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Category Archives: Photographs and Memories
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Spring Real Estate Boom: Garage Owner Declines Developer’s Offer
I swear I left the door open for just a couple of hours, as I tended the garden and the dogs. Swoosh! at my head came a LBB, the bane of a birder’s existence while in the field. Little Brown Bird is the go-to scientific identification for all sorts of sparrows and wrens that so closely resemble each other that only intense field scrutiny can resolve the question – what did I just see. So on that afternoon, the swiftness of flight and my startled response to a bird flying back to front out of my garage left me with but one conclusion: I had an LBB trying to nest in my garage. IN my garage.
I do not want the interior of my house or even my garage becoming a site of passerine development and I immediately searched the space in front of my headlights. Yep. There it was. Tucked high above my reach on a decrepit sheet of burlap, woven bits of leaf litter, moss, twigs created a shallow cup in the shelf corner. Clue number one that Little Brown Bird was a wren.
Clue number two was heard as I tended flower beds and dogs, garage door CLOSED, the next day: teakettle-teakettle-teakettle. The chunky little brown bird darted into a nearby pine shrub, and perched with its tail held high. Clue number three.
Teakettle-teakettle-teakettle.
Now I was certain that a Carolina Wren sought my garage shelf for development. I kept the garage door closed, for the next day or two,surely long enough, I thought, to encourage this picky wren to seek other marvelous real estate in my wooded property.
Yesterday, I once again kept the garage open, as I tended the garden and the dogs. Life was easy. For everyone. Including my Little Brown Bird.
Suffice it to say, I removed the nest before this development had gotten too far.
May I suggest, LBB, my hanging fern?
Minor Details: The Guynns of Missouri
In 1861, Vincent Guynn (Gwynn) and wife Hannah set out from Greene County, Pennsylvania with their first born son to land in Illinois; and eventually emigrated on to Henry County, Missouri, where the growing family settled on farmland in Bear Creek Township in 1867. The couple had seven children: Reuben Alfred, b. 1861; Melissa Jane “Jennie” Sagesser, b. 1862; Annie E. Walker, b. 1865; Priscilla Valinda (Linnie) Williams, b. 1868; John Vincent, b. 1869; Mae (May), b. 1873; and Richard Noble, b. 1877.
My gggrandmother, Mary Jane Gwynn Minor, stayed in touch with this brother’s family, and received a set of photographs of the Missouri kin sometime between 1897 and 1901. What remains in the family possession are these three portraits, sent by an unknown niece or nephew.
“This is my eldest brother Reuben Alfred Guynn”
Reuben was a successful business man in Montrose, Missouri, owning a drugstore with his brother, Richard, before turning to banking. He was also a prosperous farmer.
“This is bro John Vincent Guynn taken after he was feeling bad. He was sick over one year.”
John died at the early age of 31, in 1901.
“This is sister May taken one year before she died . She was sick one year.”
May died in 1897.
Mapping My Ancestors: An Update to the Wilson-Minor Transactions
Have you ever wondered if anybody ever reads what you have so passionately researched and diligently recorded? Just as I despair that my family storytelling has NO audience, I got a comment, followed by a description, followed by an email with PHOTOGRAPHS. This post was originally published two years ago, and today, because of curious reader, I have additional descriptions of land purchased 170 years ago by John Pearson Minor.
Drawn on thin paper discolored to a light blue, the survey map described a distinct parcel of land with corners marked by Black Oak, Water Beech, Limestones, fence posts, stakes, and Hickories. Lines connected the corners and were labeled with surveying code–S37 W 151/2 poles and the like. Unnamed squiggly lines posed as small streams crossing the land, emptying into an unnamed creek boundary. Lines cut the map into pieces; within one rectangle was the name A. Minor, within another the name R. Minor. The outside bore a cryptic “plot of Virginia land 575.”
Five hundred and seventy-five was the amount of land that John P. Minor purchased from James P. Wilson in 1841 and 1842. As I reread those deeds I traced my finger along the lines of this map, and with great excitement realized that I did indeed have a map which depicted the Minor land acquisition of 1841 and 1842 in Harrison County, (West) Virginia!
Five Hundred Seventy-five Acres along Simpsons Creek
With that confirmed I could with great certainty know that the bigger stream indicated Simpson’s Creek, and the smaller streams were Limestone Run and Stout’s Run. However, I still didn’t know when this map was created or where this parcel of land was on a current map.
unto the said Abia and Robert Minor their heirs and assigns for ever all that tract or parcel of land situate lying and being in the county of Harrison in the state of Virginia and bounded as follows
The 1849 document transferring a piece of this property to Abia and Robert Minor was never executed. It was as if the boys had given John P. some reason to pause before deeding title. BUT the document gives a surveyor’s description of the considered transaction, and that plot is only the piece labeled R. Minor in this map–a clue that this map was created sometime AFTER 1849. Other documents related to this land include John P. Minor deeding the tract of land labeled here A. Minor to Abia Minor in 1854. Therefore, I conclude that my surveyor’s map was created sometime between the years 1849 and 1854.
The when of the map was closer to being settled at this point, however I was left no closer to understanding where these 575 acres were located. For that I consulted the Federal Census data hoping to track the residences of the young men. My hunch was rewarded with an interesting trail.
1840 Abia has a child and wife in Greene County, PA Robert is not listed anywhere 1850 Can’t find either Abia or Robert 1860 Abia is in Moultrie County,Illinois Robert is in Harrison County, Virginia 1870 Abia is in Moultrie County, Illinois Robert is in Harrison County, West Virginia 1880 Abia is in Harper County, Kansas Robert is in Harrison County, West VirginiaIf Robert was on that land so long then searching for a map of that 1860-1880 era might yield some clues.
At Historic Map Works I did indeed find such a map–An Atlas of West Virginia, published by D. J. Lake and Company in 1886. This map labeled not just towns and streams, but homes and businesses. I found Robert Minor’s name by a square that sat on a small stream, presumably Stout’s Run, that emptied into Simpson’s Creek north of Bridgeport. Limestone Run had been renamed Barnet’s Run by 1886. With these facts I could look at a Google map with new eyes and locate the ‘Plot Virginia Land 575′.
Limestone Run was renamed Barnet’s Run by 1886, and the farms were covered by interstate and malls by 1986.
A mystery is solved, and leaves me with mixed emotions. Now I know where my ancestor once walked; where, finding coal and water and good land for farming, John P. Minor expected to give his sons a great leg up in life.
Phillip Wilson stopped by my blog, and read through this post, recognizing immediately that he grew up on Robert Minor’s farm. His parents, Robert and Helen Wilson, purchased the land in 1962. Their home, built around 1940, sat close to the “cellar house”, the basement of the original home. Phillip played for hours down by the creek while his mother kept a watchful eye from the patio, til they paved paradise and put up an exit ramp.
Robert Minor Farm, photo from Philip Wilson 3.2.2013
Robert Minor Farm, photo from Philip Wilson 3.2.2013
**With sixteen passes of the Flip Pal I had successfully scanned the map before me and stitched it together into a seamless jpeg file with the built in Stitch Tool. Flip Pal. LOVE. IT. Check it out here.
