Chapter 54

The next morning, we all returned to what I had termed "O'Connell House". Both of our cooks came with us, and all of the women began preparing food for those whom we expected to arrive at around noon time.

Albert, his Wife, and their children were the first to arrive. We were glad to see them and to know that he was well enough to come to the meeting. He was followed shortly by a trickle of other men, and as noon approached a veritable flood of men appeared, but there were very few women or children with them. We had moved a wagon out to the center of the lawn that morning to speak from so that everyone could see us when we addressed them. A voice amplification spell would enable all of them to hear us as well. As noon approached, Seamus, Ken, Kell, and I appeared on the wagon. The remainder of the family was on the porch of the house watching.

"Good day, gentlemen and ladies. I'm Mark O'Connell and those up here with me are my Brother Kennard, and our Cousins Seamus and Kellen. Over on the porch are the other members of our families and clan.

"Do you have any spokesmen with you?" I asked after that. Several men raised their hands to indicate that they were spokesmen.

"Does it appear that all of those that you represent have arrived?" I asked them. Those with their hands up looked around them for a time and soon agreed that most of their people were present.

"Good! We'll start then. If all of you will be seated on the grass, I'll start with an explanation of who we are, and where we come from. Following that there will be a discussion on what crops are presently planted and growing. Lastly, I will explain what I would like to see happen here in the future as far as development of the area is concerned," I told them, before adding, "At some point, we will take a break and food will be served. The ladies have been busy preparing for this meeting since yesterday."

I then launched into an explanation of who we were, and how we came from another Reality. The explanation of our use of Magic was more easily accepted by these men who spoke Gaelic and knew the legends of old Ireland, than it had been by others in this Reality.

Seamus took up the explanation of the Border Rangers and what they had accomplished. Ken and Kell covered our campaign against the British. There were many interruptions and much laughter during the retelling, as there was no love for the British among these men. It was decided to have the break for food at the completion of this part of the meeting.

Our male relatives had set up a couple of tables on the lawn near the house for the ladies, who now had them piled high with slices of several kinds of meat, slices of cheese, sliced bread, and dishes of butter. There were some vegetables available plus plates and utensils had been brought here from Hickory Hill since only a few had been available here. There were buckets of cool, clean water and mugs available at the end of the tables. It was the best that we could do for such a large crowd on short notice.

In talks with the various spokesmen, we learned that there were one hundred and fifty men present for the meeting, and that there were over eight hundred people in the area. We also learned that the women and children had not come as no one was sure what would happen at the meeting, and they didn't want to endanger their families. These people had learned the hard way to be very cautious.

The meal turned into a very boisterous affair, and it took some time before everyone was finished. There had been a number of discussions among the various groups during the break. Finally, everyone was finished eating and talking, and the meeting resumed.

"The next topic to be discussed concerns the crops that are presently planted and are growing," was how I began the second section of the meeting. A number of crop names were shouted out by those in the audience, but it was difficult to understand everything that was said. I decided that a different approach was needed.

"Will the spokesmen please stand?" I requested. About a dozen men stood. "I'll start with this gentlemen," I told them indicating a tall heavy set man. "He will name a crop that is being grown, and then those growing that crop will raise their hand, so we can get an idea of how many are growing each crop. If you are growing more than one crop, raise your hand for each one.

"I'll start the process with gardens. How many of you have gardens planted for food for your family?" I asked. Only a quarter of those present raised their hands. This was not good.

"Is there a reason that so few of you have a garden?" I asked.

"We lack the seeds or the time to work on it, Master," the man that I had selected to question answered.

"I ... we are not here to be your masters. We will be happy to help you and guide you in certain things, but we are not royalty or masters. There will be no Ah O'Conaill (The O'Connell) here," I told them before returning to the garden discussion. "If seeds were made available, how many would start a garden?" I asked. Nearly all of those present raised their hands.

"I will see what can be done about getting seeds. It's still June and there is time enough to grow vegetables," I told them and then proceed to call on the various spokesmen for crop names. It seemed that tobacco and corn were the main crops at this time with potatoes and some cotton being runners up. It appeared that there were also a number of fields in hay, and some wheat was being grown for both its use as flower and straw. There were a few miscellaneous crops also.

"Now about those crops, they are yours. We will not claim any part of them. You have been the ones to do all of the work growing them, and you will be the ones to sell them and receive the money for them," I finished. There was great joy and excitement when they heard this statement. It required a bit of time to quiet everyone down.

"For the last part of the meeting, I will tell you what I propose for the future starting next year, but first another question for the spokesmen. What would you say was the size of the initial farms held in this area?" I asked. There were a number of answers ranging from about forty acres up to sixty acres, but most were closer to forty acres.

"What I propose starting next year is for each family to have a dedicated farm of one hundred acres. You would have your own house on the land. If any of you are members of an extended family, you could group your houses close together and combine your lands. Does this appeal to you?" I asked. There was again great excitement and applause at this idea.

"As I understand it, the late Colonel Crosbie held claim to some twenty-seven thousand acres of land. If each of you receive a hundred acres that will amount to fifteen thousand acres more or less. We will endeavor to site each farm so that you will have access to the various streams in the area so that you can water your crops.

"The remaining land will be controlled and managed by the O'Connell Clan. As you can imagine, we ourselves will not be able to farm all of that land, and we will be hiring men and some older boys to help with farming a portion of it. No one will be required to work for us. If you have time and wish to work for us, that is fine," I told them. There were a number of discussions about what they had heard after this. Finally, one of the spokesmen had a question.

"What about the title to the land that we will receive?" he asked and I could see the concern on other men's faces. I had been expecting this and called to John McIntosh who appeared on the wagon with me.

"This is John McIntosh. He is a lawyer and also one of my Brothers-in-Law," I told them, but didn't think it appropriate for them to know that he and my Sisters weren't married yet.

"He will be searching the land records in Savannah and will secure titles to all of the land that the late Colonel Crosbie claimed and also whatever other land is available so that we can expand in the future. I see a very bright future for this area, and we can all share in it," I told them to more applause and some whistling. I held up my hands after a time to quiet them down.

"Once you are settled on your farms, you will each receive a copy of the deed for the land you are on. This may take a bit of time as there are quite a few of you, and we haven't even been to look at the records yet. Rest assured however that we will begin working on this shortly.

"Now, there is quite a bit of clothing that the former owner and his guards left behind. It has all been cleaned. If you are in need of some clothing feel free to take some with you, but please remember that there are a lot of you, and only a limited amount of clothing.

"Lastly, in a few days I would like to meet with the spokesmen who have been here today to discuss how things will be worked out for the remainder of this year. Thank you all for coming today," I finished. Again there was applause before groups of men began drifting over to the tables to look at the clothing while others left the area with their spokesmen. After a very hectic day, we O'Connells returned to our rooms at our various operational sites.

John started work on the title search in Savannah the next week. It was a long and difficult job. The titles were often vague or ambiguous with descriptive phrases like "for a distance as far as a man can walk while smoking a cigarette, or the distance a man can walk or ride in a given time such as fifteen minutes, but usually longer". Directions were often wrong switching North for South or East for West. Often the name of the land holder had not been changed when he, or occasionally she, had died, and it was not clear who had inherited the property.

All of the land around the future Statesboro area had been transferred to either Lieutenant Colonel William Crosbie or to Thomas Morrison starting in 1791. Later still the land had been transferred from Morrison to Crosbie. At no point was the amount of the sale entered in the records as was required. John would often return in the evening shaking his head in wonder or disgust at the disaster that the land records were.

All of this worked to our advantage however. Glanda had been going with him daily and used her Magic to create entries transferring all of the Crosbie land to Clan O'Connell rather than to one individual. There was no problem recreating the official stamps on all of the transfers or the signature of the new patriot official now in charge of the land office. She also used a spell on the records so they could not be changed or altered without the spell being removed by an O'Connell. John was not entirely comfortable with these goings-on, but he believed that we had the best of intentions.

Once John had finished with the initial title searches, and Glanda had created a copy of all of the deeds, we hired a respected local land surveyor to accurately survey all of the land, and to establish the actual boundaries of each parcel of land based on the deeds and what knowledge the local people were able to provide about each parcel. Later John would return to the land office to have the corrected land descriptions entered, but that wouldn't be for some time.

During this time, the rest of us had also been very busy. Gwyn was still the Quartermaster for the Border Rangers with all that entailed. The port teams were still issuing rations and other items to the British Quartermasters. Those not thus engaged were planning patrols for the Border Rangers or spending time meeting those who were farming on our new land. We were all still staying at our various operational sites, and we needed to hire some men and older boys to take care of the farm animals at our new property.

We had created a Defensive Shell around the large house, since no one was staying there presently. Some of the outbuildings had also been warded to keep people from entering them. Jillian was again the one to locate Colonel Crosbie's treasure. It was smaller than General Wilkinson's had been, but it would help defray the costs of the things that we intended to do for the farmers here.

There was something else that was happening in June that we weren't aware of, as we had paid little attention to local politics since we didn't really consider it any of our business. That was elections to the Congress of the North American Confederation. Later in August, we would find out how wrong we had been.

In July, ships began arriving to transport units of the British Army back to England or other locations. While they started the strongest in the ports of the southern colonies, some ships arrived in all of the Atlantic ports to transport Army units. While this did lead to a lessening of the workload in most of the ports, the Southern and Mid-Atlantic ports were the most affected. The New England and Canadian ports were much slower in receiving transport ships.

Starting in Mid-July, I began work on transferring the leadership of the Border Rangers from the O'Connells to others. I first brought up the idea to General Greene.

"We are interested in withdrawing from the leadership of the Border Rangers," I mentioned to him during a meeting to update him on the removal of British troops.

"My staff and I have been discussing the future role of the Border Rangers also," General Greene told me. "With the threat of British raids now removed, we feel that it would not be necessary to maintain such a strong presence at Fort Sterling. My staff has recommended reducing our presence there to two squads of Rangers, and using the local militia as their backup in the event of trouble," the General finished.

"Where would you move the remainder of the troops?" I asked.

"Most would transfer to Fort Washington. There is still the border of the Indian Territory to be patrolled to insure that the peace is maintained and the Treaty agreement upheld. Of course, some of the Continentals that you received are a bit too old for that duty, and their ranks would be thinned out some by retiring a number of them.

"The real problem, however, comes with your supply system. You use Magic to move supplies and people around. If you leave, how will we keep those units supplied?" he asked.

"We have people that we have trained in Magic who are doing that work presently. We have all of the necessary Portals set up, and they can all open and close them. I'm sure that most of them would be interested in staying with the Border Rangers. Also the Ranger Training Camp may need to be moved when Mount Sterling is reduced in capacity," I advised him.

"Yes, we had considered moving it to a location in Ohio near the Treaty line," the General answered with a smile. I, in the mean time, had another thought, two actually.

"Those Continentals that you were considering retiring because of age; they come from various colonies, don't they?" I inquired.

"Yes, they are from the remains of various units."

"Have you considered sending them back to their colonies as trainers for the local military? I have observed that they all appear to be well trained and know the organization and procedures that the Army uses. As trainers, they could pass this knowledge on to the military in the various former colonies," I suggested.

"I hadn't thought of that, O'Connell. I'll have my staff look into it, and have them check with those affected. We would probably need to promote some of them so that they would be listened to," the General said in an interested voice and made a note on some paper on his desk.

"If I may ask, who have you considered to take Command of the Border Rangers when we leave?" I asked next when he had finished writing.

"That has also been discussed. The position requires an individual with a certain mind set and different talents than a Regular Army Officer normally has. Did you have someone in mind?" he asked slyly.

"Actually, yes. I was thinking of Captain Samuel Moore. He has been in charge of Ranger Training for some time now and is well versed in what we have been doing. I believe that he would make an excellent Commander for the Border Rangers," I told him and used a minor compliance spell to back up my recommendation.

"Yes, we'll definitely have to consider him. He certainly has the right background," the General agreed.

"He would also need to be promoted to Major, if he is in charge of all of the units at Fort Washington and in the Ohio Country," I reminded him. I would need to speak to Samuel about this. His lady friend, Linda Magee from our Louisville facility, had been teaching him to use his Talent and teaching him Magic. It might be time for him to attend classes at Hickory Hill for more advanced studies.

"Will the Border Rangers still need to use the facility at Hickory Hill?" the General asked next, interrupting my thoughts.

"Probably not all of it. We have all of the Portals set up there, but they could be moved to Fort Washington or even to Fort Henry if necessary," I assured him. It would be a real job moving the Portals, but not something that we couldn't do. Before I left, the General indicated that we would discuss the changes more in a couple of weeks, after his staff had time to go over the things that we had discussed.

Also in July, Chandra, Duncan, and their future Husband and Wives returned to their former farm along the Cousawatte River in northwest Georgia. The Cherokee Brother and Sister intended to reclaim their family farm from the British Captain who had stolen it from them and murdered their Father. They all arrived too late.

On learning that the British were leaving, Cherokee Warriors had been there before them and put the Captain to death. They had also terrorized the other English settlers in the area sufficiently that they had abandoned the other lands that they had stolen from the Cherokee. There had been several 'Grandmothers' with the Warriors, and they persuaded them not to burn the houses and the crops in the area since the Cherokee would be moving back into the area and could use them.