Grandma's Granny's Family Album

  As I wrote this, I thought of the quilt made by my great-grandmother. She died before I was born, yet I feel her love when I lie under its warmth. In Chapters One thru Seven, we met Sarah Rushton walking her land grant in 1827 Westchester, Nova Scotia with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren. Sarah, husband Jeremiah, and family were exiled from New York as Loyalists after the Revolution. Promised land by the British, they boarded a ship, then walked for days, hauling their belongings. Fretting over her husband’s plan to move to Upper Canada, Elizabeth asked, “How will I have a baby in the wilderness?” Sarah explained she’d avoided pregnancy as a refugee. The Rushtons labored to meet the terms of the land grant, as shown in a chart detailing women’s work. Sarah and Jeremiah dealt in complex transactions of land, including legal action for debt.

  My grandmother would have never discussed this as Sarah does. In Chapters One thru Four, we met Sarah Rushton walking her land grant in 1827 Westchester, Nova Scotia with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren. Sarah, husband Jeremiah, and family were exiled from New York as Loyalists after the Revolution. Promised a land grant by the British as a soldier, they boarded a ship for the unknown. After waiting two years, the Rushtons boated upriver and walked for days hauling their belongings by hand: iron pots, bedding, cows. The children were enthralled with the big ship and brown cow. They nearly lost their land for missing a deadline. Elizabeth raged that her father received no compensation for risking his life; Sarah pointed out their new life was better regardless of what could have been. The Story of the Pioneer’s Wife….a fictional look The little ones ran up to Elizabeth, Lucy burying her head in her mother’s skirts, Eddie loudly protesting. “William! Stop teasing your brot...

  Sarah speaks in the voice of my grandmother and her sisters. In Chapters One thru Three, we met Sarah Rushton walking her land grant in 1827 Westchester, Nova Scotia with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren. Sarah, her husband Jeremiah, and his family were exiled from New York City as Loyalists at the close of the Revolutionary War. Promised a land grant by the British as a soldier with the Westchester Refugees, the family boarded a ship for the unknown. While the children were enthralled hearing about the big ship, berries, and brown cow, Elizabeth, fretting over her own husband's plans to move the family to Upper Canada, asked, “What did you know about starting a new life in the wilderness? What did you do first?” The Story of the Refugee’s Wife....a fictional look Elizabeth touched Sarah’s arm to let the children run ahead on the meadow brook’s U-shaped path. “But I’ll be leaving for a wilderness, Mama,” she whispered plaintively. “No houses. No roads. No towns.” ...

When a war starts in a divided town, which neighbors do you trust? Good day to you!  My name is Mary Coon Rushton, and here I am, an old widow more than 90 years on this earth. 1 I tell my story humbly, as best I recollect, if any care to hear what went on last century, when one country turned itself into another.

  Our place in time. In the US, siding with England in the Revolutionary War makes you at best a loser and at worst a traitor. But in Canada, being a United Empire Loyalist is a badge of honor. If you can prove your descent from one, you can apply for a lineage society, earning the right to put UE after your name and on your license plate. Our place in time.   Our spot, in history. The town of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where we visited my grandfather's family most summers, was the setting for my first genealogy discoveries.

I have the prettiest name…21 Rose Avenue. If you add my village, I am even more lovely…Valley Stream. I am a really nice house, if I do say so myself. I have a living room and a dining room! My kitchen is big enough for a stove, ice box, a really big sink with hot and cold running water, and a bunch of cupboards. I have a table with drawers that’s big enough to roll out dough and the family to sit around for supper. 1 I’ve got a little bedroom off my kitchen. 2 Upstairs I have 4 bedrooms and an indoor bathroom with a modern bathtub. Plus a big front porch, a yard big enough for a garden, lots of grass, and a garage in the back! 3

 I wrote this history of her family for my mother-in-law in 2020.  Eva May Sorenson was her mother, and Maud Van Wart was her grandmother. Van Wart – Schaffner Family History On April 25, 1861, an eager and enthusiastic Edwin Forrest Van Wart, only 20, either very patriotic or very bored with his cap cutting job, answered President Lincoln’s call to arms to suppress the rebellion.  New York was required to send 17 regiments of men who appeared to be over 18 and under 45 and in physical strength and vigor.   To circumvent this problem, Edwin claimed to be 21, and his father, William Van Wart, claimed to be 40 instead of 44 when he signed up to join his son on muster day, May 9, at Fort Schuyler, for 2 years.  As a police officer, William must have thought he was in perfect shape to be a soldier. Colonel Abram Duryee had been asked to raise the regiment.  He must have given stirring rousing speeches because he raised the regiment in less than a week.  Ed...