Scrap Day Sunday

Today I'm going to share the funeral bill for my 3rd great grandfather Sameul Braucht.  Samuel died 7 October 1912.  The casket, embalming, flowers and hearse all came to a total of $108. 

Scrap Day Sunday

The $148 Appendectomy

For this week's Scrapday Sunday I'm going to share an article that ran in the local newspaper.  It discusses an itemized bill that my great grandmother, Ruby Collins (Dickerson) Grimes, came across for an appendectomy that my great grandfather had in 1944.  The whole thing cost them $148!  My great grandmother Grimes was a nurse for many years for the Dr. Luter mentioned in the article. 

Merlin and Ruby (Dickerson) Grimes

A Wonderful Surprise

Among some old books I found a miniature Bible printed in1834. In it it faintly has Thomas's name....it is a very old book...and a small obit for little Thomas. Says he was at his grandfather's, Cyprus Meriam, in Springfield township, and that his parents, Wm. And Phebe, were away when he died.
Thought there could be a connection.

The bible that belonged to Thomas C. Vansant.  Thomas died when he was 5 years old.

I received this email from a woman named Lisa today.  I didn't recognize the sender, but I opened it anyway.  Boy am I glad I did!  She tracked me down through a Find A Grave memorial I created for my 3rd great grandfather William Eldon VanSant.   Thomas C. VanSant was William's older brother who died at about the age of 5.  He was staying at the home of his grandfather, Cyrus Merriam (Good Old Cyrus again) when he passed away. It seems his parents William Denison and Phebe (Merriam) VanZandt were away when he passed.  Now it's time to research exactly what happened to Thomas.   It pays to contribute to the genealogical community!

A Follow Up

Courtesy of the PURE Center Zanesville, OH

In a follow up to my post Cyrus Merriam's Secret, I came across this map posted by the PURE Center of Zanesville, OH on the American Experience website.  It shows the stops on the Underground Railroad between Deavertown and Putnam, OH. Cyrus' house was the last stop before Putnam.  I'm hoping to contact the PURE Center in Zanesville, OH this week in hopes of getting some further information on Cyrus and his role in the abolitionist movement.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interactive-map/abolitionists-map/

http://www.purecenter.org/pure/Default.htm

Scrap Day Sunday

Abigail (DeWolf) Ingraham Mourning Dress Fabric.

This weeks scrap is yet another scrap of fabric.  This is a black piece of silk found in the Ingraham/Wardwell bible.  After close inspection, this piece seems to match a swatch found in the collection of the Bates County Museum.   The piece in the museum collection contained this note:

  " This satin in a dress, was trimmed  with crape & worn for mourning for Capt. Jeremiah Ingraham 1807.  Presented By Mrs. Abigail Ingraham, of Bristol, R.I. to her namesake then 14 years of age,Sept. 1818. Presented by Miss Abigail R Ingraham, of Amenia, N.Y.  to her namesake 14 years of age, of Manchester Mich. Sept. 1852."

Note describing the mourning fabric. Courtesy of the Bates County Museum

Judging by the wording of the note, the swatch of fabric came from a dress worn by Abigail (DeWolf/e) Ingraham, the widow of Capt. Jeremiah Ingraham.  Abigail was the daughter of Marc Anthony and Abigail (Potter) DeWolfe and the second wife of Capt. Jeremiah.  His first wife was Rebecca Munro who died in 1789. My descent is through Rebecca and Capt. Jeremiah.  Capt. Jeremiah Ingraham was lost at sea. 

  

Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live

Salem Village 1692 by W.P. Upham

My interest in genealogy started at an early age.  My mother had a group of typed pages that she had copied from some pages that my great great grandmother had kept in a trunk.  Granny gave her exactly 24 hours to have those pages copied and back to her.  This was before copiers and scanners.  When Granny said 24 hours, she meant 24 hours.  Mom spent all night typing up those pages.  So those pages sparked an interest in where I came from.

Several years later, I was a freshman in college and taking a prerequisite history course.  That day's topic was the Salem Witch Trials.  I was half paying attention when the TA started writing names on the chalkboard.  Israel Porter, John Putnam, Thomas Putnam, etc.  Hold on a minute.  One of those ring a bell.  After class was over, I went back to the dorm and called my mother.  I asked her to find Granny's stack of papers and look for the name Putnam.  Sure enough, there it was.  Thomas Putnam.  After some checking of names, dates, children, etc. , it was clear that Thomas Putnam of Salem Village and the Thomas Putnam in Granny's papers were one in the same.  This further stoked my interest in my family history, but I was young, so I just noted it and went on with college life. Then about ten years ago, the genealogy bug came back and bit me in a big way.  I wanted to know everything about every one of my ancestors.  Naturally, an ancestor that was involved in the Salem Witch Trials was a good place to start.  Little did I know how involved my ancestors would be.

The required reading for the course was Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissembaum.  This is where my education began. I'm not going to go into detail on the Putnam family of Salem Village or present day Danvers, MA.  The family is well documented and information is easy to find concerning the family and it's origins.  My descent comes down through two of the children of Thomas Putnam Sr. and Anne Holyoke,  their daughter Ann who married William Trask(e) and their son Edward who married Mary Hale.  The Putnams were a prominent family in Salem Village who were land owners and members of the church as well as involved in village politics.  

Then the madness began.  When it ended, my ancestor Deacon Edward Putnam had participated in thirteen cases and the family had participated in no fewer than 46 cases.  Edward had given testimony against Rebecca (Towne) Nurse, George Burroughs, Martha Corey, Mary (Towne) Easty, and Sarah (Solart) Good, all of which were found guilty and executed.  So my 9th great grandfather had the blood of at least five people on his hands.  Now, that's a skeleton in the family closet!

Edward Putnam v. Martha Corey

That's when the inner conflict began.  When I first learned that my ancestors were involved in the Salem Witch Trial, that pivotal moment in American History, I was excited.   My ancestors made history!  Here I am reading about them in a college history course 300 years later!  Then to learn that they were actually instrumental in the loss of innocent lives, was to say the least, devastating.  I can't help but feel the guilt for the acts that happened over 300 years ago.  I had absolutely nothing to do with this and yet, I feel the guilt.  

Since that first introduction into the Salem Witch Trial, I have read all that I can on the subject hoping to get some insight to what drove my ancestors to believe what they did.  The theories as to the cause of the hysteria are numerous.  Boyer and Nissembaum believe it arose from a power struggle between the two prominent families of Salem Village, the Porters and the Putnams.  (Interestingly, Granny's sister and Putnam descendant, Katie Coretta VanSant married a Porter.)  Recently Katherine Howe, an author and historian,  put forth the theory that the Rev. Samuel Parris was to blame for the trials in Salem: Unmasking the Devil on the National Geographic Channel.  Historian Mary Beth Norton believes it was due to tension with the Native Americans at the time.  Ergot poisioning, meningitis, the list goes on and on.   None of these really told me why Edward and his family did what they did.  The truth is, I will never know nor will anyone else for that matter.  He could have been acting as his conscience dictated.  Maybe he really believed the girls were afflicted.  Then again, maybe it was done out of spite and vengeance towards the Porters and the anti-Parris faction.  Maybe it was a combination of both of these or some completely different reason.  I just find it fascinating that the guilt can be there 300 plus years later.  Perhaps I over think it.  Perhaps it's because I love genealogy and want to really know my ancestors that the guilt is there. I suppose I will just chalk it up to human nature.

http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/ 

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm 

 

  

 

Scrap Day Sunday

Courtesy of the Bates County Museum

Today's scrap is an actual scrap.  It's a large scrap of silk brocade  with a note sewn on it that reads;

 " This Silk was purchased in England in 1744 for a travelling dress."
 Mrs. S. Baldwin
Blue Springs

Mrs. S. Baldwin was Mary (Ingraham) Baldwin who was living in Blue Springs, Gage, NE at the time.  

This scrap of fabric was donated to the Bates County Museum, along with the silk bag that I featured in an earlier post, by my great great grandmother Maud (VanSant) Grimes.  We all just called her "Granny" and still do to this day.  Granny loved to quilt.  When she wasn't helping on the farm or raising her eight children, she was piecing quilts.  So it makes sense that she would have held on to this piece of fabric.  But who was the travelling dress made for?

The note on the fabric was written by Mary (Ingraham) Baldwin so I started there.  It would have either came down through her or her husband, Samuel Baldwin.  I had done extensive research on Mary's line as it is my Mayflower line and the wording of the note struck a bell.  After some digging (ok, a lot of digging) through my notes I came upon some photocopied pages of a book entitled Puritans, Pioneers & Planters An Ingraham-Abbott-Wardwell-Culver-Burbank Genealogy written by Norma Quarles Hare.  In the preface of the book, Mrs. Hare describes her and her mother going through a box of possessions that belonged to her great grandmother, Delia Balis (Ingraham) Blakemore.  In this box they found a scrap of red, silk brocade fabric that matched a square in a crazy quilt that Delia had made and stitched the year 1744 into.    Attached to this fabric was a note in her great grandmother's handwriting that read:

  "This silk was purchased in England for a travelling dress for Mrs. Wardwell, nee Swan".  

Bingo!  What are the chances of two scraps of fabric owned by two Ingraham descendants each of which contains a note with almost identical wording not being from the same dress?  I'm pretty sure I have located the original owner of the dress from whence the fabric came.  Wait for it........ Hannah (Swan) Wardwell daughter of Ebenezer and Margaret (Woodbury) Swan and wife of  Capt. John Wardwell all of Bristol, RI.  Capt. John Wardwell was the son of John and Phebe (Howland) Wardwell.  I do not believe however that the fabric was bought in 1744 as my 4th great grandmother stated in the note.  The year 1744 is actually the date of Hannah's birth.  So I'm thinking that there was a little mix-up along the way and the year 1744 was incorrectly listed as the date of the purchase of the fabric instead of the date of Hannah's births.