What ancestor would I invite to dinner, that is a good question!
I have so many ancestors that would be awesome to spend dinner with reaching back to those who came with the Puritan Great Migration in the 1630’s to the east coast of what is now the United States, to grand parents that I miss greatly.
While working on fleshing out an acestrial profile at WikiTree I found I had a very interesting grand father. He is a notable in the local region of Ashtubula, Ashtubula, Ohio. He is one of the pioneers of the Western Reserve of Connecticut.
Let me introduce you to Peleg Sweet Sr. the grandson of Dr. James Sweet of Rhode Island in 1687. (see James Sweet). This family of Sweets where know as bonesetters which would be considered as orthopedic Dr. today. They were not so much a medical doctors, but they knew how to manipulate and set bones. The Sweet family considers this a family gift and there are many members in this family that were considered bonesetters. My fifth great grand father Peleg was such a man. I have not found where he was considered a Dr., but family tradtion states that both he and his son Peleg Jr. were both bonesetters.
Peleg by trade was a tanner and a shoemaker and lived in Connecticut as a grown man until about 1807. When he head west to Ashtabula, Ashtabula, Ohio. He was born in in Kent Co., Rhode Island to James and Mercy Nichols Sweet.
Peleg married on 10 November 1777, Miss Mary Wilkinson in Winchester, Litchfield, Connecticut.
Peleg and Mary gave land to Ashtabula for Edgewood Cememtery and what is known today as Peleg Sweet Park.
Why I would like to invite him and of course grandma Mary to dinner, would be to find out what it must have been like to live in the East and move to the wilds of Ohio. In 1807 most of Eastern Ohio was dense forest and marsh land.
What prompted the move and how was it to travel with up to ten of their children to this wilderness and what was it like to clear the first bit of land.
What was Oliver Hazard Perry like? Peleg was part of a contingent of older men that helped Perry during the War of 1812. “Old Grey Men of the Ghost Ship Militia”.
Was he really a bonesetter and did he consider it a gift?
So many more questions to ask that it would probably take more then a dinner, might even have to have breakfast in the morning!
Visit Peleg Sweet and find out some more about him and his family!
Happy Hunting
