No. 18

The Elders in 1765

Stewart,

Your uncle Charles loved to visit with your mother after a meal. He lingered at the table and spread jam thick on bread and talked about their days in Bath, New York and  your elders.

While I cleaned, or acted like I was cleaning, I listened and later kept the stories alive in my head. It was better than the newspaper stories.

Sometimes they didn’t mind if I pulled up a chair and took a piece of bread and tea to ask questions. How I loved your uncle’s laugh. Your mother challenged him sometimes, asking, “Did that really happen? You are making this up!” and she and I would all study his face and make our verdicts known until he started laughing or as his face did not break, for then we knew he was telling the truth.

Then we’d move to the fireplace and talk some more. I’d write it down.

Your uncle enjoyed my admiration, and we had moments between us alone, respectable, but private and completely true. He wanted me to keep his stories, and I promised that I would write them down for him, for you and your brothers, and he sometimes corrected version or even changed the endings, but here they are, as it was something I owed him.

Stewart, your uncle would want me to start at the beginning. The first elder to step on American soil in the Bruder line was from the Black Forest of Germany, when 20-year-old Heinrich Bruder left for the shore and stepped on a ship as cargo. If he could survive the cruise, he would be sold to the highest bidder.

Bruder sailed for America in 1765 and became the indentured servant of plantation owner Mr. Boogher, who lived in the region where Mason and Dixon’s men began to survey and define the line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Two years later, his master died in Fredericktown, Maryland.  

As Bruder dug the grave, his wife, Eleanor Boogher, gathered her wet and muddy skirt and instructed her six children, all under the age of 12, to hum that song from church. But no one lifted their chins until Bruder, still holding the shovel, started to sing. As his breath animated the cold air, Eleanor thought to herself, “Here is an opening for a scoundrel to run off.” Would Bruder keep his word?

Two years later, paying off his debt, Bruder married Eleanor, issuing more children, elongating the line of continuity and high spirit from which this postal clerk descended. That same Bruder line were also tavern keepers and in charge of the mails for the village, also running a stagecoach, which had to be reliable and keeping time, like a good railway postal clerk, always aware of the potential constraints of pending weather and the train schedule.

Eleanor’s family was religious and educated. Her brother Valentine, a teacher, taught the new children alongside their stepsiblings. Bruder’s second son, named after Valentine, learned quickly, especially math. But he also had the gift of gab, essential skills for a large family. He wrote a biography for entertainment first and record second, documenting his own heritage, mistakes, calculations, chronic and debilitating health problems, and victories. Valentine became a juror, tavern owner, sheriff, quartermaster for the Revolutionary War, land surveyor, state senator, neighbor and friend to governors, officers, and those opening the West, including George Washington and John Adams. Every generation going down had a Valentine.

On the day of his freedom, Bruder came to terms with the sacrifices he had made and marked that moment, drawing his own boundary line with the past.

As his pickaxe busted up the brick hearth that was his bed, Eleanor, disturbed by the racket, ran into the room to ask him if he had lost his mind.

He stated, “I had slept on that bed four years with only a blanket and thought it was time it was made up.”   

— Miss Minnie        

2025 Copyright Christine Friesel