20 Comments

This is so fascinating. Thank you for sharing the story with such care. And how incredible to know more about the history of the place. Are you sure there aren't some ghosts hanging about? You know I want them to be there. Maybe not ghosts in the ways we see them in movies, shows, and books, but their presence is keenly felt, it seems.

Expand full comment

How wonderful to be able to learn about the house and its inhabitants history!

Expand full comment

Hi Laura, thats fascinating to learn the history of the family.you re a great writer! I’m also interested in genealogy and have been going down rabbit holes researching.

Expand full comment
Jan 11, 2022·edited Jan 11, 2022

My mother's family was Quaker and many of them were involved in the Revolution in some way or another. Many were formally dismissed (or however) for the duration, then returned without difficulty afterward. My own family members did not fight but worked behind the scenes -- in supply, medical etc.

Expand full comment

Love this accounting, and how you described this hunt as your version of a video game. I have several of my own video games - including Ancestry. Julie H. and I used to love to visit the old churchyard cemeteries on our Lord's Company tours. It was fun to "visualize" someone's life from the dates and quotes on the tombstones. Several years ago I made my own pilgrimage to visit the Civil War Chickamauga Battlefield in northern Georgia, where my German-speaking great-great-grandfather was wounded. Family lore had it that a few years later, while he was seeking a cure for his battle wounds at some sort of spa/hot springs, he was killed on a Mississippi River steamboat that caught fire and sank, leaving behind a destitute, illiterate wife and a young son. Imagine my surprise when I got access to Ancestry military records last Memorial Day weekend and found out that he did not die then, but survived for a few more decades, getting checked in and out of the Ohio Soldiers' Home. Now I have to wonder if the "steamboat story" was just something to tell the kids? Or did my ancestor run off in pain, illness, addiction to the family of his birth in northern Ohio? Did his wife kick out an abusive drunk? Or did he leave his family out of shame and depression? The worlds of this video game keep expanding. Thanks for your wonderful share. Can't wait to learn more.

Expand full comment

How wonderful to have been given Timothy Taylor's history, and then to *meet* him in his resting place. I love how respectful you and Chris are about your stewardship of this old house and its story.

Expand full comment

Interesting!

Expand full comment

Great story, love it!

Expand full comment

I LOVED this. So interesting!

Expand full comment