Almost 2 Years Since I Have Posted...

 WOW!!! Looks like I need to get back to posting. I have spent the past couple years helping my son with his violin progression and have completely neglected my blog....and I don't like it much. Last year, I tried homeschooling him so I didn't have much time at all but this year, he wanted to attend his very first year in high school at a brick and mortar school so that helps free up some time to get back to what I love doing the most. Research and New England history. 

I am going to start out this post, though, with something more close to home. Find, below, an image of a well known river driver by the name of Warren Augustus Bailey, more widely known simply as Gus Bailey or in my family....Uncle Gus. You can distinguish him on the far left, first man in back and the tallest man in the picture. He was born January 7, 1858 at Topsfield, Maine and the son of Thomas and Philinda Laken Bailey of Topsfield. He has been written about in books and even his death has been written about when he refused to die lying in bed but had his fellow woodsmen help him up and walk during his last moments, with his spiked boots on and standing. 

In this picture below, the first lady in front is Gus's wife Minnie. Ida Bailey Moffit and her husband Fred Moffit are the 5th and 6th in the picture. Then there is Lizzie(or rightfully Isabel)Bailey and lastly Jesse Franklin Bailey(or rightly and more widely known in the family as Frank Bailey) who was born 1870 and died at Lincoln, Maine in 1951 after a motor vehicle accident. He was my great grandfather.

                                                       Jesse Franklin Bailey(above and below)

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Now the most precious of my photos are tw I jusot recently acquired a couple of years ago. They are of my great great grandparents, Thomas Jefferson Bailey and Philinda Lakin Bailey. You will notice I had the pictures cleared up a bit and colorized Philinda...I couldn't help it...I just had to do it. Here is Philinda's original picture taken at the turn of the 20th century.

And here are both of them, wishing I had a picture of both of them together but Philinda would go on to marry 2 more times after Thomas passed and I do believe that is why my great grandfather Frank kept his distance from her toward the end of his life.

                                              Thomas Bailey's passing in Topsfield, Maine

And one last picture if I may. My 14 year old son Thomas was named after Thomas Jefferson Bailey and carried the family's violin playing legacy as well. It all began with Thomas Bailey but there have been other stories that his father, Josiah Bailey of Topsfield, Maine(born 1778)played the fiddle as well but we will begin with what is known because my son is the only 6th generation violinist in America as far as we can tell. I don't have any pictures of Thomas or his son Frank with a fiddle in their hands but I do have the next 4 generation. 

        14 years old Thomas               Me                       My father, Jack                    Samuel

Jack was Samuel's son and Samuel was Franks son. All of us playing the same violin, handed down through the years.