The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time (41 page)

The man smiled and told her, "Why not? I'm guessing those two people are relatives of yours so that marriage certificate will mean a lot more to you than it will to the county. All that matters is that we keep a legible copy that can be scanned and I've got that right here." He added with a laugh, "Besides, it isn't like one of the people on the certificate's going to come asking for it."

Heather faked a laugh and responded, "You've got a point. This won't get you in trouble, will it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the man replied. In a whisper, he added, "Just stick the copy back in the file where the original was, OK?"

Heather nodded and returned to find Garison studying a document intently. Somehow, she knew by the expression on his face that it was Sarah's death certificate. She looked over his shoulder as she sat down and confirmed her suspicion. Along with the death certificate of Sarah Fitch (listed as having died in her sleep) was her will. It was in an old envelope with a string clasp which he carefully undid. Garison gently unfolded the parchment and read it. As he unfolded it, a small envelope fell out into his lap. He looked at it and inside there was a note that read, "I have placed in the safe keeping of the vicar at the Anglican church a letter. It is addressed to Garison Fitch and will be picked up by him in the year two-thousand five or sometime after that. I know this must sound crazy, but please allow an old woman this fancy." It was signed by Sarah Fitch, although it was not like her handwriting, and witnessed by the same lawyer who had attested to her will. He then realized it was the shaky hand of a very old woman. Her handwriting for the will had not been quite so bad, so it must have been done a year or two before the note.

"What do you think this means?" Heather asked.

"She must have written me a letter," Garison smiled. "Sarah must have suspected that I was aboard the time machine and not dead. She knew I would come back if I could—even if it were too late."

"But she put the tombstone up to make it look as if you had died that day," Heather surmised. "I guess she thought that better than trying to explain what really happened and getting locked away in the loony bin. I told you she knew you had lived."

"Apparently so," Garison nodded. "Let's look through this some more before we go over to the church or to the newspaper."

"Don't you want to go to the church next?"

He shrugged and said, "I do, but I don't. That letter is the last correspondence I'll ever have with Sarah and, well..."

"You want the moment to last?"

"Exactly."

The next document was the birth certificate of Justin Fitch. With it was his marriage license to Olivia McConnelle in 1759. They had six children between 1761 and 1770. Justin Fitch was killed in a skirmish near Concord in 1777 and interred in the Mount Vernon cemetery a month later. Unfortunately, such documents as they had before them gave very little details as to events.

"Six kids in nine years?" Heather asked. "He was a busy little beaver, wasn't he?"

"Hey, that's my son you're talking about."

"Sorry."

The rest of the documents were birth, marriage and death certificates of the Fitch family. Mostly, though, there were documents that seemed to be copies of town ledgers—made sometime in the days of memeographs—that listed Fitch family members and their births and deaths. All tolled, there were more than two hundred people who bore that name from Justin Fitch to Heloise mentioned. And that only counted for those who stayed in Mount Vernon. There were several others who were unaccounted for after their birth or marriage statistics. These, Heather and Garison guessed, had either died or moved to another area. There was no telling how many children they might have had, who had children themselves, and so on. It occurred to Garison for the first time that he probably had descendants—many of them—still living. Could he find them and actually talk to them? After all, statistically speaking there could be several hundred of them walking around. Perhaps thousands.

Henry Fitch's descendants could be traced all the way to the brother and sister duo of Hiram and Heloise in the first part of the twentieth century, Garison eventually discovered. With Hiram's death and Heloise's marriage, the name of Fitch seemed to have come to an end in that line. At least as far as Mount Vernon went. Heloise, too, might have had many offspring who went west or just to another town, but there was no record of such in that file.

The children of Justin Fitch could only be traced as far as Malachi Fitch, listed in a newspaper article that happened to be in the file as having gone west with his family in 1843. The newspaper article mentioned that Malachi's distant cousin, Mayor Harold Fitch, had thrown the departing family quite a going away party. The article had been in with some personal documents of Reyna Fitch's, Malachi's mother. Garison was amazed at how much had been saved and wasn't surprised that the city wanted to find some way to lessen the bulk. He thought he'd ask if he could have everything after it was transferred to computer—or at least a copy of it all. With a little work, he figured, he probably could find some descendants still living.

The only mention of Helen Fitch was that she married an Otto Hemler in 1760. He was the son of a prominent business man in Richmond (according to a newspaper clipping attached to one of the papers), so they assumed that was where she had gone to live. There was no notice of her having children, when she died, or anything. To find that, they reasoned, would take a trip to Richmond.

Garison held up one birth certificate and said, "Hey, Justin had a son named Darius Fitch."

"So?"

"I think I saw someone with that name when I glanced through that book of my aunt's. Funny that there'd be two different people with that same name."

"It's not exactly common, is it?"

"Fitch or Darius?"

"Both. The only other Fitch I had ever met before you was your uncle." Heather suggested, "Let's go look at the newspaper before they close. Maybe there would be articles or obituaries that would tell us a little more about your family. Besides, I've gotta get away from this dust for a while." Garison nodded and they took the files back over to the cabinet from which they had come. After sneezing several times, Heather asked, motioning to the files, "Does this mean all these people are my step-children?"

It was early evening when they left the hall of records and Garison had put in a request for all the papers in the Fitch file but had been told he would have to wait on the ruling of the commissioners before finding out whether he could have the originals. The nice young man who had aided in their search promised to give them photocopies of everything, but didn't know how soon he could get to it. They told him they would come back by and do it themselves if they had the time.

When they got to the newspaper office it was closed already, so they set off to find somewhere to eat and then went back to the motel. They had been given a rather odd look when they asked for a room with separate beds, and, as they left the motel office, the manager made a mental note to keep an eye on their room and make sure they were not sneaking in extra people. They looked rather old to be pulling such a stunt, but he had learned a long time ago not to judge a book—or a motel patron—by its cover. Unbeknownst to Heather and Garison, he was watching them when they reentered their room that evening. The night manager kept an eye on the room and his curiosity grew and grew as no newcomers entered the room. Why had they wanted separate beds?

The woman at the newspaper the next morning could have taken lessons in courtesy from the man at the records building. She seemed very put out about being disturbed by someone who wanted her to do her job. With looks of great exasperation and martyrdom as she set down her jelly donut, she showed the Fitch's to the microfilm and even helped them find the years they were looking for. After showing them how to run the machine, she left them alone to do the work themselves. She mumbled something about "If you need any help..." but she didn't sound as if she meant it. Of course, not being able to hear the last half of that offer, Heather wondered if it might have been a threat.

Garison's first discovery was in an ancient newspaper—barely legible on microfilm that was itself thirty-five years old. In a few short paragraphs, it gave a flowing eulogy to a carpenter named Garison Fitch. It was there he first learned of the fire that had consumed the shed when he read that his ashes were to be buried in the community cemetery that Friday. His widow and three children were listed as survivors. A feeling of odd nostalgia swept over him as he thought back to Clive Harlow, the shop owner who had begun putting out the semi-regular paper not long before Garison left. That paper he had been sitting on his porch and reading just a week before would have long since yellowed, then crumbled into dust. Of course, that thought didn't compare to reading his own obituary. It was an interesting experience and one that Garison found slightly unnerving. It said a wonderful eulogy had been given at the funeral by Finneas Franklyn, and while part of Garison wondered what his friend had said about him, mostly he was glad he would never know.

They stumbled across other references to the Fitch family as they scanned through the years. Darius Fitch, eldest son of Justin Fitch, was said to have set off to explore the west in 1779 but was never heard from again, according to one report. The reporter did say, however, that rumor said Darius had eventually made it to the Spanish held west coast and was still alive. Others contended that he had been killed by savages, while still others said that he was living in some far western mountains and had even sent some letters back to General Washington.

"That's weird," Garison said.

"What?"

"That book of my aunt's. I flipped through it a bit last night and it said the Darius Fitch that was my ancestor was a mountain man, too. Just like this guy. Strange coincidence."

"I need to read that book," Heather stated. "Maybe after I finish that Dalton Riley book tonight."

There was an obituary for Sarah in the year 1786. It listed her as having died in her sleep of natural causes. In fact, it mentioned that she had been out on her usual rounds to see her children and friends that very day. The article alluded that Sarah's "rounds" were a common sight in Mount Vernon in her later years. As he read the article, Garison could easily picture Sarah going about from friend to friend, checking up on them and doing whatever she could for them. Heather remarked how sad it was that modern obituaries had been reduced simply to facts—presented as lifelessly as possible.

The next week's paper carried more about Sarah. It ran a lengthy article about the funeral and listed some of the more prominent figures who had attended. Finneas Franklyn, who had to have been in his late seventies by then, was there—as were his bride and children and many grandchildren (whom Garison knew nothing about). The biggest surprise came, though, when he read that one of the pall bearers was none other than George Washington. Upon hearing of Sarah's death, it said, Washington had ridden on horseback for two days from somewhere in Pennsylvania without rest to arrive at her funeral.

“Thanks, George,” Garison whispered.

“Wow,” Heather muttered, reading over his shoulder. “George Washington was really at Sarah’s funeral.”

“Remember, I saved his life.”

“That’s so amazing. I grew up reading stories about him and his heroism and everything and to think you actually met him! It’s incredible.”

There was an extensive article written by the editor—a man Garison did not know—of the paper lamenting the loss of a person he called "the town matriarch." He effused for several paragraphs about her kindly nature, her unending devotion to the church, and her support of the Revolution; including a note that both her sons had fought against the British, with Justin having given his life. Completely absent, Garison noticed sardonically, was any mention that Sarah had been the town outcast for the first two decades of her life. He was glad people had changed their opinion of her, but it also seemed somewhat hypocritical.

Of the most interest, however, to Garison and Heather was the mention of her husband. The article read:

“One cannot mention Sarah Fitch, however, without speaking of her undying love for the husband she lost in 1744 to a fire. Though still a young and beautiful woman, and seemingly pursued by suitors until her dying day, she remained faithful to her husband, the carpenter and well-known barrister, Garison Fitch.

As we filed by her graveside at the service the other day, the service having been performed so grandly by the Honorable Justice Jameson Miller, we could not help but notice that curious inscription on her husband's stone. For some unfathomable reason, which rumor has was revealed only to her children and never to anyone outside the family—who in turn have kept it as a family secret—Garison Fitch is said to have been born in the year 1975!

“Just as curious, is a letter Mrs. Fitch purportedly wrote just before her death. Although she has been a staunch Baptist all her life, [‘Christian,’ Garison mumbled in correction] it is said in some rumors that she left a letter with the Anglican vicar with the instructions that he pass it on to a person whose identity only he knows.”

"So the letter was common knowledge?" Heather asked with surprise.

"Apparently so," Garison replied. "It appears, however, that its contents were not."

"It must have seemed terribly strange to those people back then," Heather mused. "The letter, the tombstone, her not remarrying."

"It would seem terribly strange to people today," Garison pointed out. "What if I were to die and leave a letter to be opened by someone in two hundred years? I think people would find that most strange."

Heather nodded, "But back then you might be in danger of being carted off as a nut for such actions."

Garison nodded and pointed out, "Don't have to worry about that if you're already dead, though." Then he added, "And they didn't really cart that many people off. Some of the modern perceptions of my day are kind of out of whack."