The Wrath of Saints: Christopher “Kit” Carson Fancher AKA: “Charley” (1852-1873)

“The scene was too horrible and sickening for language to describe.  Human skeletons, disjointed bones, ghastly skulls and the hair of women were scattered in frightful profusion over a distance of two miles.”   This was the account of a traveler passing through Mountain Meadows, in the Utah Territory, in 1859, two years after the worst massacre of American civilians in nineteenth century .

The 1850’s were a tumultuous time for the Mormon settlers, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,  in the western territories.  Under the leadership of prophet Brigham Young, whom some called the “Mormon Moses”, they had escaped the persecution of the “American Gentiles”.  It was in Utah that they had decided to make their stand, and they were now in a declared war against the United States of America.

In the autumn of 1857 the Fancher-Baker party, a wagon train of over 140 Arkansan men, women and children was making its way across the Utah Territory on its way to California.  By all accounts it was one of the richest and best equipped wagon trains of the era, with nearly 1,000 head of cattle and several horses.  The journey west had been a long one, though, and when the party reached the Salt Lake City area, its supplies ran  low.

There were many children in the Fancher-Baker party.  Five year-old Kit Carson Fancher and his twenty-two month old sister Tryphania were the youngest of Captain Alexander “Piney” Fancher’s nine children.  As it would turn out, their infancy would be what saved their lives.

Word reached the outlying Mormon settlements that the wealthy wagon train would soon be passing through.   The Mormons knew that the Fancher-Baker party would need to water its cattle and horses at Mountain Meadows, a relatively unprotected area.  That is where they planned for their ambush to take place.  A group of 50 men, led by local Mormon militia leaders Isaac C. Haight and John D. Lee disguised themselves as Paiute tribesmen, and set off to the hills surrounding  the meadow.

In the early morning of September 7, 1857, the Mormons began to shooting at the unsuspecting Gentiles as they regrouped by the stream that ran through the meadow.  Seven men in Fancher-Baker party were killed and sixteen were wounded in this first siege, but the survivors were able to quickly circle the wagons and arm themselves.   They sunk the wagon wheels deep into the ground and chained them together creating a barrier.  The party was able to hold off their attackers, but after four days they had no access to food or fresh water, and their ammunition was running low.

On September 11^th, two Mormon militiamen approached the besieged emigrants with a white flag.  They told the wagon train leaders that they had negotiated with the Indians, and that the Indians would allow them safe passage out of the valley under Mormon protection in exchange for all of their livestock.  Accepting this, the emigrants were lead out of their fortification.

When the Americans left their enclosure, a signal was given and every male member of the Fancher-Baker was executed by the Mormon militia member standing by his side.  The women and children were then raped and slaughtered.  According to Mormon teachings, children under six years of age were considered “Innocent Blood”, and eighteen young children, including Kit and Trypahnia Fancher, were spared.

The bodies of the victims were gathered together, looted for valuables, and then left to rot on the open ground or in shallow graves.  The cattle and wagon train supplies were taken to the Latter Day Saints tithing house and auctioned off.  The eighteen children were taken by local Mormon families.

Two years later the children, with the exception of one girl who lived out her life amongst the Mormons, were reclaimed by the United States Army and reunited with their families.  The Mormons demanded compensation for the time that the slaughter victims’ children were under their care.

Kit, who had been called “Charley” by the Mormons, and his sister Tryphania were raised by their cousin Hampton Bynum Fancher and his family in Osage, Arkansas.  Five years old at the time of the massacre, he was quoted by Army investigators as saying “The men who killed my father were Indians, but when they washed their faces they were white men.”

Christopher “Kit” Carson Fancher died at only twenty years of age in the home of his cousin Hampton Fancher, and was buried in the historic Fancher-Sietz Cemetery in Osage.

Adam Lowe Martin (son of )– Allen Lowe Martin – Margaret Persse (daughter of)1907-2004 – Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of ) 1881-1962– Margaret Schuyler (daughter of) 1847-? – Thomas Schuyler (son of) 1815-1899 – Richard Schuyler 1789-1867- Martha Fancher (daughter of)1765-1853 – Richard Fancher, Jr. (son of) 1731- 1778 - Capt. Richard Fancher, Sr. (father of) 1705-1764-  David Fancher  1738-1787  -Richard Fancher 1756- 1829 - Isaac Fancher 1788-1840 - Capt. Alexander Fancher 1812-1857- Kit Carson Fancher 1852-1873

The Nation Could Scarcely Have Lived: Private Giles Louis Greenman (1821-1862)

The summer of 1862 was coming to an end and autumn was close at hand in northern Illinois.  Late August in Will County usually meant making sure everything was in order to bring in the harvest.  But not this year.  A gangly lawyer from Springfield was in the White House, and the Union was coming apart at the seams , if it had not come apart already.

Enlisting volunteers to help bring the rebellious Confederacy back into line was not an issue.  There were plenty of young men eager for adventure, and looking for any excuse to get off the farm.  But Giles Louis Greenman was not a young man.  He was on the downhill side of forty years old.  He was the father of three sons, two of whom were almost old enough to fight, and three daughters.  He had survived two wives, and married a third.  No one doubted that he had experience.  Just not fighting experience.

The 100^th Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry rendezvoused at Camp Irwin in Joliet, and was almost immediately called to the front.  Private Greenman was among the ranks of nearly a thousand men sent by railcar to Springfield and then to Louisville, Kentucky.  Almost none of the passengers aboard those trains had ever seen a battlefield.

Murfreesboro was a small town in the Stones River Valley in central Tennessee.  Confederate General Braxton Bragg decided that it was there that his troops would make a stand against the advancing Federal forces, and stop the Yankee horde from taking Chatanooga.  The locale, however, offered nothing in terms of natural defenses and his Army of Tennessee would be outnumbered.

The Rebels did have the advantage of knowing that the Union troops were on their way.  General William Rosencrans, and his Army of the Cumberland were harassed by Bragg’s troops as they made their way towards Murfreesboro.  Rosencrans’s supply wagons were destroyed and over 1,000 Union prisoners were taken before the inevitable battle had even begun.

As dawn broke on December 31, 1862, the Confederates launched the first attack of what the North would call the Battle of Stones Creek and the South would name the Battle of Murfreesboro.  Private Greeman, and several thousand other men, would not live to see the first day of 1863.

The battle would continue without relief until the waning hours of January 3^rd, when Bragg retreated through Tullahoma, Tennessee and Rosencrans took Murfreesboro.  In the four days over which the battle took place, over twenty-three thousand men lost their lives;  over ten thousand Confederate soldiers and over thirteen thousand Union soldiers.  The battle was tactically inconclusive.

The Battle of Stones River was, however, strategically important in that it removed the Confederate threat to Middle Tennessee and significantly improved Union morale.  President Lincoln would later write to General Rosencrans:  “You gave us a hard earned victory., which had there been a defeat instead,  the nation could scarcely have lived over.”  At war's end, the Stones River National Cemetery was established, with more than six thousand Union graves.  

Adam Lowe Martin (son of) – Patricia Ann McGinn  (daughter of)– Beverly Helen Kelley- Agnes Greenman Burnap -  Herbert Thayer Burnap (son of)– Agnes C Greenman  (daughter of)-  John Wesly Greenman  (father of) – Giles Louis Greenman






American Civil War in the UK - Taking Sides from Jay Seawell on Vimeo.

Jay Seawell takes an intriguing look at British American Civil War reenacters, and why they do what they do.

Next Week's Post:  The Wrath of Saints

My Grandmother Was a Saint : Queen Margaret, Patroness Saint of Scotland (1045-1093)

As the small ship rocked violently in the North Sea storm, the twenty-year old Saxon princess sent a prayer to heaven.  If The Lord Our God found, in His infinite wisdom, to allow her and her family to survive the journey to the Continent, she would devote her life to humbly serving His Name. 

The ship had set out from Northumbria to sail across the brackish waters to carry what remained of the Saxon Royal line, and a small band of loyalists, into exile on the Continent.  William, the Duke of Normandy’s, successful invasion of England meant an interruption to the House of Wessex’s years of rule.  But their dynasty had been deposed and restored twice before.  It was unknown if it would be restored again.

The storm drove the ship north rather than east, and it washed up on a rocky outcropping that, years later, would become known as Saint Margaret’s Hope.   The passengers of the ship were taken to the court of Malcolm III, King of the Scots, where they received a warm welcome.  Malcolm had been an exile himself in the past and had found refuge in the Wessex royal court.

Years earlier Malcolm’s father Duncan had been murdered in a coup that Shakespeare would dramatize centuries later in Macbeth.  Malcolm showed hospitality to all of the shipwrecked refugees, but he gave special attention to Princess Margaret.  Malcolm was forty years old and widowed.  If he was able to marry the twenty-year old princess, he would be uniting two royal dynasties, and perhaps all of Great Britain would follow.

Margaret had been preparing herself for the nunnery, but after deep prayer and meditation, and consultation with earthly advisors, she consented to the marriage.  The marriage had obvious political benefits for Malcolm, but by all accounts and evidence, he was genuinely enamored with his young bride.

As Queen Consort, Margaret never forgot the promise that she had made to the Divine Power on that fateful stormy day.  And because of her husband’s adoration, and the respect of the Scots as a people, she wielded a great deal of power.  Almost immediately she organized a synod, which resulted in the regulation of the Lenten feast, observance of the Easter communion, and reform of many corrupt and abusive church practices.  Before Margaret, mass was conducted in the dozens of local Scottish dialects that were spoken during that era.  Margaret established the Latin mass in Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland), which helped to unite the nation.

Malcolm was illiterate, and had not been a particularly religious man, but he had great respect for his wife’s piety and faith.  He could not read her holy texts, but it is said that he would often kiss the books, and arrange for them to be gilded and encrusted with jewels.  Margaret’s influence on the king only increased his popularity amongst his people.

Margaret spent much of her reign in service to the poor.  She frequently visited the sick, and had hostels constructed for the indigent.  During Advent and Lenten feats she would host as many as 300 commoners in the royal castle.  Her charity extended to the clergy, and her introduction of the Benedictine Order to Scotland helped to bring closer union between Rome and the Celtic Church.

In late 1093, Malcolm and his son Edward went off into battle against the forces of King William Rufus, the son and heir of William the Conqueror.   Both Malcolm and his son were killed in battle.  Queen Margaret had been ill, and when she was told of the death of her husband and son, she was devastated, and died three days later.

The memory of Margaret’s charity, piety and just rule remained clear in the hearts and minds of the Scots.  She was canonized in 1250 by Pope Innocent  IV, and was made Patroness Saint of Scotland in 1673.  In Scotland today there are scores of churches, hospitals, schools and streets named in her honor.  Her bloodline would continue through the Royal Houses of England and Scotland for centuries.

My link to St. Margaret:  Adam Lowe Martin (son of)-Allen Lowe Martin-Margaret F. Persse (daughter of)-Edwin Theophilus Persse (son of)-Dudley Persse-Theophilus Blakeney Persse-Henry Stratford Persse-William Persse-Elizabeth Parsons (daughter of)-William Parsons (son of)- William Parsons -Frances Savage (daughter of)-William Savage (son of)-Arthur Savage-John Savage-Laurence Savage-Ann Bostock (daughter of)-Elizabeth Dutton-Anne Touchet (daughter of)-5^th Baron Audley (son of)-4^th Baron Audley-John Tuchet-Joan Audley (daughter of)-2^nd Baron Audley (son of)-1^st Baron Audley-Nicholas d’ Audley-Ela of Salisbury-William II Longespee-3^rd Earl of Salisbury-Henry II-Empress Matilda (daughter of)-Matilda of Scotland-Saint Margaret of Scotland

Illustration:  Saint Margaret with the Children

As The Weekly Dash enters its third week of existence, the readership and the number of followers continues to steadily increase.  Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to look at this blog, and special thanks to those of you who have made comments and given other feedback.

I know that many of you have had issues with the “follow” button.  I have accosted many of you, both through Facebook and in person, asking you to follow this site.  Some of you think you have signed up, but your name never registered. IF you could just take a moment, right now, and see if your name is on the list.  If it is not, (I know how annoying this is), if you could please give it just one more shot.  If it still does not work, please let me know.  If any of you are experienced bloggers, any advice would be appreciated.

Next Week’s Post:  “If Defeated, the Nation Could Scarcely Have Lived”

The Irish Airman: Maj. William Robert Gregory (1881-1918)

Me & Nu: Childhood at CooleMe & Nu: Childhood at Coole

In 1915, a thirty-five year old accomplished Irish artist walked away from his career in order to join the British war effort. He became a member of the 4th Connaught Rangers. A year later he joined the Royal Flying Corps. In the last days of January 1918, the fighter plane that Maj. William Robert Gregory was piloting was mistakenly shot down by an Italian pilot and he was killed.

William Butler Yeats’s poem “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory” has been called the greatest elegy in the English language, comparable only to Milton’s Lycidas, which had been written nearly three centuries before. In this poem Yeats describes Robert Gregory as the epitome of manhood, excelling in all pursuits so magnificently that it was inevitable that he would be cut down in his youth.

Robert Gregory was the son of Sir William Henry Gregory, a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland representing County Galway, Ireland, and a former British governor of Ceylon. Robert Gregory’s mother was Isabella Persse, who in married life and widowhood was known as Lady Gregory, a leading figure in the fin de siecle renaissance of Irish arts and culture .

Robert Gregory attended Harrow and matriculated at New College, Oxford. He later attended the world renowned Slade School of Fine Art in London. He worked as an artist in the design studio of Jacques Emile Blanche and had his own exhibitions of paintings. As an athlete he excelled in bowls, boxing, and horse riding. He played cricket for Ireland, and his bowling performances in international competition are ranked among the greatest in Irish cricket history. Through his gallantry in battle, he earned the Military Cross and became a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur. In Yeats’s words, “his very accomplishment hid from many his genius.”

Maj. Gregory’s early death devastated his mother and the Irish arts community. In the poem “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”, Yeats contemplates why someone like Maj. Gregory would risk a seemingly charmed life fighting for a cause that would benefit neither him nor his Irish countrymen.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

This poem would become a staple of the poetry curriculum throughout the English speaking world for the remainder of the Twentieth Century and after. Whether the narrator of the poem and Maj. Gregory shared a common philosophy, it is impossible to know. Yeats said that he once asked his friend Robert Gregory why he joined the war effort. Gregory’s reply: “Friendship.”

My connection to Maj. William Robert Gregory: Adam Lowe Martin (son of)- Allen Lowe Martin- Margaret F. Persse (daughter of)- Edwin Theophilus Persse- Dudley Persse- Theophilus Persse- Henry Stratford Persse-William Persse (father of )-Robert Persse-Dudley Persse-Isabella Persse (better known as Lady Gregory, mother of ) -Maj. William Robert Gregory

Photograph: William Butler Yeats

The Weekly Dash has been up and running for a week now. The blog has more than twenty followers, and has been visited more than 500 times. Thank you to those who have taken time to read the blog, and to those who have conveyed kind words of encouragement.


My Uncle Skip was the first to respond to last week’s post on Capt. Dixey. He is a Revolutionary War buff and was pleased to learn about his connection to General Glover. Kathy Sproles also told me of her Glover family connections. Chris Totty let me know that he grew up in Mobile and been out to the Dixey sand bar and to the Magnolia Cemetery.


This week I learned about Johnny Corcoran’s grandfather Eddie Corcoran’s accomplishments as a speed skater in the 1930’s, and I was able to find a New York Times column describing one of his victories. Kristen Ayre’s grandfather, Arthur G. Sorlie, was Governor of North Dakota in the 1920’s. We were able to pull up his World War I draft card and learned that the Sorlie Memorial Bridge in Grand Forks was named in his honor. Catriona Anderson told me how, in her own genealogy adventure, had found Scottish census reports from previous centuries, and how the ancient reports required British subjects to disclose how many windows they had in their homes.


I know that some readers have been having problems with the “follow” button on this site. If you tried to click the “follow” button, but are not on the list of “followers”, I appreciate your patience and ask that you try again, as it really helps with the success of the site. As always, I appreciate any feedback any of you have to give.



Next Week’s Post: “My Grandmother, the Saint” (No, she was literally a saint.)

The Captain of a Ship Named for His Brother: Capt. Richard William Dixey (1809-1860)

It is a difficult marker to find. In Mobile, Alabama's Magnolia Cemetery there is a broken memorial stone to mark the grave of a Yankee sea captain who died in the Mobile Harbor 150 years ago.

Richard William Dixey was an experienced mariner, from a long line of mariners. Growing up in Marblehead, Massachusetts in the early years of the 19th Century, it was preordained that he would spend most of his life at sea. He was the great grandson of General John Glover, the leader of the 14th Continental Regiment, or "Amphibious Regiment", that was most famous for ferrying General Washington across the Delaware on Christmas Day, 1776. He was the son of Capt. John Dixey, Sr., a ship master who had spent time in a Paris prison after being captured at sea by the French and in a London prison after being captured at sea by the English.

Capt. R.W. Dixey continued the nautical adventures of his forefathers. He was present when the first American Flag was raised at the United States Consulate in Foochoo (now "Fuzhou"), China, after captaining the ship that brought the new American Consul General to China across the Pacific. During his era, he was the most famous seafaring son from a famous seafaring family.

In the autumn of 1860, R.W. Dixey was captain of a ship named for his brother, Robert H. Dixey. The "Robert H. Dixey", or "Dixey", had been built five years earlier in East Boston, and had traveled as far as St. Petersburg, Russia. She was a 165 foot double top-sailed clipper ship, and said to be fast for her class, if not as fast as some of the larger ships of the day.

On the evening of Friday, September 15, 1860 the "Dixey" arrived at Mobile Harbor, after a two week journey from New York City. As the ship crossed the sand bar which marked the harbor, Capt. Dixey turned over control of the ship to the harbor pilot, Capt. Samuel Smyly. All hands on board felt a sense of urgency, as they were just ahead of a major hurricane.

The ship had made its way up the harbor, when heavy winds suddenly shifted to the north-northwest and Capt. Smyly made the decision to drop anchor. The anchors held until 10 o'clock the following morning, but as the eye of the storm passed and the north winds hit, the smaller anchor chain broke away. The crew worked furiously to cut down the masts and sails. After an hour, with the ship taking on water, the main anchor broke, and all hope was lost.

The crew made for the forecastle and lashed themselves to the ship. The "Dixey" bounced down the channel, and then drifted eastward out of the bay before breaking up on what is now known as the Dixey Bar. Capt. Smyly and four other crew members were able to escape to land. Capt. Dixey and the 18 man Bahamian crew stayed with ship. Capt. Dixey's last words to the pilot were "Goodbye. I hope we shall meet in Heaven."

Capt. Dixey's body was recovered and buried in Magnolia Cemetery. In 1995, the United States government renamed the sand bar that runs from Fort Morgan into the gulf "The Dixey Bar". Today, the Dixey Bar is one of the most popular fishing sites on the Gulf Coast. Many locals and tourists assume that it's name is "The Dixie Bar", and that it was named for its southern locale. It is however, named for a ship that wrecked there a century and a half ago.

Richard William Dixey was my first cousin, 5x removed
Adam Lowe Martin (son of) - Allen Lowe Martin - Allen Littlefield Martin- Frank L. Martin - Elbridge Gerry Martin, Jr. - Rebecca Homan Dixey (daughter of)-Peter Dixey (son of) - Richard Dixey - Capt. John Dixey, Sr. (father of ) - Richard William Dixey

This is first of what, I hope, will become weekly blog posts, each one telling a different story about one of my ancestors. I have been researching my family tree for nearly a decade now, and the fascinating stories I have been able to find are endless. Any feedback, corrections, and comments will be greatly appreciated.