|
a.
|
Note: [December 22, 2004 - Retyped letter brought to Royal Oak, MI, from Anchorage, AK, by Rita Dacia Van Antwerp]
Lester O. Gore
Robert L. Jernberg
GORE & JERNBERG
Attorneys at Law
312 Commercial Building
Ketchikan, Alaska
Anne Gore 9400 Main Tree Dr.
Anchorage, AK 99507
Spouse David Hart
March 18th, 1963
Dear Children and Grandchildren:
"It's getting time, the Walrus said, to talk of other things." So, I will try to give you a little history of the family on the paternal side. I don't know much about that history except what my father told us and I was too young to ask intelligent questions. Besides, our part of the family lived on the Pacific Coast and Detroit and Ireland were foreign areas to us. What brings all of this about is the article in Time Magazine of February 8, 1963, in which article the writer had the Earl of Arran as his subject, and he is referred to as the "Plastered Peer." None of you should follow his example, as he is a relative far removed. Also, you shouldn't connect the present Earl of Arran with the much older Scottish line, which died out years ago.
When father was talking about the Gore family, he said that there were two elderly maiden ladies living in England. At that time I was too young to be interested in elderly maiden ladies, but they were connected with the family some way.
I don't know the relationship between eh Earl of Arran side and our side, but there must have been some for the Earl's were County Mayo people and ours were County Clare's. We didn't spring from kings, but sprung at them. Anyway, the two areas are near each other. Our property was near Quin Abbey and the family house was called "Deer Lodge." When Bobby and Mamma were in Ireland they went to Quin Abbey and tried to locate Deer Lodge, but no one knew anything about it.
Up to our time there was always an Arthur, a John, or a George Gore, but papa quit the practice. Papa's brother George had no sons, just daughters. Uncle John had one son, and he was named George. He and your uncle Millard went to Michigan and Yale Law School together.
But getting back on the subject, my great grandfather lost the property in Ireland and papa used to talk about the Courts of Chancery in no complimentary terms. Later, I learned that such courts had jurisdiction of the foreclosures of mortgages. Anyway, the lawsuit and the appeals were in Court for eleven years. When a final decision was made, the property was sold and, after paying the barristers and solicitors for eleven years' work, there wasn't very much left for great-grandfather, but he did have enough to take the family to America in the very early 1800's, and he had enough to get a small schooner on Lake Erie. He settled in a place called Gibralter and that is when papa was born. Detroit was near Gibralter so the schooner could be used as a freighter on both Lake Erie and Lake Huron, but was principally on Lake Erie. Some of the family moved to Detroit as it started to grow and the Van Antwerp's are a part of the family. We have had Monsignors, Sisters Superiors, Councilmen and Detroit Mayors, but they are the Van Antwerp's. When Mamma and I were in Detroit we called on the head of the clan. Grandfather married Ann Clancy, and Clancy was an Orangeman from North Ireland and in our talk in Detroit, they referred to her as "that Ann Clancy." They were really clannish and Ann wasn't a welcome addition to the Detroit group for she wouldn't agree to bring up the kids as Catholics, but remarried an Episcopalian. All of us kids got to be Congregationalists, as that was mother's religion.
The foregoing briefly tells how we got to be Americans.
As to Grandma Jennie's side, they came over to Massachusetts very early. Her side came over early after the Pilgrims and Puritans. They were named "Holmes." Oliver Wendell Holmes and Chief Justice Holmes were descendants also. The early ones came over to find Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, which they believed. However, when Roger Williams opened up his mouth and talked too much about his religious beliefs and church control, they had to help run him out of Salem as that was carrying freedom of speech and religion too far. Actually, we didn't run him out. He got wind of the fact that our side was coming after him and he ducked out and voluntarily fled to the Rhode Island country where he started Providence, and never returned. We were right about Roger. He jumped over the religious fence too often. First, he was Episcopalian, then joined our side, then the Baptists, then to his own brand of religion.
Also, we were against the witches and helped to depopulate the country of witches. Our work was very effective for we haven't had a witch in America for years and years. But we didn't burn them at the stake - too much trouble to cut wood for fires. We hung them.
Later, Mother's family moved away out West into New York and took up land. After the Revolution, the Gorsline brothers moved up to New York and that is how my mother's name was Goreseline. The Goreslines were French and the original name was Gorselinius. The were artillerymen and came over in 1777 with Lafayette to fight the English for freedom at for so much per month and board. The DAR memberships of the family are based on the services of these two brothers. After the Revolutionary War was over, they moved to New York State and established a little factory for the manufacture of guns so the settler could fight the Indians. Gorselinius was too long to spell so they dropped a few letters and became Goreselines. Besides, they were new Americans and not Frenchmen.
How everybody came to the Pacific Coast is interesting also. They didn't come by covered wagon, but showed good judgment and waited for the Union Pacific Railroad to be built.
The Columbia River country started to boom and your grandfather, Charles, with his two brothers, George and John came out and began steam boating on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. George and John started on deck and became rather famous (masters?). Your grandfather started in the engine room and eventually became a Chief Engineer. Then Great Grandfather John left the Great Lakes country and came West. He took up some land and started to farm a little at Tualitin, but he was more interested in just clearing the land and burning stumps than he was in farming. The farm stayed in the family until your Great Uncle George died. He didn't farm, but just kept the land as it was good and rich. When Great Grandpa William Gorsline came out, he went to San Francisco, then they took the steamer to Portland. Great Grandma got terribly seasick and Grandma Jennie suffered a little from mal-de-mer also. They took up a homestead on the Willamette River just a little north of Salem, Oregon. Grandpa Charlie was then running on the Willamette between Portland and Salem and that happens to be how he met Grandma Jennie as the steamboats would stop just a little way from the farm.
John Gore was known as a swift water captain and he was captain on the boats about the (Dalles?). When the middle Columbia River boom slacked off, he loaded his boat with cordwood and brought her over the falls. One time, a deckhand went crazy and started chasing everybody with a capstan bar. Uncle John ran down from the pilothouse, got behind the deckhand, grabbed the bar, took it away from the deckhand, and then knocked him out. According to all reports, John was somewhat of a fighter even when he lived in Gibraltar.
George Gore stayed on the Lower Columbia River running from Portland to Astoria, until the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed and put a railroad car ferry to take the trains from the (Maloma?) side to the Oregon side at Banters, Oregon, where I was born on November 15, 1890.
Grandpa Charlie came to Alaska in 1800 (pins?). He was engineer on the Hudson Bay steamer, which ran from (Wrangell?) up the Stikima River to Telegraph Creek, which was the head of navigation and where the miners and mining supplies were landed to go to the (Cassior ?) mining district. After he finally returned from the "Wrangell?) area he took the job as chief engineer on the train ferry called the TACOMA. We lived at Hunters, Oregon, until 1913, then we moved to Malame as Hunters was abandoned by the Northern Pacific and the ferry landed at Gable.
The above is just a brief outline of ancestors and you know now that they were not bog-trotting, Shanty Irish, English Remittance men, Dutch dike tenders, nor the type of Frenchmen described in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables."
Your Aunt Rena probably knows more about the Old Timers than any of us.
We all like the sea and that is hereditary. One of the Gore's was navigating officer for Captain Cook and there is a Cape Gore at Resurrection Bay, which Cook named for him. One of the Irish family was MacMahan, who were exiled from Ireland for loyalty to James II. Your MacMahon ancestor became one of Napoleon's important marshals. Probably could have been King of Sweden instead of Marshal Bernodotte, but he probably didn't want to get mixed up with so many Swedes.
This is all of the time I can spare to write history as I still have to earn a living, and my own claim to fame is limited, as I have been but Assistant United States Attorney for the First Division and U.S. District Judge for the Second Division of Alaska. But I must add that I was Grand Secretary of the Artic Brotherhood. The Grand President's job didn't pay anything, but the Grand Secretary got $25 per month, and I needed the money. Also, I was Grand President of the Pioneers of Alaska at no pay except honor. Also, I hold Second Mate's license for vessels of any tonnage on any ocean.
Love to all,
/s/
Papa and Grandpapa Lester O. Gore
[ADDENDUM BY JJENNIE GORE]
Edna G. Barringer, daughter of Charles E. Gore and Jennie A.
Jennie A. Gore daughter of William and Catherine Gorsline.
Catherine Gorsline daughter of Benjamin and Sallie Holmes
Sallie Watson daughter of Robert Watson
Abigal Ayers sister of Robert Watson (England) lived & died in Truxton, N.Y.
Benjamin Holmes, born in England, leaving in early life for Connecticut; afterwards, moved to N.Y., where he married Sallie Watson of Truxton, N.Y.
Robert Watson, born in England, came to N.Y. when a young man. Died at the age of 103 and buried at Union Valley, N.Y. I remember well of his telling me of his wild ride with his young wife, when N.Y. was mostly woods with deep snow on the ground. He was driving a one-horse and pung. A pack of hungry wolves chased them. He gave the reins to his wife and beat the wolves off with a stout whip. One wolf had climbed into the pung. When they reached a farmhouse in a little clearing and the people came out with lanterns, it frightened the wolves away. He had a daughter named Katie Ann Fox, with whom he made his home the last few years of life. Died at Union Valley, N.Y.
Your Mother Jennie Gore [ED:written in]
[Abigal Ayers came over on the Mayflower.]
[Jean Howard - Copy ;made Dec. 13, 1984]
ADDENDUM -Very hard to read family tree, with note - As of January 17, 1987 - Wedding Day of Jennie Gore and Patrick Dwyer.
|
