No comments about Abstracts of the Testamentary Proceedings of the Prerogative Court of Maryland. Volume XXIII: 1741-1744. Liber: 31 (pp. 252-488).

No comments about Our Maryland Heritage, Book 32: The Waters Families.

No comments about Northern Baltimore County, Maryland Pioneers: The Land and Their Descendants.

No comments about Early Anglican Records of Cecil County, Maryland.

No comments about Marylanders to Kentucky, 1775-1825.

No comments about Washington County, Maryland church records of the 18th century, 1768-1800: Hagerstown, Clearspring, Williamsport, Leitersburg, Funkstown, Salem.

No comments about Dorsey Family: Descendants of Edward Darcy-Dorsey of Virginia & Maryland for Five.

No comments about More Marylanders to Carolina: Migration of Marylanders to North Carolina and South Carolina Prior to 1800.

5 comments about Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782.

1. I was originally attracted to this book out of a simple curiosity about the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence (Charles Carroll outlived Adams and Jefferson by about six years, or about 56 years after 1776!). On a deeper level, I hoped to learn more about the kind of early capitalist that would be attracted to signing on to the American Revolution in general. What this book helped me discover was a family that had over time become focused, almost obsessed, with making a buck under fairly adverse circumstances (namely, continuing in their Roman Catholic faith that made it difficult for them to thrive, even in an enclave as seemingly sympathetic as colonial Maryland, with its relatively large Catholic population). But when the time came for this family to rise above its simple wealth building and to champion the cause of the Revolution, it did indeed rise to the occasion, however brief and painful the process might be. (Hoffman attends to both the private and public lives of the Carrolls.) The history of the Carrolls is a part of the history of the magic that was the American Revolution. It is not surprising that the book ends abruptly with the death of Charles Carroll's father and his wife, about 10 days apart from one another in 1782 (though there is a brief summing up of Carroll's remaining 50 years and the attention attracted by his death in 1832). The story is told, the dynasty pretty much complete.

   What's the book like? At times it seems downright willfully prosaic, and the story proceeds much like a carefully written doctoral dissertation - all conclusions fully supported and made in as logical a context as possible, all contentions politically correct for our time. Hoffman's goal is of course to be scholarly and thorough, not to be entertaining or controversial. Thus the sweep of this history must emerge and coalesce in the mind of the reader. Leave being beaten over the head with the broader conclusions inherent in the narrative to more popularly written histories.

   Suffice it to say, if you're a municipal library and you need to beef up your Revolutionary War material, this is a prime buy. If you're a true history buff, this would be an excellent choice to work into your reading list. It has the effect of immersing you into the spirit of the times and providing you with detail you could not have imagined you would find interesting (but you do). If you're a casual reader, just be advised - this is heavy stuff. It's not an easy read, but it is ultimately a rewarding one.




2. Ronald Hoffman is an excellent historian who has brought great knowledge of Chesapeake social and cultural history to this biographical work that places three generations of the Carroll family within their colonial context. It is a wonderful biography that gets the reader into the minds and lives of these three Charles Carroll's. But for me the best thing was the number of times it made me think, "Oh, that's how it was." I have read enough colonial history to know that there were lots of tenant laborers and not just slaves in the region, to know that Catholic Maryland quickly became Anglican Maryland, and to know that the Revolution was not just about ideas but also about social change. Ronald Hoffman's narrative, however, really brings these facts home. His book is not about any one of these issues in particular, but in telling the story of three generations of Carroll's in Maryland he brings home the greater circumstances of the colony better than many historians who have set out to make a case for one of the above arguments, or many of the other fascinating takes on early Chesapeake society contained in this highly readable book. I have not read any book lately that I enjoyed more.



3. Traditional patriotism demands that we believe that the founding fathers of America were all great democratic idealist. Although this may have been true for some, many others had no problem with the idea of an elite ruling class, so long as they were considered the elite. Thus the victory over England can be viewed as less of an American Democratic Revolution and more of a power transition from the English crown to the new American aristocracy.
   
   A primary example of this American elite class was Maryland representative Charles Carroll of Carrollton. A signer of the American Declaration of Independence, Charles of Carrollton was a wealthy planter and businessman who became such not by his own doings but primarily through the inheritance and molding of his father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis. Ever mindful of his Irish and Catholic roots and the persecution therein by English aristocrats, the elder Charles did everything in his power to equip his son to fend off those who would attempt to cripple him politically and economically. In so doing, the elder Charles created a mindset of elitism within his son.
   
   This irony is highlighted by Ronald Hoffman in his book, "Princes of Ireland, Planters of Europe," in which he examines the Carroll family and traces how a persecuted family from Ireland in 1500 came to be one of the prominent families in America by the time of the American Revolution



4. This is perhaps the most pleasurable "academic" history I have come across. Although it provides an extensive account of life in the Chesapeake through the lives and business dealings - and there are plenty of those enumerated - of the tenacious Carroll family, I was also struck by Ronald Hoffman's major theme of family continuity, of purpose driven by recollection and ambition that the Carrolls had in spades. The very tightly researched accounts of the family history in Ireland, and of all the other families like them in the chaos of the 17th century, is little short of astonishing. I'll admit to an enduring interest in Irish history, but this one illustrates why Carrolls and others left their broken aristocracy. That continuity touches on my own forebearers, one of whom was a first cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton's. She married another Irish immigrant Marylander and set out in 1796 to populate the then frontier in Kentucky with other Catholics, I am sure at direction of one of their neighbors in Upper Marlborough, MD, Fr. John Carroll, first Catholic bishop in America and also Charles' first cousin. A great read on many levels.



5. Purchased this book for my Grandmother. Apparently we are related on her side of the family. Thought she would enjoy reading. I purchased one years ago when my daughter had to do a report on someone famous in your family. I found the book very interesting and informative.

3 comments about Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore; A Memoir in Five Generations.

1. When I saw the review by Aaron Leibel on the author's web-site,[...] I knew I had to explore this tale of Jewish immigration from Lithuania to America and elsewhere -- my grandparents also grew up in Riga and, like the author's family, they too lost most of their family to the Nazis.
   
   I was so moved by the similarities that I immediately started to look through my old family papers. By the time I finished reading the book however, I realized that this was the work of a literature scholar -- I could not compete with her. Professor New's research took almost ten years she says, visiting Europe three times, England, Israel, and many stops on the Atlantic Coast interviewing her USA descendants. On many of these trips her various daughters were in tow, the oldest one, Yael, translated for her in French and Russian. Professor New herself speaks fluent Hebrew from her early childhood visits to Israel she says, and it was then used to find, converse and hold hands with the only living family member from Riga family whom had escaped the Nazis and had not previously been found. She (Rivka) is now 86 and well!
   
   This memoir is extraordinary. One or two chapters were difficult to get through, but in retrospect I see now their importance as background to the various family business ventures in the USA and London.
   
   I have read a great deal about the Holocaust and the Nazi era; this family memoir by the author provides a new perspective, painful again to recall, but so touching for me, and the emotions cause the tears to flow.



2. Elisa New's memoir, "Jacob's Cane", is not for the casual reader. It's not easy going for a reader; as the book's secondary title explains, it's a family's journey from Europe to the US and then back again.
   
   The journey back to Europe is actually three journeys. After leaving the Riga area in the mid-1880's for the US, several of Jacob Levy's sons and grandsons are tempted to settle in London for economic reasons in the early 1900's. The five men - three sons and two grandsons of family patriarch, Jacob - are offered jobs at a London cigarette factory owned by a distant family relative. Jacob's sons accept Bernhard Baron's job and also take his name. The second journey back to Europe is Elisa New's own. She had grown up on family stories of life in Lithuania before the her great-grandfather, Jacob, emigrated to Baltimore, along with several family members. The third journey back is done by Jacob, in 1928, when he returned to his native village in Lithuania to see family members left behind. And who were murdered by the Nazis and their Lithuanian helpers in 1942 and 1943. (How eerie and sad is it to look at a family picture with twelve or so family members in it and know that all but one ended their lives in the burial pits in Lithuania and Latvia?)
   
   New is a very detailed writer and the book covers everything from how tobacco is grown in the US and then shipped to England for manufacture into cigarettes to the science behind "shrinking" of fabric. It's never boring.
   
   "Jacob's Cane" is the beautiful hand-made cane his family members gave him to mark his return in 1928.
   
   New is a good writer and the book is worthwhile reading if the reader is interested in the subject. I wish she had included a lot more pictures in the text.



3. Jacob's Cane is an ambitious book that discusses Lithuanian and German Jews in Baltimore, my ancestors exactly. The book does open a window to the milieu of my great-grandparents and grandparents. But this book is marred by numerous factual errors. Some I picked out: every Marylander who has ever vacationed at the closest Atlantic beaches knows that Bethany Beach is in Delaware; people who studied the state of Maryland in elementary school may remember that tobacco is grown only in Southern Maryland; Baltimoreans with some sense of history know that Redwood Street was called German Street during the time period the author spends pages discussing. Hometown Hero Babe Ruth lived for some time at St. Mary's (known as a reform school or orphanage) so the folks Jacob helped who were from there could not have been black in very segregated Baltimore. Now that mother, aged 87, is reading it, she calls everyday to tell me about more mistakes. The way the author describes the interiors of the houses on Eutaw Place (where my father's grandparents lived) is inaccurate; the excursion boat to Tolchester didn't leave from Locust Point and so on. She did tell me her Aunt Rae worked as a cigar roller when she was very young. But the worst factual mistake of all is something that will be noticed by many people nationwide who may want to read this book. Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah and one of the most important women in American Jewish history, was not the wife of Rabbi Benjamin Szold, but unmarried and childless even though she did so much for children. My mother feels that, in a number of instances, the author "took something of the facts" and surmised from there. Regrettably, this appears to be the case.