quote:

On June 6, 1810 it was a dry summer and the Barton River, which supplied the power for grist mills in Glover and northward, was running very low. At the request of Arron Wilson, the local Glover gristmill owner, 60 men and boys attempted to create a new north outlet from Long Pond to the Barton River, but instead, they unintentionally caused the banks of the pond to give way. This resulted in a flood throughout the Barton River Valley.

The valley drops 600 feet (180 m) from Runaway Pond to Orleans for an average of about 40 feet (12 m) per 1 mile (1.6 km).[4] The water ran out of the pond in 1 hour and 15 minutes, but the mud ran out for hours. The water reached Lake Memphremagog in 4 hours and reportedly raised the level there 1 foot (0.3 m).

The initial surge took trees and huge boulders with it, building up a logjam, stopping the flood temporarily until the water pressure behind the jam backed up, causing another breakthrough. This scenario kept recurring in the flood's progress down to Barton.

The results of the flood can still be seen today at Clark Pond, just north of the Runaway Pond site, and elsewhere in the Barton River valley.

One of the laborers, Spencer Chamberlain, ran ahead of the flood just in time to save Arron Wilson's wife, working at the mill. In fact, no lives were lost. This act is commemorated each year on Glover Day (the last Saturday of July) by a 5.5 miles (8.9 km) road race following the path of the flood.

The wayward pond was thereafter called "Runaway Pond."

quote:

One evening in the spring of 1747, some eight months afer Wallingford's death, JB's cows strayed from the clearing into the thick woods on the west side of the meadow, not far from where my barn is now located, and while searching for them he was felled by an Indian bullet, but not being seriously wounded was taken away into the wilderness instead of being summarily killed, and was eventually taken to Canada.
Realizing that he was doomed to a long siege of captivity if his life should be spared, he at once begged the privilege of going to his home for his "fiddle" and the prospect of musical entertainments pleased the Indians so much that they granted his request, and his violin accompanied him on his long journey.Being quite a musician he spent much time "fiddling" greatly to the delight of his captors, who are said to have spared his life on this account.
just how long this captivity lasted is not definitely known, but somewhat about a year later an exchange was effected, and JB gained his freedom.

Portable Staplefrog posted:

my grandfather (who is 93) invented the best kind of reflective plastic. my 10th great grandmother was tried and acquitted for witchcraft.

Salmiakki posted:

my ancestors were incas

Portable Staplefrog posted:

my ancestor was somewhere in connecticut. the salem ones were probably less fair.

Luvcow posted:

Whoa, some of mine were Abenaki, what do you know of yours if anything?

Salmiakki posted:

i dont know too much about them sadly. i plan on going to peru soon to see a different side of my family, i think they can tell me more about them

i know that my grandma is fluent in quechua though

VWVWV posted:

my family tree starts with a scottish indentured servant and his boss's daughter. he was shipped over here because he broke a window while playing ball on a sunday
he worked on a tobacco farm in virginia and most of his kids died in the revolutionary war

Chill la Chill posted:

I like to imagine my ancestor was the guy who threw the spear that killed magellan

quote:

Magellan didn't live to reach his goal - he lost his life while battling natives on an island in the Philippines. Reduced to two ships, the remainder of his crew pressed on with their mission, successfully reaching the Moluccas - the Spice Islands. Loaded with cloves, the two ships continued homeward. Along the way, the Portuguese captured one vessel reducing the original fleet of five ships to one. Finally, on September 6, 1522, almost exactly three years after its departure, the Victoria with nineteen crew aboard returned to Spain.

Death of the Captain

Our only immediate knowledge of Magellan's journey comes from the diary of the Italian Antonio Pigafetta. Antonio was not a member of the crew but an adventurous tourist who paid for his passage. In the following excerpt Antonio describes the death of Magellan on an island of the Philippines.

Searching for a way to control the native population after he leaves the island, Magellan persuades one of the local chiefs to convert to Christianity (referred to by Antonio as the "Christian King"). Magellan hopes to make this chieftain supreme over the remaining local tribes and loyal to the King of Spain. To bolster this chief's local supremacy, Magellan decides that a show of force, particularly the power of his muskets and cannon, against a neighboring tribe will impress the natives into submission.

Magellan orders an attack but miscalculates. He does not take into account that the reefs along the island's beach will not allow his ships to get into effective range for their cannon. As the battle is joined along the beach, the Spanish fire their muskets ineffectively from too far a distance despite Magellan's attempt to order his crew to cease-fire. Emboldened, the natives rush into the water flinging spears at the unprotected legs and feet of the Spanish. The crew abandons Magellan in panic and the Captain is soon overwhelmed:

"When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, those men had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries, two divisions on our flanks and the other on our front.

When the captain saw that, he formed us into two divisions, and thus did we begin to fight. The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly; for the shots only passed through the shields which were made of thin wood and the arms [of the bearers]. The captain cried to them, "Cease firing cease firing!" but his order was not at all heeded. When the natives saw that we were shooting our muskets to no purpose, crying out they determined to stand firm, but they redoubled their shouts. When our muskets were discharged, the natives would never stand still, but leaped hither and thither, covering themselves with their shields. They shot so many arrows at us and hurled so many bamboo spears (some of them tipped with iron) at the captain-general, besides pointed stakes hardened with fire, stones, and mud, that we could scarcely defend ourselves.

Seeing that, the captain-general sent some men to burn their houses in order to terrify them. When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury. Two of our men were killed near the houses, while we burned twenty or thirty houses. So many of them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, but the men took to fight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain.

The natives shot only at our legs, for the latter were bare; and so many were the spears and stones that they hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance. The mortars in the boats could not aid us as they were too far away.

So we continued to retire for more than a good crossbow flight from the shore always fighting up to our knees in the water. The natives continued to pursue us, and picking up the same spear four or six times, hurled it at us again and again. Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice, but he always stood firmly like a good knight, together with some others. Thus did we fight for more than one hour, refusing to retire farther. An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off."

alnilam posted:

my great grandfather helped electrify railways and also worked some on the atom smasher in pittsburgh



also one of my german ancestors was a doctor who got in trouble for refusing to sign bogus death warrants for hitler

Luvcow posted:

FluffieDuckie posted:

my great great grandfather killed my other great great grandfather in a disagreement over ownership of a bag of onions.

he shot him with a shotgun in the family home and for some reason the family left the buckshot in the door. when my father was growing up his cousins used to taunt him with "that's where your grandpa killed my grandpa"

in our family tree on ancestry.com that grandpa's picture is his mugshot

the family is so proud

FluffieDuckie posted:

my great great grandfather killed my other great great grandfather in a disagreement over ownership of a bag of onions.

he shot him with a shotgun in the family home and for some reason the family left the buckshot in the door. when my father was growing up his cousins used to taunt him with "that's where your grandpa killed my grandpa"

in our family tree on ancestry.com that grandpa's picture is his mugshot

the family is so proud

sexual nightmare posted:

This is incredibly texan

sexual nightmare posted:

This is incredibly texan

sexual nightmare posted:

One guy wrote a book about turning into a cockroach.

FluffieDuckie posted:

my great great grandfather killed my other great great grandfather in a disagreement over ownership of a bag of onions.

he shot him with a shotgun in the family home and for some reason the family left the buckshot in the door. when my father was growing up his cousins used to taunt him with "that's where your grandpa killed my grandpa"

in our family tree on ancestry.com that grandpa's picture is his mugshot

the family is so proud

Luvcow posted:

Well I would hope they did a lot more than that