My genealogical pilgrimage to Massachusetts last August was very productive and I was actually making discoveries during the week while I was up there. There were several that were completely serendipitous. I was staying at a hotel in Amesbury and went for walks each morning. On the first day, completely by random, I wound up walking by the house my 10th great-grandfather lived in which is now a historical site (which I mentioned in post #15). Another moment of serendipity happened when I was visiting Appleton Farms in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The Appletons were a very prosperous family who came from a wealthy background in England. Samuel the Immigrant established a farm in the southern portion of Ipswich the grew and grew in size over the years.
When I visited I spoke to one of the docents in the house built by the last Appleton owner Francis who donated the property to a trust that maintains it. She took me out into Patch field (Patch is another surname in my lineage) where there was a stone monument with a metal plaque commemorating those born in the house of my great-granduncle John Appleton. After I returned home I looked at the names on the plague. One was Nathan Dane, and Danes tied into my Appleton connection. My 5th great-grandmother was Lydia Dane Appleton.
Lydia's brother Nathan started out on the farm, but attended Harvard and became a big shot lawyer right after the Revolutionary War. He would serve in the Massachusetts legislature and went on to serve in the Continental Congress where he made his greatest contribution to the country. He helped to draft the Northwest Ordinance and included a provision outlawing slavery in the new territories. Because of his amendment, when the Civil War broke out, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were firmly free states which sided with the Union. Ohio alone mustered 230 regiments of infantry and nearly 320,000 Buckeyes served the Union cause.
Nathan's contributions didn't end there though. He is considered to be the father of American jurisprudence writing
A General Abridgement and Digest of American Law which went to 8 volumes and was the first such writings regarding American law in the new nation.
Nathan Dane, my 6th great-granduncle, died in 1835, he and his wife Abigail never having had children, but still leaving a towering if underappeciated legacy.
Nathan Dane - Wikipedia
