Our Ancestors---Shall We Keep Their Memory Ever Green

By Miss Caroline Gillingham Doughty

(a Wilson Family descendent)

An Essay Read at the August 19, 1893 Wilson-Thompson Family Reunion

Originally shared by Dr. Russell Miller in Family Website 1.0

My invitation to take an active part in the reunion was to me entirely unexpected, as it had never occurred to me that I had anything to say that you would care to hear, but when the invitation came, the thoughts were stimulated to flow and perhaps I might have a few ideas which may be new to some of you. We all, doubtless have thoughts peculiarly our own; some good, new thoughts, which the world would be better knowing. Our minds are like our faces, different from all others. Giving out our thoughts to others is like the lighting a candle from the flame of another. Millions of candles may be lighted from one, yet the fire of that one be made not dim. It is even true of our minds; the very effort of giving our thoughts expression expands our minds and makes them stronger. If I may give some new ideas which will be a pleasure, or profit to you, or your descendants I would be glad.

I came not here to boast of our ancestors, who lived and loved, who were happy or miserable, who suffered and died, more than two hundred years ago in far-away Scotland. I fear were I to do so that “That old gardener and his wife might smile at my claim of long descent” (quote from Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Alfred Lord Tennyson). People often sneer that anyone should be proud of being descended from a noble family, but why should we not be proud of it? Although we live in a land where titles are forbidden and I for one hope they may never be allowed, yet it means that somewhere in the past one of our ancestors won title and rank by merit or ambition. We should suppose that in that land of staunch integrity, they were seldom won be any other way. In short, you and I and everybody would prefer to be descended from the Earl of Cassilis, (Scottish father of Isabelle Kennedy, the mother of John Wilson, forefather of Wilson family in US) sullen and ill-tempered though he may have been, than from the beggar at the gate.

In descending the genealogical tree, we must expect to meet some unpleasant things. Human nature is human nature, in the cottage of a peasant, or in the palace of a king, today as it was yesterday, as it was a thousand years ago so it will be a thousand years hence, and if we should meet with that “loop of stronger home (twine) that plagued some worthy relation,” (quote from poem of Thomas Hood, see at end of this essay) little wonder, and less disgrace perhaps, for in the olden time human life was held to be of little value; and differing in the opinion from the mandate of a king or holding to a different religion from that of the throne might in those days send one to the block, or to one of the many forms of martyrdom which only the evil genius of the inquisition could devise.

We are glad that we can trace our lineage to that country of Highland and Lowlands, to the people who cultivate mind on a diet of oatmeal. I must give you a little anecdote of an Englishman and a Scotchman. The Englishman thought to taunt the Scotchman and said `Scotchmen eat oats, Englishmen feed it to their horses.’ `True’ replied the Scotchman, and `England produces the finest horses and Scotland the smartest men in the world.’ It is also the land where, when the emigrant son starts from home, his mother places a Bible in the top of his bundle. It was country of domestic romance of Young Lochinvar, of Greta Green, and lastly, but to us of most importance, it was the land of Lady Isabella Kennedy (the mother of John Wilson, the forefather of the Wilson family in the US). We but followed the ways of her time and country when she fled with the man she loved; the man whom we claim belonged to that family of martyred Wilsons, who belonged to that land of Presbyterians called Covenanters who rather (than) renounce their religion suffered terrible persecution, conducting their religious services anywhere under the broad dome of the sky, fleeing from dell to mountain fastness, watched, pursued and persecuted by the officers of king to whom they had been so faithful.

But with the remembrance that we are descended from a noble family let us not forget that we are first of all Americans; to be an honest, honorable citizen of the United States of America is the proudest title that can be won. Let us study American history, let us cherish American family history.

As Napoleon first dated his greatness from one of his early victories, so must we, in the main, date our ancestry from the first settlers of this country and not from our ancestors of the Old World. It is pleasant, indeed, to be able to trace our lineage so many generations back; but our pride must hover around those frail vessels that bore the colonists to this wild land of mountain and forest, or savage beasts and sometimes more savage men. The pioneers who died in the early settlement of this country from hardships endured, were the martyrs to the cause of human freedom.

Freedom of thought was a thing forbidden in all the ages that had gone before, and a feudal lord, for aught that I am able to see, had as much control over the body of his retainer as had the master of the black slave of the South. Perhaps the immigrants who came two hundred years ago were no better than are some who came yesterday, who come tomorrow, who come today, or any future time. But they came in their frail little sailing vessels, which sometimes consumed months in the voyage; they came to a wild land with little property to found homes on what often proved to them (an) inhospitable shore. They were the vanguard of the army of immigrants who came after them. Thus, the poet expresses it:

“I hear the tread of the pioneer,

Of the millions yet to be;

The first low wash of waves

Where soon shall roll a human sea”

(John Greenleaf Whittier)

They were the people who founded a great nation; and this human sea which commenced as a mere ripple on the sands of the Atlantic coast has swept onward over the Alleghenies, past the great plain of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains and beyond it till the mighty waters of the Pacific.

Let him who has a forefather who marked the snow of Valley Forge with the blood of his bare feet in that Never-to-be-forgotten winter of 1777-78, and whether he succumbed to the hardships and was buried there, or whether he was able to take up his weary march with a forlorn hope to Monmouth, where on that June day, one hundred and fifteen years ago, patriotism won a triumph over meanness and treachery, do not forget him. Do not forget to tell your children of him, or even put it down in writing (so) that the fact may not be lost to memory. Our country is young yet and we are accustomed to think of these things as wholly of the past. It will be different when our country becomes old. These things will then be such an honor that Duke of Earl never knew a greater, and your descendants will be as proud of these heroes as were the Greeks of the handful of men who defended the pass of Thermopylae against the millions of Persia. In a comparatively short space of time the events of the ancestors who took a part in that long and eventful struggle, do not let them be forgotten. Keep their memory ever green. It is a pity that anyone who helped build up this grand Republic should be forgotten by his descendants, for—

`The land is holy where they fought

And holy where they fell;

For by their blood the land was bought,

The land they loved so well.”

(Isaac McLellan)

But whilst making researches into the past do not forget the present. When your son or your daughter goes forth to found a new home and a new family give them all the information you can in regard to your people, and when the parent of a family are carried out, never to return, and the old family Bible goes with one member, the rest should make a note of it or copy its records and guard them carefully for the benefit of future generations, so that when from pleasure or need they may wish to learn these things the work may not be so difficult. The past centuries keep their secrets well, so note down what you would have the generations who follow know. It is not all sentiment, for sometimes inheriting money much trouble is experienced from the loss of a marriage certificate or the record of a birth or a name forgotten, all of which might be prevented by a little care on the part of those who have preceded them on and have passed off the stage of this life. Be careful of these things for time allows but few footprints to remain. When your descendants far away in the future look backward across the misty centuries, may they never have occasion to regret that you were not more careful in regard to these things.

`Depend upon it, my snobbish friend,

Your family thread you can’t ascend,

Without good reason to apprehend

You may find it waxed at the farther end,

By some plebeian vocation:

Or worse that that your boasted line,

May end in a loop of stronger twine,

That plagued some worthy relation.’

(Thomas Hood)