Geneology: Joshua Barnes (1756 -1826)

This is a short one. My computer time is limited, and I have been using most of it on blogging - which is fun, but I need to answer email, etc.

Up until now, the blog has been weekly. I am going to slow it down a bit, about once every ten days or so.

I have a cousin who got interested in genealogy and traced our family back several generations. If you have illusions of having descended from illustrious ancestry, genealogy is probably something you don't want to look into. Horse thieves and other ne'er-do-wells are more likely to appear than princes and potentates. And that's more or less what my cousin discovered.

According to my cousin, our family name was anglicized from a Gaelic name that roughly translates as "My, there are a lot of black sheep in our family."

The earliest member of my family was Thomas Barnes (1703-1768). Little is known about him, other than he was transported to Massachusetts in 1726 for legal financial obligations.

You may remember from history class that penal transportation was the sending of convicted criminals from Great Britain to it's colonies in the Americas (or later to Australia).  

 Legal Financial Obligations is when you are arrested for not paying your court fines in a timely manner. It is believed that Thomas Barnes is the only person ever transported for legal financial obligations. The original charge is unknown.

But it was his grandson, Joshua Barnes (1756 -1826) was an interesting member of our family, as it is believed that he was the cause of the American Revolution. Joshua was born and raised on a farm near Lexington, Massachusetts, and like any farm boy he learned many skills at an early age like fishin' and huntin' and drinkin' and other redneck traits that end with in'.

Joshua's father, Thomas Junior, was in the militia and had served under then Colonel George Washington during the French and Indian war. He had told his son enough stories that, when Joshua turned 17, he joined the militia himself - one weekend a month, two weeks out of the year.

And I mentioned Lexington? Joshua was part of the militia that met British troops advancing to capture and destroy military supplies at the militia armory in Concord. Y'all remember this from history class? Paul Revere's midnight ride? The British are Coming? If you don't, look it up on Wikipedia.

But Joshua was there with about 75 other militia men, armed with muskets and huntin' rifles (no M-16 back then), facing several hundred British soldiers in bright red coats (no camouflage uniforms back then). The situation was tense, guns locked and loaded, eyeball to eyeball... Anything could happen.

Historians say that officers on both sides were negotiating a compromise that would have allowed both sides to withdrawal and still save face, and this is confirmed by journal entries kept by officers that where there. One minor point, which would have concluded the negotiations, and ended the stand-off, was almost concluded when the first shot was fired, followed by hundreds.

The shot was fired by Joshua.

While the militia was staring down redcoats, Joshua noticed movement in the nearby trees. He looked, and spotted a deer. Redneck instinct took over, and Joshua carefully took aim, and fired.

Before anyone could discover what really happened, it was to late. Both sides were firing, negotiations ended, and the American Revolutionary War had begun.

For those who are interested, the deer was a magnificent 8 point buck, the head of which still graces the living room of the home of Joshua Barnes, which was purchased and converted in 1979 into The Minuteman Bed 'n' Breakfast.