I have borrowed of
Uncle, and on his name, of John G. Deshler eight thousand dollars and invested
it in one hundred and sixty acres of land one and one-fourth miles from the
dock at Duluth, Minnesota. I expect Duluth to grow rapidly and that this
property will increase in value about one hundred per cent for the next three
or five years. The cash and deeds pass this week. General George B. Sargent,
care J. Cooke and Co., New York, is my correspondent's address.
I have been digging
into Savage and other books on genealogy during the last week. I trace my
lineage up almost to the Mayflower but not yet into it. I have
only run back on the line of my father's side of the house, and the important
family of the Smiths is left out!! Almost one-half of the stock!
To be exact, it leaves out exactly one-fourth of the stock, as I find nearly
one-half of the Smiths. Now, the new idea I get by this study is, how futile it
is to trace one's descent from a distinguished name in the past. Two hundred
and thirty or forty years ago my ancestors were from thirty to a hundred
different persons. The Hayes or the Rutherford of 1625 was only one out of
forty or more who are equally my ancestors. What does it signify that John
Russell was able and pious in 1640? I am but one part in forty to sixty of his
blood. We attach more importance to the deeds of ancestors of our own names.
But this is a mere figment of the imagination. I am just as much a Trowbridge, referring
now to the Thomas Trowbridge who founded the family in New Haven in 1640, as
any of those now living there who bear his name. The blood, the physical,
mental, or moral qualities which distinguished an early "father," do
not follow the name; do not accompany it.
I have always
thought of myself as Scotch, but of the fathers of my family who came to
America about thirty were English and two only, Hayes and Rutherford, were of
Scotch descent. This, on my father's side. On my mother's side, the whole thirty-two
were probably all of other peoples beside the Scotch. Again, I have been proud
of my descent (not very of course, only a trifle so,) from the famous
Rutherfords; but it is plain that the brains, energy, and character possessed
by my grandfather's children and grandchildren — by the children and
grandchildren of Rutherford Hayes — are mainly derived from our plain ancestor,
whom [who] Uncle Sardis says was the homeliest woman he ever saw(!),
Grandmother Chloe Smith.
SOURCE: Charles
Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard
Hayes, Volume 3, pp. 91-2
