Letter from Dan Bartholomew addressed to: Dear Family. At the beginning of this letter the author states that "Lois and I took a 4-week trip back east this spring [2000]" (pg. 1). At the end of it he states: "It is now the middle of November, 2000. This letter was started in the spring. As I have received information the letter has been added to, subtracted from, rearranged, and generally redone many times. I still have many letters not yet answered and returned. I hope each day will bring new information or some tidbit that will let me continue to pursue. I feel someone somewhere has recorded the information I need and like a blind person I will continue to feel my way. ... I recently found a record (whether true or not) bringing Allegheny County, Pa into our history. It states this is where our Laurel Hill was. My research for General Joseph's Polyglot Bible has taken me to South Dakota, Montana and North Dakota. No good luck yet but I continue to search. Now my search for our Daniel [Joseph's alleged father] has returned me to Bucks County, Pa. Perhaps our next volume will contain all this and more. I wish each reader many happy hours just reading, contemplating and thanking those of the past who have made our world what it is. This has all been done with love from Dan Bartholomew" (pg. 18).

[In this letter Dan recounts their itinerary - which began in Lexington, McLean County, Illinois, where General Joseph Bartholomew is buried. They spent half of a day in the local Historical Society. They then went to Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana [named in honor of General Joseph]. The main object here was to try to find evidence of the name of Joseph's mother's name. From there they went to Pennsylvania to visit with "Herschel Matthews, who cared enough to preserve the grave of Peter Pickenpaugh the son of old Peter and husband of General Joseph's sister Sarah Bartholomew. We learned that the Pickenpaugh Cemetery had been destroyed years ago. We were given copies of legal papers, pictures and genealogy and shown a portion of the Pickenpaugh estate, which is now divided. We learned that this portion of Pennsylvania had once been Frederick County, Maryland, then Monongalia County, Virginia before becoming Pennsylvania. ... This was the end of our history research ... As I have read and reread the material we collected I've made notes for further investigation. Perhaps these notes will stimulate thought and discussion." He then discusses the Laurel Hill problem and the connection between the Bartholomew and Pickenpaugh families. He reviews the problem of the two Daniel Bartholomews (father and uncle of General Joseph) and the name of Joseph's mother (Elizabeth or Catherine). He mentions George Wells Bartholomew's book on the Bartholomew family. He makes reference to Lucile Tate's report. He discusses John Bartholomew, his 2nd great-grandfather and Owen County, Pennsylvania, and the second marriage of his widow, Nancy Pickenpaugh, who subsequently married John Weaver by whom she had a son [Robert]. On page 9 of his letter, Dan commiserates over the problem of duplication of the same material in his various volumes and the normal dilemma researchers have in revising assumptions, as follows: "At this point let me state that there is a lot of duplication of information [in his volumes]. Our purpose is to compile the information we gather from where ever we find it. Believe it or not I have left a lot of the duplications out but since this is the third of three booklets we have compiled I have put in what I felt was pertinent for those who see only one book. Also, as we have gathered information and questions have risen we have made assumptions based on information we have had at the time. Certainly, our assumptions have changed. I wish, at times, our assumptions could be reality (pg. 9). He then reviews the evidence of the early Bartholomews and the moves of General Joseph from his young years onward (pp. 10-13). General Joseph's cabin that he built was of the "dog trot" type: two rooms in each wing made of squared poplar poles (this could easily be reconstructed). The Connecticut Bartholomews problem is reviewed (pp. 13-14). Virginia Hodge McNaught's McNaught - Franklin - Bartholomew Families, written in 1934, is copied again, telling of the French Huguenot Bartholomews (pp. 14-15). More details relative to General Joseph's mother are given (pp. 16-18). Reference is made to Lucile Tate's report several times in this letter.

General Joseph Bartholomew, by Josephine Baker McCormick, 5 January 1934, in the Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, Illinois. Among many other details of the General's life, most of which is found in other writings, is the account of a financial set back for the General, as follows: "About 1828 he met with a very serious pecuniary loss. He had gone on the bond of Dr. Hay who, as receiver of the government land office, had defaulted to the sum of $60,000 [in today's market it would be between 10 and 15 times this amount - $600,000 to 900,000, or close to a million dollars]. This was more than Joseph could pay. He sold his farm in Clark County and turned the proceeds over to the government. This still left a large deficit. General John Tipton, a close friend of the family and a United States Senator, put in a bill for the cancellation of the bonds, pleading past valuable services to the country and pointing out that General Bartholomew had already paid as much as he could. The bill passed. Joseph was left practically destitute. Forty years earlier as a young man he had turned westward to find his fortune; now, as a man past middle age, he was forced to follow the same procedure. This time he migrated to McLean County, Illinois where he settled on Section 13 of Money Creek Township. That same fall he sold his farm and moved into Lot 1, north east 1/4 Section 4. Perhaps it would be well to stop here to consider the personal appearance of Joseph. There is one picture in existence which has been copied from an old tintype. Probably this picture was made in Indiana before his departure for Illinois although it is hard to judge the age of the man from the picture. Avoiding the task of a thorough study of the portrait, William M. Bartholomew's description and character sketch of his father is given here:

"General Bartholomew was a stoutly built man about 5 feet 9 inches in height, with black hair and grey eyes. He was a very reticent man, and these inci-dents of his life were gathered by his children as he incidently spoke of them. His encounters with the Indians were very numerous, especially while living in Kentucky and Indiana. He said he never shot an Indian without being sorry for the poor fellow, but it was a case of his life or the Indian's. He was a master of wood craft, and a deadly shot with a rifle, a leader of men and utterly fearless. Hospitable, he was ever ready to help the new settlers find suitable locations and aid them to build their cabins and get a start in life. A coward he could not endure. His highest compliment to anyone was, 'He is a brave man.'

On a plaque in Bartholomew County, Indiana the following is said about the General: "One of the purest and most patriotic of Indian Pioneers was General Joseph Bartholomew, for many years a distinguished citizen of Clark County. He was a descendent of a Puritan family that emigrated from London to Massachusetts Colony in 1634 and whose members figured prominently in the general court of the Colony [this is questionable]. But the luster of his name was not borrowed from the achievement of his ancestors. By the strength of his heroic character he placed it on the lips of men. He was self-taught, modest, brave and honest. Soley by his merits as a man and soldier he obtained distinction. In the various Indian troubles he was ever foremost in times of danger." The comments regarding his character was evident by all those who knew him, and if the alleged connection with a prominent Puritan Massachusetts Colony family is not true, it only adds luster to this self-made man. Joanne, if you give this report to the ABC Meeting in June, you may find the following statement of President J. Reuben Clark Jr., which he made at the Centennial of Pioneer Day in 1947, relevant, as you praise the merits of a very great man:

"In saving our lives, let us never forget that the deeds of our fathers and mothers are theirs, not ours, that their works cannot be counted to our glory; that we can claim no excellence and no place, because of what they did; that we must rise by our own labor, and that labor failing, we shall fail. We may claim no honor, no respect, nor special position or recog-nition, no credit of what our fathers were, of what they wrought. We stand upon our own feet, in our own shoes. There is no aristocracy of birth in this church; it belongs equally to the highest and the lowest. For Peter said to Cornelius, the Roman Cen-turion, seeking him, 'Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." (5 October 1947.)

Report of Lucile C. Tate, 381 E. 700 South, Centerville, Utah 84014, 23 January 1969. This is the best thought through and written of the many written regarding General Bartholomew. Lucile begins her report by stating her "PURPOSE: To make a thorough study of General Joseph Bartholomew's ancestry and extend his pedigree, if possible. PATRON: The Bartholomew Family as represented by the Joseph Bartholomew (1820) Organization and its Branches [footnote 1 lists the members of the Organization]. FACTUAL DATA:." This is then followed with nine pages of well written research notes. The report is signed by George F. Tate, Lucile's husband. Someone should ask Lucile what is her work and what is her husband's. They were both extremely well organized and intelligent investigators, as well as superb writers of reports. The eight recommendations at the end of this report for future research are still relevant and have not been acted upon. Because of the relevance of these recommendations to the current family organization, I will list them and offer my comments:

iii. "It is recommended that a thorough and painstaking search be made of the available records in SW Pa. in an all out effort to solve this problem. This will involve on the spot investigation by a skilled researcher."

iv. The second recommendation also requires on the site investigation, also in Pennsylvania, this one in Harrisburg, the capitol, in the Pennsylvania Land Office.

v. The third recommendation requires that" each Bartholomew or related family moving into Pa in the time period of Daniel (Joseph's father) and that George Wells Bartholomew's delineation of the different Bartholomew families be carefully reviewed and authenticated ..."

vi. This is missing in Dan's book.

vii. Research in New Jersey be pursued on site for as long as it takes to do the job. This is where the General was born.

viii. The Connecticut Daniel Bartholomew needs to be more carefully pursued, in Connecticut.

ix. Recommended that General Joseph's military be studied more carefully for clues.

x. Family organization members are encouraged to assist in the overall project.

Exhibit 11: This discusses the number of children of General Joseph by his two wives. The number varies from 15 to 22 depending on the source used. At the end of this discussion, Dan concludes with these words: "A very perplexing question has come to my mind. Compiling names of five generations from Johann through Daniel and then through General Joseph, his son John and his son Joseph of Fayette, I do not find anyone named Daniel, except the Daniel son of Johann and Dorothy who by the genealogical record is the father of General Joseph Bartholo-mew. Apparently, noting the genealogical records, it was customary to use family names in each generation. The names Joseph, John, William, Isaac, George, Marston and other (sic) keep repeating themselves but Daniel is never used. This makes me wonder if our ancestry is correct. I wonder if in fact our ancestory (sic) did come through England to Connecticut as is written in a number of General Joseph's biographies rather than the one most commonly accepted. The one leaving France and going to perhaps Germany, then to the Netherlands then the United States. I do not have the decending (sic) genealogy of William Bartholomew who came from England about 1690 and settled at Stony Creek, Connecticut to make any comparisons. I have included copies of the beginning genealogy for each line.

BUT, MY FEELING IS WE DO NOT HAVE AN ANCESTOR NAMED DANIEL." [Interesting observation, coming from the one who has worked the most on the Bartholomew family over the past decade or so.]

Mary Bartholomew. May have a child in this family.