Gonzales, Texas--Honoring the Alamo Defenders

     One of the places Genie and I visited on our holiday last month was Gonzales, Texas, the town from which many of the Alamo defenders marched from to help  in that defense. From the little information I have it appears that both William Dearduff and James George, one a Thornhill descendant and the other the spouse of a Thornhill were part of that rescue effort. (see blog post July 1, 2010)

  

   Many years ago the community of Gonzales erected a large museum and commemorative honoring those 32 brave men led by Major Williamson of their town who marched past the huge invading force of over 7,000 Mexican soldiers led by Mexican General Santa Ana to join the roughly 150 defenders already in the Alamo. There is very little question in my mind that those brave men knew, as they marched by Santa Ana's huge force, that they were marching to their death. Such courage is almost unimaginable.

     Here are several photographs of the museum and commemorative plaques.

                                                           

Thornhills at the Battle of the "Cowpens."

The American Revolutionary War was hotly contested from the first battle in 1776 until its final major engagement at Yorktown in 1781 when British General Lord Cornwallis was defeated by General Washington. The conflict, in the late stage of the war, was being fought mostly in the south. American General Horatio Gates attacked the British Army that was ravaging the southern landscape led by General Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina and was soundly defeated. Gates was relieved of command and replaced by General Nathanael Greene, nicknamed the "Carolina Swamp Fox." At this same time, a ragged band of American militia trapped and defeated a small contingent of Tories at Kings Mountain. The war had now dragged on for over five years but was still being fought with vigor in the South. The British, though, were growing weary of both the fight and the expense. To make matters worse, the French had openly begun assisting the rebellious Colonists and had an Army coming to the aid of General Greene's forces in the South.

On his march south to engage Cornwallis, Greene recruited fighting men wherever he could find them. It was while going through southern Virginia that William Thornhill and his oldest son William joined Green's forces. William Sr. must have impressed General Greene, for he soon advanced him to the rank of Ensign and then Lieutenant. William Jr., after a few months, was promoted to the officer's rank of Ensign.

General Greene soon moved his forces south from Virgina into South Carolina. He purposely avoided any major head-on confrontation with the much larger and better trained British force. He divided his forces  between himself and General Daniel Morgan and the two contingents raided independently   throughout the countryside as they advanced. It must be remembered that much of the South was loyal to the British so Generals Greene and Morgan had their jobs cut out for them.

The Thornhills served under General Morgan and on January 17, 1781, in South Carolina, General Morgan's troops fought and won a significant battle against a large contingent of General Cornwallis's forces. That battle comes down to us in history as the battle of  the "Cowpens"  because it was fought, literally, in a large clearing made for livestock grazing, with an extensive set of cow holding pens.

Serving with the British force was a Colonel Banistre Tarleton, one of Cornwallis's best fighting officers. In an earlier engagement, which Tarleton's forces had won, 120 Continental soldiers had been captured and disarmed. When asked what should be done with the prisoners, Tarleton ordered that they be shot on the spot. No wonder those serving in the American armies hated the British. Unfortunately, Colonel Tarleton was treated much more humanely by General Morgan and survived the Revolution and was able to return to his family in England when the war was over.

The two William Thornhills served on for a few more months under Generals Greene and Morgan. After their agreed upon term of service was  completed they returned home much to the great delight of their families I am sure. William Sr. lived another seven years, dying in September of 1788. William Jr., easily the longest lived Thornhill I can find, indeed the longest lived male in my entire genealogy, lived to the amazing age of 98.  He died in Breckenridge County, Kentucky on December 3, 1855.
     

George Washington Thornhill & Martha Ann Blake

George Washington Thornhill, the eighth child of the ten children of James Lewis Thornhill and Polly Corley (Cauley), was born in Roanoke, Roanoke County, Virginia 3 May, 1831. George moved to Gauly Bridge, Fayette County, Virginia in 1855 where he married Martha Ann Blake, born 16 March, 1836, in Roanoke, Roanoke County Virginia, also. She was the oldest child of the eight children of Lewis and Margaret (Wiseman) Blake. I'm not certain when the Blakes moved to Fayette County, but what information I have states that George and Martha Ann were married in Gauly Bridge on the 10th of September, 1856.

One year minus one day, in Gauly Bridge, on the 9th of September, 1857 their oldest son, James Lewis, was born. His picture is immediately to the left.  Then on the 27th of January, 1860 John Newton was born. Their next child, William Hammond was born the 28th of February 1862 in Gauly Bridge also. The family must have been pro North because sometime during that year they moved north to Steubenville, Ohio, just across the Ohio River from then Virginia, now West Virginia. That northwestern part of Virginia refused to secede from the Union and became the state we now call West Virginia but it was obvious the Thornhills weren't taking any chances, they were Unionists.
       Mary Margaret, their first daughter was born near Cadiz,  Harrison County, Ohio on 4 November, 1864. Hiram Bates was next in line and was born 17 September, 1866 in Jefferson County, Ohio. The terrible Civil War was finally over and life could at least begin to get back to normal.  But, the family moved still again and Eunice Ellewood was born 31 December, 1868 in Washington County, Pennsylvania.  On 2 December, 1870, Emery Emmit arrived on the scene. Martha Ann had been having children almost every two years since they married in 1856, however. this time she waited four years and on the 6th of May, 1874 Charles Albert was born. And last but not least, Elmer Ellsworth was born 3 March, 1877. My records are silent on where Charles and Elmer were born but I believe it was in that portion of  Ellwood City that is in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. George and Martha had nine children in 5 different locations in 21 years finally ending up in Ellwood City, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania where they lived the remainder of their lives. George passed away on the13th of November 1901 and Martha  November 2, 1910.

Charles died 11 January, 1881 in New Cumberland, Hancock County, West Virginia. Elmer was killed in September, 1913.  Unfortunately,  my notes are silent as to where and how he was killed.

Send Me Your Pictures, Please

Family Pictures.  How important are they? Are they worth a special effort to preserve? Where do you keep them? Are they all identified? Why spend the time to identify them?  I know who they are. I can go on and on with such questions but the simple answer is--you bet they are important. Human memory, while excellent in some regards, remembering precisely how someone looked even a few years ago is difficult to almost impossible without some sort of an aid---a picture. Over time, pictures can reveal a lot of information about someone and if that someone is a long-ago, deceased ancestor, say a hundred and fifty years ago, without a picture you haven't the foggiest notion of their physical appearance, what their face looked like, kindly, friendly, fat, skinny, happy or sad.   A picture that has been preserved of that person almost lets you know them.
The individual farthest back in time of any of my genealogical lines of whom I have a picture is that of Elizabeth Windle, b25 Oct, 1796, daughter of Eleanore Holt and Francis Windle. With regard to my oldest direct ancestors I have a picture of William Humphrey Holt, born in 1806. He is one of only three of the 16  great, great Grandparents of whom I have pictures.  He appears to be friendly, tall, well built, not skinny or fat, obviously dressed for the picture taking occasion and I got the feeling that he was a competent person from his countenance.  How about his wife, Mary Noss? I know little or nothing of what she looked like, was she  tall or short, skinny or fat, dressed well or was sloppy. All I know is my Grandfather Holt described her as being small, fairly agile, enjoyed sitting on her front porch in the evenings smoking a small, white-clay pipe.  A picture of her would be worth more than a thousand words of description.  The other two you haven't seen yet: Jeremiah Smith b1831, and his wife Rebecca Evans, b l844, are the only pictures I have of any of my sixteen great, great Grandparents.
I am fortunate I have pictures of five of my eight great Grandparents, Mary Ann (Taylor) Holt, John and Fanny Bell (Smith) Thornhill and John and Agnes Baxter (Ecoff) Childs. I would really appreciate getting pictures of the other three, Samuel Jacob Holt and Joseph and Sarah Ann (Kennedy) Davis.  Unfortunately, few people smiled for their picture taking in the early days of photography, it took too long to take the picture, so most were solemn, almost pensive, while they waited for the blinding flash and the photographer to say okay. But that doesn't matter, I can still form an image of what they looked like if I have a photo of them.
If any of you out there have photos of any of the folks listed above, or their ancestors or descendants, I would really appreciate having a copy. I'll happily pay for the reproduction. I'd just like to know what they look like. I don't want to restrict my desire for photos to just my direct ancestors, I'd like photos of any of their descendants right up to today. Photos can be exchanged via the Net without any cost. If I publish a photo that you would like a copy of, just ask and it will  come flying your way. I promise you I will not publish a photo of any living person without that person's consent.  I'll wait awhile and then publish the pictures I have as a group.

Welcome

This is the beginning of a blog intended to do several things: (1) Follow the first twenty years of my life spent on a small farm in Beaver County, Pennsylvania at the tail end of the transition from the horse and buggy to the more modern forms of travel and electronic communication, and (2), have you meet my family and ancestors as I have come to know them through research in the Holt, Childs, Davis, Thornhill and other family related lines such as Kennedy, Ecoff, Fry, Blake, Corley, Holmes, Smith, Critchlow, Windle and others. In some of the lines they have been traced to the immigrant, and occassionaly, to those who remained in the old country. My hope is that some of you who find your way to my blog can help me further my research into any and all of my family ancestral lines. Above all, I want your comments, critical, informative, identifying mistakes, adding to my research or telling me you like what I'm doing or don't and why. I look forward to hearing from you.