The Christmas Book

For five years now, I've made a book for my great-nieces' and nephew's Christmas present. Of the four books I've made so far, two are family stories and two are about animals (cats in New Orleans and wild animals in Sewanee).

This year's book focuses on their names and their family histories. As a result, I've done a lot of research, especially about the Coulbourns (also spelled Coulbourne) of the Delmarva Peninsula on the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland. My mother's mother was a Coulbourn, a descendent of a long line of Anglican Marylanders tracing their family back to the first William Coulbourn who came to America in the early 17th century. She was even born in the Coulbourn(e) family 1820 house (it still stands) on 400+ acres of the original 1400+ acre property (on which an earlier house stood) deeded to William after he left Virginia, having been found guilty of consorting with Quakers.

Among many online documents are William Coulbourn's 1689 will and estate inventory, listing three shirts, three pairs of drawers, two pairs of britches, three pairs of stockings, two pairs of shoes, three swords, two guns, six books, a looking glass, six oxen, eleven cows and calves, two horses, two sows, six hogs, twelve ewes, thirteen lambs, five feather beds and two blankets, two sets of window curtains, and other household goods. In his will, he bequeaths five slaves to various family members. Even though his inventory seems meager by today's material standards, when he died he was among the richest men in Somerset County. His wealth, valued at 255 pounds sterling, was higher than that of all but two other men.

What I have discovered, beyond the things of his life, are these revealing and contradictory details: he was a Quaker sympathizer who freely broke religious laws but supported the king and owned slaves; he was a sheriff who signed one of the first peace treaties with the Nanticoke Indians; he was a self-made man who died wealthy; and his name lives on in hundreds of families along the Eastern Shore and throughout the United States.
As I read about him, I think about my grandmother Dear, who told me her family stories about the Coulbourns and the Roaches (another Eastern Shore family from whom she descended), the family homes Pomfret and Makepeace, and her forebears and cousins (including Margaret Mitchell of Gone with the Wind fame). I find myself wishing I had listened more carefully, but children rarely do. That's why I decided to give family history to the children for Christmas. Some day they will have what I don't: a gift of memory.