Apthorp Manor

Throughout this process, I want to spend some time detailing specific homes and their architecture. So much history is to be unearthed from 'place', and I feel that in order to honour past lives, it's necessary to visit the homes they built to value the lives they lived in them. The ghosts of lives and... Continue Reading →

January 6, 2019 0

The Children

Herman and Jane Mary had thirteen children. I will place their dates on the timeline page, for the sake of having the information in one place, but I will also provide a snapshot of each one in this post. In time, I may break this record into sections; until then, I apologise for the length.... Continue Reading →

January 3, 2019 6

Early Married Life

This is an under-researched period for me so far. Most of the information I have gathered pertains to Thorn's decade in France and his subsequent return to New York. But it's time that I constructed some kind of timeline, which, at the very least, charts the arrival of their many children. (I will keep the... Continue Reading →

January 2, 2019 2

Where do I Start?

So the reading/researching of this story is the delicious part of this process. I just plunge in and swim around, wallow in the shallows of what is readily available on Google Books and Wiki. Thorn is mentioned extensively in literature of the time. After all, men of his ilk - Astors, Waldorfs, Stuyvesants, Livingstons, and... Continue Reading →

January 1, 2019 5

The Journey Begins

Colonel Thorn Today marks the beginning of the journey of my first creative non fiction piece, a sprawling family saga based on my ancestor Colonel Herman Thorn (1783 - 1859) and his wife, Jane Mary Jauncey and their children. I'm using this blog as a way of organising my thoughts and research material, while I... Continue Reading →

January 1, 2019 7