Forebears and Bears

  REUBEN CHASE, REVOLUTIONARY WAR PENSIONER AND HIS CONNECTION TO THE INDIGENOUS TRIBE AT YARMOUTH, MA A revolutionary war grave marker juts from the barren southeast corner of the Ancient Cemetery in Yarmouth.   This section of the cemetery was infamously set aside in 1826 when the   town ordered Thomas Greenough, a leader of the indigenous tribe at Yarmouth, to disinter and move his wife Jane from her existing burial plot to this area of the yard. The Town ordered all future burials of people of color to be directed to this corner.   Several gravestones frame the blank space including those for little Thacher Baker, and my ancestors George Washington Chase and his wife Nancy J. of whom I have written previously.   An old map thankfully provided by the Friends of the Ancient Cemetery * on their website clearly indicates that this veteran marker determines the resting place of a Reuben Chase.   Newspaper accounts acknowledge and include Reuben’s war service...

 The Nelsons of Indian Trail, Cummaquid, MA The Nelsons approx. 1912   — left to right: front row: Harriet Leah and Elizabeth Amanda; back row Alice Louise, William John Nelson, Mary Teresa (Doyle), and William McKinlay. Twin daughters Estelle and Adele are born later . I love this photograph.   It was the first picture I had ever seen of my grandmother Harriet as a child, and more importantly of her parents William John Nelson and his wife Minnie Doyle. Please note that William Nelson’s name is sometimes written as William John but also as John W. or John William in others - in the census record at age 2, WWI draft registration card, and various land transaction documents.   Normally, I don’t like to share personal family photographs on the internet, I feel too possessive of them, but this photograph happens to be all over A ncestry.com already so I figured it’s out there.   My uncle had this framed photograph in his living room and shared it with relatives an...