The Search for Joseph Tully

by William H Hallahan

  Willow turned and surveyed the terrain that surrounded the cabin. “Not a trace of written records, you say?”

  “You see what’s here. That’s it. Six or eight foundations for cabins, one or two remnants of fireplaces and chimneys, and a general scattering of buried artifacts. I understand that there are some historical accounts of the place down in the archives in the state capital.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Trenton.”

  “Wasn’t there a church or a newspaper—a school?”

  “Mr. Willow, there was nothing. I doubt if there was a quill pen among the lot of them. Most of them were illiterate. Newspapers were unheard of, and the church—there was none—not for miles around. This was an out-and-out wilderness, and the people who lived here just barely managed to be a little better than animals in burrows. Try Trenton. You might find something there.”

  9

  The Kittatinny Mountains descended in tucks and folds to the Piedmont Plateau under a snow cover. Route 519 was a wet black ribbon that twisted down and away into the distance.

  The winter landscape under a dead gray sky was a weariness to Willow. Leafless trees stood out against the whiteness of the snow. A flight of crows rose, slowly flapping, above the trees, turned and dropped into a frozen field. At the foot of the field, a stream broke through its cover of ice and snow, tumbled through a rock-filled bed for a few feet and disappeared again under the whiteness.

  The wind whistled at the metal beading along the edge of his car roof, reminding him that the arctic air was still in firm control of the land.

  “If they figured right,” the curator had said, “they’d make it through the winter. If not, they’d starve and freeze to death. It happened all the time.”

  Willow looked out at the terrain again, feeling the warmth from the car heater around his ankles. He was acquiring a considerable admiration for Thomas Tully. Of the four brothers,

  Thomas was the boldest. A hell of a man, in fact. A study in opposites and extreme contrasts, Thomas and Roger. Roger, losing his family, pined away, defeated and transfixed with horror. Thomas immediately responded to a greater challenge, choosing to live still closer to personal catastrophe.

  Which to admire—the meek, loving man or the bold, unflinching one?

  10

  Trenton, ambling along the curling edges of the Delaware River, looked like a city being rebuilt from its own ruins. New buildings, many of them state government structures, rose up in the midst of the old red brick buildings trimmed in white marble. Interspersed were tracts and flat lots of cleared land waiting for new buildings.

  Everywhere the sooty, sick-gray remnants of the snowfall added a depressing decoration to the city.

  Willow gazed at the buildings of the city as he drove through. Somewhere here was there information on Thomas?

  11

  The librarian shook his head. “Sorry,” he said.

  Willow stood in the Archives and History Division of the New Jersey State Library, State Department of Education, State House Annex, and watched the slowly wagging head.

  “No.”

  “No,” said the librarian. “There have been several attempts to reconstruct the history of Winelandia. Several scholars from Princeton got a grant to compile a bibliography and inventory of research resources not too long ago, but the results were disappointing. IPs a nettlesome piece of history. IPs quite probable that at least two commercially valuable strains of grapes were developed by those people, but there are practically no written records. Maybe you can locate some information right at the site. I understand there’s a reconstructed cabin and small frontier house on the original ground.”

  “Been there,” said Willow. “This morning, in fact. Nothing.”

  The librarian watched him silently, sorrowfully.

  “Well,” said Willow, “thank you. I'll have to regroup and find some other avenue of approach.”

  “Yes. Sorry. Good luck. Oh, if you turn up anything, I’d like very much to hear about it.”

  “It's not very likely, is it?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  Willow turned and walked toward the exit. A wave of panic swept him again. For months he’d been living with the prospect of an implacable dead end, but it hadn’t been real until he’d started on Thomas. The first real scare was the church in Brooklyn. By all genealogical odds, he should have lost the trail there, except for a chance word on the margin of an old church history.

  If Thomas had remarried in Winelandia, begotten children and died with no records, then his descendants could be walking about with no known way to connect them back to Thomas. Appalling thought: Willow would wander forever in a kind of genealogical limbo.

  He shrugged. Like Mr. Micawber, he hoped something would turn up.

  But he didn’t believe it.

  12

  If anything, the day had gotten grayer. The snow, dirtier. And Trenton, more depressing.

  Willow pushed open the glass door and felt the rush of cold air pounce on him.

  “Excuse me,” called a voice behind him. “Excuse me.”

  Willow turned and looked back through the glass door. The librarian was walking rapidly down the corridor. Willow pulled the glass door open and stepped back inside.

  “You didn’t see the circuit rider’s collection, did you?”

  “Circuit rider?” murmured Willow.

  “Stupid of me. They’re the only source books we have. After you left, I realized that—well, I assumed while we were talking that you’d already gone through them. Do you know anything about them?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Well, I don't want to raise false hopes. The information is pretty skimpy, but you really should go through them.” The librarian started back and Willow walked at his side.

  “You see, it was a wilderness up there. There were few settlements. Most of the people up there were trappers and the like. So the colonial sects and churches created circuit-riding preachers and ministers. And they went by horseback all through the frontier.”

  Willow followed him to the stacks and watched him search a shelf. “Ah. Poe.” The librarian pulled down a volume. He tapped it lightly with his fingertips, holding it forth to Willow. “Volume I. This is the daybook and diary of Aristotle Poe. He was an ordained minister and he covered a great deal of territory in those mountains. He went into Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, and he kept fairly complete records. There are twelve volumes. And one of them just might have some references to your man. I know that he visited Winelandia regularly over a period of years. There are several other saddlebag ministers' diaries here, but I think Poe's your best bet.” The librarian left him holding the volume.

  Willow sat down at a library table. Another volume, another search. “Good luck,” he murmured to himself as he opened the cover.

  13

  Aristotle Poe gave Willow a clear picture of life on the frontier. He apparently rode several thousand miles a year, preaching as often as twice a day and three or more times on Sundays. He spoke from tree stumps, from boulders, and even from the back of his horse. In bad weather he preached inside log huts and crude houses, in bams and often in tents.

  The people walked for miles to see him—to hear him preach and to have him marry and baptize and shrive.

  Cold, dirt, vermin, hunger and disease were the enemies. During the winter months, Poe's diary was constantly referring to warm fires. “Preached at the Martin farm. Farmer Martin provided a good fire as it was fearful cold abroad. After, we had hot

  cider. Slept in good comfort in the hayloft over the cow in an abundance of warm hay with God’s grace. During the night a tree burst with frost.”

  And: “Preached at Jedediah Downes’s farm. A goodly crowd, but firewood was low and we sat shivering until the press of people warmed the kitchen. Three Downes children died last month during a local outbreak of fever.”

  He baptized children everywhere, some two years after their birth,
some in their teens. His marriage activities soared in the spring. He spiked the activities of long winter nights with terse good humor: “Married this day Noah Veryman and Margaret Goodsteeple with the fervent blessings of both families. The marriage is none-too-soon for they have already well-begun their family. The weather being fair, a large gathering assembled from around the county for a celebration.” He noted stoically when he was plagued with fleas or infested with ticks, chiggers and body lice. In March he would look forward longingly to a bright warm spring day when he could wash his tormented, bitten body in a stream and drown the vermin in his clothes and bedroll.

  His teeth went bad along with all others’ in his territory. It was an obliging farmer who would grip the rotting stump with a blacksmith’s tool and rip it from the gum.

  Willow was absorbed in the life and trials of this infinitely patient, faithful minister, and the first reference to Winelandia caught him unawares. Aristotle Poe reported factually that he had visited Winelandia, a new settlement with fourteen families—a large gathering for that time and place. Willow sat up and continued reading with attention. He began now to skim impatiently. It was 1774. Six months elapsed before he visited it again. Between the two visits, eight children died. He lists them, names and ages and place of burial. Two adults, also dead, are duly recorded. And two marriages. Willow stopped reading and stared:

  “Married this day one Thomas Joseph Tully, late of Brooklyn, aged 46, bachelor and widower by his own account, grape grower and farmer, and Anna Schipstadt, 17, daughter of Herman and Helga Schipstadt, farmers.”

  Willow lowered his head to his hands. Seventeen. She'd have children—years of abundant childbearing ahead of her.

  Willow walked to the librarian's desk. “Is there an index of names and families for Poe's diaries?"

  The librarian shook his head. “I'm sorry. If you'd like the job, I’m sure I can get you a grant for it." He smiled. “It’s long overdue."

  “Thanks,” said Willow. He walked back to the diaries. He had to find a way to abbreviate his search.

  He quickly leafed through the remainder of the first volume. Three visits to Winelandia in one year. Willow pulled down the second volume. He paged it quickly, seeking references to Winelandia. As he went, he noted the dates of the visits. Poe was a meticulous man. His progressions were orderly, although his winter travel was apt to be interrupted for several weeks at a time.

  Willow projected Poe's preaching circuit and reached down the third volume. If he ran true to his schedule, Poe would visit Winelandia in March of 1777. Willow flipped to that month. March 18, Poe arrived. July would be next. Poe arrived July 23. November? Yes, last November. He arrived during a snowstorm and stayed with the Tullys. Willow stopped his projections abruptly. Listed under baptisms was Joseph Thomas Tully, aged two months. Willow took a deep breath and settled down again at the library table.

  Aristotle Poe recorded his steady round of ministrations, recording the birth, growth, flowering, mating, and aging of a whole territory. Willow used Poe’s meticulous habits to track him through the diaries for just the visits to Winelandia.

  After a few years of diary entries, Willow became quite familiar with the families of Winelandia. Poe recorded all vital statistics, crop news, weather, new road construction, bridges and natural calamities, fires and bam burnings, cattle diseases, epidemics and floods.

  Anna Schipstadt gave birth to a daughter in 1778. Margaret. None in 1779. None in 1780. None in 1781. Then another daughter in 1782. Elizabeth. Then silence. No news from the Tully family. Other families added children every other year.

  Willow continued to skim through years of colonial history, tracking Aristotle Poe’s visits to Winelandia. Families moved away. Then more families. The grapes weren’t good and the land wasn’t suited to much farming. Life was too hard, with no prospect of improvement. Bottomland in Orange County lured some. Others packed up and went looking for the Shenandoah Valley. Several migrated toward the vast prairies of the West. Winelandia was dying.

  In December 1789, Anna Schipstadt went into difficult labor. It exhausted her and killed the infant. A week later, Anna Schipstadt died in a fever. She was thirty-one. Two years later almost to the day, Thomas Tully died. Aged sixty-one.

  The three Tully children moved in with the Schipstadt family. More families left Winelandia. Poe’s visits diminished to two a year. In 1795 in the late spring, Aristotle Poe retired from circuit riding and became a minister in a small church near Princeton. In the last month of his circuit riding, he performed nine marriages.

  One of them was that of Margaret Tully. Age sixteen. And with her brother and younger sister, she went to live with her new husband in a civilized town in Vermont

  Her husband’s name was Edward Dawes.

  14

  Cassiopeia westered. In the evening sky, she lay in the northern quadrant, following Andromeda to the western horizon. A stiff breeze cleared the night sky.

  Richardson walked from the subway with a bag of groceries and his attaché case, weary of the case, weary of the cold and of winter. There were lights in windows and figures moving to and fro and warmth inside and the business of living. He was a stray stealing past the orbs of warmth, a vagrant, a wandering star.

  Brevoort House lay against the night sky like a tombstone. A single light showed from the building, probably Clabber’s window. Richardson felt the sudden urge to get out of that building, to find a new place, a clean slate with new faces.

  He paused in the midst of the sidewalk, looking at the building and telling himself not to go in, to turn and walk away. He felt the need to be shut of all the baggage and impedimenta of his life.

  There was also something about the house that gave him a strong sense of danger.

  15

  The chilly night air entered the hallway eagerly with him. Like an alert and curious dog, it spun through the vestibule seeming to sniff and seek. There was no light in the vestibule.

  Richardson shut the door. He felt along a wall and found the light switch. The vestibule filled with light. He wondered which of the tenants it had been who used to put the vestibule lights on at dusk. He opened his mailbox. It was empty.

  Near the foot of the stairs was Abernathys’ door. It stood ajar. Richardson peered into the apartment. It stood empty and dark. He shouldered the door open and stepped into the apartment.

  It was completely silent. Was there someone standing in the bedroom, holding his breath and listening? Richardson groped for a wall switch and moved it. A garish overhead light went on. The living room was empty. He crossed and looked into the kitchen and the bath and the bedroom and the small den.

  "Is there anyone here?” he said aloud.

  He turned back to the door and snapped off the light. He walked across the vestibule to the Carsons’ apartment door. It was shut. He turned the knob and the door opened. He pushed and watched it slowly swing inward—arcing into the darkness. He stepped into the darkness. A faint odor of old cigar smoke assailed his nostrils.

  He tried the switch to the living room ceiling light. It didn’t go on. He stepped across the bare floor, hearing his footsteps ringing on the wooden floor. He tried the kitchen light. It went on.

  Richardson strolled around the apartment dully, poking into each room, peering into closets. He saw Carol Carson’s face and her hair catching the light. He saw the wistful look when someone mentioned children, the unhappy glance at Ruth Abernathy's frank eagerness to be pregnant.

  The Carsons were gone; the unhappiness, unaccountably, had remained like the odor of old cigars. And he was an intruder, sniffing into other people’s privacy. He snapped off the kitchen light and walked out of the apartment.

  At the foot of the stairs, he looked up. No hall lights on any floor. He tried the bank of switches at the base of the stairwell. The second floor landing lit up, then the third, then the passageways.

  He mounted the steps. He wished he didn’t have to go up to his apartment. At the landing on the
second floor, he stood face to face with Griselda Vandermeer’s apartment door. Down the hall from it was Goulart’s door, and between them, Clabber’s door, with a slit of light at the foot.

  Richardson tried Griselda’s door. It was unlocked and he pushed it open. Several keys lay on the floor in front of his shoes. He smiled. Keys to locks that would never lock again. He sniffed—a phantasm of her scent, a perfume. Again he had the feeling of someone, arrested, frozen in movement, waiting behind a closed door, listening to his footfall, expectant, with bated breath.

  He shrugged and walked away, leaving the door wide open. He stepped past Clabber’s door to Goulart’s. He tried the knob. It was locked. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a key and inserted it into the lock and opened the door.

  Many dark shadows and lumps here. He reached into the room and turned a light switch. For a moment he was shocked. Half the plants were gone; all the art supplies were gone; cardboard cartons stood on the floor and the tables. Richardson stepped in. The closet was empty. The bedclothes gone and the mattress awry. Other cartons waited to be filled. The paintings and illustrations and the leather portfolios were gone. The taboret and drawing board were naked, exuding a disturbing neatness.

  Richardson pictured Patty packing her brother’s possessions. How many times did she stop to weep? he wondered. Folding a familiar shirt. Seeing anew a years-old painting. Touching his art-school paintbox.

  Richardson felt his eyes burning and angrily snapped off the lights. Who are you griping for—Ozzie or yourself?

  He backed out of the apartment and mounted the steps. At the landing he found Abby Withers’s door open—wide open. He listened for the trill of a ghostly canary, half expected the terrier sinuously to crowd around his legs, snorting gleefully. He pulled the door shut.

  He struggled a hand into his pocket and pulled out his key case. He pushed the key into the lock and opened his apartment door. It too was in darkness, and he snapped on the overhead light. Then he dropped the attaché case and the grocery bag on the couch and went about putting on lamps. He toured his apartment, finally lighting the oven. He hung up his overcoat and suit jacket, yanked off his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Then he pulled from the bag a frozen dinner packed in a foil tray and tossed it indifferently into the oven. He couldn’t remember what he’d bought—the chicken dinner or the pork. No matter; they all tasted alike.