I'm confused by your posting. And disappointed.
In referring to the parents and siblings of your Moses Cavitt
(1794-1853), you repeated the same errors about he and his father,
Richard (1749-1819) that appear in Ellen Burnett Cavitt's book, "Some
Tracings of Cavett-Cavitt Family History." Moses had four children by
his first wife, not two; Richard never lived in Bolivar, TN; he was a JP
in Sumner County, TN, not Sullivan Co.; the order of birth of his
children was Joseph, Mary, Richard, John, Elizabeth, Margaret, Sarah,
Moses, Andrew and James.
I was responsible for sending the Cavitt book to Rita some time ago.
Since I didn't sign on Rootsweb's Cavitt list until recently, I don't
know what she said about its origins or accuracy before she began posting
it, but I have always been afraid that some readers might consider it
authoritative. I hope you are not among them.
Mrs. Cavitt attempted to bring some order and coherence to a mountain of
material assembled largely by two long-deceased relatives of her husband.
The result of her effort demonstrates that she was neither a genealogist
nor a writer. But just distilling it all and getting it into print was a
no mean achievement. She deserves our thanks.
Unfortunately, the earlier writings which Mrs. Cavitt attempted to edit
and reconcile bear the overburden of their authors' preoccupation with
idealizing the lives of their forebearers. When facts were lacking, they
substituted shamelessly flattering and imaginative supposition. It would
have been helpful if, by means of footnotes and properly used quotation
marks, Mrs. Cavitt had let us know just which paragraphs were
attributable to whom.
There is now abundant evidence that some of the Cavitts who are all but
deified in the book had feet of clay. Mud, even. Indeed, the true
stories of the lives of Andrew Cavitt and his father, Richard, are far
more interesting than the sanitized fiction which Mrs. Cavitt passed
along in her book.
But back to Pat's posting of 5/25/99: try wading through my postings of
3/9/99 "Susan Lynn/Lyne, 2nd Wife of Moses Cavitt", 3/10 Re Susan
Lynn/Lyne....." and "More on Moses Cavitt," 3/11 "Descent from Moses
Cavitt" and "Cavitts of Sumner County," 3/12 "Kathy's
Cavitts" (Kath
Robertson) and 3/13 "Kathy's Cavitts." Collectively, they ought to fill
in some information blanks. For my sources of specific information,
contact me on this list or privately on jkbtwo(a)juno.com.
Jack Bryan
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