Cheesy Grits: "The Black Kings of Edisto Island"—A Collision of Worlds

Edisto Island near Botany Bay
Taken by GCM, May 2012

When I first met Nick Lindsay, I had no idea that some forty years later, I would be sitting with him and his wife Dubose in their house on Edisto Island, forty-odd miles southwest of Charleston, talking about one of the two "Black Kings of Edisto Island." I wonder, too, if he ever imagined he would meet a great-great-grandniece of one of those two black kings of Edisto Island, which would of course be my wife, Jane. A descendant of Amish Mennonite bishop Jacob Hertzler, a relative of Edisto royalty, and the Bard of Edisto and his wife, chatting in the living room while Spring freshens up her frock outdoors on a March afternoon on Edisto. Talk about a collision of worlds.

Cheesy Grits: "What Did You Do During the Civil War, Grandpa Howard?"

Oh Robert Howard Robert Howard you're really breaking my chops here. As hard as it has been to get my head around the idea that former slaves would turn around and become slaveowners, I now am faced with a document you put your signature to the day after cadets from the Citadel fired on a Union vessel, the Star of the West, attempting to resupply Fort Sumter. It was about a month after South Carolina had seceded. In three months more, the Confederates would open fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and the Civil War was fully on.

Excursus: "What Did You Do During the Civil War, Grandpa-from-Wisconsin?"

I've written almost nothing about Jane's Wisconsin ancestry, which is her father's side. The "cheesy grits" reference is strictly to her mother's ancestry. Her father, Ron Godfrey, nevertheless could be called some sort of "cheesehead," for he was a farm boy from Wisconsin, who, after getting a degree in engineering from the University of Wisconsin (Madison), enlisted in the Navy. While helping to outfit a ship in New Jersey, he met Jane's mother at an Officer's Club dance in Manhattan, and they went on to make history, as it were.

Excursus: "Did You Help with The Underground Railroad, Grandpa?"

Shoofly Pie

My childhood home near Gap, PA, was about five miles from Christiana, PA. I remember Christiana for two things. The first thing is that it was the home of my mother's sister and her husband—my aunt and uncle—and we often visited them. I particularly liked visiting them because they had television before we did, so I could get to watch that captivating box. I mostly remember watching cartoons and Lassie.

Excursus: "What Did You Do During the Civil War, Grandpa?"—The Shoofly Pie side

Shoofly Pie

I'm not quite sure exactly when our Hertzler ancestors moved from Bern Township (near Hamburg), in Berks County, PA, to Caernarvon Township, in the northeastern corner of Lancaster County, PA. Certainly one of the reasons they moved was because of the Hochstetler Indian massacre in which the mother and two Hochstetler children were killed and the father, Jacob, and two sons were kidnapped by the Delaware Indians. The Amish (Northkill) community dispersed over time, with our ancestors moving south, while other Hertzlers headed west to Mifflin County.

Excursus: "What Did You Do During the Revolutionary War, Grandpa?"

I thought it might be interesting to recount how some of our ancestors responded to the various wars in the times that they lived. Since we haven't talked about the Shoofly Pie segment of our history for quite some time, let's go there first.

Cheesy Grits: The Charleston Howards

 So far, we've been tracing the Thorne branch of Jane's great-great-grandparents. Now it's time to turn to the Howards. Here's a graphic refresher: