Wednesday, January 16, 2008

crackerjack outfit - 1900 team

Here's the image of Pembroke Finlayson (referred to as Pem) when his family was still living in Cheraw, South Carolina - before his dad made the move to Brooklyn. You can read about Pembroke if you flip back a blog page. This is the photo that used to hang over my bed growing up. My grandfather Burruss Finlayson is in this old Charlotte Observer (Sunday, June 26,1955)

-CRACKERJACK OUTFIT - This 1900 team was one of Cheraw's finest baseball clubs. Seated left to right are Fish Saunders, Bob Hudgens, Bob Tomlinson, Pem Finlayson, Wilson Malloy, Walter Duvall and John Evans. Standing left to right are Goat Powell, Edward McIver, Harry Finlayson, W.P. Pollack, Burruss Finlayson, and Edwin Malloy -

So this paper dates Pembroke in Cheraw at age of 10. He's the youngster in center front of the above photo. My grandfather Burruss Finlayson was (if my math is correct...and it usually isn't) about 32 years old at the time this picture was taken. Burruss was born in 1868. Harry I can only guess is what folks called Henry Wright Finlayson (Pem's PaPa).


Burruss Finlayson's 2nd Street Store in Cheraw, SC (circa 1904-1909)
My dad and his family grew up in Cheraw where my grandfather had a dry goods store। My great-great grandparents are Murdoch Uriah Finlayson (b.1835-d.1932) and Martha Lucinda Pate. It was Murdoch who moved to Cheraw, SC (Chesterfield County) when Burruss was jest a pup. M.U. Finlayson was the Finlayson that moved to Chesterfield County from Wilmington, NC. You can refer to previous posts.

Family Bible records say that Murdoch's parents were Daniel Finlayson and Charity Westbrook। It was Daniel that made the big trip to America but I know nothing of him. There's a small crop Finlayson's scattered in North Carolina and I know that most are somehow but how? I sure wish I knew more about Daniel. Family records indicate that he died in Princeton, NC (formerly Bucks Swamp). Here's something else, you can't just look in one county when you're digging through census records because county lines back then shifted. You can find the same families in Robeson, Cumberland, Wayne, and Johnston Counties. It can get pretty confusing.

Maybe a fellow time traveler...a distant cousin will Google the name Finlayson North Carolina or Finlayson South Carolina and find this blog. Maybe we can compare notes or I'll get lucky enough to have someone introduce me to that man I've been hunting down through the years, the right Daniel...find out a little more about my grandparents than the names scrawled in an old Bible. Daniel...Charity....where are you?

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