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Fire and Ice: While LA Burns, The Rest of The Country Freezes
And It’s Not the First Time!
Ice clogged the sea, but the colonists needed supplies. It was the Little Ice Age, which went from 1300 to 1850.
My great-grandfather, Captain Samuel John Taylor, decided it was time to go.
He was 44 years old and the father of one daughter Margaret and two sons, John and Thomas. He had been married to his 2nd wife for seven years.
The early English colonists of New Haven created underground cellar dwellings on hillsides, they hoped to establish a colony. But by 1646 the settlement was floundering.
They decided to build one more ship that could get them to England for more supplies. The ship set out from New Haven, loaded with wheat, beaver pelts, hides, and other goods valued at £5,000, which would be worth perhaps US$645,000 today. There were about 70 people aboard the nameless ship.
“The Shippe never went voyage before, & was verye Cranckesided,” wrote Governor John Winthrop of Boston. “Crank-sided”…
