Maps and Legends

I came across this Historical Map of Chateaugay, NY from an 1876 Atlas of Franklin County, NY It’s got a lot of incredible information in it, largely because it shows the names of businesses and property owners. In District 13 at the top of the page, you can see the name “P. Bradshaw” right underneath the 13. There’s a fair amount to unpack here.

First – how cool is it that our farm was in District 13? Sounds sort of post-apocalyptic.

Second – This map was published in 1876, so it proves that we were living on the family farm as early as 1876. Also there are two dots associated with P. Bradshaw, one near the schoolhouse (SH) on the corner, and one farther East. The dots appear to be buildings or dwellings. The dot near the schoolhouse is definitely the main farm. The dot on the right (East) is right where “The Other Place” was. The building(s) are north of the brook, which puts them right about where dad showed me a low spot in on of the pastures that he thought was a cellar hole.

So – I guess it’s time to rent some ground-penetrating radar equipment and look for the old homestead.

Third – South of “P. Bradshaw” but still in District 13 is “R. Bradshaw”. That would have been Richard Bradshaw, Pat’s brother. There is an anecdote that Pat and Richard’s families would get together every Sunday, and Pat and Richard would go up the hay loft in the barn and polish off an imperial quart of Canadian Whiskey. I can still hear Uncle John telling me that one.

Anyways, this map has enough info for lots more posts.

Stay tuned.

1876 Map Of Chateaugay NY (Click to Enlarge)

May 4, 2017May 4, 2017

Patrick Bradshaw and Wife

“Patrick Bradshaw and Wife” that’s what’s written on the back of this photograph in pencil. Someone in Chateaugay found it and gave it to my sister Angie. I am 95% sure that this is my Great Grandparents Patrick and Johanna (Sweeney) Bradshaw. We can’t be 100% sure, since church records indicate that there was another Patrick Bradshaw in town for a while.

He has my dad’s eyes, and she has his mouth, so I choose to believe these are my great grandparents. In any case, they’re certainly family.

The logo of A.E. Holmes is on the back of the photo. Holmes’s photography studio was located in Chateaugay, so we know this is a local picture.

I would guess that they’re in their early forties which would date the photo to the mid 1880’s.

If I were somehow able to meet these two, I would have many questions, and many things to say, the first of which would be:

“Geez, Pat, button your damn vest.”

Patrick Bradshaw and Wife (Click to Enlarge)

May 1, 2017May 1, 2017

Gaelic’s Last Gasp

From Wiktonary.org:

amadán m (genitive singular amadáin, nominative plural amadáin)

(pejorative) fool

A couple of times I heard my dad use the word “amadan”. He used it in a story (of which I remember no details) describing how his father (or maybe grandfather) had used it as an insult. He pronounced it “omadon”. Omadon sounded like a large, lumbering stupid, plant eating dinosaur, so I though he was just misremembering a dinosaur name to refer to someone who wasn’t too bright.

It turns out that Amadan is the Irish word for fool. I don’t think dad even recognized it as a real word. He certainly didn’t remember it as the last word of the Irish language in our family’s collective memory.

Except…

“Amadan” may not have been the only Irish word in the Bradshaw family lexicon. There is one other word that I hesitate to mention. My siblings and some of my cousins (I’m looking at you Deb Bryant) will remember it.

Bondoon.

There – I said it. Our family’s word for backside, rump, derriere, buttocks. Usually used as a warning : “I’m going to warm your Bondoon” or “If you’re not careful you’ll fall right on your Bondoon”. I remember using it at school, and getting laughed at. No one else had heard the word. There may have been a few Cassidys or Dwyers in town who knew the word, but as far as we knew it was just our family’s nonsense word for buttocks.

Then, one day while wasting time on the internet, I found: THIS LINK. It’s the only reference I have found to the word. In particular, there’s a comment:

“Like others, I came upon this thread after searching for the origin of “bondoon”. My family has been using this word as slang for the butt since my earliest memory. My mother said it started with my great-grandmother who emigrated from Tipperary, Ireland in the 1880’s. So I thought that was interesting because then it dates back a lot further than we thought!

I have a completely unproven theory that this is also a fragment of Irish. About ten years ago, I briefly took an Irish language class. The teacher was a native speaker from the Connemara. He taught us the Irish word for “bottom” which was “Thoin”, pronounced “toon” which among other things can refer to a person’s behind. It’s not too much of a stretch to theorize that it came to be pronounced “doon”. No idea where the “Bon” part came from. If there are any linguistic anthropologists out there who have a lead, I’d love to hear it.

So that’s all there is to this post. People forget words, even entire languages. They stop using words because they get laughed at. A word is spoken for the last time and no one marks the occasion.