Sleeping in the Trees

Saturday night was incredibly exciting at my house. Instead of the history channel once more supposing how aliens were behind ancient history, they had a program about Benjamin Franklin. I mean this old gal knows how to roll.

Add to that a surf over the internet to read about his son and descendants and I find myself looking up ancient history of my dad's family. I always start with Big John McDuffie who was my great great grandfather. He was born February 22, 1822.  My grandmother was born January 1888. My dad was was born December 4, 1925. My grandfather was born around 1867. I know he died on May 6, 1944 and is buried in the Marietta Veteran Cemetery. His name was Benjamin Franklin Bennett.

I've had scant knowledge of his family. I know those Bennetts came out of Morgan County Georgia.

What really piqued my interest was Big John's wife's history. Usually women are a dead end in history. She was a Stephen's before she married. Her family dated backed to Massachusetts with one ancestor Stephen Hall born in 1628. What was cool was I could see where the family dated back to the Norman conquest of England. Pretty distant relations I know.

I could not sleep with the realization that the stories of settling in Georgia I heard from my father could have been the stories of the original English settlers in Massachusetts.

The main story I remember is the first night something scared the animals the first night they came. The men found what was scaring the animals and it was a panther. The first building they built was a barn for the animals and they slept in the trees for safety.