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My Grandfather’s Wooden Chest

By Deborah Spears Moorehead

The work of a carpenter can be a treasure, valued for generations to come.  This was the case for my grandfather William Elmer Smith in regards to a wooden chest that he built. My grandfather’s wooden chest was made to store family and business documentation. The design of his wooden chest was not very ornate, however, the contents of the chest has proven to be a treasure beyond any of my expectations.  

William Elmer Smith was born January 20, 1879. He died February 1, 1929, twenty-nine years before I was born. I happened to acquire his wooden chest and all of its' content approximately sixty- four years after his death.  

As a carpenter my grandfather’s skills were of great value.  He was one of the volunteers that helped build the Seekonk Free Methodist Church.  Most of the Founding Members of the Seekonk Free Methodist Church were my Wampanoag ancestors and relatives.

In 1929, William Elmer Smith, literally caught his “death of cold” when he was working on the roof of the Seekonk Free Methodist church.  Pneumonia could be a deadly disease in 1929.  There were no antibiotics. My grandfather died during the construction phrase of the building of the roof.   My Uncle Dan, William’s son, volunteered along side of his father on the construction of the church and he became sick at the same time as my grandfather.  They said Dan pulled through because he was young and strong and recovered through the fever of his pneumonia.  My grandfather William, however, never saw the Seaconke Free Methodist Church completed in his lifetime.  The building and the church still exist today.

As a carpenter, William had provided well for his family.  The death of William Elmer Smith left a widow and five children in the middle of the Great Depression.  William and Ora Smith had three sons, Daniel, William, and Charles and two daughters, Ora and Rhoda.  Rhoda was approximately five years old when her father died.  Her brother Charles was a toddler.

The economy of America plunged.  The Smith family became poor and stressed.  The ministers would visit to see what they could do to assist in raising the five children.  They would also talk to my Granny Smith about the religious upbringing of her children.  My mother Rhoda, said she would feel embarrassed when she would hear the minister referring to the Indians that didn’t go to church as “heathens.”  After listening to the minister’s remarks, my grandmother relented and began sending her children to church.

Until I was given my grandfather’s wooden chest, I never knew it existed.  Without knowing the consequences of my curiosity, I rescued it from obscurity.   When I first became aware of the existence of the wooden chest, I did not have any expectations of what I might find in it.  I had no idea that the contents would redefine my life and my work.  Preserved amid the vast array of documents and pictures was a hand-written testament of my grandfather's devotion to his savior and faith.  I found in my grandfather’s chest a family album that was filled with genealogy.  His last words are what inspired me to write the book Finding Balance the Genealogy of Massasoit’s People and the Oral and Written History of the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Tribal Nation.  

The history of the chest as it was found at Saint Stephens’ Church begins with my Uncle Willie who inherited his parent’s estate in 1958.   William Martin Smith was born 1917 and died in 1993.  

Long ago, when my Uncle Willie was young driving home one night, another car ran him off the road causing Willie’s car to crash into a barbed wire fence.  As a result of the car crash, tragically Willie’s suffered the loss of one of his eyes and his face was severely scarred from the barbed wire fence. Uncle Willie had a hard time finding a wife after that, and he never had any children.  However, before Uncle Willie died, he made a will.  Uncle Willie's gave his entire estate (which also included some of my grandparent’s belongings), to Saint Stephens’ Church.

Little did I know that my grandfather's wooden chest was part of my Uncle's Willie’s estate.   At Uncle Willie’s funeral, I asked the Saint Stephens’ Church ministers if they would kindly save all pictures for me from my uncle’s estate.  I was curious to see if my uncle had any pictures of my ancestors.   At that point in time, I still didn’t have any idea that my grandfather’s chest existed.  I simply wanted family pictures.  The minister at Saint Stephens Church called me approximately a year after my uncle's funeral.  He remembered my request and didn’t want to throw any pictures away until he knew whether I wanted to come get them.   Fortunately, there was a treasure of pictures inside of the wooden chest.  Saint Stephens’ Church gifted me with my grandfather’s wooden chest with all of its’ precious content.  Uncle Willie had never disclosed to anyone, the accumulation of William Elmer Smith’s careful collections inside of the wooden chest.

When I first opened the chest I found piles of envelopes tied with string that contained carpenter’s invoices and receipts.  As I looked further inside I found old pictures and newspaper clippings.  As I reached in deeper I found a heavy square object.  It was a beautiful leather bound album.  A family bible traditionally is the repository for the dates of births and deaths as known by the family.  In the hands of my grandparents, the Elderkin, Lincoln, Peck, Miller, Slocum, and Smith family births and deaths records and official town certificates were neatly placed in a leather bound album.  The album also included tin-types, newspaper clippings, and photographs.  This album was one of the most important documents in my grandfather’s chest.  Certain documents from my grandfather's chest are one of a kind because the Seekonk, Massachusetts Town Hall burnt to the ground years ago.  In the tradition of a family bible, the album had a list of people’s names inside the front cover that included birth and death dates.  There were also birth announcements on single pieces of paper. The list also recorded the hour a certain person was born and there were also a few lines about the other events of that day of their birth or death. 

I found pictures in my grandfather’s chest of my grandmother, Granny Smith, some when she was young, and some when she was old, and some with captions of her visiting the Mashpee tribe and various other relatives in locations discussed in my book.  Unraveling the mysteries of photographs, documents, and genealogy occupied my curiosity for years.  I painstakingly researched, studied, and conducted interviews, trying to figure out the meanings behind all the information in my grandfather's chest.

There were post cards, invitations, and letters.  I tried to make sense of it all.

I had my work cut out for me!  Daily, I pulled some curious document out of the chest.  I didn't stop investigating the documents and pictures until I was familiar with the story of each person's life.  I wanted to know what were the connections and meaning to certain documents or newspaper clipping.  There are still pictures, newspaper clippings and documents I have yet to connect to the history of my tribe.  An example of the documents that were inside of my grandfather’s chest was a 1907 invitation to a Saint Stephens’ Church function.  The postcard is addressed to my great-grandfather, Charles H. Elderkin.  This postcard brought back memories to me of hearing my mother say, "Don't forget that you are an Elderkin. You are Indian and the Elderkins are “Annawan’s People.”

When I was growing up and from the time I entered elementary school, I was constantly bombarded with questions from my classmates about my Indianess.  I would go home and ask my mother the questions the classmates had asked me.  Besides telling me not to forget we were Elderkins my mother would also tell me that we were Wampanoag and Narraganset.  She answered my questions vaguely and proud, however, I had a lifetime of more questions.  I wanted to know in great detail what happened to our tribe, and I wanted to know where the rest of the tribe was.   I wanted to know what happened to the people who looked like us.  I also asked these questions of Elders.  My questions seemed to make Elders painfully uncomfortable.  My paternal grandparents would change the subject and would ask me to draw pictures of everything in front of me instead of asking questions.  I was so curious because the history that I was taught and read in school pertaining to Eastern Woodland Tribal Nations were obscured and riddled with untruths.   I wanted to know what happened so horrific in our Eastern Woodland Native American homelands that no one was willing to write or talk about it.  I wanted to know the details of what happened to my mother’s tribal nation.  As I matured closer to adulthood the Elders were more apt to answer my questions although it still seemed to be an extremely sensitive and painful subject to discuss. 

In the mid-nineties, I shared the contents and the genealogical documents in my grandfather’s wooden chest with a trained anthropologist named Julie.  Julie's response was encouraging.  While researching a few years later, Julie stumbled on the information in Zeriah Gould Mitchell’s book “Indian history, biography, and genealogy; pertaining to the good sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag tribe and his  descendants.” The genealogy in Zeriah’s book finally revealed what my grandfather protected in his wooden chest.  The information of genealogy, documents and records was directly connected to Zeriah Gould Mitchell’s and led straight to the connection of William Elmer Smith as a descendant of Massasoit.  The documents also showed how the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe stayed together as a Sovereign Nation and continued as a branch of the Royal Bloodline of the Pokanoket Wampanoag Nation.

After decades of research, interviews, documentation reconnections, and investigations, a complete story emerged.   Many of the connecting answers to my question and research were answered by tribal members and within the content of my grandfather’s wooden chest.  I realized that the history I was taught in schools was not aligning with what I, or other Eastern Woodland Native Americans experienced. 

History is usually biased and one sided if it is seen only through one perspective.  It is important that American Colonial history was documented, however, the Colonial versions of American History tends to be one sided.  Finding Balance: The Genealogy of Massasoit's People and the Oral and Written History of the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Tribal Nation opens the conversation that in order to have an accurate history, it is important to know the perspectives of all involved in the documentation of a story.  Finding Balance is the History of the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Tribal Nation, before European contact, and after King Phillip’s War through contemporary times.  Finding Balance is written in the perspective of a Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag woman, balancing the history of the making of United States with a Wampanoag perspective.    With both perspectives the world is presented with a better chance to Find Balance, and accuracy.

William Elmer Smith had a strategy for holding onto the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Tribal Nations’ identity.  Throughout his and my grandmother’s lifetime, my grandparents safely secured all the pertinent documents and genealogical evidence in my grandfather’s hand-built wooden chest.  Without the information given to me from the Saint Stephens’ Church minister and Julie, I would not have had the basis from which the investigation of the relationships and connections to Zeriah Gould Mitchell originated, or the heart-felt reflection of my grandfather’s poetic spirit, soul, and faith.

Although it took me years to understand the significance of the content of my grandfather’s wooden chest, I am blessed that I ended up with it and all the evidence and documentation of our direct bloodline to Massasoit. My grandfather protected and saved the evidence of Massasoit’s descendants for the next seven generations.  Finding Balance is the stories of the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Nation and how they survived through a near genocide. 

I never met my grandfather or my grandmother in person, as they both died before I was born. However, by keeping and protecting the documents from our pasts, my grandfather was looking out for his grandchildren for the next seven generations, long before we were born.


This is an excerpt from Deborah Spears Moorehead's (Wampanoag) book Finding Balance: The Genealogy of Massasoit's People and the Oral and Written History of the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Tribal Nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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