Sunday, April 14, 2013

The House of Francisco Ferreira Drummond, in Vila de São Sebastião

It was a Saturday morning, March 9th.2013, when I first visited the house of Francisco Ferreira Drummond. He was a historian, paleographer, musician and politician, author of Anais da Ilha Terceira as well as Apontamentos para a História dos Açores, a scholar of his time.

The house where he lived was restored to serve as a small community museum and is situated just a few steps from the Igreja Matriz da Vila de São Sebastião and besides to the Igreja da Santa Casa de Misericórdia.  The house preserves Ferreira Drummond's memories as well as the memories of Terceira Island, making the house a live place for visitors and local schools.



Francisco F. Drummond's house
The house-museum is very well maintained by the Provedor da Santa Casa de Misericórdia, Mr. Paulo Gonçalves de Melo and his wife. They have been effortless doing things for this small cultural center, not only taking care of it, but as well as donating pieces of furniture and small objects from their family that characterizes the Azores culture and the local community. Throughout the house you can see their dedication.

Main hall of the house, with the kitchen at the end.



Loom
Local ceramic in the kitchen.
I was blessed, due to the circumstance, to have met Mr. Paulo on the street beside the house on that Saturday. While I was walking by, I realized it was closed and I became so frustrated. He was close by, with some other people, and came to talk to me, introduced himself, kindly opened the house and made a tour with me to make all the story short. At the end of our conversation, he gave me a copy of my 3rd. great grandfather's book Apontamentos Topográficos, Políticos, Civis e Ecclesiásticos para a História das Nove Ilhas dos Açores. That day, Mr. Paulo was placed  there by my ancestors, I’m sure he was, and I will never forget it.

Mr Paulo Gonçalves Melo, Provedor da Santa Casa.
Myself at the entrance of house in March 2013.


10 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your visit. I enjoyed seeing the interior shots of the home. My mom was from Sao Jorge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are very welcome, Les. Some days I was able to see São Jorge far away on the horizon, and even Pico. I will continue to post other photos, I invite you to come back and check. All the best.

      Delete
    2. Hello we are cousins lol. I'm also a direct descendant of Francisco Ferreira Drumond (his name only had 1 "m" not 2 ;-) ). I still live in S. Sebastião in Terceira close to where my ancestors once lived. It's always nice to see people that have that connection and are descents of one of the 11 grandson's of Francisco Ferreira Drumond...nice to meet you :)

      Delete

    3. Remove contentDeleteSpam50
      1-50 of 101 Newer comments1Older comments

      Hi Rita, I am very glad we are connected by Francisco Ferreira Drummond/Drummond. I have been using two mm's in Drummond because he, Francisco, was used to sign his name with two mm's. If you click here you will see his signature in a manuscript kept by Angra Library: https://myportuguesegen.blogspot.com/2013/04/terceira-island-land-of-my-ancestors.html
      I love S. Sebastião and I am planning to visit again next year. If you send me an email I will be glad to keep contact and learn more about you and from which of the 13 children Adriana Emilia and João Machado Valadão you descend from. Looking forward to hear from you. Pode escrever em Português que também é minha língua nativa :)

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fico contente pela tua mensagem e peço desculpa por não ter respondido mais cedo eu não uso esta conta muitas vezes, tens razão no diz respeito à maneira como se escreve Drummond, eu tinha tanta certeza que só se usava um "m" mas estava errada... até na escola local com o nome dele, o Drummond está escrito com 2 ms... estava eu aqui a corrigir a profissional 😶😅 obrigado pela tua simpatia e fico contente por te ter conhecido

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rita, me envie seu email para myportuguesegen @ gmail ponto com, quero manter contato com voce e a familia em Sao Sebastião. Ano que vem estarei indo visitar a Terceira e adoraria estar com todos. Um abraço,
      Isabella

      Delete
  4. Aloha Isabella,
    I enjoyed your post on Francisco Ferreira Drummond as I recently was doing some research on my wife's genealogy related to Tercerira and Portugal. We created a family tree on familysearch.org and entered a few generations of her Portuguese relatives from Terceira and lo and behold, the tree expanded out hundreds of years and one name that stuck out was a John Drummond who had a daughter named Branca Affonso Drummond who married a Belchior Goncalves Ferreira. We're not exactly sure if there is a connection yet but we will keep researching to find out and hope to one day visit the museum in Vila de Sao Sebastiao. Thanks and take care.
    Mahalo,
    Joe and Kelly Vitorino

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joe and Kelly Vitorino, thank you for stopping by at my blog. The Drummond family in Azores started with Francisco Drummond and Barbara Gato when they arrived in the island at the end of the 1500's; it is said he came from Madeira Island and is related to John Drummond who from Scotland, but we cannot prove this due to the lack of records for that time. Anyway, I appreciate your comments and willingness to visit the house of Francisco Ferreira Drummond, my ancestor. Regards, Isabella.

      Delete
  5. Aloha Isabella,
    You're welcome and we definitely look forward to visiting Terceira and the Azores in the next few years. I have also been doing some genealogy research on my own family. Apparently, we took a boat from Sao Jorge to Ponta Delgada and from there caught a plane to Toronto, Canada on April 23rd, 1965. I'm trying to come up with more travel details for those few days and was wondering where I could find additional information related to boat and airplane schedules and passenger lists that might help me pinpoint how we arrived in Canada?
    Thanks and take care,
    Joe Vitorino

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting my My Portuguese Gen website. I wish you an exciting experience finding out more about your Portuguese ancestors in United States, Azores, Madeira, Portugal, Brazil through the resources I provide. They are so many and I try always to keep them updated.

If you want to share your thoughts about your experience here, or want to learn more about how to expand your Portuguese ancestry, you can leave me a message.

If you left a message and it does not show yet, be sure, it was received and soon will appear on the comments.

Again, thank you.

Isabella Baltar