Heritage Newsletter- February 24, 2023

22 Feb Heritage Newsletter- February 24, 2023

HERITAGE THE ARTICLE ABOVE SOUNDS LIKE A TESLA AD

If only Elon had hired Harry’s wife!

However, that’s an ad for 1926 Jewett-Six.

The Jewett was an automobile built in Detroit, Michigan by the Paige-Detroit Motor Car Company from March 1922 through December 1926. The Jewett was named after Harry M. Jewett, president of Paige-Detroit.

Embedded in the dashboard of every Jewett was an amulet, visible on the passenger side as a dash-plate. Harry’s wife Mary was something of a spiritualist, and these amulets were purported to have mystical power that protected the occupants. HERITAGE

HERITAGE BARBARA RAE VENTER AT 74 IS A ROCK STAR IN OUR WORLD

She’s behind using DNA and forensic genealogy to solve cases such as the Golden State Killer. You can read more about her in the linked article below.

You’ll see in the article that her surname came from being previously married to J. Craig Venter. In an odd intersection of my prior career and what I do today, I met Craig Venter at an after dinner party where our group was staying at the same hotel as his group of biochemists.

Watching scientists navigating the cocktail party scene was a bit like an unscripted version of The Big Bang Theory with “Closing Time” as the theme song.

https://slate.com/culture/2023/02/dna-testing-gsk-barbara-rae-venter-book-review.html HERITAGE

HERITAGE DESCENDANTS OF JOHN BROWN AND FREDERICK DOUGLASS MEET

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader in the Massachusetts and New York abolitionist movements. He became famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.

Accordingly, abolitionists described him as a living contrarian to enslavers’ arguments that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography.

Douglass wrote three autobiographies describing his experiences as an enslaved person. His Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), became a bestseller and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition: his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), accomplished more of the same. Following the Civil War, Douglass was an active campaigner for the rights of the free and wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. First published in 1881 and revised in 1892, three years before his death, the book covers his life up to those dates. Douglass also actively supported women’s suffrage and held several public offices. For example, without his permission, Douglass became the first African American nominated for vice president of the United States as the running mate of Victoria Woodhull on the Equal Rights Party ticket.

Douglass believed in dialogue, making alliances across racial and ideological divides, and the liberal values of the U.S. Constitution. When radical abolitionists, under the motto “No Union with Slaveholders”, criticized Douglass’s willingness to engage in dialogue with enslavers, he replied: “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist leader. First reaching national prominence for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, he was eventually captured and executed for a failed incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry preceding the American Civil War.

An evangelical Christian of strong religious convictions, Brown was profoundly influenced by the Puritan faith of his upbringing. He believed that he was “an instrument of God”  raised to strike the “death blow” to American slavery, a “sacred obligation”. Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the American abolitionist movement, believing it was necessary to end American slavery after decades of peaceful efforts had failed. Brown repeatedly stated that he followed Christian ethics, working to free the enslaved. That included the Golden Rule and the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which states that “all men are created equal”. He repeatedly said that, in his view, these two principles “meant the same thing”.

Brown first gained national attention when he led antislavery volunteers and his sons during the Bleeding Kansas Crisis of the late 1850s, a state-level civil war over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave or free state. He was dissatisfied with abolitionist pacifism, saying pacifists, “These men are all talk. What we need is action – action!”. In May 1856, Brown and his sons killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre, a response to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces. Brown then commanded antislavery troops at the Battles of Black Jack and Osawatomie.

In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today West Virginia). He intended to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south; he had prepared a Provisional Constitution for the revised, slavery-free United States he hoped to bring about. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. Brown intended to arm slaves with weapons from the armory, but only a few slaves joined his revolt. Those of Brown’s men who had not fled were killed or captured by local militia and U.S. Marines, the latter led by Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty of all charges and was hanged on December 2, 1859, the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States.

The Harpers Ferry raid and Brown’s trial, both covered extensively in national newspapers, escalated tensions that led, a year later, to the South’s long-threatened secession and the American Civil War. Southerners feared others would soon follow in Brown’s footsteps, encouraging and arming slave rebellions. He was a hero and icon in the North. Union soldiers marched to the new song “John Brown’s Body”, which portrayed him as a heroic martyr. Brown has been described as a heroic martyr, visionary, madman, and terrorist. HERITAGE

Read more about their meeting at this link: https://whyy.org/articles/descendants-frederick-douglass-john-brown-meeting-new-freedom-theatre/?mibextid=Zxz2cZ 

HERITAGE A METEOR DESTROYED AN ABBEY IN THE FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE IN 1719!

HERITAGE OLDEST NEAR-COMPLETE HEBREW BIBLE SET TO FETCH $50 MILLION AT AUCTION

Sotheby’s will bring the Codex Sassoon – the earliest, most complete Hebrew Bible extant, dating to the late ninth century – to auction in May.

Composed of 24 books divided into three parts—the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings—the Hebrew Bible makes up the foundation for Judaism as well as the other Abrahamic faiths: Christianity (in which these texts are referred to as the Old Testament, and are incorporated into the biblical canon by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant sects, among others); as well as Islam, which also holds the stories of the Hebrew Bible in special regard, with many of them included in the Qur’an and other significant works of Islamic literature. HERITAGE

Here’s the rest of the article:
https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-news/oldest-near-complete-hebrew-bible-set-fetch-50-million-auction

HERITAGE YOUR ANCESTORS ARE WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED!

Reach out to Dancestors and let us research, discover, and preserve your family history. No one is getting any younger, and stories disappear from memory every year and eventually from our potential ability to find them. Paper gets thrown in the trash; books survive! So do not hesitate and call me @ 214-914-3598. HERITAGE

Video Testimonials – DancestorsGenealogy.com