52 Ancestors #34 - Humphrey Atherson's Quaker Curse?

First published on March 16, 2012 ~
Humphrey Atherton, my 9th Great Grandfather, was a prominent man in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He became assistant governor and in that capacity he was part of the prosecution and execution of Quakers who had been banished from the colony by law. Sources provide modern researchers with two Quaker trials associated with Humphrey Atherton. I started researching because I struck by the unusual manner of death described in accounts online. 

Humphrey Atherton died September 16th (or 17th), 1661 after being thrown from his horse. Various accounts list the reason for the fall as either the horse tripped over a cow or was startled by a cow. Either way he suffered a serious head injury that resulted in his death. Wikipedia provided a starting point for my research and provided most of the pictures and Google books was a great resource for checking original sources. 

First Case: 

Mary Dyer was a Quaker who was executed in 1660 for repeatedly returning to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in violation of a law banning Quakers. Mary and her husband, William, were supporters of Anne Hutchinson (not a Quaker) and followed her to the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It is unclear why Mary returned to Massachusetts Bay Colony as a Quaker. She was in the company of William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson. They were caught once and warned that the punishment for getting caught again would be severe. Stevenson said he felt called and sent by God to be in Boston and both he and Mary returned and were soon jailed. Mary refused pleas of her family to recant. She was spared from gallows by a last minute reprieve on October 27, 1659. Stevenson was not so fortunate and was hanged. Still Mary chose to disobey orders and returned to Boston again in May of 1660. This time there was no reprieve and she was hanged. Humphrey Atherton was on the court that sentenced her and present at her execution. "General Atherton cracked the silence, 'She hangs there like a flag,' he said." (Plimpton, p.188)

Wenlock Christison was another Quaker who repeatedly returned to Massachusetts despite banishment. He was put on trial in May 1661 and sentenced to death. However, the law was changed before his sentence was carried out. Several sources state that Wenlock Christison warned Atherton that he would soon face God's judgment. 

"Wenlock Christison Defying the Court"

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1213844

Joseph Besse, Quaker author, provides the following account of Atherton's death: 

"Humfray Adderton, who at the trial of Wenlock Christison, did, as it were, bid defiance to Heaven, by saying to Wenlock, 'You pronounce Woes and Judgements, and those that are gone before you pronounced Woes and Judgements; but the Judgements of the Lord God are not upon us yet,' was suddenly surprised: having been, on a certain day, exercising his men with much pomp and ostentation, he was returning home in the evening, near the place where they usually loosed the Quakers from the cart, after they had whipped them, his horse, suddenly affrighted, threw him with such violence, that he instantly died; his eyes being dashed out of his head, and his brains coming out of his nose, his tongue hanging out at his mouth, and the blood running out at his ears: Being taken up and brought into the Courthouse, the place where he had been active in sentencing the innocent to death, his blood ran through the floor, exhibiting to the spectators a shocking instance of the Divine vengeance against a daring and hardened persecutor; that made a fearful example of that divine judgment, which, when forewarned of, he had openly despised, and treated with disdain.' "  (Besse, Woodward)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow includes the following in the final scene of his play, John Endicott. Governor Endicott is speaking to Richard Bellingham and asks if it is true that Humphrey Atherton is dead. Bellingham replies. "His horse took fright, and threw him to the ground, so that his brains were dashed about the street." Endicott's response is "I am not superstitious, Bellingham, and yet I tremble lest it may have been a judgment on him." 

So was it God's judgment for Atherton's persecution of the Quakers that caused his death? Was it a clumsy horse? Was it a wayward cow? Whichever scenario you prefer to believe, it is an unusual death. 

Humphrey Atherton is buried in the Dorchester Old North Burying Place in Boston. 

Descent:

Humphrey Atherton & Mary 

Mary Atherton & William Billings

Mary Billings & John Whiting

Jemima Whiting & Jonathan Wight

Joseph Wight & Abigail Ware

Abigail Wight & Enoch Spurr

Roxanna Spurr & Edward Stanley

Mary Frances Stanley & Augustus Mellen Carter

Edward M. Carter & Fannie Mae Capen

T. Richard Carter

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Atherton 

http://www.mayflowerfamilies.com/enquirer/mary_dyer.htm

http://www.readbookonline.net/read/3002/12410/ 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. John Endicott. Act V Scene III.

The following were accessed using Google Books: 

Woodward, Harlow Elliot. Epitaphs from the Old Burying Ground in Dorchester. Boston Highlands. 1869. p.6 

Mary Dyer: biography of a rebel Quaker by Ruth Talbot Plimpton p.188.

Besse, Joseph. William Sewel. The history of the rise, increase, and progress of the Christian people called Quakers: intermixed with several remarkable occurrences. J. Sowle. 1722. p. 343

52 Ancestors - #25 Religion in School & Spanking Other People's Kids

This is a reposting of something I wrote in 2012. 
William Yates was the immigrant ancestor of the Yates line in my ancestry. He moved to Maine from Portsmouth, NH. He is credited with founding the town of Greenwood in 1802. He settled on Patch Mountain where he built a rudimentary log cabin until a frame house was completed a few years later. He was a farmer and a Methodist preacher. Some sources have William coming to the U.S. from Scotland and others from England. His first residence in Maine was New Gloucester where he met and married his wife Martha Morgan. William and Martha had 13 children - 9 sons and 4 daughters. 

Picture of Patch Mountain 

Things were very different in those days. There were clear rules of right and wrong and none of this "kids will be kids" mentality or "my perfect little Johnny wouldn't do that." 

A biographical sketch of his grandson, Octavius K. Yates in the Biographical Review gives the following story as an example of the character of William Yates. One time while he was preaching in the local school house, some boys put burrs beneath his saddle causing his normally calm horse to rear and throw him to the ground. The horse ran home, leaving William to walk. The next Sunday he delivered his usual sermon. He had figured out the identity of the culprits, kept them after the service, and "administered a sound flogging; then took them into the meeting-house and prayed for them." 

William Yates & Martha Morgan
Moses Yates & Martha Whittle
Gilbert Yates & Laura Emmons
Estes Yates & Eva Hayes
Linona Yates & Clayton Blake

Sources: 

http://www.megalink.net/~caronfam/mosesdunham/registers/greenwood_history_1906.pdf
Biogaphical Review: This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Franklin and Oxford Counties Maine - Boston 1897. Accessed on ancestry.com March 7, 2012. 

Lost & Found

Over the years of working on my genealogy I have lost and found more ancestors than I can count. Think of your clothes over the past decade. You find something that you think is amazing and awesome only to discover later that it doesn't really fit or isn't quite right and you discard it. Watching an ad for ancestry.com makes doing genealogical research seem so easy; just type in a few details and up pops a leaf that leads to fascinating facts about your ancestors. Unfortunately, real research is not that easy. Oh, you can just click on those leaves and add all sorts of things to your family tree but do so at your own peril - it's a bit like buying clothes on impulse. There is a lot of sloppy research and erroneous information out there. I am finding an increasing number of hints where the record does not even have the same name as the person for whom it is being suggested. The family trees that others have done are often equally misleading and not all sources/records are created equal. 

This is not, however, a rant about the horror of amateur family historians or an attempt to discourage you from starting your family tree. Quite the opposite. I remember the thrill of clicking and adding relatives when I first started. There were no shaking leaves then but still plenty of information that was easy to find. If it had been more difficult, I might have gotten frustrated and given up. I have seen my students experience that same thrill. I admit that I am not a purist. I jump around from branch to branch and work on whatever part of my tree captures my attention in that moment. I do not work methodically on a single line until it is done. 

However, I have learned to temper my enthusiasm with a healthy dose of skepticism about what I find online. I use trees of other members as starting points for research and look for records to back up what is recorded. I have made my trees private after being ripped into several times by those who believe no information should be recorded until it is completely verified. 

Finding ancestors is like being a private detective. You have to follow the clues and collect enough evidence to make your case solid. You will receive lots of tips and most of them turn out to be irrelevant and misleading but with persistance, you can find reliable information and solve the mystery. Sometimes it's a preponderance of circumstantial evidence and that's the best you can do.

Assembling ancestors into a family tree is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes a piece seems to fit but later you notice the subtle clues that show it isn't quite right and you begin again to find the piece that goes in that spot. Each piece you correctly identify and fit into place goes into making the larger family picture come to life. 

I do make errors but even when I have to lop off a branch from the tree because I've made a mistake, I always learn something and often find interesting stories of people and history. So get in there and start looking. Use the easy hints to get some traction but go back and evaluate with more care. I suggest using two trees - one for leads and possibilities and one that is as carefully documented as you can make it. 

It's All Relative

I was absent from blogging for about a month - from mid-May to mid-June. I was, however, heavily involved in research. I had a group of students who wanted to find out about their families and I was helping them rather than doing my own research and writing. I have done this with students before but this time I tried to give emphasis to the story aspect of family history.

Some of my observations:

• Nothing warms my heart more than to see a student whip out his cell phone and call grandma to find out information and observe an extended meaningful conversation between them. This is an approved use of a cell phone in my class!
• In today's mobile society, families are often spread out and don't have (or take) the time to talk about their lives and pass on family stories. I'm certain many of my students have not had more than a superficial conversation with their grandparents. It makes me sad because I know a lot of stories from my grandparents' lives. 
• Everyone can find information and stories. It was great to see students who thought there was nothing interesting in their family, find something special. Even ordinary people have interesting stories. The internet makes it easy to find information if you have some basic information on ancestors who lived in the early 20th century. Almost everyone can get that information on at least one branch of their family. 

Some things my students found out

• My father was raised as a Mormon
• There were two Pillsbury families: "One brother founded the baking company and I'm descended from the other one"
• There's a historic house in Topsham that belonged to one of my ancestors
• My (how ever many) times great-grandfather designed the logo for Humpty Dumpty potato chips
• My mother's ancestor and my father's ancestor both fought for the Union at the same battle in the Civil War in different regiments and from different states.
• My Civil War ancestor survived one of the bloodiest battles of the war and then got a land grant in Maine where he broke his back in a fall while building his home. 
• Hey, I'm related to Ms. Carter! 

They discovered accused witches, artists, inventors, politicians and writers. Their origins were very diverse: Canada, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Italy, England, Ireland, Scotland and more that I can't remember. 

Surname Saturday - Fun With Wordle

This idea came from a tweet I read today. I can't remember who issued the challenge to do something diffeent and post a wordle but here is mine. These are the surnames in my direct line. Wordle makes words bigger depending on the number of times the word occurs. You can play around with colors, fonts and layouts. Sometime I'll get all the first names done too but this took quite awhile to organize. I think I want to update it every year to see how it changes as my research progresses.

Another view that's more jumbled - just for fun

Turn the Page

Genealogy can be an adventure and sometimes a lesson in frustration. Today I was going through records I found for my great-grandparents. I looked at the marriage record on ancestry.com and noticed that I could go to the next record in the batch. So being curious, I clicked to advance the page. Well, the next page was actually the back of the marriage record. I didn't even know it had a back side! On the back were the names of the groom's and bride's parents. The name of my great-grandfather's mother did not match what I thought I knew. Oops!! It turns out that my great-great-grandfather was married not twice but three times. Just like the commercial for ancestry.com. I thought the mother of his children was Lillie Esther Shaw but she was actually wife number 2. Wife number 1 was Lizzie M. Philbrick - thus solving a family mystery of the identity of "Grammie Philbrick"  - a name my father's generation heard often but didn't know to whom it referred. It solved the mystery of Civil War enlistment papers, for a Benjamin Philbrick, in the possession of one of my cousins. And of course, it has sent me on a new hunt for ancestors - a new adventure. I'd done a pretty good job of tracking down the ancestors of Lillie Shaw but they are not actually related not me...oh well. The lesson I am taking from this is to TURN THE PAGE. You never know what you might find. 

Francis L. Cotton & Lizzie M. Philbrick

Ray Everett Cotton & Annie Florilla Gibbs

Fern Lyndell Cotton - my grandmother

Why You Should Be a Geneablogger Too

I have always been interested in my family's history. I started researching my genealogy when I had a hip replacement and had limited mobility during the summer of 2004 (or 2005 - I'm not exactly sure). I was not very good at it when I started, went down more than a few false trails and gathered a lot of undocumented and extraneous information. I've been pecking away at documentation and attempting to clean up my family tree and break through brick walls ever since. 

Last summer I found a Facebook page dedicated to the descendants of Asa Freeman and Florilla (Dunham) Ellingwood - my 3rd great-grandparents on my father's side. I connected with a third cousin, Bill West, a retired bookseller from Abington, Massachusetts who writes a blog called West in New England. After reading his posts and seeing how others were sharing their genealogy through blogs, I became inspired to create my own. So in late February, I took the plunge and created my first post. It's not always easy to find the time to write but I have found a few things that have helped. Most importantly when I don't have time to write an entire post, I put down my ideas and save it as a draft and come back to it later. I have at least as many drafts as I have posts so I always have something to write about. My goal is at least 2 posts a week and in March I was able to post 16 times! I can't guarantee that pace will sustain itself so I'm keeping my goal at 2 posts a week for the rest of 2012. 


So why should you give blogging a try?

• In six weeks, I have made more connections with people who can help me than I've made in six years. 
• I've found stories about my ancestors and the places they lived. These make family history more meaningful than mere names on a page.  
• As someone who loves history, I've expanded and enriched my knowledge - giving me more to share with my students and hopefully making my teaching more relevant and interesting. 
• I am learning more about where and how to research. 
• And...I've gotten a little ego boost from those who have commented on the blog or to me in person and told me how much they enjoy the stories I've shared. 

There is a great community out there of geneabloggers. Head on over to www.geneabloggers.com for some inspiration and tips on how to get started. It is a great resource with links to a wide variety of blogs that can be searched by category. Several sites linked there provide daily or weekly writing prompts for those times you have writer's block. So what are you waiting for? Start telling the story of your family and reap the rewards! 

When Your Family Tree Doesn't Fork...

 In the U.S. we have a natural horror of marrying a cousin. You'll end up with deformed children!! Well, guess what? It's not even close to true! When you start doing genealogy, you realize how quickly the number of individual people grow as you progress through the generations - 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great- grandparents etc. Ten generations brings one to the potential for 1024 direct ancestors and if you go back to the time of Charlemagne it's an estimated 281 trillion! Have that many individuals really existed since the beginning of mankind? 


Well, the short answer is no. We can't have more ancestors in a generation than the total known population of the earth at the time. Therefore it is estimated that 80 percent of marriages have been between first or second cousins and 100 percent of marriages will find a connection if you go back far enough. The cool thing about this reality is that you are very likely to find connections to rich, famous and historically significant figures if your ancestors came from the same general area as theirs during colonial times (New England for me). In fact, I am a 10th cousin of Barack Obama on his mother's side, the Dunhams. 


If you're researching your family tree back to colonial times or earlier, you will find many, many others who are also searching for the same families and therefore your cousins. Besides the fact that it is statistically impossible to have 281 trillion European ancestors in your 30th generation, one needs to remember the lack of mobility people had prior to the 20th century. In previous centuries, most people were born, lived, and died in the same town. Then there are factors such as the inter-marrying of the European royal families. All of these factors lead to more cousins than distinct individuals in your family tree. I can't say it still doesn't freak me out a bit when I see it in my own family tree but understanding the mathematical, sociological and scientific realities helps. I found the following web sites interesting.


"Facts about Cousin Marriage " Cousin Marriage Resources. 24 Mar. 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2012. <http://www.cousincouples.com/?page=facts>. 

• We are all cousins - no two people are more distantly related than 50th cousins. 
• Twenty-six states and all European countries allow first cousins to marry. It is also legal in Canada and Mexico. 
• Leviticus 18 lists all forbidden sexual relationships. Cousin relationships are not included.
• Albert Einstein & Charles Darwin married their first cousins.
• Second cousins have little, if any increased chance of having children with birth defects, according to the book "Clinical Genetics Handbook." The National Society of Genetic Counselors estimated the increased risk for first cousins is between 1.7 to 2.8 percent, or about the same as any woman over 40 years of age. 

R., Danielle. "10 Famous People Who Married Their Cousins." Listverse. Ultimate Listverse Top 10 Lists, 20 July 2008. Web. 24 Mar. 2012. <http://listverse.com/2008/07/20/10-famous-people-who-married-their-cousins/>. 

• Jesse James & Zerelda "Zee" Mimms - 1st cousins
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt & Anna Eleanor Roosevelt - 5th cousins
• Johann Sebastian Bach & Maria Barbara Bach - 2nd cousins
• H.G. Wells & Isabel Mary Wells - 1st cousins
• Thomas Jefferson & Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson - 3rd cousins
• Albert Einstein & Elsa - 2nd cousins
• Charles Darwin & Emma Wedgwood - 1st cousins
• Edgar Allan Poe & Virginia Clemm - 1st cousins; she was 7 when he moved into her home - her parents were his aunt and uncle & she was 13 when they married
• Jery Lee Lewis & Myra Gale Brown - she was 13 when they married
• Rudy Guiliani & Regina Peruggi - 2nd cousins

For more information, search "diamond theory of genealogy" 

Romance in Rockport - Updated

The legend of Mary Andrews and Stephen Knutsford of Rockport. When I first wrote about this, I     thought I was a direct ancestor of Mary but then I found a mistake in my research. I was very disappointed that my connection to this story was broken. However, I recently discovered that Mary is my 4th cousin 7 times removed...hey, it's a connection and I'll take it.  

Andrews Point

Mary is described as dreamy and intuitive; a girl who liked to use her imagination. She had one daydream that came over and over. It involved her husband coming to her from across the sea. In some dreams he was lying injured and exhausted on the shore of Andrews Point. It was such a powerful dream that she turned away other suitors choosing to wait for her dreams to come true. She frequently wandered down to the shore to look for him. Finally one day, she saw him - a young man in a foreign uniform lying injured on the shore - just as she pictured in her dream. She revived him and helped him up the path to her father's home where he was nursed back to health. On November 5, 1778, Mary became his bride. 


The name of Mary's dream man was Stephen Knutsford and his background adds to the romance of the story. It is unknown how he ended up in the British Navy but in a deposition he gave in 1805, he stated that he came to this country during the Revolutionary War; was taken prisoner when General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, October 17, 1777; called himself a "seaman" and said he was born in Ireland. Others have speculated that he was the second son of a Lord Knutsford whose estate was in Cheshire or the son of an Irish lord. Eleanor Parsons wrote that he was from a titled Danish-English family; on a British ship sailing off Straitsmouth Island when he was tossed overboard by the rolling sea. Unfortunately, he died in 1807 without ever revealing any information about his family background. 

Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga

Adding to the mystery is the fact that he was not typical of seamen of the day. He could read and write quite well. His handwriting is described as beautiful and his conversation as brilliant. He was secretive about his former life and there is no evidence he communicated with his family or friends in the British Isles. Of course, he was not an American citizen and risked capture by the British who would consider him a deserter and a traitor. He lived a quiet life, teaching school at Lanesville and Pigeon Cove on Cape Cod. He and Mary had eight children. 


Common ancestors for Mary Andrews are Nathaniel & Lydia (Huckstep) Andrews. It comes through the Ellingwood line to my grandmother, Fern Lyndell Cotton, for the descendants of Asa Freeman Ellingwood who read my blog.  


Sources: 
Ancestry.com. Alluring Rockport : an unspoiled New England town on Cape Ann : an irregular, rocky shore with ledges and sandy coves, quarries [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.


Rockport: The Making of a Tourist Treasure
 By Eleanor C. Parsons, 1998

Tragedy Strikes

Diphtheria: an acute infectious disease caused by the bacteria Corynebacterium diphtheriae. It is spread by respiratory droplets of an infected person or someone who carries the bacteria but has no symptoms. It can also be spread by contaminated objects or foods. The bacteria most commonly infects the nose and throat. The throat infection "causes a gray to black, tough, fiber-like covering, which can block the airways...Once infected,dangerous substances called toxins, produced by the bacteria, can spread through your bloodstream to other organs, such as the heart, and cause significant damage" (PubMed Health). 

At the beginning of September 1861, my 3rd great-grandparents, Elias & Rebecca (Williamson) Carter, had eleven children. By the end of the month, they had only six children. The household was struck by a diphtheria epidemic and five young daughters died in between September 13th and September 30th. Emily Jane (age 14) and Julia Elizabeth (age 11) died on September 13th followed by Helen Louise (age 7) who died on the 20th. Sarah Lillie (age 9) and Anna Grace (age 5) died on the 26th and 30th, respectively. 

Once can only imagine what life must have been like in the household during that month. Two older daughters survived. The oldest, Frances Ann was 23 and may have been married by that time. Mary Elizabeth was 18 and surely helped care for her ailing sisters. There were four sons including my 2nd great-grandfather Augustus Mellen. He was twenty at the time and would soon be going off to fight in the Civil War. Edward Lawson was 16, Timothy Cullen was 15 and John Herbert was 7. John was the twin of Helen.

"Throat distemper" is what diphtheria was often called in the death records of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was particularly lethal among children under the age of ten. In addition to local outbreaks, New England suffered a major regional outbreak between 1735-1740. Fortunately, today there are vaccines to prevent diseases like diphtheria that once took many lives each year. In the 1920s there were about 150,000 cases with about 13,000 fatalities annually (bacteriology.net). The diphtheria vaccine became available in 1926 and has been in widespread use since the 1940s. 

Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002575/ 
http://textbookofbacteriology.net/diphtheria.html 
Ancestry.com. History of Bethel, formerly Sudbury, Canada, Oxford County, Maine, 1768-1890 : with a brief sketch of Hanover and family statis [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.

Original data: Lapham, William Berry,. History of Bethel, formerly Sudbury, Canada, Oxford County, Maine, 1768-1890 : with a brief sketch of Hanover and family statistics. Augusta, Me.: Press of the Maine Farmer, 1891. 

Strong Women Part 2

**Update - It's 2016 and today my grandmother is 96 years young! Still living in her own apartment, with some assistance from family and other caregivers. Happy Birthday! 

Today I would like to wish a happy 92nd birthday to my grandmother, Linona "Peggy" Blake. She was born in 1920, the daughter of Estes and Eva Yates. She was the fourth of eight children and the second girl. She has outlived all her siblings except the youngest one. She married my grandfather, Clayton Blake in Bethel, Maine. Together they raised three daughters, Myrna, Kaye, and Loretta. They lived in the part of Bethel known as the "Steam Mill" because that was the most well-known local feature. My mother told me they lived across from the mill and that both my grandparents worked there while she was growing up. By the time my memories start, my grandparents were spending summers working at the Balsams Resort in New Hampshire during the summers and at a resort in Pompano Beach, Florida during the winters. During the shoulder seasons, they had a little cabin behind my great-grandparents' house. Grammie is a wonderful cook and she was the pastry chef at these resorts.  My mother drove a school bus and my sister and I had to ride the high school run and the elementary run in the mornings. When Grammie was home, my mother would let us off on her way out to pick up the high school students and pick us up for the elementary run. Grammie would make us a big breakfast. I remember having a pancake eating contest with my grandfather one morning and my grandmother getting upset with him when he wouldn't let me win. She was worried I would get sick at school from eating too many pancakes. I think we finally called it a tie. 

I admire her very much. She worked hard her entire life. She is a very positive person and loves to dance and sing. I remember her always singing while she worked around the house. Two summers ago we had a party for her 90th birthday. She wore a bright pink dress (see picture above) and loved being the center of attention. She danced most of the afternoon. She continues to be active in the Grange and loves to socialize. She painted beautiful landscapes and sewed clothes for herself and others. She had to give up those activities when her eye sight got too weak. Spending time with her yesterday reminded me how lucky I am to still have a living grandparent. 

Happy Birthday, Grammie! 

Unsolved Murder

My 10th Great Grandmother was murdered in New Hampshire in May or June of 1648. Her name was Hannah (or Annah) Willix. She was traveling from Dover to Exeter when she was attacked, robbed and her body "flung" into the river. I found a document online called "New Hampshire Homicides 1630-1774" that contains this information: Hannah "was founde in the [Piscataqua] River dead; her necke broken, her tounge black and swollen out of her mouth & the bloud settled in her face, the privy partes swolne &c as if she had been muche abused &c." 

It is not known whether her murderer was ever caught. Her husband Balthasar did file a breach of contract suit against Robert Hithersay "for raising an evil report of his deceased wife, and for breach of promise in carrying his wife to Oyster River in a canoe and not bringing her in a canoe again." Hithersay seems to have been a wandering character whom Balthasar suspected of harming his wife. Hithersay and Balthasar Willix had cross suits for defamation. I could not find any records describing the resolution of this case. The Oyster River is speculation from some who interpreted the O.R. to mean Oyster River.  After her death, Balthasar moved to Salisbury, Massachusetts and married a widow named Mary Hawksworth. He is called a man of "more than ordinary education" by Bell. I will definitely continue looking for information on this crime. 

In 1996 a book was loosely based on this case - The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin by Richard Begiebing. 

Balthasar Willix & Hannah/Annah
Hazelelponi Willix & John Gee
Hannah/Annah Gee & Samuel Hodgkins
Jonathan Hodgkins & Mary Stockbridge
Rachel Hodgkins & William Moody
Elizabeth Moody & Samuel Ackley
William Ackley & Deborah Capen
Sarah Ackley & John Abbott
Mary Jane Abbott & Edward Capen
Fannie Capen & Edward M. Carter
T. Richard Carter & F. Lyndell Cotton

Sources: 
NEHGR Vol. 50 p. 46-47
History of the town of Exeter, New Hampshire by C.H. Bell

Balthasar and Hazelelponi!

Balthasar and Hazelelponi??? What odd names! Balthasar Willix is my 10th Great Grandfather. Balthasar is one of the names of the three magi along with Caspar and Melchior. While looking for references to the name I learned Saint Balthasar is the patron saint of playing card manufacturers...seriously? There is a patron saint of playing card manufacturers! He is also the patron saint of those with epilepsy and sawyers. That's a diverse group! 


Balthasar's daughter, Hazelelponi Willix is my 9th Great Grandmother. So where does the name Hazelelponi come from? Like many names of the era (she was born abt 1636), it comes from the Bible. First Chronicles 4:3: "And these were of the father Etam: Jezreel and Ishma and Idbash: and the name of their sister was Hazelelponi " The meanings vary according to source. Some think it might be the name of a clan or town rather than a personal name. Its meaning is also varied according to source but the overall consensus is that it refers to shade or shadow over a face. "The Shadow Looking at Me" or "Give Shade, Thou Who Turnest to Me" 


So what leads one to name a daughter Hazelelponi? Hazelelponi receives only passing reference in the Bible so what made them pick this obscure name?  Did her parents want her to stand out in a sea of Marys, Sarahs, Hannahs, and Rebeccas? Her sisters were Anna or Hannah and Susanna. Hazelelponi married first John Gee and second Obadiah Wood. One of her daughters was named Hazelelponi but she named her other daughters common names; Mary, Martha, Hannah. Hazelelponi Willix Gee Wood is buried in the Old North Burying Ground in Ipswich, MA. 

These images come from ancestry.com - tree of Joan Jordan.

Balthasar's wife and Hazelelponi's mother was murdered and thrown in the Oyster River and I will write about that in a future post. 


Other posts on unusual names:  Soranus Shaw
Balthasar Willix & Hannah/Annah
Hazelelponi Willix & John Gee
Hannah/Annah Gee & Samuel Hodgkins
Jonathan Hodgkins & Mary Stockbridge
Rachel Hodgkins & William Moody
Elizabeth Moody & Samuel Ackley
William Ackley & Deborah Capen
Sarah Ackley & John Abbott
Mary Jane Abbott & Edward Capen
Fannie Capen & Edward M. Carter
T. Richard Carter & F. Lyndell Cotton


http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Balthasar
http://saints.sqpn.com/saintb35.htm
http://bibleencyclopedia.com/hazzelelponi.htm
http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Hazelelponi.html#.T1zNNDGPng0
http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T2633

Strong Women, Part 1

I am so lucky to have had wonderful strong female role models in my life. My great-aunts are two of those role models. 


Rebecca Williamson Carter Bailey - Aunt Becky was born in 1913. She graduated from college and got a master's degree. She spoke French and worked to keep that skill her entire life. She was always looking for opportunities to learn about the world and she and Uncle Bruce had a large library. She was an advocate of education and when she died she established a trust fund to help the children and grandchildren of her brothers get education or training beyond high school. 

Aunt Becky served as a WAVE in the Navy during World War II. She had a love of history and a keeper of family history and artifacts. She was very unconventional and a free-thinker. She got married in a red dress and she and Uncle Bruce never had any children. They lived very simply and for many years did not have indoor plumbing, electricity or a phone. She did have a huge wrap-around porch with hanging beds and hammocks which I loved to play on when I was a kid. The house was quite a way up in the woods and her nearest neighbors were out of sight and earshot. The view was magnificent! 


She was a wonderful aunt to her nephews and nieces and their children and grandchildren. Aunt Becky was tough as nails but very loving and caring. One of my visits with her when she was in her mid-eighties illustrates this well. She had been working around the farm when a barn door came off its rolling track and fell on her. She was less than 5 feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds and as previously mentioned, in her eighties. She had broken and bruised some ribs but was quickly sent home from the hospital to recuperate. When my sister and I arrived for a visit she was propped up in a bed that had been set up in the dining room so she didn't have to go upstairs. We chatted about various things and she told us what happened. She said her thoughts while trapped under the door were "this would be a heck of way to die" and that motivated her to crawl out and get to her phone (family insisted she install one after Uncle Bruce died and she was there alone). She commented to us that "it's much better that this happened to me and not to one of you." We were very curious why she would say such a thing and her reply was that she didn't have to get up and go to work or take care of children. As we drove home we were laughing about her reasoning and how it was typical of her pragmatic view of the world.


Elizabeth Ayers Mason married my grandfather's brother, Stanley Carter. She was another college graduate in my family. This was fairly unusual for a woman born in 1907. She had a career as a social worker. Aunt Elizabeth was active in politics and interested in family history. She helped get the Bethel Historical Society started and hosted family reunions. She loved cats and I heard comments while I was growing up about the crazy cat lady who lived in West Bethel. I would just smile and say she was my aunt and she was not crazy; she was a very sweet lady. She did have about twenty cats at a time living with her after my uncle died. Most were dropped off by people who knew they would have a good home with her. She was ten years older than Uncle Stanley and close to fifty when they married so they had no children. Her cats were her children. She had all her cats spayed and neutered and they had regular check-ups. Her house was immaculate and the litter boxes were in the shed and cleaned daily so there was absolutely no odor. That's not an easy thing with that many cats. 

My best memories are of the Christmas parties Aunt Elizabeth had for me, my sister and my cousins, Becky, John and Nancy. They were elegant affairs. Everyone dressed up and she served tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off and introduced us to types of bread and fillings we did not normally experience because they are usually reserved for adults at afternoon tea parties. There were fancy cookies and candies too. We ate off china plates with real silverware. There was classical music playing in the background. It was so sophisticated compared to our everyday lives. She treated us like adults and we adored her for it. Our gifts were often ceramic figurines, jewelry or music boxes - things our parents wouldn't buy for us because they didn't trust us not to break them immediately. I still have two pieces forty years later and neither has broken. We usually got a puzzle or toy too but what we treasured were the "grown-up" beautiful gifts. Mom made sure we used our best manners and wrote thank-you notes every year. When I was a young adult, I was living in West Bethel and Aunt Elizabeth walked daily and often passed our house. I would try to catch up with her every week and have a chat. She was a very interesting and active woman. 

I am very grateful to have had these two strong women as role models. They were adventurous and did things their own way without caring what other people thought of them. They were confident in their decisions and values and lived their lives with integrity and compassion. Both of them made a difference in the lives of others. They certainly made a difference in my life.


These pictures come from the Facebook page "I Grew Up in Bethel, Maine"  

Middle Intervale Meeting House and Common

 The Brick End House - In the Carter family for 7 generations! 

 Cemetery where many of my ancestors are buried from the 1790s to the 2000s. 

Center Meeting House and Common - Bethel | The Cultural Landscape Foundation: This was in the hands of my family for most of my childhood. The Middle Intervale Meetinghouse Society has done a phenomenal job restoring it and keeping it true to the time period. It is used for cultural events like concerts and quilt shows and of course, for the occasional wedding. The first Carter to come to Maine had a farm directly across the street and that farm is still in the family - run by my cousin, John and his partner Cynthia, who run a farm stand with fresh produce and organically raised beef. 

'via Blog this'

My Genealogy Time Capsule

A cousin of mine, Bill West writes a blog called West in New England and he is running this genealogy challenge. The deadline for submissions is March 15th. 

What I would put in my time capsule and why: I would use multiple formats for these items where possible - USB drive, DVD and hard copies. 

1. A letter to my descendants about the importance of family and genealogy in my life - Just because I wish I had one from my ancestors. 
2. A copy of my genealogy research so far. This way future family members could find new leads based on my research or compare (and maybe laugh at my mistakes).  My husband found a book on his ancestors that ended with a 3 times great-grandfather's name and said "nothing further is known about this line." It was fun to then fill in the rest of the story. 
3. I would include a narrative of my memories of my life, my parents, grandparents, and the three great-grandparents I got to know. I have been so fortunate to have so much time with grandparents and I know many people never get to make memories with their grandparents. I have a book about my Yates ancestry and the author included his own observations about the character of the people he personally knew. I love finding stories that give insight into the personalities of my ancestors rather than just having dry vital statistics. 
4. I would include copies of pictures (clearly labeled) of important people, places and moments in my life. I love finding pictures to go with my genealogy and it's so frustrating when there is no information to identify the people, places or events describing the picture. 
5. Favorites - songs and recipes including Cooking Downeast by Marjorie Standish (my grandmother's favorite cookbook). 
6. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - My great aunt, Rebecca Williamson Carter, gave me this book with a note that her mother read this to my grandfather and his siblings. 
7. Anne of Green Gables - My grandmother, F. Lyndell Cotton Carter, gave this book to me after she went to visit her relatives on Prince Edward Island. Her grandfather, George Gibbs, came from PEI. 
8. Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton and Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion - My favorite books from childhood. 
9. Pink Dove soap - My grandmother always used it and I use it too. It smells like her...
10. Lindor truffles, Nesquik, Wint-o-green Life Savers and Diet Coke with Lime - some of my favorites things.

What would I put it all in and where would I keep it? 

• This is much more difficult...I think the answer is to make multiple copies of the original time capsule (at least the stuff on DVD and USB drives) - Maybe get a safety deposit box at a bank and seal the USB drive & DVD in an envelope with instructions written on the outside, definitely leave info about the time capsule in my will and tell my sons to put it in their wills too to keep the information available for whoever is interested 100 years from now. 
• I would get a sturdy box from Sentry for the time capsule. I would bury the original time capsule just outside the Middle Intervale Cemetery in Bethel, Maine. This cemetery started with my ancestor, Dr. Timothy Carter. The farm he started is across the street and still in the family. The meetinghouse in front of the cemetery belonged to my family until it was made a nonprofit in 1978. This spot has deep personal connections for me.