never satisfied.  One found bit of information leads to another. One fact leads to needing to know about another fact. And on and on. 

In my research, I have a page that has a T chart down the entire page with headings: 

What I Know: | What I Want to Know:

I've used this chart over the past 25+ years and have kept most of them for that long.  As I started researching, I wrote down all of the facts I had, and what I needed to find out to answer questions or make connections.  I often wrote on my chart of curiosities as I found new information that prompted new questions.  It is really interesting and satisfying to see what I wrote about not knowing years ago just starting out, and the list of information found over time.  Genealogy is a slow but rewarding process that is as much or as little as you make it. 

Here is my Lloyd Family T chart, updated for 2022:

My great grandfather's name is H. Frazier -- What does that H mean??  Why is it there?

We have the ""Dear Jammy" letter that tells us how John Lloyd came to America after his wife and child both died.  Others have a case for John that claims he was sentenced to 14 years and transported. ------Why did John Lloyd come to America?  Was he truly indentured for stealing the ring and tools? or was it   something else that brought him to America?   Where was he prior to his marriage to Prudence?                 

The Lloyds lived in historical settings like the Shenandoah Valley, Baltimore, Henry, Pittsylvania and Orange Co. Virginia. One source says a relative sold land to G. Washington. --------------------------------Did our Lloyds cross paths with George Washington?  or any other Patriots?                                                  

We have some records from the Revolutionary War -- Can we establish verification to apply for the DAR? 

These are just a few things I am curious about right now.  I am ready to soak into the Revolutionary times and understand how my Lloyd family interacted, lived, worked, and survived during that time.  My dear 3rd Lloyd cousin helped me, and motivated me, to apply to the DAR under another relative on my Lloyd branch - Govin Gordon.  I do not know much about him either, other than the documentation that he is my ancestor and he served in the Revolution, but I am going to be making my chart of curiosities on him and the Gordon family in 2022 as well!  

God Bless America!

Laura

#52Ancestors2022

"Foundations"

 There is a great blog where you are given a prompt once a week for a year, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, by Amy Johnson Crow.  This is something that I have wanted to do for a long time, but never have. I am going to give it a good try this year to do at least half.  I have 4 family history blogs that I will be working on, so I may need some grace. 

The first prompt is "Foundations".  Aside from some hymns about the foundation of Jesus, I think of our 'founding fathers' of our family.  Our line of Lloyds is an interesting one and I can find inspiration in their life stories. A cousin of mine on the Lloyd side recently completed all of the paperwork for the DAR application, and was accepted, for an ancestor on the Gary branch of the Lloyd tree.  When I look at all of our ancestors, this distinction could really be applied to so many ancestors. I think it is cool that one of my 'lines' that have continued from pre-Revolutionary time to the present is represented.  I really appreciate my cousin for all her hard work and for tagging me in!  Now I can pay that forward to my nieces and others. 

This is a Roll and Muster of Capt. Sam Hendry's Company of the 2nd Jersey Regiment, Commanded by Col. Elias Dayton for March 1782.  John Lloyd is listed as a Private (#25).

John Lloyd in 1st New Jersey Regiment 1779

This is a great copy of the Pay Roll of Colo. Matthias Ogden's comp. of New Jersey Regiment, Commanded by (P. Colol?). Taken for the month of February 1779.  It shows the names and rank of the soldier, (comment?) of Pay, how long for - month and day, pay per month in dollars, amount of payment, and notes on causualtities.  John Lloyd is listed beside #5 - and shows he was paid $2.10.

The 1st New Jersey Regiment took part in many important and infamous events in the Revolutionary war.  A brief history of Col. Mathias Ogden can be found here:  http://www.myrevolutionarywar.com/american-units/nj-01/

Another great source is a digital book, History of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties, New Jersey,  that discusses the New Jersey regiments, how they were formed and information on their battles:  http://books.google.com/books?id=AdMwAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=new+jersey+regiment+1779+commanded+by+col.+matthias+ogden&source=bl&ots=KF-2PObB_o&sig=2lTn_6e2TN55cwE5utZGoVrtIzo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=td3hT6aRCIKS9gTUvbyGCA&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=new%20jersey%20regiment%201779%20commanded%20by%20col.%20matthias%20ogden&f=false


The general timeline for the Regiment is shown from the given link as:

• October 9, 1775 Congress authorizes raising of two battalions from New Jersey.
• November 10, 1775 First six companies are raised. First NJ ordered to Hudson Highlands.
• January, 1776 Detachment from 1NJ Rgt assists in arresting Tories on Long Island.
• May 3, 1776 New Jersey Brigade (three regiments) ordered to Quebec, Canada.
• October 11, 1776 Battle of Valcour Island. 1NJ Rgt participates under command of Benedict Arnold. Later ordered to garrison
• Fort Ticonderoga.
• November 5, 1776 All New Jersey regiments ordered to New Jersey for discharge and reforming.
• December, 1776 First New Jersey Regiment is reorganized.
• September 11, 1777 Battle of Brandywine. 1NJ opens battle as Maxwell’s Brigade plays prominent role.
• October 4, 1777 Battle of Germantown. As part of reserves under Nash, 1NJ assaults Chew House.
• Winter 1777-78 Valley Forge Encampment.
• May-June, 1778 Jersey Brigade to harrass British in New Jersey.
• June 28,1778 Battle of Monmouth. Jersey Brigade part of Lafayette’s command.
• Winter, 1778-79 Encampment at Elizabethtown.
• Spring-Summer,1779 Wyoming Valley Expedition under Sullivan.
• June 23, 1780 Battle of Springfield.
• September 26, 1780 1NJ reorganized (Third Establishment).
• October 19, 1781 Capitulation of Yorktown and Gloucester.
• November 3, 1783 1NJ Rgt discharged at New Windsor Cantonment.