So, as I'm in the middle of all this internet research tonight, checking the possible routes Thomas West could have taken to Ohio in 1809, looking at google maps, calculating mileage, wondering why the hell he left Montpelier, etc., I come across a book entitled "A Journey to Ohio in 1810: As Recorded in the Journal of Margaret Van Horn Dwight." And I'm like... come on, are you kidding me!? So I read a few pages and I'm enthralled. She notes on one stop through Connecticut, "The house is very small and very dirty - it serves for a tavern, a store and I should imagine hog's pen stable and everything else. The air is so impure I has scarcely been able to swallow since I entered the house- The landlady is a fat, dirty, ugly looking creature, yet I must confess very obliging-" Is that priceless or what? So though time consuming to read and research, I think this little Thomas West biography might end up quite good.
Francis West marries Margery Reeves in early 1639 in Duxbury. She is said to be from England, the Isle of Wright specifically. But there's no proof. Early writings about her say she may have come over as a servant of some family, as an unattached woman in the Colony would be unheard of. Additionally, in one writing, Carlton Prince West goes on to say, "no Reeves family, including the possible variants of Reaves and Rives, has been found in the area of southeastern Massachusetts." So she cannot be placed. But I'm confused. It's clear there is another Reaves family (different spelling) living very close by to our Francis and Margery. Not only that, but this other Reaves family has a daughter named Mary Margaret Reaves that marries James Skiffe in 1637 in Sandwich, Plymouth Colony. Though I guess this is suspect too, as Sandwich doesn't appear to be settled until 1639. But what's a few years in early American history? So this James ...
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