Cemetery Documentation Day

Today I assisted with documenting a section of Woodland Cemetery in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey.  The weather cooperated- cool and cloudy.  No shadows from the sun.  I became acquainted with the group that handles the records for the cemetery when I discovered that one of my ancestors, David Uhl, was buried there in 1884.

I am told that the records were a jumbled mess, as were the actual locations of burials, but organization is setting in.  A bunch of volunteers, including myself, went row by row in the sections next to South 10th Street and documented what could be found.  South 10th Street is currently the only entrance and exit for the cemetery.



Fredericka Kassenberg, died in 1912; unearthed today.


The cemetery has fallen into disrepair, neglect, and vandalism.

Great job, everyone!

Marriage, marriage

Jacob Henry Duryea was born in 1850 in New York City to George Duryea and Rene Brewer.  He died in 1928 in New Jersey.  In the 1880 census, he appeared in Jersey City with his wife, Mary E., and her mother, Sarah B. Dunham of Massachusetts, providing me with a possible maiden name for Mary.  I found three sons for this couple:  Charles W. Duryea, 1874-1876, buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown;  Edgar H. Duryea, 1876-1926;  and John D. Duryea, 1880-1891.  Except for Charles, everyone is buried at Hoboken Cemetery in North Bergen, Hudson County, New Jersey.  I have found no evidence that Edgar H. Duryea married or had children.  The quirkiest thing about this little branch is that they are buried in the same plot as Jacob's sister's mother-in-law, Henrietta Funtman, wife of Alfred Eyre.  Then I discovered that Jacob's sister, Letty, was actually buried there in 1889, but re-interred in 1912 at Fairview Cemetery in Fairview, Bergen County, New Jersey.

I figured that Jacob and Mary E., or M. Etta, or Marietta had married in 1874 or earlier, since their first child, Charles, was born 7 December 1874.  In the 1900 census, they are married 26 years.  When New Jersey published the marriage index online for 1848-1878, I checked for Jacob Duryea and Mary Etta Dunham's marriage circa 1874.  I found it just where I expected it to be:  1873 in Hudson County.  The problem was that there seemed to be two entries for Jacob's nuptials.

I ordered copies of the ledger books.  To my surprise, Jacob was married twice to Dunham women.  He married Harriet Dunham in Jersey City on 12 October 1873 and M. Etta Dunham on 2 March 1874.




New Jersey marriage ledger, volume BM, page 423.



New Jersey marriage ledger, volume BM, page 421.


My little fact-checking has lead to a whole new path.  What happened to Harriet Dunham, new bride of Jacob Duryea?  Why did Jacob remarry so quickly, and to a relative of his first wife?  The Jersey Journal is online at genealogybank.com.  I found only one reference to Jacob Duryea and Miss Dunham, where they attended a "Magnolia Coterie" in March 1873.  I don't know if this was Harriet or Marietta, and what made her so highly accomplished.  More work ahead.

Forgotten branch?

One of the pursuits in genealogy is to assemble all of the children of a couple.  Only heads of household are listed in census years before 1850.  If the children left the nest before the 1850 census, you will need to assemble the family piece by piece.

Garret Duryea and Ann Cornell had lots of children.  I started with three siblings- Fannie, Stephen, and George- and then incorporated the parents.  The children seemed to be born in New York- Long Island or New York City- starting around 1810 and complete by 1834, when Garret died.  My theoretical fourth sibling, John, died in 1836, leaving behind a pregnant wife, Sarah, and a daughter, Catherine Jane, information obtained from his will.



Will of John H. Duryea, probated 1836 in New York City



I found a big piece of the puzzle when I received the estate papers of Fannie Duryea, widow of Abraham Brewer.  She died intestate in 1901 in Rockland County, New York.  Her estate was divided among her surviving sibling and the children of her deceased siblings.  I found previously unknown siblings, Jacob, Mary, and Sarah, and confirmed that Stephen and George were indeed brothers to each other and Fannie as originally theorized.  The problem was that John’s child or children were not mentioned in the estate papers.

John’s widow was last seen in the 1848-49 New York City directory for a “fancy store.”  Had she given birth in 1836, and did that child survive?  What about Catherine Jane?  She may have died or remarried just before the 1850 census, precluding me from finding her intact family.



Doggett's New York City Directory 1848-1849, page 135



Following Stephen Duryea’s death in 1887, his widow, Mary, remarried in Jersey City in 1890 to Alfred D. Eyre (this scenario is a separate blog post to come).  The witnesses were Mrs. Kate Lockwood and H. A. Lockwood.

Always research the witnesses to a marriage.  By looking at their entries in the census and the Jersey City city directories, I discovered that Mrs. Kate Lockwood was actually the Catherine Jane Duryea mentioned in her father’s will in 1836; Harry Abram Lockwood was her husband.  By figuring this out, I was able to find her mother, Sarah, who had remarried to Joseph L. Scott; and the baby that Sarah was pregnant with in the 1836 will- Elizabeth Duryea, who had married Joseph Henley and had children.

Yet you will not find a marriage record for Catherine or Kate Duryea to Harry Abram Lockwood.  This is because she married in 1869 as Kate Leander, widow.  Her mother is listed as Sarah M. Scott, not her maiden name, Moffet, and nowhere is Duryea mentioned.

What is puzzling about this branch is that it is left out of Fannie Brewer’s 1901 estate disbursement.  As I previously wrote, I visited the plot for this branch at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn; however, the death dates of Sarah and her two daughters are not on the stone or on the burial transcript.  Kate and Harry Abram Lockwood are last seen in the 1900 census in Jersey City.  I do not know if Kate and Elizabeth died before their aunt Fannie died in 1901.  I do know that Elizabeth had at least one child, Augustus B. Henley, who was alive in 1901.  According to his gravestone, he died in 1931.  I initially thought that the family forgot about John, as he was probably one of the earlier siblings, dead in 1836 when several of the other siblings were still very little and could never remember him.  But the presence of Kate Lockwood’s signature on the 1890 marriage of Mary Duryea to Alfred D. Eyre shows that the family did know about John’s children and their whereabouts.

So why did the children of John Duryea, Fannie’s deceased brother, not inherit from her estate in 1901?  I do not know.  Still more searching to do.