Significantly, in the late 1980s, shortly after the death of his father, Clifford 'Gould' (de)Neergaard (1896–1988), Dick [Neergaard] developed an interest in genealogy: "I came across a most touching letter written by Thomas Grant Westcott to his wife, Joanna ‘Josie’ Gould, eloquently pleading for a reconciliation. It was this letter, the elegance of its prose as much as its content, that piqued my interest. I thought, ‘I have got to learn more about this guy!’ and started poking. I found two books written about the Westcotts and Sacketts and learned about the Mormons’ enormous wealth of family histories and how to access them. A year or so later I retired and, having a sudden vacuum of time and energy to fill, became heavily enmeshed in what appealed to me as an engrossing cross between detective mysteries and crossword puzzles, with the further advantage that the outcome could have value to others and be not just a pastime for me.”

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The large family fortune of Baron Thomas de Littleton II included the Quartermine and Frankley estates. With the Baron’s death, the paternal line of this distinguished old family became extinct as to its surname. To perpetuate the name and keep the family fortune intact, Elizabeth upon her betrothal to Thomas de Wescote entered into a pre-nuptial agreement whereby their first male issue should be called “Thomas” and baptized with her “Littleton” surname. Thomas and Elizabeth de Westcote adhered to the pre-nuptial agreement with the birth of their firstborn in 1402. In later years, the child became Sir Thomas Littleton, reportedly a brilliant and distinguished barrister. However, it appears that Elizabeth was not content to have only her eldest son bear her name but also wished Guedo, Edmond, and Nicholas to take her surname as well. Because they retained the name de Westcote, she would not permit them to share equally with their brother Thomas in her estate.

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James I granted knighthood to Lewis Stukely on his way to London in 1603. In Lewis’s case, the appointment evidently resulted more from his breeding than his achievements. Our ancestor first came to public notice in 1617 when the King installed him as the vice-admiral of Devonshire. In this capacity, Sir Lewis assumed temporary guardianship of the infant child Thomas Rolfe—son of John Rolfe and his “Indian Princess” wife Rebecca—upon the death of the boy’s mother. “Pocahontas” died unexpectedly just as the family of three made preparations to return from England to Virginia.

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In 1630, the Winthrop Fleet led by John Winthrop commanded 12 of the 16 ships funded by the Massachusetts Bay Company that traveled from England to the vicinity of Boston with 700 to 1,000 Puritans, livestock, and provisions during the first period of the Great Migration. Our lineal ascendants Isabel Pearce and Simon Sackett; Simon Sackett II; Thomasina and George Hull; Mary Walter and William Gaylord; and Elizabeth Hull and Samuel Gaylord are counted among them as nine of the earliest Massachusetts Bay Colony arrivals.

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In 1692, the Westcotts once again found themselves at the center of the period’s well-documented witchcraft hysteria in New England, which had embroiled Daniel’s mother Joanna Westcott a generation before. Much like the 1653 witch trial in Fairfield, Connecticut, involving Goody Knapp, accusations that precipitated the Stamford-Fairfield witch-hunt of 1692–1693 originated in a quarrel between neighbors.

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A refugee, the orphan Isaac LeFevre fled to Strasbourg where the compassionate couple Daniel II and Marie Ferree took him into their home. Out of his wrecked homestead, Isaac salvaged only his father’s bible, which his mother had concealed by baking it in a loaf of bread. He clung to and cherished it through all his flights from France, through Bavaria, Holland and England, to the home he made amongst the extended Ferree family in Strasburg Township, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He had the bible by his side until his 83rd year when his body was laid to rest. The coveted keepsake is now held in the library of the Lancaster County Historical Society.

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The Ferrees were greeted in London by other Huguenots in an area of London called Spitalfields where silk weavers were known to reside. Upon her arrival, Marie Warenbuer Ferree, now somewhat well-known for her outspoken beliefs, asked to be directed to the Penn residence a short distance from Spitalfields. Huguenots in the area knew William Penn and they recognized his carriage, his horses, and persons associated with him. Coincidentally, the gentleman who intended to direct her to the Penn home spotted William’s approaching carriage. Penn stopped the vehicle and invited Marie to have a seat. Driving her to his abode, he treated her with the greatest kindness as she made her situation known.

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Though not of his own blood, Joseph Sackett II established a connection to the legendary Moore family via three of his sisters who married two Moore brothers. The Moores had a hand in founding Harvard College and Columbia College, drafting Twas the Night Before Christmas, and administering to Alexander Hamilton on his death bed.

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A trusted patriot to the last, our distant cousin Nathaniel Sackett assumed the lead role in George Washington’s secret service corps. He maintained close contact with the Commander in Chief and his leading generals in the war for independence.

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Nathaniel’s younger sister, Hannah Sackett, ranks high among the countless members of the distinguished Sackett family found in Charles H. Weygant’s The Sacketts of America. Reputedly a spirited lass, Hannah was not yet 17 when in 1768 her father Samuel inexplicably pressured her into marrying the family’s much older neighbor—the wealthy aristocrat landowner Stephen De Lancey (then aged 40). When the Revolution commenced and Hannah’s brother, Nathaniel, secretly headed intelligence for George Washington, her husband, a dedicated Tory, filled a similar position for King George III. Their neighboring estates were situated in the bitterly contested “no-man’s-land” of Westchester, New York. Hannah’s heart stayed with her brother and the Patriots, so after presiding at dinners in the De Lancey home with British officers as frequent guests, she rode to her ancestral home to report all she had heard at the table.

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In the year Hampton’s father James became Secretary of the State of New Jersey in 1830, the British Vice-Consul contracted Hampton to sail its two-masted sloop from Key West back to Belfast, Ireland, upon the captain’s sudden death. An unfortunate “dueling” incident sidelined those plans, however. Meanwhile, in a letter penned on December 31, 1830, from Tallahassee, Florida, James Diament Westcott, Jr. provided instructions to expedite the transmittal of a passport for his brother Hampton that would facilitate his navigating the brig for the British Vice-Consul. James Jr. described the physique of his 25-year-old brother: height of just 5-feet 3-inches; light hair and beard; light blue eyes; large mouth, teeth, forehead, and chin; a robust body; and “a plainly marked scar or gash on his forehead and cheek running between the eye and made with four stitches on it.”

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Fueling the duel, a conflict involving the midshipmen transpired in Philadelphia on the heels of innocent play at billiards by a group of friends and a remark by one to another on his want of proficiency in the game. A struggle ensured, humiliation surfaced, vindication emerged with seconds recruited to bear the challenge, pistols discharged, anguish developed, retaliation followed with another round of newly recruited seconds, a disgraced navy took action, and those implicated as parties to the sordid affair suffered the consequence when removed from the rolls.

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On the heels of the fatal duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr in 1804, the unsavory episode involving my G3 grandfather Hampton remains notable in military history, as does the custom of dueling and its effect on society. The practice of dueling continued even after 18 states outlawed it by 1859, but with the public’s waning interest, it became a thing of the past in the United States by the start of the 20th century.

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Elizabeth Westcott gained fame largely due to her storied connection with George and Martha Washington and family, but also because she and her best friend succumbed to the dreaded yellow fever on the same day in 1798 outside Philadelphia.

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Thomas Grant Westcott and Josie Sackett Gould endured difficult childhoods before they came together as husband and wife. Most heart-wrenching is the story of Josie who experienced a family tragedy she later recalled in such visceral terms you almost felt you were present.

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Remarkably well-versed, Josie Gould penned the harrowing account of her large family’s terrifying experience in the Hickory Run Flood of 1849. But for the grace of God, every member in the family clinging for their lives might have perished.

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Living on the second floor above the brothers’ shop that faced the “diamond” known as Memorial Square, Jacob had an excellent vantage point to observe the movements of the Southern soldiers when the Confederate Army began invading the town [Chambersburg, PA]. With an unobstructed view of Main Street, Jacob personally witnessed the approach of General Robert E. Lee on June 26th as he prepared to confer with General A.P Hill, the commander of the Confederates’ Third Corps. Jacob made rapid strides down the stairs for a closer look when Lee and his staff stopped directly in front of where he stood. The two generals—Lee and Hill—then rode a short distance away from the group and held a short, whispered conversation.

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VOLUME II (1889-present)

 

In the far northern reaches of the country’s Midwest, the newlyweds faced a frigid winter as well as threatening racial tension that undermined any sense of calm. In the midst of a violent period of widespread racial conflict fueled by the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, Yolande and her family arrived in Duluth as a mob of thousands took three African American circus workers from jail. The mob killed Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie by lynching on June 15, 1920.

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The anxious SS Washington passengers could not have imagined a threat greater than the one they escaped in Europe as they powered through billowing clouds and gathering swells in the open seas.

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As calm followed the ferocious storm, passengers on the SS Washington regained their footing and finally received permission to move about. Yolande, Jinks, Yo, and Larry arrived on deck just as the Statue of Liberty came into view on approach to New York City. An overwhelming feeling came over our family and the others as the weary passengers absorbed the reality of having survived this nightmare. A universal symbol of enduring freedom and democracy dedicated in 1886 by the people of France to the people of the United States to commemorate the countries’ alliance during the American Revolution, the “crowned lady” holding the lit torch made a lasting impression on anxious passengers who were more than ready to disembark on American soil. They emerged as survivors of the deadly natural disaster and safely distant from the man-made one then brewing on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

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At my grandfather’s urging, DTB Jr. enrolled in the engineering program at Notre Dame. Quickly learning that he did not have a mind for sciences, he changed his major to journalism instead. As extracurricular activities, he contributed articles to the student newspaper and “woke up the echoes” cheering the Fighting Irish to victory as a cheerleader and avid fan of the famed football program. Thus began my parents’ lifelong obsession with everything “Notre Dame.”

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Around 1962, shortly before the [family] move, the U.S. prepared for the possibility of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. As an uninformed nine-year-old, I somehow escaped the chaos and fear surrounding the Cuban missile crisis, yet I recall how as school children we rehearsed the imminent threat by hiding under our desks at the sound of a bellowing siren. Protected in the veil of secrecy about the meaning and nuclear implications of this “duck-and-cover” drill, we simply did as we were told in response to the nuns’ stern warnings. Meanwhile, the threat of a missile attack sent panic waves across a weary nation and much of the world.

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My vivid memory at St. Bernard’s came on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, when the principal interrupted classes to announce the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) in Dallas, Texas. With the early dismissal of classes, we found ourselves glued to the television while mourning the death of our beloved president—America’s 35th and first Catholic. The chilling news coverage of the two shots fired by Lee Harvey Oswald in the open convertible brought each of us to our knees as we watched replays of the blood-covered president slumped over toward his wife, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy (1929-1994). Jackie was left a widow at age 34 on Danny’s 19th birthday.

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In his first year at Notre Dame, Danny grew by inches. The others among the boys followed suit as late bloomers. During those four years in college, Danny consistently made the Dean’s list and developed a standard of personal excellence that would guide him throughout his life. He set a sterling example for his eight siblings. From Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Science in pre-med, Danny went on to Cornell University’s medical school in New York City where he earned a Doctor of Medicine. While most people would view securing a medical degree as a lifetime achievement, Daniel T. Broderick III wanted more. In 1970, he entered Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to pursue his chosen profession. He discovered he would rather become a lawyer than a doctor because he didn’t foresee the day-to-day routine in medicine being as interesting as the practice of law.

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Dan's and Linda’s short lives gave meaning to the “sands of time.” On November 9, 1989—just four days after they were slain—as the Soviet-led communist bloc teetered on the brink of collapse, the Berlin Wall dividing communist East Germany from West Germany came down. The anti-communism sentiment that followed the reunification quickly spread in Eastern Europe with free elections and economic reforms. In a blink of the eye, Dan and Linda had no knowledge of the historic event that reshaped the modern world by solidifying the West’s democratic ideals against the threat of Communist rule. The mark of this milestone on the world stage slipped by them, bringing me in closer touch with my own mortality at age 36.

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In February 1969, with 85+ other men, Larry was inducted into the United States Armed Forces at the William S. Moorhead Federal Building in downtown Pittsburgh. During processing, the inductees learned that six among them would be taken into the U.S. Marines. No one responded to the call for volunteers. Following internal deliberations, a staff sergeant entered the room an hour later and read out the names of the six men whom the Marines had selected. “Laurance Gordon Broderick” was the first name called.

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Supporting all nine children in private schools, our father had begun to feel the effects of both the Fed’s fiscal tightening to close the budget deficits stemming from the Vietnam War and monetary tightening to raise interest rates. The threat of a major recession loomed on the horizon. Acknowledging the financial outlay spent principally to maintain her social lifestyle, Nancy dropped out of school after her sophomore year at age 19. She spent that summer—the summer of Woodstock in 1969—in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.

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Following a brief rotation as an emergency medical physician and then two years as a partner with McKinsey & Company in New York City, in 2012, Stephen [Hoge] joined Moderna Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here, he found his true passion. The biotech startup developed a novel approach to making vaccines and medicines harnessing messenger RNA (mRNA) to help the body create proteins at the cellular level. Stephen quickly advanced to president and head of scientific research and clinical development.

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“Easy livin” does not come close to describing Lahaina since a wave of horrific blazes burned the historic Maui town for several days beginning on August 8, 2023. Living history, Ryan survived the deadliest natural disaster since Hawaii became a U.S. state in 1959, which also registered as the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.

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Into the foreseeable future, the Cappelli’s will set aside those leisurely pursuits as they grapple with the remnants of Hurricane Helene which took more than 225 lives across six states upon making landfall in the “Big Bend” of Florida on September 26, 2024. The disastrous storm exacted an unprecedented, agonizing toll on western North Carolina a day later. Felled trees, breached dams, downed power lines and telephone poles; demolished bridges; destroyed water lines; raging muddy floodwaters that devoured homes and vehicles—the search continued for dozens of people who remained unaccounted for one month after Helene powered through pristine Asheville and neighboring communities including Black Mountain. In the wake of the ferocious storm, shell-shocked residents absorbed their new reality with nearly 100 lives lost in North Carolina alone. A month into the nightmare, Emily recounted details of the visceral experience with this reflection.

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Perhaps the overarching question to wrap up The Westcott Story is this: How will the grandchildren of my siblings and first cousins choose to be remembered? What impact will they make on history? How will these 49 specks among now more than 8 billion lives stand out? That is the question Terry and Jennifer’s “GEN 13” son Dillon asked of himself as a sophomore at Patrick Henry High School in San Diego in 2019.