Toques si Gaouses is the motto of the American Gentieu family. Pierre adopted it from the town motto of his birthplace at Orthez, Lower Pyrenees, France.
Legend has it that this was the motto of Gaston Febus, Lord of the Pyrenees in the 1300’s, and whose castle was right up the street from the fortified bridge that is pictured here. The castle was directly across from the Gentieu homestead. Another theory is that “Toques si Gaouses” was taken from a children’s game in Toulouse. Either way, it works.
This is the stained glass window that was commissioned in 1929 by Frederic, Pierre’s son, to be installed in the fancy house that he was just completing when the stock market crashed. He lost nearly all of his money in the crash. However, he was able to retire to Ventnor on the Jersey shore, where he died in 1951 at the age of 79.
Illustration from The History of Springfield in Massachusetts for the Young (1921) by Charles H. Barrows
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2,048 mathematical possibilities exist for 10th great grandfathers. So it’s really not that crazy to find out that one of mine was the Puritan William Pynchon, who wrote the first book to be banned and burned in America, in 1651.
William Pynchon graduated from Oxford when he was 11 years old in 1596. “William Pynchon was undoubtedly the best reasoner and the best scholar residing in the colony during the first century,” according to the historian, Henry M. Burt.
Pynchon’s book, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption was a critique of the newly formed society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Calvinism, the dominant religious doctrine of the day. Pynchon wrote that the meritorious price Jesus paid to save humankind and reconcile for Adam and Eve’s disobedience, was obedience to the will of God, and not hell, punishment, and the wrath of God.
The Calvinistic Puritans called Pynchon a heretic and put him on trial. They banned his books and burned them in the Boston Common.
Portrait of William Pynchon by master etcher Louis Orr, 1927
Mural of William Pynchon and the founding of Springfield painted by Umberto Romano in 1937 for the Springfield Main Post Office, now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Office
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Possible end use of Pynchon’s fur pelts in Europe. Etching by Wenceslaus Hollar, 1643
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Pynchon was from an old English family that settled in England with William the Conqueror. He came to America in 1630 with his wife, his son and two daughters, via the Winthrop Fleet. He founded Springfield on the Connecticut River. He had good relations with the Native people, with whom he negotiated the purchase of Springfield and traded beaver pelts. He is called a “Puritan entrepreneur” for his success in the fur trade.
Pynchon would not retract anything in his book. He gave all of his land to his son, John, and returned to England in 1654. He wrote more books on religion, including The Jewes Synagogue. He died in 1662.
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Portrait of William Pynchon from Pinkerton family photo collection
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William Pynchon is the forebear of Anna Hale Buckingham, my great great great grandmother on my mother’s father’s mother’s side.
This valentine was created in 1819 by Anna Hale when she was 24, for her fiance, Alvah Buckingham. Somehow the delicate folded paper snowflake cut-out has survived all these years — almost 200 years. I acquired it from Uncle George. It was tucked away in a plastic sleeve in his family history notebook. A poem with 18 verses is written within each fold, front and back.
Young Alvah Buckingham, pioneer settler in southeastern Ohio, took a trip to Glastonbury, Connecticut in 1819 and met Anna Hale, leader of the village choir. Romance ensued along with a hurried wedding, and one week later they rode horseback together to Ohio to start their new life.
The Powers above cannot pretend
To say I’ve a false story pen’d
In the inside sweet turtle dove
I’ve wrote a Moral of my love
These pretty hearts which you behold
Will break where these leaves unfold
Like a lovesick lover full of pain
Love wounded is and breaks on twain
My dearest dear and blest devine
Those pretty hearts like yours and mine
‘But Cupid has between us set a Cross
Which makes me to lament my love
The little birds sing on each tree
To show happiness and how blest they be
Each one chase his own mate
What pleasure they in such a state
But now to let our hearts have ease
Let them both be joined like these
For mine as true as is the Sun
Set both our hearts be joined in one
When very birds did grace the spring
And tune Alphra Buchanham they sing
Liked these sweet birds let us agree
Nor be so cruel unto me
Blessed the day happy the time
That should cause you to be mine
When first my eyes did you behold
I prized you more than precious gold
If you take it in good part
I shall be glad with all my heart
But if you do the same refuse
The paper burn and me excuse
