Genealogy Story – Sam and Hattie Nichols

I have always lamented that, unlike my wife, I never had the chance to know any of my great-grandparents when I was growing up. Most of them died long before I was born, with the exception of my paternal grandfather’s father and step-mother who died in the mid-1940s while my father was in the South Pacific during WWII. The year of death and age of each of each of them is given in (*4) below.

However, in doing that thinking, I have neglected the couple who raised Harold Pierpont, my maternal grandfather. I have written about them before (*1, *2, *3), but never done any real investigation into their lives. Sam Nichols died in 1956 at the age of 83, and his wife Hattie died in 1962 at the age of 90. Thus, both of them were living in Prospect when I was growing up in Wolcott and Hattie did not pass away until I was in eighth grade. Here is a bit more of their story.

[Nichols Grave]

Samuel Nichols

The Nichols family had lived in the Woodtick area of Wolcott for several generations. Nichols Road is named for the family. Erastus had been born in 1798 around the time that Wolcott became an official town. His son, Samuel Sr, and grandson, Samuel Jr, had also been born in that area. As I noted in (*2), the Nichols families (Erastus and Samuel Sr), lived close to the Root and Hall families. After it was built in 1883, they probably all attended the church in Mill Plain together (it is about the same distance away as the church in the center of Wolcott, but a much flatter road than winding up to the center of Wolcott on top of a hill). Thus, the Nichols, Root, and Hall families were all close friends as well as being friends with the Pierponts who also attended that church.

Hattie Chandler

Hattie (short for Harriet) had been born in Prospect where her parents had a farm. The Chandler family had been there for a few generations, although her Chandler great-grandfather had immigrated from Ireland in the early 1800s. Her other ancestral lines (Morse, Peck, and Hotchkiss) were all of early Connecticut families.

Hattie’s maternal grandmother, Julie Hotchkiss, was originally from Wolcott (having married there in 1849) and was thus also part of the small group of families in the Woodtick area along with the Merrill, Nichols, Root, and Hall families. It’s possible that she was responsible for the introduction of her granddaughter, Hattie, to Sam.

Sam and Hattie

It’s a matter of conjecture how Sam and Hattie met as they were from different towns, but both their families were farmers, and as noted above their extended families knew each other in Wolcott, so there are several possibilities. They married in 1894 when they were each about 22 years old. They never had children of their own.

As I noted in (*1), my grandfather’s mother passed away just a few days after he was born due to complications from childbirth. He had six older siblings living at the time (ages 18, 16, 13, 9, 7, 5). With 16-year-old Edith able to take care of the house, his father, Wilson, apparently felt able to manage the older children, but taking care of an infant was going to be difficult. So, for whatever reason, he gave my grandfather into the care of Sam and Hattie. They were a young, childless couple of age 24/25 and willing to do so. When Wilson remarried four years later, Sam and Hattie continued raising my grandfather.

Sam and Hattie never officially adopted my grandfather. In both the 1900 and 1910 census he is listed as being a “border”. But they had help in raising him. In the 1900 census, Sam and Hattie are living next door to her uncle Moses and his wife, and in the 1910 census they are living next door to her parents, her brother, and her nephew. So, my grandfather, while not officially a member of the family, was well taken care of by the extended Chandler family.

Since my grandmother, then Sara Blackman, lived just a short distance away and she was also surrounded by her extended family (*3) (Blackman, Talmadge, Cowdell (their mother was also a Hotchkiss)), when my grandparents married, it was just one more connection between these two extensive family groups from Prospect.

I wish that I had the opportunity while growing up at meeting this wonderful couple from Prospect. While they are not biological family, they were more the parents to my grandfather than his biological father and step-mother would have been.

Notes:

*1 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/12/genealogy-story-my-pierpont-grandparents.html

*2 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/12/genealogy-story-tangled-wolcott-web.html

*3 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2018/03/genealogy-story-my-prospect-connections.html

*4 – great-grandparents death year and age:

·       Louis Russell – 1946 (74)

·       Anna Pauline [Merchant] Russell – 1903 (32)

·       Helen [Madigan] [Pulver] [Waldron] Russell – 1945 (77) (step-mother)

·       Maurice Levy – 1910 (40)

·       Caroline [Northrop] Levy – 1935 (63)

·       Wilson Pierpont – 1921 (66)

·       Annie [Merrill] Pierpont – 1898 (39)

·       Anna [Root] [Hall] Pierpont – 1938 (85) (step-mother)

·       Clarence Blackman – 1929 (59)

·       Alice [Talmadge] Blackman – 1929 (58)

Putting the Connect in Connecticut

When I was a boy growing up in Connecticut, I noted that it was easy to remember how to spell the name of my state by using the shorter words Connect-i-cut. The word itself of course was not derived from those other English words, but was an anglicization of the Algonquian word “Quinnehtukqut” which means “beside the long tidal river”. The Connecticut River was given that name in the early 1600s.

The English settlers had founded several colonies and towns during the early 1600s, not only along the Connecticut River, but dotted along the coast as well. So how was it that these semi-independent towns came together to form what is now the State of Connecticut? Some of the answer to that can be found in the influence of one man, my great*7 grandfather, the Rev. James Pierpont (1659-1714).

I’ve written about the Rev. James Pierpont several times before (see notes below). But of particular note about him is his adeptness at connecting with a number of other significant families. Here is a synopsis of those connections in three categories: (1) the families of his three wives; (2) the other men involved in the establishment of the Collegiate School of Connecticut (later called Yale); and (3) the families his children married into.

[James Pierpont]

Wives

The two largest towns in the late 1600s were Hartford, the center of the Colony of Connecticut, and New Haven, the center of the New Haven Colony. Each of these had been founded in the 1630s by a group led by a pair of men – one man being the pastor of the initial group. In the case of Hartford, the two men were Joseph Haynes and Thomas Hooker, in the case of New Haven, the two men were John Davenport and Theopolis Eaton.

As the pastor of the New Haven Colony, James Pierpont had assumed the mantle of Davenport, but through his three marriages (the first two having been cut short through the premature deaths of his wives), he also connected himself to the Colony of Connecticut.

·       Abigail Davenport – granddaughter of John Davenport

·       Sarah Haynes – granddaughter of John Haynes

·       Mary Hooker – granddaughter of Thomas Hooker

A co-incidence? I think not, especially when you see the other alliances he also established.

Yale University

Yale was founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School of Connecticut. It was also located initially in Killingworth and Saybrook (at the mouth of the Connecticut River). Even though James was the principal founder responsible for the school’s establishment, and by doing so he was fulfilling the original desire of his predecessor in New Haven, John Davenport, both the naming of the school and its location were shrewd moves. At the time, Hartford and New Haven were joint capitals, and 1701 was the first meeting of the legislature in New Haven. James wanted to present the college to them as a fait accompli, but to have it named after and located in New Haven would probably have caused the legislature to reject the notion. By locating it elsewhere and naming it after the Connecticut Colony, he helped to guarantee the adoption of the charter of the college. It was not until after the death of James that the college relocated to New Haven and was renamed as Yale.

There were three principal founders of the college, James as well as Samuel Andrew and Samuel Russell. But there was a larger group, kind of an advisory board, that they had established in order to get the support of all the pastors of the towns along the coast and along the Connecticut River. Here is a list of the men and the towns that they pastored.

·       Samuel Andrew, Milford, CT

·       Thomas Buckingham, Saybrook, CT

·       Israel Chauncy, Stratford, CT

·       Samuel Mather, Windsor, CT

·       James Noyes, Stonington, CT

·       Abraham Pierson, Killingworth, CT

·       Nodiah Russell, Middletown, CT

·       Samuel Russell, Branford, CT

·       Joseph Webb, Fairfield, CT

·       Timothy Woodbridge, Hartford, CT

Children

While James and his wife did not choose the spouses for their children, you can see the social circles in which the family participated and the other families that their children grew up knowing by their eventual choice of marriage partners. Most of James’ children did not marry into local New Haven families, but chose their spouses from other towns where James had connections.

·       Abigail, married Rev. Joseph Noyes, son of one of the other Yale founders, James Noyes – who was then the chair of the board of trustees of the college as well as pastor of the church in Stonington

·       James, educated at Yale, but then became a business man and moved to Boston. Since he was then a part of a different social circle than his parents, he chose his wives from these other associations. He first married Sarah Breck in Boston, when Sarah later died without children, James then moved back to New Haven and married Anna Sherman from Fairfield County, CT

·       Samuel, educated at Yale, but drowned in the Connecticut River at the age of 23

·       Mary, married Rev. William Russell, pastor of the church in Middletown, and son of Rev. Nodiah Russell, one of the other founders of Yale

·       Joseph, farmer, married Hannah Russell, daughter of Nodiah Russell

·       Benjamin, died at age 5 months

·       Benjamin, educated at Yale, but died at age 28

·       Sarah, married Jonathan Edwards, celebrated Puritan minister, who had just finished two years as a tutor at Yale and had been named as the new pastor in Northampton, MA

·       Hezekiah, married Lydia Hemingway (the only marriage into another long-time New Haven family) and daughter of one of the first students of the Collegiate School of Connecticut

Notes

*1 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/02/genealogy-story-james-pierpont.html

*2 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/03/genealogy-story-harvard-and-yale.html

*3 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/06/genealogy-story-yale-part-2.html

*3 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/04/genealogy-story-james-pierpont.html

*4 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/12/genealogy-story-james-pierpont-siblings.html

*5 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2018/02/james-pierpont-and-yale.html

Genealogy Story – Early Deaths

There has been much discussion about how the average life expectancy is continuing to increase. For example, since 1900, the average life expectancy in the US has gone from 47 to nearly 80. But the reason for this is not that everyone is living longer, but that the “average” is going up because of a decrease in early deaths. For example, if person A lives to age 85 but person B dies in childhood at age 5 due to an infectious disease, then the average life expectancy is only 45 (85 + 5) / 2 = 45. If we eliminate that cause of early death by better health measures or vaccines, and then person B lives to age 65, then the average is (85 + 65) / 2 = 75.

As a good article on this (*1) points out, “In the early part of the twentieth century, public health measures and improved nutrition led to rapid reductions in mortality caused by infectious diseases.” [As a side note, Figure 1 in this article which shows the average each year. If you look at 1919, you can see the dramatic plunge in life expectancy caused by the Spanish Flu. Let’s hope that the measures being taken in response to the current COVID-19 virus do not have the same sort of impact!]

But these discussions are all just about overall averages. I thought I’d look in my own family tree to find concrete examples of “early death”, particularly in the period just before and after 1900 – the time that my grandparents and great-grandparents would have been impacted. While not all deaths were recorded in places that I have access to, my search will be greatly aided by the census records of 1900 and 1910, when women were asked “how many children” AND “how many living children,” so you can get a sense of how many had died. I’ll look at each of my grandparents and their families in the below analysis and see how many deaths under the age of 50 I can find. If I can find the cause of death, I will also note it.

Maternal Grandfather – Pierpont/Merrill/Hall

Richard Irving Pierpont (1886-1889) – My grandfather was one of eight children. His older brother Richard died in 1889 at age 3. I have not found any records as to the cause of his death.

Annie Merrill (1858-1898) – My grandfather’s mother died just a few days after he was born due to complications from childbirth. She was only 40.

Ransom Hall (1852-1889) – Following the death of Annie, my great-grandfather married a widow, Anna [Root] Hall. Her first husband had also died early at the age of 37.

(Boy) Hall (1888-1888) – Anna [Root] Hall had five children from her first marriage. One of them, a boy who was never named, was stillborn in 1888. His gravestone only reads “Infant son”.

Maternal Grandmother – Blackman/Talmadge

Emma Minor [Blackman] Huckins (1874-1894) – my great-grandfather’s sister died in childbirth when giving birth to her first (only) son Raymond.

Paternal Grandfather – Russell/Merchant

Allen Percy Russell (1901-1905) – my grandfather’s youngest brother died at age 4 – cause unknown.

Anna Pauline [Merchant] Russell (1871-1903) – my great-grandmother died at the age of only 32 when her youngest daughter was only 4 months old.

Lois Ann [Cook] Russell (1855-1883) – my great-grandfather’s mother died at the age of only 28 after having had 6 children.

Gertrude Louise Russell (1880-1903) – my great-grandfather’s sister died at the age of 22.

Walter James Russell (1852-1895) – following the death of his first wife, Lois Ann [Cook], Walter remarried, had 4 more children, then died himself at the age of 43.

Cornelia [Sutphin] Russell (1858-1897) – Walter’s second wife also died at the age of 49, leaving her children who were then sent to an orphanage.

Iva M Pulver (1892-1892) – my step-great-grandmother’s daughter by her first marriage, Iva (twin sister of Eva) was stillborn.

(Boy) Waldron (1900-1900) – my step-great-grandmother had one last child with her second husband, Lewis Waldron, who was apparently stillborn.

Paternal Grandmother – Levy/Northrop

Two Levy children (190x) – In the 1900 census, Maurice Levy and his wife Caroline [Northrop] were living in Brooklyn, NY, with their two daughters. Caroline is shown with two children, both living. In the 1910 census, still in Brooklyn, Caroline notes that she is the mother of four children, but only two are living. This is the only record I have found of the births and deaths of two of my grandmother’s siblings during that decade. Until looking at these census records there were no family stories about these two children.

Maurice Levy (1870-1910) – Only a few months after the 1910 census, Maurice passed away at the age of 40. No cause of death was recorded that I have found.

Siblings of Maurice – Maurice’s mother, Phoebe [Isaacs] Levy, is noted in the 1900 census as having had 10 children but only 5 are living. One of them is Maurice’s brother, Benjamin, who died in 1893 at the age of 22. But I have no records of who the other four children are or when they died.

Mary Drake Northrop (1876-1884) – Lawrence Northrop and Mary Lois [Rogers] Northrop had 7 children, but only 6 survived to adulthood. Their middle daughter, Mary Drake, died in 1884 at the age of only 8. No cause of death was listed.

Conclusion

Early death is not just an academic subject. Above are listed twenty-two such incidents just in my own family tree in the span on one generation (1883-1910).

Notes:

*1 - https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/25/mortality-in-the-united-states-past-present-and-future

Genealogy Story – The Men in Margaret Miller’s Life

Recently I was contacted by a lady from NC who had read some of my blogs on the Pierpont Family Association Facebook page and who had some materials from old PFA meetings 80 or so years ago. I asked her to send them to me so I could donate them to the PFA at our next meeting (which will be delayed this year due to the Corona virus).

Two pictures that she sent me were from the 50^th anniversary of Mary Ann [Pierpont} and Charles Somers Miller. There were two things about the picture that intrigued me. First, the location of that anniversary picture was in the Mill Plain Union Church in Waterbury, CT – the same room where my parents had their wedding day picture taken in 1946. Second, while one of the pictures was of just the honored couple and their descendants, the other with extended family included my grandfather, Harold Granger Pierpont, standing right behind Mary Ann. (I believe that my grandmother is also in the picture with just the top part of her face showing in the back.)

One of the other documents in the envelope was the dedication of the 1941 PFA meeting to Mary Ann as she had died in 1938. This noted that she and Charles were “the first couple to be married in the Chapel.” And that “She was a member of the Second Congregational Church in Waterbury, but directed most of her efforts to the work of the struggling Chapel.”

Apart from my grandparents, there is one other person in the picture whom I knew when growing up – Margaret [Miller] [Northrop] Hall (1889-1987) (on the left without a hat and with bangs, glancing sideways at her parents). She lived in my hometown, Wolcott, and she and her extended family were people whom I also knew. As I looked at some of the things that I knew about her, I decided to concentrate on the men in Margaret’s life and all the ways she was related to me through them. Here are the things I found.

Margaret’s Father (and Mother)

The most obvious connection is through Margaret’s mother, Mary Ann [Pierpont]. Through this connection, my grandfather is Margaret’s first cousin. So besides being from the same part of Waterbury and attending the same chapel/church, it’s obvious that he was invited to Mary Ann and Charles’ anniversary as he was Mary Ann’s nephew. But are there any other connections through Charles himself?

As noted in the Pierpont genealogies, Charles’ grandmother was Almira Frisbie. But there are Frisbies in the Pierpont line as well through my grandfather’s mother. Thus, Charles is a 4^th cousin of my grandfather (by blood) as well as being my grandfather’s cousin (by marriage).

Margaret’s First Husband

Margaret first married Clifford Wesley Northrop (1875-1936). There are two of my family lines that also have Northrop’s in them. On my father’s side, my great-grandmother was Caroline Northrop, and on my mother’s side one of my great*5 grandmothers is Sarah Northrop/Northrup. These two lines converge, but the ancestral line of Clifford Northrop also merges with it. So, Clifford is my 5^th cousin, giving me two more connections to Margaret.

Margaret’s Second Husband

Following Clifford’s death in 1936, Margaret married a second time to George Ransom Hall in 1939. But this created yet another connection as George’s parents were Ransom Hall (1852-1889) and Anna [Root] Hall (1853-1938). My great-grandfather, Wilson Pierpont, became widowed in 1898 when his wife passed away just a few days after my grandfather was born. He then married the widow Anna [Root] Hall, combining their two families. Thus, George Hall is a step-brother to my grandfather. It also meant that Margaret was marrying her step-first cousin – but a legal marriage since there was not a blood connection!

Margaret’s Pastor

There is an interesting comment in the Pierpont genealogies that noted that Margaret was married in the Mill Plain Chapel by Rev. Davenport. That name looked familiar so I needed to do some further checking.

According to the history of the Mill Plain Union Church (https://millplainunionchurch.com/our-history/), the Saw Mill Plain Schoolhouse was built in 1833 where Chase School now stands. Their first pastor was Rev. Alfred Northrop [yes, he is also part of the extended Northrop family mentioned above]. The Rev. Davenport mentioned was Dr. John [Gaylord] Davenport who was the minister of the Second Congregational Church and who walked to Mill Plain to conduct services. (The Second Congregational Church connection of Mary Ann is probably the reason for he being invited to conduct Margaret’s marriage ceremony.)

The original Mill Plain Chapel was built in 1883 and temporary ministers came from other churches in Waterbury until 1921 when they had their first permanent minister. Mary Ann [Pierpont] and Charles Somers Miller were the first couple married in this building and Margaret was also married there in 1910. (Note that this was not the current stone church. A first stone church was built in 1928, then when it burned down in 1947, it was rebuilt.)

But what is the Davenport connection? Those knowledgeable with Pierpont genealogy will recall that one of the original settlers of the New Haven Colony was Rev. John Davenport (1597-1670) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Davenport_(minister)). When Rev. James Pierpont came to New Haven as the new minister, he was taking on the mantle of Rev. Davenport. This was made stronger when he married Abigail Davenport, a granddaughter of Rev. John Davenport. (She passed away after the birth of their first child – it was Rev. James’ third wife who is the ancestor of al the other Pierponts in this story.)

The family line from Rev. John Davenport was as follows:

Rev. John

-> John Davenport II (1635-1677) [m. Abigail Pierson]

-> John Davenport III (1668-1731) [brother of Abigail Davenport who married Rev. James Pierpont]

-> John Davenport IV (1698-1742) [m. Sarah Bishop]

-> Deodate Davenport (1730-1808) [m. Lydia Reed]

-> Deodate Davenport (1766-1839) [m. Abigail Hanford]

-> Samuel Davenport (1789-1853) [m. Susan Betts]

-> Charles Augustus Davenport (1812-1853) [m. Sarah Maria Gaylord]

-> Rev. John Gaylord Davenport (1840-1922) [m. Alice Westcott]

Thus Rev. John Gaylord Davenport was the step 6^th cousin, once removed, of Margaret Miller.

Oh, what a tangled web of connections! But through these connections I and my third cousin, Bob Kraft are currently the co-historians of the Pierpont Family Association, and Catherine Sangüeza, who donated this material, is also my third cousin and a second cousin of Bob.