Cotton Mather – Protective Arts

The Court of Final Appeal

In 1862, at twenty-one, my great-great-grandfather John Hodges Wadhams left Goshen, Connecticut, to seek his fortune in the West. In 1992, almost exactly 130 years later, I began keeping seriously the journal of my own early adulthood. John was the son of an old Connecticut farming family. Church, town, party, father and Civil War suppliedContinue reading “The Court of Final Appeal”

Taft / Messinger Lineage

Daniel Edwards Messinger married Eliza Carter Nichols on October 31, 1848. They lived in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, before becoming members of Adin Ballou’s “Hopedale Community” (the dale of hope) in 1852. Their placement in the Messinger line and their connection to Uxbridge and Hopedale are documented in The Descendants of Henry Messinger of Boston, 1637 (privatelyContinue reading “Taft / Messinger Lineage”