Hurricanes, New England and History

On the morning of August 15, 1635, off the coast of Pemaquid, Maine a ship, the 250 ton Angel Gabriel, thrashed at anchor. It had arrived at one of the most beautiful harbors on the east coast of the New World the day before and on this morning the crew and passengers were busy off-loading possessions and livestock.

While those with a weather eye may have known that trouble was brewing, none could have guessed that the Angel Gabriel was about to be set upon by a storm that history would call the “Great Colonial Hurricane.”  This is the first great storm recorded by the Europeans who were steadily populating New England and the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard. It was probably a Category 3.  As the colonists frantically sought shelter, a storm of what must truly have seemed like “biblical” proportions closed in on them.  The Angel Gabriel was torn from its moorings and dashed onto the solidly pre-Cambrian rocks of Maine.  Among the immigrants huddled on shore, watching as their only link to the old world sank beneath the gray waves, were Ralph and Elizabeth Blaisdell, and their three year old son, Henry.  These were my maternal ancestors. They had risked all, left the family and home they knew in England, and traveled to a primitive land, burning every bridge behind them.

This tenacious family not only survived, they thrived. Ralph was 43 when he sailed for America. He must have married late in life as his only living child, Henry, was 3 years old. One can presume that his wife, Elizabeth, was a much younger woman.  There is indication that Ralph was both intelligent and industrious, or perhaps the New World brought out the best in him. Ralph packed a great deal of enterprise into the 15 years he had in America before his death in 1653. His children went forth and multiplied, leading, ultimately, to my grandfather Blaisdell and thus to my mother and then me. 

I wish I could watch Ralph and Elizabeth from afar, learn what type of people they were, and, perhaps, ask them a few simple questions.  I would especially like to talk to Elizabeth, because the immigrant women were so often the last to have a say in the ebb and flow of their lives, but the first to bear the burden of those sea changes.

            Not all of our ancestors came here for the same reasons.  Some came involuntarily, others with every hope for a better life.  But we are all here now.  I can take neither credit nor blame for what my ancestors did. The fact that Ralph and Elizabeth had to brave a deadly hurricane doesn’t mean that future generations of Blaisdells on the East coast should be given some cosmic pass on similar trials.  I have control only over what I am party too.  You can not hold me accountable for what my forebears did, good or bad.  Neither do I owe any man because of the actions of past generations, just as no man owes me for past largesse.  We are products of our past, but agents of our future.   When I hear people talk about their lineage as if that past entitles them to extraordinary favor—either because of past injustice or blue-blooded ancestry—I assume that these people don’t want to work for a life of their own, but live on the ghostly memories of someone else’s existence.  That, my friends, is a wasted life. 

            Let’s make future generations proud and keep the faith.