H. P. Lovecraft

TL;DR -- We look at an author from the earlier part of last century. His parents were of the 10th generation and have lives that are of interest to several of our themes. The main locale is Rhode Island which we will pay more attention to, plus adding in a regular look at CT and VT (both involved with the western movements). 

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The name of H.P. (Howard Phillips Lovecraft - Wikipedia, WikiTree) came up recently in a discussion. Per our norm we try to find associations with the themes of the TGS, Inc. For context, he is an author with view similar to the modern author, Stephen King (Wikipedia, WikiTree), who acknowledges the influence of H .P who was born in Rhode Island; Stephen is from Maine. Both of New England. We need to look further at RI but will defer that. Lots of interesting families were involved in the founding and were instrumental in getting the state to this date. 

So, a theme here is that we have a basis with Essex County of MA and then MA but New England follows. We will note the various categories that will come into play as we continue our research. We have lots of post under the category of the Revolution where the 5th generation is the focus. We have not looked at Rhode Island very much nor paid suitable attention to Connecticut. We will. Also, VT will be brought into the mix as it was on the pathway as well as being settled early (example of families ratcheting westward  over time, leaving traces for us to look at - modern example: Coleman). 

Most of the Rhode Island material was about someone of the George Gardiner family. Examples are Henry and his brother plus Dr. Silvester and his wife. Now, H.P. will be another example as most of his lineage has folks who came into Rhode Island and stayed there. Of course, there are connections to families in the whole of New England. 

H.P.'s father was Winfield Scott Lovecraft who had been named for the General; his mother was Sarah Susan Phillips. Both are New England families Lovecraft was a fairly recent family in terms of arrival, but the collateral families of th Philipps have a history in the colonies. Both Winfield and Sarah are of the ninth generation which we need to look at further. That makes H.P the tenth. 

Another theme? This one has been in abeyance from the beginning except for minor remarks, here and there. Without pointing to specific posts, we saw that the Cape Ann crew was well capable in taking care of themselves. But, Conant came; later, we saw Endicott. It was not long after that when more people came in than the local environment could support. Typical then, as we see now. That is the major aspect of the theme. Economics, for one, as the common reality across time. Too though, generation after generation saw the rise of affluence (please do not compare to the supposed glories that we see now) and then its decline (oh yes, modern world's crypto - gaming as one huge factor). 

H.P. got attention to this theme brought to bear, finally. His family was wealthy (again, we will only briefly touch upon extremes of richness (which is stupidity, somewhat) and its opposite (as demonstrated with tens of thousands of homeless in the LA (that is, in CA) not considering all of the other areas that we need to pay attention to). First, his father took ill enough to be institutionalized. His grandfather and mother raised him. Then, his grandfather's business world experienced problems. 

H.P. has quite a following. One enthusiast pulled together a view of the family and published a book on H.P. parents (see image). The author gathered information about the business activity of H.P. maternal grandfather that is available via a blog (inactive since 2014): Whipple Van Buren Phillips. Rather than take an involved look at this, we can provide a few interesting pieces of information with commentary. 

• The researcher and book author, Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., published the book in 1990. Later, with the cloud coming to fore (Google's release of digital copies of documents), further research was possible by what are known as Lovecraftians. We like this as an example of what we will continue to see. Lots of this work was done in the earlier days of computing with some of that work gone but some recoverable. Such activity will be more commonplace. 
• The Panic of 1873 was one factor in H.P.'s grandfather business. Such events are a part of human life, as we can see with the more than a handful which have occurred within the past 30 years. Granted, these dynamics pertain to the whole country, but pulling to focus the New England aspects will be an ongoing bit of work. 
• Whipple was involved with several other ventures, but we wanted to look at the dam on the Bruneau River, in Idaho, that took time and money. Considering the time, the terrain, the technology, and local culture, this effort was extremely bold (Musk'ish?). The C.J. Strike Reservoir can be thought of as the result even if this was not accomplished in Whipple's time. The Snake River comes out of the area where we have researched and made mention of the years spanning from early trapper all the way to the ski resort offerings of the mid-20th century. Idaho is far afield from Rhode Island.

What we see here is the long reach of New England that will continue to be of interest. Also, we see two themes related to our interests that came about from looking at a New England author. As such, this represents several things of which we want to mention two: 

• over the 400 years from Cape Ann and the 250 years from the Revolution, history has weighed in from its view which we can discuss. However, families got themselves through those times and have tales to tell. We want to facilitate that all around especially by verifying information and getting it out to the world. As said, McCollough can be a model.
• at the same time, technology is of interest in its ceaseless mode of offering more and more (with less and less impact?).  

Remarks: Modified: 12/17/2022

12/16/2022 --