example of a 1770s NC cabin
First Generation
"Mrs. Oxendein sitting with her husband one evening in their log cabin, a pot of corn was boiling on the fire, and they were sitting there happy together, playing with their young child (picture of a happy & contented young family) - After his death they put his body on two chairs - with the blood dropping down - then she went to the door & called to the Indians to come & kill her too - but she did not afterward hear as much as a leaf move."
The wife is Martha, the husband Benjamin, and their young child is Catherine. (see Robertson Pedigree Chart) Martha told this story in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where she and Catherine fled in 1783.
Why is there a break in the story, no account of the actual murder? Because Martha cannot bring herself to say it, or else her brain has blocked that part out. What is foremost in her mind -- what will never go away -- is the sensory input. The sight of the blood dropping down between two chairs. The sound of her own voice screaming. The silence. And the sight of the woods, not moving, looking exactly the same as it had 5 minutes ago before everything exploded. If you have lived through trauma, maybe you can imagine it...the sudden flip from happiness to horror to unearthly silence, the action without thought, the desire to be dead with him. What can you never bear again because it's a trigger? The smell of corn cooking? The enclosed feeling of a cabin? Being in the woods?
And Catherine will never forget either. But because she's only about three, it won't be a logical memory...it will just be the triggers. The corn smell, the blood, the intense fear, and then the loss of love, of home, of security.
"Mrs. Oxendein sitting with her husband one evening in their log cabin, a pot of corn was boiling on the fire, and they were sitting there happy together, playing with their young child (picture of a happy & contented young family) - After his death they put his body on two chairs - with the blood dropping down - then she went to the door & called to the Indians to come & kill her too - but she did not afterward hear as much as a leaf move."
The wife is Martha, the husband Benjamin, and their young child is Catherine. (see Robertson Pedigree Chart) Martha told this story in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where she and Catherine fled in 1783.
Why is there a break in the story, no account of the actual murder? Because Martha cannot bring herself to say it, or else her brain has blocked that part out. What is foremost in her mind -- what will never go away -- is the sensory input. The sight of the blood dropping down between two chairs. The sound of her own voice screaming. The silence. And the sight of the woods, not moving, looking exactly the same as it had 5 minutes ago before everything exploded. If you have lived through trauma, maybe you can imagine it...the sudden flip from happiness to horror to unearthly silence, the action without thought, the desire to be dead with him. What can you never bear again because it's a trigger? The smell of corn cooking? The enclosed feeling of a cabin? Being in the woods?
And Catherine will never forget either. But because she's only about three, it won't be a logical memory...it will just be the triggers. The corn smell, the blood, the intense fear, and then the loss of love, of home, of security.
They weren't alone in their grief. There was a war on. Most of the country was traumatized.
But while we can imagine universal feelings, there are many things we don't know. Where and when did the attack occur? Why? Was it an isolated event or part of a battle? What did Martha do next?
Genealogists have a wall they can't get over; our wall is the American Revolution. (see Thanks Aunt Jean! post). 16 of our ancestors were Loyalists who received land grants in Nova Scotia due to their support for the Crown during the Revolutionary War they lost. But which American colony were they from? For Catherine Oxendine, the attack is our first clue.
When I heard the story, I considered where it was likely to happen. In Nova Scotia, I hadn't heard of any hostilities between white settlers and native Mi'kmaq, and I found out that was because of the peace treaties of the 1700s. One of our cousins thought it happened in New York, where the ships for Nova Scotia set sail, but there weren't any Indian wars around New York City by the late 1700s. In the Carolinas, however, Cherokees kept up a resistance against the encroaching white settlers. Martha's second husband, Jacob Glance, fought with the Royal North Carolina Regiment and was named a Tory traitor in Lincoln County, NC. Maybe they knew each other before their arrival in Shelburne?
Oxendine is a very uncommon name, held only by British nobility and North Carolina Indians. Neither seemed likely to me at all, but the evidence kept pointing me to Carolina. Another fact I learned is that Martha was deserving of passage to Nova Scotia on the strength of her father's, John Mortimore's, service in the King's Carolina Rangers. It turns out that both the King's Carolina Rangers and Jacob Glance's Royal North Carolina Regiment were evacuated from Charleston, South Carolina, to Fort St. Augustine in Spanish Florida. From St. Augustine, there was a choice of British colonies to relocate to, but most chose Nova Scotia.
a Loyalist strung up by American Patriots after the Revolution
Martha and Jacob could have easily met in either place. Jacob must have seemed like a good choice for a second husband. His kindness could ease the grief, and his bravery would protect her. Jacob was from Amsterdam, but he had been a soldier for a number of years in America, and had been wounded in either the eye or the leg or both. He was certainly good with kids, because he had taken in the 15-year-old orphan of his fallen comrade.
I don't know what happened to Martha's father John Mortimore or if he ever made it on the ship, because there is no mention of him in Shelburne. Martha and Jacob married when her daughter Catherine was about 6, and they went on to have 3 more daughters, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Mary Glance. After a devastating fire in Shelburne, they moved to nearby Barrington and Jacob took a job in Sargent's mill. They lived out long lives there.
Second Generation
Catherine married Michael Madden, an Irishman who fought with the British in the Revolution, in 1794. They may have found they understood each other because of loss; Michael's wife Isabella had just died the year before. Isabella was so fat, she couldn't lean over to the fireplace to light her pipe from the coals. So she kept a servant girl for that task. They had been married about 4 years when Isabella crossed the harbor in a small boat with another woman and some children. The boat capsized and everyone drowned except the old oarsman.
Catherine and Michael honored their lost loved ones by naming their first children Isabella and Benjamin. Then there was Margaret after Catherine's sister, then Rebecca, then Michael after his father, and then Catharine 2nd after her mother.
But Catherine, having witnessed the bloody death of her own father in her childhood, was not to escape the same fate for her own children. In March 1809, Michael was watching his sons Benjamin and Michael Jr., ages 11 and 5, catching eels, when he fell from a large rock. We don't know how long he lay there or if he was conscious or could speak, but we can imagine Benjamin trying desperately to stop the bleeding, begging his father to live, while his little brother ran panicked for help. By the time help arrived, Michael was dead.
Jean Robertson Brendel, catching an eel at Newville Lake, Cumberland County, NS, 1948Catherine was 3 months pregnant at Michael's death. Maybe she wondered if God had cursed her. Or maybe she thought that God had chosen this double fate for her because she could handle it. Although Martha only had one child to take care of and Catherine had seven, she drew strength from how her mother had dealt with the murder and evacuation years before and launched into widow mode. Martha was there to help her daughter, and the baby born in September was named Martha after her.
Barrington, where they lived, was a wool-weaving town. Every family had their own sheep, and they brought the shorn wool to the main mill to be washed and spun and woven. It was town policy to provide this service to widows for free so they could earn money from their sheep. Surely Catherine and her children benefited from this policy. Michael had 15 sheep to leave to his family.
Barrington town tartan
Widow Madden worked through the tragedy by doing what Michael would have wanted her to. First she gave birth to the child he would never see. Then, illiterate, she signed by her mark to became the executor of his small estate -- besides the sheep, there was a cow named Browny and a 2-year-old steer named Buck. Four days after that, she asked the neighbor who posted bond for the estate, a man who could write, to address a letter from her to the court. How was she supposed to feed the cows and sheep? for she had no hay, it was November, and they would suffer from want of hay. She hoped Judge Mr. Cuningham would send out word what was to be done with the animals.
Third Generation
I don't know what the word was or what Catherine did. The death of a parent shatters a family, and it can never be put back the way it was. Some people, forced to take on more responsibilities, become high achievers, and other people flounder. Catherine did raise her children to become successful adults. She married William Mahaney after 5 years and had 3 more children. The oldest son who may have watched his father die, Benjamin, became a very successful fisherman (see Wills, Where, Ways post.) Michael Jr., who may have run for help, became a mariner and owned a schooner named Lady of the Forest. The children married and stayed in the community.
Daughters Rebecca and Catharine 2nd, ages 7 and 3 1/2 when their father was killed, may have been affected the most from the fractured family. Maybe Rebecca was a mother figure to Catharine 2nd, since their actual mother was busy raising 7 children by herself. They were obviously very close; it even looks like Catharine 2nd patterned her life after Rebecca's. They both left Barrington for Churchover, and married very young, at ages 18 and 17, in Shelburne instead of Barrington. Rebecca married James Robertson and Catharine 2nd married his brother; they had houses on the same land. Perhaps Catharine 2nd left home as a teenager and lived with Rebecca and James.
Fourth Generation
Nowadays, mental health professionals examine how trauma is passed down through generations. My first inkling that something had gone wrong in this family was back when I was a teenager, looking at baptisms in the Archives. Catharine 2nd and John Robertson's list of children sounded almost exactly like John's list of siblings, so much so that at first I didn't realize they were two different families. Catharine 2nd didn't name any child after her deceased father Michael, or any other Madden. Either John was really controlling, or, more likely I thought, Catharine 2nd didn't want to remember her past. Maybe as a 3-year-old she had magically concluded she was doomed to repeat her mother's life since she had the same name.
And that's when I started looking through records for evidence of the Family Oxendine's bloody tragedies.
References:
I don't know what the word was or what Catherine did. The death of a parent shatters a family, and it can never be put back the way it was. Some people, forced to take on more responsibilities, become high achievers, and other people flounder. Catherine did raise her children to become successful adults. She married William Mahaney after 5 years and had 3 more children. The oldest son who may have watched his father die, Benjamin, became a very successful fisherman (see Wills, Where, Ways post.) Michael Jr., who may have run for help, became a mariner and owned a schooner named Lady of the Forest. The children married and stayed in the community.
Daughters Rebecca and Catharine 2nd, ages 7 and 3 1/2 when their father was killed, may have been affected the most from the fractured family. Maybe Rebecca was a mother figure to Catharine 2nd, since their actual mother was busy raising 7 children by herself. They were obviously very close; it even looks like Catharine 2nd patterned her life after Rebecca's. They both left Barrington for Churchover, and married very young, at ages 18 and 17, in Shelburne instead of Barrington. Rebecca married James Robertson and Catharine 2nd married his brother; they had houses on the same land. Perhaps Catharine 2nd left home as a teenager and lived with Rebecca and James.
Fourth Generation
Nowadays, mental health professionals examine how trauma is passed down through generations. My first inkling that something had gone wrong in this family was back when I was a teenager, looking at baptisms in the Archives. Catharine 2nd and John Robertson's list of children sounded almost exactly like John's list of siblings, so much so that at first I didn't realize they were two different families. Catharine 2nd didn't name any child after her deceased father Michael, or any other Madden. Either John was really controlling, or, more likely I thought, Catharine 2nd didn't want to remember her past. Maybe as a 3-year-old she had magically concluded she was doomed to repeat her mother's life since she had the same name.
And that's when I started looking through records for evidence of the Family Oxendine's bloody tragedies.
References:
Madden Family Genealogy, Shelburne Genealogical Society
Anglican Church Records, Shelburne
Edwin Crowell, History of Barrington Township
Record of Deaths recorded by Saml. O. Doane, T. Clerk, Barrington
"John Mortimore served in King's Carolina Rangers under Lt. Col. Thomas Brown, evacuated from Charleston"
"Jacob Glance enlisted 24 Jan 1781 in Royal North Carolina Regiment under Capt. John Wormley, served until 1783 when disbanded and evacuated to Charleston South Carolina. named as Tory Traitor in summonses issued under Confiscation Act. "To the Sherriff of Lincoln county you are hereby commanded to take" 33 names on act. Bros stayed in NC. Brought w him Archibald Brannon, 15, son of another Southern Campaign soldier KIA" - researched by Richard Ripley, UELwww.uelac.org/Loyalist-Trails/2013
Notes of Amos Doane, Barrington Historical and Genealogical Society - "Jacob Glance - From Amsterdam - Was a soldier in the American Revolution - He came to Philadelphia and joined the Loyalist Army there - He belonged to the garrison - In an engagement with the Indians he was wounded in the eye with an arrow. J. G. after serving in the Revolutionary War came to Shelburne with the Loyalist - and drew land in that Township - He was wounded in battle in the leg. J. G. Married in Shelburne the Widow Martha Oxendein - who also came from New York (?) in the same ship with John Thomas - they moved from shelburne to Cape Negro, and lived for some time there near David Thomas senr Then they came to Barrington and settled at the River. Mr. Glance worked in Mr. Sargents' mill - children Elizabeth m. Obed Christie - Mary m. Wm Watt, Margaret M. Andrew (Ansel or Anson) Nickerson. Jacob Glance died Aug. 28. 1824. - Martha wife of Jacob Glance died Decr. 7. 1819"
Story of Murder also from Notes of Amos Doane
https://www.historynet.com/the-fight-for-the-14th-colony-nova-scotia/
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