January 2010 Quiz

First, Happy New Year to all! I hope you all had a marvelous Holiday season! My holiday E-Cards should be going out sometime in the next six months or so. :-)

This month’s question deals with one of our direct ancestors. Grandpa Roy’s father, Beeley Blanchford Pendleton (1824 - 1906,) was born in New Brunswick, Canada. Beeley’s grandfather, Gideon Pendleton (1751 – 1847) was born in Rhode Island and lived for many years in Isleboro, Maine, where six of his twelve children were born. Why did Gideon move his family from Maine to New Brunswick?

A. He was a “Tory” (a person loyal to England during the Revolution) and was run out of town after the war.
B. He was caught by Customs while smuggling items into Maine after one of his voyages to the West Indies and fled to Canada.
C. His ship sank off the coast of New Brunswick and since his brother Stephen had already settled there, he decided to stay.

-- ANSWER

The correct answer is: B. He was caught smuggling items into Maine. But, before we all hang our heads in shame, let me explain.

Gideon was a mariner and made frequent trips from his home in Isleboro, Maine to the West Indies. On one of his trips, in about 1797, he brought back 2 pounds of tea which he failed to declare to US Customs. Apparently, he felt the reaction of the Customs inspector was so petty, he decided to take his family a few miles up the coast and resettle across the border in Canada (where the Customs officers must have been less stringent about collecting the tax on tea.) Could this have been the beginning of the famous Pendleton “bull-headedness”?