Saturday, October 4, 2008

Lordly Linage, Loyal Legacy


In the midst of sheep began a voyage,
The legacy of Shepardess and Noble.

Within the fiefdom of his father Lord,
In the shadow of the castle keep and
Shadow of wrath and rage that the issue of
The royal loins loved a serf of his board,
Robert Townley married Esther Linsey.

And so he divorced his inheritance,
Stately title and his native Scotland.
Young Robert, his bride and his brother John
Set sail cross the sea for New Amsterdam.

While at Boston an angry rebel band
Was busting boxes and dumping good tea,
The Townley ship wrecked off Hopewell, N J.
Making shore they built a home in Oxford.

Suspicions swirled about newly arrived
Subjects of the Crown. Be they Tory spies?
Mobs burnt the house. They escaped with a sword
With family crest, lives and little else.

Robert swore his America allegiance
In Pennsylvania. After that you find
He added an S and became Townsley.
He molded a militia company,
Was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine.

In eighteen-ten Esther was a widow,
Living on land in Lancaster County,
A patriot, a pioneer Townsley wife.

The man who rejected riches for love
Was the fore bearer of the female who
Gave birth to the father who gave me life.

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