Two generations of Coddingtons migrate to the New World

In today’s post I’ll continue my recent theme of focusing on ancestors who were early immigrants to the future United States. I’ll be purposefully focusing on details of the immigrants’ lives before they arrived in the New World, and will address their activities once here in another post.

Stockdale Coddington was baptized on March 8, 1570, in Saint Mary the Virgin Church in the village of Bletchingley, in Surrey county, England. Thus we can surmise that he was born somewhere within Bletchingley Parish in late February or early March, 1570. Stockdale was the third-born child and eldest son of the four children born to James Quidington (1530–1606) and Joan Stockdale (ca. 1537–1612). Quidington was a common Surrey variant spelling of Coddington, along with Cuddington and Quedinton.

1570 was 449 years ago, which may be hard to conceptualize for non-historians. To help you visualize England in 1570, here are a few guideposts: Elizabeth I had been queen of England for a dozen years, Pope Pius V had just excommunicated Queen Elizabeth (on February 25, 1570), Thomas Tallis was a 65-year-old composer, and William Shakespeare was not yet six years old (not until about April, 1570). The King James Bible would not be published for another 41 years. It would be another 12 years until England tried to colonize the new world (unsuccessfully, at Roanoke from 1584 to 1589), and 37 years before England founded its first successful colony in the New World—Jamestown in 1607. The voyage of the Mayflower was still 50 years in the future.

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C. A. Prettyman was prepared

2016 was a rough year, but with the new year it’s time to try to get back into the family history groove. It’s been so long it’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll start with some small, fun discoveries. Rather than documenting my exploration of multiple related research avenues in these first posts, I’ll just focus on the discovery itself, and I’ll include just a small amount of related research.

One of these small, fun discoveries was finding my great-grandfather Charles Austin Prettyman (or C.A. Prettyman to his friends) mentioned in a nationally syndicated humor column.

A Cincinnati humor columnist apparently found C.A. Prettyman’s name amusing and mentioned C. A. in his column in the Wednesday, May 16, 1917, edition of The Enquirer. The column was called Bits of Byplay and it was written by James S. Hastings, using the nom de plume of “Luke McLuke”.

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C.A. Prettyman, barber and singer, part 2

Rockwell_1936_QuartetIn my first post on this topic, I wrote that my uncle Dan told me about two songs that he thought my great-grandfather, Charles Austin (C.A.) Prettyman, had written. Yesterday, after a little more digging, Dan learned that while his father (C.A.’s son) referred to these songs as “Charlie’s songs,” it was apparently because he (C.A.) sang them so much, not because he had written the songs.

Dan did a little research and discovered that “Saloon, Saloon, Saloon” was written in 1919, and that “Say Cuspidor was a barbershop take on another song called ‘Say au revoir but not good-bye‘”.

While that’s a bit disappointing, knowing the actual historical facts is ultimately more satisfying than believing in a history that never happened. So for today’s post, I’ll pass along what my uncle learned of these songs as well as some other bits I dug up.

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C.A. Prettyman, barber and singer, part 1

Rockwell_1936_QuartetMy uncle Dan surprised me with a wonderful historical tidbit about my great-grandfather, Charles Austin (C.A.) Prettyman. In addition to being a barber as a young man (read more here), he was apparently also a talented singer and a songwriter. And what’s more, at least two of the songs he wrote survive today in the memory of my uncle.

My uncle is a talented musician with a great voice, and his father before him was also musically gifted, having sung throughout his life including, my uncle tells me, being part of a barbershop quartet. It makes me wonder if C.A. was also in a barbershop quartet, and just how far back this Prettyman musical talent extends. Did it start with C.A., or was C.A. continuing a tradition that his father, Alfred Minus Prettyman, passed to him?

My uncle is planning to record these two songs for me, and he’s just sent me the words to Charlie’s two songs. I’d like to share those with you.

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The Prettyman barbershop, part 2

2013-07-21 scans002 (1)I introduced the Prettyman barbershop in yesterday’s last post. The four Prettyman brothers—Roy, Irvin, Charles, and Clarence—appear to have worked in and managed a barbershop in Wadena, Minnesota, from the 1910s through at least the early 1920s. Yesterday I presented what I thought were the only two photos I had of the barbershop, asking my readers to help me identify the men in the photographs and to discover what other details could be learned about the barbershop, including its location.

Since that post, I’ve discovered that I actually have a scan of another photo of the barbershop, plus scans of the back of these photos, which contain helpful information recorded by the Wadena Area Historical Society. As a result, I now know where the barbershop was located—110 Jefferson Street South in Wadena.

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The Prettyman barbershop, part 1

2013-07-21 scans002 (1)My great-grandfather, Charles Austin Prettyman, and his three brothers ran a barbershop in Wadena, Minnesota in the 1910s through at least the early 1920s. All four Prettyman boys were involved with the barbershop—Roy, Irvin, Charles, and Clarence. In fact, when my grandfather, William Prettyman, was born in 1919, his father’s profession was listed on the birth certificate as “barber.”

I’ve found two photos of the barbershop, but because I don’t know who is who in these photos, I’m hoping my Prettyman relations out there can help me sort that out.

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