Some of our family story in regards the Candees suggests that two brothers Conde came from Europe to America. One went South and one stayed North.
Baldwin's genealogy of the family Candee tells us that the first Conde had something to do with those Huguenots fleeing France.
It's been a bit easier for us to stick to studying the early days of America thus far in these blogs which present enough of a mixed salad to keep us glued to our clues and marking the trails with a mish mosh of story.
One of my favorite bedtime stories is that of Katharine Abbott, OLD-PATHS OF THE NEW ENGLAND BORDER.
"The coming struggle for the American Continent was foreshadowed when de Halve-Maan, flying the orange, blue, and white flag of Holland, anchored within Sandy Hook and, with his mixed crew of Dutch and English, Henry Hudson climbed the River of the Mountains, named by the Dutch 'Mauritus' in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau. Saluting the frowning Dunderburg at sunset the Half-Moon awoke near West Point amid sublimest scenery in the Manhattan mountains. At future Fort Nassau (Albany) the Dutch vessel was met by her Eldorado--the Indians, laden with countless rich beaver skins, to say nothing of grapes and pumpkins.
"Foreshadowed also was the coming contest at the same moment in Canada; there one perceives the noble, striking figure of the Father of New France, Sieur de Champlain, raising the citadel of Quebec with martial form and Catholic faith, 'in one hand the crucifix, the other the sword.'
"Foreshadowed when the words America and Virginia became the topic of fashion in England. Lords of the Admiralty and Commodores alike gossiped over Captain John Smith's bold expeditions up the Chesepeak, and each placed a venture in some ship bound for Virginia, all Britain had gone mad over a shipload of gold dust, or 'fool's gold,' (iron pyrites) just imported from the precious sands of the James. What applause, when Britons of 'brave heroic minds' set sail, bathed in the molten light of Raleigh's glory and adventure, while Michael Drayton wafted down the Thames a Godspeed in twelve stanzas:
"And cheerfully at sea,
Success you still entice
To get the pearls and gold,
And ours to hold
VIRGINIA
Earth's only paradise."
"How different the scene on the Thames, on the exodus to settle 'North Virgnia' (New England). Nonconformists of high degree, Pilgrim and Puritan, stole away as secretly as possible, dreading even the creaking of an anchor-chain lest it betray them and an order of detention be served by the King's Council. Among these were Thomas Hooker and John Davenport, the founders of Hartford and New Haven" (Abbott, 4-6).
"Half a score of miles east of the Housatonick the Onrust entered a deep bay--New Haven Harbor. Conspicuous above the coast line rose sharply serrated iron-rusted cliffs, a fair valley between. The Netherlanders were vastly interested in the unique topography of this spot and described it in their scenic log as Roodenberg--'The Red Mount Place. These two Red Hills are now famous. East Rock is tipped by its shaft of Liberty and West Rock holds the Judges' Cave which willingly concealed the Regicides, fugitives from the wrath of the followers of Charles, who is yet spoken of as 'the royal martyr' [footnote: The first Lord Holland used to relate, with some pleasantry, a usage of his father, Sir Stephen Fox, which proves the superstitious veneration in which the Tories held the memory of Charles I. On the 30th of January, the wainscot of the house was hung with black, and no meal of any sort was allowed till after midnight. This attempt at rendering the day melancholy by fasting had a directly contrary effect on the children; for the housekeeper, apprehensive that they might suffer for food, gave the little folks clandestinely confits and sweetmeats, and Sir Stephen's intended fast was looked upon by the younger part of the family as a holiday diversion--Acc. to the Correspondence of C. J. Fox, edited by Earl Russell]; a remarkable episode this in the history of the Puritan town which laws dipped in deepest indigo" (Abbott, 16-17).
Oh, there's more, but let me savor the literary. Abbott's work is drenched in every sort of seemingly random detail and reveal the deepest threads of ourstory in a very feminine way (which was all the rage pre-20th century, women were not supposed to be in any way "political"). She continues about the rocks with an excerpt from somewhere, "It has been misstated that East and West Rock are terminals of that most ancient range, the Green Mountains, made millions of years before these rocks were deposited; they are of igneous origin turned into sandstone and the sandstone worn away. The near-by wonderful Hanging Hills of Meriden and Talcott Mountain, also Mt. Holyoke and Mt. Tom are lava flows. Judges' Cave is a boulder carried down from Meriden and dropped on the ice" (7-8).
Such boulders came to be called "glacial erratics." And are, according to my correspondence with Professor Ralph Lutts, "not unusual things. They can be found just about anywhere in New England and other areas that had been subjected to glacial activity. Any rock, regardless of its size, that is different from the bedrock located below it is called an erratic. If it was moved to its location by glacial action, it is called a glacial erratic. The large percentage of separate rocks (not bedrock or river tumbled rocks) found on the surface of the ground or buried in the soil in New England are likely to be glacial erratics" (April 2012).
Professor Lutts recommends an "old" text GLACIAL AND QUARTERNARY GEOLOGY by Richard Foster Flint (NY, 1971) which has maps of dispersal patterns in New England!
In the literary sense we go sailing with Abbott, eastward as did Adriaen Blok "toward the country of the 'Pekatoos' (Pequots). New Haven's West and East Rocks, 'with summits finely figured,' fading from view.
"..whilst Mount Carmel, the sleeping Giant of the Quinnipiacs, lay a deep purple cloud on the horizon. Skirting the shore of Menunkatuck (Guilford)--to be colonized by men of Kent under the leadership of Henry Whitfield and Samuel Desborough--the Onrust entered "Connittecock" River; astonished at the strong current moving downward and the unusual freshness of the waters near the mouth, Blok named it Verch or 'Fresh-Water River.'"
Guess we'd have to look at contoured cartography of the area to better determine if the moved boulders were glacier retreating leftovers or if the river might have moved the land in a powerful flood.
"Blok entered the Connecticut highlands (at present Haddam), where the broad stream is compressed to thirty-five rods in a remarkable gorge of crystalline rocks, the Strait Hills. Near Mount Tom the Hollanders may have heard strange earth rumblings like the roaring of cannon or cracking of small shot; the 'Moodus noises' occur spasmodically at Mackimoodus near the mouth of Salmon River, where an early writer says the Indians 'held pow-wows with the devil.' These subterranean thunderings have been heard as far as New London. An old Indian being asked the reason of the noises replied, 'the Inidians' God very angry, Englishmen's God come here.'
"Blok saw wigwams of the Sequins at Folly Point, just below Hartford; had he chosen to land on the east side (Glastonbury, today covered with orchards of pink peach blossoms) and mounted the hill, he might have had a glorious view from Connecticut's Mount Tom to Mount Tom of Massachusetts....
"Blok was able to navigate as far as Windsor Locks, then visited Siccanemos, or river of the Sachem, now Mystic; and Little Fresh River, or the Thames, skirting the site of New London. Blok's map, beautifully executed on parchment, in the Archives of the Hague (a copy is at Albany) was our first map of Southern New England. How joyfully the Amsterdam merchants placed it before the Directors and obtained a trading charter, with exclusive rights 'to visit and navigate' from New France to Virginia, 'now named New Netherland.'
Thought New Netherland was New York, huh? Besides tracking through the forest for colors of kingdoms and blazed trees, the new people didn't have ways to figure out where they were, exactly either.
"Blok's map shows that he coasted to Montauk Point, naming it appropriately Visscher's Hoeck, touched Martha's Vineyard and the Indians' beautiful Manisses, with its great lake and ninety-nine small ones, and extraordinary Mohegan cliffs, to which he gave his name; we call it Block Island, the Dutch, Adrian's Eyland; the Rhode Island Assembly christened it New Shoreham, and Whittier revived Manisses, or the 'Little God,' the charming musical apellation of the cruel tribe who drove the Mohegans to the cliffs' edge, and watched them perish, penned between the sea and a more unmerciful enemy. Today Block Island has two guardians :
"Point Judith watches with eyes of hawk,
Leagues south by beacon flames Montauk!"
(8-10 OLD-PATHS OF THE NEW ENGLAND BORDER, from, "The First Voyage of the Restless" or How A Dutch Yacht, Sailing Out Of Manhattan, Discovered the Housatonick, Conittecock, and Pequot Rivers).
However unfamiliar, the new territory seemed a refuge from the religious controversy ripping up Europe.
To Holland some "separatists" or non-Catholics--"protestants"--had fled, and, like [example Robinson] secured a land grant from the Virginia Company. Some 70 London merchants subscribed 7000 pounds to finance an expedition to America.
The expedition of these "pilgrims" reached the tip of Cape Cod in November of 1620 and finding themselves pretty far from the jurisdiction (on a map territory) of the Virginia Company, came up with a "compact" or an agreement pledging their "loyalty" to their own colony. Their loyalty was an extension of the old ways or an agreement to "obey" certain rules or "such just and equall laws as shall be thought most mete and convenient for the general good of the colonie." In other words, even though they weren't isolated from the bigger picture of the world in terms of overall tides of political language, they were alone together in the wilds and needed to come up with some local organization which would help them survive and not fight with each other.
Many of the Way-Backs knew firsthand and from their direct ancestors the costs of fighting with each other in their homelands!
Nowadays we can catch the time, weather and news on the radio. In the colonial days many places had night watchmen who would announce the time and weather throughout their nightly shifts. Some cities required every seventh residence to hang a lantern out the window and keep the candle burning all night. Alice Morse Earle tells us that a watchman would call out, "Lanthorn, and a whole candle-light. Hang out your lights!"
And then hourly the watchman, "rattle-watch," "bell-man" or "tipstave" would call out the news...
"Past midnight and all's well"
"One o'clock and fair winds"
"Five o'clock and cloudy skies"
The pay wasn't very much, perhaps a shilling a night.
Earle reports that in 1658 New York had ten watchmen, these duties evolved into the jobs of police and journalists in tradespeak.
Up on the green in West Haven, Connecticut Mama's relatives Captain Samuel Cande and his Dad (Zaccheus or Zachariah) teamed up with some others and each gave six shillings to have the church bell rung at nine o'clock every night.
