Neat web site

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I don't know if this site has been mentioned before, but saw it on another site and found it interesting. Has articles from periodicals from the 1800's. There's one on manufacturer and builder that looked interesting. Here's the web address...

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/moa_browse.html

-- Annie (mistletoe@earthlink.net), September 01, 2000

Answers

The "Making of America" series has special meaning to me. You see, a book written by my maternal great-great grandfather, Folsom Dorsett, is on line as part of the series. It however is not on the Cornell site, but at the University of Michigan site. The url follows: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/sgml/moa-idx?notisid=AJR0652 The book is "Dorsett's Treatise on Agriculture." The book was published in 1867 and is on agriculture/homesteading of the era. It tells of cooling cream in the well, how to locate your buildings, etc. I'm proud to say that my ggf advocated a shorter work week than was standard for the time. He also advocated that before a new home be built, that the husband should consult the wife to see if there were any special features that she would like for her convenience. Is that modern thinking for 1867 or not? My grandmother was orphaned when small and didn't know a lot about her family. Through this book on line I have learned much about the family that I didn't know. If I may continue a little more about this family that I was aware of before finding the book, Folsom had two adventurous sons that owned one of the first four cabins at the present town site of Denver, Colorado. They became prominent businessmen owning "The Elephant Corral" which was like a modern day sale barn that also had a hotel attached for the drovers. I have paperwork on all of this that was done by the State of Colorado State Historian. When the building frenzy in Denver really took off there was plenty of timber, but there was a lack of nails. My grandfather is said to have freighted kegs of nails by horse and wagon from his home in Iowa to Denver. The brothers that owned The Elephant Corral soon sold out to pursue adventures in the silver and gold fields. After they sold out, my grandfather enlisted in the Army to serve during the Civil War. We have some letters that he wrote home from his tour while in Arkansas. He was later imprisoned at Andersonville and contracted a liver ailment as a result. After the war ended he returned to Iowa for a time, but then traveled to Chicago to live with his parents in order to be close to specialists to treat his condition. Family tradition tells that Folsom was appointed Commissioner of Agriculture by Lincoln, but promptly resigned when Johnson became president. All research done by cousins and myself are contrary to this, so I hope to someday do research in old Chicago newspapers to get a correct answer. I can only hope the needed newspapers survived the great Chicago fire. Folsom's daughter's obituary confirms this, but I would still like to see it for myself. Sorry that this is so very long, but I really admire Folsom and his family. They left us with many written tales and unwritten stories to tell. Gossip also has it a daughter was engaged for a time to U.S. Grant. I really wish that I knew more of the family. I only had one living grandparent when I was growing up, Folsom's granddaugher. She came from Iowa to Kansas in a covered wagon pulled by oxen, then lived long enough that if her eyesight had allowed it, she could have seen men on the moon via television. Quite an advancement during one lifetime I would say. Thanks for letting me ramble. (As if you had any choice.)

-- Notforprint (Not@thekeyboard.com), September 02, 2000.

Drat! Forgot to double key for paragraphs. Sorry!

-- Notforprint (Not@thekeyboard.com), September 02, 2000.

Yeah, NotFor, and no-one can say you're too green to know better any longer. Family history can be fascinating, when you start getting back beyond the people you really knew when you really knew them. Even as recent as grandparents' younger days (come to that even parents), and many of us hardly knew our great-grandparents. I've edited a family history which my mother's family wrote (yes - like that - Mum was, if you like, managing editor, anthologist, wrote a lot of it, but got contributions from every branch of her family). I'll get it up on the Web some day soon. Now we're trying to extract something comparable from the survivng members of my father's family - like pulling teeth - from elephants. Fascinating - we're talking about the same general timeframe as you are, maybe ten years later. That's quite a catch-up, considering I'm here because of that little tiff you had with George III. Australia was founded because England needed some other place to transport her convicts when you declined further shipments.

Can't emphasise too strongly to people the importance of capturing people's memories. They say every time a person dies a library burns - JUST TRUE! If you can, if you must, just sit and chat with people with the recorder running. What they do formally is important too; but some of the most revealing things are just reminiscences, and those can trigger other memories that would otherwise just slip by. Also important is to get copies of every old paper and photo, with notes about what they mean.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), September 02, 2000.


Thanks Notfor... for sharing that with us. I really enjoed reading that. Good luck getting those missing "links" in there to make it complete.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), September 02, 2000.

Thanks Notforprofit, on the Michigan link. Am going to look up your ggf papers. Agriculture is what I like best and was disappointed when I didn't see one on the Cornell site. And, I loved reading your family history. You have alot to be proud of your Ancestors for. While reading about Denver I was thinking what it would have been like to see it with just 4 cabins. I bet it was beautiful. But also harsh living conditions. Makes a person stop and think, how strong and adventursome our Ancestors really were. My Ancestors weren't over here that early. My g g grandma came over from Ireland, when she was just 16, all by herself, in the mid to late 1800s'. She did have a brother that belonged to the what is now the IRA. He was sent to Australia by the British. She had letters from him, but I have never researched if he had much of a family or not. I often think of how she must have missed her family and country, but she never let on, she was one tough ole woman. My great Aunt went to Ireland to meet her cousins. She was full of knowledge about our family, but no one ever wrote it down. Now that I'm older, I would give anything to be able to sit and talk with her. But it has taught me a lesson. My bother and I videotaped my Dad and Mom telling their life story. We already know it, but maybe it will help generations from now.

-- Annie (mistletoe@earthlink.net), September 02, 2000.


Wow, Notforprofit, just got on the website you mentioned. Gonna get my printer going. I loved the dedication...

This book is respectfully dedicated

By your friend,

Folsom Dorsett

Imagine, if he could see that his book is now on the WWW! Even he, could have never dreamed of the technology of today. His book can now reach millions of people. Awesome.

Also saw where he farmed for 10 years in Maine. What a great genealogical find for you.

Thank you so much again. Gotta get printing!

-- Annie (mistletoe@earthlink.net), September 02, 2000.


My grandfather (mother's father) wrote a book, mostly for the family, of his reminisces -- I've been trying to get Grandma to add her bit to it, as his stories are mostly hunting stories. I'd like to have the female point of view, i.e. what was the wife doing while hubby was off hunting!! (I'm not criticising Grandad, though, as he fed his family through the depression with his hunting -- in and out of season!!) And someone in my husband's father's family wrote a family genealogy back in the late eighteen hundreds -- a thick book which now must be handled with care -- actually traces some ancestors clear back to William the Conqueror's crew back in 1066! I don't know what *good* it does to know who one's ancestors were for the last thousand years (LOL!!), but it does make for interesting reading, and helps to put history in perspective when you can say, for instance, that your grandmother emigrated from Ireland because of the Potato Famine, or your great-great-great-grandfather packed up his young family and moved to the colonies because of religious persecution in England in the 1600's. Oh, and we discovered that one of my husband's ancestors, back in the early eighteen hundred's, married a young woman with my maiden name -- it's an uncommon name, so she was quite possibly a distant relative of mine! If we go back far enough, like the Tower of Babel, we are all related, anyway!! :-)

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), September 02, 2000.

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