Tag Archives: Doc William Stout

Heirlooms –The Oldest

As my brother and sister and I took out each precious antique, somebody wondered what the oldest heirloom is that we have had passed down to us.  We will never know how old my sister’s hand-carved wooden bowl is (although it looks like it could have been 17th century) or how old my brother’s pieces of pewter might be.

The Antique Chest Full of Heirlooms

But thanks to my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother, we have dates and names on nearly all the items in our 2x great grandmother Mary Bassett Morgan’s chest.  I wrote about Mary and her chest, and you might want to look at the history of its travels.

When my brother and sister visited recently, we opened the chest and saw this treasure trove.

 

Inside Mary Bassett's Chest

Inside Mary Bassett’s Chest

Since the chest itself belonged to 16-year-old Mary Bassett when she traveled to Ohio in 1826/27. It surely had been made some years before, and that makes it one of our older possessions. But there was a much older item to be found.

Finding Some Old Needlecraft

We saw this stack of cloth items, stitched loosely together with a note in the handwriting of our great-grandmother Harriet Morgan sewn on top.  She identifies a collar made on a loom in 1835 by her mother Mary Bassett Morgan (the original owner of the chest).  That means Mary made this lace collar when she was 25 years old, six years after her first marriage.

lace collar

Mary Bassett Morgan collar, stitched together with a cloth made by her mother.

Note o antiques

Harriet Morgan Stout’s note sewed to antique pieces.

lace collar made by Mary Bassett

A closer look at the loom-made collar and an embroidered collar saved together.

The note says:

Collar Made on loom in 1835 by Mary [Stout Platt] Morgan Killbuck

Not to go to Columbus   Holmes Co.

What Does That Mean?

Hattie Stout

Harriett Emeline Morgan Stout

That note takes a little explaining.  Why is this package “not to go to Columbus”?  When and why did Harriet Morgan Stout write this note?

Happily, I already sleuthed out the participation of Harriet and “Doc” William Stout in a huge celebration in Ohio to mark the founding of Marietta, Ohio’s first official city in 1788.  The statewide celebration included expositions in each county of memorabilia by “pioneers.”  Please read that earlier article, and see the newspaper article describing the festivities.

That celebration took place in 1888, so we know that “Hattie” Stout wrote the note that year.  And we now know that the reason it says “not to go to Columbus” is that these precious family antiques were not to go on the road. Mary Bassett Morgan, Hattie’s mother, was still living (she died in 1890) and she probably took these items out of her well-traveled wooden chest and loaned them to Hattie and Doc for the Holmes County exposition with instructions that they be returned safely to her.

However, the collar, now preserved for 181 years, is not the oldest item.  Underneath the collars, in the first picture, you can see a woven piece of cloth. It also has a note written by Hattie Stout attached loosely with thread.

flax cloth

Woven flax cloth

 

Harriet Morgan Stout

Harriet Morgan Stout’s handwritten note on the woven flax cloth.

The note written by “Hattie” Stout in 1888 says,

Spun & made by Grandma Bassett in 1796

H E Stout

not to go to Columbus        Killbuck     Holmes Co.

It takes me a moment to absorb that information.

Our Great-grandmother is identifying a piece made by HER grandmother, Elizabeth Stone Bassett, our three times great grandmother.

The cloth was made in 1796

  • 30 years after the Declaration of Independence,
  • 8 years after the founding of Marietta Ohio,
  • 92 years before the celebration of the centennial of the founding of Marietta,
  • 220 years before I unfolded the cloth and photographed it.

Elizabeth Stone, in 1796 when she wove this piece was 23 years old,  unmarried, and living in New Hampshire. Eight years later she would marry the last of our long line of William Bassetts. They had five daughters, including my great-grandmother Mary Bassett Morgan. If you click over to the earlier story about Elizabeth Stone that I linked above, you will learn that she died soon after she and her family moved to Ohio.

Unresolved Questions

I know nothing about lace making, and a quick search on Google showed me a wide variety of types of lace and types of looms on which to weave them.  If any readers know more about this, I would love to see what a loom would look like that was used by Elizabeth Stone.

I do know a bit about flax growing and use, as you can see in this item I wrote earlier about my husband’s ancestor Rudolph Manbeck. So Elizabeth may have been using a spinning wheel like this.

Spinning Wheel and Reel

“Charlene Parker, spinner, at Knott’s Berry Farm” by DTParker1000 – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course we still don’t know if 1796 is the earliest heirloom that we still have in the family.

Others writings on familly heirlooms

This has been one of my occasional posts on Heirlooms. To see more, type heirlooms into the search box in the right hand column.

Other family history bloggers who write about heirlooms from time to time include:

Antique Jewelry: Out of Aprons–Into Bling

NOTE: Because I enlarged the photos to show detail, you can’t tell the actual size. I have added some description in the captions that I hope will help put them in perspective.

It would be misleading to leave the impression that my ancestors spent all their time in aprons. (Mostly the women, but as we’ve seen, Leonard Guy Anderson and my father, Paul Kaser wore aprons and Joseph Kaser wore a carpenter’s apron.)  But the women wore bling.

I have resolved this year to photograph the many heirlooms that I have inherited, and share them and their stories with you.  Today I will start with some pieces of antique jewelry that belonged to Hattie Morgan Stout, my great-grandmother. Her husband, “Doc” Stout adored her, and I have no doubt that many of these were gifts from him. Doc Stout is the connection to the Cochran ancestors I am writing about this month–his mother was Emeline Cochran.

My mother, Harriette Anderson Kaser, the namesake of Hattie Morgan Stout, stored the antique jewelry in a collection of small boxes.  She gave them to me for safekeeping when she went into a nursing home, and I added notes as she told me the history of the pieces.

Cameos were big during Hattie’s lifetime. (1842-1928) and I have several antique jewelry pieces with cameos. These little earrings have a cameo surrounded by very small diamonds. My mother thought that there should be a pin or necklace that matched, but perhaps she was thinking of the pin/pendant that is just below them. Although the earrings’ cameo is not too impressive, the carving of the cameo in this antique jewelry pin is exquisite. The pin once had stones or beads around the edge, but they are all gone.  I believe it was small pearl-like beads because there are a few lying in the box where the cameo rests.

Antique jewelry - cameo earrings

Pair of cameo earrings, edged with small diamonds. Size: 1/2″ across; smaller than a dime. Owned by Hattie Stout

antique jewelry - cameo pin

Cameo pin-pendant belonging to Hattie Stout. Size: 1 ” wide by 1 1/2″ high.

Apparently, Hattie liked emeralds–or at least the color green. December is the month for green stones, but her birthday was in August, so that does not explain her love of green stones. The small heart-shaped pendant has a row of green stones  and a row of diamonds. The earrings, which look older to me, although I’m no expert, are or very tarnished silver with a green stone in the center.

Antique jewelry - heart shaped pendant

Hattie Stout’s Diamond and Emerald heart pendant. Size: 1/2″ wide 5/8″ high.(dime sized)

antique jewelry - earrings

Hattie Stout earrings with green stone. Size of a dime.

The little matching pins below look very contemporary in design, with their gold work complementing the shape of the branch coral.  The Stouts traveled to Florida. I wonder if that might have been where they purchased these lovely pins. By the way, I did look at those marks on the gold, and it is not writing, but just a design of parallel lines.

coral pins -antique jewelry

Branch coral pins belonging to Harriet Morgan Stout. About the height of a penny and metal part 1/2″ wide. Coral 5/8″ long.

The provenance of this pretty necklace with varied colored stones is interesting.  My mother told me that it was originally her Grandfather Stout (“Doc” William Stout)’s watch chain, which his wife turned into a necklace and bracelet some time after he died in 1910. It occurs to me that this was quite a fancy watch chain for such a serious and moral-minded man as Doc Stout.  But how typical that Hattie would find a way to reuse it. Waste not!

Mother thought the jewelry was created about 1924, when she would have been 18 years old.  I remember her wearing the necklace. We don’t know what happened to the bracelet.

 

Antique jewelry-watchchain necklace

Hattie Stout had Doc Stout’s watch chain made into a necklace and bracelet. My Mother thought that was about 1924.  Size: Total length of chain without clasp: 14 1/10″

And then there is the piéce de rèsistance. I absolutely love this charming pin-pendant. It is a fine filigree of silver with a turquoise stone in the center and a small pearl below.  It belonged to Harriet Morgan Stout (Hattie), but my mother believed that it might have belonged to Hattie’s mother, Mary Morgan (my great-great grandmother). That would make it much older, as Mary lived from 1810 to 1890.

Soon we’ll take a look at how jewelry styles change as I share some pieces belonging to my mother in the twenties and thirties.

 

Antique jewelry silver pin

Silver, turquoise and pearl pin belonging to Hattie Stout that may have been her mother’s.  Size:   For perspective, the center “hole” is the size of a quarter.

 

I want to thank Cathy Meder-Dempsey for suggestion I join the bloggers talking about heirlooms. The idea originated with Jeanne Bryan Insalco. This list is copied from Cathy’s site. The last two bloggers are additions from Jeanne’s site.

Jeanne Bryan Insalaco of Everyone Has A Story suggested doing posts on heirlooms in a discussion in the Genealogy Bloggers Facebook group and wrote Now Where Did I Put That? Several bloggers have taken her up on the challenge to write about their heirlooms and we hope more will follow our lead.

Other bloggers doing Family Heirloom stories:

You can discover more Heirlooms at Ancestors in Aprons, by entering “Heirloom” in the search box on the right.