Did I Dream That? Charles Wiggins In The Civil War

    

     Have you ever tried to find a vaguely remembered fact about one of your ancestors? An ancestor whose name you also can't remember? I do that more often than I like to admit. None of my trees have a search function for that sort of thing, so even though the information is recorded, I lose it. However, my blog does have that search feature. So after spending an hour finding the ancestor and his information today, I'm telling his story here where I can find it easily if I forget again. And I will.

     The faded memory was of an indirect ancestor who I recalled was wounded in the civil war and whose case was mentioned in a book about civil war injuries.  After looking through name after name in my records I finally found him; Charles W. Wiggins, member of  Company G of the 9th New York Heavy Artillery, who was wounded during the siege of Petersburg on 25 March 1865. Only two weeks later Lee surrendered to General Grant.  Poor Charles came so close to escaping the war unscathed. The forgotten book was, "Surgical Memoirs of the War of the Rebellion", published by the US Sanitary Commission and available on Google Books. I strongly recommend at least a cursory search of that site when doing research, I've made numerous finds there. Not just famous people made it into publications.

     Until I read to the second paragraph below, the seriousness of Charles' injury escaped me--

Charles Wiggins, aged 21, wounded March 25, 1865. Admitted to Finley Hospital March 28. The ball passed two inches below and an inch within the coracoid process of the scapula, and passed out through the body of the scapula, behind. On the 7th May hemorrhage occurred to the amount of fourteen ounces and the outer third of the right subclavian artery was ligated. He progressed favorably, and was discharged from service on August 3d, 1865.

Pension Examining Surgeon M. D. Benedict reports, August 2d, 1865: "musket ball through right shoulder and axilla, resulting in partial paralysis of corresponding arm and hand; limb is entirely disabled at present; will probably improve. Disability total. Duration two years." In 1872, this pensioner's name was still borne on the rolls

     After reading that and a bit more research, the deadly seriousness of the wound became apparent. As noted in the article, and visible in the photo below, there is a major artery that passes directly in front of the top of the scapula, that large flat bone in the picture, which in Charles' case is the spot the minie ball exited. The corticoid process is the small finger shaped bone sitting atop the left side of the scapula near the artery. The ball that hit Charles passing two inches below that must have missed his artery by a fraction of an inch.

     Minie balls, made of soft lead and cone shaped, inflicted devastating, splintering injuries to bone and terrible damage to tissue when they struck. Charles' case must have been somewhat noteworthy to be included in the book of injuries. Or perhaps the really remarkable thing was the skill of the surgeon whom it appears may well have saved Charles' life when he sutured his artery forty-three days after the initial injury.

     Charles, born in 1842 in Wolcott, New York, was himself the son of a doctor, my third great-grandfather Dr. Richard Wiggins and his wife Hannah Ostrander. They had both passed away by the time Charles was 15, afterwards he lived with his aunt Maria Ostrander Parker, a sister of his late mother, in Cayuga County, New York. Charles enlisted at Fair Haven in Cayuga County on 22 July 1863, a few weeks after the battle of Gettysburg, joining Company G of the 9th NY Heavy Artillery, the same unit his older brother William, (my second-great-grandfather), had enlisted in the previous summer.  In 1865 both brothers were stationed at Petersburg, Virginia during the siege of that place.

     Things in Petersburg had been fairly quiet in early March, but on the twenty-fifth all hell broke loose. The injury that would so alter Charles' life may have been inflicted when the Confederates stormed Fort Stedman at 4 a.m. on the morning of March twenty-fifth, temporarily capturing the fort. Company G was also involved in fighting at Battery Lee and Fort Fisher in Petersburg that same day so any of those may have been the site of his injury.  I hope his brother William was with him to offer Charles what comfort he could.

     At the time of his enlistment Charles stated he was married, so I was surprised to find him after his discharge again living with the Parkers but no wife in the 1870 census. The real surprise was found in column 18 however, the one that asks if deaf and dumb, blind, idiotic or insane? The response was insane! I wonder if Charles suffered from battle fatigue, defined by Webster's as a mental illness that is caused by the experiences of fighting in a war and that causes extreme feelings of nervousness, depression, etc. Today we would call it PTSD, but the effects are the same.

     It would seem Charles' wife had either passed away or left him by 1870. In April of 1879, Charles' marriage in Fair Haven to Sarah, "the widow Fairbanks", was noted in the Lake Shore News. Sarah was older than Charles by twelve or thirteen years, suggesting he may not have been exactly desirable husband material. The 1880 census found Charles and Sarah living in Wolcott, New York, with a border, Charles' nephew Josiah Ostrander, who had also formerly resided with the Parkers. Charles was employed as a farm laborer that year but by 1892, though only 51 years of age, he was not working and wouldn't ever again. He may have still suffered from anxiety or was perhaps in pain or disabled from his old wound. Fortunately he did have the disability pension.

     Sarah died in 1907 in Fair Haven, Charles followed her about two and a half years later in Wolcott. I've had no luck locating the widow Fairbanks before her marriage to Charles or her maiden name. Charles never had children of his own so I'm not surprised neither he nor Sarah have a tombstone.

Silvester Worden in Ontario County, New York

 

     

     There are many trees online for my fifth-great-grandfather Silvester Worden who was born in 1758 in Stonington on the coast of Connecticut, fought in the Revolution, drifted west across New York State over the years, and spent his final days in Auburn, Ohio in the care of his son Henry.  The trees contain names and dates, but most don't have the detail that family historians crave.  So... this blog is going to share some of what I've learned about Silvester once he arrived in Farmington, New York around 1816 give or take a few years, through his last days in Ohio.  First, his name.  In those days before the invention of copy machines, when clerks hand copied documents, Silvester's name was frequently changed to Sylvester.  In the three instances I've seen however, he himself always signed as Silvester Worden with an i, not a y; one signature can be seen below.

     By the time of the 1800 census Silvester and his family had left Connecticut and were living in the upstate New York town of Herkimer on the north bank of the Mohawk River.  Before long however, they were again traveling, this time to Onondaga County where in 1810 they can be found in Manlius, a picturesque town located on the old Mohawk Trail, about ten miles southeast of Syracuse. Their last stop in New York was the Farmington/Palmyra area in Ontario County, those two places being right next to each other.* When Silvester applied for a soldier's pension in 1818 he gave Farmington as his address.

       The name of Silvester's wife is unknown, she was probably the female aged 45 and over enumerated with him in the 1810 census of Manlius.  Silvester is not included in the 1820 census as a head of household, he must have been living with someone at that point.  In August of 1820 he appeared in Ontario County court in relation to his pension, (which was granted at $96 per year), where he maintained he was then a resident of Palmyra, New York who owned no property.  His application contained no mention of a wife, though Silvester did note that he cared for his twenty-two year old disabled son Rensselaer Worden who had no use of his limbs. The 1830 census shows Silvester living alone in Farmington, his son Squire Worden, (my fourth-great-grandfather), is listed directly above him while another son, Justus, is living a few miles away in Manchester.  Justus was in the area as early as 1827, as on 1 January 1828 the Palmyra Post Office had an unclaimed letter addressed to him while Silvester had letters waiting there in 1821 and 1826.

     I found no land records for Silvester prior to 7 June 1828 when he purchased a 105 acre farm on lot 74 in Farmington from Thomas Beals for $1,400.  That very day, Silvester gave Benjamin Howland a deed to the same property for the sum of only $150.  No, Silvester hadn't lost his mind, that was a common way of  taking a loan or mortgage in the 19th century.  The deed specified that if the money was repaid to Howland, transfer of the land to him would be voided, which is what happened.  I'm a bit mystified as to where Silvester found the money to buy the place.  His pension application contains a statement from one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas describing Silvester's circumstances, "...he is very poor and absolutely stands in need of assistance".  In fact, under the rules set by Congress, the Revolutionary War Pension Act of 1818 extended pensions only to indigent veterans who had served at least nine months in the Continental Army.  It occurs to me, Silvester's mother Rebecca died in late 1827, perhaps he received an inheritance?  However he did so, by some means, Silvester bought himself a farm.  As can be seen on the map below, Herendeen Road ran through the middle of lot 74. Silvester's farm, circled in red, was located at the end of Herendeen where it met Yellow Mills Road. 

      

     While I've come across no further records of the following incident, in 1826 Silvester had a run in with a local man, Joseph Smith.  The same Joseph Smith who would found the Mormon religion.  In 1828 a writ of collection was given in Ontario County Supreme Court on Silvester's property to satisfy a suit brought against him by Smith.  Whether it was ever enforced is unclear, that November Sheriff George Smith returned the writ to the court.  At any rate, Silvester retained ownership of his farm, living there until 1840.  My third-great-grandfather, Paul Worden, child of Silvester's son Squire, was born there on his grandfather's property, "now the Darius Rush farm", in January of 1832 according to Paul's obituary.  The bad blood between Silvester and Joseph Smith remained undissipated  in 1833 when Silvester, along with ten other Farmington residents, signed a statement condemning not just Joseph, but his family as well.  The statement contains another example of his using the letter i to spell his name.

     Silvester was getting on in years by 1840, the census that year showed his son Henry S. and his family residing with him with Henry listed as head of the household.  Around that time a decision was made to pull up stakes and move the family to Ohio.  The town of Auburn in Geauga County, where Henry's daughter Julia and her husband Ezekiel Hull had been living for several years, was chosen as their destination.  Another daughter of Henry's, Huldah, also lived near that place with her husband Leonard Gibson. 

   On 16 September 1840, Silvester sold his farm to Russell M. Rush for $3,150.  A tidy profit of $1,750.  No doubt that money helped finance the family's move.  Silvester wrote his will one week after selling his farm, a concise document devoid of the flowery, religious language his son Henry would employ in his will years later.  In this testament Silvester left monetary bequests to his sons Henry Jr., John, Justus, and Asa.  To his daughter, "Prudence Smith", Silvester left a feather bed.  It's not clear why he referred to his daughter as Prudence Smith.  Prudence had been married to Hugh Clyde for years when Silvester made his will.  Squire Worden, who had by that time moved to South Bristol, New York, was not mentioned in his father's will; Silvester may have given Squire his inheritance before he left the state.  It seems likely the Worden's travelled to Ohio by wagon, Henry's whole family went, probably bringing with them many possessions. 

      Silvester didn't live long after reaching Ohio.  Upon his death, Henry filed Silvester's will with the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas.  The case was heard on 27 April 1841, at which time Henry was appointed executor of his father's estate.  Henry's administration account filed a year later was an interesting document.  It appeared all the money from the sale of Silvester's farm was gone by then. The total assets of the estate amounted to only $1,591.87; that entire sum being identified as payment in full of  a mortgage executed by Russell M. Rush to Silvester in 1840.  The exact wording in Henry's administrator's account read:

1842 Feb. 17--  By cash received in full on mortgage of land in Ontario [County] New York executed by Russell M. Rush to Sylvester Worden, dated Sept. 23, 1840 on interest after 16th April 1841 for $1,500.

     So Silvester had held a mortgage on the Farmington property!  That necessitated a look at the Ontario County Mortgage Books available on Family Search where I found the terms of the 1840 mortgage agreement requiring Russell M. Rush to:

...cause to be paid the full sum of $1,500 in the following manner viz. on the sixteenth day of September 1842 five hundred dollars, and on the sixteenth day of September 1843 five hundred dollars, and on the sixteenth day of September 1844 five hundred dollars... with interest to be compounded from the first day of April next.

     Clearly, Rush paid the mortgage off early, with the extra $91.87 being interest.  One set of  four payments, made by Henry on behalf of the estate, totaling $726.88 was puzzling.  It was paid to Hiram Canfield to satisfy a mortgage executed by Silvester to George Sturtevant for $675; afterwards assigned to Canfield.  I found both men living in Auburn, Ohio indicating the mortgage was executed there.  That posed all sorts of questions, why did Silvester take out a mortgage?  Did that mean Silvester owned land in Ohio?  If so why was that land not included in the assets of the estate? 

     After consulting Ohio land records I discovered Silvester did indeed buy land in Ohio.  On 9 October 1840, Silvester Worden of Farmington, New York agreed to pay $725 for fifty acres of land, the west part of lot 22 in Auburn, Ohio.  The grantor was none other than George Sturtevant and his wife Lucinda.  That  same day Silvester executed a mortgage of $675 to Sturtevant.  This explains the payment of $726.88 later found in the administrator's account to Hiram Canfield, to whom the mortgage was assigned by Sturtevant.  It appears only $50  actually changed hands between Silvester and Sturtevant when Silvester purchased the property in Auburn.  See the 1857 maps below:

     

Lot 22 in Auburn, Ohio. West half is only 47 acres
because in 1844, Asa Worden bought 3 of the 50 acres from Henry

     By the time Hiram Canfield and the lawyers were paid, along with $550 to Henry for his services as executor, a mere $218.32 was left to be distributed among Silvester's heirs.  The estate account refers to several "attached vouchers" that could presumably explain in greater detail how the figures contained in it were arrived at, but the vouchers don't appear to be available online.

     Another unanswered question is when did Silvester pass away?  It was without a doubt late 1840 or early 1841, but the exact date can't be determined as yet.  Silvester received a pension payment every year in March and another in September.  I found no payments after September of 1840, and no evidence of a transfer of his pension to Ohio as would commonly have been done, suggesting he was deceased before the March 1841 payment was due.  Indeed, records of the Treasury General Accounting Office show their last payment to Silvester was made in the third quarter of 1840, the September payment, confirming he was not living in March of 1841.  

Though distant, the Albany Agency handled Ontario County pensions

     The matter of the probate of Silvester's will was first heard by the court on 27 April 1841, but that date was predicated on the court's term so too much should not be read into it.  The first sitting of the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas in 1841 did not commence until late March. The previous term had begun in late October of 1840 and ended in November of that year so there may have been a sizeable backlog.*  Silvester was certainly alive on 9 October of 1840 when he purchased land in Ohio, but that is the last day it can definitely be said Silvester was still among the living.  The outlay Henry made from Silvester's estate to Hiram Canfield began with a $90 payment on 19 January 1841, which indicates Silvester had passed before that date.  If I had to make a guess, I would say Silvester went to his reward in December of 1840.

    On 17 June, 1841 Silvester's sons Justus and Asa, in a joint filing, renounced their claim to the Auburn property after each were paid $300 by Henry.  The document gives Justus' residence as New York State, and Asa's as Pennsylvania.  Silvester's daughter Prudence Worden Clyde, "of Chautauqua County, New York", also sold her interest in the property to her brother Henry for $100.  

     Silvester lies at rest in Geauga County.  No payment for a headstone is found in Henry's estate account, perhaps explaining why Silvester's grave has never been located.  Henry and many of his children moved on to Eaton County Michigan after his father's death.  One thing that stood out to me in reading the court documents, while Silvester signed his will, his son Henry used an X to sign his name in official papers as did Justus and Prudence.

     Above is a map of Silvester's lot in Farmington, New York as it looks today.  It now contains only 88 acres, I would bet the original lot included the oddly shaped parcel in the upper right and the long parcel in the bottom left corner.  The house on the lot sits near the piece of land that juts out farthest to the right, roughly where the original house can be seen on the first map.  Ontario County records say the current house was built in 1900, long after Silvester roamed the fields.  As can be seen in looking at the modern map, Farmington is still a very rural place.  The property is only a few miles from my current home, and also about that distance from the one where I grew up.  I've passed it thousands of times over the years, never knowing until I began land research that it once belonged to my fifth-great-grandfather.

* In 1823 Wayne County was created in New York State from parts of Seneca and Ontario Counties. While Farmington remained in Ontario County, Palmyra was annexed to Wayne.

*The Ohio General Assembly passed, An Act to Regulate the Times of Holding the Judicial Courts, on February 4, 1837. This act set the schedule for the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas, then part of the Third Circuit, noting it would hold court during three terms:  A March term commencing on March 21; a June term, commencing on June 5; and an October term, commencing on October 24. 

Copyright © Ellie's Ancestors

     

The Wayne/Cayuga County Blog

 

Wolcott and Victory, NY near Lake Ontario

     Today, back to the blog about my family in Wayne and Cayuga County, New York.  Among the ancestors I've been looking at with an eye to finding Salem connections were the Fosters and Wheelers.  Some of the Wheelers are recent discoveries since until now I hadn't spent much time on the 17th century New England families in my tree. 

     The first Foster family member in Wayne County, New York that I'm aware of was my fourth-great-grandfather Joseph Foster Jr. born about 1760 in Salem, Massachusetts.  The book, Landmarks of Wayne County, by George C. Cowles says of Joseph:

  Among other pioneers and prominent settlers in the old town of Wolcott were Lott Stewart, inn-keeper at Stewart's Corners; Jarvis and Gardner Mudge; Ransom Ward, Joseph Foster, father of Asahel.

     The pioneers began arriving in Wolcott in about 1808, I know this is "my" Joseph Foster because he is here identified as the father of Asahel, (1791-1885).  While I haven't found a death date or place for him, this passage also tells me Joseph did not remain in Massachusetts and most likely died in the Wolcott area.  One of the questions I've long had was about Joseph's son Asahel.  While I descend from Asahel's second marriage, he did have a family with his first wife Hannah.  One of my new discoveries was Hannah's surname of Southwick.  For family historians with New York roots, a great resource on Ancestry is New York Town Clerk's Registers of Men Who Served in the Civil War.  In addition to military information, this database lists the names of the soldier's parents, usually with the mother's maiden name.  That's where I found Hannah Southwick.

     The soldier here was their son Alonzo Priest Foster who went on to fame as a surveyor for the US government and pioneer of  the state of Iowa.  I discovered Hannah's burial took place the first of March in 1834, after which Asahel married my ancestor Martha Gregory.  Now I wondered who Hannah's parents were and where they came from?  I began looking at all the Southwick families in the area.  There weren't many, the one who stood out age wise was Simeon Southwick Sr. who was in Wolcott in the 1820 census.  I needed more than that to conclude he was Hannah's father so I began researching him in earnest.  I found Simeon was from New Salem, Massachusetts, right next door  to the Foster's home town of Salem.  His parents were Benjamin Southwick Jr. and  Sarah Wheeler.  The name Wheeler rang a bell.

     Digging back through my records I found her, Mary Wheeler from Massachusetts, mother of Joseph Foster Sr.  If I could find a connection between her and Benjamin Southwick's wife Sarah Wheeler, that could strengthen my hunch that Simeon Sr. was the father of Hannah Southwick Foster.  Families often migrated together, and back then marrying one's second cousin was not at all rare.  While I haven't found definitive proof that Mary and Sarah Wheeler are sisters, I strongly suspect they are both daughters of Ephraim Wheeler and Maria Glazier.  I'm quite sure Sarah Wheeler Southwick is Ephraim's daughter, and he did have a daughter named Mary, the question is whether she is the same Mary Wheeler who married Joseph Foster?  I tend to think she is, but more research is needed.

     By 1830 Simeon Southwick Sr. was living in Victory in Cayuga County, New York near his son Simeon Jr. and his (probable) daughter Hannah and her husband Asahel Foster.  Hannah had but four years left to live at that point, but Asahel and his new wife were in Victory through the 1840 census, moving 10 miles further west to Wolcott, NY by the time of the 1850 census.  I love that feeling that happens when a connection is made and a light goes on, when you realize there is a pattern that wasn't apparent before.  I will update as I learn more...

     

Is This The Name?

 

     I know I promised a blog about Cayuga County however, events have intervened.  Which here at Ellie's Ancestor's headquarters means I was distracted.  An email from a long lost, distant cousin concerning the Worden family drew my attention.  Here was another chance to answer the question I've had since I first began tracing this line many years ago.  Namely, what makes everyone so sure that the wife of Squire, aka Sylvester, Worden, (1792- 1840-1850), was named Pelina Carter?  Her first name is not really the issue, the 1850 census of South Bristol, New York, the only census the ephemeral Pelina appears in, shows her as a widow in the household of her son Sylvester along with her unmarried daughter Ruth.  It's her surname I have an issue with.  None of the trees or anything else I've read contain a source for her surname.  Not a one.  This was brought home to me while I was studying Asa Worden who was a second-great-uncle to Pelina's husband Squire.  His son, also named Asa, was born in 1798.  Asa Jr.'s wife is documented, her name was Phelina Charter!  This sounds suspiciously like Pelina Carter.

     Could it be that long ago a researcher made a mistake about this?  Perhaps while being told the family history by an elderly aunt who confused the similar sounding names?  Things like that happen.  More than once I've seen trees online with incorrect information that is then unthinkingly copied over and over in other trees.  My third-great-aunt Mary Augusta Vincent comes to mind.  I proved beyond a doubt who her husband was but still there are many trees at Ancestry who insist she married someone else.  They must have copied another tree because the primary sources disprove what they have in theirs.

     The contention Pelina's surname was Carter has been around at least fifteen or twenty years, maybe longer.  I made a trip over a decade ago to visit the Bristol town historian, the late Helen Fox,  a lovely lady.  She had the same information in her files, but hers noted up front there was no source. Some trees even claim to know Pelina's birthplace but offer no proof.  I've looked high and low for any Carters in the area and the closest I've ever found was a man named Darius Carter who along his wife, Asenath Peters, is buried in East Bloomfield, where the family lived, about fourteen miles from Bristol.  Daruis' tombstone says he was born  in 1773 and it lists nine children of his but Pelina is not among them.  One who is listed on the stone is Roswell Carter whose wife Mary P. Cudworth is buried in Bristol, but probably only because she's in her parent's plot there.  Another child on the stone is Luna Carter.  I briefly wondered if Pelina was really named Peluna with the nickname Luna?  My Pelina's name appears in print nowhere but in the 1850 census and censuses are riddled with errors.  But I found the Connecticut birth record for Luna of the tombstone and it's Luna in that record too.  Oh how I wish these two families had stayed in Connecticut where early records were kept instead of moving to New York!

     Can I be the only one who questions this?  Sources are a requirement in genealogy and other family trees are not that; they are nothing more than clues, hopefully with a rationale for what they contain.  Find A Grave is not a great source either.  That site claims Pelina and her husband are buried in Covil's Corners cemetery in South Bristol but there are no pictures and a much earlier inventory of burials there, (done by the above mentioned Helen Fox, who was very serious about genealogy), does not list either of them.  It looks like they don't have a stone so where did the burial information come from?  Cemetery records, an obituary, a guess?  Researchers should be informed about that sort of thing.  I attempted to contact the submitter to ask where she found the information, but she doesn't accept messages.

     Pelina's name may well have been Carter and she could be buried in Covil's Corners cemetery but until I see some proof I remain unconvinced.  That Phelina Charter nags at me...

Puritans and Witches, They're Probably In Your Tree

 

Puritan Deacon Samuel Chapin 1595

      Puritan -- a derogatory term used in 16th century England to describe a religious group who believed Catholic influence remained too strong within the Anglican Church after the reformation, rendering the church in need of further purification.  Also, the root word of the similarly derogatory word puritanical;  an insulting term even today.  The writer and satirist M. L. Mencken memorably once defined a Puritan as, "one who suspects somewhere, someone might be having a good time".  In other words, a begrudger. 

     Since no new Irish records are being digitized now thanks to Covid, I realized that if I wanted to continue researching I would probably need to look at the very early records Ancestry keeps sending me hints for.  The ones that I've largely ignored until now.  Why have I ignored them?  I'm not sure, probably because my Irish ancestors have always been closest to my heart.  Take a look at that fellow at the top of this page, those Puritan types were not kind to my favorite ancestors. Then too, there are only so many hours in a day and if I'm going to do time consuming research, it's going to be in Irish records.  Unfortunately, I've exhausted most of the leads in that department...for now.

     While re-reading one of my favorite books, "A Storm of Witchcraft", the author's assertion that many people living today can trace their roots back to someone involved in the the Salem witch trials jumped out at me.  Maybe I could find another witch in the tree to join my 8th great-grandmother, Winifred the Witch of Wallingford?  So I looked at those hints and was encouraged and more than a little surprised to find many of the very early ancestors on my mother's side lived in Salem or close by.  Odds were looking good, but then I began finding some disturbing connections.  

     One of the magistrates at the Salem trials was Bartholomew Gedney.  Gedney,  a wealthy merchant, physician, and officer in the Salem militia, had a sister named Bethia.  My 11th great-uncle Andrew Mansfield married Bethia Gedney.  An eighth great-uncle, John Buxton, married Elizabeth Holton; her father, Joseph Holton, sometimes spelled Houlton, was one of the accusers of Martha Carrier who after being found guilty at her trial was hung.  Alright, at least there were no blood ties to those deluded men... but then I read that Uncle John Buxton himself  had accused Sarah Wilde, Mary Esty, William Hobbs and his wife Deborah, and others!  In all, fourteen women, five men, and two dogs were put to death in 1692 for witchcraft.  What were these fanatics doing in the branches of my tree?  I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of pursuing this line.  

     Try as I may, looking through my 21st century lens, I cannot fathom the Puritan mind set.  They seem as a group to have suffered from severe OCD;  their obsession being religion, their compulsion making sure everyone followed their dictates.  Seventeenth century Salem appears to have been a horrible time and place to be alive, especially if one happened to be born female.  Women could look forward to a lifetime of drudgery, pregnancy, lactation, and if one was really unlucky, to being accused of witchcraft.  The names they chose for their female children were telling; Silence, Patience, Comfort, and my all time favorite, one of my 9th great-grandmothers was actually named Thankslord Perkins.  Some records give her name as Thank-the-lord Perkins.  Did her family call her Thanks for short?  

     Thankslord married Ralph Shepard in 1632 in London, coming with him to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635.  In 1641 she gave birth to my 8th great-grandmother Trial Shepard... or Tryall, or Triall, who knows?  I've seen all those spellings.  Triall, (the spelling I like best so I'm going with it), married Walter Powers who may have been born in County Waterford, Ireland!  That deserves more research. 

     Walter and Triall bestowed upon one of their daughters, my 7th great grandmother, the ordinary name of Mary.  Tragedy found Mary when as a girl of thirteen she witnessed the murders of her two Shepard uncles by natives who then kidnapped her.  Mary managed to escape and return home shortly after, but court records supposedly show her parents having to answer for her behavior in at least one case in the years that followed.  While I have no reason to doubt the truth of that, I read it in an online tree with no sources and haven't yet been able to verify it.  Nonetheless, acting out seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable reaction to all she'd been through, though I'm sure the Puritans thought otherwise.  Mary did eventually settle down, find a husband and bear children.  As I discovered, Mary's descendants were among the early settlers of Cayuga County, New York.  Which is the subject of my next blog... 

     

     

     

 

     

Tuesday's Tip; Sorting Extended Families

     I am quite literally drowning in O'Horas.  My great-great-great O'Hora grandparents had five sons, at least four of them came to America from County Carlow, initially settling in Auburn, New York.  Their oldest son John had five sons and their son Michael had a whopping ten sons that survived.  Their other sons also had children but they didn't pose a problem for me in figuring out who's who in Auburn; Edward followed his dreams of wealth to California's gold fields and my great-great-grandfather James moved his family to Manchester, New York.  John's five sons never married; which was a very good thing as they were hellions of the first order who actually earned the sobriquet-- the O'Hora gang.  Still, they were in the mix in Auburn.

     There were of course many daughters as well, but since they didn't retain their maiden names after marriage their children didn't enter into the seemingly bottomless pool of O'Hora's in Auburn.  The Auburn newspapers were filled with articles about various O'Hora's but it's difficult sometimes to know which Michael, John, or Edward had died or was being arrested.  Especially when researching later generations by which time there were multiples of multiples of all the common forenames they were so fond of, though usually if someone was in trouble it was a member of the gang mentioned above.

     One of the most useful methods I've found to differentiate between individuals of the same name is to concentrate on finding their addresses.  While news articles didn't always give ages, they often gave the home address of the person mentioned or in the case of a death notice, the address where the funeral would occur back when those were held at home.  I've actually made a spreadsheet for the O'Hora's using the streets and street numbers found in newspapers, city directories, and census records.  In the federal census of 1900 thru 1940, and the New York State censuses from 1905 onwards, the street the family lived on is written in the left hand margin.

     When I see the address 302 State Street in Auburn I know that was the home of Michael O'Hora from Ireland with the ten sons, and that he or one of his sons or grandchildren is likely the subject of the article. Others of the ten brothers lived in Throop, right next to Auburn.  Being so close they still appeared in Auburn newspapers but living outside the city set them apart. John's sons moved around quite a bit, but with the spreadsheet I can spot them.  Using this method I can usually find the right O'Hora even if he happened to be staying with his parents or a sibling rather than at his usual address.


   

     

   

Dueling Dunhams

   

     The past few days I've been researching Ephraim Dunham, (1750-1823), who was born in Holland and died in Halfmoon, New York.  He's not related to me, I have no deep interest in the man, so why did I invest the time on him?  I'm bored, and ... someone told me that the information I had in my Ancestry tree on him was wrong.  That my friend, is a challenge.

     A couple of days ago I found a peculiar message in my mailbox at Ancestry in which the writer, Mr. R, informed me, "if you direct your attention to the two male individuals, [named earlier in his message, one being an Ephraim Dunham from New Jersey who died in 1815], you will discover something Amazing".  Amazing?  I welcome new information and perspectives, but that sounded like something from an advert for long wearing lipstick.

     The Dunham's come into my tree only because Maria Vincent, my fourth-great-aunt, married one.  Specifically, she wed Morgan Dunham in Saratoga County, New York around 1830.  Morgan's father was William Dunham and William's father was the above mentioned Ephraim.  The Dunham's, along with my Vincent family, resided in the quaintly named town of Halfmoon in Saratoga County, New York, gradually moving westward as people did back then.

     I researched the whole tree of this part of my family several years ago when a cousin contacted me and suggested that we collaborate.  We had a long distance ball working together and between us we pretty much nailed the Vincent-Dunham line, so when Mr. R told me Ephraim was not who I thought he was I was a little taken aback.  I began re-reading my notes just to make sure I wasn't mistaken. One piece of evidence was a biography of Charles Dunham, another son of William and brother to Morgan, in which Charles told the author his grandfather Ephraim came to America from Holland as a young man, settling in Halfmoon Township, New York.  Charles explains that he himself came to be born in Canada because his father William had moved there in 1811, only to be forced to return to Halfmoon when the war of 1812 broke out causing their welcome in British Canada to become less than cordial. 

     Another clue was a land record from Halfmoon that mentioned Ephraim Dunham's will was written in June of 1822 so obviously he did not die in New Jersey in 1815. That will, which named his son William among his heirs, was probated in October of 1823, in Saratoga County.  Census records from 1800 to 1820 also place Ephraim in Halfmoon as does a history of the town that indicates Ephraim was living there before the revolution.  I've seen nothing at all indicating he was born in New Jersey or spent time there. 

     As I looked around the net I found quite a few Ephraim Dunham's actually, which surprised me, but then again Ephraim was a much more common name a few hundred years ago than it is today.  Luckily, "my" Ephraim left a quite substantial paper trail. In conclusion, I'm comfortable saying cousin Christine and I did our homework and Ephraim Dunham of Halfmoon is indeed who we believe him to be.

I Think He Made The Whole Thing Up

     Way back in June of 2013 I wrote a blog about a cousin, George Worden (1858-1950), who claimed his father was, "a full blooded Indian", and that he, George, was born on a reservation near Seneca Point, New York.  You can see that blog and George's photo here.  Ever since, I've been looking for any evidence that could back up George's assertion.  His father was a brother of my third-great-grandfather Paul Worden, so it follows that Paul would also be of Native American heritage if George was correct.

     After thoroughly researching this matter, I am prepared to state for the record, George was a big old liar. When George celebrated his ninety fifth birthday in 1947 Lena Steele, a reporter for the Democrat & Chronicle, made the drive from Rochester to interview him in Bristol, New York located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. George told her quite a tale that day in May.  Along with his birthplace he noted his father was named Carter Worden, his mother was Pennsylvania native Mary Colver, and that he came to South Bristol with them when he was six years old. Fascinating story, especially to a genealogist, unfortunately it's not true.

     George's father was named Sylvester, not Carter although Carter was the maiden name of Sylvester's mother.  Also, Sylvester was living in South Bristol a full eight years before George was even born as evidenced by the 1850 census which shows Sylvester with his wife Mary and their three youngest children there.  His mother Pelina Carter Worden also resided with him that year so I'm sure I have the right man. They are also living there in 1855 and 1860. George couldn't have come to South Bristol at age six, he was born there.

     The maiden name of Sylvester's wife was Culver, not Colver, but that's close enough for me to chalk it up to a spelling error or misprint.  She was however, born in New York not Pennsylvania.  And the reservation?  There was no reservation anywhere near Seneca Point in 1858, the year of George's birth.  That place was the site of a large Seneca Nation village in the years before the American Revolution but in 1779 Major General John Sullivan, at the order of George Washington, mounted an expedition targeting Loyalists and the Native Americans who sided with them against the Patriots.  That included the residents of Seneca Point who left the area at that time.  Some may have lingered near their old home, but a reservation there did not exist.

     George passed away at the county home for the aged in Hopewell, New York on 27 October 1950.  His obituary gives his birthplace as the Town of Bristol, New York, not Seneca Point.  So why the story?  I've wondered about that and the best I can come up with is he did it for the attention.  George outlived his wife, Eva Bartlett, by almost thirty years and their only child, a daughter they named Ethel, passed away in 1896 at the age of six.  George was lonely...

     

     

Culling My Book Collection; In Which I Learn I Can't

     With so much time at home I've been sorting, cleaning, and weeding out items for donation. Yesterday I started on my stacks of books, let's just say I have MANY of them.  I've always loved books, I love cracking them open for the first time, I love revisiting my old friends filled with notes I've made in the margins, I even love their scent. Needless to say, I will never own a kindle. Historical fiction has been my favorite genre since high school, (imagine that), but with all we uncover about our families as we trip through their pasts, who needs fiction?  

     Most of my ancestors were Irish.  The list of books I've acquired on Irish history and genealogy would fill at least ten blogs.  The classic, The Great Hunger, by Cecil Woodham-Smith was one of my first purchases followed by Paddy's Lament, The Hidden Ireland, The Famine Ships, and too many more to list. My youngest son often chooses a book for my birthday and Christmas gifts, usually with a nod to my admiration for Irish rebels.  I have a 1917 copy of, History Of The Sinn Fein Movement And The Irish Rebellion Of 1916, a copy of  Allegiance, on the same subject, signed by the author Robert Brennan, and one of, Irish Rebel John Devoy and America's Fight for Ireland's Freedom. Those and many more like them all go in the keep pile.  A long lost cousin, Tom E., has very generously sent me numerous books; it was he who first introduced me to James Charles Roy who has become one of my favorite authors.  I love his quirky observations of historical and present day Ireland and I'm keeping all four books I own of his.

     The majority of my immigrant Irish crossed the ocean during the famine, but a few left home in the 1860's.  So of course when I saw a used copy of, Transatlantic, for sale at Amazon I had to have it and I'm so glad I bought it. Stephen Fox's descriptions of early steam ships, the Liverpool docks, and the harrowing voyage across the stormy North Atlantic were utterly fascinating.  I could almost feel the dock rising under my feet with the incoming tide flooding up the Mersey.

     One branch of my O'Hora/Hore line from County Carlow went west seeking their fortune in the mines and gold fields of California, eventually settling in San Francisco so when I spotted a used copy of, The San Francisco Earthquake,  by Gordon Thomas and Max Witts it looked like something I really needed.  And I was right, it's a painstakingly researched tome well worth the pittance I gave for it.  

     My eighth-great-grandmother Winifred King Benham, aka, The Witch of Wallingford, inspired my purchase of, Connecticut Witch Trials: The First Panic in the New World', and my son to buy me,  A Storm of Witchcraft, when he came across it in a gift shop while vacationing in Salem, Massachusetts.  I'm not giving that away, it was a gift!  Speaking of Massachusetts, that was home to my Galloway ancestors one of whom, Milo, came to New York and was a mover and shaker on the Erie Canal, so of course I needed a copy of, The Artificial River, and just for a change, the fiction work, Canal Town, set in Palmyra, New York where Milo lived for a time and four miles from where I now reside.

     Mary Augusta Vincent, my third-great-aunt, left New York for Nebraska with her husband George Matteson and two small children shortly after the Civil War.  That necessitated my purchase of, Pioneer Women, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith.  You won't find descriptions of prairie life like those included in this book on Ancestry.  Definitely a keeper.

     Their Own Voices;Oral Accounts of Early Settlers in Washington County, New York.  Now this one is really special.  Beginning in the 1840s and continuing until his death, Dr. Asa Fitch of Salem, NY, interviewed elderly neighbors, questioning them about the time of first European settlement, the Revolutionary War, and the first decades of the 19th century. Two of the interviewees were actually directly related to me!  How often does that happen?  I can't possibly part with that book.  I even bought my uncle a copy.

     I've barely touched on the number of books I own and love, there are books I bought when I found Civil War soldiers among my ancestors along with Revolutionary War soldiers, local history books of places they lived, etc, etc. and as I discovered about three hours in, I can't part with any of them. I'm buying more bookshelves.

     

Yo Ho Ho And 100 Gallons Of Rum

     I've been looking around the net for more information on the Semple brothers, John and Robert who married my 7th-great-aunts, sisters Betty and Mary Wheat.  I managed to find the inventory of the goods on board The Ship Peggy when it was captured by the Rebels as mentioned in yesterday's blog.  The document can be found in Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Volume 6, part one, page 15.

     It makes interesting reading if only for the amount of alcohol in the shipment.  I've read before that colonial Americans liked their libation and that is certainly borne out by this inventory.  The drink on board The Peggy included--74 dozen porter, 83 dozen strong beer, 100 gallons of rum, 12 1/2 dozen claret, 230 dozen red port wine, 50 dozen sherry, 53 dozen white port wine, and another 16 dozen strong beer.

     I'm not sure if those numbers denote bottles, barrels or something else.  Also in the shipment was "Rappee snuff", salted beef, 6 barrels of herring, and 2,648 mutton hams.  There were supplies for the British Army, camp kettles and canteens, along with home furnishings such as candlesticks, spoons, and fabrics like 180 yards of Irish sheeting and 3,884 yards of oznabrig, an unbleached linen.  It was quite a haul for the Rebels and the Rebel officers too, who seem to have divided the vino between themselves.

     Even more interesting, to me, the inventory listed the names of Tories traveling on The Peggy; among them was, "Robert Semple and wife", she being my relative Mary Wheat.  When they were later questioned, the Tories revealed they had left Halifax on 4 July 1776, heading for New York in the company of three transport ships carrying Hessian Troops.  Blown off course by a gale they were separated from the transports, making them easy prey for the privateers.  Also traveling on The Peggy was a man named Thomas Semple who appears in one other Boston record I've seen.  I wonder if Thomas was another Semple brother, or maybe even their father?

     I also found mention of the Semple brothers in the book, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, volume 2.  This publication claims Robert Semple left Boston in 1776, (as I wrote yesterday he left with the British evacuation fleet), but this source claims he did so with a family of three.  If that can be interpreted to mean he and his wife Mary had two children at the time, Mary who was born in 1757 must have been a teenager when they wed.  It too narrows the places their nuptials could have occurred since the marriage must have happened before they left Boston.

     Another engrossing find was dated nine months earlier, 14 October 1775.  At that time, Continental Privateers overpowered the brigg Loyal Briton, of which John Semple was a part owner, just as it was leaving St. John's River in Nova Scotia loaded with cattle, sheep, hogs, smoked salmon, butter and sundry items for the British Army in Boston.  The privateers then raided the British fort located at St. John's River, appropriated their provisions, took prisoners, and burned the fort.  One of the prisoners taken that day was none other than John Semple of Boston.  The Loyal Briton was hauled to the nearest American port at Machias, Maine with it's cargo and prisoners, but somehow John and the ship's mate managed to escape their captors.

   I don't anticipate finding much more about this band of loyalists, digitized records are few and far between for those early dates, but it's been fun researching them and I find it fascinating that relatives of mine were involved in this intrigue on the high seas.  Maybe those papers of George Washington I mentioned in the last blog will hold more information once they make their way online...

18th Century Family Feud

Long Wharf, Boston

     When New York's stay at home order came down my first thought was, "now I have an excuse to sit home and work on my family tree guilt-free".  I was certain everyone in the same boat would also be whiling away the hours on Ancestry and filling up my Ancestry mailbox.  That didn't happen.  In fact this pandemic has been anything but a boon to research.  I can no longer visit my local Family History library and many digitization projects have come to a screeching halt.  So what's a person to do?

     In my case I returned to my neglected British ancestors.  Being enchanted with all the Celts in my tree, I've pretty much ignored that one little branch that holds the Wheat line.  There must be plenty online I hadn't seen already pertaining to them.  And after all, they were fighting the British in the American Revolution, so I gave them a go.

     Almost immediately I discovered the will of my seventh-great-grandfather John Wheat, born 1717 in Concord, Massachusetts.  Yes, Concord of, "shot heard round the world", fame.  John was a prosperous farmer who with his wife Grace Brown was blessed with eight known children, all of whom were mentioned in his will made in 1779, six years before his death.  That's when things got even more interesting.  In his will John provided well for his offspring however, his second daughter Betty was left a measly six shillings because, "she has left this state and gone as a friend to the enemies of this continent, to be paid only on condition that she return a friend to America".  Betty's youngest sister Mary received a similar bequest.  With the women's older brothers serving the Rebel cause, John Wheat's outrage at what he viewed as a betrayal of family and country is easily understood.

     I discovered the sisters had married two brothers born in Scotland who were well off merchants and loyalists in Boston at the time of the Revolution.  At age twenty five, Betty married John Semple on 30 November 1772 when her sister Mary, ten years her junior, would have been only fifteen.  I would love to know when Mary married Robert Semple.  Most women in colonial America married around age twenty to twenty five but we can assume Mary wed Robert at a younger age since the two of them left Boston in early 1776.  It's odd that there's no record of Mary's marriage in Boston.  Perhaps they were married in New York or even Canada.

    In order to discover what became of John Wheat's wayward daughters I made an effort to research the two Semple brothers.  Betty Wheat was born on 17 July 1747 per Concord, Massachusetts town records and married in Boston in 1772, so I would estimate John Semple was born somewhere in the neighborhood of 1743 since men married later than women in the Boston of that era.  Several trees at Ancestry have a published death notice for John Semple that gave his birthdate as 1711 making him thirty six years older than Betty.  Come on people!  That is obviously a death notice for a different John Semple.

     What I now know of John is that he signed a farewell address to the departing loyalist Governor Hutchinson in Boston in 1774 and also an address to the new Governor Gage the following year.  In March of 1776 John and Betty left Boston with the British evacuation fleet when the British army abandoned the city.

     As for Robert Semple, he was probably the younger of the two brothers and also extended his good wishes to the Tory governors.  He too left with the evacuation fleet in 1776.  Both brother's names can both found on a list of refugees traveling with the British army; no women's names were included.  After that things get a little hazy.  Most likely the group settled for a time in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the destination of the fleet.  An associate of the Semple brothers, Benjamin Davis, likewise evacuated to Halifax with the British that March but he eventually relocated to New York State which by the end of July of 1776 was partly in British hands where it would remain until war's end in 1783.  It's possible the Semples did the same.

     On July 28th in 1776 David Cobb, a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress,  wrote the following in a letter to Robert Treat Paine, a member of the Continental Congress--

 "Two of the Continental Privateers have taken a ship [traveling] from Halifax to New York laden with English goods, provisions, and Tories and carried her this morning into Marblehead.  Among the Tories are Benjamin Davis & son and two Semple Scotchmen".  

Further research showed this was the Ship Peggy and some of the goods onboard were the property of John Semple.  His wife Betty was also on board and was arrested with her husband.

     At the end of his letter David Cobb added this post script, "Just now the Tories were landed at the Long Wharf from Marblehead and were attended thence to prison by two thousand people... I wish the devil had them".  Ironically, the Long Wharf was the spot the evacuation fleet had left from. The Semples being apprehended with Ben Davis makes me tend to think they too may have returned to America via New York.  Massachusetts passed a Banishment Act in 1778 forbidding the return of loyalists to that state under pain of death, the names of  Benjamin Davis and both Semple brothers appeared in that document.

     The records are frustratingly silent about the eventual fates of Betty and Mary or their husbands.  I've checked Canadian and American sources but I can't determine when or where they died, if they bore children, or if they ever reconciled with their family.  Quite a few loyalists did eventually return to America, even their old friend Benjamin Davis was allowed to return to his native Massachusetts shortly before his death in 1805.  There is more about the capture of the ship Peggy in George Washington's Papers, but Volume 5 where it is included, is not yet available online.  Supposedly it's being worked on.  I don't imagine it will shed any light on the Wheat sister's futures, but it  includes an inventory of goods seized from the ship Peggy and who knows what else?  Someday, digitization will resume!


   

Ramblings On A Hot Summer's Day

     There are times lately when working on my family tree at Ancestry.com feels more like data entry than genealogy.  Hints are continually popping up which is good, but it's getting a little overwhelming.  Having already found most of the available online information pertaining to my direct ancestors, most of the new hints are for peripheral relatives.  Now I end up dropping my current research into ancestors I'm more interested in to clear out the pages of hints.

     I've come to miss the act of real in person research and the thrill of finding that piece of information that had been eluding me.  As they say, the hunt is part of the fun.  It's so easy to become preoccupied with winnowing through those endless hints that I sometimes fail to stop and give due consideration to what the facts are telling me.  Not just the research paths they could point me towards, but the stories of the human beings involved, their motivations, emotions, and everyday lives. Which fascinate me every bit as much as finding a new fact.

     My Irish ancestors are my main interest. After decades of scrutiny I've discovered the stories one hears of chain migration and "clannishness" are essentially true. It's one thing to read that, but another to see it for yourself. Comparing Irish land and church records with similar American records the patterns are easy to spot. In Palmyra, New York there were large contingents from Counties Tipperary and Laois, (formerly Queens County). Now when I see the surnames Delaney, White or Keyes in documents I automatically think, Laois. Ryan, O'Dwyer, and Hogan bring Tipperary to mind. The city of Auburn in New York became home to many immigrants from Kildare, Carlow and Wicklow. The Coleman, McGarr, O'Hora, and Kinsella families, names heard in Auburn to this day, all hailed from those counties. It's amazing to find an individual in Irish baptismal records and then find that same person in a marriage record in New York. I know much of this from research in offices and repositories and can confirm much of what they have has never made it online.

    
    Shaky leaves will never be the equal of years spent poring over entries in church registers, OSI maps and other sources. I learned a lot in the hours spent reading line by line. For one thing the indexes of church records do not include the names of sponsors and witnesses, very pertinent pieces of information. I would have missed entirely my third-great-grandfather being a baptismal sponsor to the child of a family who later turned out to be related had I relied only on searching an index for him. In a way I'm grateful I had to start my research the hard way before indexed records were available, although indexed history books are a Godsend.

The British loved to hold hearings on social and economic conditions in Ireland then compile notes and statistics on same. Many of these can be found at Google Books and are full of details about different areas of Ireland. I've even found an interview done in the 1840's with my ancestor's parish priest. Daniel McGarr, a small farmer living in the back of beyond, would never make it into a book, but the observations of his priest are the next best thing.

     My point is, there are so many questions that Ancestry and their hints can't answer. They are indeed helpful but can't take the place of in depth research, so much would be missed by not looking any further.

New California Death Records

   

     Today, I found the death certificate of my second-great-Uncle John White in the recently published database, California, County Birth and Death Records, (1800-1994), online at Family Search.  John, Jack to his friends, was the son of James White and Anna Ryan my second-great grandparents who came to the United States from Ireland.

     The information contained in the certificate is mostly right with a few exceptions.  It has to be remembered that John's widow Margaret Goggins White was providing information she had second hand from John and likely had not thought about in years. She was probably somewhat stressed at the time as well.

     The certificate gives John's birthplace as Palmyra, New York.  Close, but not correct though the birth date is right. When John married Margaret in 1898 the marriage license listed his birthplace as Clifton Springs, New York.  That record is more reliable in this case since I presume John himself gave the information.  I also have a copy of the deed to his father's property in Clifton Springs.

     His mother "Ann" Ryan's birthplace of Tipperary is right, but his father James was not born in Queenstown.  That gave me pause until I thought about it, Queenstown and Queens County, where James was really born, sound very similar.  I know he was from Queens County because I've spent years of my life determining that and also, DNA doesn't lie.  Margaret could easily have been a touch mixed up about her father-in-law's birthplace, it was Queen's something, or the undertaker may have misunderstood what she said.

     I had a little trouble deciphering John's cause of death until I looked at the certificate in reduced size.  Maybe it's just me, but I find that sometimes helps.  It was bronchopneumonia due to malnutrition and dehydration due to senility and advanced generalized arterialsclerosis.  Senility may have been a reference to his physical condition, rather than cognitive decline as it is used today.

     I had hoped to find Margaret's death certificate but it wasn't in the database.  She may have moved to the home of her son Earl whose county of Ventura is not included in the database.  Neither are San Francisco, Imperial or Napa Counties.  Now I'm off to Google Maps to see if I can get a street view of the White's old home at 9020 Phyllis, West Hollywood...

It All Comes Down To Fate

     Sixty-six year old Patrick McCabe awoke on the first morning of 1887 in what would be his home for the next four years, the Cayuga County Almshouse in Sennett, New York where he had been admitted the day before.  The admissions form gave the reason for his dependence as old age, his habits as, "intemperate".  It further stated Patrick, a married man, was born in Ireland and had entered the United States thirty-four years earlier.  Though the form asked additional questions about Patrick's parents and grandparents, the word "unknown" was written across those spaces.  The final question on the form was, "What is the probable destiny of the Person as respects recovery from the cause of Dependence?"  The terse response was, "Future doubtful".  Indeed, New York State records show Patrick died on 20 October 1891 there at Sennett, though whoever wrote his obituary gave the place of death as his home in Auburn, New York.  Probably to avoid embarrassment to the family.

     Patrick arrived in America about 1851.  He was married to my third-great-aunt, Mary O'Hora, the sister of my great-great-grandfather, James O'Hora, in 1853 at Auburn.  Like her husband, Mary was born in Ireland and baptized in 1831 at Rathvilly in County Carlow, making her quite a bit younger than Patrick.  Mary was expecting their first child, Michael, at the time of her marriage and over the next twenty-five years she would give birth to fourteen more.  At least four of her children died during childhood and several more passed in their teens and early twenties.  When Mary O'Hora McCabe passed away, she had outlived eight of her children.

     Patrick was a laborer and the family struggled financially which may explain the two youngest daughter's light fingered tendencies.  Agnes, born in 1874 was jailed for stealing a pair of shoes while her sister Louise born in 1877, the youngest of the McCabe children, was arrested for grand larceny in 1891, at age fourteen.  The victim of her crime was my great-grandfather Edward O'Hora, the son of  her mother's brother James.  While visiting her O'Hora relatives in Littleville, New York, Louise stole a large sum of money from the bedroom of her cousin and headed back to Auburn where she was apprehended.  Newspaper articles of the time noted her tender age along with the remarkable fact this was not her first offence.  Louise was sentenced to two years in Auburn prison whose records describe her as tall, slender, and illiterate.  Her older brother Edward also had a checkered past.  Edward McCabe was the victim of a vicious murder in 1914, you can read the lurid details here.

     It occurs to me, poverty, frequent loss of siblings, coupled with the lack of an education and father figure could well have influenced the behavior of Agnes and Louise.  Patrick was absent from their lives beginning in 1887 and his designation as intemperate may have suggested a problem with the drink.

     Quite a few years have passed since I found Louise's story and I hadn't thought of her for awhile when I noticed a new database at Ancestry called, "New York Discharges of Convicts".  Louise had been sentenced in Ontario County where her crime occurred, a small place, so I wasn't expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised to find her there.  Turns out she had four months shaved off her sentence.

     Not all the McCabe offspring had questionable pasts.  James, the fourth child, went on to become a member of the Auburn Board of Supervisors, Sarah Jane, the eighth child, was a weaver at one of the Auburn mills at the time of her death at twenty-three from typhoid fever.  Lydia, the tenth child, appears to have been a respectable married lady who suffered the loss of her husband at a young age, and three years later the loss of the daughter with whom she had been pregnant at her husband's demise.

     Patrick's widow, Mary, died in Auburn on 20 October 1897 at the home formerly shared by her late daughter Mary Ann and Mary Ann's husband James Burke.  Mary Ann had passed away in August of 1896 after the death of her four year old son Joseph that April and the birth in June of her daughter Clara.  The infant passed away a week after her mother from cholera infantum, undoubtedly caused by improper feeding of the eight week old child.  With three deaths in a matter of months, this family had more than it's share of tragedy, made all the sadder by the fact that had a simple antibiotic been available they probably could have been saved.

     Now, as we wait for our magic bullet to stop this new virus on our doorsteps, it brings home in a real way the dread our ancestors felt when their children fell ill.  And there were so many illnesses to fear.  Tuberculosis, scarlet, typhoid and yellow fevers, pneumonia, meningitis; even measles and childhood diarrhea could prove fatal in that era.  They would have understood our current fears only too well. 

     

Patrick Hore Day 2020

     The fifth of April, Patrick Hore Day, has rolled around again.  The annual tribune to my ancestor whose life was cruelly snuffed out by the British occupiers of his native country.  You can read Patrick's story by following the link below:

http://elliesancestors.blogspot.com/2018/02/so-they-hung-patrick-after-all.html

     To add to the narrative, I've been able to uncover the person responsible for his murder by hanging, this is the man who condemned Patrick.  His mention here will be brief as befits him.

     A newspaper covering the  March Carlow Assizes, published an article in April of 1798 that spoke of  the executions of four prisoners, Patrick among them, on April fifth whose trials were presided over by Judge Toler, aka, "The Hanging Judge", later known as Lord Norbury.  
     Toler was born in 1745 to Daniel Toler, a man of comparable morals who among other abuses, used his position as High Sheriff to pack the jury during the trial of a Catholic Priest he wanted out of the way, resulting in the man's hanging.  
     Moira Lysaght, in the Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 30 of March 1977, described Judge Toler as, "a cold-blooded tyrant contemptuous of the little law he knew..." 
     By the time of this despicable little man's death in 1831, he had blithely ordered the executions of many hundreds of Irish men and women.  At his own burial, the ropes used for lowering his coffin were discovered to be too short for the job at hand.  As search was made for longer ropes, a voice from the crowd was heard to say, "Give him rope galore, boys; he was never sparing of it to others".