A 1997 Letter to the Editor of the St. Albans Messenger Newspaper in retrospect...

July 15, 1997

The St. Albans Messenger Newspaper, Page 04

The Editorial Section – Letters of the Editor

They are not true Abenaki

You have a fraud in your midst!

On Merchants Row, a new sign appeared declaring an Abenaki Tribal Office. These people are in no way Abenaki. They are a bunch of white people who are trying to capitalize on Indian ceremonies, and food people who are trying to make their way to the Abenaki offices. These people are disgruntled because their genealogies could not stand the test of truth to link them to any Abenaki ancestor.

The real Abenaki Nation has been methodically going through every genealogy of those who claim membership and have found some people who once claimed to be Abenaki had no right to do so.

Prior to this methodical research the nation was fooled in the past by certain charlatans.

The Abenaki Nation is on the eve of recognition by the federal government. To accomplish this task, every true member has to be thoroughly examined through their genealogy. This is a requirement of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

These frauds on Merchants Row have even attempted to steal grants as they pretend to imposter themselves as the Abenaki Nation.

What would you do, if someone moved in next door to you and put up a sign with your name on it, conducted business as you tried to get money due to you?

You would quickly find out that it’s difficult to deal legally with such a fraud. You have to advertise and write letters identifying the real you.

This is the dilemma of the real Abenaki Nation at Depot Street.

Kathleen Kalina

Ojibway

Highgate Springs

It is really a fascinating dynamic when an "Ojibway" (self-identifying?) living in Highgate Springs, Franklin County, Vermont can write such a Letter to the Editor piece. 

One group of frauds, calling their sloughed off "Abenaki" STD calling their Incorporation the so-called "Traditional Abenaki of the Mazipskwik & Related Bands" Incorporated Under Vermont State Law for a filing fee. 

Led by Connie Brow (the now-deceased Homer St. Francis Sr.'s cousin) and David Gilman, with members such as Charles Lawrence "Megeso" (Soaring Eagle) Delaney, and Michael and Ina Delaney (also from Homer's group), along with the now-deceased Bruce Dubois and his mother ... they were a splinter group, scrapped off of the 1975 created group of Homer St. Francis Sr. & Company. 

To claim one group is Abenaki, and the other is not, was calling the kettle black. Hypocritical Nonsense and badmouthing. 

Where did Homer & his group gain the awareness of doing the Abenaki Dances? 

Answer: Odanak People. (W'abanakik Dance Troupe)

Where did Homer & his group gain the awareness of doing the Abenaki Totem Carvings? 

Answer: Odanak People. (Fred Watso)

Where did Homer & his group gain the awareness of speaking the Abenaki Language?

Answer: Odanak People. (Cecile Wawanolette) 

Where does the Vermont "Abenaki" so-called culture, dances, carving, language, etc come from?

Answer: Odanak

Now, in retrospective, reading this Letter To The Editor by Kathleen Kalina, and in light of the BIA Reports of 2005 and 2007, what sort of evaluation did they do on their Homer St. Francis Sr. & Companies Genealogies, when they didn't even know their own "Chief" was a fraud and not an Abenaki himself ?! 

Oh, that's right ... Homer and John Moody were making-it-up as they went along. 

What does it say, when NOT ONE MEMBER OF THEIR GROUP that Ms. Kalina advocated for in her editorial letter, could not and did not even substantiate ONE person or ONE FAMILY as being descendants of the Abenakis, without being connected to Odanak ancestrally?

[We know from reading the Decisions of the BIA Petition ... that the O'Bomsawin's were evaluated and determined to be Abenakis from Odanak who lived at Thompson's Point, Chittenden County, Vermont; but that the 8 descendants from this family i.e. Jeanne (nee: Deforge) Brink were not members of the Homer St. Francis Group calling themselves the "St. Francis - Sokoki Band" of Abenakis]

The late Michael Delaney (so-called Tribal Judge) was "good enough" for Homer for years, until Michael Delaney and his wife Ina absconded and joined the splinter group, perhaps even helping create it, and solicit membership into it. 

One does have to evaluate the merits of these people. The so-called "methodical research" was never done.

Carol N. (nee: Gromatski) and Christopher Roy & Company were merely "cooking the books" and implied implied implied ... 

OH YOU don't recognize the name Gromatski (?)  

Well, she went by Carol Nepton, her mother's mother's maiden name, apparently after her divorce from Louis F. Mottor. 

It's interesting that in this research, one has to be careful about what is REAL and TRANSPARENT and what is an untruth and not transparent at all. 

Obviously, the "culture" of Vermont's so-called re-invented "Abenakis" derives such cultural traits by having appropriated what was shared with them, beneficially, by members of the Odanak, Quebec Canadian Abenaki Community.

It most certainly didn't come from within families from and of Vermont!

So the only dynamic I agree with, within this retrospect Letter to the Editor written by an "Ojibway" of Highgate Springs, Vermont ... is the very first thing she wrote:

"They are not true Abenaki"

SO who are the real Abenakis?

Some More "Details" Genealogically Accurate regarding the Phelps/ and Phillips Family Lineage Branches.

January 18, 1926
Miss Harriet Abbot
19 Brooks Ave.
Burlington, Vt.

Dear Madam;
I have learned that Mrs. Stephen Meyers [Malinda (nee: Phillips) Myers] lives in the corner of Champlain and Pearl Streets in the brick house in the West side of Champlain Street at the corner. She can tell you all about the Phillips, as she went Gypsying with them and can also tell you about Miss Baker [her sister Louise (nee: Phillips) Baker] and her travels as Gypsies.
Respectfully,
W. S. Heath, Town Clerk of South Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont

January 29, 1926

State Department of Public Welfare

Augusta, Maine

In Re: Phillips family

Gentlemen:

We are interested in the Phillips family that has inter-married with many families which have cost the State of Vermont a good deal of money. These people in the past were known as “gypsies” but in all probability they are part French, part Indian and part Negro. (largely Negro). As far as I know they have never been registered as colored. There was certain Peter Phillips who was known as “One-eyed Peter” [confusion with Mathias a.k.a. Michael Phillips], “King of the Gypsies.”

Matilda Leopard Phillips says that Old Mike died at the age of 104 at the home of his granddaughter, Matilda Leopard Phillips herself. Cora Stark Phillips and relatives about Peacham state that Old Mike Phillips had only one eye, but it is apparent that they are confusing Mike with Pete. HEA

He is said to have had about eighteen children, who were of many different colors from black down through yellow and white. These people wandered up and down the shores of Lake Champlain stealing what they could lay their hands on, hunting and fishing out of season and often living in boats [confusion on her part with the Jerome “Pirate” family]. Some years ago a branch of these Phillips’s went to Belfast, Maine. I think the oldest member of the family that went, was known as Antoine Phillips Jr., [son of Peter Phillips and his first wife Delina Benoit a.k.a. Delia Rosa Bone] I am anxious to get not only the Dependency, Delinquency and Defective records of the Maine branch of this family but also to obtain the genealogy of the Maine family so that I may connect it up with the people here [meaning Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont].

Just at present the Phillips here are trying to hide their connection with “Old Pete”, undoubtedly because their children have married into white families. I am told that the original Peter married for his first wife [his first wife was Delia Rosalie Rosa Benoit dit Livernois dit Benware dit Benway dit Bone] Eliza Way, and that she had a brother Newton Way who lives in Belfast, Maine and who is fairly well-to-do.

                I wonder if the State of Maine or any Social Agency of Maine has been in contact with this family or any of its branches. We have here in Burlington, a Mrs. Steven Myers [Melinda Phillips, daughter of Peter Phillips Sr. and his first wife Delia Bone] who was the daughter of a certain Peter Phillips, who she says died in Maine [Peter Phillips Sr. died in December 1906 while in Peacham, Caledonia County, Vermont]. She denied any connection with the original Pete Phillips.

                From another source, I was told that a certain Willy Phillips married a Nellie Gray and this couple had five children who lived in Belfast, Maine. If you can help to obtain the information which I would like I would appreciate it very much. If these people are not known to your office, probably you can turn my letter over to some other agency which has been in touch with the family. Any help will be very much appreciated.

Sincerely,

HEA/GA, In charge of Field Research

Melinda Phillips – spouse of Stephen Aiken Myers

Melinda Phillips traveled with the Gypsy Phillips’s.  She married Stephen (or Aiken) Myers.  Mr. Myers traveled with the Phillips’s for some time but after he married Melinda she made him settle down.      

Mr. Daniel O'Brien states that there is a tradition that Melinda is the illegitimate child of the wife of Old Pete Phillips by Pete's brother Mike [Mathias] who appropriated Pete’s wife Delia Bone [Benoit] while Pete was in prison.  Mr. O’Brien thinks that this is what makes Mrs. Myers dislike giving information because she feels that people are probing into her past.

However, Cora Stark Phillips, wife of Pete's son Napoleon, says that Mike was not promiscuous and that he would not have done such a thing as the above.  Such a statement, however, is not necessarily to be believed as Mrs. Cora Stark Phillips though fairly intelligent married at 14 and is not always truthful.  She also seems to be unusually fond of Mike Phillips herself.

After her marriage Melinda Phillips Myers settled down and has become an unusually fine citizen.  She has the good qualities of the better class of colored people.  She is a good worker and has worked for the best families in Burlington and in 1926 was still doing day work although she must be very old.  In 1926 Mrs. Myers was living in an extremely nice second floor flat on Lower Pearl Street.  It was very well furnished and of a much higher grade than that of her sister Mrs. Martin.  Mrs. Myers was living with some of her unmarried sons and working out every day doing housework for very nice people in Burlington.  She is apparently a very decent sort of woman and thrifty.  Although friendly she was somewhat suspicious and did not wish to give much information.

Melinda has a number of daughters who have married well and she has a number of nice grandchildren.  The visitor thought that possibly she did not wish the husbands of her daughters to know about the colored blood in the family.

Mr. Daniel O'Brien of South Burlington spoke of one of the daughters of Melinda.  He said she was a very fine girl.

In 1926 Mrs. Melinda Phillips Myers was a stout, healthy-looking woman.  She was very swarthy and showed her colored blood to some extent.

On page 11 of the Eugenics, "For example, they tell of some member of their tribe [meaning family] Antoine Phillips Sr.' father Peter Phelps living to be 111 years old” [See November 1865 Newspaper clipping] etc, when there is no good evidence of that the age was as far advanced as that."

So when Melinda (nee: Phillips) Myers was visited and interviewed "by the agent" at her residence, did Harriett E. Abbott question Melinda about the "original" Peter Phelps and NOT her own father Peter Phillips? And that Melinda Myers denied connection with "Peter Phelps, a colored man who died November 10, 1865 having lived in St. Albans for nearly half a century"? Or was she attempting to deny any connection with her own father? And if so, why? 

WHY would 'they' tell of some member of their FAMILY living to be 111 years old ...

... if this was not Antoine Philips Sr.'s own father Peter Phelps who happened to have coincidentally died at the printed age of 111 years ... specifically? Who told or SAID to the newspaper 'wire' that Peter Phelps, a colored man ... was alleged 111 years of age? 

Was Melinda (nee: Phillips) Myers (along with other Phillips family members) 'racially denying' and/ or trying to 'distance' themselves from their own Phelps/Phillips ancestors ethnicity ... of being Black, Colored, Negro, or Mulatto? 

In 1924, Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, a series of anti-miscegenation laws that would be overturned by the landmark case Loving v. Virginia in 1967. The act defined a white person as someone with blood that was “entirely white, having no known, demonstrable or ascertainable admixture of the blood of another race.” Yet when faced with the fact that many rich Virginia planters claimed to be descendants of Pocahontas, the state allowed that a white person could be up to one-sixteenth Native American. A person with one-sixteenth black blood, however, was still black.

The One-Drop-Rule

REMEMBER, Melinda (nee: Phillips) Myers and other family members were visited and interviewed by Harriett E. Abbott (and or other Eugenics Survey field workers, while-at-the-same-time, in Virginia, this 1924 Racial Integrity Act was LEGAL ... until 1967 when it was overturned.