I was 10 the last time the country had a big birthday. Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom” played on radios across the Midwest. An endless summer of red, white and blue.
Two generations on and I’m living where it all began. This bisesquicentennial, I’m interested in familial stories that intersect with those tumultuous years: narrative plus DNA.
Most family trees have a patriot or two to shake out. Out of my mother’s side falls Sergeant Peter Felt. He joined the fight earlier this month 250 years ago, on Jan. 7, 1776.
Good timing. Three days later, the best-selling American book of all-time was released. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” gave us permission to revolt, a condemnation of self-serving leaders and governments run amok. It’s as relevant today as yesterday.
My fifth-great-grandfather was a 30-year-old farmer and cordwainer raising a family with Lucy Andrews, outside the newly formed mountain village of Temple, New Hampshire. A month before enlisting, he and Lucy did the unimaginable for parents: they buried one of their four sons: 11-month-old Thomas.
Nevertheless Peter signed up to help with the invasion of Canada.
Invading our northern neighbor is in the news again today. Go figure.
The record tells us one thing Peter did before he left: he made love to Lucy. Nine months later, awaiting his return, Lucy gave birth to their first daughter. At the same time, Peter’s mission to Canada was ending. A local history records that Peter went “by way of Lake Champlain, as far as St. Johns; but the failure of Benedict Arnold’s attempt on Quebec, and the retreat from Montreal, terminated the expedition, and they returned.”
The author of “Common Sense” did think of them. Mr. Paine wanted to use the book’s profits to put woolen mittens on their hands. It turned out that mittens, profits and a Canadian victory failed to materialize.
For the Felts, overthrowing kings was nothing but a family affair.
All five of Peter’s brothers enlisted — one, Joseph, served seven years. Joshua was wounded on the retreat from Lexington. Sam was taken prisoner. Peter and Joe were at the victory at Saratoga. And a celebrated 14-year-old fifer became Peter’s in-law: Ebenezer Fletcher wrote a memoir that’s featured today in the recent television series, The American Revolution.
After Saratoga, Peter returned to Temple and helped raised eight more children. In 1789, after their home burned, Lucy and Peter built another one, where in an upstairs room Peter cut and stitched his neighbor’s shoes before one of its nine fireplaces.
Earlier this month, on the anniversary of his enlistment, I drove a bit over an hour to the Northeast.
Temple, I can tell you, is a surefooted contender for “Most Picturesque New England Village in Winter.” Snow was falling that day to boot. I found their house with its two grand chimneys. It was well-kept, freshly painted and overlooked lake, meadow and mountain.
Peter’s name is on the town’s monument. Their headstones stand proudly in the burying ground. Their belongings, in the will inventory, include “woolen mittens” and “gun, bayonet and cartridge box” valued at $4.18.
I met the town archivist, also in charge of the road department. He drove me to an old schoolhouse, where inside he retrieved a small daguerreotype in a case. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he asked. I nodded. It was Lizzie Felt, who raised the next generation in the house Lucy and Peter built.
Out of 13 children, eight outlived them. One kid — their eldest Peter Jr. — left New Hampshire after they died. He moved his family to a new village thousands of miles away, along the Mississippi River. His grandson went further, to Missouri, where he founded another village. It was named Mendon to honor the one in Massachusetts. The Missouri Mendon is where I spent time as a kid, which brings us back to 1976.
That’s the year I used my allowance to buy that Elton John record and a cloth patch emblazoned with three Minutemen. Two drummers and a fifer peacefully marching, playing their upbeat tune.
My mom, the Felt, never sewed the emblem onto my jeans jacket, which is fortunate. I would have certainly lost that. The patch I found the other day, in my junk drawer next to my bed.
In the midst of the celebrations, the talks on human dignity and liberty to come this year, I can say this — I am, if anything else, an authentic Midwestern New Englander.
Michael Carolan lives in Dwight, a village of Belchertown.