Today is weight of what I started 27 years ago crashing. No, it isn’t over, the story has not stopped. Weight is only reflection of recent discoveries, the weight causing a sigh yet heavy as now formed theory, words written before fingers hit the keys… All shaken, jumbled all at once causing words to be added, expanding what I know.
Deerbrook, the elusive center of my community and family research. the boundaries of the Township of Neva, or so I thought when I started.
Great thanks and appreciation for Amy at Shawano County Register of Deeds. The one missing piece completing my standard of proof to support the theory I am ready to write. Little did I know…
Shifting from book one, describing my lens in building the two coming books. Deerbrook. I begin review sources and stories of the era, forming the flow of the story, the names and picturing their time and place.
Right in the middle of the map provided by J. J. Wagner a few years back sits the very first land patent, East of where a depot is built in 1881, 12 years in the future…
On 25 June 1869, 27 year old Henry Hewitt Jr. plats this land. 12 years before a railroad sees shipping, bringing the rail through Deerbrook.
This very same 27 year old Henry Hewitt on 5 January 1873 files patents:
- Township of Ackley 31N 9E and 10E, 45 patents
- Township of Vilas 32N 9E and 10E, 20 patents
That is only some of them filed on that date, by Henry Hewitt Jr. Perspective in 1887, this is the map the above township and ranges come from, having not one earlier during this round into the rabbit hole I travel.
One year later, in 1888, Henry Hewitt Jr. is referenced in an blog post I found (aided by Claude AI at this point). Getting this quickly the only answer for me, Claude AI, faster than I could ever target a search today; but this story is meant for later…
Back to the blog post… It states right after writing Henry Hewitt Jr is “who many believe is the richest man in the state.” The topic, Hewitt’s newly formed Tacoma company was merged with a large company located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hewitt was moving to replicate his success in Wisconsin in Washington. Here he is credited with founding of both Tacoma and Everett Washington.
The landscape of this area, the theory I have being blown open with more stories to support conclusion, theory it remains.
None of this changes history of our ancestors dreams. None of it. None of it blames Hewitt for clearly he was fulfilling his dream.
My personal standard of proof, nothing is fact without seeing hand written letter or diary stating “this is my intent” or some form of it clear to readers everywhere. It must be found to provide fact. Otherwise I can only tell stories of results of any intent and only by finding stories of those who lived through the results. Results can be fact and story while not being to discard any written intent written by others of the person they knew.
That above is why scholarly is refused. You will simply need to trust my word. I could write scholarly but chose not to.
Conflicts collide when anyone feels something is being proved wrong, or indicate those past lied. Yet it is clearly simple. I have more resources and I believe spent more time than writers past allowing me only to expand their view without desire to say anyone was right or wrong.
Why free? Trust me I feel those questioning and I’ve been asked many times. So now here for anyone to find.
I am researching the past. Through that I find places and people’s lives lived. Those stories, those names are not mine to sell. I don’t own them. They do whether they are here today or not. Period. Want more, ask me, do not tell something you don’t know and do not conclude. Don’t we have enough of that already in life?
I write from how things happen realtime. People arrive, events happen, communities formed. Scholarly write place exists, events happen in place, people gather. Focusing on those well remembered summarizing or not writing the people. People no matter the direction history is written, the history absolutely does not exist without.
Genealogy, the same 27 years digging up names not written, summarized without harm or intent to harm my Irish family as “and an Irish family”… Lucky for me, my Great Grandfather William Bentley is Frank’s older brother. The only clue that summary told me it was William and his wife, Anna Lynn.
Closing this long story..
Anna was born in Hudson, New Jersey on 3 March 1870. Finding this I found the power of their story. Her parents, John Lynn and Ellen McWilliams, leave Ireland winter of 1869. Both born during the Great Famine. Ellen pregnant with Anna during a winter crossing of the Atlantic.
Years to find this story, names summarized in handwritten histories… Further difficulty as records become monetized. Selling paper that yes they digitized; however still selling names not belonging to them.
Between what is free and what is paid I made my decision. It will be free, it will be story driven and those names, that past IS NOT FOR SALE!