A Bit Bemused, but An Interested Onlooker,

       I have followed with interest the recent difference of opinion and the
attempts of listmaster to maintain civility.  I couldn't help but recall the
statement in "Indiana Bench and Bar," a late Nineteenth Century history of
pioneer law in the Indiana Territory and the early years of the State.  Jesse
Davenport, of the Virginia Pamunkey Davenports, but from North Carolina to
North of the Ohio in 1801, was a frontier miller by trade, but got himself
elected an Associate Judge of Wayne County, Indiana Territory, in 1814.
Judge Davenport, legal historians opined in "Indiana Bench and Bar," was
renown among Hoosier magistrates in never allowing a fact to get in the way
of his opinion.  The Judge was fated to come to a cruel end--a bunch of
drunks dropped the center beam on him at a barn raising in 1826.

       Why would Uncle Jesse come to mind in reviewing the recent discussion
here?

       Frankly, the Jefferson-Hennings problem pales compared to what the
Pamunkey Davenports are facing--namely an increasing probability that the
largest family of Davenports in America today with a Seventeenth Century
Virginia origin, likely numbering well in excess of 10,000 descendants by
now, had a bastard beginning in an Indian Reservation.  We got those cousins
who are rooting for Indian blood (they're evenly divided over whether
Pamunkey or Chickahominy), and those who have deep-sixed all of their
Davenport research and gone off to try to tie onto King Carter.  We've
already disqualified ourselves from Pocohontas descent--which would have kept
a few of Coat of Arms folks hanging around.  We told them about the Bar
Sinister to no avail.

John Scott Davenport, Ph.D.
Holmdel, NJ

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