Ackerman
Hamilton Hoxie Ackerman Hoxie's trombone resume
Nathaniel Silsbee Ackerman is the littlest Ackerperson but he's getting bigger and bigger! He joined Hoxie in the trombone thing for three years and now plays bass guitar.
David Ackerman of 1662 is the root of our Western hemisphere Ackermanity.
Silsbee
Cornelia Jane Silsbee Cousin Cornelia
Nathaniel Silsbee, U.S. Senator, is my wife's great-great-great-great grandfather. The Scandanavian Silsbee clan showed up in Salem around 1630
Williams
Harvey Ladew Williams II World War I At 16, my grandfather left Harvard to drive an ambulance in the war. These are letters he wrote home from Italy and France. If you can't read them all, this one sums it up pretty well.
Richard Smith Williams My great-great-great-great-great grandfather is buried in a vault at the New York Marble Cemetery.
A claim has been made (Thanks, Aunt Sheila) that we are descended from two other notable Williams's:
1) Sir Thomas Williams (1513-1566) Speaker of the House of Commons in 1553 and Member for the City of Oxford. In January, 1558, he sat at the first Parliment of Elizabeth 1st.
2) Sir Thomas Williams (1762-1841) was a famous seaman. He sailed with his father at the age of six and became a lieutenant at age 17. He became Captain of "The Unicorn" which fought the French frigate "Tribune" in a seven hour battle, killing 37 Frenchmen (Mon dieux!) Not one of his crew was injured. He became Rear Admiral in 1800 and was knighted in 1815.
Ladew
Harvey Smith Ladew, a great-great uncle, left us the Ladew Topiary Gardens
Willis
Nathaniel
Parker (N.P.) Willis, a great-great-great grandfather, was a celebrated
poet and essayist. His work, "American Scenery," is included in
the NYPL exhibit "A
Hudson River Portfolio". He may even have been the first celebrity.
The University of Michigan has a some
of his work online with both text and page images available.
His sister, Sarah Willis Parton, known as Fanny Fern, gets a lot of press these days too. She was the first syndicated female writer in American history.
Grinnell Willis, N.P. Willis's son, gave a new library to Morristown when the old one burned down.
Marion
Frank J. Marion, my great-grandfather on my father's side, founded an early film company called Kalem, after working for a while at Biograph. He founded it with two other men; one of them died and the other sold his interest back to Marion relatively early in the history of the business. Kalem was one of the members of Thomas Edison's The Motion Picture Patents Company later broken up by government anti-trust action. Lots of firsts: first filmmaker in Florida, first filmmaker to make a film overseas (Ireland), etc. Apparently they shot quite a few films in Beaufort Ireland.
Grinnell
Moses H. Grinnell was buried in the New York Marble Cemetery across the grounds from Richard Smith Williams. Rumor has it he was moved to another cemetery. I have docs on him but haven't written it out yet. There was also a murder accusation in the Grinnell dark past.