"Timmy" by Henry Livingston, Jr. (7 Dec 1785) to "Lovely Nancy" and illustrated by postcards

YouTube ^ | 7 Dec 1785 | Henry Livingston

[mairdie]

Timmy Dwight was the son of Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, a president of Yale University and the first cousin of Henry's first wife Sarah.

From Don Foster's "Author Unknown": Much of the Major's poetry was written for children and never gathered or published. One compassionate lyric from the 1780s is addressed to a young second cousin, Timmy Dwight, a boy as "Blythe as Oberon the fairy." Harry urges the lad to party hard on his birthday, to fill his "cormorantal belly" with hasty-puddings and "charming jelly." Fun stuff, fun poetry. You can't read Major Henry Livingston Jr. and not love the man from the top of his jolly head to the tips of his Poughkeepsie feet. His correspondence and published poems and articles are usually witty, sometimes hilarious, never sarcastic; full of love for humanity and driven by an irrepressible joie de vivre - or to say it more properly in Dutch, levenslust.

[mairdie]

There are so many poems of Henry's that I want to say are a favorite. Analyzing the body of Henry's work over and over again stayed a joy every time I had to read through it. But, one more time, "Timmy" is one of my favorite poems of Henry's.

[mairdie]

PING

[mass55th]

When I saw the last name Dwight, I wondered if they could have been related to the Dwight's who served from Massachusetts during the Civil War. They are connected to the New England Dwight family, but how is a guess. Wilder Dwight was Lt. Colonel in the 2nd Mass. Infantry, was wounded at Antietam, and died. Here's a link to a photo and letter he wrote home to his mother on his death bed:

"Dearest Mother, I am wounded so as to be helpless..."

His brother William Dwight, Jr. was a General during the Civil War. His wikipedia biography gives more info, along with other siblings who served, and died in the war:

William Dwight, Jr.

I spent several years researching both the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry. The Colonel of the 54th, Robert Gould Shaw first served in the 2nd Massachusetts, and was friends with Dwight and others. Many in the 2nd, and 20th Massachusetts had attended Harvard together. Normally I can't remember what I had for lunch, but was able to recall Wilder Dwight's name without any problem. Gave all my research papers to the National Guard Museum and Archives in Concord, Ma., a while back. Didn't want them ending up in a dumpster after I died.

[mairdie]

I’ll check my computer files. Since Dwight is also my cousin, I’ve got almost the whole Dwight CT family in my family tree files.

[mass55th]

That's cool that you have the Dwight connection in your family tree. Let me know if you find anything to link them to the Massachusetts Dwights.

I hope you don't mind my searching for info on them. I just found this on a genealogy site, although you'd need to join to see the whole record:

William Dwight, Sr.

Also found that there is a collection of Dwight family papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.

Dwight Papers - 1815-1942

One letter from the collection dated 1861 from Howard Dwight to his father William Dwight, Sr.:

Letter from Howard Dwight to William Dwight, 29 September 1861

[mairdie]

The top of the Timothy Dwight tree is

https://www.geni.com/people/Capt-Timothy-Dwight/6000000007261750201

Captain Timothy Dwight and Anna Flint.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the connection to the MA Dwights off that tree since the CT Dwights come from the Northampton Dwights.

I’ve got the whole tree in my files and tried to export it for you in pdf form, but I’m getting stuck so will ask husband if he can unstick me.

[mass55th]

Have you tracked the Dwight family back to Europe yet...possibly Britain? My mother’s side of the family originally came from there, but I haven’t yet gotten that far back. Still looking for what happened to my grandfather on my mother’s side (Canada), and a great-aunt that moved from Canada with her husband to Kentucky. I found her husband’s burial site, and there’s a plot there for her, but she either went back to Canada, or married again since she’s not in that plot. She’d definitely be dead by now.

[mairdie]

The dates for John and Dwight can’t be right, but that’s what’s in my files.

John Dwight
1625, Of Dedham’, Norfolk, ‘Ma

Hannah

***************

Captain Timothy Dwight
26 Oct 1633, Of Dedham, Essex, England
31 Jan 1716/17, Dedham, Norfolk, MA

Anna Flint
11 Sep 1643, Braintree, Nrflk., MA
29 Jan 1685/86, Dedham, Nrflk., MA

[newfreep]

There's only one Timmy...

[mass55th]

It’s interesting that the Dwights settled in the same town name that they came from in England.

[mairdie]

They settled in a town and NAMED it for the town from which they came. I assume you’ve found the MA town books in your local library.

[mass55th]

I actually live in New York State. I use the Civil War unit 55th Massachusetts Infantry as my screen name as I researched them extensively for my thesis.

[mairdie]

Most of my research is New York state, but I have a bunch of NY ancestors who originated in MA. And I do live in MA, though I commuted into NY state for 10 years, my husband for 15. NY genealogy research is similar to most research.

MA is heaven. All the 1600s wills and such are written in books attached to the various towns. At some point, every town gathered their information and published it in the most beautifully sorted way you can possibly imagine. Then they printed enough copies so that every town had a copy of every book of every other town. The only problem you run into is that people snuck books out of libraries, so every town’s library tends to be incomplete and you have to travel a bit to find all the books you need. But when you REALLY want to see the originals, you can join the people researching house titles and actually xerox the ORIGINAL 1600s WRITING!

RI tried something similar, but not as organized. And they vacuumed up info into subsequent books that makes it VERY hard to find info since it’s scattered.

When I first started researching surnames in 1998, I would copy every appropriate early name and put a page up on my new and shiny website. For example, Davis in Haverhill MA.

Davis births in Haverhill MA
http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/davis/davisbirthhav.htm

Davis deaths in Haverhill MA
http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/davis/davisdeathhh.htm

Davis is a fun one for me. Found a great family story in the old law cases of Newport RI. Apparently the last of my Davis surnames, Abigail Davis, was engaged to Captain Edward Richmond. But after her father died and her mother remarried, her mother and stepfather essentially sold her to an older man. Edward was furious and, a lawyer, started suing the parents. When that didn’t work, Abigail ran away with him. The town wanted them to not live in sin, so he convinced the town that they wouldn’t if they’d dissolve Abigail’s marriage as flawed and let her marry him. They did and she did. But obviously he carried a grudge against her parents. After her stepfather died, the mother was carrying on with some 1600s type and Edward, now the Attorney General of Newport, brought her up on charges and she was sentenced to be stripped to the waist and tied to the Great Gun for 15 min at noon. You have to really love revenge best served cold.

[mass55th]

God bless you for all the commuting you did. Most people today screech if they have to drive 15 minutes to work.

I never knew that villages/towns in MA sent copies of their local info to other villages/towns, but then I never researched any MA history that far back. I'm betting that the people who started that were from places like England who kept meticulous records dating back centuries. It kind of reminds me of the land survey (Domesday Book), commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. It consisted of an assessment of who owned what land, how much they owned, and how much in taxes he could get from them. What I wouldn't give to be able to read Old English, Welsh, Gaelic, or Latin. Maybe I should have taken Latin when it was offered in high school in the 60's. But what did I know back then? I was just a dumb 16 year old cheerleader, dating the high school quarterback. At least they taught us handwriting/longhand back when I was a kid. It definitely comes in handy when you need to read old records and documents, because they were all mostly completed in longhand.

Thanks for sharing the story of Abigail Davis and Captain Edward Richmond. Those are stories you can only find by going through those old records. There's treasures out there. You just have to look.

I spent a lot of time at the National Archives doing research on the men of the 55th Massachusetts. Their pension records were chock full of great family info. Several had been slaves, and their depositions covered that part of their life, as they had to account for their health prior to, during, and after their service. Sometimes I'd find actual photos, or newspaper clippings about them in their files. The years I spent researching were some of the most fulfilling times of my life. It wasn't just educational, it was fun.

[mairdie]

I adore this type of research. Names and dates alone just bore me. What I need is to make the dead come alive again in my mind. I need to get inside their heads. When I was researching great grandfather, I bought the books he carried with him when he ran away from home at 16. Henry’s grandfather, Gilbert Livingston, studied with Rev Solomon Stoddard, Rev. Jonathan Edwards’s grandfather, who was Rev Dr Timothy Dwight’s grandfather, so I read everything I could on Stoddard in order to understand Gilbert.

What I do now is suck in information and dump it out again in my website. There’s maybe 20,000 pages up there now. When I buy old documents or books, I usually scan them and put those up, too. So I put up one 1802 book on what to do with your electricity after you’ve collected it from your lightning rod,
http://henrylivingston.com/theman/atlocustgrove/medical/electricity/cover.htm

and a sermon by Henry’s brother Rev Dr John Henry Livingston on why you shouldn’t marry your deceased wife’s sister.
http://henrylivingston.com/bios/jhl/index-marriage.htm

I spent one entire year living in a small room in our house in front of a HUGE microfilm machine husband got me that scanned directly into the computer. NY State Archives would send me the old newspapers and I’d read and scan everything appropriate from the moment I woke till the time I fell asleep. It was a year spent living in a time when George Washington was spoken of in the present tense!

And great grandfather! Stanton brought him to DC to run the investigation of Lincoln’s assassination and the LoC records are in his handwriting, so I bought and scanned those, too. It all becomes so immediate and real.

[mass55th]

Wow! All I can say is Bravo!! And how wonderful that you have shared all the information you've gathered on your website. All that hard work...you should be honored for it. I know it's a labor of love, but it is important work that will benefit others.

Newspapers on microfilm are an excellent source of history. I spent many hours hunched over the machines at various libraries viewing different newspapers from the Antebellum period, the Civil War, and post Civil War period. Two papers I viewed extensively were The Mohawk Valley Register from Fort Plain, NY, and The National Tribune, which was published in Washington, D.C., and was a paper for Civil War veterans.

One of the Editors of the Mohawk Valley Register was Angell Matthewson, and he served with the 1st NY Light Artillery, and wrote home to the paper regularly until he was wounded in 1864, and sent home to recuperate. There were no laptops back then, and making copies was too expensive, so I took a hand-held recorder, and dictated all of his letters into it, then played them back, wrote them down in longhand, then typed each one of them up. At some point I was able to get them onto disk, and still have them. The whole process was very time consuming, but I got it done.

In its early days of organization, the 1st NY Arty. was stationed in Washington, and Matthewson visited the various buildings in, and around the D.C. area, and extensively described them. He even visited Mt. Vernon, and described the visit in detail.

It's interesting that you mention your great grandfather's involvement in the Lincoln assassination investigation. There was a time when I inhaled everything I could about the assassination. In my travels, I became acquainted with Dorothy and Howard Fox, the elderly couple who owned the Booth family home (Tudor Hall) in Bel Air, Md. They both died in 1999, and left no Will. The house was auctioned off, and it was eventually taken over by the county I believe. When the Foxes owned it, it was being run as a B&B, and I went to stay there a few times. They had also formed an organization called "Preservation Association of Tudor Hall." They would hold yearly conferences, and invite various authors and experts in the field of Lincoln, and the assassination, to come speak. I met and corresponded with a few of the authors/presenters, and shared new info on the assassination that I had gleaned from my microfilm searches of The National Tribune. Such amazing stories to be found in those old newspapers. One of those assassination experts is Michael W. Kauffman. Back in 2007 he published "American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies." For my assistance, he sent me an autographed copy, and mentioned me in his acknowledgements. It still boggles my mind how much stuff I discovered over the years. Several years ago I turned my whole research collection over to the National Guard Museum and Archives in Concord, MA. Didn't want it all to end up in a dumpster after I died.