what's in your family history

[GANNMADE]

what's in your family history?
THINGS YOU LEARN. STORY BY MY COUSIN BILL GANN
Elmore always told an interesting story about his father and someone asked me to write it for the Gann Gazette. I suppose this is as good a place as any to put this story down for posterity, the Gann Gazette, or for whoever might find it useful or interesting. I?d be happy with more information on William Gann.

As the blacksmith in Cameron, Texas, William was given the task of doing the metal work on the town?s new gallows. At that time, a man came to town looking for either another William Gann or a man with a similar sounding name, like Cann, Mann, or whatever. Regardless, this man had a score to settle and intended to kill someone.

Unlike gunslingers of the Old West, this guy was just some angry farmer. He carried his six-shooter in a shoebox on the wagon seat beside him as he drove into town. Sad to report that there were no black hats, swinging saloon doors, or high-noon showdown on a dusty Texas street that day. But there was a quick draw, of sorts.

When the vengeance-seeker asked about his quarry, everybody thought he was looking for William Gann and directed him to the jail. William was there busily working on the gallows.

According to William?s story told to Elmore, the shoebox-toting desperado confronted William with the gun, and was promptly cracked across the skull and killed with a piece of metal bar. William happened to have the bar in his hand and had to fling it across the room to keep from being shot. Thus, did William Gann become the fastest blacksmith in Cameron, Texas.

He always said thereafter that he build the new gallows in Cameron, and became the first candidate to be hung on them. Evidently there was an inquiry into the man?s death, and this established the case mixed identity, some sort of grudge, and the killing was ruled as self-defense.

This was my GG Grandfather

[Sweany]

KEWL STORY. glad you dropped that in here.

[whv]

menonite kraut farmers

[GANNMADE]

Glad I could share it. Kinda neat to know stories about
your family.And meet family as i just met my cousin Bill Gann
who is a writer of sorts.

[MongoForge]

My family came to America in the
late 1700's early 1800's.
Lived in North and South Carolina
and were farmers associated with some
church..
They eventually moved to Ark for better
farming lands..
And thats where my Grandfather was
born and still have family there till
this day..

[Davis]

Lessee ... my mother came here from Ireland in 1959, she and my father met in Galway ... Wait, that's a story all by itself.

Back to the micks. My Aunt Nellie (my mother's oldst siser, be 92 in April) carried weapons in the Irish Civil War, she was 12, 13 then, the early Twenties.

My father's maternal grandfather came here from Co. Wicklow in 1871. Worked on the Holland Tunnel and in the anthracite coal fields in eastern Pennsylavania in the early 1870's --can anybody say "Mollie Maguire?"

My mother's cousin (I dunno to what degree, they are Catholic, there are millions of them...) Josie Nolan married a fellow named Jim Larkin. Jim was the labot leader of the Dublin General Strike of 1904-- maybe it was '07. Anyway, he was a pretty serious troublemaker. Rights of the working man and all that ...

My Uncle Brendan was the Irish ambassador to Sweden in the 70's. Another uncle was also an ambassador --which one and to where, I forget. Like I said, there are lots of Nolans ...

My Uncle Sonny had to leave Ireland in a hurry. He got into some trouble in the mid-Thirtes in Belfast, working in a steel mill or a shipyard . Whatever he did, it was bad enough he hid out in Australia for a few decades.

There is more, a neat mix of lace-curtain Irish and tinkers & theives...

I figure, my ancestors .. hey, it explains a whole lot.

Oh-- get this, I never knew it til a couple years ago. My moher (youngest Nolan) as raised in an abandoned and refurbished forge ...

Trish

[Dana Acker]

My great grandfather, a Spanish American War Vet, was a blacksmith as well. He worked for the movie industry out in Hollywood, back before WWI. He smithed for the original (silent version) of Ben Hur--weapons and iron chariot rims kind of stuff. Other movies too.

Great idea for a thread.

[GANNMADE]

Yeah,Dana history of our family are interresting .I often joke
with people that the last feud my family was in lasted
many years.That being the HATFIELD&MCCOYS. My g g grandmother being a Hatfield . This on my mother's side .I have a
complete family tree book of my mother's family.The records
dates back to 1759 in Georgia.

[Fox Creek]

We Mizes are very typical Scotch-Irish/German stock, came over the Cumberland Gap from N. Carolina. Farmers, small town merchants, modest sober God-fearing folk for the most part. Great Uncle Noah had a forge and anvil I rememeber seeing when I was a tiny boy. The old folks used to have a saying if some one was really getting into something vigourously, "Why, that boy is going after like that like Uncle Pate fit the Yankees!" Uncle Pate Venable hung on til the last at Richmond, and then, uh, borrowed a dress off a clothes line and escaped through enemy lines in drag with his revolver in his reticule. Great Grand Daddy was a Morgan's man, was with Morgan at the end in Greenville TN. Oh, yes, my wifes grandparents are MCCOYS from McCoy, Virginia. small world huh? EVERYONE'S family history is precious.

[floridafred]

My Great Great Grandfather was born in Rafos, Ireland. I have an old letter which describes how he as a young man of 19 years sold a cow to pay for his passage to this country, sometime in the mid 1800's. He made the trip on his own and a few years later was able to send for his family. He provided them with a home, married and had 8 children. He became a well known and respected member of his community. I have a great deal of admiration for him and his pioneering spirit.

Pieces of information such as this are so easily lost or forgotten in a very short period of time. We are all products of our ancestors who made it possible for us to be what we are. We should honor their memory and pass it on to our children so they can fully understand who they are.

[GANNMADE]

Hard work has made all of what we are and our families
have taught us this.We should be proud of them and thankful.
Both side of my family pick cotton.HARDWORK .just so
I didn't have to.YES WE CAN BE PROUD

[hammerdownnow]

My family is from this little spot near Marshall N.C. Shelton Laurel Rd. twists and winds up into the hills and ends at my grampa Sheltons tobacco farm. On a ridge overlooking the farm is the family graveyard. Looking up the ridge,into the woods, You see the stone markers of those who died during the civil war times. The markers get more modern as they emerge from the woods ending with the graves of my Grampa,Granny, my Mom and her two sisters. Standing on the ridge looking at the wonder of the Smoky Mountains,I can't imagine a more serene place to be laid to rest.



More on the Shelton Laurel Massacre here:
http://members.tripod.com/~verlee/sh...l.htm?clkd=iwm

[Davis]

Stuff like this is why I love history.

History is a lot more than dates and who-won-what, it's the real people who farmed or built bridges and railroads and ships and steel mills.

Stuff like this is what I want to be able to teach.
Come on, Ohio, and get my certificate to me, I have young minds to corrupt ...
*g*

Trish