Category: Cornwall
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An Inquisition
Evidence is Presented 1. Impaneling a Grand Jury: 16 Jurors. Their role is to verify the evidence for an indictment. Not to weigh guilt or innocence.2. The Attorney General presents the charges he proposed, along with some of the evidence. There was no defense, only an acknowledgment that the evidence…
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Quaker Earl
The Quaker Meeting in Cornwall, NY I generated the audio from an earlier post. Just to see how well it works. Probably could benefit from some finessing. Any helpful criticism is very appreciated.
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New List of Posts
Here is a synopsis of all the posts. I was thinking I hadn’t done enough until I saw how many were here.
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Just Friends
When I started working on The Clove I had no idea that I would be visiting my family’s Quaker roots to the extent that I have. Part of the book deals with a cross-country journey taken by my 5X GGrandfather Ben Earl and his brother Richard. The trip will take…
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August 8, 1778
The date of the robbery at the Earls (and Woodhulls). Right in the middle of a Hudson Valley summer. Claudius Smith was 43 years old and married to Abigail Rumsey (41). They had married in 1762, and Abigail was not the mother of Claudius’s sons and fellow gang members. James…
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Where’s it at?
I love real, physical maps. The digital, super-accurate versions have placed a wealth of information options at the touch of your phone. To me, they are cold and devoid of personality. There’s nothing like the self importance a kid feels unfolding a three-by-four-foot state map when they are in the…
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My historian Dad.
My father, Walter Brophy Earl, didn’t say much. I learned most about him through my Mother or by observing him. He was essentially an eccentric nerd as a young man, helping his parents, Cornwall’s Town Clerks, collecting stamps, and a love of projecting movies outdoors for a neighborhood theater. He…
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License to Thrill?
“The Clove” is my attempt to retell part of the story of Claudius Smith’s notorious gang of terrorists, the latest and probably not the last of historical fictions to deal with the subject. Over the years, there have been more than a few variations on the story. Most published versions I…
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Some background on Claudius Smith
As in all things related to the Smith Gang, take with a grain of salt. SOURCE: “History of Orange County, New York” Ruttenber EM and Clark,LH. (Philadelphia: Everets and Peck, 1881) reprinted 1980 Claudius came to Knight’s Mill’s in the present town of Monroe with his father“where he grew up,…