These Aren't Even My Relatives For Pete's Sake

 

     I wonder how many other researchers do this?  I follow a family member, one I'm not directly descended from, in the hopes that something about my direct ancestor will turn up in their records.  I follow them through their childhood, their marriages, and the births of their children. I follow their career choices, accomplishments and tragedies. Then that peripheral relative of mine dies.  Do I then stop following their surviving spouse?  The one who isn't related to me?  Of course not!  At this point I'm invested, I've probably spent weeks living with these people, I have to know how their story ends.

     Today was a prime example.  I've been trying to figure out who were the parents of Daniel Gray who married my second great-grand-aunt Phebe Galloway in Phelps, New York on New Years Day in 1851.  Both Daniel and Phebe died while their three children were still quite young but I don't know exactly when.  They were last seen in the 1850 census of Phelps, both living with Phebe's parents Russell and Hattie Moore Galloway though they weren't yet married.  Daniel was employed at Russell Galloway's mill that year and resided with him and his family.

     The children of Daniel and Phebe were Charles Henry born in 1852, George Edward born in 1854, and Ella Harriet born in 1856.  I would no doubt find them in the New York State 1855 census, but it appears they had moved to Wayne County by that time, as had Phebe's parents, and the Wayne County census for that year is not online though it can be found at the historian's office for towns beginning with letters A-P.  Several years ago I found Russell in Arcadia in 1855 but Phebe and Dan were not with him.  At that time I wasn't aware of Phebe's marriage to Daniel so I hadn't looked for any Grays in Arcadia.  A surname index for 1855 online shows two Gray families in Arcadia and I believe one of them was "my" Gray family.  At some point I will have to visit the historian.  I've found no mention of Phebe in her parent's or sibling's records after her marriage, so that left the records of her children and of Daniel's parents to be searched, if I only knew who they were.

     I found a David Gray, also living in Phelps at the same time as Daniel and Phebe, who had a son listed in the 1840 census of the right age to be Daniel.  Being a head of household only census I couldn't be sure I had the right family but it was worth checking out.  Unfortunately, I could find no connection between David and Daniel.  Then a fellow researcher with ties to David Gray messaged me that Daniel and Phebe's middle child George Edward could be found with Hannah and Jesse Cole in Hannibal, New York in the 1860 census and that Hannah Cole's maiden name was Gray.  That was promising! That year Dan and Phebe's daughter Ella resided with her Galloway grandparents in Wolcott, New York and Charles was living with John Arnot and his wife Livona Douglas in Huron, New York, not far from Wolcott.  I can't find any connection with that couple and the Grays or Galloways, but at age eight I wouldn't think Charles was working for them.  An online surname index for the Wayne 1865 census here, shows the Arnots still in Huron, but nobody by the name of Gray.

     After much searching, I finally found the man I believe to be Daniel Gray's father living in the town of Ulysses in Tompkins County, New York in 1830; Edward Gray, also a miller, who was granted a patent in 1840 for an improvement to the grinding mechanism of grist mills.  Edward had another son, Jacob S. Gray, who was also a miller as you recall was Daniel.  Edward was living in Kane County, Illinois in 1850 where he presumably died sometime before 1857, the year his second wife, Sophronia Harriman married George Holliday.  The 1850 census of Illinois showed Hannah from New York, (the future Mrs. Cole who would later take in Daniel's son George), living with her father Edward that year. 

     It's Hannah and her family I've been looking at today.  It seems she returned to New York where she had older siblings living and married Jesse Cole in Cayuga County. The New York census of 1865 showed her there in Cayuga with Jesse and their three children and gave her birth county as Tompkins, linking her further to Edward Gray.  The poor soul had three children, all of whom she outlived, and died in a horrible accident when her clothing caught fire.  She raised Raymond C. King, the child of her daughter Ida after Ida's death and he too would perish before Hannah, at age twenty-four.  Part of her obituary reads,  …her early life was passed in the western states but on losing both parents she came to the town of Throop at about age 18 to reside with her brother Jacob Gray who was proprietor of a mill in that place.  The obituary confirms she was living in a western state, like Illinois, and sounds as if her mother had died there, but given the vagaries of newspapers I would need more proof of that.  Hannah was born in 1833 so if she left Illinois at age 18 Edward must have died around 1852.

     I felt terrible for Hannah, and for Jesse.  Losing all their children and their grandson; it was too much. What on earth had happened to Raymond?  And where was his father Ellery King?  I had to know.

     Using the website Old Fulton Postcards and the New York State Death Index I found Raymond died in 1914 in Ulysses in Tompkins County, where Hannah had been born.  What was he doing in Tompkins County?  His obituary gave his cause of death as tuberculosis and mentioned his father Ellery lived in Syracuse, so I began looking for Ellery.  I found him in Syracuse in 1910 living in a boarding house, while he claimed to be married no spouse was with him.  I found his marriage record to Louise McKinley in 1913 and they are together in the 1915 NYS census in Syracuse so perhaps the 1910 census is in error. No obituary has turned up yet but I doubt it would contain any information about his former father-in-law or Daniel Gray.

      I still don't have definite proof Daniel Gray was the son of Edward but I strongly believe he was.  None of Daniel's sibling's obituaries mention him, but early twentieth century newspapers rarely gave the names of predeceased brothers.  That's another reason I need to see Daniel in the NYS 1855 census, that census gave the birth county for those born in New York State.  If his entry says Tompkins, I will be ready to close the book on Daniel.

     

     

     

Update To The Sad Story of Ellen Hennessey & Edward Welch

      

Welch monument in St. Anne's Cemetery Palmyra, NY

     This tale began with a blog about Oliver Ryan, the only child of my second great-grand-uncle Cornelius Ryan. Cornelius came to America from the townland of Golden Garden in South Tipperary with his parents Alice O'Dwyer and Cornelius Ryan Sr. in 1860, settling in Palmyra, New York.  Cornelius met another young immigrant, Anne Hennessey, there in Palmyra and the two were wed in 1869 at St. Anne's Catholic Church in the village.  The following year their son Oliver was born.  Tragically, Cornelius passed away when Oliver was seven and his mother Anne when he was eight.

     In surrogate court held at Lyons, New York, Ellen Hennessey Welch, a sister of Oliver's mother, was named his guardian along with her husband Edward Welch.  Tragedy struck Oliver's young world once again when Ellen died shortly after that.  To say Ellen's much older husband Edward was undone by her death would be an understatement, the grief stricken man fatally shot himself on her grave on 25 May 1879.

     Not surprisingly, newspapers of the time were less than accurate with the facts.  One reported Edward shot himself two weeks after her death, others remained silent on the timing.  I knew two weeks wasn't accurate because Edward had made his will on April 22nd, a will in which he left everything  to Oliver, making no mention of Ellen at all so she had to have been gone by that time.  Yesterday, I couldn't stand staying at home any longer, I had to do some genealogy!  Outdoors of course.  So I drove to the cemetery where Ellen was buried.  And I stayed there, walking up and down until I found her and Edward.  For some reason I hadn't noted the location of their stone on my last visit and the dates on it were so heavily encrusted with lichen back then that I couldn't read much of it.  Yesterday I came prepared with a soft toothbrush and a squirt bottle of water.

     It cleaned up quite well, the photo looks even better than the stone actually.  In the first blog I theorized Ellen had died earlier in April before Edward made his will.  Looking at the photo above you can see it says Ellen passed on Mar 31, 1879.  Edward's epitaph below looks like it says May 29th was the date of his death, though newspapers maintain he shot himself on the 25th.  However, several also report he was still alive when he was found lying unconscious on Ellen's grave so perhaps he lingered a few days before joining her in the afterlife.

     I don't know why it took me so long to go back to the cemetery, but I'm glad I did, it was wonderful to get out!

     

Epigenetics, DNA, And How Did I know That?

     One of my earliest childhood memories is of my mother laughing when she served me a salad with dinner.  Why did that amuse her?  Because invariably the first thing I would do is remove the onions from the salad and place them in my mashed potatoes with a large dollop of butter.  At times some of the lettuce found its way in as well.  It seemed the most natural thing in the world to me, onions belonged in mashed potatoes didn't they?  While we consumed large quantities of mashed potatoes in my family, I had never seen anyone else do this, in fact my parents both found it quite odd, but I was very fond of it.

     Fast forward to my young adulthood.  While browsing Irish recipes for a traditional meal to prepare on St. Patrick's Day I came across a recipe for something called Champ.  The ingredients were potatoes, butter, milk and...scallions or onions!  My mind went back to those family dinners and my childhood version of Champ.  Would it be fanciful to think it could be genetic memory?  I admit it's a trivial thing, but still, I wondered.  I actually looked up the history of Champ, finding it had been eaten in Ireland as early as the 1700's.

     The whole idea of inherited memory is a controversial subject with some scientists dismissing it outright while others believe there is a basis to consider it.  Perhaps memory isn't even the right word to use, it's more of a feeling.  Experiments done with mice have shown that rodents who were trained to avoid a certain scent passed that aversion on to their offspring.  In another study, mice trained to navigate a certain maze were also able to pass that ability on.  That being the case, why couldn't pleasant sensations, like that generated by eating delicious potatoes and onions, pass to following generations?  The famous psychologist Carl Jung thought they could be.  Researchers today theorize environmental influences, such as food, can leave chemical marks on genes that do not alter their sequence, but do modify their activity and could indeed be passed down. This emerging field is called epigenetics.

     Genetics and DNA is a fascinating subject to me, as well as a bit confusing.  My father's DNA changes every time Ancestry does an update, though I understand the reasons for that.  At present his ethnicity is 80 percent Irish and 20 percent Scottish at Ancestry, while FTDA puts it at 72 percent Irish and 28 percent Scandinavian. Scandinavian?  Must be those Vikings.  His maternal great-grandparents were all born in Ireland.  On his father's side, all but two were born in Ireland.  One great-grandfather was born in Warwickshire, England where his Warner family had resided for centuries.  That man's wife was born in America to family that came from Lincolnshire, England in the 18th century.  So it follows, three of his four grandparents were Irish and one was English.  It further follows, his mother was Irish and his father half Irish and half English. Yet neither testing site mentions a smidgen of English DNA.  I guess that's possible if Dad's only genetic inheritance from his father was his Irish DNA, but still somewhat surprising.

     I wish I understood this all better.  I think I need a class or two. In the meantime, I'll just keep enjoying my Champ and believing my affinity for it was a gift from the grands. 

Follow Me Up To Ricketstown

 

     Waking up to another gray morning here in New York, I thought it would brighten my day to take a stroll to Ricketstown in County Carlow; the birthplace of my paternal second-great-grandfather James O'Hora, who arrived at Manhattan's docks on a spring day in 1849. I pulled up Google Maps, did a search, switched to street view, and attempted to set myself down on the red marker that indicated Ricketstown. That resulted in my being bounced right back to the starting point. All right, if I couldn't get to the townland at least I could get fairly close. I set off down R726 near Rathvilly heading south. 

     After a few minutes I came to the road that branched west off of R726 towards Ricketstown and Graney. Moving along it I passed several modern homes, most enclosed by low walls or fences, a yellow dog, and a campaign sign for the "hard working" John Pender.  Ahead was a small cottage, a yellow rose bush blooming in it's gated front yard, then a brick home with laundry drying on a line in the back. The scenery after that consisted of trees and green fields bordered by low stone walls, distant mountains rising beyond them.

How long ago had those stones been piled there by a farmer clearing his land?  Had James passed by them as he traveled to Rathvilly on market days?  Perhaps the last  time he made his way down that lane, as he departed for America, they were there bidding a silent farewell?  Off to the right I began seeing wooden fencing around large fields, horses grazing within. I was now approaching the turn off for Ricketstown as indicated on the map, not sure how much further the site would allow me to go.  As I arrived at the road to Ricketstown, what I saw is pictured below.

          Why was the only road to Ricketstown impassable?  Another view on Google Maps showed a large, three story house sitting on a slight rise to the left of the gates.  It looked as though Ricketstown was now a giant horse farm.  Did that mean I wouldn't ever be able to visit?  How very disappointing, the townland was one of six I absolutely had to see should I ever make it to Ireland.  At least I was able to get a look from afar.  The owners couldn't fence out the views, the same ones that had greeted James as he stepped outside his parent's home.  He saw those same mountains in the distance, topped by lowering clouds.  The same fields were there in the mid 1800's and somewhere across those fields he and his family had once lived though nothing was now left of the cottages that once nestled there.  

     Then it came to me, Ricketstown wasn't that little red marker. That may be the center of Ricketstown, but the townland was all around it, even across the road as can be seen on the Griffith's map below.  Top left underlined in green is Ricketstown North, center is Ricketstown, and bottom is Ricketstown South. The gate pictured above is the green mark right under Ricketstown.  I'm not sure exactly where James lived, the only document I've seen of his that contained an address was his baptismal record and the parish priest at no point wrote anything more than Ricketstown. He made no mention of North or South anywhere in the register though some of his parishioners must have lived in Ricketstown South as Griffith's Valuation identified that place as the most populous. 

     It makes me a bit melancholy the way time moves on, inexorably effacing the past.  Even the little village I grew up in looks remarkably different today than it did when I was a child.  I guess I should not be surprised at this gate...

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; or Squire could have been deceased by late September of 1840 since no exact date for his death has been established.  Squire left no record after the 1840 census taken on June first.   

      It seems probable the Worden's travelled to Ohio by wagon, Henry's whole family went, no doubt bringing with them many possessions.  Silvester didn't live long after reaching Ohio.  Henry filed Silvester's will with the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas where 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...