I went back into my genealogical files over the last couple of days to review some family history (a primary inspiration source for my books) and of course got completely sidetracked. In my perusals, I was reminded that Alexander actually is one of my ancestral surnames, so I have a distant claim to the name! That was nice to see, though my pen name is really about my favorite author, Lloyd Alexander. As a pre-teen, I had a wonderfully sweet dream that he was my father, and the feeling has always stuck, so I'm his literary daughter of sorts, even if I'm writing in a completely different genre.
I was delighted to find a history of the Williamsburg Church (Presbyterian) online. Chatham county libraries provide us with access to the Heritage Quest Online database, whose content seems to vary, honestly, as I've seen books come and go from there, I believe. Anyhow, this 1856 discourse talked about the history of the county and particularly the church. Not a lot about my direct ancestors, but there was a fascinating little Revolutionary War anecdote about my possible great-great-great-great-great grandfather, George Gamble (great-grandfather of a main character of Silk).
Little George Gamble's folks were unfortunate enough to own a plantation home along the Black River, directly in the path of a British force led by Maj. Wemyss. Wemyss' troops had been directed to burn down the homes of important Whigs in the area and to destroy their food stores.
Well, as the soldiers were feeding the fire at little George's home, they threw in his child's chair. George repeatedly took it out of the fire, only to have the commanding officer direct it to be thrown back in each time. Finally, George approached him and angrily remonstrated, "It is my chair."
The officer, likely in exasperation, replied, "You ___ little rebel! Keep it!" The ___ apparently held some insulting epithet for the whigs of the time.
Isn't that a fantastic little story? I would never have found it if I hadn't read the obscure little manuscript. I wish the author had mentioned George's parents names, for I don't know those.
Oh, I wrote many moons ago about visiting the Midway Museum and noticing the dresses had been made by a woman with surname Cox, my heroine's surname. Caroline Cox, in my story (though not in real life, to my knowledge), was a seamstress as well. This historic manual tells us that a large faction of folks moved from that area of Williamsburg County to Midway, Liberty County, GA. Apparently many were prone to go back and forth, as, after British troops destroyed their Black River homes, some of them headed back to their Liberty County homes. So, that Cox seamstress may actually be a relation of my own Caroline Cox!
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