tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8475566156309540952024-03-05T23:07:53.891-05:00genealogy musingsThere is no telling what might end up here although it will mostly be genealogy related. Lots of things cross my mind and I wanted some where to share them, to brag or complain, whatever ... some days I might get here twice in one day, sometimes it may be a week but I'll be back!Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-45569856013403620412013-04-30T12:03:00.000-04:002013-04-30T12:03:03.460-04:00family in the late great unpleasantness ...... as many referred to the Civil War afterwards. My roots both maternal and paternal mostly go deep into New York and New England and into the eastern Pennsylvania-New Jersey area. One line veers off to northern Virginia but was gone from there into Ohio decades before the war. Aside from one line that went from New York to Kansas and there post-war, joining with the one in Ohio, my direct ancestors were all still in New York and Massachusetts.<P>
Therefore none of them were living in war torn areas. Maternal ancestor Edward Payson Willson and his future brother-in-law Tiffin Sinks served in a short term militia organized when there was a short term threat by elements of the Rebels to Leavenworth, Kansas. Tiffin's family was in southern Ohio but perhaps when that area was threatened went further north to Columbus to stay with sister Ann Sinks Deshler and her husband William Green Deshler.<P>
On the paternal side, closest to the war were the Sears and Anderson families in the Philadelphia area. These probably saw many of the wounded brought to Philadelphia hospitals and at times were probably aware of war not far away.
The rest of the family lines were well removed physically from the actual war so certainly their lives were not affected as closely and deeply as southerners were but all had close family and friends serving some where and this was perhaps the most difficult as communication was unreliable and slow.<P>
Imagine Dorothea, widow of Christopher Weller, living in Buffalo, New York ... her older sons were thankfully not serving directly although they were busy supplying the Union forces with wagons and carriages. Her youngest son William was still at home but Jacob had enlisted with the 1st New York Light Artillery in August of 1862, serving in battle-torn areas. At the beginning of July he was at Gettysburg ... did his mother and siblings know he was there when they first heard about the battle? How long was it before they heard he had been wounded, losing his arm to an artillery shell? <P>
Imagine several greats grandmother Mary Cook, wife of Chalkley Sears, waiting in Philadelphia. Being much closer she may have known he was also at Gettysburg .. what did she think when she first heard he was wounded that first day? How long was it before she knew how badly he was hurt? How relieved she must have been when she learned it was a relatively small wound in his hand.<P>
Third great grandmother was in Maine but what she knew or heard about her nephew Alonzo Ulmer is unknown but she would have eventually heard from her sister Zoa, Alonzo's mother, in Illinois, that Alonzo had been at Gettysburg also, wounded in the side and that Zoa was soon going to Philadelphia to see him in the hospital.<P>
These three were the closest relatives fighting in the war but many many first and second cousins were in various units coming from the East as well as Michigan, Wisconsin and other frontiers to fight for the Union. Nowadays we hear often within hours of deaths halfway around the world but then it was days often weeks before one heard, sometimes longer and sometimes never hearing what happened to them. <P>
When I was born, my father was in the Pacific in WW2 and I wonder how it was for my mother and for his parents worrying when the phone rang or dreading getting a telegram ... I at least was too young to know ... to worry.
Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-12143063705115266522012-10-23T12:19:00.001-04:002012-10-23T12:19:53.797-04:00down the rabbit hole ...... or who is Alice?
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Alice F. Deshler was born the 22nd of September 1852 in Buffalo, Erie County, New York. In the 1860 census of Buffalo and the 1870 census of Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio, she is listed in what would be an apparent daughter position in the household of John Green Deshler and his wife Louisa Falconer (Faulkner), immediately after John and Louisa and before any others in the household including, in 1870, John’s two younger sisters, Louisa and Flora.
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Alice uses the Deshler surname throughout her life including her marriage on the 5th of May 1871 to Joshua M Bennett and she is named as Alice Deshler on her daughter Sarah’s 1942 death certificate which gives her birthplace as Buffalo, New York.
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At her own death on 7 January 1925, the informant, her daughter May, gives her mother’s father as John G Deshler with her mother listed as unknown. The FindAGrave site lists her as Alice F Desher [sic] Bennett but I do not know if that is on the stone or the information is from somewhere else.
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So far everything is indicating, but NOT specifically stating, that Alice is the daughter of John Green Deshler and Louisa Falconer …
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BUT … the book, The Genealogical Record of the Schwenfelder Families published in 1923, lists John Green Deshler on page 1521 and not only states that there was no issue for John but goes on to say “Although Mr. Deshler was very fond of children, he had none of his own.”
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Not only that but John Green Deshler died 8 Jan 1878, followed within a few weeks by his wife Louise whom he had married 5 May 1842. There is no mention in their obituaries of any children. Mr. Deshler left no will having destroyed the current one “just a few days” before his sudden and unexpected death. His entire estate goes to his wife by law and there is considerable argument during the next decade or so over her subsequent will but in none of the coverage of the will and the arguments have I found any mention of Alice F Deshler Bennett.
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Now, in 1880, Alice, her husband Joshua Bennett, whom she married in 1871, and their daughters May and Alice are living in Columbus so a distant move is not the reason for silence about her in the news reports and it appears that the Bennetts remained in the area as they are buried in Green Lawn Cemetery as are the other Deshlers and Alice’s death certificate gives her place of death as Worthington, a suburb just to the north of Columbus.
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If she had been an actual adopted child one would expect a mention in the will or at least in the obituaries. She is perhaps a child of some relative of John or Louisa and I suspect perhaps her middle name is Falconer but these are just guesses … So, who was Alice?
<BR><BR>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-16780357241025350892012-09-14T13:13:00.000-04:002012-09-14T13:13:37.921-04:00a romantic tradition ...<BR>
… true or false? Years ago I found a tradition in my New England lines regarding my seven greats grandparents Joseph Adams and Margaret Eames. Margaret was born 8 July 1666 in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and when she was not yet ten years old, in February of 1676, Indians attacked their home when her father was away and killed her mother and two or more of the younger children. Margaret and at least two of her brothers were taken to Canada by their captors.
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The tradition I kept running across in other people’s work was that Joseph Adams and Margaret Eames met and fell in love when a group including Joseph went to Canada to redeem captives including Margaret. I finally found a source for this in William Barry’s <i>History of Framingham</i>, published in 1847:
<blockquote>
"Tradition throws an air of romance upon the fortunes of Margaret, the daughter. The colonial government having despatched [sic] some agents to obtain the release of captives detained in Canada, one of their company was in his own turn captivated by the attractions of the daughter of Mr. Eames, whose release he obtained, and whom he soon after made his wife.”
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Certainly it is so that Joseph Adams and Margaret Eames married 21 February 1688 in Cambridge and Joseph was some ten to twelve years older so was of an age to be part of an expedition to redeem captives at some time after the 1676 capture. So, there is circumstantial evidence that the tradition is possible, but what is the probability?
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Over the years, decades actually, I had looked for additional evidence but it was not until I found <i>Cambridge Cameos</i> by Roger Thompson that I found any clues whatsoever. This book is subtitled “Stories of Life in Seventeenth-Century New England” and primarily relates the cases of a number of disputes in Cambridge from 1652 to 1686. I strongly recommend this book to anyone with ancestors in this time period in New England, not only in Cambridge. None of the incidents Thompson discusses directly concern the Adams or Eames families but bits and pieces appear as witnesses et cetera, most particularly Margaret Eames herself and Joseph’s parents, John and Anne Adams.
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After the 1676 destruction of his home and family, Margaret’s father Thomas Eames moved back to the Menotomy area of Cambridge later West Cambridge (1807) and then Arlington (1867). John and Anne Adams had remained in that area since at least 1658. John had brought his wife and child, born in England, to Cambridge as a servant to Joseph Cooke by 1650. He later (perhaps after working out an indenture) purchased land at Menotomy.
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In 1686, Elisha Bull and John Watson had a dispute about hogs, their ownership and damage done by them. This was not an uncommon difference of opinion. Margaret Eames and John Adams both testify as neighbors of Elisha Bull, placing Margaret as redeemed by 1686, age 19, and that the Adams and Eames families were living in close proximity, both neighbors to the same person. This commonality of community reduces the probability of the romance as does the fact that they were not married for at least two years after her return although I have yet to discover the timing of her redemption.
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Looking again at these families and time period, I did find that Joseph’s sister Mary had married Margaret’s half-brother John Eames, brickmaker, perhaps as early as 1670, certainly before the Indians destroyed the father's farm. So these families were also already connected closely. The families continued so as later, Joseph’s niece Anna Patten, daughter of his older sister Rebecca and Nathaniel Patten married Margaret’s slightly younger brother Nathaniel who also escaped or was redeemed from captivity.
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Conclusion: although the idea of this romance is intriguing, it is likely of limited or no truth as their marriage was likely anyway due to proximity and prior connections. This is especially so because we have no information yet as to when Margaret was retrieved nor if Joseph was part of any redemption mission.
Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-36491927916791506352012-09-06T18:57:00.001-04:002012-09-06T22:20:47.755-04:00little bits ...… and pieces. For Christmas of 1905, my great grandfather, Charles Stanton Adams, was given a small journal entitled “Mathison’s Life Diary, For Recording the Events in the Life of Men, Women, and Children.” Each page contained three small lined areas for a month in the year so there is limited room for noting events. Charles made a couple of back entries from memory and then for several years made notes most months, finally tapering off.
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A number of these notes involved holiday dinner guests and a few other social occasions. For the most part I recognized all the names he listed as himself and his wife Grace, their son Arthur and his wife’s brothers, Arthur and Moody Newhall and sister Mary Ella Whiteman and their spouses.
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However, one pair of names listed for most of these events eluded me: Delmont and Ellen Andrews. A quick check of my genealogy database was no help but thanks to the internet, even though these events were taking place in Winchester, Massachusetts, and I am in St. Augustine, Florida, I could quickly and easily start searching for information on them to resolve why they were such frequent guests.
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My initial impression was that Delmont and Ellen were husband and wife but the 1900 and 1880 census quickly demolished that theory. They were living together but they were listed as brother and sister. After that, tracking backwards finds them in the household of Hiram and Almira Andrews, Delmont born circa 1831 and Ellen born circa 1840.
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Now the probable parents’ names rang a bell so back to my genealogy database and there they are, Hiram Andrews and his wife, Almira Wyman Locke, and there is the connection. They married in 1829 and had six children. Delmont was the eldest followed by Henry, William Hiram, Ellen, Asa, and last, about 1847, Daniel.
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And the connection to Charles and Grace (Newhall) Adams? Technically, Charles was actually distantly related by blood to Delmont and Ellen, fifth cousins twice removed through several greats grandfather Richard Cutter (c1622-1693) but the connection was in some ways closer. Charles was the son of William Adams by his second wife, Emma Isadora Stanton. William’s first wife was Lucy Gardner Locke, sister of Delmont and Ellen’s mother Almira.
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The only 'extra' thing I found about Delmont was that he and two of his brothers, Henry and William, registered for the Civil War draft in 1863. As far as I can determine, none of them actually served.
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So … William’s half-siblings were first cousins of Delmont and Ellen. Now I know of no terminology for that relationship nor any for what William’s son Charles would be to Delmont and Ellen but clearly the two siblings and my great grandparents maintained a close friendship and my little puzzle is solved. Of course, as often happens, my little digression had no descendants... sigh!
Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-84335183537467007522012-08-28T17:01:00.000-04:002012-08-28T17:01:47.377-04:00a dearth of cousins ...… in the current paternal generations. My father was an only child as was his father, Arthur Stanton Adams. Arthur’s father was one of six children (half and whole). His whole brother George never married or had issue. George lived most of his adult life with his brother Charles and after Charles died in 1950, lived in his own small set of rooms. He was one of my favorite relatives and taught me how to play cribbage. He died in 1967.
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Charles’ half-sister Lucy died as a child, not yet nine years old, of dysentery and his half-brother Warren at the age of six. His half-brother Frederick lived well in to adulthood but, like George, never married or had issue. Only his half-brother William married. William and his wife, Mary Jane Evans had 2 children, my first cousins twice removed.
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I never really pursued tracing William’s children before, mostly I suppose because when I first started on this it was in the early 70’s without the current access online. So poking around I have discovered that William and Mary Jane had two children, William Everett Adams born 22 May 1894 and Margaret Porter Adams, born 19 July 1899.
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From my great grandfather’s notes, I originally had William’s name as William Evans Adams but his birth record and draft registrations (both WW1 and WW2) give it as William Everett Adams. About 1920, he married Annie Dickson and they had two children, William and Priscilla, both of whom seem to have married and had children. Those children would be my third cousins, where ever they may be.
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On the other hand, William’s sister Margaret seems to disappear after the 1930 census. In 1920, she is listed in Arlington, Massachusetts, with her parents as a 20 year old cashier at Electric Light. In 1930, now age 30, she is still there, living with her parents in Arlington, and is listed as a bookkeeper at Electric Light. Her father dies the following year and so far I have found no trace of her or her mother, Mary Jane.
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My father’s maternal side is no better. His mother, Dorothy Anderson, was the youngest of three children. Her older sister Edith died at the age of three and a half of dysentery. Her older brother, Lesley, graduated from the Naval Academy and soon became engaged to a vaudeville actress but the marriage never happened. A few years later he married Beatrice Hawley and died in 1933, without issue.
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Dorothy’s mother was also one of three children with an older sister who died of croup at not yet two and a half. Her much younger brother Stuart never married or had issue. Dorothy’s father, Frank Carroll Anderson, was one of four children and here we do a bit better for potential cousins. His sister Elizabeth died at the age of 29, probably of pulmonary tuberculosis, but both his brothers, Charles and Edward, married. Charles had one daughter, Edna, born about 1905, who disappears after the 1920 census. Edward had two daughters, Florence and Hester. Florence died in 1974 in Philadelphia, unmarried, without issue. Hester married and had three sons, Lewis, Edward and John. All three grew to adulthood and married. Their children, if they had any, would be my third cousins.
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What all this rambling amounts to is, on my father’s side, the closest I’ve got is some unknown third cousins which explains why growing up all I ever knew on my dad's side were my grandparents and my "uncle" George.
Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-9208618322122951462012-08-04T13:35:00.000-04:002012-08-04T13:35:27.919-04:00who were they ...… what price did they pay? What tickles the brain and sneaks into my heart is wondering how different these lives might have been without the war and Gettysburg … better or perhaps worse?
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In the fall of 1861, Alonzo Ulmer was a 20 year old man with few ties in life. His father, brother and sister had all died when he was just a child and then when he was just 13, his mother married her sister’s widower and he was taken from the coasts and sea of Maine to the flat grasslands of western Illinois. He did not get along with his stepfather and most of the rest of the family, probably as much his fault as theirs, so when war broke out he returned to his home town of Thomaston, Maine, and enlisted with others and went off to join his friends, relatives and neighbors in Company B of the 4th Maine.
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Not quite a year later, Chalkley Sears enlisted in Philadelphia in Company F of the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry. He was a 30 year old married man, a hatter in nearby Phoenixville in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Mary had had two daughters but the older, Julia, had died the past April, not long after the birth of the second daughter, Mary. Whatever his motives for enlisting, he is credited with raising an entire company there at Phoenixville which accounts for his being Lieutenant of the company.
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Later that same month, Jacob Weller mustered in to the 1st New York Light Artillery right after his eighteenth birthday. Jacob was the next to youngest child of immigrants from Wuerttemberg, Germany, who had arrived in 1832 and made a life for themselves in Buffalo, New York. Three of their children had been born in Germany, one was born at sea on the voyage to America and they had eight more children after settling here.
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Chalkley was probably the least seasoned of the three when July and Gettysburg came. The 150th had been assigned to guard duty in Washington, D.C. and although sent to Chancellorsville in May they had been held back and not participated in that battle. Jacob on the other hand was at Chancellorsville that May of 1863 his unit having 4 men killed and 10 wounded, being compelled to leave two of the guns on that field, all the horses of one gun being shot, and nearly all the men on the other wounded. Alonzo was becoming a seasoned veteran with nearly two years of marching, fighting, and making camp in all sorts of weather including at Chancellorsville.
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In June of 1863, these three men joined thousands more headed for Gettysburg. On July 1st, Chalkley in the 150th Pennsylvania was at McPherson’s Farm on the Ridge of the same name, Jacob was with the guns of the 1st New York Light Artillery, taking a position on East Cemetery Ridge and Alonzo and the 4th Maine were headed for Devils Den at Little Round Top, sometimes referred to as the Valley of Death.
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On that first day, Chalkley and his men fought, trying to hold the line at McPherson’s through the day. By afternoon they were in the farmyard, at the barn and the farmhouse. Chalkley was shot in the left hand, not quite a crippling shot but enough to leave the field if he wished. He stayed with his men during the retreat through the streets of Gettysburg in which many more were killed, wounded or captured. During the retreat they helped hold off the enemy long enough for an artillery unit to fix their guns for retreat. The unit is believed to be one of the 1st New York’s batteries although not Jacob’s which was further east.
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On the 2nd of July, the 1st New York batteries were still holding Cemetery Hill. That evening there was an artillery assault from the Confederates and Jacob, the youngest of our three, was hit by a piece of a shell, smashing his right elbow causing his arm to be removed a few inches below his shoulder on July 3rd.
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On the 3rd, the final day of battle, Alonzo and Company F of the 4th Maine were far out on the left flank of Little Round Top in the boulder strewn area known as Devils Den in Plum Run Valley. It was here Alonzo was shot in the side, with the ball piercing through, leaving entrance and exit wounds. He was among 40 or more of his fellows captured by the Confederates but probably fortunately he was abandoned in a Rebel field hospital when they retreated.
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All three of these men recovered from their wounds but it is unlikely their lives were unaffected. Chalkley returned to duty in late August but in October was hospitalized with “intermittent fever” and discharged due to disability in December. He returned to his family, settling in Philadelphia with them and returned to his occupation as a hatter. He and his wife had no more children until 1881 when they had a son, Stuart, who never married. Only their daughter Mary had children, including my grandmother Dorothy.
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Jacob, the worst wounded of the three, spent some months in the hospital and then was transferred to the Invalid Corps to finish out his term of service. After his discharge and return to Buffalo, he filed for and received a pension finding some work for a while as a letter carrier and a laborer. By 1880, he is living with his brother, my great great grandfather, Alexander Weller and in 1883 he dies, leaving no wife or children.
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Alonzo recovered and was transferred to the 19th Maine to complete his term of service. Perhaps because he had no other life to turn to, he then enlists in the 9th US Volunteers for a year. After that he returns to Maine where he marries but in November of 1869 he tries returning to the Army but deserts from Fort Gratiot in Michigan in May of the following year. He seems to have wandered for the next couple of decades, visiting his mother, sister to my 3rd great grandmother, sometimes, perhaps spending time in the gold fields of Idaho Territory. Eventually, in 1898, he marries in Illinois and has a daughter, Virginia, named after his long deceased little sister. Beginning in 1903 he bounces in and out of the nearest soldiers home, eventually dying there in 1912. His daughter marries at least twice and leaves “no known family survivors” when she dies in 1989.
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Much of the information above comes from the three pension files and may not precisely line up with battle accounts. Jacob may have been injured on the 3rd and Alonzo may have been wounded and captured on the 2nd but those differences are unimportant.Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-31536755983459661072012-08-03T11:51:00.000-04:002012-08-03T11:51:17.708-04:00brother against brother ...<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=847556615630954095" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
… cousin against cousin, father against son, Kentucky started out trying to be a neutral in the Civil War but finally
officially fell in the Union camp, not that this changed the feelings of the
people in the mountain counties, including Harlan. Composed mostly of mountains,
Harlan had a long border with the Confederacy, marching a long way with Virginia
and reaching along Tennessee to include the Cumberland Gap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One hears little or nothing about Harlan County and
its trials and tribulations during the Civil War except for the various battles
at Cumberland Gap. After the war even that small fame was lost when the western
part of Harlan that included the Gap was combined with a portion of eastern
Knox County to form Bell County. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Throughout the war Harlan County and its
surroundings were a battleground of sorts with Union and Confederate troops,
partisans, bushwhackers and outright outlaws passing to and from foraging as
they went, constantly skirmishing with whoever they found. Death, robbery,
rape, starvation were rampant and fear must have been everyone’s companion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The county supplied troops to both sides, Unionists
principally from Martins Fork, Catrons Creek, and Wallins Creek areas and
Confederates from Clover Fork and Poor Fork and the ground was ripe for
personal feuds and grudges but presumably many thought that with the end of the
war would come the end of this violence but this was not so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the May of 1865, Leonard Farmer wrote the
Inspector General of Kentucky regarding the situation in Harlan County: </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"We have not had a Circuit Court here in this
county for three years, the court house has been burnt by Gurillas the Jail
destroyed and bad men has controlled the county or near so. The Gurillas has
nearly laid waste to the county by pilaging Plundering & Robbing who are
now in small squads say from ten to twenty together who when times are suitable
raids through the County and takes what suits their wicked purposes. these
Gurillas are all well armed and men of the worst character and the Civil
Authorities cannot apprehend them. The Sheriff are unable to serve process or
arrest the Gurillas and cannot in a greater portion of the county collect the
State Revenue. Harlan County is mountainous bordering some ninety miles on to
the Virginia line and can be raided by bands of men from Lee County, Va. at any
time they choose. When these robbers make raids they take arms, clothing, bacon
& and where they find a man that bitterly opposes them they burn their
house furniture and leaves the women and children without clothing or beds to
sleep upon. The hardship that we have endured has been great, old men thats
gray headed takes their blankets and lays in the mountain to avoid assassinated
by these bands of robbers." </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Attached to the letter was a list of 45 men willing
to serve as a local militia. Many of the listed men were related to Farmer and
most if not all were Unionists but then it is unlikely the Governor would have
approved any Confederates for a militia at that point in time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This makes interesting reading perhaps but take a minute now and imagine living with the constant fear that anyone coming down the lane to your home could be death or capture for you or yours. That men would come and simply take your food, your fuel, your husband and sons and perhaps assault or rape you and your daughters ... this is I think especially important for those of us like myself who come from northern roots who may have had loved ones in battle but did not live it so directly themselves. Even those of the farther south did not live in so much danger for so long as those of the border counties and the mountainous counties suffered the most simply because geography made it possible.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-12552322349072521562012-07-08T14:16:00.001-04:002012-07-08T14:16:32.573-04:00a nest of first cousins ...... arises from the research mentioned in the last post. In some ways it was a relief to get back into New England research and its abundance of vital records. The Locke family settled early in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and birth, death and marriage records are accessible online through the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
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It turns out that not only is Cherry Shattuck related (by marriage) to William Adams but she is also related to her husband. Probably the easiest way to lay this out is by starting with the common ancestor, Josiah Locke, born in 1753 at Woburn in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and his wife Elizabeth Richardson, whom he married 27 Dec 1775 in Woburn. This Josiah died 5 August 1811 and is listed in the Middlesex County probate index as Case #14248.
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Josiah and Elizabeth had at least three children: Sarah born in 1777 and married Shadrach Shattuck; Josiah born in 1779 and married Susanna Frost; and Asa born in 1781 and married Lucy Wyman. This younger Josiah drowned in 1818 and is also listed in the Middlesex probate index, Case #14249. The index does not list anything for an Asa Locke until 1884. These probate files including #41380 for Varnum Shattuck and a guardianship file for Cherry Locke (#14250) which should be researched but are not readily accessible to me.
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And now comes the cousin generation: 1) Sarah Locke and Shadrach Shattuck had Varnum Preston Shattuck who married Cherry below; 2) Josiah Locke and Susanna Frost had Cherry Adams Locke who married Varnum above; and 3) Asa Locke and Lucy Wyman had Lucy Gardner Locke who married William Adams who bought Cherry's interests in what appears to be Locke properties.
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I can not help but think about Cherry's life. Born in 1807, her father dies suddenly, drowning in 1818 when she is just eleven years old. In 1826 she marries her first cousin, Varnum Preston Shattuck, and their life seems to include a lot of moving around. They are in New York City by 1833, at a different address there in 1836, in Indiana (and possibly Michigan) around 1840, back in New York City in 1842, and in Texas by 1846. Her husband dies off in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1847. She remarries about 1849 and he dies apparently within the next ten years as she is listed in the 1860 census with just her two sons Varnum and Charles.
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Although she has ten children, six of them die in childhood. Of the remaining four, at least three of them predecease her. In 1870, she is living alone in Galveston. Her son Charles is her only remaining child and although not yet found in the 1870 census records he is advertising his business as a grocer and drygoods merchant as late as October of 1871. At this point my knowledge and research fails. Did she outlive them all?Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-6530396842278034372012-07-06T18:28:00.000-04:002012-07-06T18:28:31.371-04:00a clue from a deed ...is making me crazy. Among papers handed down in my father's family is a deed dated 6 June 1848 in which Cherry A Shattuck of Galveston, Texas, sells her interest in some properties in Middlesex County, Massachuseets, to William Adams of West Cambridge in that county: one undivided third part of half a dwelling house, a shed & part of a barn ... also one third part of one other lot of land containing about one acre known as the Well Piece ... also one third part of another lot of land called the Peach Orchard ... also one seventh part of a lot known as the Mountain Lot containing about fourteen acres.<br />
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There is a note along the side of the deed that it was recorded in Cambridge, Middlesex County, in Deed Book 555, Page 102, on 17 January 1849. This William Adams is almost certainly my great great grandfather (1821-1905). His first wife (and current at the time of the deed) was Lucy Gardener Locke, daughter of Asa Locke and Lucy Wyman. Lucy (Locke) Adams died 24 April 1866 of diptheria and a couple of years later, William married Emma Isadora Stanton, my great great grandfather. <br />
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First question is how does Cherry fit in? Is she definitely a Locke? If so, whose daughter is she? If not, what is her maiden name? ... and how did she end up all the way in Galveston, Texas, by 1848?<br />
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In the 1850 census of Galveston we have a John Robinson, aged 50, a merchant born in Scotland, with his aparent wife Cherry A Robinson, aged 37, born in Massachuestts. Living with them are V P Shattuck aged 22, a merchant clerk, born in Massachusetts; Josephine Shattuck, aged 16, born in New York; Sarah S Shattuck, aged 10, born in Indiana; Charles T Shattuck, aged 9, born in New York; and Francis L Shattuck, aged 7, also born in New York. This appears to be the Cherry we seek with a second husband and five children by her first husband who is presumably deceased.<br />
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Although the 1850 census indicates Cherry was born about 1813, the 1860 census gives her age as 58, thus born about 1802, and the 1870 census as age 60, born circa 1810. She has yet to be found in later years nor has a death record been found. The New England Historic Genealogical Society shows the marriage of Cherry Locke of Woburn to Varnum P Shattuck of Charlestown on 30 December 1826. Their records also show a Cherry Adams Locke born 13 January 1807 in Woburn to Josiah Locke Jr and his wife Susanna. If this is the correct Cherry, then she would be an aunt to William Adams' wife.<br />
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The birthplaces of the children indicate that Varnum & Cherry went from Massachusetts to New York, were in Indiana around 1840, and then back to New York for at least the first half of the 1840's. Around 1840, Varnum became embroiled in financial difficulties and with others was sued in New York Chancery Court. Legal notices found through GenealogyBank say in 1839 that he was a resident of Michigan and in 1840, of Indiana. <br />
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In June 1845 a Varnum P Shattuck is recruited by the Third Infantry, Regular Army, as a "supernumerary recuited on detachment." This recruitment seems to have ended up at Camp Wilkins (aka Fort Jesup) in Louisiana. This could be either the father (age 39-40) or the son, but the son was 16, 17 at the most and a bit young to enlist. Also found at GenealogyBank was a listing from the New York Evening Post of 8 July 1847, stating [died] "at Vera Cruz of yellow fever, Mr. Varnum P. Shattuck, aged 42 years, late of Chrlestown, Massachusetts." <br />
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That this is the father is supported by a listing in the Middlesex probate records for a Varnum P. Shattuck, case file 41380 in 1849 giving his late residence as Galveston, Texas. The younger Varnum is with his mother and stepfather in 1850 and with his mother in 1860. <br />
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Texas marriage records on FamilySearch show that the daughter Josephine married 2 Jan 1855 in Galveston to a John Howard. Her sister Sarah also married a John Howard in Galveston on 3 November 1857. At this time it is not known if the John Howards are one and the same or separate individuals. John, a merchant aged 35, and Sarah Howard are found in 1860 Galveston with a 2 year old child aged 2. <br />
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Clearly there is more to search although I have about tapped out the online stuff. FindAGrave provided the death of the younger Varnum (1 January 1868) and a few other minor details have been located. One of the more important items is probably the actual case file for Varnum in the Middlesex probate records. <br />
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You can see how obsessed I get ... this is a possible relative of a first wife of my direct line and I have already spent 3-4 days on it!! Certainly some of this was not as easy as it reads here. The 1860 census information in particular was tricky as the enumerator messed it up significantly, listing Cherry and her two sons as: C Robsterr, age 58; B Scott, age 30; and Chas Scott, age 18 instead of C(herry) Robinson and V(arnum) Shattuck and Chas Shattuck ... arrrggghh!!!<br />Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-37189391824636138572012-06-30T15:21:00.002-04:002012-06-30T15:21:46.042-04:00serendipity strikes again ...... and as usual eats up hours of time. This time I was testing out the search engine that <a href="http://www.fold3.com/">fold3</a> is working on and tossing in whatever family names came to mind. One of my favorites to throw in is the given name Hatevil. As you can imagine it is not a common name so I don't get buried in results when I use it. The name goes way back into early New England and is attached to a handful of surnames mostly if not all connected to Hatevil Nutter.
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But I digress. I had already limited my search area to Revolutionary War and up pops a dozen or so results, many of them being official papers signed and/or attested to by Hatevil Knight, a town official and a son of my direct ancestor Joseph Knight and his wife Elizabeth Nutter, and brother to my direct line, Susanna Knight who married John Stanton.
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Among the results is one referencing page/image 18 in the pension of Edward Rollins, a name I recognize as fitting into the family. When I check my database, sure enough, there's Edward, who it turns out is a half brother to Hatevil and Susanna Knight as their mother had first been married to Edward Rollins Sr. The statement brings up some information I had not previously known and reads as follows:
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<i>I Hatevil Knight of Rochester in the county of Strafford and State of New Hampshire aged seventy eight years, depose and say that I was acquainted with Edward Rollins late of said Rochester deceased. That he was a Soldier in the Revolution at different times and that afterwards he was married to Miss Anna Wentworth of this Town. That he the said Edward Rollins died in this Town twenty seven years ago and that afterwards his widow the aforesaid Anna married with John Stanton and that the said John Stanton died more than ten years ago and that she the said Anna has remained a widow ever since the death of the said John Stanton. That she has always been a reputable person to me well known.</i>
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The statement is signed by Hatevil Knight and is dated 7 July 1843 in Rochester. I had not previously followed this Edward Rollins and never particularly looked for a pension or even for any service in the Revolution (shame on me!). I had him listed with his birth and death date and that was it. Although I knew about his mother's two marriages, I was unaware of his marriage to Anna Wentworth nor her subsequent marriage to a John Stanton.
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After much poking around on various internet resources including Ancestry, NEHGS, USGenWeb and Find-A-Grave as well as digging through the rest of Edward Rollins' pension, I have determined that Edward Rollins married Anna Wentworth 15 December 1778 and married John Stanton 17 February 1822. John died 6 April 1828 at Brookfield. In a statement dated 4 March 1847 in Rollins' pension application, it is said that Anna has lived in Charleston, Penobscot County, Maine, for 10 or 11 years and previous to that in Rochester, Strafford County, New Hampshire.
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Anna Wentworth Rollins Stanton died in Corinth, Penobscot County, Maine, 6 September 1854, and is buried in the Paine Cemetery in nearby Charleston. In spite of scrolling page by page through both the Charleston and Corinth sections of the 1850 census of Penobscot County, I have not located Anna. I did find what appears to be her son Anthony. Another son Stephen appears in the pension file but his tombstone in the Paine Cemetery states that he died in 1847 at the age of 66 years, 4 months, so he is not found in 1850 of course. Sure wish I had checked that before spending a considerable amount of time looking for him in the census!
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Anna's second husband John Stanton is most likely part of my Stanton family as all the Stantons in early Strafford County appear to be one family. It is possible that she is the second wife of my direct line John Stanton but there may be other cousins to the line to be found that could fit.
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Well, I certainly have learned to look deeper in the collateral lines, even half-brothers may have something to add to the family story.Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-32025209614765536282009-07-13T14:56:00.003-04:002009-07-13T16:39:50.675-04:00the death of Jonathan Stone...In 1856, Sybil Adams applied for a pension based on her father's Revolutionary War service, stating that she is the only surviving daughter and heir of Jonathan & Mary Stone. Sybil states,<div><br /></div><div><i><b>"My father lived at TempletonMass. He enlisted and went and left his family consisting of his wife and 3 children in a log house in the Wilderness. I was the oldest and was 7 yrs ... the land was sold ... the children had to be put out and suffered a great deal the youngest was 3 years old when his father was killed."</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>Jonathan appears to have enlisted at the very beginning, 27 April 1775, signing up for 3 months 12 days. Along with others he signed a receipt for advance pay on 8 Jun 1775. He was a private in Captain Joel Fletcher's Company of Colonel Ephraim Doolittle's Regiment which was at Bunker Hill. The company was at Winter Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in October and December of 1775. By September of 1776 he was in New York at the Battle of Harlem Heights.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nathan Stone son of Seth Stone who was brother to Jonathan Stone states he has no direct knowledge of the death of Jonathan Stone except that which he has been told by his father and others:</div><div><br /></div><div><i><b>"which was that he was killed on the retreat at the time of the Battle of White Plains at or near a place called Harlem in New York. The news was brought to his wife and friends by a Mr. Fillmore who stated he was shot through both knees by grape shot and he (Fillmore) and others helped him into a barn and left him after [putt]ing some rum into his canteen which was all the assistance he could render."</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div>Nathan's sister Abigail Stone Stratton and Sybil herself give similar accounts of Jonathan's death. There are other bits of genealogical data in this pension file: Jonathan md Mary Gates 29 Oct 1765 in Worcester and they had three children, Sybil, Nabby and Samuel. Sybil was sent to live with Seth Stone's family in West Cambridge until she later married Joel Adams, Nabby married Thomas Grey and Samuel died a few years before the pension application was filed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jonathan seems to have been an ordinary sort of fellow, trying to build a life for himself and his young family on the frontier. Along comes the War for Independence and he promptly signs up, whatever his motivation or, probably, combination of motives. The advance pay probably went mostly to his wife and children and off he marched. A few months in camp at the fort on Winter Hill and then eventually to end up shot in the knees at Harlem Heights and the battle of White Plains. On the run from the British what else could his comrades do but leave him with what comfort they could provide in the shelter of a barn, probably difficult for them as well as Jonathan.</div><div><br /></div><div>And imagine the wife and three young children in the cabin in the wilderness, perhaps months of not knowing. Then along comes the neighbor with the report of his death and life is turned upside down, the land is sold, the children sent off to other homes. Mary Gates Stone is said not to have married again, remaining a widow until her death in Northboro, Worcestor County, Massachusetts, on 2nd December 1839.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Vital Records of Shrewsbury Massachusetts list Jonathan Stone died 15 Sep 1776, buried at Shrewsbury: Jonathan Stone [Jr] wounded 15 Sep 1776 at the Evacuation of New York, supposed to have died soon after. [Leg broken and captured by the British.]</div><div><br /></div><div>Reading this pension gave me chills and I will never see a movie or television show about the Revolution (or other early American wars) in the same way nor see the pieces of genealogy information add up to a similar scene without seeing it in my mind and my heart.</div><div><br /></div><div>Are there bits of your genealogy research that made a profound difference to you?</div><div><br /></div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-42253995927553731332009-07-11T17:39:00.004-04:002009-07-11T18:44:23.965-04:00eeney meeney miney mo...... my brain is turning inside out! In 1699, Evert Bancker and his wife Elizabeth Abeel had a son Willem. Sometime after 1710, they had a son Johannes. The two brothers, more than ten years apart in age, married sisters. In 1726, Willem married Annatje Veeder and some years later, Johannes married Annatje's sister Magdalena, both daughters of Gerrit Symonse Veeder and his wife Catrina Otten. <div><br /></div><div>Now, particularly in isolated areas, it is not unusual for a pair of siblings to marry another pair of siblings. The difficulty here is that researchers can't seem to agree on which of these pairs is the father of Thomas Brouwer Bancker born about 1729 (or perhaps a bit later) and married in 1754 to Annatje Mabie and this is one of my direct lines!</div><div><br /></div><div>Pearson in his <i>First Settlers in Schenectady</i> lists Johannes and Magdalena as Thomas' parents but Howard Banker in <i>The Bancker Genealogy</i> lists his parents as Willem and Annatje. I started to lean towards Willem and Annatjje because Thomas named his first daughter Annatje but then realized duh! his wife was named Annatje so there went that scrap of thought.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Vader Genealogy</i> (Veeder family) states that Thomas was baptized 8 Dec 1729, in the Bancker Genealogy it is given as born 8 Dec 1729. Confusion between baptismal and birth dates is common in Dutch Colonial research but generally speaking baptismal dates are close to the birth date so Thomas was probably born towards the end of 1729. Now, Willem is certainly old enough to have a son in 1729 and had married Annatje 17 Dec 1726. Johannes on the other hand is perhaps 18 or 19, old enough yes but customarily most men were into their 20's when they had children. The date of his marriage to Magdalena is unknown.</div><div><br /></div><div>Willem's children are listed with clear birth/baptismal dates and there is a gap that just fits Thomas. Johannes's two known children, Elisabeth and Gerrit, are listed in 1735 and 1737, a big gap from 1729. Willem and Annatje "feel" right but there is absolutely nothing I have found YET (notice the smidge of hopefulness) to truly indicate one or the other. Perhaps someone will find Thomas' baptismal record and it may list parents???</div><div><br /></div><div>Have you had any knotty problem in your research that made you crazy and gave you headaches? Did you ever get it solved?</div><div><br /></div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-36441701096837030232009-06-20T14:18:00.003-04:002009-06-20T15:30:36.734-04:00revolutionary thoughts...... have been obsessing my brain for the last couple of days. A couple of days ago I pulled up a couple of Revolutionary War pensions on <a href="http://www.footnote.com">footnote.com</a> for brothers to my direct line, Elijah and Charles Stanton. Both, as I am used to for my New England (paternal) ancestry, spent most of their time well away from their homes for months or years at a time.<div><br /></div><div>But then I went chasing after RW pensions for my early New York (maternal) ancestry primarily in the Mohawk Valley around Schenectady and west of there. For the most part these men were in the State Militia and were called up for mere days or weeks at a time and not too far from home so their pensions are full of detailed listings, such as this one from the pension of Frederick Vedder, who was enrolled as First Sgt in Captain Outhout's company (summarized):<br /><ul><br /><li> September 1779 ordered out to Stone Arabia, three weeks</li><br /><li> October 1779 marched to Caghnawaga, three weeks</li><br /><li> 22 May 1780 ordered to Caghnawaga "at the time the family of the Fishers were murdered" for another three weeks</li><br /><li> 1780 to Fort Hunter for two weeks</li><br /><li> 1780 "when Canajoharie was destroyed he was at that place to repel the enemy on an expedition of two weeks"</li><br /><li> 1780 marched to the Fort Clyde, two weeks</li><br /><li> Oct 1780 an expedition to Ballston, 8 days</li><br /><li> 1781 stationed at Claus Vielies Pass or the Rifts about four miles west of the City of Schenectady from 1 Aug to 1 Nov, 3 months</li><br /><li>1781 summer, expedition to Beaver Dam in pursuit of Tories, 3 days</li><br /><li>and undated, an expedition from Schenectady to Currysbush</li></ul><div><br /></div>Other pensions for men from this general area are much the same in that they have lengthy lists of assorted short expeditions within the area. What caught my attention though was that not only were these men from my families but the places they fought or protected were also the homes of ancestors, siblings or cousins of my lines.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Mohawk Valley area of New York State was not a good place to be during the Revolutionary War. Some of those still living there were hidden enemies, Tories who had not declared themselves and left. The area was subject to raids out of Canada by the British and the Indians, often aided by these hidden enemies.</div><div><br /></div><div>Vedder refers to the murders of the Fisher family, or Visscher family. These are more cousins of my family, there at Caughnawaga (multiple spelling variations on that place!!), the place was later called Fonda, the home of many of my blood. </div><div><br /></div><div>Not that there weren't other areas of the country equally terrifying but I visualize all these homes and farms and ordinary everyday people living with the possibly of war in their front yard everyday for several years. When you hear someone come up the road, are they friend or enemy or an enemy posing as friend? The sounds in the night are they just the wind or the dog on the porch or are they coming to burn the house down?</div><div><br /></div><div>Do you ever place your ancestors in history like this? In what I call small history, not the major battles and events but the little stuff? </div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-42437980502525115182009-06-14T12:55:00.003-04:002009-06-14T14:48:21.450-04:00another digression ...Although I have always had a tendency to digress well into collateral lines, the growth of internet records has encouraged this wandering off into unrelated byways. One of these is Helen Fairchild so first allow me to set up the connection to my family. My maternal grandmother Lois Kellogg's maternal grandfather was Edward Payson Willson, a native of Dutchess County, New York, probably named after Edward Payson, an important and well known pastor in the early 1800's.<div><br /></div><div>In his early twenties, E.P., as he was usually known, headed west as many young men did and landed in Leavenworth, Kansas where he began the foundations of Great Western Manufacturing which still exists there today. The first few years he focused on his business, living either at the foundry itself or in boarding houses. Perhaps it was his 30th birthday in 1862 that set his mind to thinking of marriage and family as on 18 October 1863, shortly before his 31st birthday, he married Helen Fairchild.</div><div><br /></div><div>Helen Fairchild was born 21 August 1837, perhaps in Ulster County, New York. As a girl the family moved west, first to Cincinnati in Hamilton County, Ohio, and then to Leavenworth. I have a reference that there was a deed or other instrument from Edward Payson Willson to Helen five days before their marriage but I have yet to locate the deed itself although I am quite curious as to what it included.</div><div><br /></div><div>Early in my research on E.P. Willson I found this first marriage and then her 1864 death notice, "Died this morning, July 6th, at 6 o'clock, of consumption, Helen, wife of E.P. Willson and daughter of William Fairchild, Esq." At that point I left it and moved on to other research.</div><div><br /></div><div>Several years laterI was researching the Willson family's burials there in Leavenworth including obtaining the lot and interment records from the cemetery office, not just the tombstone information. It was here that I learned that the lot was jointly owned with E.P. Willson using the north half and William Fairchild using the south half.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also discovered that although there were 6 stones in the Willson plot, there were actually 7 burials, the seventh being Helen Julie Willson died 18 June 1864 of "debility" age 9 days. So the mother possibly already weakened by her consumption had delivered the child, possibly too early, and both had soon died. </div><div><br /></div><div>All this fits in with the usual in family research but then I noticed that in the adjoining Fairchild plot, there were only four headstones but there were nine burials. The stones were for Helen's parents, William and Barbara (Hunt) Fairchild and for her brother DeForrest and his wife Josie. But, who were the other five people buried in that plot? The cemetery records give us Marietta Mildrum age 37 in 1875, Helen Fairchild, age 18 in 1884, William Edmund Pierce, age 19 in 1888, Edwin DeForest Pierce, age 15 in 1889, and Claudius B Pierce, age 73 in 1902.</div><div> </div><div>From here the research took off into the Fairchild family ultimately going back another couple of generations and into Helen's siblings. The last four were fairly easy:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Helen Fairchild</b> was the only daughter of DeForest and Josie (Creter) Fairchild. Obviously named for her aunt Helen Fairchild Willson who had died the year before, she was born 23 Dec 1865 in Leavenworth, dying there of consumption on 31 August 1884.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>William Edmund Pierce</b> and <b>Edwin Deforest Pierce</b> were sons of Helen's sister Mary and her husband, Claudius Buchanan Pierce. William died 31 Oct 1888 of spinal miningitis [sic]. Edwin (who had a twin brother Edward), drowned 14 Feb 1889. I have yet to have the opportunity to pursue newspaper research to find out how he drowned.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Claudius B Pierce</b> was husband to Mary Fairchild and father to the two above boys. He died of a fever in 1902 in nearby Kansas City, Missouri. His wife, ten years younger than he, did not die until 1932 and is buried in Alta Mesa, California.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fifth unmarked burial was a bit more difficult. Helen's father was William Fairchild, whose father was Benjamin. Among Benjamin's other children was a daughter Maria who married Andrew Mildrum. About 1838, they had a daughter Marietta in Hunter, Greene County, New York. This is the <b>Marietta Mildrum</b> who died of consumption 3 Mar 1875 in Leavenworth at the home of her uncle William Fairchild. </div><div><br /></div><div>Four years later, E.P. Willson married Olive Sinks, sister of Tiffin Sinks who had also come early to Leavenworth to make his fortune. Tiffin was a doctor and pharmacist as well as an investor and civic figure. He never married and is buried in the Willson plot. E.P. and Olive had four children, one being Martha Ann, their oldest, who died in 1872 of "congestion of the spine." She is also buried in the Willson plot, as are E.P. and Olive. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Willsons had three more children, all surviving into adulthood: Hiram (1874-1948), Lida (my great grandmother, 1877-1959), and Olive (1881-1960). This last married Thomas Logan Rithie and it is their second son, James Logan Ritchie, dying shortly after his first birthday, who fills the final grave in the Willson plot.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, this was intended to be more about the Fairchilds but has digressed itself into more of a discussion of the unmarked graves in the two plots .. oh well, that was probably the cause of the original digression anyway. One final small note, Helen Fairchild Willson and her daughter Helen Julie were originally buried at Greenwood Cemetery and were moved to the Mount Muncie plot 23 April 1867.</div><div><br /></div><div>At least unlike some of my digressions, the Fairchilds left descendents although not poor Helen.</div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-35167200916160600452009-03-15T10:05:00.007-04:002009-03-15T10:52:37.381-04:00a lost mystery....<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfZmfjW1kq4ZoTAxF84Rrv-p68ewlFFI1Bvk5nKb0gMxRfy7VRTKapECKEtboAj_-1bIeOQSpAxtq1KbfmJnUvguCwj0kAu64FVbgY3Sy5S0Hu2vTCU4Y6kpyZCFg0hyphenhyphenD6z_GnpjoU54g/s1600-h/medalfront.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 167px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfZmfjW1kq4ZoTAxF84Rrv-p68ewlFFI1Bvk5nKb0gMxRfy7VRTKapECKEtboAj_-1bIeOQSpAxtq1KbfmJnUvguCwj0kAu64FVbgY3Sy5S0Hu2vTCU4Y6kpyZCFg0hyphenhyphenD6z_GnpjoU54g/s320/medalfront.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313416366594054706" /></a>stumbled over again while digging through stuff. One of the many things found in my paternal grandfather's things was a medal presented to his father in 1908 (shown at right). Charles Stanton Adams was born 8 Jun 1870 in Winchester, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. In 1895 he married Grace Estelle Newhall and, in 1896, they had Arthur Stanton Adams, their only child and my grandfather.<br /><br /><div>Through 1905 he is listed as a clerk but by the 1910 census he had become a proprietor of a grocery store and he and Grace had settled into the home they lived in for the rest of their lives at 7 Mystic Avenue in Winchester. </div><div></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0UX3FeobvoTenSzPrEVc5q851Bcdgu6GnH1YC317zdRSYkPBX9_B0lfzr5cXHRbq5IZeqJCkqsbWs6KWtpwo0edxXNm95b5v7n3Bpmwa6AaxYLH8i1VSp-m3WPRlZzvyuCeYHBjbPlc/s1600-h/medalback.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 279px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0UX3FeobvoTenSzPrEVc5q851Bcdgu6GnH1YC317zdRSYkPBX9_B0lfzr5cXHRbq5IZeqJCkqsbWs6KWtpwo0edxXNm95b5v7n3Bpmwa6AaxYLH8i1VSp-m3WPRlZzvyuCeYHBjbPlc/s320/medalback.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313418977759153842" /></a></div><div>The mystery is the medal itself ... what was it given for and what group gave it? </div><div><br /></div><div>The inscription on the back is:</div><div></div><div><span style="font-style:italic;">Presented to Charles S. Adams By Aberjona Cl.(?) No. 1102 Jan 1908.</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><div></div>Aberjona is the name of a river running through Winchester. I am not certain of the reading of the two letters "Cl" although I am certain the first letter is a C I am not as certain about the second letter, it could be an h or possibly something else.</div><div><br /></div><div="clear"><br /><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtn-kcQt1Koa1JaOm_OIkheHuTcywXmQ4uUg7qvKG3FcFuduE3CUTg_-oh6Rm2OcG4MYskDaBrVKVjKJsUaHA97yrrQuGCwpT3hs6tDZqSvhVqUozRpYuR4la_CJSeyDU6L_n88gW-VK0/s1600-h/medaldesign.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 149px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtn-kcQt1Koa1JaOm_OIkheHuTcywXmQ4uUg7qvKG3FcFuduE3CUTg_-oh6Rm2OcG4MYskDaBrVKVjKJsUaHA97yrrQuGCwpT3hs6tDZqSvhVqUozRpYuR4la_CJSeyDU6L_n88gW-VK0/s320/medaldesign.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313426640517198530" /></a><br /></div><div>The other main clue is the design on the bar on the bottom of the ribbon. There is a closeup to the right. These appear to be intertwined letters, a C, W, A, and ???</div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqeOSYBEcE8r0axOSjUxRV1SBNBVGzCPoHPmMAUKm8v2S-S0xvNVbQ-ZRFrfVb8HsP0CtFTE-wcW0VSqspkHCAyUlq1_tsDGOLmTerYgUJn_p5Up6ntlqzG0o1aCaI5PfKxjgAI8l6IYU/s1600-h/dirdesign.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 202px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqeOSYBEcE8r0axOSjUxRV1SBNBVGzCPoHPmMAUKm8v2S-S0xvNVbQ-ZRFrfVb8HsP0CtFTE-wcW0VSqspkHCAyUlq1_tsDGOLmTerYgUJn_p5Up6ntlqzG0o1aCaI5PfKxjgAI8l6IYU/s320/dirdesign.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313423760534307586" /></a></div><div>I thought at first that these might be some sort of lodge initials such BOE for the Brotherhood of Elks or the like. But, this morning while poking around trying to find clues, I found a title pages from the 1895 and 1899 Winchester City Directories so this may be some sort of civic award.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Any clues or suggestions as to where to look would be appreciated !!!!!</div><div><br /></div><br /></div="clear">Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-70325066595625249222009-02-22T13:31:00.011-05:002009-02-22T16:27:47.429-05:00Putting flesh on Alonzo's bones...... by including the events around him, not just his own dates. His pension provided a lot of the impetus for this as the personality that emerged from the many depositions included in the 436 pages of the file were mostly blandly negative.<div><br /></div><div>Although only my 1st cousin 4 times removed, Alonzo has been one of my personal obsessions as noted in my very <a href="http://genmusings.blogspot.com/2008/10/where-obsession-leads-i-follow.html">first post on this blog</a>. From the various depositions, his character is painted as not of much value as a man with hints of alcohol abuse and messing around with women and not much interest in working. </div><div><br /></div><div>He was born 20 February of either 1840 or 1841, the information varies, to Captain Martin Ulmer and his wife, Zoa Pease. It is not certain whether his brother Eddie was older or younger than Alonzo but Eddie died as a boy, certainly before 1850 and probably earlier. His sister Virginia was born about 1845 and the little family was probably doing well, living in Thomaston, Maine, where Martin and his family were active in the maritime trades.</div><div><br /></div><div>But, in August of 1849, Alonzo's father dies and in 1850 Zoa Pease Ulmer household includes only herself, Alonzo and little Virginia. Within the next couple of years, Virginia also dies, and Alonzo is left as her only surviving child. </div><div><br /></div><div>Early in 1854, Zoa and Alonzo have traveled to Illinois where her family had settled in Warren and Rock Island Counties in 1837. Zoa's sister Ellen had died in March of 1853 and in May of 1854, Zoa married Ellen's widower and took on the raising of Ellen's five children. </div><div><br /></div><div>So here is Alonzo, just 13 or 14 years old, having lost both his siblings and possibly being something of a mama's boy, and he is yanked off from all that is familiar and landed in a housefull of other children that now require much of his mother's attention. Adding to that, his mother adds two daughters to the household, one in 1855 and the other in 1857. Her focus is definitely no longer on Alonzo and his stepfather disliked and distrusted him. He appears to have spent time on one or the other of his maternal uncles' farms, particularly that of his uncle Martin Pease.</div><div><br /></div><div>He was still in Illinois in 1858 when he witnessed his uncle Martin's father-in-law Robert Pollock's will but by 1861 he had returned to Maine where he enlisted in the 4th Maine Infantry soon after the Civil War broke out. Although he remained a private, he seems to have managed adequately in Company B which included several of his friends and relatives from his boyhood.</div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE7_bz59l5yCmMz8beoQ3wGi2Rpdbb-inlbKTeJZOI7YjtErxi8Wq-BRRomewbi4OnzZrUWWr_fLpzoWsdeWHdRgeGBTbzgD3SuXzHwwsI-fg__iwZnrgU9_P6ewMkAViHMa891ZA2_9U/s1600-h/bullet-track.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE7_bz59l5yCmMz8beoQ3wGi2Rpdbb-inlbKTeJZOI7YjtErxi8Wq-BRRomewbi4OnzZrUWWr_fLpzoWsdeWHdRgeGBTbzgD3SuXzHwwsI-fg__iwZnrgU9_P6ewMkAViHMa891ZA2_9U/s320/bullet-track.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305731251477047858" /></a><div>Then came July of 1863 and Gettysburg where Alonzo was wounded in the side at Devils Den, apparently a straight forward through and through wound but he was captured and came to in a rebel field hospital, untended for three days. The rebels retreated abandoning the prisoners and Alonzo was hospitalized in Philadelphia for a while where his mother visited him. He was transferred to the 19th Maine to finish out his three years of service. He appears to have then returned to Rockland, Maine, where he enlists in the 9th U S V V for a one year term on the 5th of April, 1865, and marries Adelia Pendleton immediately prior to departing. Several depositions indicate that Alonzo and Adelia never lived together but she enjoyed his reenlistment bonus.</div><div><br /></div><div>For a few years Alonzo seems to vanish but reappears in November of 1869 when he enlists in the 1st Regiment US Infantry for a term of five years. His enlistment papers state he was residing in Lincoln, Massachusetts, at that time and this may coincide with the statement in a deposition that Alonzo had visited Adelia once to try to get money from her. The Army Register of Enlistments states that Alonzo deserted 30 May 1870 and with one small exception that is the last we hear of Alonzo for years.</div><div><br /></div><div>Various depositions imply that Alonzo moved around in Nevada, Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas, often working as a cook and a notice that there is a letter for him in the Silver City, Idaho, post office supports this. He probably visited his mother every so often but not until after his disapproving step father dies in 1884 does he appear to stay mostly in Illinois with his mother. In the 1880's he also starts trying to get a pension.</div><div><br /></div><div>Alonzo's first wife, Adelia, had died in 1880 in Maine although later uncertainties about the status of their marriage plagued his pension claims. In 1898, he marries Anna Armstrong, a divorcee from Nebraska, and he brings her to Illinois to live with his mother. Their daughter Virginia is born a year later. His mother dies in 1901 and by 1903, Alonzo had entered a soldiers home and he was in and out for the following nine years. There are letters and depositions revealing that he did not want to share his pension with his wife and child even when he was in the soldiers home. In 1912, Alonzo dies and is buried in the Danville National Cemetery. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anna dies just five years later, leaving Virginia on her own, not yet 18 years old. Virginia ended up in Nevada by 1942 where, with the surname Clarke, she applies for a social security number. The next bit of information on her is her death, 11 Feb 1989, in Las Vegas, with the name of Virginia Opal Carrupt. Her brief obituary states, "There are no known family survivors."</div><div><br /></div><div>Thus Alonzo's life tails off into nothing but along the way he must have had hopes and dreams although I would not be surprised if he also felt a bit put upon and unwanted. His initial army years may have been the best part of his life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Has anyone in your genealogy research obsessed you?</div><div><br /></div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-59383869103549263482009-01-10T18:36:00.004-05:002009-01-10T19:01:51.451-05:00who are you...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGSfhlHCts7nSW0qIcysRURru86IrjeKRkbS86ocN2CvwXEmwRto76bJOutCI8nARdqL-iLM3BvLNwwWMbBdonx2i0p1eYf_gljjp53dCrfX3pOV_Lxbaawtn9MNOrEw_BxR1afrWAaRg/s1600-h/spencerboy.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 210px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGSfhlHCts7nSW0qIcysRURru86IrjeKRkbS86ocN2CvwXEmwRto76bJOutCI8nARdqL-iLM3BvLNwwWMbBdonx2i0p1eYf_gljjp53dCrfX3pOV_Lxbaawtn9MNOrEw_BxR1afrWAaRg/s320/spencerboy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289814097679820738" /></a>... I really want to know? The photo of the fellow at the right is one of many in a huge box of photographs from a branch of my husband's family. I find this fellow particularly interesting with his somewhat unique hairstyle and facial expression. </span><P><div>The photographer was located in Spencer, Iowa, so presumably the subject lived in that area. The bulk of the photographs and letters (mostly in German) in the box appear to have been sent between 1880 and 1920 to the Frederick and Augusta Voss family which moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1882 from Ritzerow (near Stavenhagen) in Mecklenberg-Schwerin, Prussia. None of the letters nor other photos in the box have any reference to Spencer, Iowa, and I am utterly clueless as to who this young man may be.</span><br /></div><p><div>Do you have any clues?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 5px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 5px;font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-21245389167753021072008-11-08T10:13:00.006-05:002008-11-08T11:11:39.964-05:00oh baby....<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2YVrsdDtn0rKcyR08yZ8IO9MAXq4o-9edCQ_ej1IODWmFYhWGP5rWKWMj732aW8cI6DebFPO5Tu6s94a2K98QuRu001vsraAtNsZNfV1NLILB7UJtGTLEKJw9nzEPYLL0b5GnSKCQpg/s1600-h/loisbook.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 193px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2YVrsdDtn0rKcyR08yZ8IO9MAXq4o-9edCQ_ej1IODWmFYhWGP5rWKWMj732aW8cI6DebFPO5Tu6s94a2K98QuRu001vsraAtNsZNfV1NLILB7UJtGTLEKJw9nzEPYLL0b5GnSKCQpg/s320/loisbook.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266305352511233266" /></a>... my grandmother, Lois Dorothy Kellogg, was born 20 Jun 1899 so this photograph was probably taken in late 1900. Her father, Spencer Kellogg, Jr., was something of a dilettante, avoiding the family business as much as possible and exploring the arts and other interests.<div><br /><div><div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWElmrqTBGsoVeO17G0OVmrHvZPYtoziD3FPpvD7-NrpH92ES7yeUQ1MJBGx3ajTmjJMZWfRsg0hf2NaonXDJpZm7JJldc3bXPV2PBpGRztDGmGcdalNcxKUeLgHj21qjiCdSilAGrRA/s1600-h/loisgirl.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 234px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWElmrqTBGsoVeO17G0OVmrHvZPYtoziD3FPpvD7-NrpH92ES7yeUQ1MJBGx3ajTmjJMZWfRsg0hf2NaonXDJpZm7JJldc3bXPV2PBpGRztDGmGcdalNcxKUeLgHj21qjiCdSilAGrRA/s320/loisgirl.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266308534367953090" /></a>He was part of a group of amateur and professional photographers in the Buffalo, New York area. There are therefore a large number of photographs of his only daughter throughout her childhood although none of them are dated, sigh! In the photo to the right she looks to be in her early teens, perhaps only 11 or 12 years old.</div><div><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDVowlAknLkUsgIgTcee_HWqP566xqbMux76Rki-8BaD3rMhMcG2ltBhe-_L9lX0oE9NkQYHDWPr4TH8W8OEXEfcVNwK2YMp771_UoM5QS3m7hohT8DEyrxz2BuJ1HsVMP4XWa7tD4bQ/s1600-h/skjr1912.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDVowlAknLkUsgIgTcee_HWqP566xqbMux76Rki-8BaD3rMhMcG2ltBhe-_L9lX0oE9NkQYHDWPr4TH8W8OEXEfcVNwK2YMp771_UoM5QS3m7hohT8DEyrxz2BuJ1HsVMP4XWa7tD4bQ/s320/skjr1912.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266313362648734146" /></a><div>I never knew my great grandfather as he died three days before I was born but I think he was an interesting person although I am not sure I would have liked him. </div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi04916O6aQsCs_7duEt6ckTtybxhbaLhHSfAhNCnwO_2Q6HXzHpRaE5__-fjodWVCPsN9Qkg_QaSfeb2LEBFeelziY_0XlPbCpePSIIeL9ZOe5k8AKNcEPqHkxKyiypaCdm5Qne8KpHuU/s1600-h/spennyphoto2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi04916O6aQsCs_7duEt6ckTtybxhbaLhHSfAhNCnwO_2Q6HXzHpRaE5__-fjodWVCPsN9Qkg_QaSfeb2LEBFeelziY_0XlPbCpePSIIeL9ZOe5k8AKNcEPqHkxKyiypaCdm5Qne8KpHuU/s320/spennyphoto2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266316142166694098" /></a>To complete this little pictorial eddy in the stream of life, I include a picture of him, identified as being taken in 1912, where I believe he was trying to appear serious and intense... perhaps he was serious and intense in reality ... and also a photograph of him as a young boy, perhaps 7 or 8 years old. </div><div><br /></div><div>This has been an interesting experience. I have never really looked at some of these photographs closely and now I see some family resemblances particularly between myself and my grandmother that I have never noticed before... </div></div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-39294534396537409542008-10-25T16:34:00.001-04:002008-10-25T16:36:21.825-04:00a small anomaly....... has caught my attention again. I frequently find that the small blips or anomalies of my ancestors lives grab my focus and sometimes even become obsessions. Alexander Gottlieb Weller, one of my maternal great great grandfathers, immigrated from Wuertemburg in 1832 with his parents, a sister and three brothers, settling in Buffalo, Erie County, New York. By 1850 he is listed as a carriage maker in the household of Jonathan Whitney, blacksmith, as are another blacksmith, a second carriage maker, a painter and a carpenter, he is perhaps an apprentice.<br /><br />In 1855 he is with his mother and brothers, listed as a carriage maker. By 1859 he marries Catherine Wilson, born in England and is listed as living on Mortimor near Sycamore, a wagon-maker. Their daughter Elizabeth is born that winter (age 6 months at the 1860 census) and in 1861 they have twin daughters, Ida and Harriett. In 1863, another daughter, Emma is born in Illinois but by 1865 they are back in Buffalo where Alexander is in the carriage making business with Alonzo Armstrong. The following years bring more children and a growing carriage making business there in Buffalo. <br /><br />A normal, upperwardly mobile life... but, what’s with that one child born in Illinois? We know Alexander was in Buffalo in 1860. In 1861, the twins are born there so Catherine is still in Buffalo although he may have already gone to Illinois. Emma is born somewhere in Illinois about 1863 and by June of 1865, the family is back in Buffalo in time for the 1865 state census and Alexander is in the carriage making business with Alonzo as Armstrong & Weller, employing five adults and one boy.<br /><br />I’ve spent most of today trying to find sources for anything he may have done in Illinois and all I found was the 1863 Chicago City Directory: “Weller, Alexander, carriagemaker, h. 10 Hills.” That was found at footnote.com but no listing was found for him in other years. <br /><br />The only theory that occurs to me is the Civil War which began 12 April 1861 and ended 9 April 1865 ... did he take his wife and their three little girls to Illinois to make wagons for the Union Army? ... perhaps making enough money to go into business for himself? But, perhaps he just went to Chicago to try his luck there and returned to Buffalo within a year or so? What do you think?Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-16534109913835767292008-10-22T14:16:00.004-04:002008-10-22T14:18:52.819-04:00and on wordless wednesday ....<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJL-FzkuHjRpzRrhsM7GDLhoIZlES8-jIqUX_ft8el-OwlVcZi_xlXBjFUPuSHnKvFhCwdq1rJ824zBmSxICyD9ctP1DsQ_mjgusSPX-4NLP69piJodYvpmhs3390p6PgqoHyQ5WgaFJc/s1600-h/hollydory_benchsm.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJL-FzkuHjRpzRrhsM7GDLhoIZlES8-jIqUX_ft8el-OwlVcZi_xlXBjFUPuSHnKvFhCwdq1rJ824zBmSxICyD9ctP1DsQ_mjgusSPX-4NLP69piJodYvpmhs3390p6PgqoHyQ5WgaFJc/s320/hollydory_benchsm.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5260043936359123554" /></a>I have no clue why I am inspecting my younger sister's tongue but this picture makes me smile every time I see itHolly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-28349329527720743092008-10-18T15:18:00.003-04:002008-10-18T15:39:00.461-04:00caught by a meme ...... and tagged for it by Judy Schubert of <a href="http://genealogytraces.blogspot.com/">Genealogy Traces</a>. Even though she got my name wrong, I forgive her ... so here goes:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ten years Ago I... </span><br />1) was living in Cleveland, Ohio<br />2) had been sober almost 20 years<br />3) but was still smoking<br />4) my youngest two sons were still at home<br />5) and I had been happily remarried for 3 years<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Five things on today's to-do list:</span><br />1) find the surface of my desk under all this stuff<br />2) catch up on my email including the one from a newly discovered 5th cousin<br />3) work on the local society quarterly<br />4) chat with another cousin and fellow blogger online<br />5) make some new to-do lists<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Five snacks I enjoy:</span><br />1) Cheddar Chex Mix<br />2) cheese and crackers<br />3) oysters and crackers<br />4) doughnuts<br />5) anything chocolate<br /><br />Five places I have lived:<br />1) New Canaan Connecticut<br />2) Boulder Colorado<br />3) Sonora Texas<br />4) Harlan Kentucky<br />5) Pasadena California<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Five jobs I've had:</span><br />1) file clerk<br />2) bookkeeper<br />3) waitress<br />4) long distance moving van driver<br />5) medical insurance eligibility specialist<br /><br />I couldn't find others I knew to tag so have funked out on that part and simply challenge anyone who wishes to join in to either comment here with it or, if they have a blog, post it there and comment here with the link. If you don't have a blog of your own yet, you could always start one with this meme !!Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-17284942005328682732008-10-14T09:10:00.005-04:002008-10-14T10:52:09.056-04:00the interesting and the unexpected ....<div>... found during the <a href="http://looking4ancestors.blogspot.com/2008/10/fun-friday-would-you-care-to-comment.html">"Would You Care to Comment" Challenge</a> at the looking4ancestors blog which turned out to be even more interesting than I had thought. The first stop of course was the challenging blog,<br /></div><div><br />1) <a href="http://looking4ancestors.blogspot.com/">Looking4Ancestors</a> where I naturally commented on the challenge itself.<br /></div><div><br />I've not been in the blogging world for long and only had read a very few with any regularity so I followed up with the ones I knew:<br /></div><div><br />2) Lori Thornton's <a href="http://familyhistorian.blogspot.com/">Smoky Mountain Family Historian</a> and<br /></div><div><br />3) Bob Franks' <a href="http://itawambahistory.blogspot.com/">Itawamba History Review</a><br /></div><div><br />These are longtime friends and the quality and readability of their work is worth checking out. The sheer beauty of Bob's photographs are worth a visit even when, like me, you have no Mississippi interests at all. <br /></div><div><br />Through visitors to my blog, I had discovered three more blogs I was already following:<br /></div><div><br />4) Joe Beine's <a href="http://genrootsblog.blogspot.com/">Genealogy Roots Blog</a> with it's reporting on online databases<br /></div><div><br />5) Bill West's <a href="http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com/">West in New England</a> with a flair for storytelling and roots in my own deeply rooted New England<br /></div><div><br />6) Randy Seaver's <a href="http://www.geneamusings.com/">Genea-Musings</a> where not only did I find an interesting and well written post (<a href="http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=26204193&postID=344168868356354889">Digging in the Putnam Garden of Genealogy Mysteries</a>) but it turns out Randy is a distant cousin of mine through the Bradt family!<br /></div><div><br />Now I had run out of the blogs I had already found for myself and liked so I forged on using links from those blogs to check for more. I found quite a few that were good but I really had no comment on, the topics were too far outside my interests, no blog had been posted in months, or simmply totally useless and I didn't feel that I should comment on just any blog simply to fill the quota. My remaining choices for comments:<br /></div><div><br />7) <a href="http://www.footnotemaven.com/">footnote Maven</a>, one of the most attractive and readable blogs I saw<br /></div><div><br />8) Thomas MacEntee's <a href="http://destinationaustinfamily.blogspot.com/">Destination Austin Family</a><br /></div><div><br />9) <a href="http://fbbootcamp.blogspot.com/">Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers and more</a> by several authors, and an absolute neccesity for this beginner to the blogging world<br /></div><div><br />10) <a href="http://thevirtualdimemuseum.blogspot.com/">The Virtual Dime Museum</a> and a post on <a href="http://thevirtualdimemuseum.blogspot.com/2008/10/coney-island-elephant.html">The Elephant hotel</a> mong other posts on NYC area neat stuff.<br /></div><div><br />do I have to stop now?? <grin></grin></div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-17135120302124091232008-10-10T17:54:00.005-04:002008-10-10T19:06:26.911-04:00an unexpected face found ...... while 'long shot' browsing. Every so often I'll toss a name, sometimes with a location, into the google search box and see what might turn up. A few months ago it was "Sophia Stanton" and "Louisiana" that I threw out there. Sophia was the wife of the John Stanton whose passport request is in the blog header graphic and thus mentioned in my last post. Within a year or two of his death she had relocated back to their native New England and in 1858 remarried to Samuel Richardson. <div><br /></div><div>The google search results were mostly unrelated but then I stumbled on a link to a digital image at the Louisina Digital Library (LDL) at <a href="http://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/">http://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/</a>, "an online library of over 84,000 digital materials about Louisiana's history, culture, places, and people." The full link (http://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/LPS&CISOPTR=363&CISOBOX=1&REC=4) led to a digital image of a painting titled Sophia Stanton in the collection of the Louisiana State Museum, a thumbnail of which is shown here. </div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogwM45WQUj8La76vgi9GQCe7Qbn5yYGKlMB5-lxfe8Vs847azL9OgMD1X_AMSdiVgN1SG4bZK_OZ1JHhTCM3LJkPrl7Y2XaBOI8Fh_-kfdgK6WqkZI3wFpHjBRmF1DJL8vuYmGUjl6sw/s1600-h/sophia.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogwM45WQUj8La76vgi9GQCe7Qbn5yYGKlMB5-lxfe8Vs847azL9OgMD1X_AMSdiVgN1SG4bZK_OZ1JHhTCM3LJkPrl7Y2XaBOI8Fh_-kfdgK6WqkZI3wFpHjBRmF1DJL8vuYmGUjl6sw/s320/sophia.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255653677297173394" /></a>At this point I was fairly skeptical that this would be my Sophia Stanton, wife of John Stanton who was brother to my direct line, Hatevil Stanton, and whose sister, Nancy, was married to yet another brother, Jacob Clark Stanton but my email to the museum confirmed that this was indeed "Sophia Stanton, wife of John Stanton, owner of Stanton & Co. Wholesale and Retail Dealers of Ice" of New Orleans. My further inquiry regarding how the portrait (along with some other odds and ends) ended up in Louisiana elicited the information that it had been bequeathed to the museum by Mrs. Elizabeth E. G. Mann of Sarasota, Florida, in 1997 and that Sophia Cook was her "grandmother". </div><div><br /></div><div>At that time I checked the research I had done and was certain that Elizabeth Mann could not be a granddaughter as a check of the SSDI (and a friend with access to more place of birth and death information for Florida deaths than Ancestry) finds her as born 26 April 1909 in Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, and died 9 Feb 1997 in Sarasota, Florida, and none of John and Sophia's children had a daughter Elizabeth at anytime, much less at that late a date. Then I had to lay it aside and concentrate on other things.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today, cleaning up the assorted debris on my desk, I ran across my notes on the portrait and the question about how the owner, Elizabeth Mann, related to the family. Sophia and John Stanton had five children: Adelaide Bartlett, Charles Benjamin, Ada Sophia, Helen Elouise, and John Gilman Stanton. Three of the children were quickly eliminated: Ada died as a child and Adelaide had no children according to the 1900 and 1910 census schedules. John Gilman Stanton married and had one daughter, Alice, who is still at home in 1910 at the age of 30, showing no evidence of marriage or children. </div><div><br /></div><div>This left Charles and Adelaide. Charles proved difficult to trace. In 1880 he and his wife and children are in Chicago, Illinois, and none are found again until 1910 when he and two of his four children are in Tacoma, Washington. His wife Florence is shown with 4 children all still living but the two missing children, Victor born circa 1878 in Illinois and Helen born circa 1874 in Kentucky remain stubbornly hidden.</div><div><br /></div><div>Failing in that direction, I turned to Helen. In 1873, she married Henry Hill Goodell (or Goodale) and they had two sons, John Stanton and William. From notes on Ancestry's family trees, John married Edith Friese and William married Ethel Morris. John Stanton Goodell was elusive and all I found were John and Edith with her mother Matilda, enumerated in 1920 Ellsworth County, Kansas but there is no daughter Elizabeth age 10. William however turned out to be a bit easier and I located him with his wife Ethel and daughter Elizabeth (!!!!!). In both 1910 and 1920, they are in Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, and Elizabeth is age 12 months and then age 10 respectively. For both John and Williams's households I was certain I had the right people, not because of the Ancestry tree but because the father was born in Turkey and the mother in Louisiana, an unlikely combination. </div><div><br /></div><div>With the solid listing of a daughter of the right name and age, I turned to the New England Historic Genealogy Society site and searched their Massachusetts Vital Records 1841-1910 database for Elizabeth Goodell's birth and hit the jackpot!! In City of Springfield records of births, Volume 583, on page 175, at Entry 670, recorded on 15 May 1909: Elizabeth Electa Goodell was born 26 April 1909 in Springfield to William Goodell, physician and wife Ethel Morris. </div><div><br /></div><div>So the identity of the portrait owner is determined, Elizabeth Electa Goodell, married to (--?--) at some time prior to her death, was the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">great</span> granddaughter of Sophia Cook Stanton through Elizabeth's father William Goodell and his mother Helen Stanton. I suppose I ought to write the museum to update their information ... how come research seems to add to the stuff to be done?</div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-85854766041909654392008-10-05T14:29:00.005-04:002008-10-12T16:58:09.772-04:00too many choices....... all clamoring to be in the blog banner! After some stumbling around to figure out how to add an image to the header, I determined to get one done today. It was of course a foregone conclusion that it would be bits and pieces of my ancestors but frankly, I have far too many bits and pieces on hand and nearly all of them wanted to be there!!! <div><br /></div><div>Anyway, the bits that ended up above are as follows:</div><div><br /></div><div>The background is part of the sampler completed by my 3rd great grandmother on my father's side, Sukey Foster, and completed by her in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August of 1803 when she was 12 years old. </div><div><br /></div><div>The story of the sampler is at</div><div><a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sukey.html"></a></div><div><a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sukey.html">http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sukey.html</a> </div><div>and the sampler itself is shown at</div><div><a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sampler.html">http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sampler.html</a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The small journal on the left is a "Mathison's Life Diary" that was given to my great grandfather, Charles Stanton Adams for Christmas of 1905. After a small section for entering information about family, it commences with Jan of 1890 with three months to the page and continues until December of 1964. Charles, or "Thuddy" as he was called by family, made a scattering of back entries from 1890 to 1905 and then for a little over ten years he made frequent entries including listing everyone who came for Thanksgiving or Christmas and a number of small entries about his son and only child, my grandfather, Arthur Stanton Adams, who was born 1 July 1896. </div><div><br /></div><div>The miniature on the journal is a mourning locket with a braided lock of hair under glass on the reverse side along with the name "Wm Adams." It is believed to be William Adams, my 5th great grandfather, grandfather of Charles of the journal. There are two William's in a row but Charles' father William did not die until 1905, rather late for the miniature and portrait. The elder William was born 11 January 1789 and died 26 March 1827 and is the liklier candidate.</div><div><br /></div><div>The little girl with the book is myself, circa age 2 or 3, and the book is Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" and certainly typifies my childhood and much of my life, buried in a book!!!</div><div><br /></div><div>The two girls to the right are my maternal great grandmother, Lida Deshler Willson, on the right and her sister Olive Sinks Willson on the left. The girls were born and raised in Leavenworth, Kansas, but the picture was taken in Dayton, Ohio, possibly on a trip back to see their mother's family in nearby Williamsburg in Clermont County.</div><div><br /></div><div>The final item, the paper behind myself and the sisters, is my third great grand uncle, John Stanton's letter requesting a passport. On 4 November 1848, he writes, "Being out of health and ordered by my physicians to travel through the south of Europe for its restoration, I am desirous of obtaining a passport." He dies at sea on 25 January 1849 "on board barque Star, 25th Jan, on the passage from New Orleans for Marseilles, Mr. John Stanton, 39, of the firm of Stanton & Co, of N.O." as noted in the Boston Evening Transcript of 30 Mar 1849. </div><div><br /></div><div>I guess now I will have to figure out how to add images to the actual blog so I can stop the clamoring of all those who got left out.</div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-847556615630954095.post-55204992957029483232008-10-04T17:20:00.000-04:002008-10-05T14:22:46.694-04:00where the obsession leads I follow...... or I suppose anyway. Some of my fellow genealogists even look askance at how far out on the limbs I will go chasing a collateral line to absurd lengths or researching all the bits of a line that is barely connected.<div><br /></div><div>A couple of months ago I got caught up by Alonzo Ulmer, a nephew of my direct line and spent days chasing him across the country. (At least I got an article for our local genealogy society quarterly on "Pajama Genealogy" out of it and as editor I ALWAYS need articles.) If you'd like to see the start of this most recent obsession, the article, with a few added notes, is posted at:</div><div align="center"><a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/ulmer/">http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/ulmer/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Alonzo, who seems to have been something of a ne'er do well wanderer, is still nagging me to continue the research even though he is only a first cousin <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">four times removed</span></span>. Even the costs of his 436 page pension file didn't satisfy him. I've pressed on to his only child, daughter Virginia Opal, as well but she (and probably Alonzo) will come up in another, future, blog.</div><div><br /></div><div>What concerns me is why do I get so fascinated and enthralled with these peripheral people. Last year, hours and hours were spent researching the family of Helen Fairchild for example. Okay, Helen was the first wife of my maternal great grandfather, Edward Payson Willson but she died the following year along with their first and thus only child. Certainly it was reasonable to add her parents and perhaps her siblings but I followed ancestry and descent and even the families of her siblings' spouses. To this day I keep an eye out for further bits on her relatives. </div><div><br /></div><div>Do others get as intrigued and absorbed by people with little or no significance to their own work?</div>Holly Timmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05856404398310071232noreply@blogger.com8