A View of the Family

This Blog was started to document the progress of the family book I was writing. Once the book "Stewart: Heather Lost." was finished, edited and published, I kinda lost interest in the blog upkeep. I am truly embarrassed. I am going to give it one more try.

This is a look at the my immediate family prior to 1930. I chose that period because I lived after it and any other folks that are still living would not appreciate having themselves documented on the web. These photos were taken by, or on the camera owned by my mother. All females are identified by their maiden name, unless it is pertinent to list them otherwise.

The first "look" is my immediate family. See if you can find me. I might be taking the photo, but probably not. You can't find me? Well I'm right behind the elbows of the two girls on the left. That's right, I'm in my Mommy's tummy.

The photo was taken before August 28, 1927, my date of birth. Mom, Celia Elizabeth Fellows, my Dad, Robert Wright Stewart II and Robert John Stewart are in the back. L to R in front: Fred Fellows Stewart, Francese May Stewart, Elsie Jean Stewart and Charlotte Fellows Stewart.

Next a simpler photo.

My Uncle, Donald Herbert Stewart with his first child, May Elizabeth "Betty" Stewart taken in the Franelchar Farm yard about 1916.

Next photo is quite a bit more complex . . . a 1925 Buick, quite new, and a whole bunch of kids.

Inside: Uncle Donald Herbert Stewart, driver, & Fred Fellows Stewart behind. On the hood: Robert John Stewart, Edith Georgia Stewart & Elsie Jean Stewart. On Fender & running board, L>R: Ruth Wright Stewart, John James Stewart III, Charlotte Fellows Stewart, Robert Wright Stewart II, Susan Ann Stewart (on ground), Francese May Stewart, Donna Patricia Stewart, Phebe May Fellows, May Elizabeth "Betty" Stewart, Susan Nelson Fellows, Ruth Dorcas Fellows & Celia Elizabeth Fellows on the camera. In case you haven't figured it out yet, Uncle Donald married my Mom's sister and is brother to my Dad.

Next, gosh, another simple one!

Charlotte Fellows Stewart & John James Stewart II picking apples from the Franelchar Farm Orchard, about 1923.

This is really a simple photo taken 1929, only this time I can be seen!

{See photo at top}

As in the movies - THE END!

TIME FOR A CHANGE!

I have ignored the blog for over a month. My mind has been elsewhere. With that is mind I think I will post a political statement. Just to see if anyone is awake and listening. (reading!)

The folks that believe this are:

A. Democrats

B. Republicans

C. Independents

D. All of the above

E. None of the above

THE HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH KIRK

The following is a definitive history of the Scottish Church and the effects on modern Scotland.

This is taken from the web site: http://www.scotlandsgreateststory.bravehost.com/, a professional family history research service. Having this information included in the "Stewart: Heather Lost" book would allow a better understanding of the problems our ancestors faced. So here it is for those of you serious family historians. Print it out and stuff it in the book!

THANK YOU SGS!

The ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh hosts the records of the established Church of Scotland, but there are and were many other Presbyterian church factions within Scotland - if you cannot find your ancestor in the OPR records, they may well have belonged to one of these other denominations. But what were these other factions? Hopefully the following article will help to shed some light...!

The Scottish Reformation of 1560 happened as a reaction against the corruption and spiritual decline of the Roman Catholic Church which had up to that point guided the nation’s morality for hundreds of years. ‘Heretical’ ideas from the continent were already penetrating the country through preachers such asGeorge Wishart, later to be martyred, and with the increasing resentment of the population against the French, who were turning Scotland into a puppet state, revolution was inevitable.

Shortly after Wishart’s execution, the man responsible, Cardinal Beaton, was murdered by protestant sympathisers in St. Andrew’s, and the town’s castle briefly captured, before returning to French control. One of Wishart’s protégés, a priest by the name of John Knox, was taken prisoner for 18 months, but upon his release made his way to England. Progressing to Switzerland, he studied under the reformerJohn Calvin, who had created a Protestant mini-state in Geneva based on the principle of the Godly Commonwealth, by which the church controlled the education and discipline of its population.

Impressed, Knox returned to Scotland, and managed to convince the Scottish anti-French nobles and laity that revolution should sweep clear the old order. With his fiery sermons underpinning the cause, Catholic monasteries throughout Scotland were sacked. Things came to a head in February 1560 after English intervention, and a treaty soon saw France withdraw from Scotland, cementing the revolution.

The Reformation secure, a new social order was introduced into Scotland which now began to challenge the authority of the Scottish state itself. The Crown had previously exerted its control through the Roman Catholic bishops, who oversaw the priests, who oversaw the people. Presbyterianism completely reversed this, by giving the power to control religious affairs to the people. For the next 130 years, the church and the state were to play tug of war over the role of bishops.

Initially, the Kirk had actually retained the structural role of bishops by creating ‘superintendents’ to oversee the parishes. In 1572, the Concordat of Leith, with the blessing of John Knox, agreed to appoint Protestant bishops nominated by the Crown. But when Andrew Melville came to inherit Knox’s mantle, he sought and achieved the abolition of these bishops. To him, Presbyterianism meant that no man should be held up in authority over another, as he could see no evidence in the Bible that the earliest Christian churches had ever been hierarchical. Melville also neutered the General Assembly, turning it into a talking shop for ministers. The Crown no longer had a vehicle to exercise its control, and refused to ratify the new Kirk’s presbyterian structure until conceding in 1592.

Desperate to regain its influence, the Crown in essence bribed the Kirk in 1610, seven years after theUnion of the Crowns, to reintroduce some form of episcopacy in return for major investment in the Kirk’s infrastructure. If it was not for a small, hardline, theological faction within the Kirk, they would have succeeded. The Crown’s action was certainly not popular with the general public, and crisis point was soon reached.

In 1636 and 1637, Charles I revealed new proposals to assimilate the Church of Scotland with that ofEngland, through a much more stringent Episcopalian policy, including a new prayer book and the reintroduction of the mass, albeit on Anglican lines. This was too much for the Kirk, and a protest document known as the National Covenant was signed across the country, condemning the move. Branding the signatories as traitors, Charles threatened to march an army to Scotland, but capitulated at the last moment, allowing a General Assembly to convene, which to his horror then abolished the role of bishops in Scotland. War was declared against the Covenanters, which soon escalated into a civil war across Britain. Charles was ultimately defeated, and an English republic or “Commonwealth” was established under Oliver Cromwell, who had by now turned against the Scots Covenanters.

After Charles’ execution, his son (also Charles) landed in Scotland, and in a bid to win Scottish support, agreed to support Presbyterianism. He was restored to the throne in 1660 as Charles II – and duly went back on his word. Episcopacy was reintroduced into Scotland, with three hundred ministers soon removed from their churches after refusing to accept the role of bishops. They took to preaching in secret at open air ‘conventicles’, and were branded seditious. Now a new Covenanting army was raised in 1666 against the king, but it was defeated at Rullion Green. When Archbishop James Sharp was then assassinated in 1679, open warfare existed between the King’s troops and the Covenanters, in what became known as the “Killing Times”.

By 1685, Charles II had given way to his brother, James VII. To the Scots, things were now much worse – James was a Roman Catholic. Matters came to a head in 1688 when James was forced to leave Britain, his place usurped by his nephew, William of Orange. William secured the settlement of the Glorious Revolution by defeating his uncle’s Jacobite forces at the Boyne and Aughrim in 1690, and as part of the resultant peace dividend the bishops were finally kicked out of the Scottish Kirk forever.

Many of those who had adhered to the Anglican cause remained within the Scottish Episcopal Church, which drifted ever closer in tone towards a more Catholic flavour, becoming very heavily identified with the Jacobite causes of the Eighteenth century. Another church which remained separate from the established church after 1690 was that of the covenanter Cameronians, later to become the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

But with Presbyterianism now secured, the mainstream churches soon began to turn in on themselves over various aspects of doctrine, with one sticking point in particular – patronage. With the loss of bishops and then superintendents, landowners began to assert their rights to influence the choice of appointments in Presbyterian kirk sessions and ministries. Many church ministers became increasingly uneasy about this, and it was not long before factions began to remove themselves from the establishment church in protest, such as the Associate Presbytery, formed by Ebenezer Erskine in 1733. This later split in 1747 into two camps, between those who would and who would not take the Burgher Oath, which was in fact designed to prevent Roman Catholics taking office after the second Jacobite rebellion.The opponesnts became the Anti-Burghers. The Burghers then split in 1798, and the Anti-Burghers in 1806, both forming two camps, the Auld Lichts and the New Lichts, with the New Lichts in each camp on a more theologically liberal course. Both New Licht factions united in 1820 as the United Secession Church, merging with the Relief Church in 1847 as the United Presbyterian Church.

Meanwhile, by the early 19th century the established Church of Scotland was still dominant, but losing its grip, particularly within the developing large urban populations, with which its archaic parochial structure could not cope. As the urban civil authorities tried to assume responsibility for the masses, another Kirk minister, Thomas Chalmers, and his evangelical wing of the Church of Scotland tried to relaunch the Calvinist concept of a Godly Commonwealth, by trying to address the issue of patronage once and for all, with a return to the values of the true Presbyterian church which they believed had lost its way. However, when the established church refused to challenge the state authorities on the issue, Chalmers and a third of the delegates at the 1843 General Assembly meeting walked out in protest, forming the Free Church of Scotland.

Unfortunately for both the Free Church and the established church, their timing could not have been worse in terms of their Protestant objectives. Within a few years, thousands of Roman Catholic Irish people were arriving in Scotland to flee the Famine in their homeland. With both the mainstream Protestant churches doubling up on their efforts to create new ministries and missions, both became seriously weakened at the time that Roman Catholicism was able to embed itself again securely within the country – and with State backing.

In 1900, the Free Church merged with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church of Scotland. Eventually, both it and what was left of the established church were soon forced to realise that reunification was the only way to regain their dominant position, but by the time they got their act together in 1929 it was too late. Education and discipline were by now firmly in the hands of what was now a fully secular Scottish state. As the churches merged, they were also disestablished, and the idea of the Godly Commonwealth breathed its last.

"Stewart: Heather Lost" Book Errors

THE FOLLOWING ERRORS HAVE BEEN FOUND - CORRECTIONS SHOWN

Chapter Six, Page # 72

Graphic No. 27

Fortingall Parish Church. My GGG Grandfather Robert Stewart and Jean (Jane) Wilson were married in this church in 1850. The Yew tree on the left is mythically 3,000 years old. It is was also mythically planted by Pontius Pilate when serving in the Roman Army of Occupation.

1850 should read 1778

Chapter Nineteen, Page # 169

Graphic No. 81

My G Aunt Hattie May Charles (Stewart) and Grandmother Frances Elizabeth Nichols (Stewart). Circa 1915. Photo by Beth.

Charles should read Thomas

STEWART: HEATHER LOST - ADDENDUM

NEW MAPS HAVE BECOME AVAILABLE and BOOK EXCERPT

STEWART HOMESTEAD, (SAMMONSVILLE), JOHNSTOWN, NY 1787

I recently was given the link to a site that has satellite maps that are much clearer and show much more detail than Google Earth. (Thank you, Kevin) The first map is a close up of the Northwest corner of the second map, showing the location of the House, Barn, Milk House and Spring House foundations as we found them in 1993 and 2000 visits. The maps in the book were old Tract maps from research at the Planning Department of Fulton County. They did not give a good perspective of the location of the buildings on the farm, nor where the farm was located in relation to the Villages of Johnstown and Sammonsville.

NORTHWEST CORNER OF STEWART HOMESTEAD

STEWART HOMESTEAD, SAMMONSVILLE, NY

The original purchase was one hundred acres in 1787 by Robert Stewart I. The Village of Sammonsville is to the right on the road less than one half mile. His son, William later purchased an additional one hundred acre parcel nearby.

AN EXCERPT FROM STEWART: HEATHER LOST (PAGE 75)

So how did Robert and Jane accumulate enough cash to buy their way to the U.S.? I think, based on the timeline of this family, there is a logical conclusion. They were married in 1778. In 1779 Alexander was born, in 1780 Catherine, followed in 1781 by John. The family oral history reported that our ancestor James, the next in line, was born in Scotland. However, only three children were listed by name as leaving Glen Lyon by both Dobson and Whyte in 1786. James was born 20 Aug 1786. Therefore there was five years between the birth of number three, John Robert, and James. If Robert and Jane abstained from their marriage intimacy for that period they may have saved enough to buy passage to the U.S.

The alternative was not very good. They had to leave Scotland. If they stayed it would mean a radical change in their lives with no guaranty of any life for them. For that matter, life at all. Most of the families living in the Jacobite centers of Scotland had been forced to leave and many were executed as traitors after the ’459. Others were shipped to the penal colonies in America and Australia. Some of the more dependent became fishermen on the coasts with the help of their Laird. There could only be so many fishermen to be able to derive a living from that way of life. Others were shipped to the new world, self-indentured for terms of five, ten or more years, where they struggled working to pay off their cost of the ship’s voyage. The Lairds could no longer afford nor did they need their army of tenants to defend them. They, too, were poor and were struggling to get by raising sheep. Sheep needed pasturage on land that the tenants were occupying.

Perhaps in 1781 right after the birth of John Robert . . . this dialog may have occurred.

ROBERT AND JANE STEWART GET READY TO LEAVE SCOTLAND

Jane (formal) and Jean (pet name) are synonymous at this time.

“Jean darlin’, I’ve just talked to my brothers Donald and Dugald. They are getting money together to take their families to America.”

“What are they going to do when they get there?”

“Well, Jean, they have talked to families of some of cousin David’s men who have received letters from over there. They were able to actually buy land with very little cash and something called a mortgage. It’s similar to our Croft agreement with Foss, only they really own the land when it’s paid.”

“Just a minute Robb, I need to feed wee Johnnie.” Some rustling of clothing and then contented sucking noises. Jane then says, “Yes, but how did they save enough money to buy their passage on the ships and then still have some for land? We have three bairns and if we are to have more then we cannot save any thing at all.”

Robert looked somewhat depressed, “Well, I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know.”

Days later they were together and again thinking about how to go to America. This time she was nursing John, “We are feeding and clothing our wee bairns now from our income with a little left over. How long would it take to save enough for ship’s passage and land?”

Robert screwed up his face, counting on his fingers several times, he said, “Probably ten years if we are careful. If we have five or six more bairns maybe never.” He even looked more depressed than before. Although he smiled as Jane detached John from her ample breast and put him down in his bed to sleep. Perhaps he was seeing the only benefit for him if they stayed in the Highlands

“Robb, suppose we had no more bairns for a while, then how long would it be? After three, we both now know how they came about.”

He sputtered and walked around the room four or five times. “About five years, six at the most. We know what this means. Do you really think we can?”, he said.

“Sometimes it would mean sleeping on the floor, swimming in the River Tummel or even just going somewhere else for a little while.”

They loved each other dearly and that intimate act was sometimes all they had to keep their lives on an even keel. “Jean, love, I don’t know if I can.”

“Perhaps if we help each other we can do it.”

Thus, later, it was decided that Jane and Robert would remain dormant sexually for a time. It turned out to be about five years to be exact, a long, long, long time. They both had reservations about their decision. Asking each other again and again, “Can we really do this?”

They, two lonely people, lived from day to day. Sometimes when the going was very dim they sought solace in each other. Soon, “Jean, we had better find something else to do or we will be right back where we started,” he said.

Usually a soft reply, “Aye, Robb, I love thee more than ever, we can do it.” Then off to some work or to walk out into the cool night.

They persisted thus until they thought they might talk to Cousin John Stewart, the Laird of Foss, about leaving even though they didn’t think their savings were quite enough.The pressure was on Foss who, even though a cousin, was being strongly influenced financially to clear out his tenants and pasture sheep. Money was a problem for him, tenants did not bring in enough revenue and the need for defense was gone now that the English were in complete control. After the usual formal greetings, Robert opened the talk with the great respect he felt for his cousin, “Jean and I are getting ready to leave if your Lordship would allow us to do so.”

John beamed. “Aye, Robbie, I have been hoping you would come to me soon, I have watched you grow into manhood and you have a fine family.” It seems he had been quite worried how to broach the subject with this family, for most of his tenants were cousins, uncles, brothers who were dependent on him for their living. These were families that he rented land to and their rents barely paid his tack. He had been a witness at Alexander’s wedding in ‘43. He had a twinkle in his eye for he knew of Robert and Jane’s promise to each other. “I have been aware of your hardship in trying to save coin for the trip to America. As my cousin you and Jean are very close to me, I promised your father before he died I would see to it that you would get out of here some way, not tied to some monied man who wants to make more money from your sweat. So, here is what I have to offer you, it is nearly the same I gave to Dugald and Donald when they left a year ago. I can return the balance of your yearly tithe and I will pay you for your house and barn.”

Now Dugald and Donald were also John’s cousins and Robert’s half-brothers and they had written to Robert they had land and knew how to get more for Robert and Jane. What’s more, they knew how much cash the land would cost. “Uncle John, you have just completed our dreams, we will now be able to leave here midyear if I can arrange passage, . . . thank you.”

With that he dashed out of the house. Robert covered the mile or so from the Foss Manse to his house in record time. Shouting the last 100 yards, “Jean, Jean, we can go, we can go!” They leapt into each others arms in their happiness.

“Oh, Robbie, I am so proud of you, it has been so very hard, hasn’t it?”

Later that night there was no walking in the cold night or finding something else to do.

STAY TUNED . . .