Moss Family History: Great-Aunt Bertha's Letter
I would like to try to end this preface of the family history with a few words gleaned from my great-aunt Bertha's letters. She, being the one member of the family who was old enough and interested enough to have received by word of mouth tales of the preceding generations before this became a lost art with the coming of radio and television wrote as follows:
"Your ancestry includes Bronson, Upson, Todd, Barnes, Hotchkiss, Graves and Royce. All of these can be traced back to colonial days. John Bronson, the first of that line, lived to be 103. He is buried in Wolcott, Connecticut. Our direct line always stayed in Connecticut, but other branches have scattered far and wide. A William went to Utah with Joseph Smith. In that state we have had college presidents, a governor, and one Moss founded the Colorado School of Mines. Two of Joel the 1st's sons went to New Milford, Pennsylvania. Father (Julius) had cousins in Iowa. Some went to Canada. The Moss Coat - of - Arms as given by the Moss geneology is old, for the bezants were coin of Byzantium given to members of the Crusades who entered a beleaguered city."
So we are up in the twelfth American generation now with my grandchildren. I can report that in all these years none in our direct line has ever become Chairman of the Board in a large corporation. Neither has any ever been hung as a horse thief so I guess we come out pretty well middle of the road.
