Spent the night in Easton, PA on the other side of the Delaware River from Phillipsburg. When I got up this morning it was very very foggy and raining. Ugh! I arrived in a downpour and now it's going to rain again as I'm about ready to leave? It's fine.
In looking things over last night, I decided to go back to Newton today, which is the county seat of Sussex County. Even though most of the towns where Mann families lived are today in Warren County, back then, which is to say 1776-1820s those towns were all still in Sussex County, so I have to go there if I hope to find records that old. Still it wasn't exactly records I was in search of. At this point I need to get to things that are not available on the internet, and that comes down to research collected by other researchers which are things usually found at genealogical societies. And for once I had good luck! The ONLY day that the Sussex County Historical Society museum and research library was open was today from 9-1. So off I went.
Today I decided to go north on the Pennsylvania side, and the road runs right along the Delaware River, which was quite beautiful even in the rain. I couldn't help but think about Washington's army crossing this river - even though that was much farther south near Trenton - but it's still a picture to imagine the river frozen and the Continental Army stealing their way across to defeat the British in surprise attacks. This area is full of so much history.
So the visit in Newton was a good one. They didn't have much for Mann or Knofts and very little about Summers, but the good news was that a "specialist" on Sussex County deeds was there and we sat looking at his homegrown database for two hours. Even though I have seen several of the deeds he showed me, there were new details to be revealed! I believe it's because this man has been reading ooooold English handwriting for much longer than me, and so his eye was able to translate more than I could make out. So cool!
After the museum closed, I took off back to the PA side to drive around but realized that the places I might need to visit were just too far to cover in the time I had left. So I picked a couple more scenic routes as I headed my way back east for the night. Interestingly the place I got a room is in Basking Ridge, which is the town where my old college roommate and good friend Bebe grew up! I didn't have any idea I was in her area when I booked the room, so that's fun.
So tomorrow, back to Newark for the flight home. I've covered a whole lot of miles with only minor success in adding to the family tree stories: Gillespie/Greer, Schaefer, and Mann. But maybe the thing to be learned was not in the details but in getting a feeling for the places where they all lived. I've never spent much time in this part of the country, and every time I come I find it more beautiful (well, we can probably leave NYC out of that description - that falls into a whole other world!). What it must have been like to be here from places like Northern Ireland and Germany when this land was really still wild and men and women alike had to face the unknown in almost every aspect of their daily lives in the New World. They are the ones who helped to shape the new country, whose values helped to define our democracy. It's really an amazing legacy we all share.
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