by 
William Bloom was my 5th-Great Grandfather on the Garrison side. This tale is not so much about him, as it is his children.
Most family tales have been passed down from one generation to the next through the oral tradition. But honestly, I was never aware of any family legends or tales while growing-up. It wasn’t until I began investigating my genealogy that I discovered there is interesting lore in my family tree after all.
While searching a Pennsylvania genealogy resource page I happened across a digital copy of “Clearfield County – Present and Past” (T.L. Wall, 1925). The great thing about most digital books is the search function. You no longer have to rely on the index to find specific things. Instead all you need do it pop your term into the search box, sit back and wait a few seconds. This is especially useful when searching for names. In this text I searched for William Bloom and, in doing so, came face-to-face with a genuine family tale.
The tale that follows is undocumented. Although published in a history book, there is no source citation! I do not know if the author was told this story or if he found some mention of it written someplace. Until more is known I will consider the story to be legend.
William (Wilhelm) Bloom was born February 26, 1751 in Germany. He came to America sometime before the American Revolution and settled in New Jersey. “Legend” is told that William served during the Revolutionary War for several years, but that is not the legend of which I write today.
During the Spring of 1801 William Bloom moved west from New Jersey and settled in what would become the town of Curwensville in Clearfield County, PA. William brought with him his sons John (14) and Benjamin (9) and his daughter Elizabeth (16). Together the family cleared some land, planted some vegetables, built a rudimentary log cabin and made ready for a winter on the frontier. The cabin, it is told, had no door. In the doorway was hung a wool blanket. The blanket offered the only barrier to animals, weather, friend and foe. Of all the crops planted, turnips provided the biggest yield and enough were harvested to last the winter.
Before the end of summer, William left his children at the cabin and traveled back to retrieve his wife and other children. Benjamin, John and Elizabeth were left to tend to the cabin and the crops until their father returned in the fall. Fourteen year-old John didn’t bother much with his Elizabeth and Ben. Instead he chose to live with the Indians. This left Elizabeth and Ben in the cabin to fend for themselves.
The Fall came, and went, and William had still not returned to the cabin. The children were forced to spend the winter alone in the cabin. Winter was a difficult time for Elizabeth and Ben. The fireplace was used for cooking and heating, but gaps in the cabin’s walls allowed the heat to escape and the wind to come inside. Even worse was the doorway to the outside which was still only blocked by a hanging blanket. The children spent their days gathering firewood from the area around the cabin. After awhile all of the food stores, except the turnips, had been exhausted. Breakfast, lunch and dinner consisted of boiled turnips.
One day Elizabeth and Ben, having reached their tolerance of eating turnips, decided to walk to the cabin of Paul Clover to seek food. With about four feet of snow on the ground the children walked roughly ¾ of a mile to the Clover cabin. “Now the Clover’s were not very flush of eatables” (Wall, Pg. 34) but they reportedly gave the children a large chunk of cornbread to take home. Elizabeth and Ben are said to have relished the cornbread and managed to make it last two weeks.
The children survived the winter and William Bloom arrived back at the cabin, with the rest of the family, in Spring. No mention is given as to what caused the delay in his return.
There is more to this tale. The Bloom children had some run-ins with the local Indians. But that will have to wait for another post.
My lineage from William Bloom is:
William Bloom > Isaac Bloom > Elizabeth (Bloom) Garrison > Levi Garrison > Sturley Garison > Charles Garrison > Charlene (Garrison) Crosby > Me
