the Sackett Companion (1992) (19 page)

Philip married a Ruth Bernard and seven generations later Parmalee was born.

Malaby married a girl whose only name was Vanora, and in the fourth generation Daubeny was born.

Daubeny fought in the American Revolution and married a girl named Nata under strange circumstances and they were to have four sons, Mawney, Pym, Regal, and John. Mawney was to marry Fiora Clyde. From them came two sons, Ethan and Colborn, and a daughter, Echo.

*

*

The
Sackett Family Tree
.

'Not all of the Sacketts I have introduced to date appear on this family tree. For example, Mordecai, Macon, and Trulove Sackett, as well as Emily Sackett, her husband Reed Talon, and her children Barnabas, Milo, and four unnamed others are not included. Their exact connection to the rest of the Sacketts remains to be revealed." --Louis L* Amour .

The Firs
t Generations (red type)

Clinch Mountain Sacketts
.

Cumb
erland Hills Sacketts.

Flatlands
Sacketts (black type).

SPECIAL REFERENCES:

1. Robert Macklin's wife is mentioned,
but no
t named in the warrior's path.

2. Yance and Temperance had other
children besides Boyne.

3. Jubal and Itchakomi's unborn child,
referred to in jubal sackett.

4. Pym Sackett and Cindy Larraway had
other children in addition to Falcon.

ANNA PENNEY

TOM

PHNNlY

TEMPERANCE PENNEY

YANCE

BOYNE

BARNABAS

M.HAKOMI

JU'ISAI.

ROBERT

MACM.IN

SHANDY

HUGUETTE

TARBIL

THOMAS

LOGAN

NOLAN

GALLOWAY

And from Colborn and his wife Mary Ann were five sons, William Tell, Orrin, Tyrel, Bob, and Joe.

Pym, Daubeny's second son, married Cindy Larraway, who among others had a son named Falcon.

Falcon married Aleyne Kurbishaw by whom he had a son, Orlando.

Falcon married a second time, to Gin Locklear.

Daubeny's third son John married Willie Mae Calvin, by whom there was a son named Buckley who married Nan MacKaskill.

They had two sons, Flagan and Galloway.

Yance Sackett married Temperance Penney, and his youngest son was Boyne, and in the third generation thereafter was born Shandy Sackett, who married Huguette and fought in the War of the Revolution.

They returned to the Clinch Mountains and after a few years was born Tarbil, who fathered Thomas who sired twin sons, Logan and Nolan.

There is no need now to list the names of the intervening generations, which will be done in due time. These are sufficient for the curious to grasp the relationships of the Sacketts of whom they have read. I have discovered that no sooner do I mention a Sackett than a story is expected, and each must await its time.

Several of those who have attempted, for their own pleasure, to shape family trees of the Sacketts have listed a Seth.

In my story there is no such character although I have mentioned in other places a Seth Sackett who was a real man. Apparently he came west originally with the Baker party, which named the Silverton area Baker's Park, and he returned to establish himself in the Durango area. At this point I know nothing about his life.

It was an interesting coincidence that I decided to move my Sackett family west from Mora, New Mexico and have them settle in the Durango vicinity only to find a real Sackett had preceded them.

As anyone can see, reading these pages, the story of the Sackett family has only begun, and there are many stories yet to be told of the Chantry and Talon families as well.

The people who created what we know as the West almost always came from elsewhere. By the time anyone could grow up in the West the wild old days were coming to an end. Wild Bill Hickok, Long-Haired Jim Courtright, and Bat Masterson were all born in Illinois; Clay Allison and Cullen Baker, among dozens of others, were from Tennessee; Heck Thomas and Doc Holliday were from Georgia, and so it was.

Those who came west brought their songs, their stories, and their memories from Europe or the East. It took time for the West to generate its own stories and to alter the customs of those who chose to live there.

In two of the Sackett stories and at least one of the Chantry stories I have touched on the life of William Shakespeare. At the time of which I was writing he was not a famous writer. In fact he was not known as a writer at all.

He was one of a company of actors, and in that company at least two actors were much better known than he: Richard Burbage and Will Kempe. Shakespeare was only known as a writer by people of the theatre itself, and perhaps a few patrons who patronized the theatre as a hobby and who sponsored various companies of actors so they could exist at all. Early in his London years Shakespeare had published two long poems and perhaps some minor work, but the sales of such items were never enough to cover the cost of publication. For that the printer, not the writer, usually found some wealthy man to defray the costs, and as a result books were often dedicated to these men. In most cases they had no contact with the actual author at all.

It is always necessary when writing of times gone by, whether in the early west or in Shakespeare's England, to judge them by their standards and not ours. Supposedly we speak the same language but actually it is much different and many words have taken on meanings other than those intended by the author. For example there are the stories of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The word "merry" in their time did not mean somebody who was happy or amused. Merry Men in those days meant Bawdy Men, a rather different thing. I surmise that Robin Hood's men were not unlike a bunch of cowboys or mountain men in manners, actions, and language.

Another example might be the word "haberdasher," which in our time means a purveyor of men's furnishings but in Shakespeare's time it meant a school teacher or an usher.

The English language has gone through many changes and when speaking or writing of a period one had best understand the usages of the time.

For some reason the writings of William Shakespeare have been considered by many as something reserved for an intellectual elite, but as a matter of fact he wrote his plays for the common man of which most of his audience was composed. Studies of his audience shows that most of them were artisans and apprentices, not unlike the average movie-going audience of today.

Interestingly enough, his plays were popular in the early west, and at one time in Virginia City, Nevada, several companies were playing Shakespeare at the same time.

Theatre was of great importance in the West and usually there were a dozen companies touring the western cattle towns or mining camps. Theatre then, as now, tends to go where the money is, and the West not only had money to spend but a desperate need for entertainment.

My next story of the Sacketts will probably be one concerning the American Revolution, but who knows what other whim may take me? I can always be led astray by a good story.

*

*

IN THE BEGINNING,
THERE WAS THE STORY. . . .

Undoubtedly demonstration was the first means to education. The primitive child learned to do things by observing his parents or other nearby adults. He or she learned how to build a fire, choose a spear shaft, chip out an arrowhead or prepare a hide by seeing it done. And then came the story. . . .

The story was man's first and best means of transmitting knowledge or information, of preparing the child as well as the adult for what might come. All the sciences had their birth in tales told over a campfire or in some moment of leisure.

The returning hunter or warrior was expected to tell what he had done and how it was done. In so doing he taught others not only how to hunt and trap but how to conduct a war party. No doubt the tales of returning hunters and warriors were not thought of as educational. They were entertainment, theatre, and news.

He may have drawn a map in the dust. "We started from camp when the sun was over our left shoulders, and we entered the forest near the big hollow tree. We walked to the water that falls over rocks into the deep pool, and then we went down the hill to the swamp where we drive the mammoth to kill them."

Here could have been the beginning of geography. It may also have been the beginning of navigation.

The hunter may have told of a hot spring he found, and of a hill where there were chips of flint, and this could have been the beginning of geology.

No doubt at first the accounts were told in the stark details, brief and to the point, while the hunter took great bites from the fresh meat, but such storytelling would not satisfy. Then as now people love drama, excitement, and interesting detail.

The bears or lions he killed would soon become larger and fiercer, the enemies stronger and better armed. To simply win a battle was not enough, there must be detail. "My spear went deep into the flesh near the left shoulder, and it died." Here, perhaps, the beginning of anatomy.

To embellish his stories the hunter and the warrior learned to add details, to describe the setting, to identify it by references to where certain edible plants have been found or where a kill was made, all of which made the stories more interesting to the listener.

The children, as well as others, listening to the stories, learned not only how to hunt and fight but where water might be found, salt and wild rice or nuts might be. So was knowledge passed on to the children, and so was the story begun.

We still, today, learn from stories, and the apt story of anecdote remains in the mind when details are forgotten.

It has often been said that we have but one life to live; that is nonsense. If one reads fiction he or she can live a thousand lives, in many parts of the world or in outer space. One can cross a desert, climb the Himalayas, or experience the agony of defeat, the triumph of victory, the pangs of starvation, or the choking thirst of the desert, all while safely at home.

The book has been man's greatest triumph, his most profound success. Seated in my library I live in a Time Machine. In an instant I can be transmitted to any era of history, any part of the world, even to outer space. Often I am asked in what period of history I would have preferred to live, and I wonder that they do not see, for I have lived in them all. I have listened to Buddha speak, I have marched with Alexander, sailed with the Vikings, or in their double canoes with the Polynesians. I have been at the courts of Queen Elizabeth and Louis the XIV; I have explored the West with Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger; I have been a friend to Captain Nemo and have sailed with Captain Bligh on the Bounty. I have walked in the agora with Socrates and Plato, and listened to Jesus deliver the Sermon on the Mount.

Above all, and the most remarkable thing, I can do it all again, at any moment. The books are there. I have only to reach up on the shelves and take them down and live over again the moments I have loved. Surely, we live today in the greatest moment of history, for at no other time have books been so readily available, in the book stores, in the public libraries, and in the home.

GLOSSARIES

FOR THE SACKETT NOVELS

GLOSSARIES FOR THE SACKETT NOVELS

FICTIONAL AND HISTORICAL

CHARACTERS IN THE
SACKETT NOVELS

Abel, RIDE THE DARK TRAIL

Abreu, Martin, THE DAYBREAKERS

Achilles, TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS

Acho Apache (people), JUBAL SACKETT

Adams, John, RIDE THE RIVER

Adapa, TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS

Africans (people), THE WARRIOR'S PATH

Aiken, THE DAYBREAKERS

Akicheeta, JUBAL SACKETT

Alexander the Great, SACKETT'S LAND

Ali Baba, TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS

Alicia, RIDE THE RIVER

Allah, TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS

Allen, Dodie, THE SACKETT BRAND

Allen, Gabriel, MOJAVE CROSSING

Allen, Skeeter, THE SACKETT BRAND

Allen, Vancouter, THE SACKETT BRAND

Alleyn, SACKETT'S LAND

Allison, SACKETT

Allison, Clay, THE DAYBREAKERS

Alvarado, Drusilla, THE DAYBREAKERS; SACKETT; TREASURE MOUNTAIN;

THE SACKETT BRAND Alvarado, Luis, THE DAYBREAKERS Alvarado (family), THE LONELY MEN Americans (people), JUBAL SACKETT; THE DAYBREAKERS; THE LONELY