A century of children identified

Picture above is #1

Yes, as everyone thought - well, at least the four of you who shared your thoughts - that's Margaret riding the "horse" in front of my mother's gardens.

Most of these pictures - the ones taken in Barrington - were taken by mother and all come from the collection of images in their home. (So no, Mike, I can't be brought up on charges for that picture - I didn't take it ;-)

I said Alex Hirst made this horse - maybe. It's possible I made it. But if I did, it was under his tutelage and with his pattern and tools. He definitely made the similar, but more complex, rocking horses that Margaret remembers.

#2
Ah . . . don't blush Owings. You got most of them right. But that's your sister Catharen, not Sarah. (Sarah does have this one - and several others - correctly identified.) To me this really looks like Catharen - so maybe that was just a slip of the keyboard as you were jumping back and forth trying to link images, numbers, and your response.

#3
Oh yes, it's me, the range rider. I actually did get on a real horse one summer when a camp counselor. But I have to admit, this one was more my speed. That's a long, curved strip of metal that projected out in front, then bent back on itself to give the "horse" some spring. Frisky little devil. (BTW - for all you younger folks, when you look at yourself as you appeared 55 years ago it is hard to see any relationship at all between the person in the picture and your self-image of today. Yes, you share a few common memories - but very few. Ok - maybe you get the same feeling if the gap is only 20 years? On the other hand, I suspect my brothers and sisters may know this child better than I do - and better than they know the me of today.)

OK - this was one of the "sleepers" I didn't expect anyone to get, except, perhaps, Harrison Stone because that's who it is! It's one of those full, 8x10 baby pictures and on the back - in handwriting I don't recognize - is:

Edwin Harrison Stone
Born june 23rd 1934
Son of Jesse Edwin Stone
+ Evelyn Harrison Stone

Sent to Grandmother
Elizabeth Hammond Downey
Gillelan, Christmas 1934

I'm not sure why we have it, but I have some vague memory of it being framed at one time and on display in my parent's bedroom.

#5
Yep, that's Sarah, the garden imp supreme. Picture was taken in Barrington.

Dan was easy - but I'm puzzled. Was this taken at my parent's house in Barrington? It looks like it was, but I didn't think you folks traveled with the cat? We took our cats on trips north with us (Virginia to Barrington) in those days. We once made the trip with four or five of them running around the car. Not the plan, but that's the way it worked out. Cindy slept on my arm the whole length of the New Jersey Turnpike which made driving a little tricky, but at least she wasn't getting between my feet and the brake!

#7
OK, I was hoping the sailor cap would be a giveaway. That's Don at - I assume - Atlantic Beach. I don't remember it - don't know if I ever went there - but apparently Atlantic Beach was a favorite family vacation spot. Maybe Tom, or Betty, or Don can tell us more?

Yep, that's Hillary with the little dog. I loved that dog. I suspect everyone for a couple of generations did. It was frequently used as a door stop.

Oh yeah - wouldn't you love to be looking over the shoulder of these two guys? What a team! That must have been some household nearly a century ago! Beautiful brick house on main street in that wonderful little town - with the doctor's office attached. Woods and fields and streams within walking distance to hunt and fish and trap. Bowling alley and movie theater and drug store a short walk away - and grandfather the big man in town - one of three doctors and one of the founders of the bank. Grandmother, in her big touring car, taking them all out to the Gettysburg battlefield in 1913 for the dedication of a statue to their hero, Robert E. Lee! Dad getting in deep trouble for popping at the weathervane atop the church steeple with his .22 rifle . . . and then comes 1920 and tragedy. But until then. . . well, i wish I had talked with Dad more, and had a better feel for it all.

#10
Lisa! Always cute and just a tad serious. And behind her is that wonderful, huge, shinning copper kettle Mom had where she kept those huge pine cones she had gathered in California when we all went to visit Betty and her family in Mill Valley.

#11
Yes Owings, that's you - happy birthday! (And you're another family member that goes by your middle name. I forgot that earlier. And if this is at my parent's house, then the picture of Dan is as well and that means that Bow-Bow must have travelled with you guys at least some of the time. So we were't the only crazies shlepping cats around?

#12

And this rosy-cheeked little fellow? he's looking a tad serious, i think, because maybe he knows there's a civil war in his future! This is Jesse Wright Downey, born March 24, 1848. He was my great grandfather and I always understood he went to war, though it must have been near the end of the war, for even then he would only be 16 or 17. Fought for the South, of course. He was my grandmother's (Elizabeth Hammond Downey) father. And as near as I can tell the little picture we have, no larger than a playing card, is a collodian print that was later hand painted by the person in the next picture, his future bride.

#13
This is the young woman I took to calling "Etcetera" when I made the family videos a decade or so ago because her name was just too long to remember - it's written on the back of this mounted daguerotype - Mary Elizabeth Ann Rebecca Wilson Hammond Downey. she was born in 1848, died in 1925 and in between painted every thing in sight. Quite talented, really. And the young fellow above became her husband, so she is my great grandmother. She and Jesse Wright Downey were married in 1876 and my grandmother was born in 1879.

So in these last two pictures we have a little photographic history as well as family history, even though they were probably taken about the same time. The picture of Mary Elizabeth uses the earliest of photographic techniques and the picture of Jesse Wright Downey uses the the technique that surplanted it a decade later. It should be noted, however,that technologies don't change over night. Just because television was created, didn't mean that radio went out of business. It takes a while for the new ideas to catch on and the old always has some who want to stick with it. In this case I suspect the newer picture is the one taken with the older technology!

Posted by Greg Stone at September 5, 2003 07:14 PM

Comments

With regard to Dr. Jesse Wright Downey (father of Elizabeth Hammond Downey who married Dr. Daniel Edwin Stone), he enlisted as a private in Company D, First Maryland Cavalry, Confederate States of America, in June 1864 -- he would have been 16 at the time -- and joined his regiment in Virginia. His first engagement was at Falling Waters, after which he took part in skirmishes around Winchester, and the valley campaign. He was with General McCausland on his raid into Pennsylvania, and was present at the burning of Chambersburg, Pa. He also took part in the battles of Newtown, Cedar Creek and Fisher’s Hill.

Apparently he graduated from the medical department of the University of Maryland, practiced medicine in New Market, Maryland, was a member of the Medical Society of Frederick County, and was a lifelong Democrat.

All this info is courtesy of Folger McKinsey and TJC Williams, authors of History of Frederick County (LR Titsworth & Co., 1910). This book has a photograph of Dr. JW Downey -- I have a photocopy and would be happy to scan for Greg to post in a future Quiz!

Posted by: Owings Stone at September 5, 2003 08:11 PM

Thanks Owings!

Your records are far better organized than mine.

I was never absolutely sure Jesse Wright Downey had been at Chambersburg because only part of the force went in, but I'm afraid it was one of the most controversial - and least proud - moments for the South in the Civil War. I have read that many of the Southern troops did not want to do what was done there - which was to burn the town - even though they had a right to be bitter about what the Northern armies had done in Virginia.

Briefly, as I understand it, this raid was against a defenseless town in reprisal for what Northern troops had done in the Shenandoah Valley - extensive burning of private homes and farms. The Chambersburg action was hotly debated long after the war and I suspect is still hotly debated in some quarters.

Two Southern cavalry brigades made an end run around the Union Army in West Virginia and came into the town, virtually unopposed. They gave the towns people an ultimatum: "Pay or we'll burn the town." (These were their orders from the start - it wasn't pillaging, or troops gone wild.) They waited six hours and when they didn't get the demanded ransom, they burned the town.

There are a lot of Web resources dealing with this. The best account I found was from the Southern general in charge. I found that here:

http://www.angelfire.com/wv/wasec9/chambersburg.html

I'd love to go back in time and talk to Jesse Wright Downey about this event and his war experiences. (Bill Downey sent me Jesse's camp stool several years ago. At first I thought it dated from the war years, but I later learned it probably came from other camping trips after the war.)

It's hard to imagine what a 16-year-old boy would make of it all. He may have gotten into the war near the end, but he certainly would have lived amidst lots of evidence of the brutality of the war, known many other soldiers from his town, and seen the carnage of nearby battles. Over those years of his youth the war surged all around him in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. He had a front-row seat for all of this - and, apparently, as you note, participated in other battles that don't have the notoriety of the Chamberburg raid.

I have some letters from this era, but nothing written from him or of him. Grandmother, I'm sure could have told us more about her father. I wonder if anyone alive today ever talked to her or others about this?

Posted by: Greg Stone at September 6, 2003 06:36 AM

Hi Everyone,

I'm quite sure the cat pictured with young Dan is my mother's "Bow Bow". "Bow Bow" is short for "Bokfar", a man from Thailand who was a friend of my Dad's in college, at least, that is how the story was told to me.

It looks to me like Nana's chair, but it may be that my parents were living at Bluff Rd in Barrington- only a 5 minute drive away. Though that still doesn't explain why they would have brought the cat with them!

Catharen

Posted by: Catharen at September 11, 2003 08:50 PM