The Brinton Association

The Brinton 1704 House
I grew up always being very proud of my last name. The Brintons were some of the first people to come over to America. They came over, as many at that time, for religious purposes; they were Quakers. They were helped quite a lot by the local Native Americans in the region (which is today outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) to live out the winter. The native Americans also offered them some of their land. The Brintons wanted to know how much land was theirs to plant and grow things, etc. So the Native Americans said, "As far as you can walk for a day, that's all the land you can have." Of course the Native Americans didn't realize how greedy the white man could be. Both parties had a different idea of what this meant. What the Native Americans had envisioned was someone walking a ways, stopping to smoke their pipe, drink, eat, and then sleep through the night, marking where they were at to be found in the morning and given their piece of land for how far they had walked. Well, The Brintons picked their best man and trained him to walk/jog/run as far as he could without sleeping through the night, stopping as little as possible. Maybe he even went without food, but that part I'm not sure. So the Native Americans woke up the next morning only to find that their generosity had been taken advantage of, and that they had lost a considerable amount of the best land. But it was fair, so they kept their word, and the Brintons kept their land and for a long time were some of the wealthiest people in the region, and even America. My grandfather belonged to what was known as in his time, "The Old Philadelphian Families." He was a Playboy (back when playboy meant something else. No, my grandfather isn't an exhibitionist). No, we're not rich. All the money is gone by now, but the name is the important thing. What does this all have to do with anything? Well, it turns out that the owner of "Seven Peaks",


a water park here in Provo, is a Brinton. And once a year they have a big Brinton reunion and you can go to the park for free with your family if you are a Brinton. In fact there are a lot of Brintons here in Utah. I'm very distantly related to them however because my Brinton side of the family isn't LDS, they're Protestant. The Brintons here in Utah left with the Mormons way back in the 1800's and were ostracized for it. My grandfather just happened to marry a Mormon girl. (And then an exiled Catholic Cuban after their divorce, but that's another story :) So the Brinton Clan, MY Brinton family, or at least some of them (namely my sister Megan, her six kids, my brother Aaron his wife and there three kids, my mom and dad, and my brother Caleb) have all come to Provo for this occasion and are staying up at my Uncle Jim's cabin in Sundance. Which makes me super happy, especially since Stephen and I can't go to cousins camp up in Washington/Oregon next month (it's just too close to my due date). The only downside to this weekend is me at 7 and 1/2 months pregnant in a swimsuit. Frightened? You should be, I just had an appointment today and I've gained a whopping 43 pounds so far. My maternity swimsuit is a joke, I'm exposing waaaaayyyyy too much flesh. But...wish me luck.