John Calvin Gordon & Helen King Gordon

My great grandparents, John Calvin Gordon & Helen King Gordon, were married on June 18, 1882 in Brooklyn, New York.  One of the witnesses to their marriage was Helen’s brother, Thomas F King. 

 

John & Helen had six children during their marriage between 1883 and 1902 including Charles, Walter, Lillian, Jean, Clifford and Helen, and a baby, Dorothy, who died at birth. 

John Calvin Gordon was born in 1861 in Brooklyn, the son of John C Gordon & Mary Elizabeth Snedeker Gordon.  In the 1880 Census, at 19 years of age, he was listed by occupation as a carpenter.  And before he was 30 years old, John was noted as a builder in the 1887 Brooklyn City Directory.

Below is a compilation of newspaper ads placed in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper between 1893-1900 for homes built by John Calvin Gordon.

The only photo that I have of John Calvin Gordon is a snapshot of him and Helen taken circa 1900 at a park or fair, however you really can’t see what he looks like at all.

 

Helen Teresa King Gordon was born circa 1860/1861 and we have conflicting documentation on her birth information.  Helen was the daughter of Thomas Patrick King who died during the Civil War and Margaret Smith King, an Irish immigrant who arrived in New York with her family at 15 years of age.  Early documentation shows her name as Ellen or Ella and later documents show her as Helen.  The 1880 Census even has her as Nellie, and she was working as a “saleslady” at that time.

Helen was the youngest of four children and was just a toddler when her father died in a Civil War battle [see the blog post, Lost Soldier Found in Arlington Cemetery, published on August 19, 2021].  Helen's mother struggled to provide for her young family doing ironing & washing and also cooking, not an easy life I am sure.

 

Helen Teresa King Gordon died in Washington D.C. in 1919 during a visit to the home of her daughter Lillian Gordon Lenehan.  According to the death certificate, she died of influenza and pneumonia at a time near the end of the Spanish flu epidemic. After Helen’s death, the youngest Gordon child, Helen Marie who was 17 years old, went to live with her older sister, Jean and her husband, Harry.

John Calvin Gordon later married a widow named Elizabeth Dorothy Berry McAuliffe. John died in 1945 at 84 years. 

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Key Individuals:

     John Calvin Gordon  (1860 – 1945)

     Helen Teresa King Gordon  (1861 – 1919)

- Jane Scribner McCrary

Honora Rouen Hart

One of my 2^nd great grandmothers, Honora Rouen, is someone on our family tree for which there is a lot of family lore and speculation, but I have not found any documentation to be able to verify anything prior to her marriage to Samuel Hart sometime around 1858.  She definitely is one of my brick walls.

Let’s start with her name.  Unfortunately I have found a multitude of different ways in documents that either link to her or could possibly link to her such as Honor, Honore’, Honora, Hannora, Hannah and of course, Mrs Hart.  And her maiden name is just as problematic as I have found many possible versions to include Rouén, Rouen, Rowan, Rowen, Rougen and Roughan.  Her name is noted on her son Frank’s death certificate as Hannah Roughan.  However, her daughter, Mary Ann’s death certificate records her as Honora Rouen.  For the purposes of simplification, I have chosen to refer to her as Honora Rouen. 

Census information over the years indicates that Honora was born between 1825 and 1830.  And we don’t know exactly when she died.  Not for lack of trying, I haven’t found her death certificate to help with her story.

We do know that Honora emigrated from Ireland to either the U.S. or Canada in the mid-1800’s probably as a young woman.  I have not been able to link an immigration record for her, though I have found a few possibilities in the years of 1848, 1851 & 1854.  One family story is that she arrived as a “lady in waiting for a well-to-do Irish family.”  That she arrived as a servant or nanny for a wealthy family has merit because Honora was known to be educated, well read, and fluent in French as well as English.

While we don’t have a photo or image for Samuel Hart, I do have a cased tintype image of Honora wearing a spoon bonnet and a large shawl.  This image is believed to date to the 1860’s. and had belonged to her daughter, Mary Ann.

There is no information available on any of Honora’s family members.  That probably supports the belief that she likely did not emigrate with her parents.  I have, however, speculated that she could have had a brother named Patrick simply because a Patrick Roughan lived nearby in the 1855 NY Census, next door in the 1865 NY Census, and a Patrick Roughen is listed as a boarder with the Hart family in the 1875 NY Census.

While we don’t know what part of Ireland Honora hailed from, it is said that her mother was Irish and her father was French.  This seems reasonable as we know that she was bilingual.  Also, her husband, Samuel Hart, was originally from Canada and he primarily spoke French; and Honora remained fluent in French all of her life.  Lacking specific marriage information for the couple, we don’t know if they met in Canada, or upper New York where they lived and raised their family.  It also seems probable that having French language in common might have been how they first met.

Honora and Samuel Hart had two children both born in Saratoga County, New York.  Francis (Frank) Hart was born in 1861 and Mary Ann Hart, my great grandmother, was born in 1862.

A news story in the Mechanicville Mercury newspaper on June 17, 1899 notes that in Stillwater, New York “Mrs. Hart, the aged wife of Samuel Hart, whose home across the river was recently destroyed by fire, owing to excitement, is seriously ill at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. Frank Hart” [see the blog post dated July 18, 2020, “Lost Line from Canada”].

I haven’t been able to find a date or place of death for Honora Rouen Hart, however it appears to have been after mid-1899 when the news story noted above was published.  Family notes indicate that she died in August of 1900 in New York – possibly Troy where her son Frank and his family lived.  Unfortunately, multiple New York death certificate searches have not turned up a death record for her.  And I also haven’t been able to a find cemetery location or gravesite information for either her or Samuel.

A possible 1902 death certificate for a Samuel Hart indicates that he died in Troy but was buried in Schaghticoke, Rensselaer, NY.  Census data shows that Schaghticoke is where Honora & Samuel lived between 1865 and 1880.  If that is indeed our Samuel Hart, it indicates he was married  – i.e. Honora was still alive in 1902.  And we might speculate that Honora might also be buried in Schaghticoke with Samuel.  However, I have not found a burial site for either of them there.  I wish I lived in that area and could really bear down and apply some time to that possibility.

And one last tidbit about Honora:

“About Grandma [Mary Ann Hart] … I know her Mother was a Rouen and her father a Hart, who was a French Canadian.  Sounds like he was at least partly of Irish extraction with the name Hart.  A lot of the Irish came to Quebec.  Grandma’s Mother Rouen was also half Irish.  Her father left France – about the time Napoleon was recruiting, I figure, and went to Ireland.  Believe he married there.  Whether he and his wife emigrated to this country or whether it was first the daughter, I do not know.”

 – Source:  Maurice Eugene Nash [great grandson of Samuel Hart & Honora Rouen Hart] family letter; 1963.

Note:  Maurice Eugene Nash (above) indicates in his letter that he thinks that Honora Rouen’s mother was Irish and her father was French.  The only other source for the birthplace of Honora’s parents is the 1880 census that indicated that both of her parents were born in Ireland…

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Key Individuals:

Samuel J Hart  (abt 1830 – 1902?)

Honora Rouen  (abt 1830 – unknown)

       Francis/Frank Hart  (1861 – 1916)

       Mary Ann Hart Nash Watson  (1862 – 1926)     

Notes:

My mother remembered Mary Ann Hart, her grandmother, also as a great reader with a fondness for books and says that Mary Ann was raised in a home with a love of books.  One of Mary Ann’s books is titled Scott’s Poems, the Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott.  The book is inscribed in the front cover “Mary from Mame, Dec.25.98” though the cover page indicates that it was published in 1899 in New York.  Mame was Mary Nash, a sister of Mary Ann’s husband, Maurice Nash.  Another of Mary Ann’s books was The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

For more about Mary Ann Hart, the daughter of Honora & Samuel, and my great grandmother, see the blog post about my grandmother, My Granny – Nina Cecelia Nash Hughes, posted on 28 June 2021.  Nina's mother, Mary Ann Hart divorced her unfaithful first husband, Maurice Nash around 1900, and then married Joseph Edward Watson – an uncommon event at that time for a Catholic family!          

- Jane Scribner McCrary