12/8: Books to Read

11/20: Who was Pierce Butler? [ah]

Our introduction to him began with the purchase at a used book sale of the book "Major Butler's Legacy - Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family" by Malcolm Bell, Jr. The author, who had been president of the Georgia Historical Society from 1974 through 1978, summed up his legacy in the final paragraph on the inside book cover jacket:

"To his family, Major Butler's legacy consisted of two well-appointed properties in Philadelphia, the rich plantation lands in the South that paid for those properties, and more than nine hundred human beings bound to the soil of the plantations. To his nation, Major Butler's legacy was less munificent. He bequeathed a flaw in the Constitution, one that would widen for decades before breaking the country in two, dividing the Union in a civil war to end slavery in the land."

With the aid of genealogy and AI we intend to expose the flaws in the U.S. Constitution. One obvious flaw in the Bill of Rights is the absence of the right to vote.

In the meantime, below is a link to this week's PGA Tour stop at St. Simons Island. Major Pierce Butler's "Hampton Plantation", that produced cotton with over 400 slaves, was on the northern end of the island. The King and Prince Golf Course now occupies part of that plantation. The Sea Island Golf Club occupies part of the Retreat Plantation that is on the southern end of the island. William Page supervised Major Butler's plantation before he founded the Retreat Plantation in 1804.

The RSM Classic
Nov 21-24 at Sea Island GC, St. Simons Island, GA
The link is from our affiliated website of TheOpen.Net that has featured golf and tennis since 2004.

Introduction (9/29/24)

We first visited the King's Chapel Burial Ground to see the historical marker that contained information on our distant great-grandAunt, Mary Chilton. The text was:

Mary (Chilton) Winslow (1608-1679), buried in the Winslow tomb, is
commonly believed to be the first European female to set foot on Plymouth
soil. Only 12 years at the time, Mary was one of 30 female piligrims
who survived the trip for Holland on the Mayflower in 1620. Her father,
a tailor named James Chilton, died before the ship reached Plymouth, Mary
later married Plymouth merchant John Winslow (1597-1674) and gave
birth to ten children. Mary and John moved to Boston in 1657 were John
was one the weathiest merchants.

On the way to lunch at the Union Oyster House, we stopped to see the meeting room at Fanueil Hall. There on a historical panel were the names of two political leadrrs, James Otis and Sam Adams. The panel's text was:

Even though Bostonians had a direct voice in town affairs at town
meetings at Faneuil Hall, they had no representation in Boston's
Parliamemt. Local political leaders, including James Otis and Samuel
Adams, gained support through challenging Parliament's policies.
They argued these financial policies, such as the Stamp Act, were
"Taxation without Representation."

See the two photos taken at the King's Chapel Burial Ground and Faneuil Hall at Boston Photos - Mary Chilton & James Otis. Jr..

Who was James Otis?

James Otis was actually James Otis, Jr. (1729-1783), who has been considered by some to be Founding Father of the American Revolution. According to the National Park Service at Boston's Old State House, "Many trace the spark that lit the American Revolution to a courtroom in 1761, when attorney James Otis, Jr. transformed his arguments in a search-and-seizure case into a fiery and wide-ranging five-hour oration that laid down many concepts foundational to our democracy."

Among those who have praised James Otis are President John Adams and Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. Adams called Otis's 1761 speech against writs of assistance the moment when "Then and there the Child Independence was born.... The seeds of Patriots & Heroes... were then & there sown." He believed this speech marked the beginning of American opposition to British rule. Constitutional scholar Akil Reed Amar confirms Adam's view when he used "Seeds" as the title of the first chapter in his book "The Words That Made Us - America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760 - 1840."

James Otis is not considered a Founding Father of the U.S. by most historians, but he should be considered a Founding Father of the American Revolution for also popularizing "Taxation without Representation is Tyrany" and his role in the response to the 1765 Stamp Act. He should also be recognized for inspiring the 4th amendment to the Constitution and opposing slavery.

So what are our genealogical relationships to Mary Chilton & James Otis, Jr.? Mary Chilton.1607-1679 (ggA) was our great-grandAunt. Her parents were our ancestors. James Otis, Jr.1725-1783 (H4c,8c) was both the husband of our 4th cousin and our 8th cousin. His wife, Ruth Cunningham.1729-1789 (4c) was our 4th cousin. She is a maternal descendant of Mary Chilton. So Mary Chilton and James Otis are related to each other. The marriage between James Otis and Ruth Cunningham was not happy. He was a patriot and she was a Tory.

This discovery of our relationship to James Otis, led to the initial pursuit of relationships to the Founding Fathers and eventually to the origins of the Electoral College. That is presented at Election Reform.