The Peasants are Revolting and Pea Safety

I've been away from the blog for a few days researching Easton's Revolutionary War veterans. You may remember I got a list of about 60 people buried in Easton who had flags on their graves for Revolutionary War service. The problem was to verify their service and find more veterans for a potential monument. Using Chaffin's History, the list of potential warrior Eastonites grew to over 400. Then the problems started. If the militia included men from 16 to 60, then a grandfather could be serving with his grandson, and, of course, they could  have the same name in a time when folks weren't always consistent with adding "Junior" or "the third." Then there is the fact that a certain percentage of my "suspects" weren't Eastoners. Two categories here: folks enlisted to fill out quotas who could come from quite far away and neighbors on our borders who found it more convenient to serve with our militia rather than their own.

How am I solving the puzzle? Lists, lists upon lists, and more lists. Right now you are on the monument if you were included in the 1771 tax evaluation, were included in Chaffin's History for service, and were a family head here in the 1790 census. You're also in if you have a service record, were here either in 1771 and 1790 and you're buried in Easton according to Melanie Deware's indispensable list. If you were a Randall included in Rev. Chaffin's genealogy of that family, and the good Reverend confirms your birth and service and knew where your mortal remains were planted you're in also.

Using these criteria we now have about 100 potential veterans (although we still need to sort out fathers and juniors) with another hundred with two out of three criteria. Unfortunately, that leaves about two hundred more men with a service record and nothing else. The answer, of course, is more lists. There's a 1757 militia list, a 1776 census, and a 1777 militia list still to be added. The latter two are "missing" in the Historical Society's fireproof safe which is a miniature version of the warehouse where Indiana Jones' Lost Ark is stored. There are also tax books from the Revolutionary era that are spending a few days in my living room guarded by the ever vigilant Maggie.

Here's an interesting article from The Smart Set, a magazine from Drexel University. It details the plant experiments of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. Bose was one of the pioneers in the invention of radio, but the article focuses on his experiments were he hooked up a vegetable to an electrical circle and then interacted with it. The experiments proved that plants like animals react to stimuli in the environment sometimes in surprising ways. For example, he learned that a fresh pea gives off a jolt of electricity equal to a half volt when it dies in boiling water. This means that the typical serving of fresh peas gives off enough electricity to kill you if all the jolts were organized in series!  It's a fascinating article that shows there isn't as much difference between plants and animals as you might think.