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Show Page 11 Jared and Charity Pratt wandered eastern New York for several years, seeking the land which would open up the "bright prospects of wealth" 19 which continually eluded them. Jared's travels, documented in the scattered birthplaces of his sons, ceased at length in the vicinity where they began, near New Lebanon, New York. In the meantime, he and his wife farmed one little patch after another, all of them buried in thin upland valleys similar to Jared's home ground. At which point in their wanderings they welcomed their first son is unknown. He was christened Anson, and according to Orson's record, was born January 9, 1801. It seems likely that the boy was born in or around Canaan township. Anson, eventually baptized into the Mormon Church through Orson's efforts, was his senior by ten years and principal companion in his young adolescence. To Anson's credit, he was the one who lodged his parents in their old age and was with them bdth when they died - the 20 others were scattered across the continent. With two children now, the Pratts went on the move sometime in 1801-02, probably into the forests of Lake Otsego, New York. This country, near the headwaters of the Susquehanna, was booming, with nearly 20,000 inhabitants by 1800. Jared Pratt was not among those registered in the Otsego County census for that year, but on September 3, 1802, a second son was born in the township of "Wooster" (Worcester), Otsego County, some ninety milesfrdmCanaan. William Dickinson were his names, combining both the restless bloodlines of the Pratts. Parley Parker, the third son of Jared and Charity, was born April 12, 21 1807, in Burlington, not far from Lake Otsego, the hilly woods country made famous in the novels of James Fenimore Cooper. Parley, older than Orson by four years, grew up to be the most famous of Mormon missionaries - a candid and humorous man, he was renowned for his forceful, life-long defense of MormonisK, and for a streak of millenarian zeal which embroiled |
