Word: somersets
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Worldwide, French is the first language of some 109 million people, fewer than those who primarily speak English (403 million), Spanish (266 million) or even Portuguese (154 million). Fifty years ago, British Writer W. Somerset Maugham correctly called French "the common language of educated men." Today that distinction incontestably goes to English in the fields of science, technology, economics and finance, not to mention movies, rock music and air travel. As French President Francois Mitterrand said last year, "France is engaged in a 'war' with Anglo-Saxon...
...wounded vessel encounters the Alcyone, another British ship, bound for India and bearing news. The endless war with France is over. Napoleon Bonaparte has been driven into exile on the island of Elba; long live King Louis XVIII! Celebrations follow. Talbot is invited to dine with Sir Henry Somerset, captain of the Alcyone, and meets Lady Somerset's protegee, Miss Marion Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley). The diarist not only falls in love but also must struggle hopelessly to find some fresh way of describing his feelings: "Forgive a young man, a young fool, his ardours and ecstasies! I understand now that...
...result, 154-year-old Somerset Place, now a state historical site, will be the scene this Saturday of a homecoming unique in American history. Some 2,000 descendants of the Somerset slaves are expected to converge from all over the nation at the ancestral home most had never seen or even heard of until Redford contacted them. They are, says Redford, "people who have never truly been home before." The Aug. 30 gathering comes exactly two centuries after 80 slaves arrived from Africa aboard the brig Camden to help carve from the swamp a plantation where as many...
Dottie Redford, whose high cheekbones once gave her the now abandoned notion that her family was part American Indian, walked the green grounds of Somerset last week with almost proprietorial ease as she helped prepare for the big day. She has spent so much time at the plantation that Bill Edwards, the site manager, finally slipped her a key to use at will. When some Somerset descendants moseyed up from nearby Creswell to eyeball the preparations, Redford greeted them, and they her, in the lilting tones familiar everywhere as the voice of kinship. "Hello there, sugar." "How you doin', darlin...
Dorothy Redford will bring along her immediate family, a total of 17, including Daughter Deborah, 23, six brothers and sisters, their children, and her parents, Grady and Louise Littlejohn Spruill. Although she was born when the family lived in Columbia, only eight miles from Somerset Place, Redford had no idea that the family line led to the plantation. She was able to make the connection when she discovered a bill of sale in the Chowan County courthouse showing that her earliest known antecedent, Elsy Littlejohn, born in 1796, and eight children were sold by the Littlejohn plantation in Edenton...