Celebrating the life of Charles Cist in Philadelphia, April 18 & 19th, 2017.

This blog has helped me locate long lost descendants of Charles Cist. I have made reservations at the Wyndham Hotel, 400 Arch Street, downtown Philadelphia, during April 18 & 19th grand opening of the Museum of the American Revolution. Cist family history can help enrich the already planned exhibits at the museum. I plan on bringing Charles Cist's cherry wood Philadelphia walking stick, a signed copy of Continental currency that Charles Cist signed when he was acting treasurer during a session of the Continental Congress, and Cist family photo album from 1800's. This is the first showing of many items to the general public. Come and learn more to enhance your own tour of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, PA.

You do not need to be a descendant of Charles Cist to visit the Wyndham Hotel just an enthusiast of American History.  There will be an informal gathering to share and discuss American Revolutionary War history.

I have joined the email list of The Journal of The American Revolution. This blog can add value added insights into history, culture, war, economics, and other conflicts concerning Cist.

More information to follow in upcoming blog posts! Make your itinerary travel plans now. Support this new Smithsonian museum. The address is below.
The American Revolutionary War Museum
103 South 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA.  19106
Recommend to call first # 215.253.6731
by
Andrew C. Allen
pewabic34 at gmail.com
02/28/2017

New Museum of American Revolution to open April 19th, 2017.

Attention readers! A new museum in downtown Philadelphia, PA is planning an opening, April 19, 2017. Museum of the American Revolution is accepting donations to preserve collections for generations.
More information:
Museum of the American Revolution
101 South Third Street
Philadelphia, PA  19106
Toll free: 1.877.740.1776


Andrew C. Allen
pewabic34@gmail.com

David Allen Piatt video/ Interview

DAVID:          Oh, technology.

ANDREW:     We are here in Manchester, Ohio with David Allen Piatt and he's about to give a presentation about his Ohio ancestors, and here's David.

DAVID:          Like I said -- like Andrew said, we're here in Manchester Island.  Actually, this is called Twin Islands now.  The islands came into the Piatt family's possession after the Revolutionary War.  They were given -- soldiers were given a thousand acres and then some of the commanders were given more lake region stuff, and so that's how this part of it's that we owned land on the Ohio side.  The Piatt family was (indiscernible) in Ohio.  The Piatt family was in Kentucky.  As a matter fact, most of the Piatt's were actually in Kentucky and farmed the fields and bottoms on the Kentucky side of the river as much as they did over here.  In this -- actually geographically, there was not as much bottom ground on the Ohio side.  We had to go up on top of the hills to get up to where the flat was, in Ohio.  So this was a lot easier in Kentucky to farm and get to the river for shipping and putting stuff on the flat bottom boats and stuff. 

The family lived here and had a -- pretty much a huge, big square, a three-story house that sat in the middle of what was at the time a hundred and eighty acre, one big island and stuff.  It was that way for years and years.  The 1913 flood, some of the others had been in the -- on the island and stuff, hadn't been around the house and things.  But the '37 flood, which was the one that really, you know, affected the family the most was when the water came up in '37, it came up quickly.  It was in January.  It was a muddy, mar -- a mess, everything, and they moved things, like they always did, to the second level so if the river came up and got in the first level --well, then the water kept coming so they ended up moving everything to the third level.

But when they would move things to the third level, they evacuated the family and got the family and stuff out of here.  And within just a few hours, the water was already above the second level and then, finally it went into the third level and then finally over the house, at 70-some feet through here in this area, which the water was from mount -- hill to hill.

When the flood went down, the '37 flood was over, the house had washed up -- the main home had washed away.  The -- there were 13 cabins that the -- some of the slaves that had been freed were -- still lived there with the family and stuff on the island and helped take care and cooked and things like that.  They were never treated as slaves.  They were just -- they were there and were allowed to stay.  And some of them -- we had talked about the Underground Railroad.  Some of them were actually from the Underground Railroad that just came there and stayed on the island and helped farm and things like that.  Kind of like a sharecropping version of what would we call them today.

When the water went down, the island was about half the size it was originally and it was two islands.  It -- the -- it washed through the center of it and stuff.  There had always been a gully there but it washed it two -- and now there's two separate islands in the Ohio River.  So that's pretty much what you find today, is the two Twin Islands.

In 1978, the Department of -- well, the state of Ohio first came in and approached the family about turning it over to the state of Ohio.  Being in -- on the Ohio River, it was a Corps of Engineers kind of a thing where they kept having to make the channel and blah blah blah.  So the state wanted the island, so the island ended up coming into the hands of the state of Ohio.  And then soon after that, the federal government turned it into a national wildlife preserve.  So this is actually our protected federal lands now where they -- for the bird sanctuaries and stuff like that, that live on the island and stuff. 

So pretty much the islands were in our family until 1978, from the Revolutionary War times when they were granted to some of the family.

Now, we're going to leave here and we're going over to the Manchester Cemetery that's in the middle of town and we're going to look at some of the Piatt family that's buried over on this side of the river.  There's also more family on the Kentucky side.  In the Ohio, there was no requirement for marked graves, so there's actually several homesteads that go off of the sides that we don't have marked graves on that we know where the -- what they call the hearthstones, where some of the original cabins and things were actually at.  The stones have survived.  So there's some different cabins and things around this area. 

But the families were large families.  They had lots of kids to manage and farm all this property.  You know, you're talking a horse and a mule and farming thousands of acres of bottomland --

ANDREW:     And David, you mentioned that some of your ancestors had eighteen or twenty-one kids?

DAVID:          Right.  Got my -- my grandfather was one of twenty-one, and his dad was one of eighteen.  Four wives.  They lost -- had been married and lost four wives in childbirth, which was a pretty much common thing back in that day.  And then they just married somebody else and started having more kids with the next wife and stuff.  So my grandfather was actually -- he had twenty-one brothers and sisters.  He was only related to three of them.  But the family farm outside of Vanceburg (phonetic) going Route 8 is still there where Rick -- Don Piatt -- not the one from Ohio -- the Don Piatt that was my grandfather's brother, immediate brother.  The family -- his family still lives in those houses over on the Kentucky side of the river.  Actually, right now, I know six homes all the way down through St. Paul that were actually originally Piatt homesteads that are all still there where these kids got married, had families and built houses right there on the farms.  So they owned everything for miles down the river and there's a lot of that stuff still there.

ANDREW:     I see.  Well, thank you.  I'm moving down toward the river to take a closer look at the other shoreline. 

DAVID:          This is actually the narrow part of the river.  It's much wider on the other side.  It's fairly narrow between the two islands but it opens up far more on the Kentucky side.  And then before the dams were built in the '50s, you could actually, most of the time, take a horse and wagon right across to the island.  So it was quite easy to -- it's not like you had to cross all this water.  Many, many times during the summers, the Ohio River would be dry.  There'd be no navigation possible on the Ohio River because they weren't (phonetic) anything.  They built dams in the '20s that brought up -- they could control some of the water level, but the bottom line was most of the time, over on the Kentucky side you could just ride that wagon right across for months during the summer and --

ANDREW:     I see.

DAVID:          -- and there was no water.  So…

ANDREW:     I see.  Well, let's go to the cemetery.

(End of recording.)

I made this video to show connections between Henry M. Cist who was Donn Piatt's lawyer in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Underground Railroad was a close community who helped with the Abolitionist Movement. It makes sense to me that the Piatt family trusted Mr. Cist with there real estate holding and other personal legal concerns. Henry M. Cist and Donn Piatt and Lewis J. Cist made trips together to the opening of the Chicamaqua Battlefield Museum in Georgia. Lewis J. Cist used this time and personal connections to acquire many Civil War soldier's autograph and personal stories to preserve. This has been documented in the auction catalog from Bang's Co. in New York City in 1886-87 . My reference copy has all the hammered auction prices for each catalog. 

Possible escape routes from Siberia and throughout Europe for Charles Cist

I belong to the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada. This is a fancy name for a stamp collector. A previous visit to the Vincent Greene Foundation in Toronto led me to think how about this question. How did Charles Cist escape from Siberia? How did he make his way through Europe and land in Philadelphia in the 1760's? Mail- Couch Men of the Eighteenth Century, by Edmund Vale and David Charles gave me illustrations on how mail was carried. Back then if someone needed a ride, the driver would be open to the idea of extending a helping hand. In modern society, the insurance rules and regulations and the suspension of people usually do not give rides to strangers these days. There are exceptions. On page 77 there is a picture of a mail couch. It has space for an individual or two.

Additionally, Transatlantic Paddle Steamers, by H. Phillip Spratt provided further information about mail  and the time involved with travel (possible human shipments). In 1492 in took Columbus three months to cross the Atlantic. In 1710 a British company, Black Ball Line, went from New York to Liverpool. It took twenty-three days east wind and forty days west wind to cross the Atlantic. Piecing together blocks of information on mail routes from Philadelphia to St. Petersburg and back is a challenge that I am working on at the present time.

Possible questions to think about during research. Captains of ships usually had a doctor on board the ship. As the family story that has been passed down in generations would suggest that as a fugitive from Russia, Cist was on a ship to cross Atlantic. Did he go as an unregistered doctor? Did an accident occur that forced his hand to divulge to the captain that he was a doctor in order to save a life? Did Cist keep quiet in order to preserve his safe passage to America?  This is another reason why I am enjoying this blog. Truth can be stranger than fiction.

Free will donations can be made to my paypal account or snail mail donations to
Andrew C. Allen
1841 West Main Street, #212
Troy, OH  45373
pewabic34@gmail.com

Henry M. Cist and Piatt family connections

I have had speculative ideas that the Cist family and Piatt families knew each other and did business dealings together as well. Some of the connections have been that Charles Cist from Philadelphia taught his offspring to continue the ideas of freedom, liberty, study natural sciences, and the American dream.
My notes includes that Charles E. Cist, editor and librarian from Cincinnati knew the Piatts because the Cists moved to College Hill (suburb of Cincinnati) and Donn Piatt married Ella Kirby. The Kirby family is a very well known College Hill name. I have visited Piatt Castles in West Liberty, Ohio. I can image the parties on the front lawn of Mac-O- Cheek castle.
Henry M. Cist was a lawyer and secretary of many alumni meetings at Chickamauga after the Civil War.
I have read excellent proof of more connections from Donn Piatt Gadfly of the Gilded Age ,by Peter Bridges. I did not know that Henry M. Cist was Ella and Donn Piatts lawyer who handled the Piatts real estate and family legal issues. On pages 176-178 the book talks about the different promotions to brevet brigadier general to Henry M. Cist, real estate dealing with Piatt, and the collaboration of the biography of George H. Thomas. I thought that Cist wrote his own book about George H. Thomas and Donn Piatt wrote his own book about Thomas. Either way it is more proof that Cist and Piatt worked together on preserving history about the Civil War. Henry M. Cist was also the author of The Army of the Cumberland.
In Donn Piatt Gadfly to the Gilded Age , Mr. Bridges writes that Cist and Piatt traveled to Chickamauga together by train for reunion visits. During my personal visit to the battle site of Chickamauga I asked the tour guide "How long did it take for soldiers to travel from Cincinnati to Chickamauga" The guide's response was about a week, by foot, by horses, by train. This part is speculation, but with more research I can find proof that Henry M. Cist's brother, Lewis J. Cist (also from Cincinnati) used this connections with Donn Piatt to gather more autographs for Lewis J. Cist world renowned autograph collection. The reunions of the Grand Rebellion (Civil War) was an idea place to gather letters and autographs of soldiers both famous and not so famous. One aspect of the Cist autograph collection was that Lewis was all inclusive by including different individuals levels of accomplishments, both men and women. Cist also had Sarah Bryan Piatt and John J. Piatt autographs, both well-known poets. Lewis J. Cist was a published poet himself.
In conclusion, it is a goal to leave the reader with questions on how your life can have meaning and value. The after math of  Civil War battles are still influencing lives and shaping influences with families today.
What "Civil War battles" are you having with yourself as an individual in today's society, work relationships, family relationships, volunteer relationships, marriage relationships. In church services through the years I have learned about physical bondage, spiritual bondage, financial slavery. If you do not like the way your "quilt of life design" is going, you have the right to change the pattern of the quilt design in your life. We all have value and meaning. I hope you find more positive connections in your life.
Andrew C. Allen
pewabic34@gmail.com

Philadelphia Trip Summer 2016

My trip to Philadelphia proved challenging. I have learned about a Benjamin Rush medical herb garden and the founding members of the Mutter Physician Museum. Charles Cist graduated from the University of Halle, Germany and studied and planted medical herb gardens in Germany and while living in St. Peters burg, Russia.
Additionally, during my visit to the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, OH there was an exhibit of the Spencer art work. In the exhibit it mentioned a Benjamin Rush Spencer from Philadelphia who moved to Cincinnati, OH during the 1840's. This corresponds with the timing of Charles E. Cist mover to Cincinnati, Ohio. Charles E. Cist was the son of the Philadelphia printer Cist. I believe that the two families knew each other. Below are photos of an example of a book press, Benjamin Rush medical herb garden, and the main entrance to the Mutter Musuem.

Lewis J. Cist quotations from Ohio and Her Western Reserve, by Alfred Mathews

I am  using the Troy, Ohio library system and I have found  a book titled, Ohio and Her Western Reserve, by Alfred Mathews. It is still a custom for an individual to produce a poem to commemorate an event or a battle of some type and present it to the crowd.  Lewis J. Cist was a poet, insurance agent, bank teller, and autograph collector.

On page 51 and 127, are listed two poems that he produced.
Page 51 reads:
Through a long warfare rude,
With patient hardihood,
By toil, and strife, and blood,
The soil was won.
Lewis J. Cist

On page 127:
New England well may boast
The band that on her coast,
Long years ago,
Their Pilgrim anchor cast--
Their Pilgrim bark made fast--
Mid winter's howling blast
And driven snow.
Long since hath passed away,
Each Pilgrim hoar and gray,
Of that lone band;
Yet where their ashes lie
Sprang seeds that shall not die,
While ever yon blue sky
Shall arch our land!
Sons of that Pilgrim race
Were they from whom we trace
Our Buckeye blood.
Lewis J. Cist