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My twelfth great-grandfather (or something like that) was one of those evil, old, white tobacco factors, who was the also the father of my eleventh great-uncle, a U.S. Superintendent of Finance and U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania who was involved with the Newburgh Consipracy. He also went to debtor's prison.
I bear no shame for the actions of any of my ancestors.
I am certainly disgusted by certain ancestral actions, but that is very different than shame. I think poorly of some very immediate ancestors, but I have no shame as a result. Anyone misguided enough to think that I should bear shame for something a forebear did is unworthy my concern.
My grandfather left my grandmother and two daughters during the depression. He had a good job and they never saw a penny of support, but then grandma was a strong women raised by her mother alone and she stepped up and carried on. I still blame him. But I agree, shame if the wrong word. Shame implies it has something to do with you. It made for a few very interesting moments, like when he dropped in on our vacation with the wife, and grandma had gone with us that year (we vacationed as an extended family) and there was this almost very British moment when they said hello to each other, then sat at either end of the table and ignored each other. But then, we can't rewrite the past and what made us. That Grandma had the toughness to handle it, (not easily or without bitterness, but she did) taught me something.
We are the sum of the past, and grow up learning from it even if we don't really understand. Without those mistakes, we might be a little different too. Its the other kind of inheritance.
Everyone probably has a couple Vlad the Impalers in their geneology. Go back far enough and it bottlenecks to the most cunning and ruthless who were willing to do anything to survive in times of war.
If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present. But if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past.
My ancestors were Cossaks. If you've ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, you'd know they weren't always the nicest people, torching villages and the like.
Am I ashamed? No, not even a little. Times were different then and I can't be held responsible, or carry any guilt, for their actions.
Two people wrote to ask me to submit and update if I learned anything more.
This morning a genealogist I had contacted came up with the gist of the story from some fragmentary archives, and it turns out that it was a sensational crime and there is quite a bit of coverage in other papers he is going to copy.
The truth of the story is really wretched, and I understand for many reasons why I received a very terse and sanitized version of it even as an adult.
Crimes of passion are deranged enough, but he killed this young man (and his friend who tried to disarm him) for nothing. There was no illicit affair. He and his wife had had serious marital problems after my granduncle returned from active service in WW I. She claimed that he was abusive, and just a few months prior to these killings she had gone to court because he threatened her with a gun, and she had left him, taking the children, for the third time.
It seems Arthur became obsessed with the idea of her infidelity and his behavior became more out of bounds.
There was no evidence offered that his wife had ever had an affair with the young man her husband shot to death.
It was a fantasy. ......
Though this thread is ancient someone was kind enough to make positive note of it again today.
And, now six years after these posts, I should in fairness to the dead man involved and anyone who has read the story radically revise the bottom line. I have since these postings gotten copies of many, many newspaper accounts of his two trials. Some are very detailed.
1. It was not, as I said above, Arthur's fantasy that his wife was having this torrid affair. There was indeed no verifiable evidence - only his many anecdotes of humiliation during his trials, but on the last day of his second trial his attorney set off a bombshell. He asked what had been found on the body and clothing of the victim who was the alleged lover. The coroner mentioned "letters." These were taken out, and the handwriting identified as that of Arthur's wife. The attorney read one letter in full - a torrid love note to the deceased, a second was the same. And there was, as I recall, at least one more in the victim's suit jacket.
2. Though Arthur was charged with murder in the deaths of both of the men he killed, the lover and a man whom he killed as they struggled when he tried to disarm him. However, in both trials the juries refused to return convictions for murder and convicted only for manslaughter. At each trial the presiding judge was very angry with the jury and gave them a dressing down for their verdict. And in each case the judge retaliated by giving the defendant a life sentence for the crime of manslaughter.
He served about twenty years in Kingston penitentiary and ended his days not long after his release living with one of his children.
His unfaithful wife as far as I have been able to tell dropped from public sight. I have never been able to find out any information about her after that and possibly she moved from the area or her name changed.
Though this thread is ancient someone was kind enough to make positive note of it again today.
And, now six years after these posts, I should in fairness to the dead man involved and anyone who has read the story radically revise the bottom line. I have since these postings gotten copies of many, many newspaper accounts of his two trials. Some are very detailed.
1. It was not, as I said above, Arthur's fantasy that his wife was having this torrid affair. There was indeed no verifiable evidence - only his many anecdotes of humiliation during his trials, but on the last day of his second trial his attorney set off a bombshell. He asked what had been found on the body and clothing of the victim who was the alleged lover. The coroner mentioned "letters." These were taken out, and the handwriting identified as that of Arthur's wife. The attorney read one letter in full - a torrid love note to the deceased, a second was the same. And there was, as I recall, at least one more in the victim's suit jacket.
2. Though Arthur was charged with murder in the deaths of both of the men he killed, the lover and a man whom he killed as they struggled when he tried to disarm him. However, in both trials the juries refused to return convictions for murder and convicted only for manslaughter. At each trial the presiding judge was very angry with the jury and gave them a dressing down for their verdict. And in each case the judge retaliated by giving the defendant a life sentence for the crime of manslaughter.
He served about twenty years in Kingston penitentiary and ended his days not long after his release living with one of his children.
His unfaithful wife as far as I have been able to tell dropped from public sight. I have never been able to find out any information about her after that and possibly she moved from the area or her name changed.
Wow, what a story! I'm sure his soul is at peace that you dug so deep.
Have you done your DNA to see if you match up with any of his children's offspring? There are a few sites that give free family matching. My thread below gives the info
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