I am adding my own imagination on the life and time of the early Cist family members. I have looked at the Cist family album with my mentor again. There was a brotherhood, a family story. Why is there an African- American gentleman sitting in one of eight LaBoiteaux chairs playing a banjo and singing. This person was family. It is very plausible that there were times that Lewis J. Cist would wait for a family member under a covered bridge. Cist could have gone fishing in the river stream and left salted fish there for a future arriving family member to eat. If there were no fish to be caught that does not mean that there was not family love. It meant that the individual had to make his own way to feed himself before the next meeting under a covered bridge. It did not mean that Lewis J. Cist did not care for the arriving person. It just meant that the arriving person had to fish for themselves. Wagons that used covered bridges particularly in Ohio and Pennsylvania were used to hide individuals, both run away slaves, indentured servants, and persons who just did not want to be seen. There could have been white, black, male, or female.
According to Mr. Bill Caswell, founder of the project and president of the National Society of the Preservation of Covered Bridges, mentions that there are six states that have covered bridges with a concentration being in Pennsylvania, 212; Ohio,150; Vermont, 101; Indiana 92; New Hampshire, 57; and Oregon, 48. Caswell noted that 670 are historic, defined as those built for economic necessity.
Covered bridges were not new to the United States of America during the 19th century. According to the article, the Chinese used different construction techniques for pedestrians usages as far back as the 1500's. Additionally, the Europeans used covered bridge concepts during the Middle Ages.
As early as 1787, the first issue of the Columbian Magazine, an unknown builder offered details for a bridge, but it was not materialized. Remember Charles Cist during the 1780's in Philadelphia? He new these plans. I am still researching that Cist was involved in the early stages of the National Road project when he was in Philadelphia for the hot air ballon ride.
Timothy Palmer , a housewright from Massachusetts, patterned a design known as the Palmer truss. A contemporary of Palmer's, also helped to expand covered bridge technology. Burr had the Burr truss design and earned contracts to build covered bridges in Pennsylvania and New York state. These names are names that are connected with the continuation of moving westward.
There was a generation that concentrated on clearing trees for roads and bridges. Some of the Cist children and other children from the family album spent many years cutting lumber for these covered bridges. It was a community effort. I am remembering the hard work that these individuals must have went through to help the next generation build a better transportation system.
This photo was taken at the Springfield Ohio Historical Society. This is an example of the type of Conestoga wagon that was used on roads and covered bridges for transportation.
November 2, 2018Andrew C. Allen
pewabic34 at gmail.com
"Your grandpa is made of chocolate!" stammered my amazed friend at the age of four after
meeting my grandparents. I was five and didn't think much of it at the time because that was just
Andy being silly. Of course, my grandfather wasn't actually made of chocolate. His skin is just
darker than Andy's and mine.
My father is a pure, pale German and my mother is a sun-kissed Hungarian like my
grandmother. My grandfather (whose blood my mother and I don't share) is black. Since I grew
up surrounded with an array of skin colors next to me in all of my family pictures, when it came
to skin color I always thought "So what?" the difference did not phase me any more than
different shades of a suntan. As the years went by and my friends met my grandfather or uncle,
they were usually confused. And perhaps the most interesting part was that I was confused as
to why they were confused. This is my family. This is my mother, my uncle, father, grandfather
and here we are - a united family - what's the confusion?
I began to understand their confusion as time went on and society's thoughts on race became
apparent. One of the more memorable examples came in high school when a classmate saw
my family gathered together after a school event. He looked confused and asked me who the
men talking to my parents were. When I told him they were my grandfather and uncle, my friend
looked me up and down, looked back at my family to assess, and then back to me. With a nod
of confirmation and approval, he smiled and said, "I can see it," before walking away. He saw
my suntanned, Hungarian and German skin as something it wasn't just so his mind could justify
the label of "family" that encompassed all the colors of my family. I might not have my
grandfather's blood running through my veins or his same skin color, but he is my grandfather.
He was the one that taught me the magical combination of bananas and Ginger Snap cookies.
He was the one at my soccer games, choir concerts, and school plays.
Years went by, I got older, I continued to unintentionally confuse people with my family pictures,
and slowly a question started to circle within my mind. We are a united family now, but what
were my ancestors doing decades ago? When the lines of race and segregation were drawn in
the sand, where did each ancestor stand? I am certain that my grandfather is a descendant of
slaves, but I don’t know if my Caucasian ancestors owned slaves or dealt in the slave trade.
And if they did, what does that mean for me? To come from a bloodline with slave masters and
to be in a multiracial family would either be a twist of cruel irony or poetic justice.
I have not managed to trace my German ancestry very far back, but I do know that both sets of
my great grandparents on my fathers’ side came to American from Germany. Sometime after
that, my grandparents managed to find one another and have three, very German children. I
don’t know much about my Hungarian background except that it is from my grandmother on my
mother’s side. I also know that at least one of my ancestors came as an immigrant to New York
and I can still see his name on Ellis Island’s records. I can’t imagine what that journey must
have been like or what that first look at the early United States could have inspired. What had
my ancestors escaped? What freedom did Lady Liberty promise to them? Did she keep her
promise? When my ancestor’s on my grandfather’s side came to American, they also arrived on a ship.
But their journey was far worse than whatever my German or Hungarian ancestors encountered.
They were not excited or hopeful. Their lives were changed, and not for the better
after that long voyage.
I’ve lived my life as a modern, Caucasian woman with freedom in so many ways. I’ve had the
freedom to vote, freedom to get an education, freedom to choose the careers I wanted, freedom
to live where I wanted and how I wanted to. I’ve had both outsiders and friends presume the
hardships, or lack thereof, myself and my ancestors have had based on my skin. But my skin
color does not reflect that of all of my ancestors. It doesn’t suggest the hardships of so many of
my ancestors. It does not show the lack of freedom many of my ancestors had centuries or even
just decades ago. My skin does not hint at the prejudice some of my living family members still
deal with regularly.
Since there are still many questions surrounding many of my ancestors, I hope to learn more
over the coming year as I connect more with family patriachrs and matriarchs in an effort to
create as complete a family tree as possible.
On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 6:30 PM Andrew Allen <pewabic34@gmail.com> wrote:
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