A Brooklyn Brownstone

In the 1890’s, my great grandparents, Captain David Alba Scribner and his wife Virginia Augusta Hale Scribner, purchased a home in Brooklyn, New York.  Their 4-floor brownstone home was located at 230 Garfield Place in the Park Slope neighborhood near Prospect Park in Brooklyn. 

The Brooklyn brownstone was the Scribner family home from the mid-1890’s until 1960.  After the 1911 death of Captain Scribner, his wife, Virginia, and two daughters remained in the home until their deaths.  David & Virginia’s son, Harry, had moved out of the brownstone in 1912 when he married.  Neither of their daughters ever married, however, and they remained in the home until their deaths.  Ella was a school teacher and she died in 1935 at 50 years of age.  Mrs Scribner died next in 1940 when she was 91 years old.  And the last daughter, Mary Islethera Scribner, remained in the brownstone until her death in 1959 at 76 years of age. 

 

 My father remembers the Brooklyn brownstone home of his grandparents – saying that “it was a fun house to visit because it had a dumbwaiter going from the kitchen up to the bedrooms that we used to ride, and then jump up on my grandmother’s feather down mattress bed that was huge.” That bed was so tall that there were steps on the side for use to get up onto the bed.  I now have the antique quilt that was on that bed, and it covers an entire king-sized bed and drapes nicely on all sides.

The Scribner family quilt used in the home at 230 Garfield Place

By the time that Mary died, she had been living on the lower floors of the brownstone – having not needed to use of the top floor for many years.  The home was like a time capsule with all of the furnishings and personal belongings dating back many decades to the married life of Capt. David A Scribner and his wife, Virginia. 

 

Front Hall

 Parlor

              

 Dining Room

Bedrooms

 

Kitchen

 

To settle Mary’s estate after her death, my father and his two sisters met at the Brooklyn brownstone and spent days sifting through multiple generations of their family history.  With several unused rooms, Virginia, Ella and Mary always had plenty of space in their home and consequently never got rid of much.  However, the home was very much outdated and in disrepair, also it was directed in Mary’s will for it to be sold by her estate.

The fact that my Dad and his sisters spent time going through the family possessions in the former home of their grandparents and spinster aunts is the primary reason that we have so many Scribner family papers and photos today.  In addition to furnishings, dinnerware and personal items, there were paintings of ships, items from Captain Scribner’s years of traveling the world, portraits of Capt Scribner’s father & stepmother, and even a painted portrait of Mrs. Scribner’s grandfather.  The three Scribner siblings sorted through family items including photos, letters, ships’ logs, and books – and each sibling took some of what was set aside to keep.

Today, 230 Garfield Place is on the tax records belonging to a single owner but declared as a 3-family home, thus it provides rental income for the owner.  The total appraised tax value of the brownstone is recorded at $4.5 million today.  Current tax rolls show that the home has 3 floors plus a full basement and totals over 4,000 sq. ft. 

 

The 1960 sales Offering Sheet when the home was listed for sale shows that it contained 12 ½ rooms with a bathroom only on the 2^nd floor, plus an additional toilet in the basement where the kitchen, dining room and laundry were located.  Parlor rooms were on the 1^st floor, and bedrooms on the top two floors. 

When the home was sold by Mary Scribner’s estate in 1960, it was in extreme disrepair.  It was appraised for the estate in 1960 at $18,500, but was sold for only $12,000 as the condition was so poor. I was told that the roof was leaking, and it was believed that no updates had ever been done on the home.

One interesting item is that the tax rolls show that the brownstone was built in 1901.  However, the 1900 Census shows the family already living at that address.  According to that census, the family owned the home with no mortgage. 

Actually, the Scribner’s appear to have purchased 230 Garfield Place in 1894.  I have an envelope & note from the USPO addressed to Mrs V A Scribner at 230 Garfield Place that is dated May 1894.  Inside was a receipt of some sort that records a legal address noted as “Old Nomenclature” (possibly where the Scribner’s lived prior to moving to 230 Garflield Place) and then a notation of a legal address noted as “New [Nomenclature]”.  That new legal address is the same as today’s legal address for 230 Garfield Place, Block 1074, Lot 14, in the Borough of Brooklyn.  The note also seems to place an 1894 assessed value on the home of $9,300, also the information on the bottom half of the note might be a value comparison to other similar homes on the block or nearby.

I believe that David and Virginia Scribner were very likely the first owners of 230 Garfield Place.

*  *  *  *  *

 

Key Individuals:         

     Capt David Alba Scribner  (1840 – 1911)

     Virginia Augusta Hale Scribner  (1848 – 1940)

               Henry (Harry) Dickinson Scribner  (1880 – 1943)

               Mary Islethera Scribner  (1882 – 1959)

               Ella Virginia Scribner  (1885 – 1935)

 

Notes:

Several years ago when my daughter was working in New York City, during one of my visits, we went to find 230 Garfield Place.  Of course, we only got to see the outside, but it looks lovely today – on a tree lined street and near parks and shopping.  I took a photo of my daughter standing on the front steps.  I wish we could have just knocked on the door and been invited in to meet my great grandparents!

- Jane Scribner McCrary

Searching Gordon with DNA

One of the most difficult lines to trace in our family history has been the Gordon line and the parents of John C Gordon who was born about 1830 in New Jersey, and died in 1886 in Brooklyn, New York.  John was the subject of my last blog post where I shared pretty much everything that we know about him – and the fact that we know nothing about his parents or early family.  

John first shows up in the 1855 Census, married to Mary Elizabeth Snedeker Gordon and with their first child.  He was a machinist, they lived in Brooklyn, and the census records show that he was born in New Jersey.  There is no mention of John’s siblings or parents in any of the family notes or research documentation that has so far been found.

The Gordon families in New Jersey seem to descend from two early immigrants who settled in the Monmouth, New Jersey area from Scotland in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s.  Most appear to descend from either Charles Gordon (1669 – 1740) or Peter Gordon (1687 – 1725).  It is suspected, but not proven, that Charles and Peter could have even been brothers or were related in some way.  And interestingly enough, our verbal family history claims that we are related to “a Peter Gordon” and that the family roots go back to Scotland.  The Charles Gordon (1669 – 1740) noted above also had a son (his eldest son) that was named Peter, so that could also confuse things for us when looking for an early Peter Gordon.

My cousin, Lynn, and I have for many years researched various Gordon family lines in New Jersey searching birth records and church records for a possible family connection to our John C Gordon.  We did find one John Gordon born in Monmouth, New Jersey in 1829 and the son of William C Gordon & Catharine Quackenbush, however he died in 1906  –  thus, he wasn’t our John [see the Notes at the end of the last blog post, Lived In Brooklyn but from New Jersey, for documentation].

Autosomal DNA

In recent years, we hoped that maybe DNA tests would open up some new Gordon possibilities to research and we both completed the Ancestry DNA test.  When looking at ThruLines, a DNA match feature on Ancestry, I find that there are 10 of my matches that show up as probable Gordon links.  Of those ThruLine matches, all but 1 are distant cousins that I know descend from my John C Gordon – so a DNA match to them is to be expected and doesn’t provide any new information.

Keep in mind that the ThruLines feature at Ancestry looks at the family trees that have been input by the match owners, thus the results that project the ThruLines common ancestors are totally dependent on the accuracy of the research that was used to build the family trees associated with the match owner.

The problem is that several of the Ancestry trees belonging to my known cousins that are fellow descendants of my John C Gordon incorrectly show William Crawford Gordon & Catharine Quackenbush as the parents of our John C Gordon.  Consequently, the ThruLines program erroneously projects that we all connect through William Crawford & Catharine directly to earlier generations of Gordons and Quackenbushes – a flawed assumption.  Thus the majority of the early ancestors shown in Ancestry’s ThruLines cannot be proven as our direct ancestors.

However, there is 1 of my identified Gordon DNA ThruLine matches that is not a descendant of our John C Gordon.  The link shown in the family tree for this ThruLine match is a Quackenbush link through an uncle of Catharine Quackenbush.  This is relevant because it could indicate that there “might” be a Quackenbush-Gordon connection for us that is earlier than William Crawford Gordon & Catharine Quackenbush.  Thus our John C Gordon “possibly” could have been related to either William or Catharine as a remote cousin, though not as their son.

In early times the communities were small and local families often intermarried.  It is possible that there is a common Quackenbush ancestor, a Gordon ancestor or even both that we share with this DNA match and is yet to be identified.

The bottom line is that with the autosomal DNA test through Ancestry we got little or no real information on the lineage of our John C Gordon that could help us break down our brick wall, and lots of questionable ThruLine suggestions.

Y-DNA

More recently, my cousin Lynn decided that a Y-DNA test might be more helpful to our Gordon search.  An autosomal DNA test looks at connections among all of the DNA segments, both paternal and maternal.  However, Y-DNA is inherited only in the male line, thus we were hoping to find a Gordon line that might be easier to identify if a Gordon male from among our Gordon cousins took the Y-DNA test.  There is even a Gordon DNA Project with over 1,000 participants who have taken the Y-DNA test and compared results to assist with making Gordon connections worldwide.

Lynn identified a direct-line male Gordon descendant cousin in our extended family who agreed to take the Y-DNA test, and he generously agreed to share his results with us, as well as to add them to the Gordon DNA project database.  We were so excited at the prospect of finally getting somewhere and possibly breaking down our Gordon brick wall!

Sometimes when you do research hoping to find answers, you end up with surprises and even more questions.  That is certainly what happened with our Gordon Y-DNA effort.  We ended up with about 25 Y-DNA matches, though less than half of those, or about 10, were strong enough matches to be considered relevant.

Now you would expect that the Y-DNA matches would mostly be with individuals with a Gordon surname because Y-DNA only transfers from father to sons (i.e. Gordon to Gordon to Gordon, etc) along the male line, and thus you would expect to find matches with mostly Gordon surnames.  But among the 10 strongest matches in our Gordon Y-DNA test there were only 2 Gordons – and there were 7 matches with the last name of Middleton!

A change of a surname is always a possibility in any generation.  Such exceptions are defined as “non-paternal events” and would be the likely result of an adoption, intentional name change, or the result of a liaison between a Gordon and a Middleton resulting in the child being raised with the mother’s surname.

First of all, our 2 Gordon Y-DNA matches link with the Gordons from New Jersey and confirm that we fit in with that group.  However, once again we didn’t find any Gordon lines that we could tie directly to our John C Gordon.

Several of our Middleton Y-DNA matches have worked extensively on their genealogy and documented their family trees back to the 1600’s in Scotland, likely the Aberdeenshire area, where there were both Gordons and Middletons.  However, there is no historical evidence that will document that there was a male Gordon fathered by a Middleton, or documentation that a Middleton changed his name to Gordon.  A result of the Gordon Y-DNA Project is that there is an academic consensus that our Gordon line definitely connects back to a Middleton line, probably in Scotland. 

There is some speculation that possibly Charles, the youngest son of Alexander Middleton (1610 – 1686) of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, could be the same person as Charles Gordon (1669 – 1740), who immigrated to New Jersey.  The wife of Alexander Middleton was a Gordon, and that would assume that Charles changed his surname to Gordon, his mother's maiden name, prior to his arrival in America.

This comprehensive Gordon family website https://history.wdgordon.com/gedcom/p16.htm#i480 claims that Charles Gordon (b.1664) was the son of Alexander Middleton, however no documents have been found to verify that claim.  Others believe that the event resulting in the name change could have been generations earlier.

The Gordon-Middleton link is proven by the Y-DNA results.  And, it looks like the “non-paternal event” was very likely prior to the arrivals of Peter Gordon and Charles Gordon in New Jersey in the late 1600’s.  Of course, we will probably never have answers about the “Middleton to Gordon event” – but it stands as one of the most intriguing mysteries on our family tree.

I feel that our Gordon Y-DNA results once again prove that our Gordon line connects with the New Jersey Gordon’s.  And that our earlier ancestors were indeed from Scotland, and that we likely descend from either Charles Gordon (1669 – 1740) or Peter Gordon (1687 – 1725) both of whom immigrated to the Monmouth area of New Jersey sometime around the late 1600’s. 

We are still searching for the direct line of descent for our John C Gordon.

*  *  *  *  * 

Key Individuals:

        John C Gordon  (~1830 – 1886)

        Mary Elizabeth Snedeker Gordon  (1832 – 1912)

- Jane Scribner McCrary

Lived in Brooklyn, but from New Jersey

John C Gordon, my 2^nd great grandfather, was born in New Jersey around 1830.  We know that he was born in New Jersey because most of the censuses that he shows up in record New Jersey as his birthplace; also family verbal history notes that he was born in New Jersey. 

The earliest record that I have for John C Gordon is the 1855 New York Census which shows him living in Brooklyn.  By that time John was married to Mary Elizabeth Snedeker Gordon with a child, Ellen, who is eight months old.  John is noted in the census as a “market man” and I believe that indicates that he was employed in retail business.  By 1860, the couple had another daughter, and the census shows John’s occupation to be a machinist.  Subsequent censuses, and also city directories for the next 25 years, show John’s occupation as a machinist or engine builder.

In 1863, John C Gordon is in included in the Civil War Draft Register as a machinist, born in New Jersey, married and living in Brooklyn at 148 Park Avenue. Given that John was in his early 30’s at this time, it’s reasonable to wonder if he might have enlisted or been drafted to fight in the Civil War.  But we found no records that indicate that John was ever in the military.  The 1863 address for the family is very near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, making it reasonable to assume that maybe John’s machinist skills were needed at the Brooklyn Naval Yard for the Union effort.

The Gordon family grew to five children including Ella, Theresa, John Calvin, Catharine known as Katie, and Harry – all of whom lived to adulthood.  Over the next 20 years the Gordon family lived at a couple of different Brooklyn addresses, though they were all still relatively close to the same area.  Later, and not long before John’s death in 1886, John & Mary Elizabeth moved a bit further away to 23 Moffat Street, a home that they owned, also in Brooklyn.  

John’s death certificate shows him to have been a carpenter, not a machinist.  However, I suspect that in his later years, John probably did carpentry, construction or odd jobs for his son, John Calvin Gordon, who was a Brooklyn builder.  Mary Elizabeth outlived John by another 25 years.

Information in John’s obituary mentioned that he had belonged to a masonic organization.  I checked with the New York Masonic Library, and verified that he joined the Joppa No. 201 Lodge as a machinist in 1858, and was a lifetime member, likely a Master Mason.

John C Gordon, who was born about 1830 and died in 1886, is one of my most frustrating genealogy brick walls in that I have never been able to determine who his parents were or even if he had any siblings.

*  *  *  *  *

 

Key individuals:

     John C Gordon  (~1830 – 1886)

     Mary Elizabeth Snedeker Gordon  (1832 – 1912)

              Ella F Gordon  (1854 – 1895)

              Theresa J Gordon  (1858 – 1884)

              John Calvin Gordon  (1860 – 1945)

              Catharine/Katie L Gordon  (1863 – aft. 1942)

              Harry Gordon  (1873 – 1914)

 

Notes:

1)  You may have noticed that the eldest son of John C Gordon and Mary Elizabeth is John Calvin Gordon.  That makes one think that possibly John Calvin Gordon is a Jr and maybe Calvin is also the father’s middle name.  But unfortunately, we have only seen the initial C, and never Calvin, associated with the father’s name on documents.  And also along those lines, we have never seen John Calvin Gordon referred to as a Jr on any documents.

2)  Verbal family history about our Gordon ancestors are that we are related to “a Peter Gordon” and that the family roots “go back to Scotland”.

3)  There are problems with some online family trees that show the parents of our John C Gordon as William Crawford Gordon & Catharine Quackenbush of Monmouth County, New Jersey.  That assertion comes from finding an 1850 Census showing John Gordon at 18 years with parents of William C & Catharine Gordon in Monmouth County.  The assumption is then made that he is the same as our John C Gordon found 5 years later in Brooklyn at 23 years in the 1855 Census – but he isn’t.  The John Gordon found in the 1850 census with his parents, William C & Catharine Gordon, actually died in 1906 https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5164/images/41381_2421406274_0781-02510?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.86089116.563974912.1636489847-1507448262.1587330499&pId=2220671  and he is buried in the Old Tennant Churchyard in Monmouth where is parents are also buried.  He could not possibly have been our John C Gordon.

I suspect that we might be related to this line of the Gordon family – just not directly through William Crawford Gordon & Catharine Quackenbush.

4)  My cousin, Lynn, and I have worked together on our common genealogy for many years, mostly via email as we don’t live near each other.  Our John C Gordon has always been a major mystery for us and after many years, and countless hours of research, we are still unable to find any information on his birth family in New Jersey. More recently, we attempted to find some answers to our questions using DNA.  I’ll share that journey with you in my next blog post.

 – Jane Scribner McCrary

Struck by Lightning

Thomas Linton Roberts & Elizabeth Morrisette Roberts of Camden, North Carolina were my 2^nd great grandparents on my maternal side.  Thomas was a farmer and they married in 1855.  The couple had 9 children, their daughter, Jane, was my great grandmother, and I was named after her. 

Thomas was only 50 years old when he died in a sad and unusual incident.  The family was having a picnic meal under a large oak tree in their yard one summer afternoon and Thomas was struck by lightning and killed. It is said that it had thundered only one time and the lightning struck a pine tree and then jumped and came over to the oak tree that the family was under.  Thomas had just said the blessing and had taken up his knife and fork when he was struck.  He died along with the family dog that was at his feet.  Everyone else was knocked away from the table.

Some details about Thomas and Elizabeth’s life are known from handwritten notes written by their granddaughter, Ida Ophelia Roberts Robertson.  And a distant Morrisette cousin has taken those shared facts, and written the story of Elizabeth and Thomas’ life in the form of an open letter from Elizabeth to her family, and uploaded it online at Ancestry.  This is longer than my usual blog post, but I think you will enjoy reading about Elizabeth and Tom in the following narrative:

Were It Not For Stories Passed Down

By Stephen M. Morrisette

5 Jun 2011

 

The heart of this story, the very core facts, were recorded by Ida Roberts Robertson.  She was the daughter of James Monroe Roberts, the youngest child mentioned in this story.  The handwritten notes eventually fell into the hands of Monica who is the great grandchild of Jestine, also mentioned in this story.  Thanks to Monica for transcribing the original handwritten letter into readable bullet statements and posting them on Ancestry.

 

I took Monica’s bullet statements and converted the story into a narrative format.  This required me to suppose certain facts.  For instance I state that at the time of the incident Elizabeth had to leave Tom lying in the rain.  That fact was not passed down to us but we were told Tom was a large man and we were told Elizabeth was a slight woman.  It was also supposed that it was raining.

 

[I wrote this story because I am a Morrisette, not a Roberts.  Elizabeth is very distantly related to me, so it is my family history too.]

 

 

Dear Cousins,

 

My name was…. well let’s see…. for the last 15 years of my life I was known as the Widow Roberts.  For 26 years before that I was known as Mrs. T.L. Roberts and before that I was just plain Elizabeth Morrisette.  I suppose some of my family called me Lizzie or Beth or even Bettie but why don’t you just call me Elizabeth?

 

I was born in Camden County, North Carolina about 1834; nobody seems to remember exactly when.  I was always a small girl.  I had black hair and black eyes like the Indians but my skin was fair, like regular folks.  When I was young they used to tease me that they were going to give me back to the Indians.  That threat always scared me even though nobody was serious and there wasn’t any Indians left to give me back to.  I used to have nightmares about it.  I had lots of nightmares when I was little.

 

My father was Phillip Morrisette.  I had no memory of him because he died when I was quite small.  He died some time after my baby sister Harriet was born, in 1837.  My mama, died when I was little bit older.  I had some memories of her, but not many.

 

I was put up with any number of relatives until my half-brother William Jones Morrisette took me in, permanent.  He was 16 years my elder and by the time I moved in he was married to Julia Burfoot.  William and Julia had a big home in Camden.  They were some of the sophisticates in the county.  This was the closest thing I had to a real home, when I was young.  I was raised right along with my cousins; Henry Clay, Mary and the babies Willy and Cornelia. 

 

My father’s estate was pretty big and each of his children was to receive a large amount of land, but I never received my share.  But William received his.  He was well educated and had plenty of money.  He was always into politics of one sort or another.  William eventually became a Representative of the North Carolina Government.  I was given a proper primary education.  I was taught to walk erect and sit straight, never letting my back touch the chair.  I had become something of a lady and William and Julia saw something in me that I never caught site of.

 

When I was of courting age I was attracted to a big man with Sandy hair and blue eyes.  His name was Thomas Linton Roberts.  He was a local farmer.  But William and Julia kept introducing me to some of the more gentile men in the county.  Most of them were nice enough but none of them held a candle to that big farmer Tom.  William would not have it and I had to wait until I was at the age of majority to finally stand my ground and announce that I was going to marry Thomas.

 

Still, my brother objected and refused to allow the wedding to take place in his home.  But my half-sister Chloe and her husband Jeremiah offered their home for the purpose.  I guess you could say it was my home too because it was the home of my father and mother.  Some folks said Jeremiah and Chloe got my share of my Father’s estate. 

 

In any event, on Thursday, the 22^nd of February, 1855, Justice of the Peace Thomas Palmer performed Tom and my nuptials, in the parlor of the home I was born in.  We didn’t use a church or preacher because Tom was not much of a church going man.

 

It seems like everyone wants to start their stories by stating they had the worst winter ever recorded.  Well, I don’t know about that but within days of our marriage Camden was hit by a terrible storm.  The snow was as high as a four-rail fence and a lot of folks lost a lot of livestock that February.

 

But Tom and I had moved into a home in Camden in a part of town they called Dog Corner.  Tom’s aged mother moved in with us.  She stayed with us until she died, 17 years later.  We had two children before the war.  Nancy was born in 1855 and Mary came along in 1858.

 

Oh, that damned old war.  There was conflict between the North and the South as long as I could remember.  We just each did things different ways.  Nothing much seemed to happen but talk; always the talk.  My brother, William was always talking up the Confederacy in his high faluting meetings.  But it all came to a head when Mr. Lincoln was elected President.  The Confederacy was created and war was declared.

 

Damn you, Mr. Lincoln.  So many boys went off to war and never came back.  So many boys went off to war and came back missing arms and legs or worse.  I was so afraid Tom would get called up.  There were always recruiters coming through the county. 

 

In 1862, our little Jane came along.  We named her after Tom’s older sister.

 

There seemed to be no end to the war and it was going badly.  We didn’t have a lot of battles in North Carolina but we gave more boys to the war than any other state.  It was time for me to realize the war was going to take Tom too.  In preparation for his departure he bought a little farm just outside of Riddle on the south side of Sanderlin Swamp.  We grew cotton for a cash crop.  We had a vegetable garden and a nice orchard.

 

We had a large house made of juniper logs.  It was 30 feet by 15 feet.  It was a one story affair with a loft.  The house even had a ceiling.  It had a separate kitchen.  The outbuildings included a barn, a stable, a cow shelter, a hen house and a crib.

 

Our fourth child, another daughter, came in the spring of 1863.  I named this little girl after myself; Elizabeth Morrisette Roberts.

 

I was a member of the Shiloh Baptist Church but I could not get Tom to attend.  He was a good Christian man but he had differences with the people of the church and the pastor, Charlie Williams.  He did however get along famously with Pastor Williams’ father, Sim.  In fact, when Sim went off to war, Tom loaned him his muzzle loading shot gun and asked Sim to bring himself and the gun back in one piece.  Sim obliged him.  Sim and the gun returned and were both a little worse for wear and the gun had the name S.W. Williams carved on the stock.

 

In April of 1865, Richmond fell and we burned the city ourselves.  Can you imagine we burned our own capital!  Tom was finally called up and he answered the call.  We got the crops into the ground.  It was so hard watching Tom work the fields not knowing how I would harvest the crops, in the fall.  I experienced the terror that so many women had faced before me. 

 

The day finally came.  My heart was in my throat.  The kids that were old enough cried and begged their father not to go.  But Tom was called and he marched off to Elizabeth City to then be taken to Roanoke Island by boat.  I had no idea if I would ever see him again.

 

Perhaps all of that praying I had done at church paid off.  Shortly after Tom left us, a neighbor woke me in the night by pounding on the door.  He said General Lee had surrendered to General Grant and the war was lost.  I held my breath for his next sentence.  He said he had seen Tom in Elizabeth City and that Tom would be home later that very night.

 

Tom came back home without firing a shot.  His only injury was the loss of his rifle which he had to surrender to the Union Army.  This was most grievous to him especially considering he had never fired it at a Union soldier.  We celebrated as only a husband and wife could.

 

Our cash crop came in that fall and another season of life unfolded on our little farm.  The following year little Martha was born.  She was also named after Tom’s sister, Martha Jane.  Then, three more seasons before our little Jestine came into our lives.  She was named after another of Tom’s sisters.

 

Then in 1872, after giving birth to six daughters, as a tool in God’s hands, I finally gave Tom a son.  He was named Thomas, after his father.

 

Next came a season of tears.  God took back Mary and Martha.  They were just 17 and 9 years of age.  Our grief was lightened with the birth of our second son, George.  Then in 1876, we lost our oldest child Nancy.  She was in her prime and just 21 years old.  None of the girls we lost were able to fulfill the full measure of their creation.  Tom, not being a church going man, had an especially hard time with the loss of three of his girls.

 

But I took Tom back to our marriage bed and despite my age God blessed us with one more child.  In 1878, James Monroe Roberts arrived in our home making for three sons to carry on the family name.  Tom was pleased and for the first time in a number of years, at peace.

 

Then, three years later, my life was forever changed.  The date was 8 July, 1881, about 4:00 in the afternoon.  All of the family that was still at home had gathered at the watermelon table, under the big Oak, in our gate yard.  My daughter Elizabeth was married and at her own home.  My darling Jane was visiting Elizabeth.  

 

I had set dinner out and Tom had just finished saying grace.  I saw a lightning bolt strike a pine tree in the swamp but I did not see that the bolt had split and also struck the Oak we were sitting under.  I was knocked unconscious.  When I woke up, I could see that we had all been knocked away from the table.  Tom and Jestine were lying, motionless, on the ground.  The three boys were not seriously hurt but were terrified.  I crawled over to Tom and saw that he was dead.  I then crawled over to Jestine.  She was alive but I could not wake her.

 

I gathered the boys around me.  Tom was 9 years old, George was 6 and Jim was just 3.  I sent Tom to get help.  I somehow got the little boys into the house and managed to carry Jestine to her bed.  We had to leave Tom lying out in the rain.  Before long, Ambroze Dozier and Neil Riggs showed up and tended to Tom’s body.

 

We nursed Jestine all that night and she finally came around the next day.  Another neighbor, Dorsey Knight from over to Indiantown built Tom’s coffin.  It had to be a big coffin for a big man.  We buried him in the Camden cemetery.

 

There was nothing to do but carry on.  Jestine and I recovered from our injuries and we all slowly got used to life without Tom.  The brothers from the church helped bring in the crops that Tom had planted. 

 

It was hard but we got by.  I stayed there on that farm for another 8 years mostly raising my surviving children.  The Oak tree that changed our lives still bore the scar the day we drove off of the farm.

 

We moved to the Luke Lamb place about one mile outside of Shiloh. We stayed there for four years.  During that time, Little Tom married one of the Sanderlin girls.  In 1893, we moved again.  We rented the Will Shaw place, over in Shawboro in Currituck County.  The following year, we moved to the Margaret Baxter place, renting it from Joe Bell.

 

I stayed there until pneumonia took me in 1896.  Mr. Charles Lewis Perkins took me back to Camden and buried me next to Tom.

*  *  *  *  *

Key Individuals:

     Thomas Linton Roberts  (1830 – 1881)

     Elizabeth Morrisette Roberts  (1834 – 1896)

             Nancy Roberts  (1855 – 1876)

             Polly Roberts  (1858 – 1875)

             Jane Roberts   (1861 – 1933)

             Elizabeth Morrisette Roberts  (1863-1941)

             Martha P Roberts  (1866 – 1875)

             Jestine Morrisette Roberts  (1869 – 1940)

             Thomas Marcellus Roberts  (1872 – 1945)

             George Lewis Roberts  (1875 – 1950)

             James Monroe Roberts  (1878 – 1962)

- Jane Scribner McCrary

John Howland overboard on the Mayflower

In October 2020, my blog post was about our family Mayflower connection and my research that connects our family back to the Mayflower voyage along with possible provenance gaps in the documentation. 

It is well known that John Howland and his future wife, Elizabeth Tilley, were among the 102 passengers aboard the Mayflower in 1620.   John boarded the Mayflower as an indentured servant to John Carver.  The three month voyage aboard the Mayflower was a difficult journey for the passengers and crew with turbulent weather and lack of proper rations.  After arriving in New England, the group was decimated with almost half of the passengers dying in the first harsh and cold winter.

According to the accounting of William Bradford, John Howland nearly lost his life while traversing the icy Atlantic Ocean aboard the Mayflower. 

“In sundry of these storms the winds were so fierce, and the seas so high, as they could not bear a knot of sail, but were forced to hull, for divers days together. And in one of them, as they thus lay at hull, in a mighty storm, a lusty young man, John Howland, coming upon some occasion above the gratings, was, with a seele [sail] of the ship thrown into the sea; but it pleased God that he caught hold of the topsail halyards, which hung overboard, and ran out at length; yet he held his hold (though he was sundry fathoms under water) till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with a boat hook and other means got into the ship again, and his life saved; and though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both in church and commonwealth.”

 

Howland was smart enough to grab a loose halyard rope that was hanging off the ship and clung for dear life until the crewmen were able to pull him back on board the ship.  This narrow escape with death allowed John to have a long life and a prominent place in history.

John Howland was the son of Henry Howland and his wife, Margaret.  John was born around 1592 and was believed to have lived in Fenstanton, England for most of his childhood.  He was not a son of a wealthy family as evidenced by his having been an indentured servant as a young man.

Prior to the ship’s landing at Plymouth, John Howland was among the men that signed the Mayflower Compact, an important document outlining the self-government of the colony.  The document was a democratic acknowledgement of their liberty in a community of law and order with each person having the right to participate in the government.

About a year after the arrival of the Mayflower in America, John Carver, the first Governor of Plymouth and the person to whom John was indentured, became sick and died.  Carver’s wife died five weeks later and they had no children or natural heirs entitled to the Carver estate. It is believed that John Howland may have been kin to Carver and likely inherited some or all of Carver’s possessions and land rights.  In 1621, after Carver’s death, Howland became a freeman. 

William Bradford succeeded John Carver as the leader of the Plymouth Colony.  Bradford’s journal revealed that Elizabeth Tilley was the daughter of John Tilley and his wife, Joan Hurst Tilley.  Elizabeth was born in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England and she and her parents were passengers on the Mayflower.  John Tilley and his wife Joan both died the first winter as did John Tilley’s brother, Edward Tilley, and his wife Ann.  Elizabeth was left an orphan and so she was taken in by the Carver family. 

When the Carvers both died, part of their estate was inherited by John Howland, and Elizabeth became his ward.  By 1624, John Howland was considered the head of what was once the Carver household when he was granted an acre for each member of the household including himself, Elizabeth Tilley, Desire Minter, and a boy named William Latham. 

Around 1623 or 1624, John Howland married Elizabeth Tilley.  Within several years, John served at various times as a selectman, assistant and deputy governor, surveyor and as a member of the fur committee.  Young John Howland became a leader in the Plymouth colony.  

Together John & Elizabeth raised ten children that all lived to adulthood.  And they lived remarkably long lives as they both reached at least 80 years of age..  John Howland and his wife, fellow Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Tilley, had 10 children and more than 80 grandchildren.  Today, an estimated 2 million Americans can trace their roots to this couple.

*  *  *  *  *

Key individuals:

       John (the Mayflower) Howland  (1592 – 1672)

       Elizabeth Tilley Howland  (1607 – 1687)

 

Notes:

Now for an update concerning lineage provenance from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.  In my October 2020 blog post titled “A Mayflower Connection, or not” I outlined what I believe is our line of descent from John Howland & Elizabeth Tilley Howland as noted below: 

   John Howland (1592-1672) m. Elizabeth Tilley (1607-1687) [Mayflower]

      John Howland (1627-1702) m. Mary Lee

         Experience Howland (1668-1728) m. James Bearse/Bierse

            Experience Bearse (1692-1735) m. Dennis Edgerton

               Experience Edgerton (1725-?) m. Benjamin Howland

                  Abraham Howland (1762-1853) m. Anna Staples

                     Islethera Howland (1802-1843) m. David Scribner 

And then I cited a 2007 comment from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants that indicated that it “has never been proved that John and Mary (Lee) Howland’s daughter/son Experience married James Bearse, and the Mayflower Society does not accept this line as a Mayflower lineage.”

Next, in correspondence dated April 30, 2020, the Society accepted that Experience Howland did indeed marry James Bearse/Bierce, however they only recognized 4 of their children, namely James, Priscilla, Rebecca and Shubael.  We were getting closer, but still needed recognition for another daughter named Experience to prove our line.

I wrote the General Society of Mayflower Descendants after I posted the Mayflower Connection blog asking for an update, and was pleased to see that there has been progress.  In a responding email to me it was noted: 

“Until recently, it was not known whether Experience Howland, child of John Howland and Mary Lee, was a male or female, so lineages going through Experience Howland and James Bearse were not accepted by the Mayflower Society. However, recent research has proven this lineage to be valid. The Mayflower Society now has a manuscript of a Bearse Genealogy which will help prove your Howland lineage through your 6th generation: Abraham Howland m. Anna Staples. You may use this manuscript to help prove your Howland lineage!” – Erin Gillett, Research Assistant, GSMD 

I haven’t pursued this anymore since I was never actually interested in applying for membership in the Society of Mayflower Descendants.  However if this interests you, then you will be pleased that several more generations on our line have now been accepted as proven by the Mayflower Society. 

With this update, you should be able to have your application accepted in time by providing marriage and birth documentation for the generations beginning with Abraham Howland and Anna Staples down to our present day. 

 – Jane Scribner McCrary