Category Archives: family

Marriage Unites Anderson Family with Bird, Brink, Allison

Leave a reply

I struggle from time to time with putting cousins in their proper place—in the family tree,that is.

In earlier times it was not uncommon for siblings in one family to marry siblings in another family. After all, their social world was small, confined mostly to the county,town, church and school that made up their neighborhood. Checking census reports makes it clear that many marriages united neighboring farms. So when I was puzzling over just how the Anderson family is related to the Bird family, I decided to check out the relationships between them, and two other families as well.

The Birds

My curiosity about the Birds started with my half-aunt, Rhema Fair talking about how my grandfather Leonard Guy Anderson’s aunts and uncles disliked his second wife, my grandmother, Vera Stout. Why were they convinced Vera had stolen Guy away from his first wife, Lilis Bird, causing Lilis to die of a broken heart?

Why were Guy Anderson’s relatives so protective of Lilis Bird Anderson? It turns out Guy was not the first to marry a Bird but none had married a Stout. (The Stout family came from another county, a day’s journey away) The Birds were merely protecting family.

Then I looked at the connections between Andersons and Birds. A plat map of the farms in Monroe Township, Holmes County, Ohio, revealed that the Anderson Farm and the Bird farm were adjoining properties. That could explain how Guy and Lilis had gotten acquainted. (My Aunt Rhema was one of two children of Guy and Lilis. My mother was one of three children from Guy’s second marriage to Vera Stout.) Guy knew Vera from school in the town of Killbuck, my mother told me. That must have been when they were in elementary grades, because Guy was older than Vera, and there was no high school until she started 9th grade.

Did Lilis die of a broken heart? It seems it was a more prosaic reason. She died just weeks after giving birth to her second child, a not uncommon occurrence at the time.

Guy’s Aunt Caroline Anderson married Leonard Bird, brother of Lilis. 1870

Guy married Lilis Bird in 1898.

Mary Edith Anderson, the daughter of Caroline’s older brother William  McCabe Anderson, married Burgess Bird, older brother of Lilis. 1903

SIDE NOTE: Mary Edith and Burgess had a daughter, Imah Bird, certainly one of the more interesting names on my tree!

Caroline’s sister, Amy Anderson (Roof), had been engaged to a Bird, (about 1870) but married another man entirely. Amy raised Rhema, and no doubt was the source of the stories Rhema heard painting Vera Anderson as a temptress who ruined Lilis’ life. Guy and Vera were married in 1904, 13 months after Lilis’ death,

The Allisons

Mother from time to time referred to Allison cousins, and it took me a while to figure out that connection.

John Anderson (My great-great grandfather) was married (About 1820) to Emma Allison in Pennsylvania. They had four children, and after she died, he married my great-great grandmother, Isabel Sarah McCabe and they moved to Ohio.

I don’t know if John’s first wife belonged to the same family that lived near the Anderson’s farm in Holmes County, Ohio, but there were other Anderson/Allison connections in Ohio.

William McCabe Anderson’s son John Edmund Anderson, married Bertha Allison. (about 1894)

And just to keep things interesting, here’s an Anderson- Bird-Allison connection: Lilis Bird Anderson’s father’s first wife (not Lilis’ mother) was an Alison.

And in another knot in this tangled thread, Great-grandmother Mary Brink Anderson’s sister, Ada Brink, married William DeSylva Allison.(1885) Their son Errett and his wife worked for Guy and Vera Anderson on their farm.

The Brinks

Now we come to a family that is actually a direct ancestral connection to me through my mother.

Franklin Anderson, brother of Caroline and Amy and half brother of William McCabe Anderson, married Sarah Jane Brink.(1874)

Frank’s older brother, my great grandfather, Joseph J. Anderson, married Sarah Jane’s sister, Mary Brink, my great grandmother.(1877) (When Joe died early, Mary’s sister Sarah Jane and her husband Frank Anderson took in her two young sons, Guy and Ben. Later, when Guy’s wife Lilis died, Frank and Sarah Jane took in Rhema until Sarah Jane died and Frank’s sister Amy Anderson Roof, by then a widow,  moved in to help with Rhema.)

So there you have it. A few cousins untangled.

 

Surprising Find! Mame Kaser Writes a Letter

Leave a reply

Sometimes doing family research can get rather routine. But sometimes an unexpected find has me dancing and grinning with joy.

I have been working my way through a shoebox of letters between my mother and father, Paul and Harriette Anderson Kaser. Their courtship lasted several years, so there are many letters to transcribe. But a few stray bits and pieces showed up in that shoebox where my mother saved the letters.

As I sorted envelopes by the early 1930s dates, I came across a postmark from Oct 15, 1926. What was that about? Addressed to Paul Kaser, Takoma Park Sta., Washington D.C., c/o W. M. C., the return address reads Box 403, Millersburg, O.

Okay, a letter to my father when he was 17 years old, but who was it from and why was he in Washington D. C.? I knew the answer to the 2nd question, as I had written about my father’s attempt to attend college, and how that dream was interrupted. The c/o W. M. C. Stands for Washington Missionary College, a Seventh Day Adventist institution that his father decreed was the only school he could attend.

When I see the signature, I know this is the first thing I have seen that belonged to my grandmother, Mary Isadore Butts (Mamie) Kaser.

Clifford Kaser Family
Kaser Family: Paul, Irene, Milton, Keith, Clifford, Mary I (Mamie) About 1926

The letter, written in pencil, covers front and back of a page from a small, lined notebook. I am puzzled by the fact that the letter is dated Sept. 17 -26. That is nearly a month before the Oct. 15 postmark. Did she forget to mail the letter? Did she get the date wrong? Is there a missing letter sent in October? Was she waiting to get the promised package assembled? (We learn in a letter from Paul’s brother Milton that a blanket and overcoat are just being sent on 24 October.)

Mame’s Letter

Dear Paul

      Got your letter yesterday glad to know you are settled & like it so far. I am going down to get your Bag this after noon. You would have had it to take along but the catalog said they had them down there. you didn’t tell me who your room mate is & how long are you paid up for  Did some one meet you or did you go out on the car[streetcar?] 
be sure all your things are stamped be fore you send them to the wash. It would be a good plan for you to list the things you send. Don’t send any socks or handkerchiefs they won’t amount to much to send home. Irene [Paul’s older sister] & I canned 22 qts of Peaches to day. Keith [Paul’s older brother]is hauling coal to day. Harold C. Has quit the rubber plant & Verne has quit driving the truck. They can live with out work maybe & get their gass[sic] out of the machines that comes to the shops. Milton [Paul’s younger brother] got a 100 in algebra to day. Say when you write one sheet will do  you had two yesterday. You writ [sic] as often & you can address some to Milton.

                                       Momma

Getting to Know My Grandmother

I have transcribed this as Mame wrote it, except for adding periods at ends of sentences and capital letters at the beginnings. She only capitalized proper names, and did not use punctuation. Her lack of formal education shows, but her content reveals her personality.

After suggesting her son should not use more than one sheet of paper for a letter, Mame sets a good example of frugality by squeezing her last words onto the top of the first page, and squeezing her signature into the remaining corner. I see her thinking that her admonition might discourage him from writing, and she quickly encourages Paul to write often.

Although the letter is filled with hints of a common sense housewife—don’t send handkerchiefs and socks to the laundry because it’s cheap to send them home—I can see how much she is missing her boy. She wants to know every detail of his life at school. Perhaps she is a bit envious, too, as according to my father, she read the Bible every day, and loved to read the poet Milton. My father gave her credit for instilling his love of learning.

I can’t help being amused as her strict moral sense comes to the fore over the way she imagines “Harold” and “Verne” are going to get gas when they don’t have a job. Apparently they are going to siphon gas from cars (machines) that they encounter at someone’s shop.

While I am excited to finally have something actually touched by my paternal grandmother, whom I never had a chance to know, it is sad as well. She was three months shy of her 58th birthday when she wrote this letter. but she did not live to see her son Paul again, or taste any of those peaches she had canned with Irene.

The timetable tells the story.

December 22, 1925: Mame turns 57

February 13, 1926: Paul turns 17

June 1926: Paul graduates from Millersburg, Ohio High School

September 1926: Milton turn 14 and starts his Freshman year in High School

September 1926 :Paul takes train to Washington D.c. to start college
September 17, 1926: Date Mame puts on letter she writes to Paul

October 15, 1926: Postmark on envelope with Paul’s letter from Mame (This letter or a later one.)

October 24,1926: Date on Milton’s letter to Paul, in which he says, “Everyone fine here.”

October 28, 1926: Mame has a stroke but Paul is not informed.

October 31, 1926: Mame’s death, and Paul is informed and returns to Ohio, never to return to college.

You can read more about Mame and her first daughter; Mame sews for a First Lady; and in the two articles linked above.

How I Am Related

Mary Isadore (Mame) Butts Kaser Is the mother of

Paul Kaser, my father

NOTES ON RESEARCH

The original letters from Mame Kaser and from Milton Kaser to Paul Kaser are in my possession.

Other information is drawn from earlier research noted in linked articles above.

The Slaves Name Roll Project

1 Reply
Am I Not a Man and a Brother, Am I not a Woman and a Sister logo
Am I Not a Man and a Brother, Am I not a Woman and a Sister, abolition slogan. From Vermont Journal, May 9, 2001 announcement of speech by Jane Williams, whose property the photograph is.

The Massachusetts Howe Family–Slaves?

I have been tracking family history and writing family stories for eight years now, and have added 5000 names to my family tree. All that time, I have been wondering when the slave-holding ancestors and slaves would show up.

It is true that when we visited Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury Massachusetts, we heard that during the time one of our ancestors ran the inn, a black man lived “upstairs.” The story told is that he was a dwarf, and was very attached to Ezekial, and turned down an opportunity to leave.

According to a book called Tavern Signs of America by Helene Smith, the man, Portsmouth, was 33 years old when he was purchased by Ezekial Howe in 1773. And in 1779, an unnamed “garl” was purchased for £200. Since I have not seen bills of sale or personal property tax records or text of Ezekial Howe’s will, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of those specifics.

Stout Family Members Held Slaves

However, when it came to my research on the Stout family of New Jersey, both concrete evidence and circumstantial evidence made it clear that several of the Stouts owned slaves. The main evidence came from their wills, where it is sad to see the enslaved evaluated in inventories along with beds, cows, and clothing.

Some of the descendants of Richard Stout, the pioneer, migrated to the South and I was not surprised they owned slaves. But I was at first surprised at the number of New Jersey dwellers who listed people among their “belongings” in the 17th and early18th century.

Of course, the Dutch who settled New Netherlands were sea farers and traders. And besides their colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America, they settled in the Caribbean and were active in the triangular trade of slaves from Africa, molasses from the islands of the Caribbean and rum from American colonies.

Slave ship on way to America
From a web site on Women’s History, section on slavery in New Jersey.

At least one direct ancestor and several close relatives owned people and I suspect that some of the seafaring Stouts engaged in the slave trade. While it is not comfortable to realize that I am part of the culture of enslavement, it is part of my family history, and part of the story I tell.

The Culture of Enslavement in New Jersey

An excellent article in Salon covers the whole subject of New Jersey’s slave culture, if you want to know more about how it started so early and endured so long.

A page for the historic New Jersey site, the Durrand Hadden House, presents detailed information about the slave trade in New Jersey with some interesting facts about the laws affecting slavery. One of the laws makes it clear that the colonists held American Indian slaves as well as Negro slaves. The subject of enslavement of indigenous people remains largely untold, and I do not have enough information to talk about the Stout’s possible involvement.

New York and New Jersey, both originally parts of New Netherlands, were the top two slave-holding states in the North prior to the Civil War.

New Jersey was the last northern state to mandate the freeing of slaves, in 1804. Even then, the law did not take full effect for another twenty years.

New Jersey was the last Northern State to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment even after it had become law in 1866.

In 1745, 4000 enslaved blacks lived in New Jersey and 75% of them came from four counties, including Middlesex, Essex and Somerset where many Stouts lived.

Several of the Stout wills give instructions to free the enslaved person listed. It seems that when my ancestors freed their slaves they paid a steep price. Starting in 1714, owners must pay a manumission fee to the government if they wanted to free an enslaved person. The £200 bond would be worth $56,000 today. Plus they were required to pay £20 per year to the freed person. Presumably that served as a guarantee that the freed person would not become a burden on the general revenue of the state.

People Counted as Property

Isaac Stout (1740-1823), my 5th great-grandfather. Clover Hill, New Jersey, Hunterdon County. It is not clear that these two people were enslaved.

Sarah Ann Bodene. Isaac’s will mentions a Sarah Ann Bodene and instructs that she be given sufficient cloth to make a dress from wool which is already in the works. She is not specifically designated as a slave, and it is rare that the enslaved were identified with surnames, so she may have been a servant.

Ben. Ben, a black man is given permission to go in search of a place. Does this mean he was a free black man, or did it mean he was an enslaved man freed by Isaac’s death?

Richard Stout, Cpt. (1678-1749) Grandson of Richard Stout. My 1st cousin 8 times removed. This Richard was a plantation owner and shoemaker. Source: Middleton, Monmouth Co. Will dated Dec 28, 1749, abstract from New Jersey records shown on his Find a Grave site. Despite the fact he had several children to whom he might have willed his slaves, he chose to set them free.

Negro Harry and Bess his wife to be set at liberty and have use of the field adjoining Samuel Tilton for life.

Negro Prince to be free.

Negro woman Nanny to be free.

Jonathan Stout (1665-1722) 7th great grand uncle. Hopewell, Hunterdon, New Jersey.

From New Jersey Probate recordes. Inventory After Death, March 24, 1722. Total inventory £362.2.10. Unfortunately the inventory does not mention names, and gives no information as to what became of them.

Two Negro girls (£20)

1 Negro man (£35)

A Very Large Number of Slaves for New Jersey Family

Jedidiah Higgins (1691-1772)/husband of Hannah Stout daughter of Jonathan Stout above, making her my 1st cousin 8x removed. Source: New Jersey Abstracts of Wills, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Buried in Kingston, Middlesex County, New Jersey. Enslaved: Six adults and Four children.

Negro wench Dinah (to wife Hannah)

Negro Wench Dorothy (To daughter Ann Dawson who dies before Jedidiah, so goes to Ann’s daughters.)

Negro Wench Katherine to daughter Mary Stout

Negro Wench Susannah to daughter Rachel Stout

Negroes Margaret and Silas to son Jonathan

Negro Girl Catherine to wife

Negro boy Santo to wife

Negro boy Cesar to wife

Negro boy Peter to wife 

Two Stout descendants in the South.

Sarah Stout, daughter of Freegift, my 6th great-grandfather, married Ephraim Oliphant (1717-1785). They moved from New Jersey to Loudoun County, Virginia. Source: Index of Tithables of Loudoun County VA and to Slaveholders and Slaves 1758-1786. (Ephraim Oliphant also ran an ad for a runaway servant in a Philadelphia paper in 1751. However, the description says the person has light skin with blue eyes and thin hair–in other words, probably white.)

Slave named Tom

Benjamin Merrill (1731-1771) Benjamin Merrill, son of a grand daughter of Richard and Penelope Stout, my 2nd cousin 7x removed. Source: 1759 North Carolina tax roll.

Negro: Phyllis

Jemima Smith Merrill Butner (1728-1801) Widow of Benjamin Merrill. Source: Her will, May 7, 1801, proved February 1803 in North Carolina.

Negro woman, Hagar (to my daughter Nancy)

Negro girl, Rose (to my daughter Ellien

Negro boy, James (to my son Andrew)

Negro boy, David (to my son Jonathan)

This has not been a comprehensive list, I am sure.  I just noted enslavers and enslaved as I came across them, and will add to this list as I discover more.

If you have been researching your Stout ancestors and have specific names of enslaved to add to this list, please do leave comments below.

The Slave Name Roll Project

A blogger named Schalene Dagutis, who blogs at Tangled Roots and Trees, began collecting names of the enslaved from other genealogy bloggers in 2015. Although she has stopped actively cataloguing those names, people still submit their finds to the Slave Name Roll Project.

In addition to wills and tax records, some states, like Virginia, have lists of slaves and slave owners. I also discovered that New Jersey Marriage Records 1670-1965 (I found it at Ancestry), starting on page 229 shows the Hunterdon County marriages of “Slaves and Negroes.” I did not explore further, but this treasure trove lists the names of those enslaved people getting married and the owners and location.

The National Archives has a good guide to researching slaves in federal records.

A new academic project aims to consolidate all the databases that might help name slaves. It is described here.