ADIOS OLD PAINT — AN OLD COWBOY'S LAMENT

 

A Cowboy's lament: thoughts about valley secession 2002

By Jerry England, published in New Times LA, July 25, 2002

"Oh, gimme a home, where developers don't roam...

Not every longtime resident of Los Angeles loves the old pueblo.  In fact, when I'm asked where I live, I never admit to living in L.A.  Instead, I proudly tell 'em I live in the "cowboy town" of Chatsworth -- the last little piece of the Old West -- in the San Fernando Valley.

And the answer to the question of whether secession offers a better dream is a resounding yes!

There was a time when El Pueblo Grande offered plenty to folks and attracted newcomers with promises of opportunity:  

A time when we manufactured cars and airplanes.  A time when we produced hundreds of household products in small factories across the Valley.  

A time when public schools offered children a chance to get a decent education.  There was a time when agriculture peacefully coexisted with neighborhoods of custom-built homes.  

A time when we actually had rapid transit in the Valley -- street cars called the Red Line.  A time when Hoppy, Gene and Roy showed us how to be good and how to fight evil.  Alas, that's all gone.    

What went wrong with L.A.  didn't happen overnight.  It took years of neglect and political partnerships with rich developers to strip it of what was good and beautiful.  

Years that were profitable for rich power-mongers and a few greedy politicians that clung to their coattails.  It happened so slowly most folks didn't even notice the change until it was too late.  

Then one day we looked around and the orange groves and walnut orchards were gone.  The beautiful green hills that once pastured 10,000 cattle were gone.  The four-rail white fences that framed majestic horse ranches were gone.  The corner fruit stands and little dairies were gone.   

They were all replaced by urban sprawl.  L.A.  earned new fame.  It became the city with the highest density and most traffic congestion in America.  It became a city with polluted waterways and air pollution that actually kills children and old people.

    

It's true that the neglect of our city of dreams and unique neighborhoods is not entirely the fault of the existing mayor and city council.  But, then again, are they doing anything to improve the situation?   Has any politician ever stood up and said stop the developers now? 

Wait until we can do something about traffic congestion, polluted water and dirty air? Has any council person or mayor ever made a stand to save a unique neighborhood, a corner farm, a hillside full of sheep, or a grove of fruit trees?    

The answer is no.  Politicians are not about to bite the hands that feed them.    Many people who want the Valley to secede are united behind the idea of saving what's left of the environment.  We want to solve traffic problems.  We want clean air and water, and less noise.    

Don't ask the career politicians who have worked for years at building relationships with real estate developers, tobacco companies and liquor merchants.  Instead, ask the new activists who are willing to step up and work for what they hold dear.  Ask the people who are fighting expansion of landfills.  

Ask the activists who are trying to stop new high-density housing development -- those half-million-dollar homes -- that are not "affordable-housing," but will add traffic to roads already failing, more children to schools that are already crowded beyond their design capacity, and will further deplete already overburdened city services.   

We are an apathetic society that would rather sit in front of our televisions and not think about the future.  Let the scientists focus on global warming while we spend our evenings channel-hopping.    

Los Angeles is in chaos.  Look around and think about what it will be like for your grandchildren and great grandchildren.  How will they cope with traffic, air pollution, acid rain and a poor education?    

Let's try something new.  Let's elect some people who have been fighting for us.  Let's follow the one tenth of one percent who are not sitting in front of their TVs, but are at city hearings fighting to protect our environment and our quality of life."

Afterword -- decades later, 2026

Driven by leftwing politicians and the unions that support them the San Fernando Valley lost its bid for secession--Valley voters voted "Yes," but the rest of the city, voted “No."  Not much else has changed since…   Los Angeles still has the highest density, worst traffic, and serious air pollution.  A weak economy has slowed down builders, but Valley taxes continue to be spent by downtown developers. Chatsworth still has horses, but there are fewer every year.

When you vote tomorrow ask yourself if the City of Los Angeles is better off now than it was in 2002.

The Architects of the Republic: Cousin Roger Sherman and the Sherman Spirit

 

By tracking our 5th great-grandmother, Isabell Sherman, back to the family's ancestral home in Dedham, Essex, England, we can prove our ancestral connection and that Roger Sherman shares Sir Henry II Sherman as a grand gateway ancestor. This makes the ultimate architect of American liberty our 4th cousin 7x removed.

Here are the biographical details of our legendary cousin, and the breakdown of how our branches split.

Part 1: Biographical Deep-Dive: Roger Sherman (1721–1793)

Roger Sherman was not a man of flashy rhetoric like Patrick Henry or aristocratic wealth like John Hancock. He was a self-made, ruggedly pragmatic legal genius who became the quiet workhorse of the Continental Congress. Thomas Jefferson once famously remarked of him: "That is Mr. Sherman of Connecticut, who never said a foolish thing in his life."

• The Shoemaker Turned Lawyer: Born in Newton, Massachusetts, Roger grew up in a modest home and was trained as a cobbler (shoemaker). He was entirely self-educated, reading voraciously by the light of his workbench. He mastered advanced mathematics, surveying, and the law all on his own, eventually passing the bar exam without ever attending college.
• The Ultimate Founding Feat: Sherman possesses a distinction held by no other human being in history. He is the only Founding Father to have signed all four great state papers of the United States:
1. The Continental Association (1774)
2. The Declaration of Independence (1776)
3. The Articles of Confederation (1777)
4. The United States Constitution (1787)
• The Connecticut Compromise: During the bitter, deadlocked debates of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the United States nearly dissolved before it began. Small states and large states were at war over voting power. Sherman saved the nation by introducing the "Connecticut Compromise." He proposed a dual system: a House of Representatives based on population, and a Senate where every state got equal votes. It is the exact system that still governs America today.
• Family Life: Sherman was twice married, first to Elizabeth Hartwell (with whom he had seven children) and later to Rebecca Prescott (with whom he had eight children). He spent his final years serving as a U.S. Senator and the Mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, before passing away in 1793.

Part 2: The Shared Ancestry Chart

Our family tree split back in England during the late Tudor era. While Roger Sherman’s branch moved to Massachusetts and became elite Connecticut politicians, our branch moved to Rhode Island, embraced the independent frontier lifestyle, and eventually marched into the theater of war via Dr. Caleb Sweet.

                       Sir Henry II Sherman (10th Great-Grandfather)

                                             |

 =============================================================

         |                                                                   |

  (OUR DIRECT LINE)                                                 (ROGER SHERMAN'S LINE)

Samuel Sherman (9th GG)                                         John Sherman (9th GG Uncle)

         |                                                                   |

Philip Sherman (8th GG - RI Immigrant)                           John Sherman (1st Cousin 10x)

                 |                                                                          |

Eber Sherman (7th GG)                                           Joseph Sherman (2nd Cousin 9x)

                 |                                                                                   |

Stephen Sherman (6th GG)                                        William Sherman (3rd Cousin 8x)

                 |                                                                                       |

Isabell Sherman (5th GM) m. Dr. Caleb Sweet               ROGER SHERMAN

                (4th Cousin 7x)

                 |                                                       (U.S. Founding Father)

Mary Sweet (DNA Match)

                 |

Samuel R Brown (1798-1877), and on to Lydia our grandmother.

Part 3: The Architects of the Republic: Cousin Roger Sherman and the Sherman Spirit

To flip through the pages of the birth of the United States is to see a nation hammered into existence by the sheer force of human intellect. We often remember the fiery speeches of Virginia planters or the elegant prose of Boston aristocrats. But the practical, unbreakable spine of the American government was forged by a self-taught shoemaker from the Sherman line—a family that carries a genetic blueprint for building civilizations out of the wilderness.

Our 4th cousin 7x removed, Roger Sherman, was a man of quiet, colossal genius. Standing at his cobbler’s bench in early Massachusetts, he mended leather with his hands while using his mind to conquer astronomy, advanced mathematics, and the intricate web of English common law. When the fires of the Revolution erupted, Connecticut sent this self-made man to the Continental Congress.

Roger Sherman did not look for glory; he looked for solutions. While others argued, Sherman picked up his quill. He became the only man in human history to ink his name onto all four foundational pillars of the United States: the Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 threatened to collapse under the weight of bitter regional egos, it was Cousin Roger who stepped forward with the "Connecticut Compromise," engineering the twin-house Congress that saved the American experiment from dying in its cradle.

But while Roger was mapping out the high legal architecture of the republic in Philadelphia, the very same Sherman DNA was executing that freedom on the dangerous edges of the frontier.

Four generations earlier, back in the small English village of Dedham, our branches had parted. While Roger’s line stayed north in Massachusetts, our direct ancestor, Philip Sherman, pushed south into Rhode Island, establishing a lineage of fiercely independent freeholders. By the time of the Revolution, our 5th great-grandmother, Isabell Sherman, had married the legendary battlefield surgeon Dr. Caleb Sweet. While Cousin Roger was signing the Declaration of Independence in Congress, Isabell and Dr. Sweet were actively enduring the brutal realities of the New York theater of war, tending to the bleeding wounds of the continental soldiers fighting to make Roger's words a reality.

Through Isabell, the deep, foundational grit of the ancient Sherman line flowed seamlessly into our Sweet and Brown lineages, traveling in the veins of our grandmother, Lydia Corinna Brown, all the way to the mountains of Montana.

For me, looking back across the centuries on this June afternoon, Roger Sherman is no longer just a distant name on a yellowed piece of parchment in the National Archives. He is family. He represents the ultimate manifestation of our ancestral blood: an unyielding tradition of independent thinkers who, whether holding a shoemaker's awl, a surgeon's scalpel, or the pen that birthed a superpower, refused to let the world tell them what they could achieve.

Thank you to Gemini AI for research assistance and narrative enhancement. -- Drifting Cowboy

Our New Netherland Dutch & President Martin Van Buren

 

By tracing our 3rd great-grandmother Charity Winegard's paternal line all the way back to Gerrit Gerritse Wyngaart, we have proved a flawless direct blood connection to Martin Van Buren, the 8th President of the United States. Gerrit is the shared gateway ancestor, making us and President Van Buren 3rd cousins 6x removed.

Here is the historical layout of our early Dutch ancestors, their life in the historic upper Hudson Valley, and exactly how the family bloodline weaves directly into the White House.

🇳🇱 Part 1: The New Netherland Frontier (The Wyngaart Legacy)

The Wyngaart (later anglicized to Winegard) family was part of the foundational wave of Dutch settlers who braved the untamed upper Hudson River Valley under the auspices of the Dutch West India Company.

Gerrit Gerritse Wyngaart (1624 – aft. 1645) — The Friesland Immigrant

• The Origin: Gerrit was born in St. Annaparochie, located in the northern Dutch province of Friesland.
• The Journey: He braved the Atlantic during the height of the global Dutch Golden Age. Instead of settling in the crowded port of New Amsterdam (modern Manhattan), Gerrit pushed directly upriver into the fur-trading frontier of Fort Orange (later renamed Albany by the English) and the fertile lowlands of Kinderhook.
• The Dutch Naming System: In early Dutch records, you will often see him listed simply by his patronymic name—Gerrit Gerritse (meaning Gerrit, son of Gerrit). The surname Wyngaart literally translates to "Vineyard."

Lucas (Luykas) Gerritse Wyngaart (c. 1645 – 1709) — The Frontier Trader

• Born on the Edge: Lucas was born right on the edge of the wilderness at Fort Orange. He lived through the high-stakes transition of 1664, when the English sailed into the harbor and permanently seized the colony from the Dutch. 
• The Kinderhook Estate: Lucas became a deeply rooted and prominent citizen of Kinderhook (Columbia County, NY), accumulating prime agricultural land. The name Kinderhook ("Children's Corner") was allegedly given by Henry Hudson himself because of the many Native American children who gathered on the riverbank to watch his ship pass. 

🏛️ Part 2: The Presidential Connection to Martin Van Buren

Our 8th great-grandfather, Lucas Wyngaart, had two children who split our family history into two fascinating pathways: his son Jacobus (who carried on our direct paternal Winegard line) and his daughter Elizabeth (who leads directly to the President).

Here is how the bloodline moves down from Elizabeth to create America's 8th president:

                  Gerrit Gerritse Wyngaart (9th Great-Grandfather)

                                      |

                   Lucas Gerritse Wyngaart (8th Great-Grandfather)

                                      |

==================================================================

         |                                                        |

  (OUR DIRECT LINE)                                     (THE PRESIDENTIAL LINE)

Jacobus Lucasze Wyngaart (7th GG)                 Elizabeth Luykasse Wyngaart (7th GG Aunt)

         |                                                      |

Abraham Wyngaart (6th GG)                         Johannes Dircksen Hoes (1st Cousin 8x Removed)

         |                                                         |

Peter Winegard (5th GG)                           Maria Hoes (2nd Cousin 7x Removed)

         |                                                   |

James Winegard (4th GG)                           MARTIN VAN BUREN (3rd Cousin 6x Removed)

         |                                         (8th U.S. President)

Charity Winegard (3rd GM)

The Intertwined Kinderhook Dynasty

Martin Van Buren’s maternal roots were profoundly Dutch. His mother, Maria Hoes (also spelled Goes), was a direct descendant of our Wyngaart ancestors. Because Kinderhook was a tight-knit, closed Dutch-speaking enclave for generations, families like the Wyngaarts, Hoes, and Van Burens constantly intermarried.

📜 Part 3: Why This Connection is Historically Epic

• The Only Non-English Speaking President: Martin Van Buren was born in Kinderhook in 1782. Because of the deep-seated cultural roots planted by our ancestors like Lucas and Elizabeth, Dutch was Van Buren's first language. He remains the only U.S. president who spoke English as a second language!
• The "Little Magician" and "Old Kinderhook": Van Buren was a political genius who masterminded the modern Democratic Party. His passionate hometown supporters formed the "O.K. Club" (short for Old Kinderhook), a political rallying cry that popularized the phrase "OK" into the global lexicon. Every time someone says "OK" today, they are unintentionally referencing the hometown our ancestors built.
• From Kinderhook to the Civil War: While our cousin Martin Van Buren was running the country from the White House, our branch of the family was moving west. Charity Winegard’s son, Charles Henry Plympton, left New York, moved to Ohio, and bravely picked up a musket for the Union during the Civil War—carrying that exact same New York Dutch pioneer grit right onto the battlefields of the 1860s. 

Thank you to Gemini AI for research help. — Drifting Cowboy

Our high-stakes, blood-soaked world of Scottish Clan Royalty

 

Mapping how the elite chiefs of Clan Brodie in the Scottish Highlands married into the Urquharts, survived the devastating English invasions, and finally made the leap to colonial Oyster Bay, Long Island—eventually feeding directly into our Weeks and Brown lines we explored earlier this month.

Part 1: The Scottish Clan Chiefs (The Brodie Bedrock)

⚔️ GEN V: Thomas Brodie, 11th Chief of Clan Brodie (1499–1547) — The Martyr of Pinkie Cleugh

• The Highland Chieftain: Thomas sat at the head of Clan Brodie at their ancestral seat, Brodie Castle in Moray. The Brodies were one of the original, ancient pictish clans of the Scottish Highlands.
• The Ultimate Sacrifice: On September 10, 1547, Thomas led his clansmen south to defend Scotland against a massive English invasion ordered by King Henry VIII (an era known as the "Rough Wooing"). At the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, Thomas was killed in action alongside thousands of Scottish lords in what was Scotland's costliest and bloodiest military defeat.

🏰 GEN W: Alexander "the Rebel" Brodie, 12th Chief (1524–1583)

• The Rebel of Moray: Having lost his father at Pinkie Cleugh, Alexander took over the chiefship during a time of immense religious turmoil (the Scottish Reformation).
• The Legal Target: He earned his moniker "the Rebel" because he repeatedly ran afoul of the Scottish Crown and local authorities. In 1550, he was officially denounced as a rebel and intercommuned (declared an outlaw) for leading an armed raiding party to attack the nearby Bishop of Moray's lands at Kinloss. He was eventually pardoned but remained a fierce, independent Highland lord his entire life.

📜 GEN X & Y: David, 13th Chief, and Reverend Joseph Brodie

• David Brodie (1553–1627): David was a much more diplomatic chief than his father. He focused on rebuilding the family estates and was officially knighted or recognized by King James VI. He consolidated the family's vast lands in Moray.
• Reverend Joseph Brodie (c. 1600–1656): As a younger son of Chief David, Joseph did not inherit the chiefship. Instead, he went into the ministry, becoming a highly influential Presbyterian minister in Forres during the turbulent era of the Scottish Covenanters and the English Civil War. He married into the local gentry, anchoring the family’s intellectual and spiritual legacy.

Part 2: The Transatlantic Leap (Urquhart to Weeks)

🚢 GEN Z & 1: Agnes Brodie & John Urquhart of Newhall — The Long Island Pioneer

• The Fusion of Clans: Reverend Joseph's daughter, Agnes Brodie, married into the prominent Urquhart family, another ancient clan of northern Scotland.
• The Immigrant: Their son, John Urquhart, is the pivotal figure who left the war-torn Highlands behind. Arriving in New York in the late 17th century, he settled in Oyster Bay, Long Island. He bought land, established a successful estate, and permanently traded the claymores of Scotland for the maritime merchant trade of Long Island Sound.

🏡 GEN 2, 3, & 4: The Oyster Bay Matrix

• Margaret Urquhart (1675–1720) & Elizabeth Wright (1703–1782): Through Margaret’s marriage into the prominent Wright family of Long Island, the Scottish royal blood seamlessly blended with the early English Quaker and merchant families of Oyster Bay. They survived the shift from British colonial rule through the heavy occupations of the Revolutionary War.
• Jacob Weeks (1736–c. 1791): Our DNA-proven 4th great-grandfather, Jacob, was an essential citizen of Oyster Bay, maintaining the family farmlands during the chaotic years of the Revolution, when Long Island was heavily occupied by British forces.

🚜 GEN 5, 6, & 7: The Upstate New York Migration

• Simon Weeks (1768–1840) & Maria Weeks (1810–1890): As we discovered earlier, Simon pulled the family off Long Island and pushed north into Saratoga County, and eventually deep into the North Country of Antwerp/Philadelphia in Jefferson County, New York. Maria Weeks married Samuel R. Brown, uniting our core paternal and maternal lines.
• John Galloway Brown (1833–1915): Born in Jefferson County, John was named in honor of his mother's ancestral roots. He lived through the Civil War era and became the bold pioneer who made the massive leap across the Great Plains, taking the family all the way to the rugged northwestern frontier of Creston, Flathead County, Montana.

From the Highlands to the High Plains: The Royal Blood of Clan Brodie

To map the ancestral lineage of our grandmother, Lydia Corinna Brown, is to watch a grand historical bridge span across five centuries, stretching from the misty, blood-soaked battlefields of the Scottish Highlands straight to the wild frontier mountains of Flathead County, Montana. Long before this family line cleared the timber of upstate New York or farmed the prairies of Iowa, they wore the tartans of clan chieftains and stood at the absolute center of Scotland’s royal history.

The epic trail finds its bedrock at Brodie Castle in Moray, Scotland, under the rule of Thomas Brodie, the 11th Chief of Clan Brodie. In the autumn of 1547, Thomas stood as a towering figure of Highland authority. When the English crown launched a brutal invasion of Scotland, Chief Thomas summoned his clansmen, raised the Brodie standard, and marched south. At the devastating Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, amidst the roar of early artillery and the clash of pikes, Thomas gave his life on the field—a martyr for the independence of Scotland.

His son, Alexander "the Rebel" Brodie, inherited a land consumed by religious fire. Living up to his moniker, Alexander fiercely defied both the Scottish Crown and the established church, leading armed raids and earning an outlaw status that cemented the family's reputation for unyielding defiance. Yet, through his grandson, Reverend Joseph Brodie, the fierce energy of the clan chiefs was channeled into the intellect of the Scottish Reformation. When Joseph’s daughter, Agnes Brodie, married into the historic Urquhart clan, two powerhouse names of the north were permanently fused.

It was her son, John Urquhart of Newhall, who made the ultimate gamble of faith. Looking out across an Atlantic Ocean that promised escape from the relentless civil wars of Scotland, John boarded a ship and stepped ashore in colonial Oyster Bay, Long Island in the late 1600s. He traded the ancient stone battlements of Moray for the fertile coastal soils of New York.

Over the next century, the Highland blood softened into the quiet resilience of the American frontier. Through Margaret Urquhart and Elizabeth Wright, the line integrated into the foundational fabric of Long Island. By the late 1700s, Jacob Weeks and his son, Simon Weeks, began the great northward march, driving their wagons into the deep forests of Jefferson County, New York. It was there that Simon's daughter, Maria Weeks, gave her hand to Samuel R. Brown.

Inside their northern New York cabin, the ancient DNA of Scottish clan chiefs merged with our core paternal line. Their son, John Galloway Brown, carrying the names of the old country in his very marrow, looked west once more. He and his son, Abraham Lincoln Brown, loaded their wagons and drove the family line across the Mississippi, through the Iowa prairies where our grandmother Lydia was born, and ultimately into the breathtaking wilderness of Creston, Montana.

When our grandmother Lydia Corinna Brown looked out at the massive peaks of the Flathead Valley, she was carrying the exact genetic grit of Chief Thomas Brodie, who had looked out at the hills of Moray five hundred years before. The sword was gone, replaced by the plow and the pioneer wagon, but the untamed spirit of the Highlands had successfully conquered the American West.

Thank you to Gemini AI for research additions and narrative enhancement. -- Drifting Cowboy