Graves of Thomas and Letitia Kennedy

 I knew when they died in Barre, and that they were buried somewhere but the death certificate didnt say.  I had their obituaries as well stating they were buried in Green Mountain.

It was a very vague beginning.  Through alot of letter writing and finding a few new cousins in Vermont I discovered that they were buried in the Sowles family plot in Green Mount cemetery in Montpelier, but had no stone.  With the help of the Cemetery person in charge and my cousins I was able to get a stone for them put up.  just something simple with their names on it and dates.  I was so happy to solve this mystery

Mark Clark Kennedy

Mark Clark Kennedy was the son of Leona Grace Clark and Harold Walling Kennedy.
He served in the Navy as a sonar-man on a SubChaser in the Mediterranean.  Before he left for service he married Ruth Squires, his highschool sweetheart.  He was part of the naval capture of the port of Bizerte among other services.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s31kvr3_xPs

Mark Clark Kennedy College days

Mark Clark Kennedy and Margaret Matthews Clark 1974

Mark Clark Kennedy at the Farm on Kneeland flats, Waterbury VT

During WW2 in Italy, he also received a large silver and ebony cross from the Pope, the kind that priests would wear tied to their belts.  This Cross is now in the possession of my youngest son, Morgan Matthew Dock.  When he returned from the service, Ruth took their 2 children , Meggin and Harold and moved out.  Divorcing Mark a short time later, she remarried a man by the surname of Briggs.  He adopted the children as his own.  Mark threw himself into his studies and quickly became a professor.  Besides the VA bill, he also financed his college by working in the Texas Oil fields as a wildcatter.  He attended the University of TExas, Tulane, SUNY and Memphis state....getting his phd in Buffalo NY. He was also a supporter of the equal rights movement and with his friends, Dr. Bob Reinders and Dr. Ed Powell they arranged for sit ins, radio shows and Mark sat in the radio shows as moderator. 


While at Memphis state, he met and married his second wife, Audrey Eveline Hamblett  and their first child was born in Memphis.  Their second child was born in Buffalo.  After a brief teaching stint in  Vermont, Mark Kennedy got a teaching position at the American University in Cairo and moved his family there.  He taught there for 23 years becoming Emeritis shortly before he permanently moved back to the United states.
His second wife divorced him in 1983 shortly after his eldest daughter graduated from University in Egypt. 

Mark was the founding editor and contributor to several sociological magazines but he was most proud of the flagship journal of AUC called Cairo Papers in Social Science.  He was always available to his students and loved a banter of minds in the court yard at AUC.  He died shortly before Christmas in 2008.

Chauncey Moss Clark

Chauncey Moss Clark, born in 1823 to Edmund and Chloe ( Brainerd) Clark in the newly founded area Russell New York.  Chaunceys grandfather helped to settle the town with Russell Atwater.  The Clarks, Brainerds, Spencers, Knoxes and Matthews all settled in Russell at the same time. 
He married his first cousin, Betsey Clark, daughter of Leicester ( Lester) and Philomelia (Knox) Clark. 

Chauncey Clark served this country in the Civil war.  First entering as a Lieutenant he rose to Captain in the 9th NY Cavalry.  He was at Chantilly and was in command of the 9th picket the night that the confederates brought back the fallen body of General Phillip Kearny.  He remarked in a letter home that it was one of his saddest dutys.  

Besides serving as Captain in the American civil war, Chauncey donated money to fire departments, served as a town representative, founded a cheese factory, established a baseball team, was the founding member of the Hartwell Martyn post Grand Army of the Republic.
He died in his home in North Russell.  The town of Russell does NOT have a death register for him,  I am hoping that Canton NY will have one.  He did NOT have an OBIT either that I can find on any newspaper. 

Grace Leavitt who is a granddaughter of Chauncey made an application to the VA for his head stone in 1940.  She made several mistakes on the application, but the VA caught a few.  First mistake she applied for his stone under the name of Chauncey Matthew Clark.  The VA crossed it out and put M instead.  She put his rank as Private and the VA crossed it out and put Captain.............and finally she said he died Nov 11.......when the news paper notation of his burial stated he was buried Nov 10 and had died Friday Nov 6.  Unfortunately we are stuck with this mistake.

 Chauncey Moss Clark, 9th NY Cavalry company L had the sad duty of accepting the body of General Philip Kearny off the field at the 9ths picket, Oxhill after the battle of Chantilly.

Theora Hamblett

This past year I became a member of the DAR.  Not thru the ancestor or ancestors that I had been working on but through one an ancient cousin of mine had done back in the 1970s.  Her name was Theora HAMBLETT.   Around NW Mississippi she used to be a fairly known primitive artist.  Her work was featured on one of the UNICEF calendars etc.  Our ancestor Thomas Wortham was a shop keeper who supplies food and other supplies to the soldiers.  Not the greatest of services but one worthy of recognition. 

Theora's work can be found at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.  She has a permanent exhibit there. 

One of the nice things about Theora was that her father and my great great great grandfather were brothers!  Imagine when I visited with her as a young woman and she was calling my great great great grandfather "Uncle Buck"

In 1900, after years of political campaigning by activists in the East End of London, Thomas Dewar and William Evans-Gordon were elected to Parliament. Their aim was to bring about limits to alien (and especially Jewish) immigration.

Major William Evans-Gordon travelled widely in Eastern Europe gathering evidence for his campaign to limit immigration, as shown on this map from the book in which he argued his cause. Moving Here catalogue reference (JML) 77.6

In 1903, they helped to persuade Parliament to call a Royal Commission into the effects of alien immigration into Britain. Two years later the first Aliens Act, limiting immigration into this country, was passed.

Now the majority of East European Jewish migrants arriving at British ports were travelling as transmigrants to more distant destinations. New York and Cape Town were their destinations, not London, Leeds or Manchester, and the ship owner became legally responsible for preventing alien immigrants from landing illegally at British ports.

Between 1880 and 1914, an estimated one million Jewish transmigrants arrived at the British ports of Grimsby, Hull, Hartlepool, Leith, London, Newcastle and Southampton. After arrival at an east-coast port of entry, most crossed Britain quickly to the western ports for the next leg of their journey.

At places like Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Southampton, they would board steamships destined for transatlantic ports such as New York, Buenos Aires, and Quebec, or for Cape Town. The burdens associated with mass immigration were now shifted to more distant lands.

Many migrants had relations already settled overseas who were willing to pay for the cost of their journey. Most Jewish immigrants to the US, Canada and South Africa travelled on what were known as pre-paid tickets. Such tickets were relatively cheap - with passage to America falling to just £2 10s (two pounds and ten shillings) in the early 1900s.

A page from a passenger manifest for 1909 showing Jewish transmigrants leaving for South Africa (by pre-paid tickets) on board the ships of the Union Castle line. Many of these same individuals can be tracked in the papers of the Wilson Line (on one of whose vessels they arrived in London) and the register of the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter. Moving Here catalogue reference (PRO) BT 27/688

The patterns of migration common throughout the 19th- and early 20th-century virtually came to a halt in Britain with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

A limited number of Jewish migrants continued to travel to, and through, Britain in the years between the First and Second World Wars, although the United States had by then placed its own severe limitations on immigration, which limited the number of transmigrants arriving in Britain. With the rise of the nazis in Germany in the 1930s, many Jewish refugees sought entry to Britain, but only some 50,000 arrived. After the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, many East European Jews sought refuge there. By this time, mass Jewish immigration to Britain had all but ceased.

For the first-generation arrivals in Britain, naturalisation was a means to settling permanently and acquiring citizenship in their adopted home. They and their children (born British citizens) are a good example of the ability of an immigrant group to integrate with their host community whilst retaining a unique cultural and religious identity.

Of Onion Boats and other forms of travel

Quoted from : JewishGen Blog by Ann Rabinowitz:
"I decided to contact an expert in British emigration who could sort out both Shirlee’s and my concerns. The person I contacted was well-known expert and lecturer, Dr. Nicholas J. Evans, RCUK Fellow/Lecturer in Diaspora History, Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation/Department of History, University of Hull, Hull, England.

He very graciously provided the following response to Shirlee’s (and my) inquiry:

During the years I have been researching the subject of transporting Russian emigrants, I must confess, I have never heard the suggestion that Onion Boats were used to convey Jewish emigrants. The story however contains a number of features that are familiar - a vague recollection of cargo vessels being used to transport emigrants and also that a vessel with emigrants for America called into Britain. Both aspects can be explained by the effects of intergenerational recollection of the story - coupled with the time difference between the emigrant leaving Russia and when they re-told the story for the first time. The reality in the story is that a cargo vessel unsuited for the carriage of passengers was used to transport the emigrants from Libau (on the Russian Baltic) to a British port - most probably Hull or London. For people not used to seaborne travel what they found left an indelible mark. However, it is more probable that the vessel, if the story can be believed, was previously used for the carriage of "breakfast goods" (ham, eggs, bacon, butter) being exported from Russia to Britain. The other aspect of the story - that they were conned and thought they were being taken all the way to America - can be explained by either (a) an element of "commercial prowess" by the ticket agent or (b) the fact the emigrant did not comprehend emigration from Russia - at that time - involved a two-stage journey.

The latter comprised either a rail or seaborne journey to a European port of embarkation - and then the ocean crossing - or a seaborne journey to Britain and then the ocean crossing. Either way, remember that your ancestors probably had little prior experience of moving anywhere and thus the horror of the experience distorted the reality when it was being explained to subsequent generations. It also makes for a good story! For further details of transmigration through Britain see http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleries/histories/jewish/journeys/journeys.htm

I hope that Dr. Evans’ response gives a clarifying snapshot of what transpired once our ancestors got their ticket and traveled far from their native habitat. The point he makes that our ancestors probably did have much experience in moving is quite true. Many never strayed far from their tiny shtetl or village. It is truly amazing then that they were able to pull up roots and travel such great distances to make a better life for themselves and their children.