Category: Modern History

Compiled by Eric Benjamin Lawton 2008 A brief historical introduction: Eurpean settlement at the Cape of Good Hope began in 1652 when the Dutch East India Company sent a small group under the leadership of 33 year-old Jan Van Riebeck to establish a victually station on the long sea route to the East. Although the settlement became permanent and grew […]

Written By: Leo Lawton March 26, 2011 The sounds of rolling thunder fills the air of the nation,A cry of dispair comes from the founders of this creationA family against family, brother against brother;For a war has begun, a war like no other. Wayne Bengston George W (Ware?) Lawton was born October 12, 1806 somewhere?, but I don’t know the […]

Written By: Leo Lawton Born and raised by my parents, I knew them well during their lifetimes. I also knew my father’s father, and my mother’s mother. I knew nothing of their ancestors. In my adult years I was curious about my ancestry, but like so many others I was far too busy living to research dead kin. Then came […]

Written By: Leo Lawton February 2, 2021 Philo Lawton of Chaumont, Jefferson County, New York, born in 1818 married Catherine Clark of the same village in 1853, and by 1864 they had five children born unto them. I’ve never found it so, but I believe Philo was probably a victim of the Civil War that had been raging for several […]

Written by: Leo Lawton At age 16, in 1860, Nancy Fletcher married Thomas Morton in Iowa. In mid 1864 Thomas, in partnership with Nancy’s brother William Fletcher and their cousin John Fletcher, set out on an extended freight shipping trip to Denver, hundreds of miles west through Indian Territory. Nancy, not yet twenty, went along on the journey. They wended […]

Written by: Leo Lawton During the years from 1868-1878 The Country of Cuba was in a Revolutionary War with Spain called the ten years war. In 1872 the following 5 people were registered with the US Consulate at Havana, Cuba. Harriet L Lawton, Henry Douglas Lawton, Hester Lawton, James Marsland Lawton, and Lucia L Lawton. It is unknown what, if […]

Written By: Leo Lawton The search for ancestry where often few records exist. A great deal of the research for this article was completed by Jeanette Williams of Florida. The Lawton Ledger, and its readers, is eternally grateful to her for sharing with us. The information for this article was extremely difficult to research, and may possibly prove to have […]

Written by: Leo Lawton On February 27th I wrote a little about Sylvester A Lawton of Lyme, Jefferson County, New York being hung for his participation in the Battle of the Windmill during the Patriot War in Canada. Here is a bit more about another Lawton, also caught up in the Patriot War, from a different perspective. George Lawton was […]

Written by: Leo Lawton Charles Bourne Lawton was born in 1771. About 1800 Charles wed Anne Featherstonehaugh who died in 1814. Charles had become quite infatuated with a young lady named Mariana Belcombe while Anne was yet alive, and married her in 1816. Mariana was born in 1790, so was nearly 20 years younger than her husband. Upon the death […]

Written By: Leo Lawton Winborn Wallace Lawton, always known as Wallace, was born January 31, 1837. He was the great grandson of William Lawton the first known Lawton in the South Carolina low country along the Atlantic Coast. Wallace’s father, Winborn, had established The Hundred Pines plantation on James Island, across the Ashley River from Charleston before the War of […]