A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS 16

 ((First posted in 2011 on my West in New England blog))

 I haven't found much online about Worthy C Dunham and his family.  Like
the rest of the Dunhams in Abington he made his money in the shoe trade,
more specifically in manufacturing heels. When Benjamin Hobart published his
History of Abington in 1866 he included a list of manufacturers in the town taken
from the 1860 Us Census which showed Worthy Dunham had made $700 dollars
in sales. That doesn't seem like a lot of money by today's standards but that was
pretty respectable for those times , and Worthy probably did much better during
the Civil War when the area around Abington was the shoe manufacturing capital
of America.

Worthy's son Jotham Ellsworth Dunham apparently preferred to go by the name
J.Ellsworth Dunham and followed his father into the heel business.  He did so
well that in 1880  he built a fine house on Adams St in Abington where so many
of the wealthy families lived that the stretch of the street was known as Palace
Row. The house still stands and is on the National Register of historic homes.

I mentioned in the previous post in this series that there were Dunham children
listed in Hobart's book that weren't buried  with Worthy, including  J. Ellsworth.
Ellsorth is in fact buried nearby with his wife Lydia and their infant twin children :

The gravestone reads:

DUNHAM
J. Ellsworth Dunham
1842-1930
His Wife
Lydia Frances Gardner
1853-1928
Twin Babes 1876

There is another Dunham buried nearby and I'll discuss that in the next
post in this series.

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS15

 

Benjamin Hobart's  History of the town of Abington, Plymouth County,
Massachusetts, from its first settlement  has become my first place to
look for information about my Abington cousins. On page 369 I found the
following:

IV. Worthy C Dunham, born in Abington June 17, 1815; was married to
Irene Shaw of Weymouth, December 24, 1837. Their children were—

V. Rensellaer, born September 16, 1838; died September 17, 1839.

V. Jotham Ellsworth, born May 3, 1842.

V. Sumner Ellis, born September 3,1847; died September 25, 1848.

V. Irene Shaw, born October 23, 1851.

V. Sarah Williams, born July 22, 1855.

V. Abbie Weston, born August 30, 1858; died August 15, 1859.

Irene Shaw, wife of Worthy C. Dunham, died January 4,

1860, aged 42 years, 11 months, 9 days; he next married Marilla Pratt, 
October 4, 1860.

Now I knew there were more children who were not listed on the monument.
Could they have been buried there and the names not inscribed on the blank
western side of the marker? It was far more likely they had survived to
adulthood and were buried elsewhere. But what about the inscription
for Frank, Grace and  Robert on the south side? Grandchildren perhaps?

First though, I wanted to check on Worthy's parents, I looked on the previous
page, 368:

"III. Mr. Ezra Duuham was born in Plymouth, May 10, 1785; married, first, 

Susanna Ford, of Abington, January 30, 1806. They had one son, Henry,

born October 13, 1806; second, married Polly Cary, daughter of Howard 

Cary, Esq., of North Bridgewater. They had seven sons and three daughters,

viz., Susan, Howard Cary, Worthy Columbus, Charles Atwood, Cornelius 

Thomas, Ezra Rider, Angeline Huldah, Elbridge Cary, Francis William, 

and Lydia Howard." 

So, Worthy's middle name was Columbus and he was the half brother of 

General Henry Dunham and full brother to Cornelius T, Dunham, both of

whose graves I had previously discovered in Mt. Vernon Cemetery.

Now what else could I find out about him and his family?

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS14

 ((first posted on West in New England in Aug. 2011))

 

Ever since discovering the Cornelius T.Dunham family plot only
a few yards away from my parents' grave in Mt Vernon Cemetery
here in Abington, I've looked for more Dunham cousins buried
there. I thought I'd found all of them but apparently, I was
wrong. A few days before I discovered David Ellinwood's grave,
I discovered another Dunham family plot.

I found it as I was photographing the graves on the hillside
above the family of Henry Dunham. This is the east side of the
monument:

The inscription reads:
"Worthy C Dunham
     1815-1882
       His Wife
     Irene Shaw
     1817-1860
       His Wife
    Marilla Pratt
    1819-1904"

On the south side:

The inscription here lists three children:

   "Rensellaer
    1838-1839  
   Sumner Ellis
    1847-1848
   Abbie Weston
    1858-1859
    Children of
W.C.& I.S. Dunham"

On the north side:

This side reads:
"Frank E. Dunham
     1879-1951
      Grace E.
    1881-1970
     Robert E. 
    1918-2005"

So, not only do I have Dunham cousins buried here in Abington, some of them
were living here while my Dad was still alive, and there may still be some here
living in town.

I'll discuss how I'm related to these latest discoveries in the next post in this series.

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS13: FROM ABINGTON TO BRAZIL PT2

 So far everything I had found about Sarah M(Sadie)Dunham , her husband
Clinton R(ufus) Dorr and their son Richard Dorr had been from the Federal
Census images at Ancestry.com. Now I started checking some of the other
historical documents there and began to fill in more pieces of the puzzle.
First, I found Clinton Dorr in the 1884 South Abington Directory(p143) listed
as the stitching room foreman for the C S & L Company. After South Abington
became Whitman, Clinton is in the 1889 and 1892 directory as the foreman
at the Stetson Shoes  stitching room.

Next I turned to Richard Dorr and reasoned he was of the right age to have
served in  World War 1. Sure enough I found his draft registration card and
got a surprise. Richard was no longer living in Massachusetts in 1918, nor
was he an electrical engineer! Instead, he was a teacher at the Hill School
in Pottstown, Pa. (The school was a private boy's high school and is still
around in the present day as a coed private school). Richard is described as
tall and of medium weight with  blue eyes and brown hair along with a limp.
He lists Sara Dorr as his next of kin, but she was living at 15 Centre St back in
Brockton, Ma. I wondered what subject Richard taught? Science, perhaps?
But I soon found other records that pointed to another change in jobs,
and that helped answer another question besides.

I found passenger list and passport application images that showed Richard
had become an employee of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company. A
letter from the vicepresident of the company dated  October 9th, 1919
is attached to the first passport and confirms Richard had been recently hired.
There's also an affidavit from Sarah identifying Richard as her son. From this I
learned Sara was now a saleswoman living in New York City at 43 West 48 St .
Best of all is the photograph of the now thirty eight year old Richard. Apparently
Richard made three trips back and forth to Brazil to purchase coffee beans for the
company. His first stay lasted three years and on the second passport application
for his return home I learned of the fate of his father Clinton Dorr.

Richard states that his father had died in 1908 in Taunton, Ma. A search of the 1900
Federal census told me Clinton had been an inmate at the Taunton State Mental
Hospital.  Perhaps he was still there at the time of his death. Now I knew what
had gone wrong in the Dorr family sometime after 1884 when Clinton Dorr worked
at Stetson Shoes.

My search ended on a happier note though. On the passenger list for the ship
Pan American'a arrival in New York City from Brazil is not only the name of Richard
door but Sarah Dorr as well. Richard had taken his mother with him to spend the
winter in Brazil.  I have their passport photographs as well:

Richard Dorr passed away in 1931 and Sarah followed a year later in 1932. I don't
know yet about their lives between that trip together to Brazil and their deaths.
I hope they had happier times. If not, I hope there was at least pleasant memories
of Brazil to see them through dark times.

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS13: FROM ABINGTON TO BRAZIL PT1

The history of my distant Dunham relations buried here in Abington in
Mt Vernon Cemetery would make, I think, a good historical epic. Their
family fortunes were tied to the rise and fall of the shoe industry in this
area, and with a Brigadier General, an inventor, and a Civil War veteran
in the family there's no shortage of interesting characters to consider
(and I have still to post about their ancestor, Captain Cornelius Dunham!).
But the last grave in the Henry Dunham family plot led me to a story that
has some particularly dramatic elements.

I mentioned in my post on Andrew Jackson Dunham that even though
he was still listed as married on the 1880 Federal Census he was living
alone in Rockland Ma. except for his housekeeper and that subsequently
he and his wife Mercie Whitcomb Dunham were divorced. I found her
and their two daughters Sarah and Emma living on Beulah St. in South
Abington (now Whitman)Ma. on the same census. Mercie is listed as a
dressmaker and her two daughters are employed in a shoefactory. Quite
possibly Sarah Dunham had already met her future husband Clinton R
Dorr who lived  nearby on Washington St and who likewise worked at
a shoe factory. She's listed as Sadie Dunham instead of Sarah.

I knew from the gravestone that Sarah's son Richard Clinton Dorr was
born in 1881. There's no way of telling but I hope Sarah had a few years
of happy family life because by 1900 things had taken a drastic turn.
(It's not unusual for me to mentally curse the loss of the 1890 censuses
while researching. This case is no exception.) I found Sadie Dorr and her
son Richard as boarders halfway across the state in Worcester. Sadie
was working as a dressmaker while nineteen year old Richard was at
school. There was no mention of her husband Clinton. It's possible that
Richard was attending a technical school because he turns up in Boston
on the 1910 census as an electrical engineer living in the same boarding
house as his grandmother Mercie Whitcomb Dunham. I haven't found
any trace of Sadie on the 1910 Census as yet.

I had lived for nearly ten years near the Abington-Whitman town line
not far from where Sarah Dunham and Clifford Dorr had lived in the
previous century. Our house was on Bicknell Hill Rd off of Washington
St. and I used to play wiffleball and basketball on Beulah St. I still drive
down either Washington or Beulah Streets on the way to visit my sister.
and there's an old shoe factory that takes up most of a block between the
two streets that has been renovated into an apartment building. Perhaps
it's where Sarah worked and met Clinton Dorr.

Maybe knowing the area so well is the reason why this kept niggling away
at my mind and I kept digging away at it.

What I found will be in my next post.

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS12

 ((First posted on West in New England in January 2011))

 

The grave site of Henry Dunham and his family sits at the base of a hill
that overlooks a small pond within Mt.Vernon Cemetery. On the crest
of another hill on the opposite side of the pond is a gravestone with the
following names:
Susan M Dunham
   1836-1920
Edward E Dunham
   1835-1919
Melissa H Dunham
   1834-1913

It took me awhile to get around to looking up these Dunham family members.
Cornelius and Henry Dunham were descendants of Ezra Dunham. Susan and
Edward Dunham were descended from George Dunham, Ezra's uncle. Their
father was Jesse Dunham. Melissa was Edward's wife but I haven't as yet
found her maiden name.

Another of Jesse Dunham's sons, George Augustus Dunham, was a Chicago
lawyer and Jesse must have gone west to live with his son because that is
where he died and was buried. I'll have to wait for the snow to melt off
before I start hunting for any more of the family at Mt.Vernon Cemetery.

I thought this would be the last post on the subject for a bit but there's
Captain Cornelius Dunham to discuss and perhapos one other post after
that.

And once the Spring comes, there's the rest of the cemetery to explore!

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS11

 Brigadier General Henry Dunham's family seems to have suffered a
reversal of fortune in the latter half of the 19th century. The General had
commanded forty companies and five regiments at the celebrations
marking the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (Dunham
Genealogy p167) and his son Henry had been a successful shoe
manufacturer and inventor. The rest of the General's were not quite so
prominent in Abington society.
 
After the younger Henry's death, his widow Ella became embroiled in
lawsuits against shoe manufacturers who'd copied her husband's inventions.
She and daughter Ida appear on the 1910 Federal Census for Holden
in Worcester County, Massachusetts as renting their home but neither
was employed. Perhaps son Harry B. Dunham paid their rent. According
to the Dunham Genealogy he was a doctor in nearby Rutland, Ma.
Younger son Arthur moved to New York and pursued a career as an
electrical engineer. He married and had two sons.

Brackley Cushing Dunham married  Elizabeth Hunt. There was a Hunt
family that were leading shoe manufacturers in Abington but as of yet I
don't know if she was from that line. I do know that Brackley stayed in
the shoe business but it wasn't in management from what I've been able
to find in the Federal Censuses up to 1910. The couple was childless.
Brackley and Emma are not buried in the Henry Dunham family plot.

Emma Annett Dunham  married Richard L Hunt. I've yet to establish any
ties to either the Hunts of Abington or Brackley's wife Elizabeth Hunt.
Emma and her husband lived in Weymouth, Ma. and they too died
without children.

This brings us to Andrew Jackson Dunham. Andrew followed his father
in serving in the military and the inscription on his gravestone tells us he
served "Civil War Three Years 1st Mass Cav, Also Minute Men T
hree Mos."  In other words, Andrew was in the Massachusetts State
Militia , then enlisted in the regular Union Army. I found his record
over at Ancestry.com in U.S. Civil War Soldiers and Profiles, and
with it, this picture:

Andrew J Dunham enlisted on 15April 1862. He'd been married for
seven years  to Mercie Florence Holcomb and their second daughter
was born the week after he enlisted. Upon his return from the war he
went back to work in the shoe business but then something changed.
Although he was listed as still married on the 1880 Federal Census,
Andrew was living alone except for his housekeeper  Amelia Peterson.
He and his wife may have been in the process of getting a divorce
already because his marital status was given as divorced in the
subsequent Censuses up to 1910. In his final years, Andrew turned to
poultry farming and was an officer in a local association of poultry
farmers.

Andrew's gravestone intrigues me. It gives his year of death as 1917
but The Dunham Genealogy says it was 1910. And although he and
Mercie were divorced they are buried together. Was this the triumph
of a determined woman or the decision of their daughters?

But I found something even more interesting about Andrew Jackson
Dunham and I'll discuss that next!

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS10

 I haven't forgotten my new discovered Dunham cousins buried here in
Abington's Mt. Vernon Cemetary. I've been reseaching them on the
internet with success in some cases and not so much in others.

I discovered a few things about General Henry Dunham. Apparently
he was a successful merchant here in Abington and worked his way up
as an officer in the Massachusetts Militia until he achieved the
rank of Brigadier General of the Second Brigade of the First Division of
the Third Regiment of the Light Infantry in the late 1840's. He retired
from that position in 1850.

One interesting note was the discovery of another connection with the
Gurney family. Henry's wife Mary Cushing was the daughter of Sarah
Gurney.

I had more luck researching their son Henry Jr. (He's listed erroneously
as "Hervey Dunham" in The History of the Town of Abington). In a
continuation of the ties between the Dunham family with Charleston,
S.C., he married a girl from there named Ella Bristol and a history of her
ancestry contained the following:

"Ella Bristol, born May 18, 1845. She married,  March 31, 1869, 
Henry Dunham of Abington, Mass., an inventor of leather machinery. 
He died Sept. 22, 1884.


From the Abington Herald:—" In the death of Henry
Dunham, which occurred Monday morning at his home on
Center Avenue, of inflammation of the bowels, the town
of Abington loses one of its most prominent, widely
known, and esteemed citizens. Mr. Dunham was one of
twelve children. His father was Gen. Henry Dunham,
son of Ezra, whose grand-father was Cornelius Dunham,
born in Plymouth in 1724. The name is among the
oldest and most distinguished of the Old Colony names.
The mother of the deceased, still living at the age of eighty-
one, was Mary Cushing, daughter of Col. Brackley Cush-
ing — another old and honored Old Colony family name.
Mr. Dunham began business life as a shoe manufacturer
in the large factory on Lake Street that bears his name.
He retired in 1873, and turned his attention to shoe
machinery, and has given to the world some very important
inventions and improvements in this direction. The
three most important are the Dunham riveting machine,
the toe nail machine, and the Dunham quilting, machine;
a detailed description of all these appeared in the Herald
of Sept. 5. Mr. Dunham made the first quilting nail
ever produced, and is believed to be the originator of
the idea of inserting nails into the sole while off the boot.
The funeral took place at his late residence Thursday
afternoon, Rev. Messrs. Pettee and Warren officiating, with
music by the new church choir. The esteem in which the
deceased was held was attested not only by a profusion
of flowers, but also by the presence of many prominent
citizens of this and other towns. Mr. Dunham leaves a
wife and three children, two boys and a girl."

John E Morris The Bontecou genealogy: A record of the descendants 
of Pierre Bontecou, a Huguenot refugee from France, in the lines 
of his sons (Hartford, Conn. Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard
Company, 1885)  pp179-180

After Henry Dunham Jr's death his widow became involved in several
lawsuits involving infringements on his patents by other shoe
manufacturers.

In the Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910, the cause of his death
is listed as peritonitis and his occupation as "Inventor".




To be continued....

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS9

 

Sunday was the coldest day of the year so far but I wanted to
take a quick look around to see if I could find anymore Dunham
family graves sites in Mt. Vernon Cemetery. This time I spent
more time in the front end which is closer to Island Grove Pond.
There might have been a view of the water back in the 19th
century but now it's blocked by the Police Department and the
Highway Department. The older family plots have taller monuments
and some are situated along several hillsides overlooking a fenced
in pond. 


I drove through the older section over narrow gravel roads with
the late afternoon sun blinding me at times, but on the crest of one
of the hills I spotted another Dunham headstone.  I got out of my
car with my camera and walked over to take pictures:

I'd found another branch of the family which I'll blog about later.


On the way out of the cemetery I passed the Henry Dunham family
plot and noticed two broken headstones that I had missed when
I first found it:

These are located at the left rear corner of the lot and I couldn't make
out the names as the light was beginning to fade. I hoped I could
bring them out a bit on the computer but I think I need to go back
earlier in the day on Thursday.

Meanwhile, I've found more information on Henry and his family,


To be continued....

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS8

 (First posted on West In New England in 2010)

These are the gravestones in the second Dunham family plot that
I found Thursday at Mt.Vernon Cemetery in Abington:

Henry Dunham. 1835-1884. Located to the left of the front stairs.

A headstone for seven children, Located on the left hand border of the
plot. The inscription at the base reads: "Children of Henry Dunham and
Mary his wife."

Henry Dunham 1800-1878(?)  Located to the right of the stairs.

Mary C Dunham 1805-1880, located right front corner.

Andrew Jackson Dunham and wife Mercie Florence Dunham, located
right side corner.

"Gertie". Located on the right side border.of the plot. Was this a daughter
of Henry and Mary Dunham or of Andrew J. Dunham and his wife?

Sarah M, Dorr and her son Richard Clinton Dorr. Located right side
rear corner. Where is Sarah's husband and what was his name?

Armed with the information from the gravestones I began searching for
information on the family when I got home. First I checked "History
of the town of Abington" and found the following:

"IV. General Henry Dunham, born October 13, 1806; married Mary 

Cushing, born April 2, 1805, daughter of Colonel Brackley Cushing, 

of Abington, April 8, 1826. Their children were—

V. Charles Henry, born October 30, 1827; died June 17, 1832.

V. Brackley Cushing, born September 2, 1829 ; married Elizabeth 

    T. Hunt, November 2, 1859.

V. Sarah Maria, born November 9, 1831; died December 18, 1840.

V. Andrew, born November 25, 1833 ; married Mercy F. Whitcomb, 

     January 20, 1855. Children—

  VI. Sarah Maria, born January 20, 1856 ; 

  VI. Emma Gertrude, born April 23, 1862.

V. Hervey, born October 18, 1835.

V. Mary Cushing, born July 2,1838  died November 23, 1843.

V, Caroline, born January 18, 1841; died September 10, 1841.

V. Emma Annette, born January 1, 1844.

V. Josephine, born June 8, 1846; died September 17, 1846.

V. Susan Ford, born May 20, 1848.

V. Frank, born.May 25, 1850; died September 7, 1850.

V. Annie Poyas, born August 20, 1852; died December 14, 1854."

 ((pp368-369) 

So "Gertie" was Andrew Jackson Dunham's daughter Emma

Gertude and  Sara Dorr was his daughter Sarah Maria. Those 

questions were now answered, but as always with family

research, there were more to come.

To be continued.

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS7

 ((First posted on West in New England 3Dec 2010))

Today was my day off and after a walk in Ames Nowell Park I returned
to Mt Vernon Cemetery to see if I could find more Dunham relatives. I
started looking close to the Cornelius Dunham family plot but instead of
Dunhams I found some Packards and Edsons:

My Packard and Edson ancestors are from my Dunham line so I'll be
checking these names out to see if these folks are my relatives and how
we are related. 

Mt Vernon is a good sized cemetery so I decided to work my way
down towards what I think is the older part of it. This direction
leads toward Island Grove Pond is a bit hilly. While it was a bright
day it was chilly and my fingers were cold, so I decided to walk
to the end of the lane I was on, take some pictures and then return to
my car.

I don't know if you can tell how steep the decline is here from this shot.
Thinking that it might show better if I shot a picture facing back up the
hill, I walked down to the end of the hill, then turned and took a shot of
a monument near a tree:

 

I started walking back up the way I'd come, but now I could see the
family name on the monument: Dunham! I started taking pictures of the
headstones around it. When I came home, I researched the names online.

I'd found the family plot of Cornelius Dunham's older brother, Henry
Dunham.


To be continued....

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS6

 When I Googled for a connection between Cornelius Dunham and Abiel
Silver, one of the hits was a real find. Abiel and Ednah Hastings Silver's
daughter Ednah Silver had written a book on the American
Swedenborgian church, The History of the New Church in America.
There's a sizeable section in it on her father including pictures of all
three members of the family:

There's also one of their home in Jamaica Plain.

One of the stories Ednah told in her book was of how her father Abiel
lost an arm. He'd cut his hand peeling a piece of fruit and an incompetent
doctor's mistreatment of the wound started a blood infection which
eventually caused the arm to be amputated. Now this fact made me
wonder about Abiel Silver's death: he drowned. How did a one-armed
man end up drowning in the Charles River? I found the answe to that
at Googlebooks, contained in this article from Morning Light, The
New-Church Weekly:


"The Rev. Abiel Silver, chiefly known on this side of the Atlantic as
the author of some popular works, met with a painful end by
on March 27. It is supposed that when the train stopped he imagined
it had entered the station at Boston, instead of which it had halted on
Prison Point Bridge In stepping out it is thought he stepped directly
into the water. His struggles were heard, and a railway man extended
a board toward him, but being exhausted and having only one arm,
Mr. Silver could not clutch it sufficiently long to obtain further
assistance. The Boston Weekly Transcript of March 29 contains 
the following account of him:—


'Mr. Silver was a native of New Hampshire, and was nearly if not quite 
eighty-four years of age. He was formerly an Episcopal clergyman, but 
about thirty years ago he was ordained as a preacher of the 
Swedenborgian faith. He lived for some time in Michigan and Northern 
Indiana, where he was known as Judge Silver. Whilethere he met 
with an accident that rendered necessary the amputation of his 
left arm. He came east and for a while preached in Brooklyn, and
afterward in Hull and the Boston Highlands, for the Society of 
which he afterwards became pastor.When he first went to the 
Highlands the Society was worshipping in a hall, but the present
church edifice at the corner of Regent and Cliff  Streets was 
afterwards built, and Mr. Silver was settled as its pastor. 
Since coming east Mr. Silver has supplied pulpits at many places 
throughout New England, and became widely known. He has also 
preached in New York State and in Wilmington, Del. He has written 
many books and pamphlets on religious topics. Among these were 
books entitled "The Holy Word in its Own Defence," "The Symbolical
Character of the Holy Scriptures," and "The Philosophy of the Christian
Religion." In personal character he was a quiet and unostentatious but
industrious worker, and did a great deal of good without display.
 He was remarkably strong and rugged for one of such advanced age, 
and took vigorous exercise daily, nearly always preferring to walk 
rather than ride. He leaves a widow and one unmarried daughter.' "

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS5

 When I was researching the family Cornelius T. Dunham, I ran into a
small mystery. I could find no family tie with three people buried in the
Dunham family plot: Abiel Silver, Ednah Hastings, and Ednah Silver.
So I did a Google search on "Abiel Silver"+Dunham and found
that the connection was not blood but religion.

Abiel Silver was the minister at the Swedenborgian church in Boston
that CT Dunham attended. The two men must have been good friends
for Cornelius to allow Abiel and his family to be buried along side his
own.

Now here's where synchronicity or coincidence or luck, call it what you
will once more comes into play: one of my Dad's maternal great
grandparents was named Amos Hastings Barker but I didn't make   
the connection with Abiel Silver's wife Ednah Hastings right away
because I was so caught up investigating the Dunhams. I mean,
what are the chances that another cousin from a different side of
the family would be buried in the same plot near my parents?

Yes. Ednah Hastings is not only a relative, she's actually even a
closer relative than Cornelius Dunham. Here's a relationship
chart I made with RootsMagic4:

 Ednah Hastings is Dad's 2nd cousin 4x removed through their
descent from John Hastings. To add even more to the irony, they
are also related through the Abbott and Farnum lines, since Ednah's
mother is descended from them as well!

I'm still gobsmacked.

To be continued....

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS4

 ((First posted om my West in New England blog in 2010))

 I like to think I'm a reasonably intelligent person but there are some
things that are just beyond my ken. One of them is legalese. I've
been struggling to make heads or tails out the legal case cousin
Cornelius T. Dunham became embroiled in with an apparently
tenacious woman named Catherine Carson over a rice plantation
in South Carolina. Sometime during the Civil War a man named
Edmund Hyatt had taken out a mortgage on it with two men named
McBurney and Gillespie. Then C.T. was "assigned" the mortgage
and sought to foreclose, but by this time Ms.Carson was in possession
of the property and the lawsuits began to fly.

It appear the legal war was waged through the courts of South Carolina
and Massachusetts with two appearances at the United States Supreme
Court, one of which is described in the following record. I find it ironic
that Catherine Carson's case hinged on her claim that C.T. Dunham was 
a resident of South Carolina, not Massachusetts While he had once lived
and worked in Charleston, by the time this case was argued he and his 
family had long since returned to his native Massachusetts and taken up
residence there as the Federal Censuses show. My best guess is that
it was a delaying tactic on Ms. Carson's part since she'd been fighting
the foreclosure tooth and nail. It's at times like this that I had the legal
expertise of Perry Mason or Craig Manson!

So here are some of the particulars of the appearance of my cousin
before the U.S. Supreme Court. Oh, by the way, he won.

CARSON v. DUNHAM.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 
FOR THE  DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

Submitted March 28,1887. — Decided April 25,1887.

When a case is removed from a state court to a Circuit Court of the
United States on the ground that the controversy is wholly between
citizens of different states, and the adverse party moves in the Circuit
Court to remand the case, denying the averments as to citizenship,
the burden is on the party at whose instance the suit was removed
to establish the citizenship necessary to give jurisdiction to the
Circuit Court.

Opinion of the Court.
A petition filed in a state court, showing on its face sufficient ground
for the removal of the cause to a Circuit Court of the United States,
may be amended in the latter court by adding to it a fuller statement
of the facts, germane to the petition, upon which the statements in
it were grounded.

In order to give jurisdiction to a Circuit Court of the United States
of a cause by removal from a state court, under the removal clauses
of the act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, it is necessary that the construction
ether of the Constitution of the Uuited States, or of some law or
treaty of the United States, should be directly involved in the suit;
but the jurisdiction for review of the judgments of state courts
given by § 709 of the Revised Statutes extends to adverse decisions
upon rights and titles claimed under commissions held or authority
exercised under the United States, as well as to rights claimed
under the Constitution laws or treaties of the United States.

A mortgage made in enemy's territory to a loyal citizen of the United
States does not necessarily imply unlawful intercourse between the
parties, contrary to the non-intercourse proclamation and act.

A petition for the removal of a cause from a state court should set
out the facts on which the right is claimed; not the conclusions of
law only. This was an appeal from an order of a Circuit Court 
remanding a case to the state court from which it had been 
removed. The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Clarence A. Seward and Mi: James Lowndes for appellant. 
Mr. A. G. Magrath and Mr. H. E. Young also filed a brief for
same.

Mr. William E. Earle for appellee.

Mr. Chief Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal under § 5 of the act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, 18
Stat. 470, from an order of the Circuit Court remanding a suit which
had been removed from a state court. The record shows that on the
11th of August, 1886, C. T. Dunham, the appellee, filed a bill in equity
in the Court of Common Pleas of Berkeley County, South Carolina,
against Caroline Carson, to foreclose a mortgage made by William
McBurney and Alfred L. Gillespie to Edmund Hyatt, which had been
assigned to Dunham. Is is alleged that Mrs. Carson is in possession
of the mortgaged property, and that she and the plaintiff are the
only necessary parties to the suit. Service was made on Mrs. Carson
by publication, for the reason, as shown by affidavit, that she did
not reside in South Carolina, but in Rome, Italy. On the 9th of October,
1886, which was the day service on her was completed, she entered
her appearance by counsel, and at the same time filed her petition
for the removal of the suit to the Circuit Court of the United States
for the District of South Carolina, on the following grounds:

" I. That all the matters therein have been already adjudged in her
favor by the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of
South Carolina.

"II. That the complainant is barred of his present action by a
judgment of the said court in her favor on the matter in controversy.

" III. That this court is without jurisdiction because a prior suit on the
 like matter is pending in the aforesaid court of the United States,
which, by its receiver, has possession of the subject matter of
this suit.

" IV. That the bond and mortgage sued on are void under the laws
of the United States.

"V. That the defendant holds title to Dean Hall plantation, the property
involved in this suit and mentioned in the complaint in the above-
entitled suit, under an authority exercised under the United States,
to wit, under a conveyance from the United States marshal for the
district of South Carolina, made under a decree of the United States
Circuit Court, for the said district, all of which will more fully
appear by her answer.

"The controversy in said suit is also wholly between citizens of
different states, viz., between the said C. T. Dunham, who, as your
petitioner is informed and avers, was, at the commencement of said
suit, and now is, a citizen of the state of South Carolina, and your
petitioner, who was, at the commencement of said suit, and now is,
a citizen of the state of Massachusetts; or the controversy in said
suit is wholly between Mary A. Hyatt, who was, at the commencement
of said suit, and now is, a citizen of the state of New York, and who is
the sole and only real party in interest in said suit and in said 
controversy, and your petitioner, who was, at the commencement of 
the said suit, and now is, a citizen of the state of Massachusetts, and 
which controversy is the only controversy in said suit; that the said 
Mary A. Hyatt is the real party plaintiff in said suit, and the said 
C. T. Dunham is but a nominal and colorable plaintiff, and that his 
name has been used merely for the purpose of defeating the 
jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States for the 
District of South Carolina, and that said suit is, in fact, a
controversy wholly between the said Mary A. Hyatt and your 
petitioner, notwithstanding the assignment to the said C. T. 
Dunham in the complaint in said suit mentioned."

On the 11th of November Dunham filed in the Circuit Court an answer
to the petition of Mrs. Carson for removal, in which he denied that he
was a citizen of South Carolina, and averred that he was a citizen of the
same state with her, namely, Massachusetts. The issue made by this
answer was set down for trial in the Circuit Court, accompanied by an
order " that on such trial the burden shall be upon the defendant,
Caroline Carson, to show that the plaintiff, C. T. Dunham, is not a
citizen of Massachusetts."

Upon this trial it was substantially admitted that Dunham was at the
commencement of the suit a citizen of Massachusetts, and thereupon
the suit was remanded. From an order to that effect this appeal was 
taken.

The Circuit Court did not err in holding that the burden of proof was on
Mrs. Carson to show that Dunham was not a citizen of Massachusetts.
As she was the actor in the removal proceeding, it rested on her to
make out the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. Dunham having denied
that he was a citizen of South Carolina, as she had stated in her petition,
and having claimed that he was in fact a citizen of Massachusetts, the
same as herself, the affirmative was on her to prove that his claim was
not true, or, in other words, that he was a citizen of another state
than her own. 


Davis, J. Bancroft, United States Reports Vol 121: Cases Adjudged 
in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1886, Banks and Brothers,
Albany& New York 1887 pp421-430

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS3

 

If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you'll see how close Cornelius 
and his family are buried to my Dad and Mom. Their graves are in 
the Veteran's Plot just beyond my car.

So just what sort of man was my distant cousin Cornelius Thomas
Dunham and what was his life like?

When I started researching him online I had the information from the
Dunham monument and the headstones in the plot:

Edward F Dunham
1851-1937
Annie S.B. Dunham
1852-1932


Marion Dunham Seaborn
1853-1938
John E. P Seaborn
Nov 30, 1835-Dec 23, 1900
Louise Seaborn Humphries
1889-1946


Abiel Silver
April 3, 1797
March 27, 1881
"He is risen"

His wife
Ednah Hastings
May 30th, 1797
Jan 12, 1892

Their daughter,
Ednah Charlotte
April 27, 1888

I had recently downloaded a history of Abington from Google Books
and started off my  search with that. I found Cornelius and his family,
as well as his ancestors, listed on page 370 of Benjamin Hobart's
"History of the town of Abington, Plymouth County, Massachusetts,
from its first settlement".

"IV. Cornelius T. Dunham, born in Abington, April 27, 1820; was 
married on the 7th of July, 1847, to Mrs. Ann B. Jenkins, (formerly 
Poyas,) of  Charleston, S. C. Their children were—

V. Henry Lucius, born September.8, 1848.
V. Edward Francis, born July 24, 1851.
V. Marion Porcher, born April 29, 1853.
V. Mary Emma, born August 7, 1857.
V. Elizabeth Ann, born February 18, 1859.
V. Cornelia Thomas, born April 24, 1862.
Of these, all were born in Charleston, S. C., excepting Mary Emma,
 who first saw the light in Abington; and Cornelia, in Winthrop, Mass."


So now the question was, how did somebody born and raised in the
town of Abington, Ma, end up living in Charleston, S.C.?  The answer
is simple: shoes. Abington is situated in the middle of an area that once
was the shoe manufacturing capital of America, and Cornelius, like
many of his Dunham relatives, made a career out the shoe industry.
I don't know when or how he moved to Charleston but he shows up
in the Charlotte Street directories listed as "CT Dunham, Boots &
Shoes" at about the time of his marriage. His wife Ann Ball Poyas
was a member of a prominent South Carolinian family whose
ancestor had immigrated to America from France in the late 18th
century but I've found no information as to how the marriage was
viewed by her relatives.

The Dunhams were living in Charleston as late as the 1860 Federal
Census but since their youngest child was born back in Massachusetts
in 1862 it is possible they moved north after the outbreak of the Civil
War. By the 1870 Census the family, along with two domestic servants,
was living here in Abington and Cornelius' occupation was listed as
"Boot and Shoe dealer". Business must have been good for Cornelius
because ten years later the Dunhams were lving on Pembroke St in
Boston where Cornelius was a prominent member of the newly
established Swedenborgian Church. He died of apoplexy on 15Aug
1895.

My research into cousin Cornelius T Dunham turned up two major
surprises. The first is that Cornelius was involved in a courtcase
that made it up to the Supreme court of the  United States.

The second surprise involves Abiel Silver, his wife Ednah Hastings
and their daughter.

These will be the subjects of the  posts to follow.

To be continued.....

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS2

 ((First posted on my West in New England genealogy blog, Nov.2010))

When I got home from the laundromat on Thursday night I started
researching Cornelius Thomas Dunham. I found him on quite a few
family trees on Rootsweb, along with records at FamilySearch
Record Search and Ancestry.com. Matters were complicated by
the existence of a Cornelius Livingston Dunham born in Abington
in March 1823 while the birth record for Cornelius Thomas Dunham
listed his birth as April 1820, not the April 1823 date on the
monument at Mt Cedar Cemetery. ((Cornelius L was the son of
another Cornelius Dunham, and the father of yet another Cornelius.
((It's a New England thing: find a good name and keep using it until
it's all used up.)). Best of all I found an image of the Boston Deaths
registry for August 1895 which had the cause of death (apoplexy)
and the names of  Cornelius T.'s parents, Ezra Dunham (born in
Plymouth) and Polly Cary(born in North Bridgewater).

Using that information I was able to work back to our common
ancestors John Dunham and Abigail Barlow/Ballou. My family
is descended from their son Samuel Dunham, while Cornelius
was descended from Joseph Dunham. Cornelius Thomas Dunham
was my Dad's 6th cousin 3x removed through our Dunham line.
 

There's also a connection through Patience Barrows by way of
my Ellingwood line. My 3x great grandfather John Ellingwood
Jr was married to Rachel Barrows, Patience Barrow's grandniece.

Besides establishing the degree of relationship between my Dad
and Cornelius Dunham, my research also turned up some other 
interesting facts on Cornelius T. and his branch of the Dunham 
family, such as his wife and children being born in South Carolina,
I'll explore these in the next post

To be continued...

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS

((Originally posted on my West in New England genealogy blog in 2011))

 

 

 I got off to a late start today so I decided to stay close to
home for my Thursday Road Trip and take a walk at
Mt. Vernon Cemetery here in Abington. My parents are
buried there in the Veterans Plot but I never really paid
much attention to the rest of the cemetery on my previous
visits. Today I took a look around after I visited them.

Both the Veterans' Plot and the nearby G.A.R. Civil
War Veterans Plot had been decorated with flags for
Veterans' Day.  I took some pictures of both, then
a nearby family plot drew my attention. In its center
stood a monument with a headless statue seated on the
top. I took a picture and then walked over to see the
inscription on the side. This is what I saw:

It reads:

"Cornelius T. Dunham
April, 1823-August, 1895
`Blessed are the pure of heart,
For they shall see God"


Ann Ball Dunham
September 1823-February (year is illegible)

Cornelia T. Dunham
April 24, 1862-November 8, 1944" 


I was, as we geneabloggers say, gobsmacked. Recently I've
been wrapped up in adding my Dunham ancestors and
collateral lines to my family tree on Ancestry. Chances were
very good that Cornelius was a distant cousin who I just
hadn't found yet in my research. I took more pictures of the
other sides of the monument and the other markers in the
plot for further reference and went off to do my laundry.

Needless to say, I had a lot to think about while at the
laundromat and once I got home, I started researching
Cornelius and his family. As it turns out, there's more 
than the Dunham connection and I'll be blogging next
about what I found. But above all that, I am struck
once more by what I call the "circle game" of my Dad's
family history.

What are the odds that my Dad who was born and raised
in Maine would end up being buried only a few yards away
from his distant unknown cousin in Massachusetts?