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...