[DOWNLOAD] "Original Intent (First Person) (Essay)" by The Humanist # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Original Intent (First Person) (Essay)
- Author : The Humanist
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Reference,Books,Religion & Spirituality,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 48 KB
Description
MY TENTH GREAT GRANDFATHER, or something like that, Thomas Joy, was an early settler of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He didn't come over from England on the Mayflower, but not long thereafter he emigrated from Norfolk and took his place in the annals of American history. He was an architect and a builder, and he designed and constructed Boston's first town hall, as featured in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. He was wealthy and prosperous and successful. He owned land. He was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. And, he married the daughter of a formidable mariner and Indian trader, Captain John Gallop, my eleventh great grandfather, or something of the sort. They had ten children, five of whom survived their father. Fortunately for myself, one of those five was my ninth great grandfather, or something along those lines, Joseph Joy. Now, Robert G. Ingersoll wasn't able to suffer genealogy. He liked to say that he knew as much about his ancestors as his ancestors knew about him. I can see his point. Many of the most devout amateur genealogists are searching only for kings, queens, VIPs, or iconoclasts. They wish for a little of that bygone prestige or intrigue or notoriety to rub off on them and posthumously and vicariously endow them with power, wealth, fame, courage, intelligence, beauty, and so on. This is nothing less than modern day ancestor worship. (And nobody does it better than the Mormons, who are known to retroactively convert their ancestors.)