ii finally finished, published a book, "puritan leveretts," about some of my ancestors, and immediately upon finishing delved into the next few, which i intended to call "pioneer leveretts." this would be based upon two stories which i will relate. but the stories involved immediately became more complicated upon doing just a little research.

first, there is much less on the web about the early seventeen hundreds, when the story starts. you have these three williams to keep track of - one, parentage unknown, two, walks into chelsea mass, marries the deacon's daughter, and flees to needham, three, the guy dies when his son joseph is six. joseph is our ancestor for sure. joseph is the pioneer, goes from maine to illinois in a stage, farms in illinois.

but to go back to these williams - no record of williams, in any of the towns around boston, and questions abound. the second one married a rachel watts, and down in georgia, some william leverett was doing the same thing, so scant information was getting crossed and repeated through the lines, and some of their kids might be georgian kids, for all i know. two williams, two rachel watts wives, two revolutionary war service records, two sets of kids. one site actually listed poor rachel as being born in mass. but dying in georgia. i don't think so. but stranger things have happened in this world.

but then, wondering why our william would want to whisk his new wife, rachel, off to needham, which was a village to the west of boston, i encountered more surprises. needham included natick, and natick was one of the first praying towns. that is, there were a lot of native americans there, many of whom had converted, and mixed with whites, and were living in the western part of what was then needham, but is now natick. it's possible that this guy had people out there. he seems to be somewhat of a mystery, this william and his father, because his father appears out of nowhere. and the things they say about him, "from woburn," or whatever, could be "from anywhere," since there's no record.

some people have pointed out that there could have been several leverett families in massachusetts in the late 1600's early 1700's. yes indeed. i'm not bound to the assumption that they all came from the same one. when young joseph wrote his memoirs, which are around somewhere, and which i still haven't turned up, he said, it's family story that we're related to the governor, but not the president of harvard. i take this to heart, and take his word.

these pioneers had it tough, although it could just be the rose-colored glasses i look through. young joseph, who cut timbers in the woods near the androscoggin river in maine, what is now livermore falls, hauled these timbers down to portland for use as ship masts in a burgeoning ship industry. he was allegedly being raised by his aunt walker, but there is no sign of aunt walker either in maine or in illinois where they all ended up. of course looking for a walker in the early 1800's is like looking for a needle in a needle haystack, and i could be missing all kinds of things here. they all went out to illinois, in a stage, and started farming the rich soil around quincy, and this was really the beginning of my family, since i can't really pin down these williams, and have no idea if those puritans, thomas, john the governor, hudson, and john the president (not my ancestor) were even real ancestors. the link is broken in the late 1600's/early 1700's with our william, and the witch trials were right around then, and the link between hudson, if joseph is right, and this shadowy william, well, who knows. could be that praying town, i'm kind of figuring.