Birthday Bio: Lavinia Murdoch Bruce born Jan 20th 1850 -- died March 16th 1886

When Lavinia Murdoch Bruce was born 20 Jan 1850, she was named for her mother, Lavinia Murdoch Thistle, wife of Henry Magruder Bruce, just as I was named for my mother, Lavinia Cresap, who was Lavinia Murdoch Bruce’s granddaughter. I sometimes think of us as the four Lavinias. Today’s birthday bio is for Lavinia #2.


Lavinia #2 was the 5th of 8 Bruce children. When she was born, the eldest ,George Normond Bruce, had already died at 3 years 8 months in 1847.  When she was just 16 months old, her older sister, Sarah Magruder Bruce, also died (aged 6y 4m). Lavinia #1 buried her elder daughter just a month after birthing another child, Henry Clagett Bruce.  And he died a short 11 months later.  In the end, Lavinia #2 was one of 5 surviving siblings.

Losing children wasn’t the only tragedy to hit this family.  Although Dad was a successful lawyer, they lived in Cumberland, Maryland, and Maryland attempted neutrality during the Civil War. This guaranteed armies sweeping back and forth laying waste to the area.  It also guaranteed brothers fighting against brothers. 

Lavinia’s father was a staunch Union man, and one of her uncle's was Col. Robert Bruce, Union.  But her aunt, Elizabeth Bruce, married Col. Walter Gwynn of the Confederacy and they were stuck in the siege of Vicksburg.  After the Civil War, another uncle, Upton Scott Bruce, despite being married and having had 9 children before the war, spent the rest of his life alone in a wild state.  According to Charles E. Hoye in his article on the Bruce Family in "Garrett County History of Pioneer Families" in the "Mountain Democrat" of Oakland, MD September, 1937 Upton Bruce, Jr. "led a half wild life in the woods east of Oakland until some ten years after the Civil War. How or why he came to this condition we do not know, but old residents of Oakland remember that Upton Bruce used to live with Lewis Thompson in winter, his board and clothes supplied by relatives in Cumberland.  But in summer he would go out into the woods, build himself a little shelter and spend the days roaming in the woods; so he lived a harmless but useless life, shy of adult company but willing to talk to the curious boys who sought his retreat and marveled to see his long hair and beard and ragged clothes.  His most faithful friend was Eli Trudy, a former Bruce slave who resided in Oakland after the Civil War.  Old Eli did what he could for "Marse Upton", taking to him newspapers and food at intervals. - So ended the history of the Bruce's at Ryan's Glade."


The emotional effect of the Civil War on Lavinia’s family is impossible to know, but events around her were dramatic. When she was 13, Stonewall Jackson's brigade rode through Cumberland on its way to Gettysburg, and Lavinia's 16 year old brother, Maynadier Thistle Bruce, ran away from his Union supporting father, took a horse and joined the Confederates. He stuck with them, eventually joining McNeil’s Rangers, and afterwards settling in Texas. Many of Maynadier's escapades were written up in Four Years In the Stonewall Brigade, published in 1893 by John O. Casler.

At age 25, on 16 November 1875 in St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Cumberland, Lavinia married her 2nd cousin, Robert James Cresap. He had recently buried his first wife and a namesake son. His marriage to Lavinia may have been arranged as was her younger sister's, Grace Neill Bruce's marriage to Martin German which took place in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1885. Both Grace and another sister, Julianna Bruce (who married J. Byers Smith in Lavinia's living room in Cincinnati) moved to San Diego, California and eventually brought their widowed mother, Lavinia #1, to live with them there.  My grandfather bought the family heirlooms from his Aunt Grace in the 1930's.

After their marriage, Lavinia #2 and Robert returned to his home in Cincinnati, Ohio  where they lived for 11 years. They had five children. The first, another Robert Jr., died at 5 months. The 2nd child was our grandfather, Andrew Bruce Cresap. The 3rd, Eloise Josephine Cresap lived into her 40’s but, sadly, died a suicide. Her unhappy marriage to Charles B. Weltner, also was said to have been arranged.  The 4th child of Lavinia and Robert, James Henry Cresap, died at 8.  Lavinia didn’t mourn these two children because she was already dead when they died.  She did not survive the birth of her 5th child. He was a 3rd Robert James Cresap, jr., and he died one day after birth. Lavinia #2 lingered for 4 more days, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio aged 36 years, one month and 25 days.


Grandad missed his mother always, and  when he lived in the Philippines he had a portrait painted of her from the first small photo shown above. The portrait is presently in Orinda at the home of Ida May (Cresap) Sipe.

                                                           Grandad and his mother.


Happy Birthday, Lavinia.

Birthday Bio -- James William Cresap -- 11 May 1814 Maryland--26 July 1847 Louisiana

A great grandson of immigrant Thomas Cresap, James William was born on 11 May 1814.  He was our great great grandfather.  Leaving Maryland not long after his father died James William traveled to  New Orelans where his older brother, John Swearingen Cresap lived. Soon James Wm married a creole beauty, Martha Bauduc, daughter of Pulcherie Cassou.  Pulcherie, born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), had three children by Joseph Theodore Bauduc (and at least five by others):  Louise Josephine Bauduc, Joseph Theodore Bauduc, and Martha Bauduc, all  born in New Orleans, all gens de couleurs libres. James William Cresap died in Williamspoint, Point Coupee Parish  26 July 1847.  Martha never remarried.

28 July 1847  Louisiana Courier, p 3
DIED
On the 26th inst. in the parish of Point Coupee, JAMES WILLIAM CRESAP, aged about 30 years a resident of this city.  His friends and acquaintances are requested to attend his funeral this afternoon at 5 o'clock, from his late residence on Constance street, between Richard street and Felicity road, without further notice.
   [Cumberland, Md, papers will please copy]

James William's widow and sons:  Martha Bauduc Cresap, Robert James Cresap (Grandad's father), John Van Cresap

Easter 1952 at Hacienda Circle

left to right:  Joan, Jack, Cres, Vinnie

l to r: Joan, Jack, Cres, Vinnie

Easter was new clothes, white gloves, an egg hunt at dawn, church, leg of lamb with Granwilla, and an egg war with confetti-filled eggshells. We saved the shells for weeks -- ate many scrambled-egg meals so we could put a pin prick on one end of a raw egg, and chip out tiny hole on the other, then blow the raw white and yolk out to keep the shell.  We dyed the eggs pink, yellow, lavender, and blue then stuffed confetti inside. What a war we had. After the egg hunt, we snuck up on one another and smashed eggs down on each others' heads. We lobbed confetti-filled eggs across the yard.  Mom brought this tradition from her Spanish imbued Philippine childhood.  How she laughed with joy as we cavorted.

Happy Easter family.

December 7th, 1941 -- "Nice going on the part of our secretary, Miss Cresap..."

Tombstone Tuesday -- a Bogus tombstone? Hardly

The attached NY Times article from 1901 (click on the headline above) includes a biography of Michael Cresap who died of disease at age 33 while leading troops during the Revolutionary War.  The article starts out talking about two absolutely bogus tombstones in Trinity Churchyard in Manhattan, then turns to Michael's story.  They tell it faithfully, but the reader is left to believe that this tombstone is also bogus which is not true.  What IS true is that it was erected later than the time Michael died.  But he is certainly buried there.  Earlier in his life he was accused of murdering the Indian Chief Logan's family and Thomas Jefferson even read the event into the Congressional Record to make it live forever in infamy.  That too was untrue.  What was true was that Michael was a charismatic young man who died much too young.  He was beloved by his troops, the original Yankee Doodle Dandies, and his funeral was written up in the New York City papers with illustrations of the parade. Michael's younger brother, Daniel Cresap, Jr. who served as a lieutenant under him in the Revolution is our 4th great grandfather.  Daniel's portrait and that of his wife Elizabeth Swearingen are in places of honor in my dining room.

The below from Tercentenary History of Maryland, Vol. I, Matthew Page Andrews, at 542-544, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago and Baltimore (1925).

    When the letter from Congress authorizing the enlisting of two companies of Maryland "light infantry" had reached Frederick, it was resolved that the companies be raised immediately, the first to be under the command of Captain Michael Cresap, with Thomas Warner, Joseph Cresap, Jr., and Richard davis, Jr., lieutenants; the second to be under Thomas Price, captain; with Otho Holland Williams and John Ross Key as lieutenants. Michael Cresap has but recently returned from active Indian fighting in what may be called the first step towards the acquisition by the United States of the great Northwest, the second step being the expedition of George Rogers Clark, and the third and last the donation of that territory by Virginia, in deference to the insistence of Maryland; for Maryland, as will be seen, refused to accede to the first Union until this territory was so ceded.  Michael Cresap had been falsely accused of murdering the family of Chief Logan (Cf. Brantz Mayer's Tah-Gah-Jute, and Jacob's Life of Cresap).  He was the youngest son of Colonel Thomas Cresap.

    Apparently there was magic power in the Cresap name; so that the mere word that Michael Cresap was to command one of these companies brought daring riflemen 100 miles and more from the farthest reaches of western Maryland.  They had left behind in the forest their families and their all to march to the far-distant camp at Cambridge.

    Not to be outdone, the nearby Virginians were organizing under Captain Daniel Morgan at Morgan's Spring only twenty-five miles away.  The rival companies of Virginia and Maryland riflemen met at Frederick, and it became a point of pride as to which company should beat the others in the race to be the first at Boston.  In Force's American Archives there is to be found a "letter to a gentleman in Philadelphia" dated Fredericktown, August 1, 1775, which thus describes the appearance of Cresap and his men: "I have had the happiness of seeing Captain Michael Cresap marching at the head of a formidable company of upwards of one hundred and thirty men from the mountains and back woods, painted like Indians, armed with tomahawks and rifles, dressed in hunting-shirts and moccasins."  The writer, himself perhaps a visiting Philadelphian of the then "effete East," was particularly amazed at a special display of the marksmanship of these men, described as follows: "A clap-board, with a mark the size of a dollar, was put up; they began to fire off-hand, and the by-standers were surprised, few shots being made that were not close to or in the paper.  When they had shot for a time in this way, some lay on their backs, some on their breast or side, others ran twenty or thirty steps, and firing, appeared to be equally certain of the mark."

    Although Cresap was then in such ill health that he fell a victim to a fever less than three months later, his company was among the first to reach Cambridge.  Cresap and Morgan marched together from Cambridge to Roxbury and their arrival was described by Thacher, in part, as follows: "They are remarkably stout and hardy men; many of them exceeding six feet in height.  * * * They are now stationed on our lines, and their shot have frequently proved fatal to British officers and soldiers who expose themselves to view even at more than double the distance of common musket shot."

Tombstone Tuesday

My 3rd great grandparents, Robert Cresap (21 Sept 1767 - 4 Sept 1827)) and Susannah Stull Swearingen (4 Aug 1773 - 8 June 1851), first cousins who married 9 May 1795, repose 3 miles south of Cresaptown, Allegany, Maryland, Rte.200-S, Rawlings.  Near the "Wilson" farm, beside the railroad tracks and the Potomac River.

I come from the youngest of their 11 children, James William Cresap, who went south to New Orleans and married a beautiful creole woman, Martha Bauduc.

Sheriff George Swearingen, Susannah's nephew, said he and his family were on their way to visit Aunt Susannah on 8 Sept 1828 when his wife's horse stumbled and she was killed.  But their toddler, Mary, said daddy hurt mommy and officials who exhumed Mary Catherine (Scott) Swearingen's body agreed.   George fled with his mistress Rachel Cunningham who he had scandalously kept in Hagerstown, but he was recognized and apprehended on a flatboat entering New Orleans and was returned to Maryland.  After an 8 day trial he was convicted.  On 2 Oct 1829 over 6,000 came to see George on the gallows on the west side of Will's Creek.  He had been one of the most popular men in (then) Washington County, Maryland.  I'm betting our James William Cresap, 15, came to watch his 1st cousin, George, 29, hang. 

*George Swearingen's confession is printed in full in Chris H. Bailey's The Stulls of Millsborough--a Genealogical History of John Stull "The Miller" - Pioneer of Western Maryland. Publisher Chris H. Bailey, 31 Prospect St, New Hartford, CT, 06057 (Mar 6, 2000).
**On 15 June 2005 I read the original transcript of his trial dated 25 Sept 1829 at the Washington County Historical Society, 135 W. Washington St.  Hagertown, Maryland 21740 

Where do you go, I asked, with genealogy?

I probably was born to this, and certainly named to it.

My birth year, 1945, the most popular girl's name in the US was Mary followed by Linda.  The top ten included Susan and Sharon.  It did not include Lavinia.   My maternal Grandad's mother, Lavinia Murdoch (Bruce) Cresap died when he was seven, and he named his first born, my mother, for her.  And I was named for my mother.  I would learn later that Lavinia Murdoch Bruce was named for her mother, Lavinia Murdoch Thistle, who also married a Cresap.  I had to explain my name on the first day of school every year.  "What an unusual name," the teachers would exclaim.

But I only got into genealogy ten years ago, right after my father died.  My mother had died 16 months earlier and us four children had the task of dividing up their stuff.  I "the family historian" as Dad said, was willed the boxes of photos, and my mom's DAR files.  I stared at them and almost put them in storage.  But my friend Pam offered a trip out of town.  "Just to get away," she said.  She was going to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City to do genealogy which she had been interested in for years.  "What's genealogy," I asked, "and where does that take you?  She answered brightly, "I think you'll like it.  It takes you anywhere you want to go.  That's the joy of it."  "But I don't know how to do it," I whined.  "I'll teach you," she replied. 

I grabbed a binder from my newly inherited boxes and flew to Utah.  I didn't know what was in it, just that it had to do with my mother's mother, "Pi" (short for sweetie pie which she called my brother, her first grandchild, and he tried to call her the same but only got the "pi" out and the nickname stuck).  We lived with my Cresap grandparents in Berkeley off and on during the first 5 years of my life, and I adored her so I took the notebook with Grace Arnold written on it.

This slim blue binder contains tintypes, old letters from my grandmother's aunt to her, sepia photos, baptism certificates and more.  I would never risk traveling with these original documents now, but I knew nothing then and into the library I went with my beginnings.  I grasped pretty quickly that I had entered a world I loved, a world of transitions, epiphanies, and movement.  I have learned that Genealogy will break your heart, and it will mend it again.  So many things I've collected over the years fit into it -- old maps, for instance.

Right away I learned I'd be tracing migrations, and that records are mostly kept at the county level.  So I bought a big US map with present county boundaries on it and I labeled my families with color -- red for Dad's dad, (Gilbert) yellow for Dad's mom (Sale), green for Mom's dad (Cresap), and blue for Mom's mom (Arnold).   I outlined the places each family lived in with their color -- the rainbow being California.  Then I slowly began to mark their migrations west.

Tombstone Tuesday

Jude visits Thomas Cresap, his immigrant 8th great grandfather

John Baptiste Gilbert III "Jack" and Lavinia Cresap "Vin" wed 21 June 1942 in her parents' living room, Berkeley CA