The Day Horror Met Hoodoo on the Columbia

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By Bob Ferris

I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for nearly a decade now which made Major Samuel Canby's grave in Vancouver, Washington a curiosity to me.  How did a Brandywine-born Quaker with a Viking last name end his days across the continent in Washington State just days before his 60th birthday?  My interest was also piqued because while I knew quite a bit about all my other ancestors in this generation, I knew next to nothing about Samuel other than his birthplace and where he breathed his last.  It was a mystery, so I dug and found the below which only made it even more mysterious...and tragic too.

July 24, 1897 from here.

Samuel Canby was my great-great-grandfather and he was born in 1837 into a prominent family of millers in the Wilmington, Delaware area.   The Canbys along with the Tatnalls and Prices were big doings in Wilmington and young Samuel carried within him the blood of all three families.  Though identified as Samuel Jr. on many documents his father's name was Edmund so I believe that the junior was added so he was not confused with his uncle of the same name.

Samuel Junior served in the Union Army during the American Civil War joining less than two weeks after the attack on Fort Sumter.  When you look at his service record you find that young Samuel enlisted at 23 as a sergeant in a New Jersey regiment but soon found himself in units associated with his native Delaware (above).  It was during his switch between state affiliations that he married Rebecca Tilghman Johnston in December of 1861 and then he went to war in earnest.

Depiction of Union charge at Gettysburg

Saying that he served seems like such a simple statement, but I suspect that it is like claiming an atom bomb is just another loud bang.  The newly-married Samuel was at the battles of Shiloh, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Franklin, and Nashville.  He was wounded at Gettysburg and by age 28 he was a major.   He left the Army in 1868 and by then he and Rebecca had three children.  He had as they said at the time "seen the elephant."

Now I have not been able to find much on-line about Samuel and Rebecca for the period between 1868 to 1894 when Samuel seemed to appear sans Rebecca in Vancouver joining his younger brother Edmund.  Certainly Samuel and Rebecca were together and still having children until their last, William Poyntell Canby, was born in 1879.  And they were listed in an 1880 census in Delaware with Samuel's profession given as Civil Engineer--the same as my great-grandfather, William Gouverneur Ramsay, and my father, William Ramsay Ferris, who were both majors too. 

Samuel's profession explains, in part, why he would find himself manager of the nine-year-old Vancouver, Klickitat, and Yakima Railroad.   The other part was that the railroad was founded by his brother Edmund and others associated with the then extant First National Bank of Vancouver.  Hard to say the deciding factor in his hiring and it could have been a chicken and egg situation.  But we do know on that fateful day in July, Samuel was seen off in good spirits by his brothers Edmund and Col. James Price Canby and not by Rebecca who remained in Wilmington.  And this is where the hoodoo enters.

The stern-wheeled steamer Mascot.

The steamer Mascot was built in 1890.  Fast and long-lived for an all-wooden boat (21 years), the Mascot ran a strenuous route from the Lewis River in Washington to Portland, Oregon and points on the Willamette River six days a week starting at 5 AM.  This was a profitable run but the boat seemed plagued with miss-haps including three sinkings, several deaths (two by suicide), and the fire in 1911 that finally ended its service.  For these incidences, rightfully or wrongly, the steamer was labeled as a "hoodoo" or jinxed ship. 

 It was from this "hoodoo" that the troubled Samuel jumped into the Columbia River after throwing his coat on the deck and tossing his hat towards the boiler room doors 121 years ago today.  No one knows but Samuel what was running through his mind as he stood on the rail before launching himself for his last swim, and there is much we do not know about his life and condition at that time, but I cannot think that what he experienced at battlefields like Shiloh and Gettysburg was not somehow involved in the calculus of it all.  Those war days had to have left a mark beyond whatever physical scar he carried from his wounding.

Here is a key written from the perspective of one of the Ramsay girls children of Caroline (Lena) Johnston Canby.  

Some in my family and elsewhere will likely be offended some by this post and see it as a familial stigma that I have exposed to the world.   I do not see it thus but rather a cautionary tale about looking after our loved ones and keeping them from harm as well as a larger story about the value of maintaining peace and the dangers of war.  And it is not necessarily a totally unhappy spinning either as Samuel and Rebecca in spite of this inner storm and consequence produced a pile of Canbys (some above).

I do not know for certain whether or not my lack of knowledge about Samuel was a direct result of how he ended his life, but I suspect it contributed.  We are a family of great men and strong women that seems to respect courage and toughness foremost with not much room allowed those who are born vulnerable or damaged while trying to live up to this ideal.   I would think that a heightened awareness and openness on this topic of suicide could probably prevent some of these occurrences as well as help ease the pain for those left behind when they do happen.

George Britton Compton

Samuel's great-grandson George Compton (above), who we all knew in our household as Uncle George, committed suicide when I was about seven or eight just before his 40th birthday.  To this day there still seems confusion about the root causes of that happenstance but I do not think that people asked adequate questions nor watched him closely enough at the time.  This is also one of the reasons I never met my own grandfather Van Wyck Ferris who left this world similarly.  Perhaps we would do better by Samuel, Van, George, and others not mentioned by employing a different approach that celebrated their victories, recognized and accepted their challenges, and did not ostracize them for the way they passed.    It is something to think about.

Afterword

I believe my late father once identified the young girl at the far left in the Canby photo as Caroline Johnston Canby Ramsay and one of the young boys at the right as Uncle Poynt (William Poyntell Canby) which would date this to the mid to late 1880s.  I suspect that one of the children is also the artist Ethel Canby Peets who was two years older then Poynt.  I do not know, but if others do, please let me know.  The story and picture haunts me.  (Cousin Wyn Evans was kind enough to provide a key above.)

For the Revolutionary War Our Family Turned it Up Above Eleven and Now We Need More

By Bob Ferris

I have butted heads with the so-called "patriot" groups over the years on various matters relating to the US Constitution, conservation practices, and public lands.  One group in particular drives me crazy: The 3 Percenters.  This para-military group claims to be the voice of those 3% of Americans who served in militias during the American Revolution.  This number is a little specious both in terms of a measure of patriotism (i.e., militia members being more patriotic than those in the Continental Army) and gross numbers as overall participation in this conflict was something like 15 percent.  It made me wonder where our family came out in this number and what that means now and in the future.

The Revolutionary War started in earnest 243 years ago.  As male generations are on average 35 years long, or 15 years longer than female generations, that means we should be talking about males in the seven or eight generation or between 64-128 potential soldiers in the Revolution.   As we have at least 17 Revolutionary War combatants in our tree or 13-26 percent of our expected pool that means that we might have collectively served a little less or a lot more than the average population at 15 percent.

But it is more complicated than that.   For one thing, males had to be a certain age (16-55) during a certain window of time (1775-1783) so we might have had some who were alive during war, but too old or too young.  This said we also had instances where both father and son served such as Declaration Signer Lewis Morris and Lt. William Walton Morris (not to be confused with his son Gen. William Walton Morris who served in the Civil War).   And we had a few who were not in the country at this time such as Patrick Ramsay (Scotland), William Poyntell (England), and Joseph Gales Sr. (England), the latter my family's most recent immigrant (1790s). 

David Deschler

Joseph Tatnall

Benjamin Chew

Also mainly through my great-grandmother Caroline Johnston Canby Ramsay on my father's side, there is a strong Quaker connection.  Three of note were David Deschler, Joseph Tatnall, and Benjamin Chew.  Interestingly, all three hosted George Washington in their homes at times, but they dealt with their pacifism and the war in different manners.  David was perhaps the most involved providing supplies, money, and eventually serving as the Commissary of the Army in 1780.    David was also a man of principle supporting the Revolution, but also once defending a British officer who was traveling with his family from an angry crowd of militia members in Philadelphia.  Joseph Tatnall, a mill owner, also worked hard to keep the Continental Army in flour and had constant contact with Washington.  Benjamin Chew stuck to his material neutrality offering only legal advice to those serving in the Continental Congress and advocating for protest leading to a peaceful resolution rather than declaring independence.  While David and Joseph retained the full goodwill of their neighbors and new countrymen, Benjamin's road, because of his why-can't-we-all-be-friends approach, was rougher.

Those who served were old and young.  Though my mother has told me often of a little drummer lad in the family who went to war I have yet to discover that intrepid boy.  The youngest I have been able to find is Ensign John DePeyster Douw who joined at 19.  The oldest was Colonel Samuel Coit who led his Connecticut regiment for a year before being replaced at age 73.  They also came from nearly every colony so there was diversity in this regard if not in other areas.

"Mrs. Johnston died in that city, but we have no record of the date of her death or where interred."  In Some Pennsylvania Women during the War of the Revolution (1898 see here).

But what about the women?  The above quote says a lot about that issue.  The Mrs. Johnston in question was Alice Erwin Johnston wife of Colonel Francis Johnston and she broke with her Quaker community and worked hard to get food and supplies to soldiers during the war.  This was particularly true about Valley Forge where her husband served with Washington and another Francis (Chaffin) who died there of small pox even with the efforts of Alice and her allies.  Luckily, we actually do know where Alice was buried and then reburied, but even in a book dedicated to acknowledging the role of women in the Revolution details about women were omitted or overlooked.  Odd that.

This walk through history is interesting but how do we judge it and our collective role?  What does it mean for the future?  In essence, what is the point?  My sense is that revolution is much like soil tilling in that it gives a clean slate on which to grow dreams like those expressed by Gouverneur Morris in the Preamble.  Perhaps we should not be measured by the quality or quantity of our disturbance as I have documented above, but by the crops ultimately produced.   And even there my desire would be that we evaluate ourselves more by the flowers nourished and enabled rather than just in terms beets and broccoli.

Alexander Johnston Cassatt by Mary Cassatt.  Alexander helped his sister promote her art in the US.  They are both great-great grandchildren of Alexander Johnston who immigrated from Ireland and was father to Francis.  

Our families have a lot of these exceptional "flowers" growing from various branches.  I bumped into two, in addition to Alice Johnston, while writing this piece.  The first was the impressionist painter Mary Cassatt who called Colonel Francis Johnston great-great uncle.  I knew of her connection to the Johnston line but not of her brother's efforts on her behalf.  The other was Lillie Hitchcock Coit of San Francisco's Coit Tower fame who was married for a time to Benjamin Howard Coit great-great-great grandson of Colonel Samuel Coit.  In this in-laws count just as transplants do in a garden.

Illustration from one of Mary Lanman Douw's books.  The Rapelye (Rapalje) cradle was where Sarah Joris Rapalje was rocked after being born in the New Netherlands in 1625.  She was the first female child born in the new colony at Fort Orange (Albany).

In addition to a painter and fire-chasing, trouser-wearing philanthropist in our extended family we also have writers.  One such was Mary Lanman Douw who wrote much about history, genealogy, and the early Dutch experience in the New World.   Nina Chandler Murray is another author who penned a book about an epic family cruise to the Galapagos Islands.  I would also include Winifred Marshall Gales, the first female novelist in North Carolina, within this group too even though she was in England during the Revolution, because her public sympathy to this revolt and breaking away led to her and her husband Joseph Gales Sr. being chased out of England one step in front to the law.   The fact that the Gales entertained folks like Thomas Paine of Common Sense fame in their home and printed some of his material probably helped along this process of moving from liking the American stance to being American.

Award-winning teacher Lauren Bergland Rosenberg at work.

My grandmother Edna Dora Robb also was one of these flowers.  She wrote about her experiences in post-World War I Alaska in Field and Stream Magazine, but she is better known as a school teacher who as a single woman went to the relative wilds of Seward to teach before marrying my grandfather at the start of the Roaring Twenties.  And there are other teachers too like second cousins once removed Lauren Bergland Rosenberg (above) and Patty Lavarias who are both probably going to look at my grammar. 

In closing, I will say that we are living in dark times, but the strength, creativity, and sensibility of the women in our families and lines gives me hope.  I gain this feeling, because these women might be the ones who inspire or lead this next revolutionary adjustment or needed democratic booster shot.  Maybe they can do so in a better and more enlightened manner than our more recent forbearers did in the mid-1800s.  It might also be good time for those of us not women to model Alexander Cassatt by recognizing this talent, however different, and supporting it.

The above is something that we should think about this July 4th as we celebrate the work of our Founding Fathers and simultaneously mourn how far we have drifted away from our founding principles and the vision expressed in the US Constitution.  We need to return to protecting all within our country from the corrupting forces of a too-empowered elite, over-entitled corporate interests, and the dangerous re-emergence of the functional equivalent of a state church or religion.  We should recognize this trio for what they are: the catalysts for the original Revolution.  So enjoy the fireworks, but get your shoes ready to march on as the fife and drum are calling!