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'

Gambling on research

Almost all my family lines trace back to immigrants who came to New England before 1650 so when I find an oddball, it's really fun. There are so many people researching and writing about early New England that it's not very difficult to find the records and even some stories for those ancestors. When I research the oddballs, I think I learn more about doing genealogy because I have more obstacles to overcome. 

Here are a few of my oddballs - because they came to the U.S. (relatively) recently.

2nd Great Grandfather George Gibbs who came from Prince Edward Island and married Nina K. Ellingwood in 1884. I have little information about his family or what town they came from on PEI. Their daughter Annie married Ray Everett Cotton, Fern Lyndell Cotton married T. Richard Carter

4th Great Grandparents John & Ann (McClure) Williamson who came from Manorhamilton, County Leitrim, Ireland in the 1820s with two children and settled in Bethel, Maine. Daughter, Rebecca married Elias Mellen Carter. Their son Augustus Mellen Carter had a son Edward Mellen Carter who was my great-grandfather. Williamson isn't a typical Irish surname but Ancestry.com says it can be Northern English, Scottish or Northern Irish. Manorhamilton is at the very top of Ireland just before the border of Northern Ireland. 

4th Great Grandfather Reverend Edward Millford Whittle who came from the South. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1766 but there is evidence that he lived with his mother in Alexandria, Virginia before moving to New England and eventually to Maine. His parents are reported to be from Ireland but I have found no records to support that claim. Ancestry.com says most Whittles are from Lancashire, England. His daughter Martha married Moses Yates; their son Gilbert W. Yates was the father of my great grandfather, Estes Gilbert Yates. 

4th Great Grandfather William Yates who came to New Hampshire around the time of the Revolution but where he came from is subject to debate - even among his children and grandchildren. The History of Paris by Howard Lapham says he came from Portsmouth, England to Boston and then to Maine. He met his wife in New Gloucester, Maine and then he can be traced from Hebron to Norway to Greenwood, Maine. He was a farmer and a Methodist preacher. His children and grandchildren contradict one another on many points from where he was born (Scotland or England) and whether his parents migrated with him and whether he was "bound out" as a boy to work for another farmer. William married Martha Morgan and had Moses Yates, the husband of Martha Whittle above. 

These are my most recent immigrant ancestors. Researching outside my comfort zone of New England and researching outside the U.S. is challenging but it's like gambling (and about as addictive) where you know that most of the records you look at are not going to be "winners" but when you find a bit of information about your ancestor, no matter how small, it's like winning the lottery and it keeps you going. I feel like the more I find out, the more questions I have that I want to research...good luck everyone!

Thanks to Chris Dunham for posting these pictures of the gravestones of William and Martha Yates on the Maine Genealogy Network. 

What's your story, John Williamson?

I really wish I had more information about my ancestor, John Williamson (1787-1887). He came from Ireland but doesn't seem to be Irish. He is said to have come in 1821, well before the flood of immigrants caused by the potato famine. Apparently, he loved England and was a member of the Church of England. It seems especially difficult to find Protestant records in Ireland. He lived to be 100 years old! What an accomplishment! He outlived two wives, Ann McClure Williamson (1789-1861) who immigrated with him and Jane (1795-1872). All are buried in the family plot in the Middle Intervale Cemetery. His daughter, Rebecca, married my third great grandfather, Elias Mellen Carter. That is how my family intersected with the Williamsons. We (the family) know his first wife was Ann McClure. Relatives named for this branch of the family include my great aunt, Rebecca Williamson Carter and my first cousin once removed, Ann McClure Carter.


It would appear that his brother, William, came with him and settled in Newry. They were both shoemakers. John turned to farming when he settled in Bethel, Maine. He is profiled in Lapham's History of Bethel as a prominent citizen. Lapham calls him "a lover of nature", "well educated" and "well versed in ancient history." John is also described as a very devout man who carried his Bible with him and had memorized large portions of it. Lapham describes him as social and interesting, both "entertaining and instructive." In the later years of his life he lived with his daughter, Rebecca and son-in-law, Elias Mellen Carter. 


If you came from Ireland, why did you love England? Your name is more English than Irish so how did you come to live in Manorhamilton, Ireland? Did you leave behind relatives in Ireland? Since both you and your brother were shoemakers, do you come from a long line of shoemakers? 

Middle Intervale Cemetery

Rebecca Williamson Carter Bailey - my great aunt

Source: Lapham, Howard B. "History of Bethel:." Google Books. Google.com. Web. 03 Mar. 2012. <http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=4vUgAQAAMAAJ>.

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.