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They talk about the "burned-over district" in western New York, where the fires of religious revival left everyone in the land scorched, from about 1800 to 1850.
The same area was also a stopover in the typical migration pattern following the Revolutionary War - families left Massachusetts and Connecticut, spent a generation in western New York, and then caught a steamer to Michigan (which is why so many towns in Michigan have the same name as towns in New York.)
The intersection of these two facts is, I would hazard a guess, not entirely unrelated to how one of my paternal second-great-grandfathers ended up a Baptist minister in what is now Novi, Michigan.
The story as I have heard it is this: one fine Sunday in 1875, he keeled over dead mid-sermon. (The cause of death was listed as a stroke, and I know stroke has run in the family. I am not thrilled by this information.)
The question is, then: how did people react to that? Just imagine: You are at your church service on Sunday. Being a Baptist service, one can assume it involved some enthusiastic preaching? And Pastor falls over dead.
I don't know. I can't know, unless someone finds a diary or letter from one of the congregants that talks about it and goes 'Hey, Cathy, isn't this the
second-great-grandfather you were wondering about?' Aunt Gladys might have heard the story of her grandfather, but she passed away decades before I even knew to ask the question. (Get your Olds to tell you stories about their parents and grandparents while they're still here, folks...) I can imagine, I can make some assumptions, but... that's somewhere between 'irresponsible speculation' and 'making stuff up.'
So I go on, curiosity unsatisfied, and occasionally frustrated when something randomly leads the incident to bubble up to the surface of my brain.
The same area was also a stopover in the typical migration pattern following the Revolutionary War - families left Massachusetts and Connecticut, spent a generation in western New York, and then caught a steamer to Michigan (which is why so many towns in Michigan have the same name as towns in New York.)
The intersection of these two facts is, I would hazard a guess, not entirely unrelated to how one of my paternal second-great-grandfathers ended up a Baptist minister in what is now Novi, Michigan.
The story as I have heard it is this: one fine Sunday in 1875, he keeled over dead mid-sermon. (The cause of death was listed as a stroke, and I know stroke has run in the family. I am not thrilled by this information.)
The question is, then: how did people react to that? Just imagine: You are at your church service on Sunday. Being a Baptist service, one can assume it involved some enthusiastic preaching? And Pastor falls over dead.
I don't know. I can't know, unless someone finds a diary or letter from one of the congregants that talks about it and goes 'Hey, Cathy, isn't this the
second-great-grandfather you were wondering about?' Aunt Gladys might have heard the story of her grandfather, but she passed away decades before I even knew to ask the question. (Get your Olds to tell you stories about their parents and grandparents while they're still here, folks...) I can imagine, I can make some assumptions, but... that's somewhere between 'irresponsible speculation' and 'making stuff up.'
So I go on, curiosity unsatisfied, and occasionally frustrated when something randomly leads the incident to bubble up to the surface of my brain.
