Bladen County NcArchives Biographies.....Family History, Bedsole
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
J. D. Bedsole jdbedsole@gmail.com October 8, 2010, 8:28 pm
Source: J. D. Bedsole
Author: J. D. Bedsole
BEDSOLE
October 1, 2010
BEDSOLE HISTORY, ANCESTORS AND
DOCUMENTATION FROM 1673.
COPYRIGHT: 1996,1997,1998,1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003,2004,2005,2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. JD Bedsole. All Rights
Reserved. Copying this booklet is free for your own use, but copying
it, or any part of it for sale, or incorporation into something else
for sale, is absolutely not permitted.
Author
EMAIL: jdbedsole@gmail.com
Or
jdbedsole@oppcatv.com
Betzold/Bedsole
Deutchland/Germany
Wappen Der Provinc Brandenburg Vas Der Betzoldz
Ich Bin Ein Deutchlander
BETZOLD /BEDSOLE COAT OF ARMS
(German; Meine Vorfahren kamen aus Deutschland)
( English; My ancestors came from Germany)
"NOW EACH OF YOU CAN SEE, HOW IT IS, YOU CAME TO BEE"
J.D. Bedsole
CURRENT VERSION; October 01, 2010
BEDSOLE HISTORY FROM 1673 WITH DOCUMENTATION AND LIST OF ANCESTORS, AND
DESCENDANTS RESEARCHED, COMPILED, ANALYZED, PREPARED AND OWNED IN ITS
ENTIRETY, SOLELY BY MYSELF:
DR. J.D. BEDSOLE, ASME, BSBA, BSVE, MSEA, PhD
ANSWERS TO MY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE EARLIEST BEDSOLES IN THIS COUNTRY,
SUCH AS:
1. How did they get here ? Where did they come from?. Who were they?.
Where did they settle here? Did they move around, and if so, where to
?. How did they live?.What was it like ? What were they like ? Was life
hard for them ? What hardships did they incur ?. Have things improved
for us since then ?
2. Locations, names, relationships, kinships, and documentation on
early Bedsoles with records of early Marriages,Census Data,Tax Lists,
Land Transactions, Cemeteries and etc
3. References for current and future Bedsole Researchers (If any ever
have the grit to do it).
NOTE; In order to save time, if after you have read this, you want to
email me and tell me how you are now more confused than ever, how
stupid I really am, did I really talk to some people in Germany, and
how this was all such a huge waste of time, please don't bother. I have
already been told those things at least a hundred times by those
Bedsoles to whom I had freely given a copy. Thanks anyway though, for
the thought that I am a tee-total Idiot of the highest order. No need
to tell me that though EITHER, as I am already well aware of that !!.
But I do thank you for that thought too.
BEDSOLE HISTORY
As you can see, not being a computer Czar, I cannot control the
location of the page numbers in this book. When I type it, its fine,
but when I transfer it to a file, it gets all out of whack. Then, when
I transfer it to you, it will not stay as typed, and the numbers may be
any place on the page, and names, dates and etc., move around between
computers and format changes, as they please. I have no idea how to
keep all that from happening. Apparently. no one else does either and I
have asked every one I know who even MAY know. Anyway, the numbers are
theoretically at the bottom of each page. At least we can use the
numbers as location markers, so we can say "Its between numbers 156 and
157" or whatever. That will prevent having to guess where something is
located. Since this is my last version and I have been all over the
internet asking for information from other Bedsoles, and receiving next
to nothing, if you see something which is wrong or you have additions
to make to the List in Part Two, please tell me about it. Remember,
until I croak, I will keep a master copy of this book on this computer.
When and if I find new information, it will be added to this Master
copy from time to time.
In the beginning, I just wanted to know where I got this name. But as
time went on, and I learned more and more about our ancestors and all
the unbelievable hardships they endured, I realized that unless I
researched,documented and wrote this History and the related Ancestor
And Descendant list, all the current and future Bedsole descendants
would never know what those ancestors went through and would never know
their true roots either. But I also knew that if I did'nt do it, then
it would never be done, because I knew that few people have what it
takes to spend that many years of their lives to produce this kind of
information on their ancestors and descendants, much less have the grit
required to do it. Does that make me some kind of super-human you ask,
and that you should bow down in front of me ? YES INDEED it does in
fact.
I began this project in 1950. This History and List and especially the
List, represents more than 58 years of the most demanding, expensive,
time-consuming, frustrating, and maddening work I have ever encountered
in my life. Now, I give it to all you Bedsoles and relatives most of
whom I don't even know, for nothing. I hope you truly appreciate what
went into it, and what it represents. I know how priceless it really is
and I hope you do too. Believe me, it becomes more valuable to the
point of being absolutely priceless, as you get older. So, keep it,
treasure it, and pass it down to your children. But always remember who
produced it........ME and me alone. Although I do greatly appreciate
the information provided by a precious few who emailed some info to me,
regarding the List. Many thanks to those few. As you will read further
on though, with the exception of those precious few, those I wrote and
called for information, were generally suspicious, rude to the point of
being hateful, and would tell me nothing useful. To them I also say,
thanks a lot, for nothing.
In the absence of most-needed documentation and by reading,
researching, analyzing and documenting what little Bedsole information
was available, together with all the old records, books, websites, and
other relevant historical sources I could find, then flying to Germany
twice and researching there, because my Dad had said Bedsole originated
in Germany, I have put together my best, educated and informed guesses
in many cases, at what I feel is very close to the facts back then.
Some of my conclusions may prove to be wrong in the future, but I
invite anyone to prove anything I claim to be true, is actually wrong.
The only acceptable proof from someone that I have something wrong
however, would be their own documentation and not their best guess. Any
best-guess by anyone else, would not be as accurate, and certainly not
more accurate than my own and I guarantee that.
This Book Was A Long,Time-Consuming And Expensive Project
Here are only a few reasons why one can spend so much time and money
looking for the older Bedsole records and never find any. First of all,
there are no less than 55 counties in NC alone, where I discovered by
accident, the first ones arrived (Bath County) from Germany. Many
counties were created or partially created from Bladen County, where,
in 1950, I first found the Bedsoles. To add to the fun, almost all
counties were created from parts of one to seven other counties at
various times. Then, many counties changed their names in some cases
several times. Just trying to find some records on Bath County, NC
alone (which became Beaufort County) where the first Bedsole appeared,
I ran into this: What few records did exist for Bath County are
scattered in the courthouses of some of its early precincts, and in the
Archives in Raleigh. No one knows what is where, or if in fact, any
records at all exist. Bath County's earliest recorded deeds for
example, date from 1700 and are included in Beaufort Co. Deed Book One
(1701-1729). However, several other early Bath County deeds and other
documents, some dated before 1700, were found in the records of
Albemarle County and scattered among its various precincts, and there
are likely some in other unknown counties. Most of the earliest records
of Craven and Hyde Counties (Created from Bath) have not been preserved
at all, and they surely had many Bath County records too. Beaufort and
Hyde Precincts are known to have held joint sessions of court for and
including Bath, apparently in Beaufort county. Eighteen Bath County
Wills (1702-1718), mostly for both Beaufort and Hyde Precincts, were
recorded in Beaufort Precinct and may be found in Beaufort County's
Land Deed Book (Terrific logic) # 1 and, although they are Wills, they
are not recorded in the Will Books in the Beaufort County Clerk's
Office, as you would expect. Also ten of the eighteen do not appear
(Is'nt that great?) in Grimes' "Abstracts of North Carolina Wills 1663-
1760" probably because the originals of the ten were never sent to the
Secretary of State as required by law. In fact, over 60 more Beaufort
County Wills dated 1720 to 1760 were retained in the courthouse and
later copied into the Old Will Book and thus they also do not appear in
Grimes' volume. Only a few of the Wills proved before 1700 have
survived in the records identified in the NC State Archives as
"Secretary Of State Wills" (?). A majority of the North Carolina
counties have transferred all or part of their surviving original wills
(If any) to the State Archives, however, some counties did not do that
and have kept all or part of them, and looking and researching is the
only way to determine which county did what or has what, and which have
nothing at all on file. There is no one and no place you can go to, to
find out what is where. And by the way, Good luck on finding any of
them. The only way to be certain though, is to go look for yourself,
and for that, you need about 50 years and more than a million dollars
for motels, gas, food and etc., not to mention determination, grit and
patience the likes of which you have never seen or heard of before.
So, just finding out where documents may be located takes an
unbelievable amount of time and even if you find where they may be,
they still may either be buried somewhere in the county records but no
one knows where, may not exist at all, were destroyed years ago, or are
physically located in some other unknown counties, places, basements,
boxes, or categories. Additionally, to add to the mess, the Bedsoles
until about 1950, went by all kinds of surnames and nicknames such as
Betsol, Bedsowl, Bletsoul, Batsoal and "Cotton", "Jeter", "Scooter" and
etc. On top of that, way too many of them went by half-names such as
"Liz" and/or middle names, while way too many went by first, middle and
last names none of which had anything whatsoever to do with their real
name(s) and all of which were major and time-consuming problems. For
example, how do you determine who the Scooter Bedsole in 1768 actually
was, where and what family he goes under, who he was married to, who
his children were and at what point they were born into that family
when there is no one to ask?. In addition, there were many with
identical whole names, living at the same times and places (William
Bedsole, William Bedsole and William Bedsole). Good luck at deciding
which one you are looking at, at any given time. At this point, the
vast majority of older Bedsole documents no longer exist at all because
they were burned when their respective courthouses went up in flames,
and those that do exist, may be stored helter-skelter in boxes upon
boxes of records in dark courthouse basements, in no kind of order and
with no one there, who knows anything about what is where. All that is
what I was up against in 1950 and did not find it out until I had done
many years of very difficult and frustrating work, and all that is what
you will be up against if you decide to research anything about the
Bedsoles for yourselves. So when I say good luck, its because you will
need it. In my case, it was dogged determination which had nothing at
all to do with luck and had everything to do with pure Grit.
There has been major loss of both recorded and original wills, land
records, and etc. from fires, wars, and natural disasters, but by far
most of all, from sheer carelessness and deliberate arson. All those
problems contributed to the fact that I could find next to nothing on
any Bedsole by any name, until 1700. Later, one then two, then three of
them appeared in Russell and Spotsylvania counties in Virginia, on land
records, as Bledsoes, where they intermingled with all the true
BLEDSOES who had arrived here in 1630, from England.
All that should give you a very vague idea what you will be up against
in Bath County, much less all the other counties in NC and other states
and counties where the Bedsoles moved to and lived, when you try to
either prove me wrong, or if you simply want to add to, clarify, or
expand on what I have said or found. We won't even talk about what you
will not find in Germany, as I learned the hard way and, as you will
learn by reading everything I have written about that below.
Country Of Origin For Bedsole Is The Brandenburg Province Of Prussia
Which Became Part Or Parts, Of Germany
IMPORTANT NOTE;
Throughout the 60 years I spent on this project, I did NOT make copies
of the documents I came across. I have typed them here from my pen and
ink notes, exactly as they were originally written. So please don't
contact me to ask for copies of documents. For the years and years, I
spent writing this book I was doing it for myself and no one else.
Consequently, I did not need copies of documents. However, as the years
passed, and more and more people wanted copies of it, they also wanted
copies of the original documents too. Unfortunately, I do not have them
and never did. But I did see and read them.
Quick German History
The Celts are believed to have been the first inhabitants of Germany.
They were followed by German tribes at the end of the 2nd century B.C.
German invasions destroyed the declining Roman Empire in the 4th and
5th centuries A.D. One of the tribes, the Franks, attained supremacy in
western Europe under Charlemagne, who was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in
800. By the Treaty of Verdun (843), Charlemagne's lands east of the
Rhine were ceded to the German Prince Louis. Additional territory
acquired by the Treaty of Mersen (870) gave Germany approximately the
area it maintained throughout the Middle Ages. For several centuries
after Otto the Great was crowned king in 936, German rulers were also
usually heads of the Holy Roman Empire. By the 14th century, the Holy
Roman Empire was little more than a loose federation of the German
princes who elected the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1438, Albert of Hapsburg
became emperor, and for the next several centuries the Hapsburg line
ruled the Holy Roman Empire until its decline in 1806. Relations
between state and church were changed by the Reformation, which began
with Martin Luther's 95 theses, and came to a head in 1547, when
Charles V scattered the forces of the Protestant League at Mhlberg.
The Counter-Reformation followed. A dispute over the succession to the
Bohemian throne brought on the Thirty Years' War (16181648), which
devastated Germany and left the empire divided into hundreds of small
principalities virtually independent of the emperor.
The Rise of Bismarck and the Birth of the Second German Reich
Meanwhile, Prussia was developing into a state of considerable
strength. Frederick the Great (17401786) reorganized the Prussian army
and defeated Maria Theresa of Austria in a struggle over Silesia. After
the defeat of Napolon at Waterloo (1815), the struggle between Austria
and Prussia for supremacy in Germany continued, reaching its climax in
the defeat of Austria in the Seven Weeks' War (1866) and the formation
of the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation (1867). The
architect of this new German unity was Otto von Bismarck, a
conservative, monarchist, and militaristic Prussian prime minister. He
unified all of Germany in a series of three wars against Denmark
(1864), Austria (1866), and France (18701871). On Jan. 18, 1871, King
Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor in the Hall of
Mirrors at Versailles. The North German Confederation was abolished,
and the Second German Reich, consisting of the North and South German
states, was born. With a powerful army, an efficient bureaucracy, and a
loyal bourgeoisie, Chancellor Bismarck consolidated a powerful
centralized state. Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck in 1890 and embarked
upon a "New Course," stressing an intensified colonialism and a
powerful navy. His chaotic foreign policy culminated in the diplomatic
isolation of Germany and the disastrous defeat in World War I (1914
1918). The Second German Empire collapsed following the defeat of the
German armies in 1918, the naval mutiny at Kiel, and the flight of the
kaiser to the Netherlands. The Social Democrats, led by Friedrich Ebert
and Philipp Scheidemann, crushed the Communists and established a
moderate state, known as the Weimar Republic, with Ebert as president.
President Ebert died on Feb. 28, 1925, and on April 26, Field Marshal
Paul von Hindenburg was elected president. The majority of Germans
regarded the Weimar Republic as a child of defeat, imposed on a Germany
whose legitimate aspirations to world leadership had been thwarted by a
worldwide conspiracy. Added to this were a crippling currency debacle,
a tremendous burden of reparations, and acute economic distress.
Adolf Hitler And WWII
Adolf Hitler, an Austrian war veteran (Corporal) and a fanatical
nationalist, fanned discontent by promising a Greater Germany,
abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, restoration of Germany's lost
colonies, and the destruction of the Jews, whom he scapegoated as the
reason for Germany's downfall and depressed economy. When the Social
Democrats and the Communists refused to combine against the Nazi
threat, President von Hindenburg made Hitler the chancellor on Jan. 30,
1933. With the death of von Hindenburg on Aug. 2, 1934, Hitler
repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and began full-scale rearmament. In
1935, he withdrew Germany from the League of Nations, and the next year
he reoccupied the Rhineland and signed the Anti-Comintern pact with
Japan, at the same time strengthening relations with Italy. Austria was
annexed in March 1938. By the Munich agreement in Sept. 1938, he gained
the Czech Sudetenland, and in violation of this agreement he completed
the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. His invasion of
Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, precipitated World War II. Hitler established
death camps to carry out "the final solution to the Jewish question."
By the end of the war, Hitler's Holocaust had killed 6 million Jews, as
well as Gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, the handicapped, and others
not fitting the Aryan ideal. After some dazzling initial successes in
19391942, Germany surrendered unconditionally to Allied and Soviet
military commanders on May 8, 1945. On June 5 the four-nation Allied
Control Council became the de facto government of Germany.
Prussia, Where It Appears The Bedsoles Originated.
According to its history, Prussia was a region in central europe,
extending from the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea to the Masurian
Lake District. Today its previous land makes up parts of Russia,
Germany, Poland and Lithuania. The Vikings inhabited parts of Prussia
at one time. Historical books record Prussians as early as the year
1072. Many attempts were made over the centuries, by various
"Conquerers" to capture and occupy Prussia, without success. By
Adalbert of Prague, Boleslaw of Prague, and various others during the
years 997, 1015, 1147, 1161, and 1166. Prussia was finaly conquered by
the Teutonic Knights. In 1492, "The Life Of Dorothea Of Montau", became
the first printed publication in Prussia. The whole country became the
Kingdom Of Prussia in 1701. In 1871,during the creation of The German
Empire and the Unification Of Germany, Prussia became part of Germany.
But in accordance with the Potsdam Conference in 1945, following World
War II, the Prussian region was divided between Russia and Poland.
Consequently, the country of Prussia was dissolved and ceased to exist
in 1947. This provides some historical background for understanding me
when I tell you that the surname BEDSOLE, by any variations in
spelling, originated in Prussia, not in Austria, Germany, Russia,
Ireland, England and etc., as is claimed by a variety of superficial
"researchers" of the Bedsole ancestors.The Kingdom Of Prussia, was a
German Kingdom from 1701 to 1918, and from 1871 it was the leading
state of the German Empire, occupying two-thirds of the lands of that
Empire. The Prime Minister Of Prussia was also the German Chancellor.
It is important to keep in mind that, with the constant splitting-up of
Prussia, and its final elimination as a country, there are no
meaningful written family records to research. However, I can tell you
that those few Prussian records I did come across, as in the History Of
Germany, I found the same time-consuming research problems with
misspellings of surnames as I did in the U.S., prevalent also in
Germany. In addition, very cute problems like this; When Prussia became
part of Germany, some parts were not included, the names of towns have
been changed half a dozen times, geographical landmarks disappeared,
and were replaced with new and different ones and etc. I did not want
to become bogged down with that. I needed to find Betzold or some
misspelling of it in Germany and I did not find a version of it in the
few documents I did find of Prussian origin. My research efforts in
Germany became so bogged down and expensive, I gave that up as a very
bad idea; So for our purposes, suffice it to say that; "Bedsole
originated by whatever spelling in Prussia, which became the
Brandenburg Province of Germany, so lets concentrate on the U.S. area,
where they initially arrived at and spread to" and which, not
coincidentally, it was not as expensive to search.
I believed my Dad when he said the first Bedsole came here from
Germany. It turned out he was correct. For years and years, I tried my
best to prove him wrong, because I did'nt want them to be from Germany,
but the more I tried to do that, the more I proved him right. Then, in
the London, England Genealogy Library, I obtained a copy of the
Certificate For Country Of Origin for Bedsole. It states that Germany
is the country of origin. Actually its Prussia which was before
Germany, but why quibble when at least most of Prussia became Germany
?. I flew to Germany twice to research the Betzold name. First, in 1993
and again in1994, to see for myself. Parts of Germany were called
Prussia and Allemandia and perhaps other things prior to becoming
Germany and without proof, we must assume the Bedsole name actually
originated some time prior to "Germany". I received the following from
cousin Charles Bedsole, an attorney in Dallas,Texas, who kindly gave
his permission to include it in this book. What Charles says is very
interesting and quite true. In addition, it shows that our roots are in
Germany and I'm sorry to say that, because I do not admire Germany for
Hitler and the Holocaust, among other things. This is what Charles said
in response to my question about whether "Bedsole" and "Bledsoe" could
be related ; "One thing I find interesting is the early date of the
Bletsoe name in the year1086 (That really is 1086) in England.
According to some of the first English Court Cases, apparently a
community named "Bletsoe" was there before William the Conqueror
brought his army from Normandy; and, if so, it would make Bletsoe an
Anglo-Saxon community. Further, if it was Anglo-Saxon, that would give
Bletsoe a German connection because the Angles and the Saxons both
emigrated to England from Germany. It was the Angles in fact, who gave
us the name "England" ("Angle Land" was over time, shortened to
England).The Anglo-Saxon folks were Germanic, while the people that
emigrated when William conquered England were former Vikings from
Scandinavia who had settled in France. They were initially called
"Norse Men" (Northmen) and the area of France where they settled became
"Normandy" (the land of the Northmen). However, being from Scandinavia,
they spoke a version of German and were out of the same tree as the
Germanic tribes who settled in what became modern day Germany
(previously "Allemandia"). The Bletsoe family name, in theory, could
have been an Anglicanization of an earlier Germanic name, e.g.,
Bletzold or Betzold". Many thanks to Charles for that information. At
this point I won't even try to define the relationship of Bedsole and
Bledsoe, further than that. But I do define it near the end of this
book. In the same email, Charles was kind enough to send me the
internet address of the first english court records. In reviewing
several of those cases, I came across one wherein Elizabeth Bletsoe was
a witness in a rape trial, dated in the year 1061, in England. I also
noted that she lived in a "Bledsoe Community". The surname Bledsoe,
although claimed by the Bledsoe researchers, to have originated in
England, actually originated in the same place as Bedsole did, and as
noted elsewhere, at some time in the past, there is no doubt in my mind
that we, the Bedsoles, Bedsauls and Bledsoes, et al, all share a common
ancestor at some time and place in the past. That place is most likely
to have been Prussia. In researching any family name that far back, you
learn to arrive at conclusions, based on several factors. As the old
saying goes, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks and
acts like a duck, then its most likely a duck".
Similiarly in looking for the Bedsoles prior to 1950 or so, and you
find a man with the name, if the man had roughly the right name, was at
the right place, was there at the right time, and had certain relatives
and/or dates, then its most likely him. In genealogical research,
especially in the time prior to 1900 in the U.S., the most likely
method becomes a method of proof, in the total absence of any
documentation. As I said elsewhere, the accuracy of the Bedsole List,
in Part Two, much of which was and is, based on Most Likely, has been
proven time and time again to be amazingly accurate, with few
exceptions. That's amazing because that list has thousands of Bedsoles
whom I never even heard of, much less know who was kin to whom and how
they were kin and/or related to each other.That accuracy may surprise
you, but knowing how I made determinations from all the research that
went into it, its accuracy does not surprise me at all. However, I
hasten to add that accurately determining who is kin to whom and how
they are kin, without birth, marriage, death, and other records, no one
to ask anything about it, and doing it 300 years later, is definitely
not easy.
In Germany, the Brandenburg district was Prussian land. It is from that
district that the Betzolds seemed to originate. Germany is divided into
States (Lnder). These states are subdivided into Landkreise or Rural
districts, which are made up of municipalities (Gemeinden) and
Kreisfreie Stdte, or free urban districts. In some states
municipalities are combined into mter and Grossgemeinden (larger
bodies, but the individual municipalities still exist).
Arrival Of The First Bedsole
When the first Bedsole arrived in this country, he arrived when NC had
only formed its initial 5 of 100 counties of Bath, Currituck,
Pasquotank, Perquimans and the beginnings of Chowan. The first Bedsole
into the U.S. arrived by English ship from Germany, at the settlement
of Bath, NC, on September 11,1700. He was listed by the ships captain
William Barrow, as; "Abraham Bessow.....a Pal". The abbreviation "Pal"
at that time meant Palatine from Germany.The name the captain listed
was his version of what the reply was from "Abraham", when asked his
name. In reality, the reply was more likely something like "Abramz
Betzold". They most likely spoke no english and the English captain
most likely spoke no German and those few handwritten words on that
scrap of paper, are the only thing we have to go by,take it or leave
it. I take "Bessow" to have sounded like Bess-oh to the Captain, and
Germans do pronounce Betzold like we pronounce Bedsole. Therefore, I
took "Bessow" to mean Betzold, or Bedsole. Obviously, he was given his
first name by Captain Barrow. Bestowing made-up English names upon non-
English arrivals in early America, was a common practice among ships
captains until about 1930. As it turned out, I found "Abrahams" last
name over the ensuing 30 or so years following that landing at Bath,
spelled as Abraham Batson, Betson, Betsel, Bedsoe, Bedsole, Betso,
Bledsoe, Bedsoal, Bedsoul and Bedsowl among other spellings. When you
see that name spelled so many different ways, you must determine if
thats the same man, or an entirely different one without any proof
whatsoever, and that is true no matter what name you are researching. I
assume his last name was Betzold, but we will never know what his real
first name was. I also know that it was very common for all ships
captains back then, to bestow english names on non-english immigrants
as they pleased, with the knowledge that no one would ever be the
wiser.They had no one to file the passenger list with anyway. It was
through determination and luck that I found the tiny piece of paper
with 4 or 5 handwritten names on it, including Abrahams, in the first
place. Also, that I found his name arriving at Bath again, about 8
months later,on May 1, 1701. That time however,he was dubbed "Abraham
Batson" and was accompanied by his wife "Rose" and child named
"Elizabeth", both more than likely also made-up English names, by
Captain Barrow. However, despite all that, I stayed with my belief that
he was a Bedsole, and traced it as described in this book. Then, I
traced it backwards too. It still led me to "Abraham Bessow". So, its
most likely true that he really was our first ancestor in this country.
When Abraham and his sons William and Isaac acquired land in Virginia
(1719-1726), the clerk there listed their last names as Bledsoe, he
being certain that the english name Bledsoe, was really their last
name, and they being unable to read, write, spell, or to speak English,
couldnt have cared less. However, that allowed the Bledsoe researchers
to also claim that all 3 were actually Bledsoes, and were their own
ancestors from England. Therefore, without documented proof, therein
lies an endless argument between them and us. In any event, there is no
doubt in my mind, that the Abraham listed above is our first "Bedsole"
into the United States.
When I flew to Germany, England and Ireland in 1993 and again in 1994.
I tried to research Bledsoe and Bedsaul along with Bedsole, because of
the similarities in spelling. But as the names Bedsole, Bledsoe and
Bedsaul are misspelled in their early english spellings in this
country, they also suffered the same fate in Germany, and England, as
there are various misspellings of them over there to the point you
don't know which name you are looking at or if it is correct and which
misspelling of the name(s) it is actually related to. In other words,
you can't be certain the "Betzold" you are looking at is actually a
Betzold or a Betzall, Betzaul, or really a Bletzoe, along with all the
misspellings, such as Blettzo, Blettzel, and etc. Running into those
problems caused me to ignore and forget those spellings, because the
Translators I had hired at $100 per hour each, were rapidly bankrupting
me. However, I did satisfy myself that Bedsole absolutely did not
orginate in Ireland, Austria, Bavaria, Bulgaria, England and other
countries as so many amateur researchers claim without a smidgeon of
proof. I found nothing really new in Germany, because so much of its
record systems had been destroyed in all the fires from the wars that
country has been involved in, together with the mad-house absorption
and conversion of Prussia into Germany and other countries. But the
real problem is the huge prohibitive amount of time and expense
involved in German-to-English Translaters (Translators from Old German
to New German had to be employed first, then from New German to
English). However, I did look up, meet and talk to several Betzold
descendants, including a Wilhelm Heinrich Betzold (William Henry
Bedsole), who had in his storeroom, an original 1650 Betzold Coat Of
Arms which I drew by hand, and a copy of which you see above at the
beginning of this book It is important that you understand that anyone
back in the old days of Heraldry, could register any number of coats of
arms for any surname. Contrary to popular American belief, It was the
design on the Coat, and not the surname, which was not allowed to be
duplicated. Therefore, there could be any number of BEDSOLE coats of
arms (or any other surname for that matter). The "Official" coat of
arms for a surname however, is described in great detail in the
Certificate For Country Of Origin for that surname. I have the
certificate for Bedsole and the coat it describes, but I dislike the
design and colors of that one immensely. So I do not claim the
"Official" Coat. Instead, I claim the one you see at the top of this
document. I do however, have a copy of the Official Coat.
Nevertheless, I am certain there is a common ancestor for Bedsaul,
Bledsoe, Bedsole and variations and misspellings, somewhere in the
past. I know that the evidence that there is or is not such an
ancestor, does not exist in the United States. I believe such an
ancestor existed most likely in Prussia. Anyway, back beyond Germany as
we know it, there is no paper trail. Therefore, conjecture becomes
meaningless. So, after only 3 weeks in Germany, my total costs had
exceeded $25,000 and I left. What I did learn was, if you hire a
translator, first have your info ready so you are not paying them by
the hour to find basic stuff for you, and to pick out only that info
you want translated. That alone takes so much time it will quickly
bankrupt a very rich man.
In addition to all that, to find out anything about passenger shipping
records from Germany, England or Ireland, from as far back as I could
find information up to about 1800, the period I was most interested in,
one needs to know at least the following: The exact names of
passenger(s) as listed on ships records, keeping in mind that Scribes
at the time wrote and spelled the names the best they could guess from
what was said, because people in general could neither read nor write,
much less spell. Names of the ships they sailed on (many ships had the
same name), the owner(s) of the ships, the country of the ships
registry. Do you have any idea how long that alone would take and how
much you would spend, finding that out, if you could find it at all?.
You also need to know the date of departure, port of departure,
passengers destinations and where they actually ended up, ports of
arrival, name of arriving ship, dates of arrival and etc. As if all
that were not bad enough, prior to 1900, Germany had thousands upon
thousands of its citizens who supposedly shipped directly to the United
States, and others via England. So shipping records in Germany may show
their destination to be England. Then you have to go to England, and
hope you can find all the above shipping information from there to the
U.S. Naturally, thousands of those you would be interested in, stayed
in England, thousands more changed their minds in England, and went
back to Germany, and more of them changed their minds altogether and
went to countries other than the U.S. or England or back to Germany,
having left from Germany and/or from England on different ships with
various names, from various ports, on various dates and with various
people accompanying them. In other words, they could have gone from
Germany to any country on earth, under any name, on any ship. Who
knows. On top of all that, in England and out of necessity, passengers
were held in "Holding Pens", until they had enough to completely load a
ship, before they were allowed to board one. That usually meant they
were held for several weeks, or they got fed up and boarded any ship to
anywhere, just to get out of that Pen. Based on all I know about it, my
conclusion is this; If you already possess all that shipping
information, you don't need to go over there to find it out. But if you
do decide to, therein are another million research problems, requiring
thousands upon hundreds of thousands of dollars and who knows how many
years, to research. Another overseas research problem is this; Several
ships sunk enroute, drowning some or all aboard, many became disabled
and put into the nearest port, where passengers were left to fend for
themselves, and I have included an article of a court case regarding
that fact. So be forewarned if you want to go overseas and trace our
ancestors, take a ton of money and be prepared for several YEARS of
research. As for our own National Archives, for the Bedsoles, even for
immigration records, there is nothing in the way of ship passenger
lists prior to about 1880-90, which was very surprising. Knowing all
that now does it mean you should bow down and be forever grateful to me
? ....YOU BET !!.
Latest Information On The Name(s)
Our cousin Charles Bedsole, the lawyer in Dallas, Texas came upon some
interesting information and forwarded it to me. It was regarding a
Khristoph or Christoph Besold or Besold, (In his last name, the Z is
pronounced as an S in German and the D is silent. Making him a
"Bessow", or Bedsole, since in Betzold the D is also silent),
9/22/1577-9/15/1638, who was a famous German Legal scholar and who
became a Professor Of Law at Lubingen University in Germany. He served
as legal advisor to the Emperor of Austria and the Duke of Wurttemberg.
Bezold was also one of the founders of the Rosicrucian movement,
although late in life he converted to Catholicism. He was described as
extremely learned in Arabic, Hebrew, and Islamic culture. Besold's
library was acquired by Salzburg University in 1648 and became the
cornerstone of the university's library. Besold's Thesaurus Practicus
is a mammoth work, covering both Roman law and German law. It was first
published in Tubingen in 1629, and by the time of the last edition
(Regensburg, 1740), it had gone through eight editions. My purpose in
telling you all this is because it takes no great leap to go from
Betzold to Bessow to Besold to Bedsole as a surname. Is Bedsole related
to Besold ? That answer is many times more likely to be "Yes" than it
is to be "No". I have found there is a whole different online world
with the Besold spelling, as with Bedsole. There is also another
surname world online under Betzold, if anyone is inclined to research
those spellings. My thanks again, to Charles for that information.
The Lack Of Documentation
Records of birth were not even required here until about 1912 and
marriage, death, and land records were frequently thrown away, or
deliberately burned along with their respective courthouses, if a
courthouse existed at the time. The Bladen County Courthouse in
Elizabethtown, N.C, for example, where many early Bedsoles lived, was
intentionally burned down 5 times between 1750 and 1893. In 1850 in
desperation, the Court Clerk, took the records home with him for
safekeeping, but his house was burned down and again, so were the
records he tried to save. Apparently, the primary intent of the
Arsonist(s) was to get rid of legal records in order to avoid lawsuits
for various crimes, not the least of which were for theft, rustling,
murder, illegal land dealings, abandonment of family, sharecropper and
landlord problems and so forth. As for marriage records, for the
earliest Bedsole's, getting married only required the couple to say
their "Banns" three times in church. That is, they repeated that they
accepted each other as husband and wife. Most church records
disappeared over the years, as their pastors simply left, or
died.Therefore, older records of marriages, births, deaths, wills, and
etc. for Bedsoles are practically non-existent, prior to 1850. That
leaves land records, which provide precious little information to a
researcher, with zero information about any name other than the buyer
and seller. In addition, the majority of those made no distinction
between a Senior, Junior, Second, Third, or anything else, and with
people naming their children after themselves, their brothers, sisters,
aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, and etc., you cannot determine
with accuracy or with absolute certainty, which persons land record you
are looking at when those with the same name, either both or all, lived
at the same time and usually in the same place at the same time. In
addition, determining kinships and relationships as in Part Two of this
book was another very major problem which took years to complete as I
have presented it.
Following the burning of courthouses back then, those landowners and
others who had kept some kind of records, could take them back to the
new courthouse and have them re-recorded. Some did and some didn't.
Counties were supposed to have a record also transferred to the states
capitol. However, some did not do that either. Consequently, many
records were never recorded in counties or at capitols of some states
in the first place. In addition, for those courthouses which were
repeatedly burned down, even when some records were re-recorded, they
were repeatedly destroyed and over time, fewer and fewer such records
survived, and fewer and fewer were recorded at state offices.
Additionally, the creation of several other counties from parts of one
or more other counties,only added to the confusion and loss of vital
records. Apparently, no one at the county or state levels ever audited
or worried about correcting any errors or missing documents which
existed between the two levels.
The USGENWEB site has a continuing effort and program, to transcribe
census data and place it on the internet, so perhaps that and other
data will become more available in the future, provided enough
dedicated volunteers can be found to do all that hard work. That means
though, that the data must first be located which I am willing to bet,
never happens, primarily because it does not exist. The absence,
especially of land records, compels me to conclude that, although land
to them was cheap,or free from the government, the vast majority of
Bedsoles until about 1950, were share-croppers and agricultural
workers.That is, they worked primarily for other, more affluent
landowners and that was one of the major reasons so few land records
for them were ever found. They never existed in the first place. Those
that did were very few and very far apart.
As I studied the movements of the early Bedsoles in NC (1700-1850), I
could see that they moved from Bath, to Dobbs, Bertie, Edgecombe,
Duplin, Bladen, Johnston, Sampson and finaly to Brunswick counties in
NC, indicating a steady and predictable fan-shaped movement south and
southwestward from Bath, now Beaufort, County. Ending at Brunswick
County, near the state line with South Carolina, the fan-shaped
movement is a familiar and predictive one when you are reviewing first
settlements of new places. Reading about NC in general and Bath County
in particular, I found that repeated Yellow Fever epidemics and fierce,
barbaric, antagonistic and warlike indian tribes in and around NC and
especially Bath back then, without law or military protection,were also
good reasons for these early arrivals to move and to move frequently.
However, the fact that original counties were subdivided and other
counties created from them, also erroneously gives the impression
people were moving, when the truth is, the subdivisions were occurring
instead.
As you will see, documentation on Abraham, Elizabeth and Rose, ceased
to exist after their arrival at Bath in May, 1701 and until their
arrival in Virginia. That fact created a problem in determining who the
subsequent children of Abraham and Rose actually were. Their son
William appeared on paper in Russell County, Virginia in the form of a
handwritten land deed in 1719. Abraham and William both appeared the
next time, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia in 1726, on a land record
for 1,000 acres. Their last names were written on those land records as
Bledsoe. The logical reason for that is that all record-keepers were
English, and they wrote and spelled names they were familiar with, and
since Bledsoe was in England as far back as the year 1061 and perhaps
earlier, they were very familiar with that spelling and freely assigned
that spelling to anyone pronouncing their name even remotely like
"Bledsoe" or "Bedsole". In Virginia, the trail became very muddled,
with the appearance of several apparently bonified Bledsoe's, who
became mixed with bonafide Bedsoles. Then, due to english Scribes,
their last names were freely interchanged among them all. Some were
changed deliberately by the persons being named. After all, no form of
identification nor records of such existed.
After that, the efforts to keep track and definition of the bonified
Bedsole's and the bonified Bledsoe's required quadrupling of time,
efforts, research., study and analyses. All that required quadrupling
again after they all had sons whom they named after themselves, each
other, their uncles, parents and grandparents. It all became a royal
mess, keeping track of who was whom. Through extensive use of the "Most
Likely" research method, I did decide who was whom, as related to
Abraham, at least to a point, thus producing the List Of Names in the
second half of this book.
THE CONFUSION OF BEDSOLE AND BLEDSOE SURNAMES
According to Bob Bledsoe, the apparent expert Bledsoe surname
researcher, the first Bledsoe here arrived about 1650 from England,
which is 50 years prior to the arrival of our first Bedsole, from
Germany. That defines two distinctly different lines with similar
surnames. However, I have been to Germany and I know that at some point
in the past, Bledsoe and Bedsole had a common ancestor, most likely in
Prussia. But that point is moot in my opinion, because in this country
we are talking about two separate lines which nevertheless became
intermingled here. From the start to current times, the North Carolina,
Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas Census data repeatedly
show Bledsoe's and Bedsole's living among each other and when one
moved, the others either went with them, or shortly afterwards, to the
same place. That indicates to me that most, or at least many, Bedsoles
and Bledsoes were either related or were freely using each others last
name(s), or both. A very major problem caused by all that uncertainty,
was the inability to determine with any degree of certainty in most
cases, if the "Bedsole" being researched was really a Bedsole or
Bledsoe. And that is something which one must frequently decide without
much or any, additional information. On the List in Part Two, if the
Bedsole in question had decided to use Bledsoe and I knew that, I
listed them as Bledsoe, but kept them on the Bedsole list because they
actually were Bedsoles.
Another research problem for example, was when a "John Bedsole" was
listed on the 1790 Census' for Wake, Cumberland and Anson counties,
inclusive. With 3 listed, It is likely that one of those Johns was the
one born about 1730 and the other is the one born in 1753. Or one or
more Johns moved during the Census counts or that third John is either
the same guy counted twice, or there was a John Jr. or Sr. in one or
more, of those counties. It is also possible that they counted John
Bledsoe in one and John Bedsole in the other, misspelling Bedsole or
Bledsoe, or both. After all, how would Census Takers determine the
various physical county boundaries, as they roamed the unmarked
countryside?
From studying all this and everything else I've come across, it makes
me think that the early, and consequently many current, Bedsoles and
Bledsoes are intermixed to the point of impossibility in defining them,
with any degree of certainty, beyond ones best guess. Currently, there
is a seperate line of Bledsoes, another of Bedsauls and one for
Bedsoles. That seperate line is further strengthened by the fact that
many earlier Bledsoe's eventually moved north to Indiana, but the
Bedsole's moved south from NC to either Tennessee, or southward. The
Bedsole's initially moved almost simultaneously, from North Carolina to
Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. Despite that
separation, some with the Bledsoe name or spelling are also in those
same southern states at the same time as the Bedsoles. A big problem
is, theres no way to know which of those in the north or south were
born as Bledsoes and which were born as Bedsoles, and worse, even when
born, they may not have actually been a Bedsole or Bledsoe to begin
with. It gets incredibly confusing, when you are trying to figure out
who is whom, 300 years later, with no one to ask for clarification and,
as in my own case, those you do contact are suspicious and will not
provide the answers, give you any information, nor help you to arrive
at answers. When a Scribe back then showed up at some Bedsoles house,
after 15-20 years for whatever purpose, selling something, land
transfers, trades, census, legal problems, whatever, who knows what our
ancestors answered when asked for their last names and ages. On top of
that, who knows what was written, after he heard their answer, trying
to spell it like it sounded, when the Scribe was English who spoke no
German and the person answering was German, who spoke no english. For
example, the Scribe somehow asks "What is your name ?". The answer the
best he can understand it is like this: " Vilhelm Bahssow, Bessow,
Bhatson, Blitzuh, zumzing like zatt". Scribe:." Do you know how to
spell it" Answer: "Nein, nein sprechen sie englishen". So what do you
think the Scribe wrote for the persons name ?. Now, 300 years later,
along comes J.D. Bedsole, trying to figure out not only who all these
people were, but how they were all related, where they lived and when,
with no one to ask, and all he has to look at to figure all that out is
what that Scribe wrote that day and nothing else, in too many cases.
FIRST BEDSOLE HERE
The first Bedsole in this country was "Abraham Bessow" as written and
spelled by an ships captain from England. Abraham was born about 1673
in Germany and died about 1740 in Virginia. Although I know his German
name was not Abraham nor Bessow, I'll use that without knowing what it
really was. However, in German, Bedsole is BETZOLD. From all my
readings I believe that in Germany, the Betzold family were farm
laborers who worked on farms and in grape vineyards. Agricultural
workers. They were probably desperately poor and lived in mud-brick
huts. Abraham, his parents and siblings wore wornout and patched
homemade clothes and all of them usually went without shoes, the father
being far too poor to acquire shoes for himself or his family.
Abraham had heard wonderous stories about a "New Land", the future
United States, being advertised by the government of England. It was
described as " beautiful and a land of plenty". Over a period of many
months, they also heard that the English government was giving free and
cheap land to any and all who went there to settle and to live out
their lives there. Little did he or anyone else yearning to go, suspect
that the English merely wanted the settlers to go, clear off and farm
the land and start producing goods needed by England, such as tobacco,
cotton and tar so they could receive these products and also
coincidentally, so they could tax such settlers, thereby fattening
their own governments coffers.
Then it was made known that the English government would also allow
such settlers to leave the new land to their children as entitlements
from the parents, when the parents died. I'm sure it seemed too good to
be true and Abraham began to dream of the new land and to make plans to
go there to live. His parents encouraged him, but also warned that it
would not be easy, going to a new land with practically nothing except
the clothes on his back, to travel and live among total strangers, with
so many inherent dangers and unknowns involved, and the inhuman
hardships and suffering that were bound to be incurred. He never
dreamed how the suffering and hardships would be proved without
question and many times over. So, true to his German ancestry he was
stubborn, and one day in 1700, he said goodby to his family and
together with a friend his own age, began the trek to look for some way
to catch a boat to the big seaport and to leave for the new country.
Abraham and his friend probably found a small commercial boat working a
river and convinced the owner to transport them downstream to the
seagoing port in return for a week of manual labor helping the owner
load and unload trade goods with which he bartered, bought, sold and
made a living on the river. At the seaport, when their fare was finaly
paid, they were on their way. At that time, the captains of the large,
seagoing ships had learned they could transport new settlers to what
later became America and collect their fares upon arrival, from earlier
and richer settlers who needed laborers here. (During the period 1700-
1712, there was a huge influx of Palatines from Germany into the U.S).
Note: Sailing From Germany To "The New Country" A Typical Trip To
America Went Like This Too Often:.From An Old English Admiralty Court
Case I included this to show how they were mistreated back then. It
also explains why one cannot find ancestors whom they thought shipped
from England or Germany to the United States.
James Hogg's brother settled in Wilmington, N.C. many years ago and at
his solicitation James decided to also go settle there. When this was
learned in Caithness England, many people applied to Hogg to freight a
vessel (rent it) to carry them all to "The Carolina's". Accordingly, on
24, Aug., 1773, Hogg contracted with Inglis to freight the ship,
Batchelor of Leith, Ramage Alexander, Master, to carry James Hogg of
Borland in Caithness, his family and servants, and 200 emigrants from
Thurso to Wilmington, N. C. Hogg agreed to pay for himself, wife, Mrs.
Alves (his mother-in-law) a specified rate, another for his children, a
third for his servants (the latter being restricted to six in number),
a fourth for emigrants above the age of eight, and a fifth for
emigrants under the age of eight (excepting children at the breast for
whom there was no fare).
The vessel was to be ready to depart Leith, England in July and was to
proceed from Leith to Thurso Bay on Scrabster Road to load the
passengers. Hogg arrived in Leith on June 15th and hung on until August
26, waiting for a full load of passengers. The vessel Batchelor then
went to Thurso and was boarded by Hogg and his family and servants, and
204 emigrants (many from the County of Sutherland).They sailed two
months behind schedule, from Thurso on Sept. 14, but they were soon
forced to harbor from contrary winds at Stromness in Orkney, where they
put the passengers ashore for eight days. On October 3, two days after
leaving Stromness, due to storm damage to the ship, they were then
obliged to put into Vaila Sound in Shetland where the passengers were
again put ashore. Here the Batchelor was again damaged by a storm from
which they were sheltering. Hogg, his family, and the 204 emigrants
wintered at Vaila Sound. The following Spring, April 20, 1774, eight
months after initially boarding, they departed for Leith in order for
the ship to have the necessary repairs made. At Leith, Inglis declared
the contract at an end and declared he was entitled to the fares upon
landing them at Leith as he would have been had he landed them at
Wilmington, NC. The vessel lay without repairs, and on 28 May, Hogg
entered a protest against Inglis. Many of the children of the
emigrants, Hogg claims, died during their winter of hardships in
Shetland. Now, he says, the emigrants have been turned ashore in Leith,
200 miles from home, and many of them with no means of returning home
or of procuring another vessel to carry them to America. Imagine being
one of those passengers with a spouse and 5 children and no money, or
anything else for that matter.
In Admiralty Court, James Inglis alleged damage by stress of weather
prevented him from continuing on a voyage with emigrants, and suggested
that the commencement of this action by Hogg has terminated their
contract. He also stated that he had no concern whatsoever with the
emigrants nor were they party-contractors to him; that his contract
with Hogg was for freight of a certain number of emigrants who were to
board his vessel as passengers to America, but that he had no concern
with how they were to be employed, where taken in America, and so
forth; that to him the passengers stood in the same relationship as
goods or common freight. Inglis alleges that the real dispute is
between Hogg and the emigrants. Hogg and his family took another vessel
sailing from Port of Greenock, but the other poor emigrants dispersed,
with some to seek their way home, and others to endevour to gain their
bread in the low country, and some of them attempted to procure their
passage from Greenock.
Generally, some emigrants died during the voyage before their arrival
in Shetland and others died after the vessel was stranded.(There are 32
pages just about that] In this case, Inglis alleged that he had advised
Hogg from the beginning that the vessel Batchelor, then on a voyage to
Memel (modern Klaipeda in Lithuania), could not be ready early, for the
voyage to N.C. He says that the date the vessel sailed was in fact a
good season to set out for North Carolina.He denied that public spirit
motivated Hogg to arrange for emigration of upward of 200 Scots, and
suggested that Hogg's brother had purchased 12,000 acres of land and
wanted settlers for it. He said Hogg had been discussing "these
questions himself in newspapers and periodical publications." He also
Alleged that 2/3 of the emigrants stayed aboard the vessel at Stromness
and were provisioned by the master of the Batchelor. He further said
that the emigrants angrily advanced against Hogg and Captain Ramage in
the Vice-Admiralty Court of Shetland, and quoted from Hogg's defense
there, in which Hogg refers back to a 1772 emigration from Sutherland
that lay two weeks at Stromness without being provisioned from the
ship's stores.
He said ships with emigrants had only 9 or 10 weeks provisions, and
says that several of the passengers aboard the Batchelor saw at
Stromness from Capt. Ritchie and Capt. Smith's ships that that was the
case. He stated that deaths of several passengers came from small-pox
and not neglect. He said he instructed Captain Ramage on January 1,1774
to return the emigrants to their home, but that they refused "to a man"
to disembark at Thurso; that he tried to assist the emigrants at Leith,
"but cannot help mentioning that they are in general so indolent they
do not care to work if they can get a subsistence by any other means".
(Sounds like that attitude continued on for way too many years, to this
day, in the U.S. ) He contended that Hogg, by taking ship for America
from Greenock, had abandoned prosecution of the action. All that is
just one example of the horrible hardships and treaments of our early
ancestors who came or tried to come, here.
Abrahams Trip From Germany
Now, back to our ancestor, Abraham; So, the ten or eleven-week trip
across the ocean to what later became Bath, North Carolina began in
Germany, on a cold day about the first of July,1700. The ship was
English, made of wood and powered by sails. It was one hundred two feet
long, twenty-five feet wide and twenty feet deep and the cracks between
its many wooden planks were sealed with tar and tar-soaked twine. It
was a miracle it could even survive such a hazardous trip without
falling apart, considering the beating it was certain to incur from the
constantly heaving, frothing, rushing and thrashing water of the open
ocean for such a long period of time. For this trip, it carried a
passenger load of 106 settlers and a crew of twelve men.
Think of it; 118 Men, women and children on a vessel that small for ten
to twelve weeks or longer under such conditions; With almost all
passengers being sick and some even dying during the trip, no toilet
facilities except for buckets tied to ropes, no privacy and no
provisions for taking a bath except for buckets of salt water dipped
from the ocean. These were accepted hardships and baths were generally
ignored. These ships were also loaded with trade goods, fresh water
which always became stagnant after only a few days, food, a few medical
supplies, and the few pitiful household goods of the passengers.
Many times the ships captains would steal the best baggage carried by
the passengers and sell it or load it onto a different ship for a
price, with the settlers pitiful belongings never seen again by the
owners. Their baggage usually contained dried fruit, butter which
turned into a mess during these sailings, other foodstuffs, clothes,
tools and money which they had planned to use to live, eat, pay for
their fare and for supplies upon reaching their destination. They were
not aware that their pitifully small amounts of money would be next to
useless in the "New Land", because "Trade" was the most prevalent
"money" in this country at that time. The fare for the poorer
passengers was guaranteed by the more affluent settlers already in the
New Land, and who were in great need of laborers and who would pay the
Captain upon arrival in what was called "The Bath Settlement" which
later became Bath, NC, in this case.
Aboard ship, the passengers were crammed into very tight quarters. At
first, they sat on the top deck sitting on lashed-down household goods,
boxes and bags of cargo, and personal belongings, as they grew tired,
sleepy and hungry, they wandered all over the ship, both above and
below decks . Being powered by sails, such ships usually found
themselves becalmed for several days and nights during these trips.
Because such sitting and waiting for the wind to blow may last for two
days at a time. That was a total nightmare always waiting to happen and
too often it did. Twenty five cannons were also lashed on deck, by the
ships crew. They were needed to fight off any Spanish ships they were
liable to encounter on the trip in view of the fact that Spain and
England were at odds at that time. Leaving port, the ship was heavily
loaded, and with its sails full of wind, it slowly headed out into the
open ocean.
The next morning about two a.m., no surprise to the crew of course,
they awoke to find the ship groaning, cracking, popping and creaking as
it heaved, tossed, pitched, rolled and yawed from side to side wildly,
with loud crashing sounds, in the opening round of its long battle with
the heaving, frothing ocean. By the end of the first day and with the
exception of the experienced crew, all aboard were already deathly
seasick and were lying below and above decks. They vomited until they
were just heaving, but with nothing coming up. They were already pale
in color and listless. Most of the adults were already having second
thoughts about making this trip. But they were all committed now, as
the ship thrashed slowly along gaining foot by foot, in its beginning
fight for and against, the wind. This was a life or death fight they,
and the ship faced. As they plodded along day after day, the hapless
passengers did their best to deal with the never-ending heaving,
pitching, rolling and yawing of the ship. The front end would point
skyward as it climbed wave after wave, then dive down the other side,
until the bow was terrifyingly underwater, then it would rear up again,
pointing skyward, as thousands of gallons of salt water rushed across
the decks from front to rear, sometimes injuring some of the more
foolish passengers who ventured out on the heaving deck, by slamming
them against the rigging, freight, cabin and bulwarks of the ship.
Practically all the women and children spent most of their time below
deck with the women tending to the constantly sick children, who would
vomit as soon as they ate anything at all. Many of them were running a
fever, from drinking the already-stagnant, untreated and contaminated
fresh water onboard. They, and many of the adults were lying and
sitting, staring listlessly, in a brew of vomit and human excrement in
the ships hold, for days. Some for weeks. The ships captain and crew
advised the passengers to eat only rice, or bread, but no meat or
anything greasy for the first 3 days or more. Of course, the passengers
had no desire whatsoever for anything greasy and the mere thought sent
most running for the "slop jars" used as commodes and toilets by all on
board. These usually rolled and fell over, emptying their odorous
mixture into the hold and on the flooring and all over any nearby
passengers and their clothing. The stench below deck was indescribable.
With no way to treat the passengers, everyone on board watched
helplessly as child after child and adult after adult slowly died, over
the next 10 weeks. With no other choice in what to do with the dead
bodies, they were simply dumped overboard and left at sea. The
suffering, sorrow and heart-wrenching, gut-twisting anguish, of those
who had to do that with the bodies of their dead relatives, children
and spouses, can only be imagined, as they watched the bodies bobbing
and floating slowly away with the waves. Six weeks went by and several
of the adults were now dead. Some of those were husbands, traveling
with their families, leaving their hapless wives and children on their
own in the middle of the ocean, among strangers, headed for a totally
unknown land and the terrifying, unknown, unplanned, and as proved
later, disastrous consequences which awaited them.
So it was, that this nightmarish trip finaly ended near the end of the
eleventh week at sea, when the ships Lookout yelled from the "Crows
Nest" that he had spotted land. At this news, the passengers who were
still able to move, rushed to the side of the ship to look, with the
joyful thought that this total nightmare was about to end. Little did
they know their nightmare was only just beginning.The ship approached
land cautiously, the captain not being certain of the exact layout of
the body of land the Lookout had spotted. Searching for the mouth of
the Pamlico River and a fort with more than a hundred earlier settlers
already there at Bath, NC, was not easy, with no navigational methods,
except intuition and memory. He ordered the crew to lower sails and
drop anchor, to allow an exploratory party on a dinghy to paddle closer
in to the shallower water and get a look at the land. Suddenly, from
around a finger of land, sailing towards the English ship, was a
Spanish Man-O-War ship, bristling with deck cannons. Upon seeing the
English ship, the Spanish commander, ordered his crew to lower sails,
come to a halt and drop anchor, perhaps 2,000 feet away, and then
dispatched two row boats to the English ship for boarding and
investigation.
However, the english ships captain indicated his ship was English, in
free waters, and not subject to any authority of the Spanish king, and
ordered his crew to fire on the Spanish ship with two of the deck
cannons. The two shots missed. The fire was answered almost instantly,
with a volley from the Spanish ship, with one of the shells striking
the main mast of the English ship, causing it to drop to the deck,
killing three of the settlers and injuring 3 others, who had gathered
to watch the confrontation. Working desperately to bring its cannons to
bear amid all the tied-down household goods on deck, the English ship
returned fire, but this time with five deck cannons. Two of its shells
struck the Spanish ship almost amidship and severely damaged the
vessel. With that, the Spanish captain waved the white flag, indicating
surrender, but the English captain, not wanting to incur the problem of
having to control the Spanish crew while trying to deliver the settlers
to land, ordered a hasty departure from the area, picking up his
exploratory boat and crewmen before doing so. Continuing his slow
search, for the mouth of the River, the ship finaly approached the
entrance and continued sailing up the river. They eventually approached
a wooden fort, triangular in shape, measuring four hundred feet by four
hundred feet by four hundred feet, constructed of logs set into the
ground with sharpened tops pointing skyward and within which there were
sixteen small, one-room log cabins with dirt floors.
At each of the 3 points on the forts triangular walls were guard and
lookout towers for protection against marauding Indians who attacked
them from time to time. Within the fort, there were perhaps seventy-
five surviving settlers and outside its walls, the remainder, wildly
cheering, shouting and waving a welcome to the ship and its newcomers,
in the mistaken belief that the ship carried food, medicine and
supplies for the forts current occupants. The captain ordered his crew
to lower the sails and drop anchor, in six fathoms, thirty-six feet, of
water, about 300 feet from shore.
The captain ordered the rowboat lowered and again three crewmen were
sent ashore to determine a satisfactory anchorage location for the ship
which would allow the passengers to unload. Shortly, the three men
returned with the news that the anchorage was satisfactory where the
ship had stopped and its passengers would have to be unloaded a few at
a time, and carried ashore in the ships two small rowboats, because of
shallower water near shore. Already with inadequate supplies,
especially foodstuffs, these additional settlers just meant increased
suffering and hardship for all concerned, for those already in the fort
were desperately short of food and clean, fresh water. In addition,
many among them were seriously sick, with nothing left in the way of
medicine.
The paying passengers were unloaded first, with all their belongings.
The ships Captain, knowing that there were some among those already on
shore who had money furnished by The London Company, a private english
business, and that they desperately needed able, manual laborers and
helpers, offered the remaining passengers and their children to the
highest bidder on shore, who would pay their fares. Upon striking a
bargain, the hapless victims of this auction, were required to sign a
twelve-month contract, to perform free labor in return for the highest
bidders payment, as the bidder should see fit. The "Sheriff" at the
fort was also present to enforce the contracts. Families of men who had
died or were killed during the overseas trip, were then offered to the
highest bidder as "Servants".
Most such families had to be separated and split up, because the
winning Bidder could not provide and care for another family of a
mother and children and his own too. Therefore, many families were thus
destroyed at the fort, as those children and mothers were split up and
assigned to several different bidders.The heartache of the mothers
watching their children being divided up among different, unknown and
unfamiliar families and as learned later, to have them leave the fort
for parts unknown, never to be seen again by her or each other, must
have been horrible.
Within the fort, life was a living hell. It was cold at the time and it
rained just often enough to keep the grounds of the fort and the floors
of the cabins in a swirl of nasty, sloppy, sticky mud almost knee deep
from all the activity and people constantly moving about inside the
fort. Over the next few weeks, sickness from the lack of adequate food
and nourishment, contaminated water, exposure to the weather and
contagious diseases, steadily decimated the population. Restful sleep
was out of the question, due to the constant noise, sickness, misery,
hunger, cold, Indian attacks and worry. With no medical care, these
luckless people could only pray for their loved ones and themselves to
get well, with no hope of a better life in the future.
By now, they all realized they were helplessly lost in the situation
and that they had no choice but to go forward and hope for the best. As
time went on, a few brave men ventured away from the fort and
settlement, sometimes traveling a few miles and back, looking for a
route to move their families southward so they could obtain their own
land as they had heard could be done. They wanted desperately to get
out of that hellish fort and start their own lives, for they considered
it certain death to remain there. So, in early spring a few and
sometimes several in a group would leave the fort and seek their own
future.
Later, oxen, mules, carts and wagons would be available to travel, but
at that time, walking was the only way to travel, so the trip they
made, looking for their own land, and carrying all they owned on their
backs was another long and difficult trial, having only animal and
Indian trails to follow, which lead in the southerly direction desired.
They traveled in daylight and camped at night, cautiously avoiding all
contact with the Indians if at all possible. Many Indians were
murderous and would kill any and all white people on sight, no
questions asked. When Indian contact could not be avoided, all in the
settlers groups, held their breaths, never knowing if they were about
to be killed until it was too late for many. The settlers always tried
first to trade their way out of any such confrontations, offering
trinkets, beads, whatever they had brought for the purpose.
The Indians, having never seen such shiny things, treasured them very
highly and such trades were frequently successful, allowing the
settlers to proceed on their journey. As for our ancestor Abraham, he
was destined to leave shortly. In his opinion to say that was good, was
a gross understatement. After working for several months, he decided he
liked the countryside there and he acquired some land as "Squatters
Rights", along with several other newcomers. His log house was attacked
several times by Indians, mostly hunting parties of six to eight men,
but he managed to get his flintlock rifle and fire a shot at them. A
few times, he killed an Indian. But it was the noise that drove them
away, for they didn't know what else that noisy thing might be able to
do. Perhaps wipe them all out. Several times, the Indians were drunk on
whiskey which they had traded for at the fort and in such cases, were
not as afraid of his gun.
Travel from place to place, county to county, state to state: Traveling
with wagons full of their meager supplies, tools and household goods,
all the men carried muskets, powder and shot and these weapons usually
saved them from the Indians when a shot was fired. It terrified the
indians even more when one or two of them were killed by these weapons,
but it also made the Indians hate the settlers more and made them more
murderous. With two men going on ahead of the group to hunt deer and
any other edible thing they could find along the planned trail,
including trading with Indians, the group lived from day to day and
traveled that way. When deer were found, the group could handle four or
five, depending on the size of the deer, by dividing the meat to be
carried among themselves. They had to eat the meat within two days, or
it would begin to rot. They could have preserved it longer than that by
smoking it, but that would have taken too much time. Also, the smoke
and smell of the meat would sometimes attract Indians and dangerous
wild animals such as bears and panthers.
Early spring squash, corn and other vegetables were traded and acquired
from the Indians and from a few trading posts, along the trail. They
also found wild turnips and polk bushes could be cooked like turnip
greens and eaten, after boiling to remove most of its poisonous juices.
Ironically, we owe a lot to the indians for helping our early settlers,
to survive. During the trip, a few streams were flooded and many
crossings were disastrous at best for the travelers, wagons, animals
and supplies, even with the wagons loaded, they would easily half-float
and just as easily overturn during any crossing attempt. Thus, they had
to be kept upright by ropes tied to them and being stabilized on both
sides by mules, horses, or oxen and riders, keeping the ropes tight.
Sometimes people drowned while the wagons were attempting such
crossings and overturned in the fast-flowing water. Small children and
especially infants were in the greatest danger during these crossings
and many of them and some adults also died in the process, being caught
in, and under, all the freight and household goods on the wagons.
After 3 days of travel, the advance hunting party had killed six deer
and hauled them to the trail along which the wagons would soon be
traveling. While waiting for them, the hunters skinned and butchered
the fresh meat and made it ready for consumption. Every day a couple of
hours before dark, the travelers stopped the wagons and formed them in
a protective circle. Some men set to work gathering feed for the oxen
and mules and watering the animals, while others cut and stacked enough
firewood for the night. Meanwhile, the women and older girls prepared
places to sleep and cooked supper. After supper, the men watered the
animals again and secured them for the night by tying them with
"pigging strings" which were wires or ropes strung between two trees,
or "hobbles" which simply means tying the feet of the animals together,
to prevent them walking or running off during the night. The hobbles
also served as a hindrance to any Indians who tried to make off with
the animals, because the animals could not walk, or even trot. Knowing
that Indians might steal their livestock, the wagonmaster assigned two
shifts of night guards for the camp and the livestock for the night.
Finaly, just before midnight, all people not working were asleep and
the night sounds of crying babies, chirps of crickets and small animal
sounds were all that could be heard.
A small fire was kept burning all night in order to scare away the
bigger wild animals. During the night, the mosquitos buzzed incessantly
around the heads and in the ears of those trying to sleep. Some nights
it rained all night and everything stayed wet, making the travelers
more miserable than would otherwise be the case. With muddy trails,
mosquitos, snakes, cold weather, rain, sick children, overturning
wagons, lack of trails to follow, indians and things staying wet, the
increased pain, misery and suffering quickly became a way of life. On
any typical day, everyone on the wagon train was up at 4 a.m. and
immediately set to work, repeating the jobs they had done the night
before; Feeding and watering the animals, and filling all the water
barrels while the women prepared breakfast, usually consisting of
hoecakes, fried meat and coffee for everybody. Then the children had to
be cared for and fed.
After breakfast, everything had to be repacked, reloaded and lashed
down on the wagons, the livestock had to be rounded up and kept
together until the wagons began moving. The hunters went first. By the
time the group was ready to go, most people were already tired from
lack of sleep and from all the work that had been done at the beginning
of the day. The night guards had most of the day to try for some sleep,
but that was not easy on a loud, bumpy and very uncomfortable wagon.
Finaly, with the wagon train on the move, the loose livestock were a
huge problem because of the little control the settlers were able to
exercise over them. Keeping them on the trail of the wagons required
constant chasing, steering and caring for them all day.
Along the way, they passed a few outposts and supply/trading posts
which were built of logs and occupied usually by previous settlers who
found living along the route to be a little easier by buying, selling
and trading goods such as tools, weapons, animal hides and edibles from
the Indians and other settlers, and the passing wagon trains. In the
absence of money, the trade of goods was the prevalent way of doing
business. These outposts also served as sources of information to all
travelers concerning other settlers, indians, forts, and directions,
but most importantly, they provided information on Indian troubles and
trouble spots such as trees down, trail washouts, stream crossings, or
landslides, or large trees across the trails ahead
HOW THEY LIVED BACK THEN
Upon arriving at a new destination, the travelers learned that the
government would sell frontier land at a low cost per hundred acres,
with the stipulation that the buyer would clear and plant 3 acres of
the land every calendar year, for every hundred acres received, up to a
limit of about 260 acres per family, depending upon the number of
people in the family. Prior to the establishment of local land offices,
no limits existed on acreage for new settlers. From earlier settlers in
the area, they learned that although the land was free, many of them
worked as share-croppers, or at other work for various periods of time.
Some worked as carpenters, wagon makers, "coopers" (barrel
makers/carpenters), seamstresses, tailors, blacksmiths, shoe makers and
so forth. But most worked as share-croppers and that means performing
back-breaking, common labor, farming someone else's land for them, for
half of whatever is produced, after expenses are subtracted. The
prevalent crops were corn, peanuts, tobacco, cotton, and tar or pitch,
but with tobacco and cotton being the principal crops. However, The
English government wanted lots of tar, which the settlers harvested
from the abundant pine trees in the area. England would buy this
production for a pittance, and take trade in payment too. In acquiring
title to public land being transferred for the first time by the
Government back then, the buyer received a "Patent". But when
transferring ownership of that same land after that, the new buyer
would receive a "Deed". Therefore, these first arrivals received
Patents, sometimes referred to as "Grants". But Grants were usually
free land acquired from the government, for some service rendered. The
acquisition of land, or a job, was the first step in a monstrous,
lifetime work project for everyone concerned, for the land had to be
cleared not only of trees, but also of their stumps and many large
rocks.
Digging up and moving stumps is a hugely demanding job and I speak from
personal experience. It takes two strong men about one hour of fast,
hard work to expose all the roots of the stump of a mature tree. Once
all the roots are cut loose from the main stump, there is almost always
a very deep, long and large taproot, which grows straight downward from
the base of the stump, meaning you cannot get at it to cut it because
the stump and its upper roots cover it from above and it is so deep
that much back-breaking digging with shovels, and chopping with axes is
necessary. Once the stump has been cut loose however, a two-mule team
was chained to it and if they were strong enough it could usually be
pulled up. Then it would have to be dragged down into the swamp and
left there, or stacked in the field to be burned after drying out for
four or five weeks. One hour for one stump, when there are hundreds,
usually thousands of them, meant a huge, back-breaking and time-
consuming job which produced no food or any other benefit of any kind
in the short term.
But, with shelter being the immediate need on a new tract of land, the
settlers set about working in teams, first clearing their spots for log
houses. Those rich and fortunate enough to own wagons were lucky,
because crude Lean-to's made of sapling trees were the first shelters
for the less fortunate. Those with wagons could live for a time in the
wagon and even expand its space by attaching a lean-to to it.
The location of their log houses was important and they were located as
close as possible to a source of good drinking water, preferably a
spring. Having to dig a forty or fifty foot-deep well, was a luxury
which could be ill-afforded, when they didn't even have a house to live
in. They worked together to get the jobs done, handling the big, heavy
logs, working on first one house, then the other, cutting the trees
down, trimming them and dragging the resulting logs to the house site.
The debarking and splitting of the logs and putting up the framework
and then making hundreds of thousands of handmade wooden shingles for
the roofs, took several weeks. Dirt floors sufficed at the time. Houses
were crude and consisted of only one room. Wooden floors and porches
were luxuries which would have to wait.
The clearing of land and construction of houses took several of the
summer months and the settlers were hard-pressed to get the houses done
and a supply of firewood cut for the 4 to 5 months of winter which lay
just ahead of them, beginning in November. They also needed lots of
animal hides, dried and cured, prepared for the winter, by the women
and children. Teamwork among all concerned was an absolute necessity
and meant the difference between life and death most of the time. Syrup
and cornbread for breakfast, turnips or grease/gravy and cornbread for
lunch/dinner and the same for supper, were their primary foods.
Meat was a rarity because of the small supply of gunpowder and shot,
which were expensive and needed for protection from Indians which was a
priority. That forced them to use traps for wild animals and meat. Meat
was preserved by smoking it for a week or more, but that required a
small smokehouse and lots of wood, then someone to attend to the
smoking process. Vegetables were mostly non-existent most of that first
summer season. At that time, they had no means of communicating over
long distances with each other except by runner and in cases of Indian
attacks, which occurred too frequently, the runner himself would become
the prime target of the Indians.
Before long however, those who could afford one, had put a large iron
bell up on a 30 foot pole at the edge of their yards which were rung by
pulling a rope. About noon every day, the ringing of these bells meant
come and eat, to the field workers. With houses so far apart, it was
clear whose bell was ringing. If the bell rang at any other time,
especially at night, it meant an emergency had occurred at that
particular house, and anyone hearing it ran to help. Five peals of the
bell meant come and eat. Ten meant emergency here, need help. Twenty,
meant a life or death situation had developed at that house and when an
emergency occurred some rode their mules at a dead run, whether in
daytime, or the dead of night. But when the bell rang at night, it
filled everyone with dread, for it was a sure sign of very serious
trouble at that house. The house was on fire, someone was dying, they
were being attacked by Indians, or other disasters were occurring. The
settlers were collectively hard working people who supported and cared
for one another. Each depended on the others for help if anything
happened because the situation could easily reverse tomorrow and
usually did.
Women worked themselves to death for their children. Everyone starved
because of the lack of adequate and nourishing food. Most mothers were
too starved themselves to feed the babies much and breast milk or cows
milk were painfully inadequate and usually not available. Cows milk was
very scarce. Medical care was non-existent and even if they could find
a doctor, he was either too busy, gone to take care of someone else, or
they had no money to pay him. Besides he usually only had herbs and/or
Indian cures for medicine. So people, especially young ones, mothers
and babies most of all, were sick a lot on top of the miserable lives
they lived. During childbirth, women were almost always attended by
other women and many died from excessive loss of blood and infection,
following childbirth. More died from being undernourished.
In the absence of adequate medical care, many babies died from all
types of sicknesses usually brought on by their own malnourishment,
lack of medical care and unsanitary living conditions. Everybody
usually went barefooted. Most but not all women, had one pair of shoe's
called "Sunday go to meeting shoe's", because church services,
visiting, marriages, or funerals were about the only times they were
ever worn.
Although the early settlers had no schools, when one was finaly built,
the children had to walk back and forth to it every day. Sometimes,
that was a long distance and school was usually considered a waste of
time. With this country being primarily agricultural then, that
attitude prevailed until the 1940's. Very few children went higher than
the second or third grade because they were needed to work in the
fields and little knowledge was needed for that.This was a case of
"strong backs and weak minds". Consequently, even two hundred years
after the early Bedsoles arrived here, many still could not read or
write and for the few who could, they had very little "book learning"
and usually forgot what little they knew in a short period of time,
because their primary way of life was farming. So, the vast majority of
them never went to school at all.
Those who did had to endure unmerciful hounding and being laughed at by
all the others, who spent any free time ridiculing and pointing at each
others bare butts, and falling-apart, ragged, hand me down, faded,
hand-made pants, shirts, coats, dresses and blouses, which were made
either of cloth, leather, or canvas-like material, usually held
together with wire and pegs or nails. Girls, although barefooted like
all the rest, usually wore dresses made of the lightest cloth available
at the time. Unfortunately, this was usually also canvas-like, leather,
or hand made cloth. In the winter, everyone suffered mightily from the
lack of shoes, socks and winter clothing designed for the purpose.
Although the soles of their feet were tough from going barefooted,
their feet almost froze in the winter and when thawed-out, all the
children cried for hours with the throbbing pain in their feet.
Back then, winter clothing was very inadequate and the majority of
earlier settlers made them from deer and bear hides. Covers for their
beds were also animal hides in the winter. Any such hides not properly
cured, were infested with bugs and worms and this was a continuing
problem for them. Imagine having to sleep on a bed made of tree limbs,
lying on and under animal hides which were infested with these
parasites, which you had to listen to crawling around in your bed all
night. Boiling the hides killed these bugs, but made the hides
extremely stiff and unpliable.
The women did learn to make shoes from heavy canvas-like cloth by
triple-layering the cloth and sewing them several times. These were
usually made only for the men because of all the walking they did in
the fields and woods. However, such "Shoes" only lasted perhaps 4
weeks. Later, as softer cloth became available, shirts and dresses were
made of fertilizer or flour sack material, in addition to "Store
bought" cloth. The fertilizer sack material was so rough, thick and
stiff, it was like wearing sandpaper. After turning their heads a few
times, the necks of wearers would be raw and sore. Consequently, the
fertilizer bag material was immensely disliked. Almost all clothing was
hand-made by the women, regardless of how crude such clothing was and
appeared to be.
In the fall, several women would get together and make quilts by
suspending a framework from the ceiling of the house and then sitting
around this in wooden, straight-back chairs, they sewed together the
thousands of small pieces of cloth they had collected all year, into a
bottom sheet. This was then layered with cotton from which they had
removed the seeds. This was then covered with another piece of cloth
and Finally the finished quilt was sewed. The problem was, there were
always small bugs, weevils and mites in the cotton and no way to get
them out, except by boiling in lye soap, otherwise everyone lived with
them. At night, they could be heard moving around inside the quilts and
pillows.
Storing And Preserving Food
There was no way to store, preserve, or save vegetables except for
dried peas, onions, corn, beans and potatoes. But even those were eaten
by pests. Barns were filled to the roof with corn in the fall, but in
the three months of December, January and February it was just about
gone. Much of it eaten by the rats and mice. As the Bedsoles acquired
additional livestock and had more children over time, this problem was
magnified due to the initial houses, barns and cribs being painfully
small and no longer capable of holding the increased need for an
adequate supply of food and feed and the lack of vegetable preservation
for long periods of winter weather.This of course, necessitated the
enlargement of existing, and/or construction of new, larger storage
buildings, all of which added to the already terrible daily workload.
In short order, with no way to protect their buildings from termites,
rats and other destructive pests, and due to leaks in the roofs, the
barns and cribs became ramshackle, falling down, dilapidated buildings,
sitting close to the ground, full of grub worms, weevils, rats by the
thousands, snakes, beetles and other bugs coming in through the
thousands of holes and cracks in the walls, floors and roofs. These
pests were all eating the corn and other winter food which had been
saved for the families. Bears quickly learned that the smokehouses
contained meat and they lost no time in ripping and tearing their way
into these flimsy structures and eating, scattering, spoiling and
destroying the contents. This required immediate attention when it
happened, because meat was a commodity which was widely and highly
treasured as food and for trade. Many times the protection of the meat
meant someone had to stay up and guard the smokehouse every night. This
also meant one less person to work in the fields to produce food.
Whatever corn could be salvaged for food, had to be taken to a mill or
hand-ground with rocks into meal for cornbread from time to time. Since
one-third of the meal had to be given to the miller in payment for the
grinding, too little was left for the family to last out a long winter
season.
Because of all the bugs and rats, when the women started to cook bread,
they had to spend an hour before that picking the weevils, worms, bugs
and especially rat excrement out of the meal. Nobody worried much about
things like rat and mice droppings though, which were too small and
numerous to pick out of the meal. It was just considered "Flavoring"
for lack of a better word.
There was no way to keep green vegetables through the winter months,
but potato's were stored by digging a hole in the ground about 4 feet
across and 3 feet deep, lining it with dry pine straw, filling the hole
with potato's, then covering them with more pine straw. The turpentine
in the straw would keep out the rats, bugs and worms. Hand made wooden
shingles were made and stuck in the ground around these holes at an
angle leaning towards the center so they formed a kind of teepee. The
shingles were then covered with about a foot of dirt. But the problem
was, if just one potato started to rot, as they usually did for any
reason at all, the entire lot was lost within 3 to 5 days. In general,
the most the farmers could hope for was half of what was stored to last
long enough to be eaten. That meant they had to produce and store twice
as much as they needed in order to have enough for the winter months
after spoilage and pests were taken into consideration. But that meant
more cleared land, more planting and constant cultivation until harvest
time.
The various but increasing needs of these families constantly demanded
more and more time and labor. Dried Peas and beans could be kept in
bags but many times those were not available. When they were, the rats
soon ate holes in the bags and pests of every kind got to them and into
them too. In the summer, everybody had so much work to do they had
little time to prepare, plant and take care of a garden. Work in the
fields was a twelve months a year, seven days a week, fourteen hours a
day job. Hunting was limited to meat for food, or animal hides, for
clothes and bed covers. It was generally not done for fun or pleasure.
Many people could not afford a gun and with so many kids around all the
time, they were afraid to have one. However, due to the danger from
Indians and wild animals, almost everyone eventually acquired a gun
from necessity to acquire food. But with the smaller wild animals such
as rabbits, possums and raccoons and the inaccuracy of the guns at
longer distances, sometimes the only choice for getting these small
animals was traps and animals were usually too smart to fall for traps.
So meat was a real rarity and a huge treat when acquired. Invariably
though, all the neighbors came over to share when it was acquired by
any family, if they did'nt live too far away. In due time, a log store
was built near the Beaverdam settlement and trade became a way of life.
The settlers and Indians traded with and among the store and themselves
and of course, the people all traded with the store owner. They traded
cloth, sugar, salt, grease, eggs, skins, leather, vegetables, fruit,
lead, gunpowder, clothing, smoked meat, corn, lumber, shoes, farming
tools and etc. and in a constant stream, more and more such goods made
their way from the supply ships and ports from England to ports in
Louisiana, Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Philadelphia and other
ports in the "New Land" and then to the frontier settlements via wagon
trains. Marauding Indians quickly learned to rob and steal these
supplies and many times, to kill the accompanying people.
The addition of guards to these wagons followed, but this necessitated
higher prices being paid by the settlers and farmers for the goods
being transported, due to the cost of the guards to the transporter.
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