nichepoetryandprose

In a recent post (October 17, 2012), I wrote about my shoemaker great-great-grandfather, Josiah Hawk, and his daughter, my great-grandmother, Ella Hawk.

schoolhouse in Upper Canada Village, Ontario

When I was in Upper Canada Village in Ontario in September, I saw many houses and a way of life that reminded me of  Ella’s family history.

Ella’s story begins before she was born, with the Hawk and Kresge families of Monroe County, Pennsylvania.  I know a lot about these families, since both families have relatively complete genealogies.

Both the Kresges and Hawks were part of a large community of German immigrants who lived in the vicinity of Gilbert, Monroe County, from the late 1700s onward.  In 2004, my husband, son and I visited the area and I went to church in the community.  The congregation welcomed me warmly and I was told many of the people in the church shared my ancestry!

pioneer home in Upper Canada Village, Ontario

The Census of 1790 lists both of Ella’s great-grandfathers, Coonrod Crase (Conrad Kresge) and Conrad Hawke.  Conrad Kresge had a son Johannes whose daughter Sarah Ann, was Ella’s mother.  Conrad Hawke had a son Michael Hawk, whose son Josiah (the shoemaker) was Ella’s father.

The Kresges and Hawks were true pioneers and life for them was difficult.  In about 1777, while clearing land, Conrad Kresge lost one of his sons at the hands of a band of Native Americans, who carried out raids on the community.   This story is depicted in a memorial to Conrad Kresge in the Gilbert cemetary.

Memorial in Gilbert cemetary, depicting story of Conrad Kresge clearing land, and his son who was killed by an arrow

Although no other stories have survived the years, I have been able to learn quite a bit about these people from the genealogies.  For example, I can piece together something of my great-great-great grandfather Michael Hawk’s life in Middle Creek, Pennsylvania.  For example, for the year 1807, when he was 13 years old, he was the youngest of nine children.  Of his five brothers and three sisters, only his older brothers John (19 years old) and Peter (16) remained at home.  Siblings Nicholas (25) and Suzanna (23) had been married the year before, and on October 29, 1807, Suzanna gave birth to a set of twins, no doubt an exciting family event.  His much older brother John George (37), living in the community of Effort, and his sister Anne Margaret (33), in Chestnut Hill, must have seemed a generation away, since  John George’s daughter Elizabeth, Michael’s niece, was only four years his junior.

~

~

Michael, alone

(Middle Creek, 1807)

~

November has worked its way

into the wood pile, I use Papa’s axe

to split kindling, I blow rings into

the cold air, everyone is away, gone to

Chestnut Hill to see

Suzanna’s twins

~

everyone leaves –

they become like strangers

Catherine, run off to Seneca Lakes,

Nicholas married last year,

John and Peter, itching to go

~

Mama calls me her baby

well, I’m the same age as the Kresge boy,

killed by an arrow thirty years ago –

but that’s an old story

~

I look across the cornfield

to the oak woods where leaves still cling,

they glow like copper

noone lurks there now

~

Copyright  Jane Tims  2012

gravestone reads: Michael Hawk – was born Feb 8th 1794 – died April 20 1846 – Aged 52 years 2 months 12 day