Digging in the Patch

One night this week I was looking online to see if a book that I had made notes from way back in the 1970s was available electronically.  (Some books with expired copyrights have been put online during the last few years for reading and/or downloading.)  I did find the book and was trying to locate the pages of interest, when I found myself at the back of the book among the publisher’s ads for other books he was selling.  Would you believe that I spotted A Memoir of William Carvosso  —  and then it all fell into place for me!   I think that my gg-grandfather Henry M. BRETT named his son for this popular Methodist advocate.  Here’s how I came to that conclusion.

First of all, I knew that in the mid-1800s it was common for parents to name their newborn after an admired or famous person.  For example, one of my g-grandfathers was John William Zachary Taylor BEALE, no less.  ‘John’ was probably for his father John L. BEALE; the origin of ‘William’ is not yet known; however,  the source of  ‘Zachary Taylor’ is obvious.  I’ve seen various spellings of ‘Zachary’ (‘Zacharius’ and ‘Zachariah’, for example) but I’m certain, given my g-grandfather’s birth in 1849 and President Taylor’s inauguration earlier that year, that his namesake was none other than the new President.

Secondly, I had surmised, via my research, that  Henry M. BRETT was an early and strong supporter of the new church in his neighborhood – New Hope Methodist, founded ca 1833. In fact, his father (Jonathan T. BRITT) and mother-in-law (Temperance WILLIAMS) had given the land on which the church was established.  Along with his ‘inspirational’ trunk [See my 1st post.], I also found in a box of books at Gran’s, Henry’s personal copy of a Methodist hymnal (copyright ca 1875).  It has no notes — only words AND his signature!

So when Henry’s son was born, he chose to name him after the very influential writer — thus, William Carvosso BRETT.  The middle name has been spelled differently at times, but this spelling matches what was written in the family Bible by Gran.  Perhaps one day we’ll discover another explanation of how our g-grandfather came to have such a curious name.  For now, I’ll settle for this explanation — and I’ll ponder the serendipity of finding this information in such a random fashion as I did!

This passion of mine took off way back in time when our 2nd daughter was less than 2 months old.  We were visiting my parents for Christmas and I had asked them if they knew of any old documents belonging to our family.  They pointed me to Gran (my maternal grandmother) who literally saved everything (and found use for most of it!).  They recalled a packet of papers that were found when Granddaddy (Mamma’s daddy) died, but were too old to be relevant to his estate and thus put back in a trunk that was at Gran’s (Yea!).

The next day Gran led Mamma and me upstairs in the frigid cold to one of the 2 closets in the house.  She began unstacking a pile, taller than myself, of quilts, suit boxes, trunks, etc.  There on the bottom of the stack was an obviously old trunk (in both style and condition).  We carefully unopened it, and I realized that I had found my ‘pot of gold’.  I saw hundreds of pieces of paper folded into 2″-3″ sizes, and among them, a packet of documents, tied with string.  In it were 2 wills and several deeds — all showing how Granddaddy’s house & farm had come to belong to his grandfather.  The county courthouse was burned 2x, the last time being 1862 — so, to be able to see and feel documents that do not exist in the county records was incredible.

We took the trunk back to the warmth of my parents’ house.  That night they, my 3 brothers (who were still living at home), my husband, and myself sat in a circle around the trunk, and began several  hours of unexperienced entertainment.  Our 1st daughter (S), 3 years at the time, was delighted to stay up late with us.  Until sleep overtook her, S would remove one folded paper at a time and take it to one of us in the circle.  Each of us then proceded to unfold and read the paper out loud.  Because these were from an era we had never experienced, mainly 1830-1900, even my brothers were fascinated.  There were many receipts: most related to farming operations, but other examples were for payment of tuition at the local school or for a doctor’s care (paid with a coup of chickens).  There were many pages torn from the ledgers of the general stores my BRETT ancestors patronized — this meant that the accounts had been paid.  I found the oaths of allegiance to the United States that my great- and ggreat-grandfathers (Henry M. BRETT and William Carvosso BRETT) had signed at the end of the Civil War. 

I have the trunk and each piece of paper (now unfolded and in files).  Why someone earlier did not toss them out as being unneeded, I’ll never know.  But I surely do thank them for letting that trunk and its contents sit in that closet!