A PDF version of this manuscript may be downloaded, and a database containing many of the genealogies may be viewed on-line at http://www.jhowell.com/ "Our Hertiage" manuscript produced March, 1959 by Loula ALLEN Lentz. (c) 1959 by Loula Allen Lentz. All Rights Reserved. This document on more than 200 8.5" x 11" typed pages, and bound in a 19 ring binder, custom printed with the words "Our Heritage" and "Loula Allen Lentz", was given to Marguerite FREENEY Howard by Loula Allen Lentz. Loula Allen Lentz and Sara Marguerite Freeney Howard are 4th cousins 1 time removed. Their common ancestors are William III Whittington and Priscilla Polk. All pages scanned and converted to PDF December 2002 by John S. Howell, Jr. [email protected] . Loula ALLEN Lentz and John Spencer Jr Howell are 4th cousins 3 times removed. Their common ancestors are William III Whittington and Priscilla Polk. MARY WHITTINGTON ALI;EN The Hub of Our Family Before her, our ancestors After her, our descendants "A person who takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered by remote de~cendants.~' INTRODUC~RY Everyone has ancestors; you would not be here if you did - not. Everyone is born equal in number of them two parents, four grandparents, eight greae grandparents and so on. Some leave behind them more fame or fortune than others; but it is not for an illustrious name or great wealth that Americans most prize a man. It is for whatever worth may be uniquely his, for what we like to call the dignity of the in- dividual. Part of this heritage has been bequeathed to you, handed on securely in a trust from generation to generation. Our heredity carries some treasures and secrets of our family lines. It is resistant to alteration from exterior forces and is like a vault in which we can keep our inherited characteristics secure from the influences that day by day change us. Our ancestors are really living on in us; their traits and talents still are active. This is immortality of a sort, but it is likely to be nameless and unrecognized, and at beat it is fleeting. bur forebears, to whom we owe so much of what we are, deserve the honor of a permanent record in each family. The first page of the family Bible is the traditional place, and - it couldn't be better as far as it goes, but each Bible can be given to only one son or daughter, and it cannot help bu* be sparing in detail. To read of one ancestor's trip t o their new country, their new home, or another who threw her treasured plates down the well, or another who hid confederate soldiers in a potato hole and a cubby hole; then, these once youthful and adventurous ancestors still have the breath of life f o r you. This is an- - other sort of immortality t o endure in the memory of those - who come after and it is only a t our hands that our prede- cessors can live a l i t t l e longer. We want our children t o draw a l l the benefit and pleasure possible from their combined inheritance, and t o do full honor t o the fine people from whom they are descended, We shall leave them a clear record in writing family traditions and old stories that have been handed on in turn t o each of us. That is their birthright, ours t o transmit to them. When we are older with children of our own, we begin to wonder about this mysterious life-stream out of which we come t o live a little in the sun before we vanish, in our turn, in- t o a gradual oblivion. Then it is that we search out the old records and turn over the fading photographs. In a written record we have some knowledge of the fine endeavor, the brave principal of the people we were born too - late t o know; thus we acquire a golden inheritance a family tradition. Always in each generation, a little is lost, and always a little more is gathered to be passed on. This slow growth of courage and honor left by lives well- lived is a fund f o r those who follow t o draw upon in doubtful times, and he is the richer who cherishes a l l he can of the lives that made him, the many braided lives, a l l the strands together making a family, making a nation. - 2 - In the Begi~ing The Celtic LCings of Scotland were the early ancestors of many wonderful people down through the ages, They intcrmttrried with other early families t o produce tho bearers of many names which aro common t o us today. It is f o r many of these, who are intcrested in their an- cestry, that I have spent many, many hours, which amount into years, looking, searching, and writing so as t o be able t o put down in writing our direct linc as near correct as I possibly could. Thcre may be mistakes, but if so, they are from the early records and lack of records, as we know our forefathers did not think too seriously of the nced t o write down their family history and too many of them had little or no schooling. Wo do find mentioned in the w i l l s and records of members of the Polk family as having paid for the education of child- ren and James Polk was said t o have been the "Father of the free schools of Naryland." We know too that Mary Whittington Allen, a great grand- daughter of James Polk, was a school teacher in the early years at her home in what was known as Upper Trappe, Maryland, and later named Allen, Maryland. It was of interest t o me t o see how the same names of children followed through each generation; Robert, James, W i l l i a m , Joseph, Mary, Martha, Betsy, Elizabeth, Jane, Ann, Sarah, David, Daniel, Margaret, Henry, and many others. In the last century we have injected many now names and it w i l l be interesting t o see if they like the names we k v e selected and w i l l they carry them on in succeeding generations as did those in the past, I am putting the ancestors of Robert Bruce first because that line marries into the Pollock line; the Pollock line, after coming t o America, called themselves Polk and they mar- ried with the very old family of Whittington who had landed in Virginia, and they in turn married into another old English family of Allens. From the Allens went out young men and women who married into families with surnames of Meckins, Maguire, Smith, Hascum, Coopcr, Stout, Bradford, James, Bell, Hoffman, Streagle, Hart, Lentz, a d m aqy more in other branches of the family. I hope that those who wish t o carry on the history w i l l use what I have mitten and they w i l l take their family his- tory on from where I left off.