Revolutionaries
Gideon - John’s son Gideon (1680-1767) grew up in the home of Winifred Benham, the last woman in New England to be tried for the crime of witchcraft, an event that left its mark on him and shaped his character and behavior for the rest of his life. In 1776 Gideon’s son, Gideon Jr. (1720-1777) enlisted as soldier in the American Revolution, was captured and imprisoned by the British, contracted smallpox, and was finally allowed to return home to die. He was 56 years old
Chapter One
On October 13, 1720, a notably bright and brisk day following a tiresome spell of mists and chilly rain, forty-year-old Gideon Ives, his girth perhaps somewhat greater than he might have desired at that particular moment of his existence, attired in a powdered full-bottom wig, a fancy coat with shiny brass buttons and tailored breeches to match, stood alongside his fellow newly-elected members of the Connecticut Assembly in the upstairs hall of the handsome, recently-completed State House on the corner of Elm and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut. At long last, after so many dreary and long-winded formalities, the time had come to take the oath. Raising his right hand and taking a cue from the young, newly-elected legislator standing next to him, he joined in the communal drone, mouthing the pledge of allegiance to His Majesty King George I, swearing to uphold the laws of the Kingdom and the Colony, etcetera, etcetera, so help him God. For Gideon, it was all more than a bit strange. Although his grandfather William Ives was English, and he was himself an English subject of good standing, the act of swearing fielty to the King only served to solidify and enforce his profoundly entrenched sense of being an American, born and bred…
References
p. 391 “On October 7, 1765, a little less than three weeks after the “Sons”...” See The Stamp Act Congress: With an Exact Copy of the Complete Journal, Weslager, C.A. (author) Associated University Press, 1976 See also “Stamp Act Congress,” Wikipedia (online) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_Congress (Both retrieved May 19, 2020)
p. 391 “It is interesting to note that while newspaper editors gave voice to...” See “Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally, 1764-1765,” Brown University Scholarly Technology Group, John Carter Brown Library (online) http:// cds.library.brown.edu/projects/sally/ See also “Navigating the Past: Brown University and the Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally, 1764-65” Campbell, James T. (author) \ Syracuse University Libraries SURFACE (online) https://surface.syr.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=ia (Retrieved May 19, 2020)
p. 392 “Ironically, November 1, 1765, the day on which the Stamp Act went into effect...” See Revolting New York: How 400 Years of Riot, Rebellion, Uprising, and Uprising Shaped a City, Smith, Neil and Mitchell, Don (general editors) The University of Georgia Press (publisher) Athens, 2018, p. 45
p. 393 “One artist - it would appear to have been John Singleton Copley, about 18 years old at the time...” See “The deplorable state of America or sc--h government,” Digital Commonwealth, Massachusetts Collections Online https:// www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:9880w788r (Retrieved May 19, 2020)