Mormon Temple at Nauvoo.
Joseph Smith
To whom it may concern:--
"This is to certify that William E. McLellin commanded an Anti-Mormon company, in Missouri, who (with their faces blackened) cooperated with the other mob troops, to deprive the Mormons of their possessions, and drive them from the state. McLellin said, "I wish to God that I could see Joe Smith brought into the public square, in Far West and BEHEADED, for if the G-d__d rascal is taken to Liberty he will escape!"
At this time Joseph, Sidney, Hyrum, and the other prisoners were in a waggon, and fourteen guns were presented to their breasts, but the general slaughter was prevented by the interference of John C. Annis. McLellin was decorated with a variety of different coloured ribbons upon his hat, shoulders, and arms, as badges of distinction. M. AVERY.
Hello All,Tornberg Coat of Arms
"A golden upper part with three teeth on a red shield, a waving silver log in lower field with a black hunting spear. Red covering of the helmet with silver lining. Silver and red top braid. Golden flaming ring as helmet decoration, with a rising black wedge. A golden latin cross on top of the wedge."
The theme of the coat of arms refers to the distribution of the family in three northern countries and to the origin of the word "thorn", which means spearhead in the ancient scandinavian language. The origin of the family is in Ylitornio and the word Tornio might mean the spearhead shaped island in Tornio River. The helmet decoration refers also to Ylitornio and the wedge, describing a church tower refers to the many clergymen among our ancestors.
In the colors we can see the following: the red is the Lappish red, which appears in many northern coat of arms of provinces and municipalities. Also it refers to our ancestors, the bailiffs of Tornio Lapland who had red robes. The word "torn" also means tower. The family name "Tornberg" is often translated "tower mountain" in Finnish and that is why the helmet decoration contains a tower with a cross, which relates of the priests of the family. The three mountains on the shield describe the main area of distribution of the family in Finland, Sweden and Norway or the forests and hills of Tornio and Kemi rivers and Kuusamo. The silver wave can describe Tornio and Kemi rivers and the waterways of Kuusamo. The head of the hunting spear refers to the source of livelihood in the northern wilderness.
Walt and Frances Williamson
Left to Right: ?, Mary ?, Great Uncle Walt Williamson,
Great Uncle Walt and Great Aunt Frances Williamson
The Walt Williamson Family. Left to Right.
Another picture at the 50th Anniversary.
Walt Williamson dancing with daughter Gayle
Great Uncle Walt Williamson and Great Aunt Frances.
John Davenport
Large numbers of prospective migrants to America met at Rotterdam, a site very suitable for travelers who had come down the Rhine from their towns and farms upstream. The Neckar River valley had been home for many of them. Rotterdam was a sizable flourishing trade center, one of the two major shipping centers in the Low Countries. In many ways, Rotterdam was the typical trading port of its time. Cluttered dock and shipping facilities and bustling street markets with crowded living quarters were an indication of its prosperous condition. The addition of thousands of Germans, fleeing from districts their families had inhabited for generations, placed a great strain on the city. Merchants and shippers looked upon them as living cargo, to be accommodated the same way any cargo was.
Germans found the surroundings strange yet congenial, although for most of them this was merely a stopping place on the way to America. Some remained in Rotterdam, becoming a part of the varied population of that trading center; but most of the Rhineland travelers, on their way to the promise of the New World, found it too commercial or too worldly. The little substance that these poor wanderers had gathered for the voyage to America was dissipated by even a brief spell in or near the port. Many who left their German homes in a solvent financial condition departed Rotterdam without any funds (and very few goods) at all.
From the several detailed accounts of the ocean crossing which have come down to us, it seems quite evident that the voyage was the chief hazard or obstacle of the flight from Europe to America. Many who had never sailed before crowded the small vessels with poor sailors and rotten accommodations. They lived for six to eight weeks in cramped space on board, holding fast to the trunks, chests or baggage which contained all their worldly wealth. They were fortunate to find deck space.Many of the families on their way to Pennsylvania were crowded onto ships that carried double the number of passengers the vessels could theoretically accommodate. In those cramped and crowded conditions, numerous passengers died at sea. So extensive was the list of casualties that ship captains finally settled upon a formula on how to avoid an excessive number of deaths which reduced their cargo. Occasionally fatalities also made them subject to quarantine regulations in the American ports. They agreed (and by the 1740s made it part of the verbal contract with prospective passengers) that the halfway point of the voyage was the critical time. If a passenger died before the vessel had traveled half the distance to Pennsylvania, then the captain would bear the expense and the corpse was reckoned as no fare. If, on the other hand a passenger died after the halfway point of the voyage, then his family must pay full fare to America, even though he was buried at sea.
Various accounts of the passage have survived, leaving a literature of frustration and suffering. Few of the accounts make the experience appear pleasurable; most of them summarize weeks and months of hardship and deprivation. One such description by John George Jungmann of a sea voyage of the ship Love and Unity, in the years 1731-32, relates the problems in detail. Originating at Rotterdam the vessel made port in Falmouth, adding supplies and food there. Twelve days out of Falmouth, the captain declared half the journey had been completed; five months later, the ship had not yet sighted land in America, but after nearly six months on the high seas, they came ashore at Martha's Vineyard. The emaciated passengers told tales of intense suffering. After eight weeks their bread and water had to be rationed, but during the last six weeks before Christmas, no bread ration was distributed and water was apportioned at a pint per family per day. Ship rats sold at a shilling sixpence and mice at sixpence each, when available. Deaths on this terrible voyage ran exceptionally high. Only four dozen persons reached American soil of an original passenger list of one hundred fifty-six. Barely forty, represented by a mere thirteen heads of families, eventually reached the original destination of Philadelphia, and that by the compassion of a Quaker master who happened upon them at Boston. The survivors claimed the only final choice they had was mutiny, whereby they forced the ship to make a landfall.
Ordinarily, for a six- to eight-week voyage, the captain's costs were modest. To feed hundreds of passengers cost him a few pennies per week. In return for the food he supplied, the master was ordinarily well reimbursed. Cash customers paid from three to five pounds when they landed. In 1750 adults paid ten pounds for passage. Ten to 20 percent of the passengers paid cash fares. Time of the year, conditions in Rotterdam, and the particular individuals transported determined passenger distribution. Prospective employers (or occasionally, prospective husbands) bought up indentures or contracts of the remaining mature arrivals, at profits which exceeded the cash fares for the masters or ship captains. Underage passengers without families were nearly always apprenticed or bound out. Philadelphia ship captains late in the 1740s generally agreed that human cargo was more profitable that cloth or hemp. Many captains could scarcely restrain themselves as the shipped from Rotterdam with a 100 percent overload of such human cargo.
The ocean passage required six weeks under favorable conditions, but even then preliminaries at Rotterdam and Cowes added days or weeks to the voyage. Debarkation at Philadelphia was sometimes delayed because of wind and tide, or due to mercantile or port requirements and official red tape. Food consumption from the traveler's own stock was apportioned for a six weeks' crossing. When that was gone, they subsisted on meager rations from the ship's stores, at inflated prices. Occasional suffering from storm delays or navigational miscalculations, as described above, affected both crew and passengers, but especially the latter.
Journey's end caused loud celebrations and extended rejoicing among the weary passengers. Those who had, weeks earlier, given up all hope of ever reaching port, now offered up thanks to God for their safe arrival after their journey across "the very big sea." Even the broad Delaware River reminded many of them of the familiar Rhine River in its lower reaches, broad, smooth-flowing, and bordered by impressive natural growth on both banks, with occasional dwellings and out-buildings visible.
Read more: http://www.delmars.com/family/migration.htm
The Following are two descriptions of Germans arriving in Pennsylvania after a harrowing journey across the Atlantic.
In a letter sent by Christoph Sauer of Germantown to friends in Wittgenstein who were eagerly awaiting news of several emigrants form Elsoff. Sauer wrote: “The Elsoffers have not yet arrived. Everybody wonders where their ship I, and besides that vessel, 3 to 4 ships with people are still expected. According to all reports, they have been at sea now for a quarter of a year.” As to the vessels that had come in, Sauer remarked: “The throngs of people who let themselves be seduced this year to come into the country are raising much lament here. Besides, as so many hundreds died from sickness aboard ships at sea, the survivors, if there is any left of a family, must pay or go into service which causes so much indigence and privation among a people which is hard to describe. This ship lost near 160 persons, and another one that arrived the day before, more than 150, and on one that came in the following day, only 13 healthy people are said to remain. Still another one arrived meanwhile on which out of 300 freights only 50 are left. Most of them died from dysentery, head sickness and violent fever also some captains and many seamen. Altogether of 15 passenger ships only 2 seem to have arrived with people tolerably healthy and well.”
Accommodations were sparse. Personal living space was limited to just barely enough room for a person to lay down to sleeping. Most ships would dock in England for several days while cargo and provisions were loaded. Passengers would spend money or eat some of what little food they had brought for the journey, only to later discover on the open sea that those few morsels would have eased the hunger that will haunt them for most of the voyage. Far too many people did not realize, nor were they prepared for the actual degree of human misery that lay before them. Sailing vessels of this period were grossly unsanitary because of the accumulation of repeated vomitings, dysentery, sweat, mildew, and rot. The lower decks were usually filled with stench. People suffered from ill preserved food stores, constipation, headaches, infestations of lice, a multitude of maladies resulting from impure water, and of course the ubiquitous affliction of seasickness. Add to this the emotional fatigue of unrelenting weather conditions such as cold, dampness, heat, and storms that would rage for days. Passengers were repeatedly thrown against each other in step with the rhythmic pounding of each wave. Homesickness began to plague many because they remembered all too well the comfort of even the most humble dwelling. So bad did the conditions become after many weeks, that people longed to be home, if even to sleep in a barnyard. Psychological factors then begin to play through manifestations of impatience and unceasing frustration. Curses and threats of harm were frequently exchanged, and occasionally tensions escalated into brawls, even between members of the same family. They cursed and berated each other. Stole from one another. Constant anxiety for life and safety began to turn into hopelessness,
18th Century Sailing Ship
Death was a steadfast companion of both passengers and crew for many would perish. Burial at sea can be an especially difficult and trying experience. One does not have the expected proper time for remorse because the body must be cast overboard in a short period of time. The sea does not allow family members to return to an exact spot in order to grieve as is true of a land based cemetery where people can repeatedly return, where flowers can serve as a visible closure, and the certainty that graves usually remain unmolested. Death at sea can be a cruel experience. You cannot return. There is the haunting reality that the body will probably be eaten. Family members reproach each other for persuading them to make the journey. Wives reproached their husbands for children that were lost. Husbands lamented most piteously for convincing their family to make the journey. Children bemoaned parents for their helplessness. Witness accounts record unbelievable despair and misery. As more and more people die, it becomes almost impossible to console the relatives."Many hundred people necessarily die and perish in such misery, and must be cast into the sea, which drives their relatives or those that persuaded them to undertake the journey, to such despair that it is almost impossible to pacify or console them. In a word the sighing and crying and lamenting on board the ship continues day and night, so as to cause the hearts of even the most hardened to bleed when they hear it."On the Misfortune of Indentured Servants, Gottlieb Mittelberger, 1754.
The Hastie children (Diane, David and Suzanne) are our 3rd cousins. Their father Robert is our 2nd cousin once removed. Robert is Dad's (Charles Williamson's) 2nd cousin. We are all the Great Great Grandchildren of Giovanni Vercellino and Catterina Gianetto.
TheThe Hastie Family. Christmas 2009Enclosed is our family picture of John and Mabel's only son Robert Benjamin Hastie born in Lead SD 24 April 1924. All alive and doing fine this season.
Our family is fine with posting the attached copy of our family under the Vercellino listing. I've also contacted other Vercellinos: Carol (Srack) teaching high school in TX and Dave both graduates of TA&MU, and Susan Vercellino a screen writer in Santa Monica CA. She co-wrote Quiet Cool. I've directed them to your website and I hope they will get in touch.
I also have other family pictures and items to post for Vercellino/ Hastie/ etc. Note that our Hastie line goes back to Pehr (Pietari or Peter) HASTI who died in Tervola, Finland. He was possibly from Kemi and was a horse trader. Youngest son Matti born in Tervola 1835 and I have so much more... I need to show this site to parents and be able to load stuff onto the blog. Not sure the connection with the Hastie in the British Islands, but must read and research more. Please pass a copy to Leslie and Evelyn Configliacco and the Hastie's wish them Happy Holidays. We don't get back to the Hills much.
With Love to all -
David John Hastie
From the Fortress of Solitude
Click to Enlarge
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The former Turley facilities before the upgrade.
The new facilities
Kai, Aspen and Cannon
Enoch, Jace and Foxton
Alivia and Stevie
Jordan and Baby #623-67-7706. The baby had yet to be churched blessed and given a name so we knew it only by its number. The baby blessing was conducted later in the evening in the Turley living room where the name of Kellen Scott Tolley was given to the joy of all gathered.
Brock sees his wife googling over her new infant neice. Yes, that is a worried look on his face.
And finally brothers (yes they are brothers so don't read anything else into this picture) Brock and Chaz Bodily with cousin Lydia.
