gee...the day started out that I wasn't thinking anything Gordon Lightfoot -listening to any of his music and thought I'd not be on the board here today
. (nice try anyway, now get out of my head already Gordon
hehe j/k).
So today I spent several hours volunteering in preparation for our historical society's annual book sale. This is my 13th (or 14th) year doing this. This year and last year -I've been mainly in charge of organizing the children's book section and after handling who knows...maybe a couple of thousand kids books today -I took a break to look around to see what else we had coming in.
A paperback -"A Book of New England Legend and Folk Lore", caught my eye and I opened it up around the middle and my eyes
immediately saw "Lightfoot" on the page that was open!! I didn't have the time to spend reading any further and decided to bring the book home to look at.
ok so if Captain Lightfoot happens to have been an ancester of Gordon's - there may be a little issue with Gordon's family tree....and Gordon's 'real' last name would be the same as his beloved guitar, "Martin".
Very unlikely that Gordon is a descendant of "Captain Lightfoot" though apparently Captain Lightfoot had spent some time in Canada!!! So...maybe. Turns out though that Captain Lightfoot was executed, and this story doesn't mention if he had children...let me explain, here's some excerpts and a synopsis of the story (entitled, "The Last Of The Highwaymen"):
"Michael Martin, alias Captain Lightfoot, after a checkered career in Ireland, his native country, and in Scotland [hmmmm, could be where he came up with "Captain Lightfoot"], as a highway robber, became in 1819 a fugitive to America. He first landed at Salem [Massachusetts], where he obtained employment as a farm-laborer. But a life of honest toil not being so congenial to him as that of a bandit, he again took his old occupation on the road, this time making Canada the scene of his exploits.
After committing many robberies there and in Vermont and New Hampshire, and always eluding capture, Martin at length arrived in Boston. He at once began his bold operation upon the highway; but here his usual good luck deserted him."
As the story continues...Martin, masked and on horse and pistol in hand, robbed a local Mayor on a not well travelled highway in the Boston area. "Hotly pursued" -Martin fled and was found in Springfield -then taken to a jail in East Cambridge. In court, he was convicted and sentenced to hang.
"...the courtroom was thronged with curious spectators. Throughout the proceedings the prisoner was perfectly cool. As the pupil of the celebrated Thunderbolt, he had a reputation to maintain; and when the judge, putting on the black cap, pronounced the awful sentence of death, he dryly observed: "Well, that's the worst you can do for me."