The First Transcontinental Telephone Line

Just the trees are holding it up

Nevada City, Montana (ghost town)

I found a piece of home! Wisconsin!

Who is Chicken George?

When I moved my blog a couple of years ago I wasn't able to get all of my old posts moved over, so from time to time I like to grab a post and bring it over. I've been asked about this post a couple of times recently so it seemed a good one to move.

originally posted Friday, 30 November 2007

A couple of days ago I shared with you the gravestone memorial of Chicken George and it seems there are some questions on who he was. You ask questions and I try to answer so, you can find the full story by reading (or watching) Alex Haley’s Roots.
But to get directly to Chicken George and how he came by his name I snagged the following from Wikipedia:

When George is born, Kizzy, who is only 17, is horrified to see that his skin is light-colored, not ebony black like her own. Her shame is intense. The other slaves at the Lea plantation advise her to forget about the father, although Master Lea continues to visit her frequently at night. The continual abuse drives Kizzy to depression. But when Master Lea finally leaves her alone two years later, Kizzy bonds to the other slaves and tends to her son as lovingly as she would a child born to her out of love rather than rape.
George is raised like a typical field hand. In his spare time, he enjoys hanging around the gamecock pen and Uncle Mingo, the gamecock raiser, who brings in a tidy sum for Master Lea each year in cockfighting revenues. George instantly takes an attraction to the fighting roosters because of their noble stature. Later he becomes apprenticed to Uncle Mingo and proves himself a quick learner in feeding, capturing, cleaning, and fighting gamecocks, earning himself the nickname, "Chicken George."
After George starts full-time rooster duty, there is a noticeable improvement in Master Lea’s winnings. Chicken George attends his first cockfight at the age of 15. As the years pass, he continues to go to tournaments and backyard fights, wins money, and saves it in order to buy freedom for himself and his family. He and Master Lea become very close. Much of the time, Master Lea treats Chicken George like a partner, not as a slave, thanks to the latter's skill with the gamecocks.
At the age of 18, Chicken George encourages Master to buy a slave girl named Matilda so George can marry her. Matilda gives birth to a large family of eight children named Virgil, Ashford, George, Tom, Lewis, James, Mary and Kizzy. Master Lea loses a bet with an English cockfighter, Sir C. Eric Russell, who has him pay by giving him Chicken George. After Chicken George is sent away Matilda and her children are sold to a kind couple, the Murrays, to pay Master Lea's debts.
In the meantime, Chicken George's third son, Tom, a blacksmith, marries a half-Native American slave girl named Irene Holt. The youngest of their eight children is Cynthia, Alex Haley's grandmother.
Bolstered by Master Lea's promise that he will receive his freedom when he returns, Chicken George comes back and gets his certificate of freedom from Master Lea. Though refusing at first, Master Lea is tricked into drinking before George makes a daring move and steals the paper out of Master Lea's safe. Kizzy and one of their old slave friends are dead by the time he returns. Chicken George finds his family, but he must escape to Canada to preserve his freedom. After the American Civil War, Chicken George and his family are reunited and they move to Tennessee to start a new life as free men and women, continuing to share the stories that their great-ancestor Kunta Kinte had his daughter commit to memory so many years before.

So that explains why I found this memorial in Tennessee. In case you can’t read what it says, “Here they lie from ‘Chicken George’, grandson of the African Kunta Kinte and on down the line to Kunta Kinte’s great-great-great-granddaughter, our mother, Bertha.”
Bertha was Alex Haley’s mother. When you look at the photo below you see the fenced in area. I walked in the fence and looked at the stones. The stone shown above is centered outside the fence and you can easily read it then look up and read all the stones inside the fence. Looking inside the fence in the photo below, Chicken George is on the far right and Bertha on the far left.

Historical SOOC #3

I've been to Ripon, Wisconsin several times before, but just now noticed this little historical spot.  Who knew that Ripon's claim to fame was being the birthplace of the Republican Party?

I snapped these photos with my cell phone, and I remember to not touch them in any way, except to resize for here. :0)

Murrieta365

Philly loves statues

All the World's a stage and all the men and women merely players.

the Holocaust
1933-1945

General Tadeusz Kosciuszko ~ Hero of Poland and the USA

It's all above my head

Across the street from Salem’s Burying Point sits this out of place building - all other buildings nearby are simple brick.  But this one, although older, is eye-catching.

Each window has a painting above it.

So much work was put into the details that I had to crop some photos so we could explore them closer.

Even the roof edges hold details galore!

I don’t really understand why all these cool features are really high up on the building where no one is able to enjoy them often.

A mad dragon/fish coming out of a hole in the base of a tree while birds flit about?

The Burying Point

Established in 1637, I think I can safely say this is the oldest cemetery I have ever stepped foot into.

Let's look around a bit and see what we can find.

Inferib'd by an only Child

to the Memory of

an Affectionate Parent

Mrs Sarah Bowditch

who was born March 25th 1754

died Dec 8th 1797

How Blessings brighten as they take

their flight!

MR

NATHANEAL MATHER

DEC 08 OBER Y 17

1688

An Aged person

that had seen but

Nineteen Winters

in the World.

A stone or two in the path?  How odd.  Some of the s's look like f's, so I have translated them to make sense.  And apparently if there wasn't enough room for a word they threw some letters above the word.

FRANCIS WAINWRIGHT

Here lie Interr'd

the remains of

Mr John Hathorne

son of CAPT

Joseph Hathorne

& Grandson to the

Honourable

John Hathorne

Ob Feb 6th 1750

AEtatis 28

Here lyes ye body of Hanna Swinnerton Widdo of Doctor John Swinnerton Aged 71 years died december ye 23th 1713

Here lyeth buried ye body of John Swinnerton Phisian Deceasd ye 6 of Janur 1690 in ye 68 yeare of his age

Here Lyes Interd

the Body of

Mr JOHN HIGGINSON

Junr of Salem March(nt)

Aged 42 Years &

6 Monthes Who Decd

April the 26th 1718

HERE LYES INTERED YE BODY

OF HANNAH WIFE OF JOHN

HIGGINSON JUNR DAUGHR

OF CAPT SAMLL GARDNER

DECD JUNE YE 24 1713 IN YE

38 YEAR OF HER AGE

Thanx for touring with me.  Reading what was carved proved difficult at times, the language, spelling and the fact that some letters seemed strewn about.  I wonder what was intended by the message at the top of this stone, let's look closer.  Your take?

REMEMBER TO DIE