New Family History Reveals Old Ties

I am having a unique opportunity with my oldest daughter being home for a bit, as we have gone through thousands of pictures and printed documents of a lifetime.

The unique opportunity gives me the ability to see what might be a part of the items to be displayed at any memorial to me when the time comes.

I have written other blogs relating to my late wife's family, which required me to write from memory or read bios on the Internet. So here is the kicker and reason for this writing.

Carole Minkin, my daughter, came up with one of her themes from a freshman English class at St. Elizabeth Academy dated Dec. 4, 1962, which she and her mother put away as very important so long ago. In it she interviewed her grandmother, my wife's mother, and it becomes a factual and personal account of the relationship to Chief Black Hawk. His only wife was known by the Indian word "Asshewequa," which means Singing Bird.

The paper is entitled:  "My Family History, The family side of my mother."

"In comparison to some people, I know very little of my ancestors.  However, to me the most interesting of my maternal ancestors is my great-great-great-grandfather, Chief Black Hawk.

Black Hawk was a Sac Indian Chief.  He was born in 1776 in an Indian village on the Rock River in Illinois.  Forming an early dislike for the Americans, he joined the British in the War of 1812 as a leader under Chief Tecumseh.

Denouncing the Treaty of 1804 (Louisiana Purchase) deeding the lands east of the Mississippi River to the United States, he refused to migrate on the grounds that the Indian chiefs who signed the Treaty were intoxicated at the time of signing.

Forced to withdraw across the Mississippi (1831), he returned at the head of a band of warriors and fought the Black Hawk War 1832.  This was the Indians against the Americans.  The Sacs and the Foxes were the aggressors being lead by Black Hawk for the reason that the Americans had alienated large portions of their lands.  The war came to an end with the defeat of the Indians and capture of Black Hawk and his oldest son, Whirling Bird, on August 2, 1832 near the mouth of the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin."

(To save space, all this history is now available online but family history goes as follows.) 

Writer's note.

During his lifetime, Black Hawk was blessed with several children. One of his children gave birth to a daughter, Annie, who became my great-grandmother. She was orphaned.

Traveling to Missouri in a schooner with her adopted parents, Annie and her family settled on the borderline of Missouri and Iowa.  There she met a middle-aged man by the name of Samuel Morrison Neal.  Samuel was a widower, several years older than Anna, with four children.  In time the two fell in love and were married.

In about 1895, Annie gave birth to a daughter, my grandmother, Mabel; but Annie died at the birth of her daughter.  Samuel was once again a widower.  During the great tornado of 1896, Mabel was separated from the rest of her family until the 1960s when they were located.

Years rolled by and Mabel blossomed into a young lady eligible for matrimony.  In 1910, at a fair, a dashing young man by the name of Clay Harrison was given a choice of which young woman he would like to drive in his buggy—the choice was between Mabel and a friend of hers.  Clay pointed a finger at her and said, "Get in!" 

After a year of courtship, Clay and Mabel were married on Oct. 4, 1911, so that became a fitting end of my interview about the ancestry of my grandmother, Mabel Neal Harrison, whose offspring are modern history. 

(A relative who was a grandson of the Black Hawk union is Jim Thorpe, a great USA Sports Star.)