The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

In my father's library I found an 1888 illustrated Star Library edition of Daniel Defoe's classic story "The Life and Strange Adventures of  Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: who lived eight-and-twenty years all alone in an uninhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque; having been cast on shore by shipwreck, wherein all the men perished but himself.  With an account of how he was at last strangely delivered by Pirates. Written by himself."

I had read it in 1977 as part of an early novel class, along with Pilgrim's Progress by Paul Bunyan and Don Quixote by Cervantes, which my professor considered forerunners of the true novel. So I decided it was time to read Robinson Crusoe again.

Robinson was born in 1632 into an early version of the middle class and could expect to have a comfortable life...if he follows his father's example. But he lusts for adventure and runs away to become a sailor. After an initial bout with sea sickness, he finds he enjoys his new life. Until disaster strikes and a storm leaves him shipwrecked and enslaved. After some time Robinson plots his escape and once free he resumes a life on the sea.

Yet another shipwreck leaves him stranded on a deserted island in the Caribbean sea. And so begins the story we know so well, how Robinson survives 28 years with only goats, cats, and a dog as company until he discovers that cannibals bring their victims to the island to feast. One of those victims escapes, and when Robinson shoots his pursuers the victim becomes Robinson's chattel by choice. Robinson names him Friday for the day this occurred.

The book is full of adventure and danger, but it is also a virtual DIY guide to the most basic and ancient arts of manufacturing as Defoe explains how Robinson learns to make pottery, canoes, clothes, rediscovers agriculture, dries fruit and fish, and even makes an umbrella. This is possible for Robinson because of his worldly education as a sailor. He has seen the craft and arts of African and Brazilian natives. He also has all the time in the world to rediscover through trial and error the basic knowledge of primitive man. Arts forgotten by civilized, citified peoples.

Another aspect of the book not usually portrayed in popular culture retellings is Robinson's faith experience. The path to discovering a faith in God is as rocky as his road to rediscovering the ancient arts. He has found a bible on a shipwreck, and he sets to perfect his faith in God his preserver and only friend. Defoe was a Puritan and this story is an allegory, with Robinson's disobedience to his father paralleling the disobedience of Adam in the Garden.

Although considered the first "realistic" book, the story is episodic and jumps from one event, often a shipwreck or battle, to another.

Even though Robinson suffers enslavement, he later sells a boy into slavery or a kind of 10-year indenture, and at one point even runs a slave ship to Africa. Friday is his beloved sidekick, but he is also seen as a slave who loves his master and will do anything for him.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is to view the story as an economic textbook for would-be imperialists. Not only does Robinson tames the wilds and cultivate it, he creates manufacturing. After he rescues Spanish pirates from the cannibals, Englishmen find the island and offer Robinson passage home. The Spaniards risk their lives in returning, so Robinson sets them up to remain on the island, leaving not only tools and corn but a detailed survival guide.

Back in England, Robinson discovers his Brazilian plantation has made him wealthy during his absence! He marries and has children but after his wife's death wanderlust comes over him and he desires to visit "his" island again. He finds the Spaniards have gone through numerous wars. He once again sets them up with all they need for European style society, acting as the 'governor' of his island.

After another ten years of wandering, during which time he has adventures across the world, including China and Russia, he returns to England and at age 72 is ready to retire.

The book has come to us as an adventure book for boys, but if one looks deeper, there is a lot to consider. Categorizing these classic books as children's literature sadly bring them out of the purview of serious adult readers who would see them on another level.

Love Entwined Center Completed

 

I finished the last corner floral vase on the Love Entwined applique quilt. Esther Aliu's Yahoo group has hundreds of people from across the world making this 1790 reproduction. The variety of interpretations is mind boggling!

 

The next pattern will not be released until the 15th, so I have time to work on my "Green Heroes" quilt, which has been languishing for months waiting me to finish the hand quilting. I am quilting motifs relevant to each "hero". Adolph Leopold, author of Sand County Almanac, has images from his book cover with a heron. Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has a forest and, hopefully a recognizable creek.

 

 

Leopold founded a new way of looking at the wilderness, and forged an new ethic:
"The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land."

 

Dillard's 1974 book won the Pulitzer Prize. Her observations of nature and thoughts about life and God were very inspiring to me when I read her book when it came out. 

 

Meantime we in Michigan have undergone a terrific snow storm just a week after 50,000 people got their power back after an ice storm. We had a mere foot of snow here.

 

Today we finally have some sunshine, but a wind chill that is Arctic. Sounds like good weather for hand quilting on a hoop, because that quilt will keep me warm!

 

 

 

 

 

The Bible of John Riley, Indian Chief

Many years ago my mother-in-law gave a family bible to my husband. This is what she wrote about the bible:

This testament is being passed along to you. It was given to me by your Grandmother O’Dell and given to her by her maternal grandmother Margaret McDonald who was born in Batavia, New York in 1807 and married Abija Schoville. When she was in her 20s they moved to Lynn Township, St. Clair Co., Michigan. Indians were the most predominate resident in this yet uncleared land. Margaret McDonald Schoville was given this book by John Riley, an old Indian. This book was an old one then and she kept it in her bedroom and read it until her death in 1890 at the age of 83. In 1976 the book would have been in the family approximately 144 years.

Margaret McDonald Scoville and family. On Margaret's right side is her daughter Harriet Scovill Nelson,
 who is holding her daughter Grace Nelson. Grace married John O'Dell; their child Laura was my mother-in-law.

Margaret McDonald Scoville, according to her granddaughter, was born in New York State around 1807.  She appears with Abijah and their children, Edward, Alexander and Laura, on the 1840 New York State Census in Bath, and on the 1850 New York State Census in Lyndon, Cattaragus. By the 1860 Census the family is living in Lynn Township, St. Clair County, Michigan. I know they were living in Lynn by 1851 because there is a marriage record for their son Edward at that date. Margaret and Abijah appear on the 1860 Census in Lynn, Riley Twsp., St. Clair County, MI. In 1890 Margaret is a boarder, widowed, still living in Lynn Township. Margaret died in 1891, twenty years after Abijah had passed.

The John Riley New Testament has a leather cover, and is held together with string lacing.
 It shows great wear.  It may date to the early 1800s.

Once the book had a beautiful leather cover. The leather has worn away along the edges. At some point heavy thread or string was used to stitch the leather onto the paperboard. The book has a curved shape, as if carried in pants back pockets for many years. The inside front cover is filled with writing. The letter ‘S’ is penciled over and over. A penciled triangle shape appears ghost-like hovering near the center of the page. And in pencil is written, "Indian Chief John Riley his book."

 

I was skeptical that an "Indian Chief" had given the book to Margaret, and went to Ancestry.com to research this John Riley. I was shocked to learn that there was a John Riley in Michigan history. How did Margaret McDonald Scoville come to meet John Riley, and why did he give her his bible?

A Brief History of the Riley Brothers

John and his brothers James and Peter were the Metis sons of an Ojibwa 'Indian Princess" and James Van Slyck Ryley of New York State. Ryley worked as a U.S. Indian Commissioner and interpreter. He was born around 1761 and served in the Revolutionary War. He also had a wife and children in Schenectady. "Judge Riley" served on the court of common pleas, as sheriff and as postmaster back in Schenectady. He appears as an elder in the First Reformed Presbyterian Church in 1818.

Ryley was with Territorial Governor Lewis Cass at the Treaty of Saginaw and his signature appears on the treaty. He used his power to obtain tracts of land for his three Metis sons. 

The Riley brothers were described as passing seamlessly between 'white' and 'Indian' society, being well-spoken and intelligent. They sided with the Americans, fighting with General Lewis Cass, in the war of 1812. The 1810 Michigan Census shows John Reilly as an interpreter in the Saginaw, Michigan area. 

The treaty reads:

ARTICLE 3. There shall be reserved for the use of each of the person hereinafter mentioned and their heirs, which persons are all Indians by descent, the following tracts of land:
For the use of John Riley, the son of Menawcumegoqua, a Chippewa woman, six hundred and forty acres of land, beginning at the head of the first march above the mouth of the Saginaw river, on the east side thereof.
For the use of Peter Riley, the son of Menawcumegoqua, a Chippewa woman, six hundred and forty acres of land, beginning above and adjoining the apple-trees on the west side of the Saginaw river, and running up the same for quantity.
For the use of James Riley, the son of Menawcumegoqua, a Chippewa woman, six hundred and forty acres, beginning on the east side of the Saginaw river, nearly opposite to Campau’s trading house, and running up the river for quantity.

For oral histories on the Treaty of Saginaw go to
http://www.mifamilyhistory.org/bay/1819treaty.htm

Articles can be found at
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mi/county/lapeer/gen/ch3/saginaw2.html
and http://web2.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/Saginaw-cession.html

Another signature on the treaty is that of Louis Campau, nephew to Joseph Campau who was an early landowner and trader in Detroit. Louis later was an early landowner in Grand Rapids, MI and employed James Riley until James died in 1829. James had been Lewis Cass's interpreter during his 1820 expedition to find the source of the Mississippi River. Read more at
http://www.ehow.com/info_8252959_michigan-settlements-1800s.html#ixzz2oPLt2DMy

In 1835 John Riley owned land and a general store in what is today downtown Port Huron, MI where the Black River enters Lake Huron.

From "A History of St. Clair County" by A.T. Andreas:

The site of Port Huron was then owned by John Riley, the half-breed...He was not only proprietor of the place, but the chief of a band of Indians, most of them, at that date, residing on the opposite shore of the St. Clair [river]. He had been educated at the Presbyterian Mission at Mackinaw, and read and spoke good English. He was a gentlemanly appearing man, mild in his address...He dressed after the fashion of the whites, but his wife, a full-blooded Indian, though neat and tidy in appearance, dressed in true Indian style."

From "The Early History of St. Clair County": 

One of the leading spirits among the Indians was an Ojibwa chief who resided on the south side of Black River, Port Huron near the corner of the present Military and Water Streets. He was a half-breed, a man of commanding appearance, quite educated, and spoke English very well. He was here in 1813 and may have been earlier.

An oral history told that the Riley clan camped around John's cabin. Other stories tell how he was with Black Duck and became incensed when Black Duck bragged about the American scalps he had taken during the war, and John shot him dead. Luckily Lewis Cass intervened and instead of Black Duck's clan taking John's life they settled for a lot of whiskey and some trade goods. John was also reported as to have killed a Harsen's Island settler while drunk. Another history by an early Methodist pastor says that the Riley clan was hospitable and taught him to hunt and fish. There is evidence that John was disbanded from his chiefdom and returned to "white" society for the rest of his life. There is another story about the Riley boys riding with Cass to retrieve a "white" boy who was captured by "Indians" during the War of 1812. The boy was outside of the city limits of Detroit looking for a lost cow when he was taken.

Riley Township was organized in 1841 and named for John Riley, "a mixed-race Chippewa whose father had bought land in the area in 1836 and gave John a lease on the land for six cents a year." 

RILEY This township-town 6 north, range 14 east-was detached from the township of Clyde and organized by act of March 6, 1838. It was named for John Riley, the half-breed Chippewa Indian who lived for several years on the reservation at Port Huron, and was in the habit of going regularly to the woods in what is now Riley township for making maple sugar and for hunting. In October, 1836, the same year the Indian Reservation at Port Huron, upon which John Riley lived, was bought by the United States. Riley's father bought the southwest quarter of section 27 in this township and a few days later gave to John a life lease of it at the rental of 6 cents yearly. It is said that John opened a store but extended too much credit to his white friends with the result that he lost his goods, and money, and first mortgage and then sold his property. Belle river runs southeasterly through the township, and the incorporated village of Memphis lies partly in section 35 and partly in the adjoining township of Richmond, in Macomb county.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty/BAD1042.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext

One history reports that in 1851 John Riley was Chief in Munceytown on the Thames River in Ontario, and the Rev. Peter Jones was the Methodist missionary. The Rev. Jones had been converted by "The Father of American Methodism," the Rev. William Case, in 1823 at a camp meeting. The Rev. Jones was an Ojibwa of the Mississauga clan from Brant, Canada. He became an import missionary to the Native Americans, translating hymns and the Bible, and traveled to Europe and met Queen Victoria. He was also a political activist who helped his people obtain clear title to their lands. 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jones_(missionary)

There is some evidence that John Riley died in 1858 in Saginaw Co., Michigan. This based on Michigan 1812 Pension paper showing an $8 payout to John Riley who died December 11, 1858. But an oral history has a man saying he performed John Riley's funeral in 1842!

History of Margaret McDonald Scoville/Scovil/Scovile/Scoville

According to my mother-in-law, her grandmother Margaret McDonald was born in 1807 in Batavia, New York. I do not find a McDonald or Scoville on the Batavia, NY census in either 1810 or 1820. Margaret and Abijah Scoville were certainly Methodists. The name Scoville also appears as Scovil, Scovile, Schoville.

(Incidentally, in 1840 a Jeremiah Scoville appears as a landowner of Section 33 in Fort Gratiot, St. Clair County. He also appears in the 1834 Michigan census and later appears as a Port Huron tavern keeper. I have no evidence of his being a relation to Margaret.)

And Where Did the Twain Met?

As far as when John Riley and Margaret McDonald Scoville met, I cannot find evidence of Abijah and Margaret Scoville in Michigan before the 1850 census, nor do I know where John Riley lived after 1836. 

When Michigan became a state, land previously awarded to or owned by Native Americans was 'bought back' -- and the Native Americans were removed to reservations in north-western Michigan. 

There are different stories about what happened to John Riley at this time. The county and state histories published in the late 1800s are mostly based on oral histories. John may have returned to his people on the Thames River in Ontario. He may have died in 1842 or 1851. He may have had his "chief" status removed and returned to live with Americans. Another source says he is buried in Sarnia, Ontario.

A website by Native Americans states that John Riley was a Methodist and there is evidence that he had Methodist friends.

Somehow, John Riley and Margaret McDonald met as Methodists, and for some reason, John gave Margaret his bible. Considering the time and place, and the differences between them, and how relations between men and women were so constricted in those days, their mutual faith had to be what drew them into association. My mother-in-law was told that the bible was very old when Margaret received it. According to her note, the bible has been in the family for 181 years. That means the book was likely printed about 200 years ago.


Addendum:
As of August 2019, the John Riley New Testament is in the hands of the Port Huron Museums on a permanent loan. Gary and I meet with the museum director Victoria and manager of community engagement Andrew Kercher and members of the Blue Water Indigenous Alliance.  Andrew confirmed that the book was published by the American Bible Society shortly after its inception, perhaps around 1820.

The book will be on display at the museum and eventually become part of the display for an Indigenous history museum in the future.

The Last Quit of 2013

My friend and her son lost their beloved dog to cancer this month. I made a small quilt based on my friend's favorite photograph of her son and their dog, Zorro.

I used fused applique, machine quilting, and a sheer net overlay to soften the image, the way our memory softens the harsh angles leaving us with the beloved ideal.

I hope that next year I get more quilts finished than started, lol. And I have read over 50 books this year but only blogged about a few.

My big accomplishments this year included having my quilt "I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet" in two American Quilt Society shows, starting an etsy store, Rosemont Needle Arts, which I have been lax about promoting and adding to, and working harder on my blog. And I joined Esther Aliu's Yahoo group to make the Love Entwinned 1790s applique quilt.

We also have been preparing our retirement house with new doors, a new front window, programmable thermostat, LED light fixtures, insulation in attic and basement, and the purchase of a new refrigerator. Also a replaced garage door opener, painting of the family room, new drapes for the family room, and some other minor items. Next year: washer and dryer and water heater and landscaping issues. We also have fun researching ideas for the kitchen upgrade and flooring options. Somehow this table I got at bargain prices has to fit into the kitchen plan!

I hope your year has had its successes and accomplishments. And that 2014 brings exciting and new experiences, books to read, and quilts to make and success in all your endeavors!

Michigan 101: Winter Wonderland

Some decades ago the State of Michigan used the motto "Water Winter Wonderland." The state really is a wonderland of water, and well winter offers lots to do with skiing, snowmobiles, ice fishing, and cross country skiing.

Of course my husband and I consider winter activities to include a book, a quilt, and a cup of hot tea. And if we have a nice picture window, we look out and think, "SO GLAD to be inside!" One parsonage was in the woods, and the view could be quite nice in winter.

The shoveling part is not so nice, especially when no snow blower is provided. We lived for a time next to a parking lot and they plowed the snow into a huge pile next to our driveway.

They say in Michigan that if you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes and it will change. One spring it decided to snow when the tulips were just up!

My brother loves the outdoors, regardless of the weather. He takes wonderful photographs. The first photo is from Clear Springs near Montague, MI. The next is a Sandhill Crane at Kensington Metro Park outside of Metro Detroit.

Make no doubt about it, Michiganders know how to enjoy the Winter Wonderland.

St Nicholas And His Aeroplane

A Year With The Fairies by Anna M. Scott and illustrated by M. T. Ross, published in 1914

Jack Frost

Elfin pictures on the pane

Mean Jack Frost has come again;

Lace and ferns and vines and flowers,

Snow-capped peaks and fairy bowers.

Castles gleaming opalescent,

Rivers flowing iridescent;

Jewels set in filigree,

All in crystal fantasy.

Lady Winter clothed in ermine

On the North Wind gallops in,

Over crystal bridges bright,

Over carpets snowy white.

Winter Sports

On sleds of holly leaves they coast,

Of silver skates they proudly boast

And snowball fights with tiny forts--

These are their jolly winter sports.

Old Photos, Being a Trip Into the Past

I have been organizing old family photos, taking them from the 'magic stick' page albums and putting them into boxes. I plan to find some envelopes to protect individual photos. It is a real trip down memory lane. Plus I have photos from my husband's family as well. I upload pics to ancestry.com to preserve them. Here are some of my favorite family photos.

Barbara Reed Ramer

I was still a teenager when my Grandfather Ramer gave me this daguerreotype photograph. He was unsure if it was his mother or his grandmother, but I know from the dress style, and by comparing photo images, that it was his grandmother Barbara Reed Ramer. 













They lived in Milroy, PA where Joseph ran a lumber mill.

Their daughter Esther Mae was my Grampa Ramer's mother.

Lynne lost his mother and his grandmother when he was nine years old, and his grandfather had died before that. So he was taken in by his aunts and uncles. Gramps worked himself through college and seminary, then went into teaching. He fell in love with one of his students, a beautiful young blonde named Evelyn Adair Greenwood. They married when Evelyn was 17 and Lynne was 26.  

Evelyn's parents had come from England in 1911. Cropper Greenwood was born in Bacup, Lancashire and generations of his family all worked in the cotton mills. But Cropper worked in the quarry, where he apparently learned about engines. He became a chauffeur. He met Delia Victoria Smith, who was a domestic servant working in Manchester, England. Delia was from Irlam on Moss, her Irish father being a horse breeder; her mother was from Scotland. Below is Cropper Greenwood. He immigrated to America with a job working for 'a rich man' and sent passage for Delia to join him. They married the next month.

Evelyn and Lynne's oldest child was my mother, Joyce. Mom was the Jiggerbug Queen of the 'Projects', temporary war time housing for factory workers. Gramps worked as an engineer in an airplane factory during WWII.

Mom saw my dad on the bus and tried every way to get his attention. Well, she did and they married and a few years later I came along and then my brother.

Me at three years old

I grew up and married. Here is a photo of my mother-in-law when she was a teenager. She loved church camp at Gull Lake, MI and the summer this photo was taken she said she was 'dark as an Indian' and was asked by a Native American boy she met if she was an Indian.


Gary's father lost his father at age 13. His mother Loretta Valdora was a member of the UAW and supported the famous GM sit-down strike by bringing food to the striking workers.









Val/Etta/Girl (she went by many names over her life!) spent a winter at Vermillion Point, MI on Lake Superior taking care of the life saving station children.







Gary took this photo at Longwood Gardens outside of Philadelphia. It is such a beautiful photo because of the setting.