Re: William Bartram

["John S. Quarterman" <jsq@matrix.net>]

>I certainly wish to stay on the list.
>when I was around the age of 10 years old, my great grandfather, Joseph 
>Paschal Baker, born in Georgia,

We don't seem to have him in our database.  Do tell more.  Dates,
parents, spouse, offspring, etc.

> used to tell stories of Midway, Georgia.  He 
>started my love of our family history.  He said there wasn't a place that 
>size anywhere else that had as many famous persons.  Of course I came from 
>the Bakers.  The Quarterman's had one of the Baker women as wife, so they too 
>are all related.

Yes, they were pretty much all related, due to intermarriages at Midway,
and before that in S.C., and before that in Mass., and before that in England.

>One of the Bakers was best friends of Teddy Roosevelt's mother.

TR's mother was Martha "Miss Mittie" BULLOCK, born in Liberty County,
descendant of Bullochs, Stewarts, and Irvines.

>  After she 
>died and Teddy was in town, she gave him the water coloring her mother had 
>given her as a very young girl.
>Yes history is a wonderful thing, and it is wonderful of you to keep it going
>thank you

You're welcome.

I bought a paperback edition of Bartram's Travels, and it seems to have a
slightly different version of a visit to Midway:

 Obedient to the admonitions of my attendant spirit, curiousity, as well
 as to gratify the expectations of my worthy patron, I again set off
 on my southern excursion, and left Sunbury, in company with several
 of its polite inhabitants, who were going to Medway meeting, a very
 large and well constructed place of worship, in St. John's parish,
 where I associated with them in religious exercise, and heard a very
 excellent sermon, delivered by their pious and truly venerable pastor,
 the Rev. ----- Osgood.  This respectable congregation is independent,
 and consists chiefly of families, and proselytes to a flock, which this
 pious man led, about forty years ago, from South-Carolina, and settled
 in this fruitful district.  It is about nine miles from Sunbury to Medway
 meeting-house, which stands on the high road, opposite the Sunbury road.

Note the antique spelling of Midway as Medway.

The church building referred to was burned by the British five years later.
The one standing today is the second one built after that.

Note the reference to the congregation as independent, which means
not associated with the Church of England.  They were Congregationalists.

Bartram may not have been aware that Sunbury was the main town associated
with Midway, and that the polite inhabitants who accompanied him from the
one to the other were most likely members of those same families he mentions.
Note the adjectives applied to these people: polite, pious, respectable,
and the association with learning well-presented (excellent sermon).
To fully appreciate this description, it is useful to compare it to the
not so positive experience Charles and John Wesley had in Georgia in
1736, before the Midway colony arrived.  But nevermind that; I bet
Bartram's description sounds like your grandfather's description
of Midway.

The preacher Bartram mentions is clearly Rev. John Osgood, who died 2 Aug
1773, after Bartram visited Midway in April of the same year.  It had
been only 20 years since Rev. Osgood had led the Dorchester, S.C. colony
to Midway, but it had been almost 40 years since he had become their
pastor in S.C., 24 March 1735 (old style).  Bartram apparently confused
the time since one event with the time since the other.

The Rev. had been born in 1710, so he was 63 years old when Bartram
visited; that was truly venerable for those days.  He was buried in
Midway cemetery, where his epitaph reads:

                        HERE ARE DEPOSITED THE
                             REMAINS, OF
                    THE REV. MR. JOHN OSGOOD A. M.
                    HE WAS BORN IN THE SOCIETY AT
                  DORCHESTER SOUTH CAROLINA IN 1710
                  HE ENTERED THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE
                      MARCH 24TH 1735--HE WAS A
                  BLESSING TO THE CHURCH AND TO HIS
                     FAMILY--HE DIED AUG 3R 1773
                      IN THE 63R YEAR OF HIS AGE
                           GREATLY LAMENTED
                    HE WAS AN AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND
                         TENDER PARENT A KIND
                       MASTER AND VERY LIBERAL
                             TO THE POOR
                  BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN
                     THE LORD FROM HENCEFORTH YEA
                     SAITH THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY
                     MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS
                      AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW
                                THEM.

>Joyce Longcoy

John S. Quarterman <jsq@matrix.net>
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