Franklin Pierce Homestead, Hillsborough, New Hampshire

Franklin Pierce Homestead

Hillsborough, New Hampshire

Pierce Homestead

The Pierce Homestead was built in

1804 by Benjamin Pierce, a general

in the American Revolution, twice

governor of New Hampshire (1827-28),

1829-30), and father of

Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the

United States (1853-57). Franklin

Pierce was born in Hillsboro November

23, 1804 and the family occupied

this dwelling shortly thereafter.

Built in 1804 by Benjamin Pierce

Officer in the Revolutionary War

and Governor of New Hampshire in 1827-1829

Birthplace of his son Franklin Pierce

Fourteenth President of

The United States

Restored and Given to the

State of New Hampshire in 1925

as a Memorial to

Major Frederick A. Kendall

U. S. Army 1861 - 1884 and

Virginia Hutchinson Kendall

by their son

Captain Hayward Kendall  U. A. Army 1917-1919

Roger Clap, Memorial Site, Watertown, Massachusetts

Roger Clap Memorial, landing site in 1630, Watertown, Massachusetts

Roger is my 8th great-grandfather, and I wrote about trying to locate his burial site in 2011, "Searching for Roger Clap's Burial Place, Found in Front of Me!"

Charles River, behind the memorial.

For the entire year, all my photos have been taken with the iPad ver.4. Once nice thing about it is the ability to enlarge photos, including the below engraved marker.

HERE LANDED ROGER CLAP

AND THE DORCHESTER MEN

JUNE 1630

"We went up the Charles River, until the river

grew narrow and shallow, and there we

landed our goods with much labor and toil,

the bank being steep; and night coming on,

we were informed that there were hard by

us three hundred Indians. One Englishman,

that could speak the Indian language

(an old planter) went to them and advised

them not to come near us in the night; and

they harkened to their counsel, and came

not. In the morning, some of the Indians

came and stood at a distance off, looking

at us, but came not near us. But when they

had been a while in view, some of them

came and held out a great bass towards

us; so we sent a man with a biscuit, and

changed the cake for the bass. We had not

been there many days, (although by our

diligence we had got up a kind of shelter

to save our goods in,) but we had order to

come away from that place which was about

Watertown, unto a place called Mattapan

now Dorchester, because there was a neck

of land fit to keep our cattle on."

From

Roger Clap's Narrative

Erected by

The Historical Society of Watertown

1967

Second Congregational Church of Boxford, Massachusetts

Wikipedia information on Boxford. Photos taken Memorial Day weekend.

Second Congregational Church of Boxford, MA

United Church of Christ

Founded 1736

Taken in August 2013

Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts -- The Town, The Monuments and The Bridge

Shelburne Falls is the home to the World Famous "Bridge of Flowers," a bridge over the Deerfield River.
 

 In Honor of

The Citizens of the

Towns of Buckland and Shelburne

Who Served in the Armed Forces of

Our Country in World Wars I and II

And in Loving Memory of the

Following Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice

WORLD WAR I

Ernest Winford Goodnow

Roy Farrell Shirtcliff

 WORLD WAR II

Gilbert Irving Allis	Thomas Joseph Neary, Jr.
Hollis Elwin Andrews	Homer James Richmond
Herman Austin Burdick	Robert Wilder Swan
Russell Delano Chamberlain	George Roland Trumble
Albert Henry Farrell	Oliver Joseph Turner
Stanley Gadomski	Robert Earl Whitbeck
William Francis Hourahan, Jr.	Robert Bardwell Williams
John Hames Kennedy

One of the unique houses in town.

In Honor of

The Citizens of the

Towns of Buckland and Shelburne

Who Served in the Armed Forces of

Our Country in Korea and Vietnam Wars

And in Loving Memory of the

Following Who Made  the Supreme Sacrifice

KOREA

Walter Harold Billiel

VIETNAM

William Kimball Batchelder

Paul Thomas Looney

James Edward Palmeri

Ernest Ray Taylor, Jr.

Ronald Edward Wissman

1890

Bridge Committee

George G. Merrill	Emerson J. Griswold
David W. Temple	Michael Atkins
George E. Taylor	George Rowland

Edward S. Shaw, Engineer

Vermont Construction Co. Contractors

R. F. Hawkins, President

  

Remembering John Ogonowski -- American Airlines Flight 11 Pilot and Farmer

Taken Sept. 8, 2011

Captain John A. Ogonowski

Memorial Square

Dracut, MA

The first name I heard regarding the disaster at the World Trade Center came across our local news station around noon. It was that of a local man, John Ogonowski, and he was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center. John went to school in my city and lived in a neighboring town. I had never heard of him, nor had my mailman, but by the end of the day, everybody in my area knew all about him.


Like so many others, I was going about my daily business on that perfect New England day. I had a dental appointment at 9:15 and heard on my golden oldies radio station that a plane had hit a World Trade Tower, but I didn't think much of it. I didn't go right home, but went to a grocery store at 10:30 and knew something was terribly wrong. I over heard somebody say the schools and the Registry of Motor Vehicles were closing. Of course, I asked what was going on, and couldn't believe what the reply was. Immediately, I ran around picking up all the junk food l never buy. Once home, I sat at the TV all day, and talked to a few people on the phone. I even rearranged my living room furniture. The following two days, I went to the Concord Free Library in Concord, MA to get away from the TV.


Below, I'm sharing a few lines from Wikipedia and from the American Flight 11 site. Several years later, I discovered that one of my good friends, was also a Ogonowski (her middle name) and was related to Capt. John Ogonowski. We never discussed anything about 9/11. A few years later, she and her husband sold their Dracut, MA farm, and moved to Cape Cod. We've seen them once her move.

CAPTAIN JOHN OGONOWSKI

American Flight 11  (both articles from this site.)

CAPTAIN ON THE FARM

"John Ogonowski wore two uniforms: his navy blue senior captain's uniform for American Airlines and the blue jeans and denim shirt he wore while working on his 150- acre farm in Dracut, Mass., where he lived with his wife and three daughters.

Twelve days a month, Mr. Ogonowski, 50, flew transcontinental flights. On off days, he tended the farm's peach orchard, with acres set aside for corn, pumpkins and hay. After supper he often sat in his favorite chair, reading agricultural journals late into the evening.

Mr. Ogonowski joined the Air Force at the height of the Vietnam War. He flew C-141 transport planes, taking equipment to Asia, and sometimes flying back to the States carrying the bodies of American soldiers. He became a commercial pilot in 1979, and met a pretty flight attendant named Peggy, whom he later married.

The morning of Sept. 11, he left his wife at home, still in bed. It was already dawn as he turned down the road in his dusty green Chevy truck, to start his drive to Boston and to Logan International Airport. As he passed his uncle's nearby house, he tooted his horn. Mr. Ogonowski was the captain of Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 3, 2001.

John Ogonowski, of Dracut, pilot for American Airlines

By Globe Staff, 9/16/2001

"John A. Ogonowski of Dracut, a pilot for American Airlines, was killed Tuesday in the crash of Flight 11 in New York. He was 50.

Mr. Ogonowski was born, raised, and educated in Lowell. He graduated from St. Stanislaus School, Keith Academy, and Lowell Technical Institute, class of 1972, with a bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering. He was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.

Mr. Ogonowski flew as a pilot in the Vietnam War, assigned to the Air Force base in Charleston, S.C. He left the military with the rank of captain.

He flew for American Airlines for 23 years, and was a member of the Allied Pilot Association.

Mr. Ogonowski was an active member of the Dracut Grange, the Polish American Veterans Association, the American Legion, the Merrimack Valley Vietnam Veterans, and the Dracut Historical Society. He belonged to the board of directors for the Massachusetts Farm Bureau, and the board of directors for the Dracut Land Trust Inc.

An avid farmer, he worked to secure 150 acres of farmland on Marsh Hill Rd. in Dracut through the federal Agriculture Preservation Restriction program. He raised hay, corn, pumpkins, blueberries, and peaches, and worked actively to preserve open space in Dracut for future generations.

He leaves his wife, Margaret (La Valle), his parents, Alexander and Theresa, and three daughters, Laura, Caroline, and Mary Katherine, all of Dracut; two brothers, Lieutenant Colonel James of Dracut, and Joseph of Newport, Mich.; and two sisters, Dolores Quigley of Pensacola, Fla., and Carol of Dracut. A memorial Mass will be said tomorrow at 11 a.m. in St. Francis Church in Dracut.

From the Boston Globe newspaper, of Sept. 15, 2001."


Personal note, my sister and I toured the World Trade Center in the summer of 1985, going to the top on a windy day was scary, and I absolutely hated the height. In May of 2001, my husband and I went to DC for vacation, and drove past the Pentagon several times, plus I drove by it daily for 12 years when I lived in the area.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AS OF 09/11/2014

From the website of Mass Moments: http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=264

Orr's Island, Maine -- Tombstone Tuesday

While here, I took quite a few cemetery stone photos, only to discover later that they were already posted to FindAGrave. The site for this cemetery (see link) shows additional photos and a map.

Obituary of Harriet Ford Westover

Westover--Harriet, wife of John

F. Westover, died at the family home

801 Joslin Street, Tuesday from a

complication of diseases, age 62

years. Harriet Ford was born in Port

Burbal, Ont., Sept. 25, 1849, and was

married to Mr. Westover in 1866. After

their marriage they lived in Port Bur-

bal until 1876, when they came to

Saginaw. Mrs. Westover was a mem-

ber of the Episcopal church. She

leaves her husband, two sons and five

daughters, Harry Westover and Mrs.

Henry Ryder of Saginaw; William of

Toledo, O.; Mrs. Thomas Glenn of

Ashtabula, O.; Mrs. Benjamin G.

Watkins and Mrs. Roy Davidson of

Battle Creek, and Mrs. Carl Watz of

Portland, Ore. The funeral will take

place at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon from

the family residence. Interment in

Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Information from Mary Virginia Swisher (Sept. 2012). The above Harriet Ford Westover was the wife of my third cousin 4x removed.

Tower Hill Botanical Garden, Worcester, MA and a Little History

Dr. John Green (1784 - 1865)

Dr. John Green, the first president of the Worcester County

Horticultural Society (1840 - 44), was born in Worcester.

He studied medicine under his father, later earning degrees

from both Harvard and Brown Universities. He began his own

practice in Worcester in 1807, the fourth generation of Greens

to treat the illnesses of Worcester.

This portrait was painted in 1858 by Edwin T. Billings.

Tower Hill Botanic Garden

Boylston, Massachusetts

Nevins Memorial Library, Methuen, Massachusetts -- Genealogy and History Section

Nevins Library, Methuen, Massachusetts

Built 1883, another library that expanded.

I love the older section of the library, the beautiful stained glass and oak everywhere. You can see how beautiful it is. The only problem with taking pictures in a library is, I have to rely on their lighting, sometimes there is too much (as with the sun through the windows), and sometimes not enough.

  

New section of the library, and below are the genealogy books.

General collection of genealogy books and below are some that pertain just to Methuen.

New England Church, Ipswich, MA

The Methodist Church, 1859

Ipswich, Massachusetts

This is an unplanned post, but because Heather Rojo wrote a nice piece at Nutfield Genealogy blog, on Planning a Genealogy Photo Trip to Ipswich, Massachusetts, I thought it would be perfect to put her link with this photo.