Stratton Bishop, father of Reuben, died 1823

Reuben Levy Bishop was my fourth great grandfather. He died in Morristown, Morris County, New Jersey in 1856 at the age of 52.

I have found no documentation about his possible parents.

A father of Reuben Bishop is suggested at Ancestry: Stratton Bishop, who lived in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey from about 1760 until 1823, when his will was proven.

Possible ancestors appear in yellow boxes in family trees at Ancestry.

In Stratton's will, he left a life estate to his wife, Lydia. He left land in Bridgeton to his two daughters, Ruth, wife of Samuel Souders, and Lorana (1781-1863), wife of Hosea Nichols (1780-1849).

He also left land to the son of his son Reuben, "if he returns from Europe," and the two sons of his other son, John. The first names of these grandsons were not provided in Stratton's will.

Viewable at FamilySearch.org

I do not think that Reuben, the son of Stratton Bishop, is the same person as my fourth great grandfather, Reuben Levy Bishop.

My Reuben was born around 1804/1805. He was likely not old enough to have a son in 1823.

I have not been able to trace the sons of Stratton Bishop, but his daughters appeared in other records, from which we can glean their birth years. Lorana and Ruth were born in the 1780s. We do not know if Stratton's sons were from a subsequent marriage, but they were both old enough to have their own children when Stratton wrote his will. This makes it unlikely that Stratton's sons Reuben and John were born past 1800.

Stratton and Lydia have memorial pages on Find A Grave
at the First Baptist Church Cemetery in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey.

Typed transcripts of Cohansey Baptist Church are viewable on Ancestry. Stratton Bishop died March 14, 1823. Lydia, his wife, died a few months later in October, thus ending her life estate and freeing the land to transfer to the grandsons- subject to the ten year time limit extended to Reuben's unnamed son to return from Europe and assert his claim.

"I give and bequeath the said house and lot of land above described at the decease of my wife in the manner following viz to the son of Reuben Bishop my oldest son the back half part of said lot provided he shall within ten years from the death of my said wife come to this country he being at this time in Europe and take possession of the same but if he shall neglect so to take possession of the said premises then it is my will and I do order that the beforementioned back half part of said lot shall go to the sons of my son John Bishop to be equally divided between them share and share alike."

Three of Stratton's grandsons, John, Henry, and Stratton Bishop, inherited the property. A guardian, Daniel M Woodruff, was appointed in 1831 after an action was brought by their uncle, Hosea Nichols. They were under the age of fourteen.

In a deed dated June 5, 1832, their guardian, Daniel M Woodruff, sold the property to Hosea Nichols. It is not clarified if they are sons of Reuben, John, or both. These are probably children of John, not Reuben because of the exception noted in the wording: "subject however to the lawful claim of --- Bishop, if any he has of in or to the same . . ." Most unfortunately this other grandson is not named. It would seem that this grandson of Stratton Bishop either remained in Europe during the ten years following Lydia's death, or he was unaware that he needed to reach out to the Orphan's Court in Cumberland County, New Jersey.

The land conveyed in 1832 is the same piece of land described in Stratton Bishop's will in 1823. There was no division to convey the "back half part" to Reuben's son, residing in Europe.

Sketch of Stratton Bishop's land described in wills and deeds.
1 chain = 100 links = 66 feet

On the west side of Cohansey Creek and bounded as followeth:

Beginning on the south side of main street at the North west corner of Philip Souders lot
thence bounding on the same South twenty degrees west five chains to a corner
thence bounding on George Burgins lot North sixty nine degrees and fifty minutes west fifty seven links to a corner
thence north twenty degrees east four chains and sixty two links to a corner
thence south sixty nine degrees and fifty minutes east seven links to a corner
thence north twenty degrees east thirty eight links to main street aforesaid
thence bounding thereon south sixty nine degrees and fifty minutes east fifty links to the place of beginning containing forty four perches and seventeen hundredths of a square perch of land.

I have not found records on my Reuben Levy Bishop that indicate any ties to Europe. Aside from the name Reuben, the only other similarity is that Reuben Levy Bishop's son, George (1848-1919), named a daughter Lorena (1880-1973).

Thus I do not see, at this point, that Reuben Levy Bishop of Morris County is the same Reuben Bishop, son of Stratton Bishop, of Cumberland County.

The hunt for the parents of Reuben Levy Bishop continues.

Deadly Boating Accident 1909

John ODonnell was a paternal uncle of my grandmother. He resided in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey.

From his gravestone, I had his date of death- September 3, 1909. He was nineteen when he died.

John O'Donnell
born July 9, 1890
Died September 3, 1909
Gravestone at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City, New Jersey

I found no death certificate in the New Jersey State Archives and no obituary in newspapers from Jersey City. The Bayonne Times newspaper for this time period was destroyed.

I expanded the search to include newspapers from all over. Newspapers in New York City and even Alabama carried articles about John's death.

John was employed as a deckhand on the tug boat R B Little. He was sleeping after working the night shift when his boat collided with another, bursting steam pipes. John awoke and attempted to escape the room in which he was sleeping. John was crushed and scalded. Accounts differ as to the timing of his death in relation to these traumas. The other man in the room, John Lavin, lived. I have not determined when he died.

Newspaper article from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, describing John's death as instant

Newspaper article from The Sun detailing John's attempt at escape before being scalded to death

Vital records for New York City are online, but not all years are available yet. 1909 is among the ranges of unavailable years for death certificates. Online indexes list a death for John ODonnell for September 3, 1909.

New York City index of deaths
entry for John ODonnell, 1909.
Son of Patrick [ODonnell] and Delia [Joyce].

Benefit for the Widow and Children of George Duryea 1864

Found on eBay- 

this small card measuring two and a half by four inches.

A child in Victorian garb is depicted on one side.

Reproduction of a painting.
Child holding an open book. Wavy hair to the shoulders.
Shirt sleeve rolled up past the elbow.
Garments tied around the waist. Skirt to the knees.
Toes peeking out.

The other side is what interested me.

The card was trimmed at the sacrifice of the wording. From what I can ascertain, the inscription reads:

          Grand Ball
          of the
          ---ds and Clever Fellows' Jr. Club,
          ---d of the widow and children of the late officer
          George W. Duryea,
          at Irving Hall,
          -illegible-

George Washington Duryea (1823-1864) was the brother of my third great grandfather, Stephen Cornell Duryea (1814-1887). He was killed on May 16, 1864 in New York City while working as a police officer.

Notice of death and funeral services for George W Duryea
in The New York Herald

I did not find much about this club. I saw a few mentions in the newspapers about other benefits for widows and children hosted by the Clever Fellows.

Notice of benefit by the Clever Fellows Club, 1865
in The New York Times

George's widow, Rene Brewer (1824-1904) (who was also my fourth great grandmother), did not remarry. She died in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey, on August 7, 1904. She and George had six children together. When George was killed, they ranged in age from four to sixteen years old.

To find family heirlooms on eBay, set up emails of saved searches containing the surname. If the surname is common, or is a word in its own right, you will need to add other search parameters to narrow down the results.

Couple Died on the Same Day

While in a cemetery, Mount Hebron in Montclair, New Jersey, a family plot caught my attention because two members died on the same day.

Alexander Luchars and Sarah Rose Luchars died February 19, 1931. (A couple in my family also died on the same day in 1901.)

A little digging revealed that Alexander and Sarah were husband and wife, originally from Massachusetts. Sarah's name was Yarnall. Alexander was a mechanical engineer. The cause of death of both was pneumonia according to the shared obituary. 

The State Archives are closed for now. I cannot lookup their death certificates, which would possibly reveal additional relevant information.

A Celtic cross stands over the family plot, adorned with triquetra.

Question 1: Do the S-shaped swirls have a formal name? Are they a form of triskele?

Question 2: Is triquetra the plural of triquetrum?
Or is triquetra singular and the plural triquetras or triquetrae?

Amanuensis Monday: Watson at Saint John's Episcopal Church in Jersey City

“Everdue”

Marble Dale Com.

June – 8 – 1932

Not Entered in Books

My dear Mr. Carnie:

I am sending you the correct data in connection with the deaths of my parents- this to be entered in the Parish book- for the benefit of any one in the future, wishing for such information.

Edward Malcom Watson

Born in New Milford, Connecticut

June 13, 1846

Died at his home, Marble Dale Connecticut,

September 12, 1908.

There is a window in St John’s in memory of my father. (The Parable of the Sower)

I did so enjoy being with you for a few weeks, and shall do so again in the near future.

With warm personal regards for you and yours,

Sincerely yours,

Mary S Watson

P.S.

As you know the Sanctuary Lamp is in memory of my mother.

Also please note change in my mailing address.

(Washington Depot Connecticut, R. F. D.)

My mother was-

Susanna Suttle, born in Paterson, New Jersey on July 22, 1846.

Died at her home in Marble Dale Connecticut,

July 7, 1930

My parents were married in St. Pauls Parish, Paterson, N.J. [New Jersey]

on September 18, 1867

by the Rev. Joseph M. Waite, Rector of the Church.

My mother was baptized, confirmed, and married from the same church.

If you will make correct entries I shall appreciate it so much.

I came across this note in the church book for Saint John's Episcopal Church in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey while researching a branch of my Heiser family. The author, Mary Smith Watson (1871-1948), so much wanted this bit of her family history preserved. For Mary, here is her information for anyone's benefit, as she wished.


Saint John's Church is not operational. The stained glass windows are gone. In spite of efforts to covert the structure into condominiums, the building remains vacant and deteriorating. Below is the image from Google maps in 2017.

Marriage of Step Siblings

A marriage between step-siblings is not a rare encounter.

Below is an explanation with documents on one such marriage.

Richard Everet Wolff (1908-1992) was my father's second cousin, three times removed. The common ancestors were Peter John Hyser (1790-1874) and Ella Fritz (1801-1847) of Greene County, New York.

Richard married his step-sister, Grace Liebeherr (1914-1993) in 1939 in South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. One year earlier, Grace's mother, Edna Schermerhorn Hogan (1884-1938), who was also Richard's step-mother, died. I don't know if her death influenced the timing of the marriage. Perhaps a descendant could write in to clarify?

Witnesses Edna Gamble Liebeherr (sister of Grace Liebeherr) and G Wallace McComb.

Death certificate for Annie Coombe, first wife of Charles Wolff, 1927
in Westfield, Union County, New Jersey.

Death certificate of Edna Hogan, second wife of Charles Wolff, 1938
in South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.

Richard's parents were Charles Endicott Wolff (1881-1946) and Annie Rosalee Coombe (1886-1927). They had married in Jersey City in 1907.

In 1928, one year after his first wife's death, Charles Wolff remarried to Edna Hogan in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. Edna was the widow of Richard Liebeherr- Grace's father, who had died in 1924.

Death certificate of Richard Liebeherr, first husband of Edna Hogan, 1924
in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.
Informant was Ernest L Broome of Tarrytown, New York.
Why was his wife not the informant?

The merged families in the 1930 federal census at 116 Prospect Street, East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.

The family remained living together in 1940 following the death of Mother Edna
and the marriage of Richard and Grace.
195 Prospect Street, East Orange.

Another Death by Train, 1937

My maternal grandmother told me many stories of deaths caused by trains.

I found documentation for another one.

Frank Haas died June 6, 1937 after he fell from a train in New Brunswick (Middlesex County, New Jersey).  It took him 36 hours to die.  He was a policeman in Bayonne (Hudson County, New Jersey).  He was the fifth child, born around 1898 in Bayonne, of Samuel Haas (1867-1945) and Mary Zolder (1870-1948).

Injuries included multiple fractured ribs, collapsed right lung, lacerations, fractured skull, and broken spine.  His survival chances were slim.  Regaining consciousness could indicate that Frank was not medicated well for pain.

1930 United States Federal Census
23 West 48th Street, Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey
Frank Haas with wife, Violet (Eckert),
and her children from a prior marriage,
Edith, Florence, and Frank Hoffman

Additional Details for a Family Story

One of the family stories of my maternal grandmother was that her grandmother, Delia Joyce (1862-1929), was a baby when her mother threw her to safety just as she was dragged to her death by a train.

The 1870 federal census has an accompanying mortality schedule that listed people who died in the year 1870 before the census commenced on June 1st.  Mary Joyce was on this mortality schedule in Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, as being killed by "cars" in May of 1870.  Her widower, Patrick Joyce, and four children, Mary, Adelia (Delia), John, and James were enumerated on the actual census.

Absent a death certificate, additional information was sought from newspapers.  The accident was in Katonah, south of Pawling in Westchester County, New York.  One article did not mention a child and another mentioned an infant child.  Delia was about seven years old at the time of the accident, so the focus was on one of her younger brothers as the baby who was saved.

I just found some more newspaper articles about this tragedy that clarify that the child was female, though she is not named and could have been Delia or her older sister Mary.  The articles appeared June 21st in the New York Herald and June 22nd in the Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser.

The key to finding these articles was by not using Mary's name as a search term.  Instead, I looked for articles containing Katonah (where the accident occurred) and Pawling (where Mary lived) with the narrow date of May or June of 1870.

Two newspapers carried the article about "a respectable married woman" from Pawling, not named, whose leg was "almost sever[ed]" by the train as she attempted to disembark when the train started to depart so that she did not leave her daughter who was already safely on the platform.

According to another article, Mary lived a few hours.

Mary (who was born as Mary or Margaret Campbell in Ireland, according to the records of her children), should not have been on the 1870 mortality schedule if she died after June 1st.  Perhaps her husband could not recall the exact date of death and the census recorder noted her information for the month of May.  Good thing this rule was bent because I may have never found any information on this sad story if Mary had not appeared on that mortality schedule.

Working Girl

Anna S Andes (1870-1949) was married to James G Romig (1866-1905).  This couple appeared in the family tree of a DNA match whose recent ancestry I was reviewing, looking for the elusive common ancestors.

Anna is easy to locate once she was married.  Here is Anna and James in the 1900 census in Kansas with two of their children, James and Carrie.

The graves of Anna and James are posted on FindAGrave.  No parents are linked to Anna.  You can only link a child to a parent if you maintain the memorial.  The absence (or presence) of this connection is a guide, not proof.

Several online family trees have Anna as the daughter of Levi Andes (1844-1910) and Susanna Stark (1846-1914).  California's death index is online at Ancestry.com.  Anna died in California in 1949 and her parents are listed as Andes and Stark in this index.  This is tertiary proof of Anna's parentage, even less reliable, because this is an index and not the original record.  Death records can be very informative, but the Names of Parents section can be wildly inaccurate.

The potential parents, Levi Andes and Susanna Stark, are easy to locate in the census.  But they aren't enumerated with a daughter named Anna.  Between 1880-1885, the family moved from Ephrata, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to Newton, Harvey County, Kansas.

If Anna S Andes was born on July 1, 1870, she missed enumeration in the 1870 census by one month.
Although recorded on July 11, 1870, the census had a cut-off date of June 1st.

1880 Federal Census
No Anna

1885 Kansas State Census
No Anna

When a child is "missing" in a family's records, one explanation is that the childhood name and the adult name were different.  "Anna S," wife and mother, may have been called "Susie" growing up.  To test this possibility, I looked for Susie Andes as an adult- and I found her.  Susan was born in 1871.  She married Robert Bascum Stayton (1858-1934) and died in 1922.  So Susie is not the missing Anna.

The next records to turn to locate a missing child or sibling would be wills and obituaries.  I don't usually deal with records in Kansas or Pennsylvania.  [I've started Pennsylvania research for my Dunlop line, but that will be a different post.]  When I looked to Google for information on this family, I found a lovely and informative blog post written by the Harvey County [Kansas] Historical Museum and Archives.

The article, complete with photographs, explored the lives of three Andes sisters who worked as maids in Newton, Kansas after relocating from Ephrata, Pennsylvania.  Their names:  Annie S, Susie, and Winnie.  Their father was Levi Andes, a tailor and a minister.  This was the link I needed!

The article included a picture of the original, color marriage license for Annie S Andes to J. G. Romig, dated March 30, 1893.  Annie's father, Levi, performed the ceremony at his residence in Newton.  Additional information included that James Romig died in February of 1905 from injuries suffered in a train accident, leaving Anna to care for their two children, James and Carrie.  Anna later moved to California to be with her daughters, Carrie and Alice.  Yes- Anna was pregnant when her husband was killed.  The third child was born seven months after her father's death.

After reading that Anna worked as a maid in Newton, I returned to the 1880 census in Ephrata, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where Levi Andes and Susan resided with their children, minus Anna.  There was an entry for a ten-year old Annie Andes in nearby West Cocalico.  This Annie was a servant to the Wolf family.  I was hoping that was a mistake- how could a ten year old work as a servant?  There were many child servants in this community in the 1880 census, so such a situation must have been acceptable.

Because young Annie worked as a servant in other people's houses during her childhood, she is not found with her parents in the census.  That must not have been an easy life.

Newspaper Account versus Death Record

I like to coordinate newspaper articles with other records.

At GenealogyBank I was perusing the Jersey Journal, a newspaper for Jersey City, New Jersey, and came across an article and an obituary for Mrs Annie Duryea.  She held the belief that an animal was living in her stomach and slowly killing her.  Annie died on December 12, 1879- before the article appeared in the paper.

True to the doctor's opinion in the paper, Annie's death certificate listed the cause of death as Phthisis Pulmonalis, or tuberculosis of the lungs.  (This ancient disease still infects people today.)  One symptom of this infection is wasting away of the body, which Annie and her family attributed to the creature living in her stomach.  We must wonder if Annie had some other medical issue causing her problems, such as a tumor, allergy to food, or even a pregnancy, which medical providers of the 1870s may not have discovered.

Death certificate for Annie "Duryee", died December 12, 1879 in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Cause of death was Phthisis Pulmonalis, also called consumption of the lungs, or tuberculosis.

The address, 274 Sixth Street in Jersey City, is the same on the death certificate as in the newspaper.  Her parents were Gilbert Johson (or Johnson?) and Elizabeth.  I do not know Annie's husband at this point.  No Duryeas were living at this address in this time period.

If this Annie belongs to a branch in your tree, let us know.