This summer, the country turns 250 years old. There will be fireworks and parades and a lot of noise about what that means. And in the middle of all of it, I will be out in my gray shed cutting and finishing the handmade wood pieces I planned for this season of celebration. I will be arranging them in my vendor booth, here in Alabama, thinking about a man named Benjamin Clement who died before the country he helped build was even a decade old.

He was my ancestor. His name is in the DAR records, Patriot Ancestor #A022963. He was born around 1700 in King William County, Virginia. He served the Revolutionary cause. He left a will in 1780 that was a key to allowing countless descendants know their connection to him. Until I started digging into my family history, he was just a name I had never heard.

The Awesomeness of Personal History

Genealogy research does something to you. You start out looking for dates and places and the documents to prove what you find, and somewhere along the way the paper trail turns into something else. A man. A woman. A family making their way through a world that was being remade around them. All the stories you absorbed in school, and throughout life from books and documentaries and movies about this founding era, suddenly have a face that belongs to you. History lessons are now something personal that influence your perspective.

When I traced my line back through five generations and finally connected to a documented line that led to Benjamin Clement, I felt a little in awe. There is something fulfilling about knowing that the country I love, that is celebrating its 250th birthday this summer, is the same country this man helped create, and that I exist because of the work and the sacrifice of his family.

I did not earn that. I just inherited it. But I feel the weight of it.

July 4th Before Discovering a Patriot Ancestor

Growing up, July 4th was cookouts and fireworks and a long weekend. It was summer in Alabama, which meant sitting on the porch in the summer heat with fireflies wafting through trees in the evenings and sweet tea sweating in the glass. I loved it the way you love something without thinking about it.

I still love it that way. But now there is another layer underneath. Now when I am standing outside at home, I am looking out across open fields. I am away from the commercial displays, and when fireworks go up all around me, I find myself imagining what it might have sounded like when war broke out and launched this country toward freedom. Gunpowder going off everywhere. Not as celebration but as a life or death battle that would map the future of everything around it. Two possible outcomes hanging in the air at once, and everything depending on which one landed. I think about what it cost to get to this particular birthday. I think about the people who signed their names and the people who did not sign anything, who just showed up and did what was asked of them. Benjamin Clement was one of those people. My family history is full of them.

It changes the holiday when you know you were there.

Inspiring What I Make

I make things with wood. I have always been drawn to making and creating something unique to what I want it to be. When I started digging into my family history I began to wonder if this urge is genetic in some ways. There are makers all the way back. Shopkeepers. Craftspeople. People who built things with their hands. People like Benjamin Clement who contributed to shaping their surroundings with what seemed like trivial work in the moment they were taking place. I think about that connection a lot, what pulls you toward certain things, what you inherit without knowing it.

What I make now, I want to be functional, beautiful and meaningful. I do not want it to be something destined to become clutter without a useful purpose. Something that connects to a moment, to a person, to a piece of family history or a room in a home or an occasion that matters. I look for those connections every time I decide what to make. When I find one, that is when the piece feels right, whether it’s as small as a bookmark or a large piece of wall art.

This summer my eagle wall art piece is the heart of the display in my booth and anchoring a theme of patriotic celebration. It is a layered hardwood, bald eagle in flight, American flag panel. It is the star attraction of the summer. It is the perfect way to represent patriotic heritage as the focal point of a room, opening the door to telling the story of family heritage while it adds character anywhere it is displayed.

When You Know You Were There Too

I am not the only person who feels this deep sense of connection to some part of history. Many people have a Benjamin Clement somewhere in their family tree. You might even have one you haven’t discovered yet.

If you are wondering whether you might be a descendant of a true patriot, or if you have a family story that traces back to the Revolutionary-era in this burgeoning country, I would love to hear it. Last week I published a deeper look at Benjamin Clement’s history if you interested in the details of his life. Soon I plan to share more about his wife, Susannah Hill, who is a patriot in her own right.