#MarchForOurLives in Portsmouth, NH (20180324)

My photos from #MarchForOurLives in Portsmouth, NH (20180324) #flickr https://flic.kr/s/aHsm8TUzcL

Genealogy Brick Wall: James Norman HULL (1826-1884) of Warwick, Orange County, NY

My cousin Jackie Hull and I are researching our HULL line and this is our genealogy brick wall.

There are two areas we are interested in:

• What is the HULL line of Sheriff Henry Hunter HULL (1875-1947). His mother Elmira/Almira HULL (1853-1886) never married but was a domestic for the Othniel HOLBERT/HALBERT family in Sugar Loaf, Warwick, NY around the years Henry was born.  Henry was raised by his grandparents who resided in Greenwood Lake.
  
• Who are the parents of James Norman HULL, Elmira’s father?  This is our current brick wall.

Our direct HULL line is from Henry Hunter HULL (1875-1947) who was the Orange County Sheriff (1925-1927).  He was married to Ella THORPE and then Helen Frances SMITH.

His mother, Elmira/Almira HULL (1853-1886) had him at 22 and was never married.  We know the man (HOLBERT) was an employer. We have heard rumors that he, or brother, may be the father of Henry Hunter Hull. The surname FITZGERALD belonged to a neighbor of the Hulls in Greenwood Lake whose daughter Jenette/Gennette married HOLBERT. Genette was ill and we think that is why Elmira went to care for her and the children at the Holbert farm.

What we know of Elmira/Almira HULL

1860 Census - Almira Hull (7) living with James HULL & Elizabeth and younger brothers and an Ira HUNTER (15) and Alelia HUFF (17, domestic)

1870 Census - Elmira Hull (17) working as a domestic for the Othniel HOLBERT/ Jenette FITZGERALD(?) family in Sugar Loaf.  That family had 2 small children.

In 1875 she is listed in the NYS census as Elmira HULL (22) living in Warwick with her parents, James Norman HULL and Mary. Census Jun 5, 1875.

Also in 1875, she is listed as Almira HULL (22, single) working as a servant in Chester, still with Othniel HOLBERT & Jeannette (FITZGERALD).  In addition to that family’s children, there was an Edward Bennett (16) also a servant. The census took place on Jun 1, 1875, and Henry was born on Oct 16, 1875, Greenwood Lake.

1880 Census Almira Hull (26) again is a servant in the household of Othiel HOLBERT (40), Jeannette (42), Emily (11), Charles (10), John (8), Othneil (7), Sarah (3), Jessie (1) along with a servant James HOLLOCK (21). Notice no mention of her 4-year-old son, Henry Hunter HULL who was living with his grandparents (see below)

Emira HULL died at age 34 of Tuberculosis (tubercular consumption) on April 30, 1886, based on her death certificate.  It was certified by James G Holbert also of Sugar Loaf.

Jackie a few years ago talked to a relative of Othniel (Ott) HOLBERT, Jr (John Holbert 228-326-4549) who said he has a book about the family. We have not found it.  Any suggestions?

What we know of James Norman HULL

James Norman HULL (1826-1884) m1.ELIZABETH HUNTER? m2. Mary HELLAND? (no children, adopted Henry Hunter HULL).  He is buried in Seamansville Cemetery, Monroe, NY

1850 Census - He was 24 working as a laborer.  In Monroe, the household of Henry HUNTER (37) Matilda (43), Elizabeth (17, likely future wife), Henrietta (16), Catherine (13), Martha H (8), Ira (5).

1860 Census - In Monroe, James was 33 m. Elizabeth (27), Almira (7), James (5), Silas (1), Ira HUNTER (15, brother in law), Amelia HUFF (17, domestic)

1865 Census - James N Hull (40) / Elizabeth (33) had Almira Hull (13) James H (11), Silas (5),  Elizabeth (1), Alonzo LITTLE (15, Farmer), HANNAH M. HUNTY/HUNTER? (17, Servant)

1870 Census - Now in Warwick James (44), Mary (39), James H, Silas, Elizabeth

1875 NYS census - Same people as before but with a Saida C. Dekay (32, boarder, school teacher)

1880 Census, James N (54), Mary (49), Silas (21), Henry (4, listed as a son but this is Henry Hunter HULL, son of Elmira HULL)

Died Feb 5, 1884. Mary died May 20, 1866, and are buried in the Seamansville Cemetery in Monroe.

Belated Blog Birthday

I missed my "Nozell, Rhymes with Oh Hell" blog's birthday yesterday.  It turned 16.

There have been many changes. It started out as a simple blosxom hosted by a long dead ISP, mv.com, the moved to a hosted Wordpress for a while before making the transition to blogger.com.

River5 running in OpenShift.com

A confluence of things came together last night and is worthy of sharing.

• I'm a long time fan of RSS readers
• Dave Winer has been talking up his river-of-news RSS aggregator (river5)
• A desire to sharpen my dev skills on OpenShift

So last night I got River5, a nodejs app, running in OpenShift and it was pretty straightforward to do. Basically, change the port river5 listens on from the default 1337 to 8080, as required by OpenShift. Then a handful of OpenShift steps to pull source from github, have it automatically build and then run in the public cloud.   For hacking around I used a private OpenShift cluster but provide the steps below to get it running in Red Hat's OpenShift.com environment.

1. Fork my version of Dave's river5 github repo by using the github.com website.  My changes are minor - config.json to change the port and add my OPML exported from feedly.com.  Also added a new file, feedly.opml, of my feeds.  
2. Download / install the OpenShift CLI on your desktop.  I use RHEL/Fedora for my desktop, but Windows/Mac versions are also available from here
3. Signup for a free starter account on openshift.com
4. Once you have logged in to openshift.com, click in the upper right under your identity in the dropdown for "Copy Login Command"
5. The next few steps are done in a terminal
1. Login command looks something like this
   $ oc login https://api.starter-us-west-2.openshift.com --token=XXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
2. Create a project (think kubernetes namespace) to hold your application
   $ oc new-project my-river5 
3. Create the new application from source on github (modify to reference your own repo)
   $ oc new-app https://github.com/MarcNo/river5
4. Watch the build
   $ oc statusand
   $ oc logs -f bc/river5or use the OpenShift GUI
5. Once complete, expose the service to the external network
   $ oc expose svc/river5
6. Find out what the URL
   oc get routes
6. Check it out!
   http://river5-my-river5.7e14.starter-us-west-2.openshiftapps.com/

Keep in mind this is just the minimum to get started.  A complete solution would include keeping data on persistent storage, perhaps shared storage for multiple river5 instances to share, etc.

Full disclosure, I'm a Red Hat Associate.

History of the Lent (Van Lent) Family in the United States, Genealogical and Biographical: From the Time They Left Their Native Soil in Holland, 1638-1902

A few cousins have asked about how we are related to the well known book History of the Lent (Van Lent) Family in the United States, Genealogical and Biographical: From the Time They Left Their Native Soil in Holland, 1638-1902 by Nelson Burton Lent

It is available for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1330961366/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've extracted the pages where we link up into the book:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100760651814636.1073742021.17508287&type=1&l=f1128c678f

• Murray Ellis LENT (1889-1968) m. Evelyn STEVENS
• #1707 Russell LENT; Page 144
• #1674 Selah LENT (ca 1816 - ca 1868); m1. Ruth Ann DAHN of CT
• m2. Cornelia QUINN ; Page 144
• #1666 Jacob LENT (ca 1777 - ca 1858) m. Mrs Hannah DAVENPORT (ca 1777 - ca 1858); Page 142
• #1378 Jacob LENT (ca 1755) m. Rebecca MONTROSS; Page 141
• #1333 Abraham LENT (ca 1727) m. 1753 Jennetje (Jane) COURSEN; Page 125
• #17 Jacob LENT (1701) m Elizabeth "Elsie" ?? ; page 122
• #11 Abraham Van LENT (March 10, 1674) m. 1698 Anna Catherine MEYER (1677 - 1762) ; Page 12
• #1 Ryck Abrahamson Van LENT (1637) m. Tryntje "Catrina" Syboutsen ; Page 8
• Abraham de Ryck (From Holland to America 1638, d. 1689) m. Gertie HERMANSEN ; Page 5
• Jacob de Ryck ; Page 5

Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum

In my last post, I described visiting a couple sites on a self-directed tour of 'Burned-over District' sites of Western New York State.  Essentially a couple Mormon-run museums last Saturday morning as I made my way to the museum I really wanted to visit -- The Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum in Dresden, NY.


If you think New York means only New York City -- you need to come visit.  



There is just so much farm land.



Eventually, I got from Rochester through Palmyra (See the previous post) to Dresden (south of Geneva) on the shore one of the Finger Lakes, Seneca Lake.

This is an attraction you need to seek out, not something you'd just stumble upon.

I recommend parking at the Dresden Post Office and walk over.



Across the street to...





The Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum is a small place.  He only lived here for four months, but it is the only building associated with Ingersoll that is still in existence.

They are open only on the weekends, noon-5pm during the summer, so plan ahead.  I got there a little after 1 pm and was the first visitor for the day.  And the staffer said attendance is always on the slow side unless they get a tour bus.  I told her about my self-guided 'Burned-over District' tour and she told me about the Freethought Trail of which this was the first stop.  This real tour trail looks fantastic -- it includes sites related to, well everything good about the 19th century: Abolition, Birth Control, Freethought / Atheism / Secular Humanism, Scientific Knowledge, and Woman’s Rights / Suffrage.  I'll definitely be visiting more sites on this trail the next time I visit the Rochester area.

In many ways, this is a traditional museum with plenty of placards that describe what you are seeing.







There is a TV that plays a Center for Inquiry produced 15 minute video about the life of Robert Ingersoll (also on youtube).  As the only visitor, the staffer just turned it up loud and I could hear it walking around the displays.

Here are some of the items on display:











If you don't know who Ingersoll was -- do yourself a favor and read up on this lost genius.  I suggest "Ingersoll the Magnificent" by Joseph Lewis or "The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought" by Susan Jacoby.  If you are lazy pick up this audio CD and give a listen to a couple of his lectures presented by a modern actor.  With small exceptions, his lectures hold up remarkably well.   You can't fault him for thinking the universe was steady-state...  Buy it here: 2-CD Set: Lectures by Ingersoll




Part of the reason why popular culture has forgotten about this incredibly influential lecturer is he didn't publish any books nor create any sort of foundation to carry on his legacy.  We are all poorer for this.



See all my photos from the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum and check out my write-up of visiting some LDS siteson in the same area.

Burned-over District Museum self-tour

Last week I was in Rochester, NY visiting my folks and got to thinking how I grew up right in the middle of the 'Burned-over District' and it was not covered in the public schools. Sure, there was some discussion of the "Second Great Awakening", but not in making the local connection.

Heading back home on Saturday I decided to do my own 'Burned-over District Museum self-tour'

First Stop: Joseph Smith Family Farm and Sacred Grove



This is where the founder of the Mormons / LDS lived when he claimed to have a visit from the Angel Moroni who lead him to golden tablets that he later "translated" with the help of 'seer stones' (that even have names!)

The first stop is the Welcome Center where they had a married couple be my tour guides - "Sister Rowley" and her husband "Elder Rowley".  Of course Elder for the man and Sister for the woman.




They did some probing to see how familiar I was with the LDS and what my interests were. The off to the first stop --



This structure is actually a reproduction on the same location of the original.  It was built to the 1800s building design and the interior was based on the diary of Emma Smith.



The back view shows the "very same door that Joseph Smith looked out and saw the Angel Moroni"

Unlike most museum reproductions where are not description cards around and all information is provided by the tour guides.

See the rest of the images here: Burned-over District self-tour (20160724)



The next stop was the "Grandin Print Shop", where the Book of Mormon was first published.



This is also now a Mormon owned location and is in downtown Palmyra.  Unlike the Smith Farm, this one is more museum-like with some more descriptions of the objects on display.  They also assigned me a LDS tour guide.



While the original Grandin Print Shop was only one section of the building, the LDS Church owns most of the building.

This is the business section of the print shop on the first floor where you can see example of what kinds of books were on sale.  Most books had the cheaper paper binding like on these top shelves.





They have a clipping of the first advertisement for the Book of Mormon.  The guide said it is the from the first page of the BoM. I said it was smart using that, why take the effort to write a separate copy just for the advertisement.  He reminded me that Joseph Smith didn't write it, but translated the word of God. I didn't mention that it says "Author and Proprietor Joseph Smith" not "translator". Ok. Whatever.



One of the few original items of historical note is this 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon.  The guide said there are 700-800 copies still in existence (out of the original run of 3000).



At this point, the tour guide asked me what my religion was. "Atheist." To which he said I was a "very curious person".  I took it not as "weird" but "inquiring and interested in stuff" since we were having a great talk about history up to this point.

The second floor is a reproduction of the working print shop. It is a little hard to see in the photo below, but on the left is where the print was set.   On the right are completed broadsheet paper used to print 16 pages at a time (8 each side)



The third floor was primarily displays of the LDS theology related displays.  I asked the tour guide about just where all the Lamanite / Nephite history took place.  When I was growing up it was assumed to take place in Western New York State, but lately it appears to be thought to be somewhere in Mesoamerica.  The was diplomatic and said The Church doesn't have an official view and research continues.  We agreed in many ways it doesn't really matter where it was since it was theological.  (And because it didn't really happen)

As mentioned before see all my photos here: Burned-over District self-tour (20160724)

As a bit of a palate cleanser, I then headed to Dresden, NY on Lake Geneva to visit the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum.