Tide betide whate'er betide, Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde

According to Scotland Places – Bemersyde consists of a lofty rectangular tower, to which lower, modern extensions have been added to W and E. The original building, which has been a fairly typical Border peel-tower, rises to five storeys and dates from the early 16th century; it was probably built in conformity with the Act of the Scots Parliament of 1535 'for bigging of strengthis on the Bordouris'.

The upper storey is a 17th century reconstruction. The walls are very massive, reaching a thickness of 10 ft. The main doorway is in the S front, and has been enlarged. Undoubtedly there would be a house on this site from very early times, for the Haigs of Bemersyde are a very ancient family, having owned the lands reputedly as early as the 12th century, and the present building may well incorporate portions of an earlier house in its foundations.

According to The Peerage, Andrew Haig (1518-1583) restored Bemersyde Tower, damaged when an English army under the Earl of Hertford invaded Scotland in 1547.

According to FamilySearch Pedigree Source File Submission: 2835664-1205104171243 (Suzanne Guerra: Santa Rosa, California), Andrew is my 13th great-grandfather.

Howe → Major Joseph (1720-1794) - My current spasm of genealogical activity began about 12 Dec 09 when (as a result of going through a book of old Alabama newspaper transcriptions while I was staffing the genealogy room at the local library) I discovered Listen to the Mockingbird by Daniel Dunbar Howe, published 1961, was available on HeritageQuest. This may be the definitive genealogy of the descendants of my 6^th great-grand-father Major Joseph Howe. To my knowledge this is the first a copy was available west of the Mississippi, other than one at the Mormon Temple to Genealogy in Salt Lake.

My software tells me I cited 3,816 individuals from the Appendix, which is the genealogy section: pages 287-372; the families of Hoge, Howe, de Jarnette, Heavin (Haven), and Patton.

Mastin → Gustavus L. (1815-1880) - While going through a compilation of "Marriage, Death, and Legal Notices from Early Alabama Newspapers (which I probably wouldn't have done if I weren't volunteering a couple of days a month at the genealogy room in the local library), I a ran across an entry for Gustavus Lyle Mastin (1815-1880), indexed under Hoge, that stated the following:

He was born in Fincastle, Virginia January 1, 1815, was taken to Tennessee when a small child and remained in that state under the care of his grandfather, Solomon Hoge until Jane (January or June), 1827, when he moved to Huntsville.

Gustavus was the son of Arbela Hoge, and she was the great-granddaughter of William Hoge & Barbara Hume, which makes him my 3rd cousin 5 times removed. His wife, Mary Eleanor Fearn, shows as my 6th cousin 5 times removed, our common ancestors Thomas Lee (1679-1733) and Elizabeth Keene (1701-????), who's daughter Leanna Lee (1728-1759) married John Fearn (1717-1782).

While the only source I've been able to find for Arbela Hoge as daughter of Solomon (so far) is in FamilySearch International Genealogical Index, these tend to be based on something - which is more than can be said for some of their Ancestral and Pedigree Resource files. That Arbela Hoge was the mother of Gustavus is supported by his first daugter being named Arbela Mastin. Cartmell's Shenandoah Valley Pioneers in 1909 declares

A grandson of Solomon Hoge married Mary Glass, granddaughter of Samuel Glass the emigrant. Through this line, the Hoge family of Berkeley County, Va., descends.

In 1929 The Family of Hoge is more reserved:

No definite information. A Solomon Hoge m. Mary Glass, sister of Rev. Joseph Glass, of Frederick County, Va., in 1787, and is almost certain to have been a son or grandson of this Solomon.

The Solomon Hoge that was the son of my 6^thgreat-grandparents James Hoge & Nancy Griffith, brother of the 1st Moses Hoge, would have been around the right age as well. And, quite possibly, in the right place.

In the course of all this I added numerous families for various reasons, among them:

Clayton → William Wirt (1812-1885) - William's first child, Julia Frances Clayton, married Edward Foster Hoge, my 3^rd cousin 4 times removed. They had only one child, Augustus, who died as an infant.

On the 1860 census, William declared a real and personal estate of $63,000, which would be worth between $10,779,300 and $209,389,051 in 2008, according to Measuring Worth.

The Seldons of Virginia, which traces William Wirt Clayton back, on the one hand to the Pendletons, who's family probably intermarried with the Hoges and other related families already in my database. And back, on the other hand, to Roger Dixon (1754-1799) and Lucy Reade Rootes (1727-1802). A FamilySearch Pedigree Resource File declares Lucy to be the daughter of Major Philip Rootes and Mildred Reade, where Leo's Genalogics picks up and takes us back to my common ancestors Henry Percy º Earl of Northumberland & Heiress Eleanor Poynings (1421-1484), my 16^th great-grandparents.

The Seldens of Virginia also contains the descendants of Andrew Hunter, among them Ann Kean Hunter (1798-1882) who marrried my 1^st cousin 6 times removed, Reverend John Blair Hoge. There were also a number of connections to very distant Randolph and Tucker cousins, and so forth.

I cited 320 individuals from The Seldons of Virginia.

Rust → William (1634-1688) - Listen to the Mockingbird carries the line of Emory Eaton Hoge (1854-1910), mentioned by The Family of Hoge, my 2^nd cousin 4 times removed on my mother's side, through John Hampton Hoge and Mary Estelle McIntosh (????-1931).

This time, when citing Georgie/Georgia Rust, I decided to check for connections and found that Georgia is my 6^th cousin 4 times removed through Samual Rust who married Martha Garner, daughter of (According to the Wingfield Family Society, among others) my 9^th great-grandparents on my father's side John Garner (1634-1702) & Susanna Keene (1644-1716).

I was about a third of the way through the Rusts in a FamilySearch Pedigree Resource Fiile when it occured to me to check for a published Rust genealogy, and I found one on Heritage Quest, which begins with the descendants of Samuel Rust and Martha _____; Rust of Virginia (Washington, D.C.: Rust, 1940). It appears to be what the FamilySearch file was based on, and the largest part of it is transcriptions of wills.

George Hoge (1733-1805) & Elizabeth Blackledge (1737-1803) → A search, for what reason I can't recall, turned up a limited preview of Tenmile County on Google Books which had a great deal of information about the descendants of George Hoge. I ended up citing 440 individuals from that limited preview which begins with the Hoges on page 100 and goes through the descendants of William, son of William Hoge and Barbara Hume - through his son William Hoge & Ann; through their sons George who married Elizabeth Blackledge, and William who married Esther Ewing - through 15 pages or so of various descendants and interwoven families.

Flora Cook → I'm currently in the process of removing Flora Cook from my Who's Who page, which was formerly my Home page. I've been meaning to do that for some some time now, as several sources which have come to light make it appear most unlikely she was my 4^th cousin 4 times removed, as claimed by The Family of Hoge. But I couldn't figure out who to replace her with and didn't want to take the time to do it. I thought about Wallis Simpson, but the Duchess of Windsor wasn't a very nice person, and she wasn't close enough of a relative, being something like my 6^th cousin 3 times removed on my father's side, to be on my Home Page. I ran across Wallis while looking over WARGS genealogy of Obama. Our common ancestors are John Gaither and Ruth Morley.

Anyway, I've decided to replace Flora with Major Joseph Howe, and use his arms from Listen to the Mockingbird. My Legacy relationship calculator tells me we are related 441 different ways with 17 common ancestors, so it's going to take me awhile to finish replacing Flora with Joseph.

With the wonders of Google Earth and its National Register of Historic Places overlay, I've been able to obtain coordinates for many mystery locations, and have taken much time finding and entering coordinates for those that do not have them; many of them prominent in the history of the Hoges and the Howes and their descendants. I've also taken some time to detail the formating of my online presentation, something I've been wanting to do for a long time now. I've added a page view/visits counter, which started from zero on 29 Dec 2009.

I also have several hundred email, including many photos and much other information from my mother, which I hope to add, not the least of which is a history which she had published about Bemiston, a textile milltown in Talledega. Since June I've spent pretty much all my time writing articles for examiner.com as their Santa Cruz Drug Policy Examiner. This has brought me more than a little attention, and a some talk of a book, but it has meant no time for genealogy. I can only spend a few days more on genealogy before I must return to writing articles for Examiner.com, and perhaps a book.

Reflections

I've been pretty harsh on Santa Cruz in my writing over the past couple of years, much of it deserved. But lately I find myself grateful for things such as the backpack I was given some years ago. It is still in excellent shape and is perfect for my laptop.

When I found myself homeless in Santa Cruz the first thing I did was buy a laptop, thinking I was not going to get housing through ordinary channels and my best bet was to get on the internet. The local library limited the time you cold spend on the internet to one hour a day, which really wasn't enough time to do anything.

Evidently the charitable folks involved with homeless services didn't take kindly to my purchase of a laptop after sleeping on church floors 3 days a week for six months. Their attitude seemed to be that if I could afford a laptop and marijuana I didn't need their help.

What followed was three years of homelessness.

I guess I spent three years on the local forum (now "hidden" from public view) telling anyone that cared exactly how horrible it was to be homeless in this town. Most of what I remember is an incessant excess of abuse and character assassination, but there were people who did try to help, though none of them offered me a place to stay while I got my act together.

But there was the backpack, and a jacket, and a tent, and a duffel bag, and a sleeping bag, and other things. And now I do remember those things and the other attempts to help and show kindness.

Karen bought me a cell-phone when mine was lost or stolen. And she got me a storage space in Santa Cruz and moved my things from Hayward to Santa Cruz.

It's been over a decade now since I became a medical marijuana patient in 1995. When The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 passed I thought I would be able to find a place, grow my own, and be left alone. I certainly never intended to end up homeless for three years.

If you ask me, being homeless is worse than being in jail.

It's been a year-and-a-half now that I've been housed. It's a single room in an old motel. There's no kitchen, only a bathroom. No pets. No visitors after 10pm. No large appliances as the wiring is old and can't handle large loads. No possibility of growing.

And no possibility of ever getting out and into anything better that I can see.

Santa Cruz is no place for poor people. It brings to mind the old saying, "If you want a good marriage don't marry a beautiful woman". But it does have it's good points, there are some decent and kind people here.

Things are happening so fast in the medical marijuana movement it's difficult to keep track. There have been two court decisions in California that are significant.

Firstly, in a case from Butte County, the California Appellate Court determined that the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 is not simply an affirmative defense to criminal sanctions:

[W]e see an opportunity for an individual to request the same constitutional guarantee of due process available to all individuals, no matter what their status, under the state Constitution. The fact that this case involves medical marijuana and a qualified medical marijuana patient does not change these fundamental constitutional rights or an individual's right to assert them."

This case has been hailed as establishing the right of patients to bring civil suit against the state for violating Proposition 215.

The bad news is that a court has ruled it is not a violation of Proposition 215 for a city to ban dispensaries, such as Claremont has. Based on this it appears cities across the state are going to attempt to ban dispensaries. Examples that come to mind are Los Angeles and Lake Forest. The Los Angeles Times announced that the Los Angeles city attorney and county district attorney have decided that purchasing marijuana at dispensaries is illegal and intend to stamp out dispensaries that buy, rather than grow, their supply.

In Lake Forest the city is attempting to shut down 14 dispensaries. This story is being repeated up and down the state.

In June, as the result of an undercover sting, Dr. Robert Sterner had his license to practice medicine suspended and was put on three years probation. He will appeal the decision.

In Santa Cruz the trial of Michael Clifford of Pacific Coast Co-Operative is underway, currently being continued. And the trial of Roger Mentch is set to begin 16 Nov 2009 in Santa Clara Superior Court Department 24. This is the third time Roger has gone to trial over medical marijuana. In the last trial the Santa Cruz District Attorney argued that in order to qualify as a medical marijuana caregiver one must do more than provide marijuana. If this standard is upheld it will put most dispensaries and collective out of business and send most patients to the black market.

In San Diego, Donna Lambert's motions for dismissal have been denied and she is set for trial for 7 felonies on 7 Dec 09.

Jack Herer, who suffered a heart attack 3 minutes after speaking at Hempstalk in Seattle, is now off life support and it appears he will live.

WAMMFest incident videos

Pretty much all of my writing for the past several months has been on Examiner.com. Click on the title of my previous blog entry for a list of my most recent articles.

WAMM has an annual fundraiser in the park for years now. Several years ago the city banned smoking in the park. Last year WAMM requested, and received, a lifting of the ban for 5 hours so medical marijuana patients could smoke in a tent.

This year the exemption was denied by the city council. Their excuse was that no one had asked them to put it on the agenda and they could not, by law, change the agenda within 72 hours of the meeting.

While I have some real problems with making patients go into a tent to smoke, I went to WAMMFest on the 26th to support WAMM.

When I left the park to smoke a cigarette I was harassed and rousted.

I was sitting in the only place in the shade where you could sit that was anywhere near the event, which was a low wall around the county building. Before I had finished my cigarette a van pulled up, stopping in front of me, and about 5 young men got out, throwing tarps on the pavement in front of me.

They informed me they had to rake behind me and I had to leave, and began raking pine cones and straw on me.

Now, it was a Saturday afternoon and they had to rake the only place near the event where you could sit down in the shade and smoke? Realizing what was happening, I tried to record the incident with my phone. The following videos are the result.

Unfortunately,the videos only seem to be viewable in Windows Media Player. Windows Classic, Windows Home Cinema, Realplayer, Winamp, and Quicktime do not play the video portion of the recording, though they do appear to play the audio.

Smoking:

http://www.palmspringsbum.org/bin/WAMM-smoking-01.3gp

http://www.palmspringsbum.org/bin/WAMM-smoking-02.3gp

This video shows the dirt they raked onto the wall so no one could sit there.
http://www.palmspringsbum.org/bin/WAMM-smoking-03.3gp


The event was deluged with signature gatherers but they didn't seem to know there were three initiatives gathering signatures to get on the ballot or which one they represented. I could not tell from the language on the petition which one it was and they would not let me have a blank signature page nor allow me to take an image of the language. This is what happened when I tried to talk to them about it.

Initiative signature gatherers:

http://www.palmspringsbum.org/bin/WAMMFest-signature-01.3gp

http://www.palmspringsbum.org/bin/WAMMFest-signature-02.3gp

What video there is only works in Windows Media Player. It doesn't show in Windows Classic, Windows Home Cinema, Quicktime, Realplayer, or WinAmp.