November 23, 1728- Thankful Doolittle, wife of Deacon Timothy Tuttle, dies at the age of 40 in Wallingford,
New Haven, Connecticut.
(Thankful Doolittle is my first cousin 9 times removed. Our common ancestor is Abraham Doolittle.)
A large part of the Tuttles in this country are descendants of Thankful Doolittle. On a related line, one of her descendants is the poet
Robinson Jeffers (pictured at left), a great favorite of mine, who lived and wrote about the area I now call my home,
Big Sur and the central coast of
California. Here for your enjoyment, is one of his poems about our magnificent
redwood trees:
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| Only stand high a long enough time your lightning
will come; that is what blunts the peaks of
redwoods;
But this old tower of life on the hilltop has taken
it more than twice a century, this knows in
every
Cell the salty and the burning taste, the shudder
and the voice.
The fire from heaven; it has
felt the earth's too
Roaring up hill in autumn, thorned oak-leaves tossing
their bright ruin to the bitter laurel-leaves,
and all
Its under-forest has died and died, and lives to be
burnt; the redwood has lived. Though the fire
entered,
It cored the trunk while the sapwood increased.
The trunk is a tower, the bole of the trunk is a
black cavern,
The mast of the trunk with its green boughs the
mountain stars are strained through
Is like the helmet-spike on the highest head of an
army; black on lit blue or hidden in cloud
It is like the hill's finger in heaven. And when the
cloud hides it, though in barren summer, the
boughs
Make their own rain.
Old Escobar had a cunning trick
when he stole beef. He and his grandsons
Would drive the cow up here to a starlight death and
hoist the carcass into the tree's hollow,
Then let them search his cabin he could smile for
pleasure, to think of his meat hanging secure
Exalted over the earth and the ocean, a theft like a
star, secret against the supreme sky. |
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