Monthly Archives: May 2020

ReIssue of Ebenezer Hazard, Jeremy Belknap, and the American Revolution

Routledge, a division of Taylor and Francis, will be reissuing this fall my 2011 book, Ebenezer Hazard, Jeremy Belknap, and the American Revolution. The letters of Jeremy Belknap and Ebenezer Hazard encompassed twenty years, from 1779 to 1798, during a … Continue reading

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Philadelphia in 1787: The Making of the Constitution of the United States

Philadelphia, the capital of Pennsylvania, was in 1787 a city of a little over 40,000 people. The city had been founded a century earlier by Quakers and it still had a strong Quaker presence. Philadelphia was the cultural and intellectual … Continue reading

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Ephraim Deal Sorrels, Arkansas and Oklahoma Woodsman and Farmer

Ephraim Deal Sorrels, an Arkansas and Oklahoma woodsman and farmer, was born Jan. 5, 1847 in Ashville, Buncombe Co., North Carolina, and died April 4, 1928, in Sparks, Lincoln Co., Oklahoma, aged 81. His father was Thomas M. Sorrels and … Continue reading

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What are humans, that You are mindful of them?

Reflections on the 8th Psalm:   How admirable is His Name . . . God’s magnificence is greater than that which can be conceived. His glory is unsurpassable by even those with the most fertile imaginations. The multiplicity created by … Continue reading

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Fear, and what to do about it: the teachings of Michel de Montaigne

“The thing I fear most is fear.” Such were the words of Michel de Montaigne, the French writer of Essays. Like all humans, Montaigne struggled with fear. How did he wrestle with it, try to conquer it? Montaigne was a … Continue reading

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Lucenda Beach Largent, Illinois Farm Woman of the 19th Century

Lucenda Beach Largent lived from July 12, 1808 to Nov. 26, 1875. Lucenda A. Beach married Archibald Largent (Thomas Largent’s father, George Washington Largent’s grandfather, Claude Christopher Largent’s great-grandfather) in North Carolina in April, 1825, when she was 17. Before … Continue reading

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Andrew McCrillis of Early New Hampshire and Maine

Andrew McCrillis was born on August 21, 1775, Meredith, NH. He died on Feb. 27, 1856, in Maine. Andrew McCrillis was Maria Antoinette Nettie McCrillis’s grandfather, and since Maria was Lida Jane Collamore’s mother, hence Roland Newcomb’s grandmother, then Andrew … Continue reading

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Robert King Newcomb, Maine Farmer

Robert King Newcomb, August 23, 1836-Feb. 6, 1927 Robert King Newcomb  was born August 23, 1836, in Charlotte, Washington Co., Maine, to Robert B. Newcomb and Lydia Beals Lishness Newcomb, daughter of Lewis and Sophia Lishness of Maine. Robert King … Continue reading

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Peter Etter, American Loyalist

Peter Etter lived from July 5, 1751 to 1798. Peter Etter was of Swiss descent, his father Peter having been born in 1715 in Bern, Switzerland. His mother, Margaretta Martin, was born in Switzerland in 1724. The elder Peter Etter … Continue reading

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Will Perkins, Family Historian

William Lennox Perkins, July 12, 1868-August 25, 1946. William Perkins, brother of Hattie Perkins Brown, who was the mother of Florence Brown Phillips and the grandmother of Milton Arnold Phillips, was the Perkins and Crawford family historian as well as … Continue reading

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