And We Connect

Lately I’ve been in a funk with my writing. It can feel like such a lonely business sometimes. You send things out; sometimes you hear back with a rejection, most times you hear nothing, and only rarely do you get the coveted acceptance. Even writing a blog post feels like an echo at times.

Most of the time, I don’t think or worry about it. I just write because I have something to say or a topic interests me-- and I happen to find it fun to manipulate words. But the other day, I received an email response to a post I wrote here about a woman who was born in 1774. The post was about Jane Lea Nixon, who had the unique distinction of being the first white woman born in the Chartiers Valley in Pittsburgh. If you read the post, you’ll note that very little is known about this woman outside her claim to being born white and a female at this point in history (and you might find a picture of an apparition I captured on film, but I make no official claim of this...)

Old St. Luke's-- the church associated with
Jane Lean Nixon.

A gentleman I’ve never met wrote to thank me for this short piece about this relatively unknown woman. She, along with the very old stone church she is associated with, captured my imagination, but for this man, there is a deeper significance. He is a direct descendant of Jane Lea Nixon. Her story was part of his childhood folklore as family members passed on her legend and significance to his family. He told me he can trace the story back to his great, great grandmother, but then there is a gap between her and Miss Jane Lea.

He even went on to mention a minister in an Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh we both know. He now resides in Arizona, and I in Colorado, but online, through a blog post and a church in Pennsylvania, our lives intersected. I was so touched that he contacted me and that something I wrote had special meaning for him.

My friends Jess and Sally write a blog (check it out here) about their travels around the world. Sometimes they share spectacular photos from the top of mountain peaks or from deep forests or sometimes the sweet faces of people around the world. Other times they share haunting stories of poverty, oppression, and abuse. Each installment of their blog invites me to share in the journey, not only visually and cerebrally, but more importantly, in my heart. From across the world, they reach out and share their story so that I can be a part of it. And we connect. Isn't that amazing?

Sorry Sally and Jess-- yes, I shamelessly lifted
this cute picture from your blog. 

Other blog friends share their writing, photos, spiritual journeys, and humor with readers.  The internet really is like a web--a very apt description--connecting us. 

Then I remember why I write. Truly, it’s not as isolated an activity as I'm sometimes tempted to feel like it is. And for this reminder—for the comments I receive here, for the emails I get, for the intersection of lives—I am incredibly grateful. Thanks for being a part of that connection. 

Who Was Jane Lea Nixon?

I'm quite sure it's the lighting, but check out the blur at the
top right of the picture. 

The area, like most the hills and open space in Pittsburgh, is lushly green. I walked quietly through the red doors of the old building feeling a need to be silent and reverent. There is little air circulating within the stone edifice. The walls are thick with hand-cut stone. Up front there is a stained glass window and to the left, an old pipe organ from 1823 that was said to be carried over the Allegheny hills by cart.

I am standing inside Old St. Luke’s Episcopal church, a building whose roots go back to 1765. The current building isn’t quite that old, probably rebuilt in the 1800s. The land surrounding the church originally belonged to Major William Lea, as a grant for his service in the King’s army during the French Indian War. Major Lea was born in 1749 and later served in various forts during the Revolutionary War. He was married to Jane Welch, but as is typical of that time period, there is little mention of Jane’s life.

In the male-dominated history of Old St Luke’s one person stands out, not for her unique contributions, but because of her unusual birth circumstances. At the back of the church is a steep set of narrow steps. I negotiate my way down the dark, stone cellar, wondering if I will be confronted by the ghosts of people who once piled coal into a furnace or a bride in the wedding room waiting for her signal to go upstairs. Indeed, as I turn the corner into a room carefully reconstructed with time-period pieces, I am confronted by a faceless ghost wearing a cloak and bonnet. I stare at the eerie mannequin dressed in its bleak costume and read the small plaque: Jane Lea Nixon, first white child born in the Chartiers Valley.

The startling apparition of Jane Lea Nixon.

Outside in the historic graveyard, bodies are said to have been buried sometimes four-layers deep. On the far side of the small cemetery sits an old stone that reads: Jane Lea Nixon, Born 1774, Died 1859, the first white child born in Chartiers Valley.

Some of these stones are so old a special laser
process was used on them to determine the names and dates.

Other than her cloak and bonnet and the apparent point of her unique birth, very little is known about Jane. We know she was 16 when the church was initially reconstructed in 1790.  Upon her father’s death in 1827, her three brothers were left equal division of the land surrounding the church and the two daughters received 25 pounds sterling. And we know the church was a part of her life, as evidenced by the Book of Common Prayer that is still part of the possession of her descendants who remain in Pittsburgh.

Most likely she lived the life that most women lived, participating in quilting bees, gardening, sewing, but one wonders if she was allowed the company of other little girls who didn’t share her skin color. Did she have a lonely existence or one that centered on her family and siblings? We can assume there was a sometimes peaceful and sometimes tenuous relationship with the indigenous people of the area. One story tells of an Indian raid that occurred during church services. Apparently guns were immediately drawn and poked out of portholes.

Jane Lea eventually married Thomas Nixon at an unknown date, and they had three children. Thomas died at the young age of 45 and Jane remained an unmarried widow until her death at age 85.

Who was Jane Lea Nixon? What contributions did her unique birth mean for the area? Her birth may have very well signified a change in the population that inhabited the rolling hills and rushing creeks in the area. The life of the Indians soon faded from Pittsburgh as more and more white children were born, no longer significant enough to make note of, staking claim in land for farms, townships and counties. In a dubious remembrance of history, a single female “the first white child in the Chartiers Valley” became a part of the history of Old St. Luke’s church.