Tonight at Pendarvis, you’ll have a chance to visit with John and Christiana Martin, as they greet you in the couple’s log cabin built in 1841. The event is part of “Midsummer Spirits,” a Celtic celebration of one of the times in the year when the boundaries between the natural and supernatural worlds are thin and otherworld spirits can mingle with humans.
 
John Martin was the son of Thomas Martin, who sailed from Cornwall in 1830, endured nine weeks at sea, and made his way west to Mineral Point. He used his savings from his hard work in the lead mines to buy local properties.
 
When he died in 1842, he deeded to his son John the log portion at the end of the Pendarvis row house, shown in the photograph.
 
He also left the following total estate, an inventory of household furnishings  which seems meager by today’s material standards, but was “enough” for a relatively well-to-do family of early settlers, 171 years ago:
 
2 bedsteads​​
1 wash tub
​2 hymn books​      
1 cook stove
1 feather bed​
4 milk pans
​​8 school books with pipe
1 straw bed​​
1 coffee mill
​1 washboard
5 blankets
​​1 strainer​​
1 wood saw​​      
15 oxen
2 quilts​​
1 mirror​​
2 axes
2 pillows
​​1 tray​​​
1 grindstone
2 sheets​​
6 knives & forks​
3 wood planes​      
1 chest
​​6 spoons​​
2 chisel​​
2 tables
​​6 cups & saucers
1 drawing knife          
3 chairs​​
6 plates
​​1 bushel measure            
3 benches​​
1 dish & pitcher
1 broom
2 buckets​​
Cows, pigs, steers
Some farm equipment
2 Bibles
 
Come to the Midsummer Spirits Event at Pendarvis Historic Site, to meet John and Christiana, along with other Cornish immigrants, and listen as Bob Neal tells you about the 20th Century restoration of the old Pendarvis buildings.
 
It’s a colorful group we’ve coaxed into our world so they can tell us about the world they lived in and the magic of a special place in Mineral Point.
 
– Contributed by Frank Beaman