Amanuensis Monday: 1780 Will of William Winterton of New York City

WILL OF WILLIAM WINTERTON

of New York City, New York County, New York

Signed July 23, 1780

Proved October 8, 1785

New York County, New York, Wills Volume 38, pages 196-199

In the Name of God Amen.  I, William Winterton, of the City of New York, Mason, being of sound mind, memory, and understanding, do make and publish this, my last will and testament, in manner following, that is to say.

First.  I desire that all my just debts and funeral expences be paid so soon after my decease as possibly may be and after payment thereof I leave, devise, and bequeath all the rest, residue, and remainder of my real and personal estate of what kind or nature so ever and wheresoever to my dearly beloved wife, Ann Winterton, to have and to hold to her and her assigns for and during and unto the full end and term of her natural life, provided and upon this special condition that she will not marry any other husband after my decease.  And in case she shall or will marry any other husband, then and in such case, I desire that all my real and personal estate may be sold to the best advantage and divide between my dearly beloved wife, my son, William Winterton, and daughter, Jane Winterton, the wife of John Johnston, share and share alike.  But in case my said wife shall not marry after my decease but shall die in her viduity, then and in such case my will is that all my real and personal estate shall from and immediately after such conti[n]gency happening, go to and be divided between my said son and daughter, share and share alike as aforesaid.  And in case either my said son or daughter should die before my said wife without issue, then and in such case I leave, devise, and bequeath the share and Proportion of such child so dieing as aforesaid to the other survivor, his or her heirs, executors, administrators, or assigns.  And my will is that the said John Johnston, the husband of my said daughter, Jane Winterton, shall not have any power whatsoever over any part of the proportions or share of my estate hereby devised and bequeathed to her, but that the same shall descend to the children of the said Jane by the said John Johnston or any other after taken husband or as it shall or may be disposed of by her last will and testament.  Immediately preced.g her decease.

And Lastly I do hereby constitute my said dearly beloved wife, the said Ann Winterton, the sole Executrix of this, my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills by me heretofore made, declaring this to be my last will and testament.

In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this twenty third day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand and seven hundred and eighty.

  –William Winterton—

Signed, sealed, published, and declared by the said William Winterton as and for his last will and testament in the presence of us who have hereunto set our names as witnesses in his presence at his request and in the presence of each other.

--Ter Kerin

--Lewis Morgan

--Joseph Cary

City of New York.  Be it Remembered that on the eighth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty five, personally came and appeared before me, Thomas Tredwell, Judge of the Court of Probates of the State of New York, Lewis Morgan of the City of Philadelphia, physician, and being duly sworn on his oath, declared that he did see William Winterton sign and seal the preceding written instrument purporting to be the will of the said William Winterton, bearing date the twenty third day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand and seven hundred and eighty and heard him publish and declare the same as and for his last will and testament, that at the time thereof he, the said William Winterton, was of sound disposing mind and memory to the best of the knowledge and belief of him, the Deponent, and that Terence Kerin and Joseph Cary, together with the Deponent, subscribed the said will as witnesses thereto in the Testators Presence.

--Thomas Tredwell

The People of the State of New York, by the grace of God, Free and Independent, to all to whom these Presents shall come or may Concern, Send Greeting.  Know Ye that at the City of New York, on the day of the date hereof, before Thomas Tredwell Esquire, Judge of our Court of Probates, the last will and testament of William Winterton, deceased, (a copy whereof is hereunto annexed) was proved and is now approved and allowed of by us and the said deceased having, whilst he lived and at the time of his death, goods, chattels, and credit within this State, by means whereof the proving and registering the said will and the granting administration of all and singular the said goods, chattels, and credits and also the auditing, allowing, and final discharging the account thereof doth belong unto us, the administration of all and singular the goods, chattels, and credits of the said deceased and any way concerning his will, is granted unto Ann Winterton, the Executrix in the said will named, she being first duly sworn well and faithfully to administer the same and to make and exhibit a true and perfect inventory of all and singular the said goods, chattels, and credits and also to render a just and true account there of when thereunto required.

In Testimony whereof we have caused the seal of our Court of Probates to be hereunto affixed.  Witness Thomas Tredwell, Esquire, Judge of our said Court at the City of New York, the eighth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty five.

--Dav Judson Clk

Common and Uncommon Surnames

Searching for a Johnson ancestor is not easy, so I turned to Winterton, the related and less popular surname.  I found an older will from 1785 in New York City for William Winterton.  William is a popular given name in my Winterton tree.

The will provided some great information.  William Winterton was a mason in New York City.  His wife was Ann.  His children were William Winterton and Jane Winterton, wife of John Johnston.  The surname Johnston jumps right out at me because in my documented tree, Sally Ann Johnson (1802-1882) and Samuel Winterton (1800-1877) were my 4X great grandparents.

I googled Jane Winterton and John Johnston and came up with a few sites with their transcribed marriage record:  June 21, 1773 in New York.  This fits the time frame, but I can't rely on transcribed records.

The New York Marriages collection at FamilySearch.org provided a slightly different date for the marriage of Jane Winterton to John Johnson:  July 8, 1773.  The church was provided:  Trinity in New York City.

Trinity Church offers its records in transcribed format for free on their website.  There is an entry for John Johnson marrying Jane Winterton on July 8, 1773 by Samuel Auchmuty.

Within the Trinity Church website, you can search for baptismal records of possible children of this couple.  I found three potential children of John Johnson and Jane Winterton:  John Harriot Johnson, born 1789; Jannett Clark Johnson, born 1791; and Henry Johnson, born 1797.  The given names and sponsors should provide some leads to help determine if these are indeed children of John Johnson and Jane Winterton.

In the newspapers, I found another mention of a lawsuit, one year prior to the Winterton versus Johnson suit in 1855.  Here we have Joseph Riddock suing Samuel Winterton, his wife Sally Ann [Johnson], John Johnston, and his wife Anna.  Is Anna really Jane Winterton, the aunt of Samuel Winterton?  Or is Anna actually Sarah, the mother of Sally Ann?

So I have two questions to be answered at this point.
1- In the will of William Winterton, probated in 1785, he mentions a son, William.  Is this son the same person as my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, William Winterton (1767-1814)?
2-  Is there a relationship between John Johnston/Johnson, the husband of Jane Winterton, and Sally Ann Johnson (1802-1882), the wife of Samuel Winterton (1800-1877)?

Using Cemeteries to Track Moves, Part Two

This post expands on the prior piece about using cemeteries to track the movement of ancestors across generations.

In this blog post, I focus on one of my great-great-great grandfathers, John R Winterton,
his parents, and his four grandparents.

My 3X great grandfather, John R Winterton, was born in New York City around 1831.  He had removed from New York City by 1855, when he married Sophia T Walling in Raritan Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey.  When John Winterton died in 1896, he was buried at Green Grove Cemetery in Keyport, New Jersey.

John's parents, Samuel Winterton and Sally Johnson, also lived in Keyport, but were buried in Brooklyn, New York at Green-Wood Cemetery.  So we must look in New York for their records.

Death certificate for Sally Ann Winterton.  She died October 1, 1882 in Keyport, New Jersey.
Burial at Greenwood Cemetery, New York.  Parents- Johnson.

Burials at Green-Wood can be searched on the cemetery's website.  A search for Winterton burials produces several people in two different lots.

I organized the burials by lot.

Samuel Winterton and his wife, Sally Johnson, are in lot 10313.  Joseph was a brother of Samuel.  Caroline and Mary were daughters of Samuel and Sally.  That leaves us with three people, Ellen, Samuel, and Sarah, all "buried" on the same date, April 29, 1857.  I do not know who these people are at this point.  This date may be when the lot was purchased or when the record was created.

Lot 6558 contains the mother of Samuel Winterton, Mary, buried in 1862.  This is Mary Bartlett, born about 1769.  Buried with her are three of her children, Mary, Ruth, and William.  We can use the dates of burial to locate death notices in the New York papers.

Before living in New York City, William Winterton and Mary Bartlett resided in Newburgh, Orange County, New York.

1810 United States Federal Census
Newburgh, Orange County, New York

William Winterton, the husband of Mary Bartlett, is not buried at Green-Wood.  He predeceased her by almost 50 years in 1814.  His burial record is not online on FindAGrave or a cemetery's website.  Instead, a mention of his headstone can be found in older books online under the topics of Newburgh, New York or Baptist churches.

"Adjoining the deserted church is a cemetery lot. . .  Only a few of the stones bear inscriptions. . .  Deacon William WINTERTON. . .  Feb. 15, 1814, aged 47 years."

Google Maps- Leptondale section of Newburgh, Orange County, New York
I think that the church and cemetery were located in this area, by Orange Lake.
If anyone has knowledge of this area, please let us know!

FindAGrave.com mobile app
Nobody has entered any graves for the probable location of William Winterton's 1814 burial

Letters of Administration were issued in 1814 for William Winterton in Orange County, New York.  This is an additional source for his death.

The family relocated to New York City after William Winterton's death in 1814.  In the 1820 federal census, Mary Winterton is head of household in New York City.  Other members of the household are not listed by name, but rather by age group.  The numbers work out for the number of children that I have found so far, but we can never be certain who was actually represented by the enumeration.

Males, aged 10-15:  1 (Joseph)
Males, aged 16-18:  1 (Samuel)
Males, aged 16-25:  2 (Samuel and William)
Females, aged 10-15:  1 (Ruth)
Females, aged 16-25:  1 (Sarah)
Females, aged over 45:  1 (Mary herself)
Total free white persons:  6

Household of Mary Winterton, 1820 New York City

In 1822, Samuel Winterton married Sally Ann Johnson.

In 1822, people married on a Tuesday morning and a Monday evening.

This marriage notice provides a useful clue, the person who performed the ceremony, the Reverend Mr. Archibald Maclay.  He serviced the James Street, or Mulberry, Baptist Church in New York City from 1809-1838.  The church morphed into the Tabernacle Baptist Church and then the Laight Street Baptist Church.

Johnson is a common surname, so we need to significantly narrow down our search to find anything useful and plausible.  Sally Ann Johnson was likely a member of the same Baptist church as Samuel Winterton, in Newburgh or New York City.

A possible connection between Winterton and Johnson is in a newspaper announcement from 1855 of a lawsuit in New York City:  Samuel Winterton versus John Johnson and Anna, his wife.  These could be relatives of Sally Ann Johnson, wife of Samuel Winterton.

An interesting tidbit about the children of William Winterton and Mary Bartlett:  in 1836, they purchased land in Conway Township, Livingston County, Michigan.  Nobody appears to have moved to Michigan.  I do not know, at this point, why they purchased the land.

Using Cemeteries to Track Moves

Laura Winterton was one of my great grandparents.  She was born in 1891 in Matawan, Monmouth County, New Jersey to William Winterton and Catherine Dunn.  Around 1905, her family moved to Newark in Essex County, New Jersey.  In 1910, Laura Winterton married Howard Lutter.  Three generations later, here I am.

Laura died in 1962 in Newark from complications of diabetes and multiple sclerosis.  She was buried in an unmarked grave in Hollywood Cemetery in Union (Union County, New Jersey).  

Recently, I visited family gravesites for the first time in Monmouth County, New Jersey.  Although I do not live far from these cemeteries, I had never visited, probably because these graves were among the few recorded and photographed when genealogy started on the internet.  Visit Interment.net and DistantCousin.com for user-submitted records.  I concentrated on visiting graves that nobody had photographed and posted online, of which there were plenty, and I uploaded my pictures and notes to FindAGrave.

Ancestors of my great grandmother
[Chart created in Excel and modified in Paint]

Green Grove Cemetery in Keyport

William Winterton (1862-1932) and Catherine Dunn (1865-1944), parents of Laura, died in Newark, but are buried in Keyport.

William's parents, John R Winterton (1831-1890) and Sophia T Walling (1835-1906), are buried in a plot shared with Cuttrells, located near the corner of Green Grove Avenue and Hurley Street.

Sophia's parents, William Walling (1803-1870) and Ellen Euphemia Imlay (1807-1895), are also at Green Grove in a family plot.

Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn

John Winterton's parents, Samuel Winterton (1800-1877) and Sally Johnson (1802-1882), relocated to Monmouth County from New York City in the 1850s.  Samuel died in Keyport and Sally in Raritan, but they are both buried at Greenwood Cemetery in New York.  Their burials are searchable at the cemetery's website.

Rose Hill Cemetery in Matawan

At Rose Hill are Laura Winterton's maternal grandparents, Ezra Dunn (1821-1898) and Hermoine Dunlop (1827-1900).  This is a small cemetery.  I was able to find the graves based on the pictures already online.

I marked the GPS location of the graves on FindAGrave.

FindAGrave.com

Google maps, connected by FindAGrave

I am still working on Ezra Dunn's parents.  According to his death certificate, Ezra's parents were Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah.

Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Matawan

Hermoine Dunlop's father, Joseph Dunlop, was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  This trip illustrates why you want to visit grave sites, rather than just look at pictures or transcriptions online.

In memory of Joseph W DUNLOP who died Apr 26, 1852,
aged 55 years, 2 months, and 4 days.

In the 1850 federal census in Raritan (Monmouth County, New Jersey), we have:

Joseph W. Dunlop, age 54, born in Pennsylvania;

Margaret Dunlop, age 53, born in New Jersey;

some of their children and boarders.

I located a marriage record in 1824 in Monmouth County for Joseph Dunlop and Margaret Little.  I need more evidence to decide if this is the marriage record for this couple.  A trip to the cemetery makes this marriage record more plausible for fitting into my tree.

FamilySearch.org
New Jersey, County Marriages, 1682-1956

I did not see a gravestone for Margaret; however, two Little graves and one Dunlop are next to Joseph Dunlop.  This placement could indicate a relationship.  You cannot see this positioning from online transcriptions or individual pictures of the stones.  (Well, now you can with my labeled picture.)

"The grave of William Johnston, son of Joseph W. and Margaret Dunlop,
died Nov 17, 1832, aged 3 years, 7 months, and 24 days."

"Frances, daughter of Robert and Margaret Little,
who departed this life April 30th, 1839,
aged 20 years, 6 months, and 8 days."

"Robert Little, a native of the Billis, near Virginia, County Cavan, Ireland,
who emmigrated to America A.D. 1807,
and departed this life October 29th, 1821,
in the 37 year of his age.  
For many years an active merchant in this place."

If this Little grave has a connection to Margaret, wife of Joseph Dunlop, then I will have a great link to the hometown in Ireland.  This would also be the first Irish ancestor found in my father's tree.