I've always loved studying history. My fascination began when I was a little boy just 5 or 6 years old with my own family's history when my father hung a 4 foot by 8 foot plywood panel wrapped in "ugly burnt orange" burlap and covered it with a collage of old family pictures, grandparents, great-grandparents, even g-great grandparents. One picture in particular struck me, it was of the Davidson family farm (below) in Josephine County, Oregon, showing a large spread of land and mountains in the distance taken around 1870. It had been taken by a professional photographer so the quality of the image was quite good. I later learned that, that photographer was John Davidson, who was raised on that very farm before he became a professional photographer for the Portland Newspaper. A lot of his work can still be found in the Oregon Archives on the internet. I had often dreamed about going there and imgained myself meeting my ancestors - still do today.
Later, my father also posted two large xerox prints, mapping out the family tree mounted side by side in the middle of that same photo wall. That ancestry chart showed the primary branches of our family tree, Jordans, Davidsons, and Murphys, from my father's side. The top of this ancestry tree started with an immigrant and his two brothers arriving from Scotland as indentured servants, circa 1715, and from there, the generations that would followed. (this was long before the internet - and he had no knowledge that Samuel Jordan ever existed)
What followed came the handed-down family stories; of the infamous Davidson Clan battles in Scotland, one was arena gladiator-style spectacle 30 versus 30 warriors, to put an end to a generational blood-feud, fighting and killing in a duel before the King and Queen of Scotland and other invited nobles. Then there was the griping story of three women being trapped in a Kentucky log cabin fighting off Indians who were trying to set fire to their roof, this after witnessing the killing of their husbands in the remote wilderness of 1792, not far from Frank-Fort. Later an amazing story of a story a young abolitionist who became a family Patriarch crossing of the great western plains in covered wagons in 1850, going over the Rockies and descending down into Oregon. Then his founding of a second town, both called Monmouth and a school that became Western Oregon University and finally, the story of his grandson discovering the Oregon Caves while chasing after his dog named Bruno, who was chasing a bear. As a child I had memorized all the stories, expanding the horizons of my imaginations, some were no doubt exaggerated, but nevertheless my imaginations were turned forever loose. Over the passing years with the help of the internet, I would fill in the blanks, and would uncovered many more stories, diaries, wills, church documents, family narratives, and realized that these family stories were far bigger than I could have ever imagine.
I wanted to pass on these stories, I want them to be read by those who are the descendants connected to this family tree, from 12th century Scotland to 21st century America. I hope, this site will help all to understand the determination, the convictions, and sacrifices of these men and women, having contributed to the fabric and quilt of our American Republic. Thomas Jefferson wrote prophetically: “How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” Unfortunatley, that is never more true than today.
There are more than 27 milion Americans today who can trace their ancestry to Scotland, whose clothes were stained by centuries of continuous oppression and warfare. A large portion of this site is about one such family. There are many heros and heroines, ... most of them unsung. It is a mix of history, revelant commentary and family narratives. There's always been a flow to history and culture. This flow is rooted and has its wellspring in the dreams and actions of people. People are unique in the inner life of the mind – what they are in their thoughts determines how they act. This is true of their value systems and it is true of their creativity. It is true of their corporate actions, such as political decisions, and it is true of their personal lives. We have a clearer vistas today, to view the results of their thought-world flows, through their fingers and from their tongues into an external world.
Who of us can tell what tomorrow will bring forth? Who knows how long this great experiment conceived in liberty that Lincoln had referred to will last? After witnessing this last election and seeing with my own eyes what would have been considered unthinkable, - that one political party would undermine America's fundamental right of the power of an individual's vote, A new civil war may be on the horizon. I believe were are seeing the beginning of the end. Was there not once a Carthage?, a classical Greece?, was there not an imperial Rome? or, ... a British Empire? Winds of change are constantly upon us, and no nation or empire has ever been promised immunity by God.
I ecourage you to take pride in who you are, and your family name, .... and remember from where your family roots started.
My hometown: Walnut Creek, California In the postwar era, Walnut Creek had transformed itself from a small, pastoral bedroom-community into a exclusive, high-priced enclave, east of the Oakland Hills.
My grandparents were not immigrants and my family did not live in some small, walk-up apartment in some downtown borough in the middle of a busy, industrialized metropolis. My parents moved to Walnut Creek in 1952. We were raised in what used to be a very conservative enclave, rural suburb, away from big city concerns. We were a community that commuted into the San Francisco Bay Area for work. We were white, we faced none of the barriers of prejudice and discrimination. I had the advantage of attending free public schools, where I had received the basics of a good education. I was just young enough to avoid being snared by the Vietnam War as the draft was discontinued the year of my high school graduation and the so-called "military action" was mercifully, and finally coming to an end.
1960
1980
Walnut Festival was annual event that marked on everyones calendar.
The Walnut Creek I grew up in is now lone gone. I bought baseball cards at Birdie's Toy Store and penny candy at Woolworth’s in Broadway Plaza and remember seeing 'Hard Days Night' at the art-deco style, single screen El Rey theater, seeing the first episode of Star Wars at the modern Festival Cinemas cineplex with 5 theaters! I remember 15¢ hamburgers and 25¢ gas. In the 60's and 70s, Walnut Creek was the real "American Graffiti". It was the cruising capital of Contra Costa County for high schoolers from Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill, Concord, Lafayette, and Danville. Teenagers piled into ther cars circling back and forth on Main Street from 7 p.m. until midnight every weekend. These memories are precious but now distant, as is Capwell's, Woolworth’s and the Golden Age of small business, hometown retailers, and the old Walnut Festival are now nothing but fading fond memories. My parents bought a home in 1952 for $15,000, it had skyrocketed to nearly 3/4 of a million dollars in 30 short years! The downtown Broadway Shopping Plaza is now considered the "Rodeo Drive" of Northern California with exclusive high-end shops, and has now joined the unfortunate faternity of as a target of recent BLM and Antifa street violence.
YESTERDAY TODAY
Unlike the earlier first American generations, I did not have to follow in the same trade as my father, or grandfather. My parents generation was truly, the first fulfillment of the hopes and dreams of all the previous American generations. Following World War II, America was now the leading industrial power and the G.I Bill provided countless opportunities for new vocational paths for millions, in a trade, a craft, or as a technician. We have the freedom to choose our own path without seeking a “by-your-leave" permission from the hierarchies of old established society. Furthermore, we were not forced to carve out a home, fighting for our family's very survival while living in a frontier wilderness, isolated, confronted by attacking hostiles and bearing their children along the way. Hopefully, we'll never take their sacrifices for granted. (Read Cook's Family Massacre) That large 4’ x 8’ panel of plywood covered with burlap, in our family den planted within me a desire to learn more about my family history. That started my journey, beginning with my father’s Xerox copies, scrapbooks, letters and handwritten notes. Soon afterward, along came the endless megabytes of data provided by the Internet, that allowed me to further his endeavor beyond his wildest imagination. I have continued this undertaking for most of my adult life. With great joy and admittedly great pride, I've come across some amazing stories, that I believe are worth sharing.
In the providing of my Ancestor's narratives from England, Scotland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Oregon and finally onto California, the obvious difficulty with such a immense volume of data, was trying to format it into an intelligent arrangement. Religious historians, vast church records and old church meeting minutes, battlefield diaries and handwritten wills provided a great number of details and they gave me valuable insight to their lives, their beliefs and even causes for thier motivation to break from previous traditions and migrate to new homesteads.
Playing "Army" 1960 Playing "Quarterback" High School Football 1972