Old Burying Ground, Long Island

The Hortons who inhabited Long Island in the early days were Congregationalists.  We used that knowledge, and some information offered by a woman who was cataloging the grave stones in the cemetery where Barnabas Horton was buried, to identify another cemetery to check out.

We were able to locate grave sites for second, third, and fourth generation Hortons in the Old Burying Ground, including this one who died in 1772.

Long Island, New York

I have traveled to Long Island before for business and once for a wedding.  But we didn't really know anything about the area.  Long Island is BIG.  And RURAL. Who knew that such a beautiful place existed so close to New York City??  The soil of Long Island must be very fertile.  Surrounding the quaint towns, we saw fields of sunflowers, and cabbage, and tomatoes, and pumpkins, and corn, and beans.  And fruit orchards.  Oh yeah, and field after field of grape vines.  There are more than 20 wineries on Long Island.  From our trip last year, we were familiar with the high number of wineries in the Finger Lakes area of New York, but we didn't have a clue that Long Island also was a wine region.

Long Island is edged by nice beaches -- duh.  It was disappointing to see that so many of them are private.  I am not familiar with private beaches, and I don't like the idea at all.  ("The sign said you got to have a membership car to get inside."  Five Man Electrical Band)  And those shores provide a smorgasbord of delicious seafood, some of which we sampled at the Southold Fish Market -- clam chowder with a fried cod sandwich and a fried oyster po-boy.

Barnabus Horton and his legacy at Southold, Long Island

Barnabas Horton is Charlie's 11x great-grandfather who arrived from England in 1638 and was one of the founders of Southold, Long Island.  Testaments to his influence as a founder of Southold are local landmarks such as Horton Lane, and Horton Point Lighthouse, and various historical markers.





The Horton Point Lighthouse was commissioned by George Washington in 1790 and was built in 1857.  Commemorating the contribution of Barnabas Horton, it now serves as the Southold Historical Society Nautical 
Museum.












Interestingly, Barnabas Horton brought his own tomb slab from England with him, anticipating that he would die in the colony without the services of a stone engraver.  It is beautifully engraved with a poem and has survived in large part because it was restored in the 1800's by one of his descendants.

The house of Barnabas Horton no longer stands, but the historical marker indicates its significance in Suffolk County history.

Irish citizens and miners

We drove to Pottsville to see what records we might find about my Irish ancestors' time in Pennsylvania.  I was excited to see the actual record of my great-great grandfather John Coates becoming a citizen of the United States.  It's odd to see him referred to as a subject of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

I was surprised to find out that this area of Pennsylvania was the place where the infamous union-busting brutality that the miners suffered at the hands of the coal mine owners and their hired thugs from Pinkerton.  Directly across the street from the county court house stand the jail where miners were hung.  This jail is an imposing site set on a slight hill and is still in use today.

Irish Immigrants in Tremont, Pennsylvania

From the Carroll Daily Herald (Iowa)
 Married at Tremont  Pennsylvania July 16 1883 by the Rev. Father McDevitt, William Coates of Carroll, to Miss Mary A Craddock of Tremont.  Tremont is the old town of the parties.  They arrived in Carroll July 21 and Wednesday, the twenty-fifth a large number of Mr. Coates friends in Carroll repaired to their farm near town and spent a most enjoyable evening.

So, how could I resist visiting Tremont?  Located along the railroad in Pennsylvania's coal country, Tremont was the home of many Irish and German immigrants who worked in the mines.  It is still a small town today where the churches outnumber the bars.  The houses share the architectural elements of those built in the 1800's and reflect the modest means of their inhabitants. 

We visited the Catholic cemetery in search of any Coates or Craddock headstones.  We only found one of Bridgette Coates.  She died in 1860 and her headstone was erected by her son John Coates.  That one grave site provided the only tangible evidence of my ancestors' past in the area, since a search of the public records showed that neither family owned land in the county.

I was struck by the abundance of Halloween decorations in light of the holiday being a full six weeks away.  The festivity of the decorations seemed to me to reflect an optimism that you may not expect in the depressed working neighborhoods.  During a stop at a nearby convenience store, the young man working the cash register greeted us and commented on the jam we were buying.  He then shared his recipe for making fruit topping for pies and the like.  He just coats fresh berries with sugar and mixes them together, poking the berries a little bit with his fork to release the juice.  Then he adds a little bit of cornstarch.  For strawberries, he uses brown sugar to give it a kick.  He said it is very easy and delicious.  I was left with a kind feeling toward the people of Tremont, but also with a thankfulness that my own ancestors left the coal field for the open fields of Iowa!

The Battle at Gettysburg: Where ancestors fought

September 19, 2014

Finally it’s departure day!  Estimated time of departure is noon.  And we almost made it too.  The problem?  The truck won’t start!  Dead battery.  Why?  Well, we packed the camper the night before and in the process of going in and out of the camper, we left lights on with the camper plugged into the truck overnight.  Some jumper cables and we were out of town with no more headaches.

Our first stop on this trip is Gettysburg National Battlefield.  The Gettysburg battle field is the focus of military historians due to its military importance in the Civil War and the human carnage that happened there over the course of those hot July days.  One of Charlie's ancestors was among those brave soldiers who fought there.  He was wounded in the battle fought at the apple orchard and what is now known as Sickles Lane.  One of the few soldiers from his unit who survived the battles at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, Elijah Horton was a Union soldier and is buried in McKune Cemetery in Oakland Township, Pennsylvania.

My ancestors who were in the United States at the time of the Civil War lived in South Carolina and fought for the Confederate States of America.  There is a road through the battle field that is called Confederate Lane because it was there that many southern soldiers assembled.  Although I am not aware that any of my ancestors fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, it was still unnerving to think of the number of these brave southern men who fought and died on those fields.  And for what cause?

Returning to our campsite, we were joined by old friends who shared dinner in Gettysburg and good conversation around the camp fire.  It was a really nice start to our trip!

Ireland blog entries -- What happened??

We had a GREAT time in Ireland and I was able to track down a bunch of genealogy leads.  But life (and procrastination) has gotten in the way of inputting my observations from the trip.  I will get back to documenting that adventure soon.  But for now, it's on to our fall 2014 camper trip!