HOW I SEE IT: Dig deep and history will fascinate you

History can be cruel to those who make the wrong choices. Recently I saw a review concerning a new book on the plight of loyalists in the American Revolution who sided with the British Crown and were condemned to wander after independence was won.

While the military struggle was undecided between 1775-81, war's turbulence played havoc on many lives, not just combatants.

Take the example of Israel Jennings, a 30-year-old farmer living near Southampton, N.Y., in Suffolk County on Long Island. When British raiding parties arrived to gather dairy and foodstuffs for Gen. Howe's army besieged at Boston in late 1775, farmers like Jennings were threatened with demands that included swearing an oath of allegiance to the Crown or else suffer complete confiscation of all property.

Pressure mounted as Howe deployed for his invasion of New York in 1776 and used the Hamptons as a staging area with the British Navy. Jennings' family — which had been in Long Island since the mid-1640s — was known for its revolutionary zeal and had substantial property. Jennings refused the oath and was forced to flee across to Connecticut, where the family had even stronger enclaves. In fact, the British targeted and burned Fairfield, Conn., in July 1779 in reprisal for its reputation as a Revolutionary stronghold. Jennings was forced to gather his family and move again.

But unlike the Tories, forced to scatter across the British Empire, including Canada, the Caribbean and India, Jennings headed west into Bardstown, Ky., via Maryland, eventually settling in Georgetown, Ohio, around 1802. He resumed farming and became prosperous, with his wife, Charity Freeman, a Connecticut girl he had married in 1775. Their eldest son, also Israel (b. 1776 in Connecticut) traveled west with them, married in Maysville, Ky., and went on to settle near Salem, Ill. — east of St. Louis, becoming a wealthy farmer and a state legislator.

Among his descendants was Mariah Elizabeth Jennings (1834-96), who married Silas Bryan and later became the mother of three-time presidential contender and populist  William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925).

Chasing these ancestral wanderings in modern times — with high gas prices — can be frustrating, yet still inspirational. With Internet resources and assistance of local historical groups, teasing the genealogical threads is easier. On the downside, with old stones crumbling and grave plots overgrown in brambles, even the symbolic, physical markers of their pioneering lives are often indecipherable, fading.

A few years ago I was invited to speak at a Memorial Day program dedicating a new monument to a forgotten farmer-soldier from the War of 1812 in Lancaster, Ky. En route, I took a detour near Huntington, W.Va., and discovered a small family plot where William Jennings Bryan once placed stones honoring his paternal grandparents. Bryan knew the character value of appreciation to his ancestors.

In challenging times we could all do well to occasionally revisit those who came before us — those hardly souls who persevered through war and economic hardship to build the nation.

Hollis is a member of the William Jennings Bryan Recognition Project.