582-583

Crumbling walls where weeds grow;
Yet this element is considered a blessing.

I am descended from Swan's brother, Martin Hardin. His son (my great great grandfather, Martin ''One Eye'' Hardin) was hung by the Bert Hayes Gang when he refused to cooperate while they were robbing him in 1864. It is a strange coincidence that two of my great great grandfathers were killed by bandits during the same year.

584-585

Rain falls upon the earth;
Never seeming to stop,
Never seeming to flood.

The great great grandfather who was shot by Cantrell's Gang in Arkansas was at home on leave from his service with the Confederate Army when this unfortunate event occurred. His wife, Sarah Eliza Baldwin Tatum Price, took her two children to SE Missouri where her family lived. They then took the next wagon train to Texas where they settled in Tarrant Co. Sarah Price then remarried a Mr. Calloway and had other children by him. The only information that was passed down about James Henry Price's family is that he was related to the famous Confederate General and Governor of Missouri, General Sterling Price. I am currently doing the necessary genealogical research to confirm or disprove this family tradition.

586-587

Yang departed makes Yin,
Yin departed makes Yang.
The elements are now united,
Unleashed and wild.

There are interesting consequences to the claim that we are related to Sterling Price whose genealogy has been very well researched. Sterling Price's grandfather was Pugh Price, a wealthy plantation owner in Virginia. He had eleven sons (by three different wives) one of which was likely the grandfather or great grandfather of James Henry Price who was shot. Pugh's mother, Jane Pew, was a descendant of John Rolph and his third wife after his second wife, Pocahontas had died. Whoever has heard the true story of Pocahontas would know that this is not necessarily something to be proud of. Jane Pew was also descended from Manfred the Great, a Danish Pirate of 933 AD (nothing to boast about either).

588-589

Departing from the son;
The father departing from the minister.

The Price line is then traced through John Price, a Welsh gentleman who came to Jamestown, VA in 1610 just after the famous ''Great Starvation'' and the shipwreck in Bermuda from which Shakespeare's Tempest was derived. Margaret Price Scruggs Carruth, who founded the Daughters of the Barons of Runnemede, was able to trace John Price's ancestry to eleven of the sixteen barons who left descendants extant. Most of this ancestry came through the women who married the descendants of John Price's ancestor, Rhys who was a Squire of the Body to King Edward IV and was killed fighting in the War of the Roses in the Battle of Danesmore in 1469. All of the offspring of this Rhys kept the surname, ap Rhys (meaning son of Rhys), which was eventually Anglicize to Price.1

590-591

Life of the body
Departs on completion.

Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet.
Prince Hal speaking of Falstaff in
The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
by William Shakespeare2

The wives of the Prices also brought in their genealogies illustrious names such as de Mortimer (of the House of York), de Vere (Earls of Oxford), de Clare (Dukes of Clarence), Llewellyn (Prices of Wales), Baskerville, de Bohun, and Sir William Longspee (Earl of Salisbury and natural son of King Henry II by Fair Rosemond).3 One runs across these names often when reading about the history of England as well as in Shakespeare's history plays.

592-594

Heaven bequeaths them fame.

Mrs. Scruggs also hired a Welsh speaking genealogist who could trace Rhys' ancestry back to Elystan Glodrydd ap Cyhelin ap Ifor, born 933, and living 1010 who was Prince of Ferllys, and founder of the Fourth Royal Tribe of Wales. He married Gwladys, daughter and sole heir of Rhun, Lord of Tregarton.4 A less historically accurate yet legendary genealogy continues back through a lineage of Welsh kings through Beli Mawr to Munyon who married Anna, daughter of Joseph of Arimethea (keeper of the Holy Grail), all the way to Japheth who was the son of Noah and who Prince Hal joked about. Apparently, our family is not the only one who has claimed descent through the line of Kings from Japheth. It would require a great deal of faith to completely believe in a family lineage that goes back to Adam!

1 Price, Vina Chandler. Ancestors and Descendants of John Price; Gateway Press; 1988.
2 Shakespeare, William. Wiliiam Shakespeare: The Complete Works; n.d.; rpt. 1975; Penguin Books.
3 Price. Ibid.
4 Ibid.

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