Genealogy Story - A B Musselman

I was recently doing some research into one of the family lines that is prominent in the BFC – Musselman. There are seven generations of this family in my investigation as follows:

·        Jonas Musselman (1839-1886), m. Lucy [Brunner] (1842-1916)

·        Allen Brunner Musselman (1872-1900), m. Alice Baus (1865-1921)

·        Perth Ward Musselman (1892-1958)

·        John Marvin Musselman (1918-1989)

·        Jay Carl Musselman (1951-)

·        Jason Musselman (1979-)

·        Lucy Musselman (2013-)

I was originally just wondering if Lucy (2013-) was named after her great*4 grandmother, Lucy (1842-1916). (After consultation with her father, Jason, I confirmed that she was.) But as I was looking through the various records, something in the nature of a “scandal” leaped out of the records. This involves Allen B. Musselman (1872-1900).

Allen Brunner Musselman was born on 29 Dec 1872 in Upper Milford Township. He was the youngest of three boys, having older brothers William Brunner (b. 3 Oct 1860) and Harvey Brunner (b. 11 Feb 1868), known as WB and HB Musselman respectively. On 26 Mar 1886, when Allen was only 13 (his brothers would have been 25 and 18), his father Jonas died, leaving his mother, Lucy, a widow with three teenage boys (while that is what is said in BFCHistory, it was actually two teenagers and one in his 20s). There is a whole separate story about Lucy which I will not go into here.

While his older brothers followed their father into the ministry at a fairly young age (WB was licensed to preach in 1884 at age 23, HB in 1890 at age 22), Allen trained to be a printer (probably at the Quakertown Printing and Publishing House where his brother HB had worked from 1881 until entering the ministry in 1890). At the time there was a publishing arm of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ located in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, as the MBC, though various mergers over the preceding decades, had churches not only in PA, OH, and IN, but in Ontario as well. However, before Allen could move to Canada, he got married. This story is about that marriage.

On August 10, 1892 (a Wednesday), Allen and Alice got a marriage license at the Allentown courthouse. Allen was only 19, so he had his mother with him to give approval. His occupation was listed as Printer. Alice [Baus] was then 26, 7 years older than Allen. She was the oldest child of a family that had resided in Upper Milford Township somewhere along what is now St. Peter’s Church Rd, about halfway between Shimerville and St. Peter’s Church. It is believed that she lived in Allentown at the time of her marriage. On the marriage license she was listed as House Keeper. On the bottom of the page is a filing from the pastor who married them, W. Bamford (William Bamford was the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church on Linden Street in Allentown – now the Salem United Methodist Church – from 1889-1894). That was filed on August 27 and says that he performed the marriage on August 15 (a Monday). Being married on a Monday may indicate that the ceremony was not held in a church, but was a private ceremony, perhaps held in the pastor’s study. (I have not found any announcement of the wedding in the local paper.)

[AB Musselman marriage]

 

Allen had apparently already accepted a job working with the MBC publishing house in Canada, so within a very short time, he and Alice moved from PA to Canada. They had three children while living in Canada:

·        Perth Ward (b. 30 Nov 1892 in Berlin [now Kitchener], Ontario)

·        Verna Essie (b. 5 Nov 1894 in Waterloo. Ontario [adjoining city to Berlin/Kitchener])

·        Arta Olivia (b. 27 Jul 1897 in Markham, York, Ontario [outside of Toronto]), Allen’s occupation on her birth record is now listed as Minister instead of Laborer which had been on Perth and Verna’s birth record

[PW Musselman death with birthday noted]

 

But notice the date of Perth’s birth – 30 Nov 1892 – when his parents had only been married since 15 Aug 1892, just 3.5 months earlier! That means that not only was Allen’s wife 7 years older than he was, but that she was 5.5 months pregnant at the time of their marriage.

Gee – get married (but not in a church?) to an older woman who is 5.5 months pregnant, then leave town (in fact, leave the country) before she’s starting to show too much! Sounds like a scandal to me!

Allen and his family remained in Berlin/Kitchener Ontario for 5 years (1892-1897) while he worked for the MBC publishing house [this would have been the Gospel Banner which was published in Ontario from 1885 until 1909], while also continuing his studies. In 1897 he was ordained into the ministry and served in the “largest congregation” in their town in Canada until 1899 [I have been able to confirm that this was the Gormley Missionary Church in Richmond Hill, Ontario – see link below]. He then returned to PA in early 1899 when he assumed the pastorate of the MBC church in Reading. (The Annual Conference minutes of 3 Mar 1899 record that “Whereas, Elder A.B. Musselman, a member of the Canada Conference, being present with a proper transfer from P. Cober, P.E. [short for Presiding Elder], in his presence, therefore resolved, that he be received as a full member of this Conference.”) Unfortunately, after a protracted illness, he died just a year later on 2 May 1900.

Given the rather strict morality of those days, one wonders if the circumstances of this out-of-wedlock conception was known and if it would have prevented the ordination of Allen in 1897. The Faith and Order of the MBC from 1897 does not cover this particular situation, but it’s unlikely that the elders in Canada knew the exact date of Allen and Alice’s marriage, and it’s also unlikely that the Annual Conference in PA in 1899 knew everything either (although Allen’s two older brothers were both in high leadership positions in the PA Conference.)

 

 

 

 

Note that all the dates and facts in the above have been confirmed through a combination of BFC History, gameo.org [a Canadian version of Wikipedia] as well as census and other records available on ancestry.com.]

·        http://www.bfchistory.org/musshb.htm

·        http://www.bfchistory.org/musselmanwbtaylor.pdf

·        http://www.bfchistory.org/SISTERS.htm

·        http://www.bfchistory.org/1897docanddisc.htm

·        http://www.bfchistory.org/briefhist.htm

·        Obituary from Reading Times, 3 May 1900

·        https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Gormley_Missionary_Church_(Richmond_Hill,_Ontario,_Canada)

·        https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Cober,_Peter_(1853-1941)

·        https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Gospel_Banner_(Periodical)

·        https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ontario_Mennonite_Brethren_in_Christ

 

Camp Davis and the Flood of 1955

In August of 1955 a series of two hurricanes following the same track went through the eastern part of the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. One of the major tragedies happened in the area just to the north of Stroudsburg, when the Brodhead Creek was overwhelmed as the ground was already saturated. As noted by the National Weather Service and quoted in the Pocono Living Magazine (Aug/Sep 2021) (https://issuu.com/poconolivingmagazine/docs/plm_augsept_2021):

“Two powerful hurricanes moved up the Eastern Seaboard in quick succession in August 1955.” Connie dumped “six-to-ten inches of rain … across the eastern portions of the state” on Aug. 12 and 13. Diane arrived five days later. “With soils moist from the heavy rains from Connie and streams already flowing high, flooding quickly increased in severity during the evening hours on the 18^th. Rainfall estimated (at) between seven to nine inches fell in a six-hour period, with the heaviest amounts centered over the mountainous portions of northeast Pennsylvania. These small mountain creeks produced destructive flooding and led to several deadly small dam failures.”

The flooding on Brodhead Creek caused “a truly horrific event” at Camp Davis, a religious complex about four miles north of East Stroudsburg, the NWS says. “Forty-seven campers, mostly children, were huddled in a building that was rapidly flooded and dislodged into the roaring flood waters. Hours later, only seven of the campers were found alive.”

Camp Davis was a small campground that was run by a retired Baptist preacher, Leon Davis, and his wife. He used to rent out the camp to various religious groups. A small bridge crossed the creek (normally only 30 feet across, but that swelled to 300 yards during the storm) so that people could walk to Pinebrook Bible Conference, then owned and run by Percy Crawford. That way they could attend the various conferences and/or concerts during the day and return to Camp Davis in the evening.

As noted above, when the creek began rising it was in the evening and people initially went to the main building. Then as the water continued rising the first floor began flooding and people went upstairs, ending up huddling in the attic. It was then that the rising waters overwhelmed the building, collapsing it and sending all those inside into the water and getting washed down the quickly flowing “creek”. Most of them were drowned, some ending up lodged in trees, and some bodies never being found.

A second article in the same magazine (https://issuu.com/poconolivingmagazine/docs/plm_octnov_2021) noted that this was “A story of 37 children who perished…” While the number is correct, the statement that these were all “children” is far from the truth.

In 1968, the Bible Fellowship Church purchased the property. A 1995 article in the Fellowship News recounted this tragedy and said that the people in the camp were members of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ (MBC) church, the former name of the Bible Fellowship Church. But as my research below shows, this is not correct either.

Newspaper reports during the weeks that followed varied widely in their estimates of the number of individuals affected at Camp Davis. The Pocono Record of 22 Aug reported “55 Deaths in County; 20 missing.” The next day, the Standard-Sentinel from Hazleton reported, “a revised casualty list identifying 25 known dead in the Camp Davis flood disaster. Nine of the estimated 40 persons at the camp survived and six are missing.” Two weeks later, on 3 Sep The Pocono Record reported “61 known dead. Of this total six are unidentified.” (these numbers included not only Camp Davis but residents of Stroudsburg and a few others who were in camps farther north in Canadensis). A headline from 24 Sep gave a good analysis when it stated, “Erroneous Reports Add To Confusion”.

Part of this confusion was that several individuals reported as missing were still being searched for. An article on 19 Sep noted, “They were looking for the missing bodies of six children and two adults – all eight lost from Camp Davis.” Some were never found. The final count, in The Pocono Record of 24 Sep was reported as:

“There had been 46 persons at the camp [note that this is one less than had been reported by the NWS]. When the tide had dropped and the dead and missing were counted, only nine had survived.”

It took six weeks for this number to stabilize. But this final count of 37 killed is in agreement with the count reported in The Pocono Living Magazine above.

On 13 Oct 2004, The Morning Call published an article where they reported on an interview of one of the survivors, Jennie Johnson, from 22 Aug 1955. The title of the article was “Hurricane Diane proved tragic for campers – Floodwater killed 37 at Monroe campsite in August 1955.”

Some of the quotes from the article were:

Around 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 18 she and her children were watching the creek. “We watched the stream rushing past and remarked how pretty it looked. There wasn’t anything to worry about, at least we didn’t think so then.”

They were sitting in the bungalow a half-hour later when the building began to shake. Johnson remembered that it sounded as if a dam had broken. She and her children fled the shaking building for the big, solid home of camp supervisors, the Rev. and Mrs. Leon Davis. There they joined the rest of the campers.

Although the three-story house seemed safe, water quickly began to rise. As it reached each floor, the screaming campers fled to the next. Finally they were forced to seek refuge in the attic. The campers were watching the water climb the attic stairs after them when the building shuddered and collapsed.

Johnson told The Morning Call she was hit on her head by a board and passed out. When she came to, she found herself floating. Johnson grabbed one board and then another to try to stay afloat. Eventually she drifted onto a debris pile, praying until 7 a.m., when she was rescued. She found her 19-year-old daughter, but her two sons, age 14 and 10, had died. When the final count was made, only nine of the 46 campers who had been at Camp Davis survived.

 

The Dead

I’ve searched through a number of records to pull together a list of all those who were killed. There is a detailed report in The Pocono Record of 24 Sep 1955, but even that has a few errors as I note below. My primary source of information is the death certificates issued by the coroner for Monroe County. However, for those who were missing, the coroner did not fill out a death certificate, so I had to use other sources to verify the names and ages. Here is a complete of all the 37 individuals. As you can see, only half of them are children.

·        Anderson, Addie (73) – Nanuet, NY

·        Christensen, Louise T. (41) and her son, Donald (15) – Staten Island, NY

·        Deubel, Martha (48) – Orange, NJ

·        Donlon, Katherine Elizabeth (59) – Nanuet, NY

·        Hartig, Henry (67) and wife Lillian (70) – Brooklyn, NY

·        Hyatt, Emma (76) – Millburn, NJ

·        Johnson, Roy (14) and his brother David (10) – Jersey City, NJ

o   Johnson, David (10), was listed twice. As noted in The Pocono Record of 7 Sep, “A body previously identified as David Johnson, 10, Jersey City, will be exhumed from a grave in a Jersey City cemetery today and returned to Stroudsburg for further identification. Monroe County officials said yesterday they have found discrepancies in the boy’s identification.”

·        Kehmna, Susan (42) and her son John [Jay] (5) – Jersey City, NJ

·        Koch, John D (55) and his wife Mae (56) – Brooklyn, NY

·        Koch, Julie (56) and her grandsons, Frank J. McCaffrey (9) and James McCaffrey (8) – West Caldwell, NJ

·        Lawyer, Christian (49), wife Helen (45), daughter Carol (8), son Allan (11) – East Orange, NJ

o   Lieberford, William (Nanuet, NY), was listed initially, but no one of that name exists

·        Orgera, Elsie (53) – Park Ridge, NJ

·        Polly, Bertha (80) – Nanuet, NJ

·        Russo, Joseph (12) and his brother Frank (10) – Pompton Plains, NJ

·        Rutherford, Jean (46) and daughter Susan (4) and son Jimmy (6) – Staten Island, NY

·        Thompson, Gladys (22), her brother Bruce (15), sister Beverly (8) – Jersey City, NJ

·        Wagner, Josephine (62) – Jersey City, NJ

·        Weber, Elizabeth Jane (9) and her brother Robert (6) – West Patterson, NJ

·        Winfield, Edna (37), son Rowan (6) and daughter Karen (8) – Rutherford, NJ

o   Karen was not initially listed, but death certificate confirms her presence.

 

The Mennonite Connection

As should be evident from the places where these individuals were from (Brooklyn, NY; Jersey City, NJ; Nanuet, NY; Pompton Plains, NJ; Rutherford, NJ; Staten Island, NY; West Patterson, NJ), these were not places where the Mennonite Brethren in Christ had congregations in 1955 (with the exception of Staten Island). A few of the newspaper articles mentioned that these individuals were from Mennonite churches, but it does not appear that there was an MBC connection. That does not make it any less a tragedy. Even today, almost 70 years later, one has a hard time comprehending so many people, and often entire families, losing their lives in such a tragic event.

The Pierrepont Coat of Arms

[The below presentation was given during the 100^th reunion of the Pierpont Family Association on June 24, 2023]

As was mentioned earlier, investigation into the Pierrepont Coat of Arms began at the PFA meeting in 1926. In the 1927 and 1928 meetings, it was reported that there was a “problem with there being TWO Coats of Arms” so that “no decision had been reached as to which was authentic.” That indecision continued into the 1929 meeting.

The subject was not brought up again until the 1937 and 1938 meetings where it continued to be reported that there was “little activity” and no decisions had been made

The subject was finally brought up again in 1960 when an interesting talk was given by Kathryn Pierpont on her genealogical research of “The Pierpont-Pierpoint Families of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.” She had copies of her 1953 book as well as copies of the Pierpont Coat of Arms.

In the 1961 meeting Marion Pierpont “gave an interesting explanation of the Pierpont Coat-of-Arms” and looking at the one that had been presented the previous year.

In wasn’t until 1977 that the topic was again mentioned when a newspaper article from the Pierpont Family Reunion of 1928 was read by Marian Kraft.

I’ve already discussed the problem of the multiple crests, so I won’t reproduce that here. I’ve also blogged fairly extensively on peerage in the Pierpont/Pierrepont family – links to all of that are below and I won’t go into that here either. Rather, I just want to give an overview of what I have brought today, allow you to ask questions, and then to view these bits of our history.

 

·       https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/07/peerage-in-pierrepont-family.html

·       https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/07/pierrepont-family-crest.html

·       https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/09/pierpont-family-coat-of-arms.html

·       https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/09/pierpont-family-coat-of-arms-part-2.html

·       https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/10/peerage-in-pierrepont-family-part-2.html

·       https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-pierrepont-peers_6.html

·       https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/10/elizabeth-pierrepont-bigamist.html

[Unveil the COA]

 

 

This Coat of Arms is from 1764, over 250 years ago. It was produced during the time that Evelyn Pierrepont, Baron Pierrepont of Holme-Pierrepont, Viscount Newark, Earl of Kingston, Marquis of Dorchester, and Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, was still living. While there are other copies of this in existence, the only other one in color that I am aware of is at Holme-Pierrepont in England. I purchased this on behalf of the PFA last year from a dealer in antiquities. To give a rough idea of value, the three pieces of paper alone have a value of about $400 and the archival frame is another $600. The COA is actually suspended under the glass by two small dots of archival adhesive so you can see all the edges, including the small pieces of original string from where it was bound in a folio of COAs for all the peerage of England.

Besides the inscription on the bottom, this COA contains the crest of the Duke, a Duke’s crown, the shield of the Pierrepont family, the lion supporters, and the family motto. The family motto is “Pie Repone Te” – a spelling pun on the Pierrepont name which means “You rest in piety”.

While this COA is beautiful, of more significance to the Pierpont Family Association are the genealogy charts which were printed on the two following pages in the original folio.

[Remove envelope from back and take pages out]

 

 

This extensive genealogical chart goes back to the original invasion of England by the Normans in 1066 where our ancestor was a captain in William the Conqueror’s army. It follows the blood lines of the Pierrepont family from 1066 through the time of the production of the COA in 1764, i.e., about 700 years.

Toward the bottom of the first page, you can see the creation of the first Baron Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont. Robert Pierrepont was a Lieutenant General of the army under Charles I. The peerage in the family continues on to the second page where you can see the different crowns of Viscount, Earl, Marquis, and Duke as the family were given additional titles over the years.

In the generation preceding Robert, on the right-hand side of the page, you will find the name William Pierrepont (third son). Since under the rules of English primogeniture, William did not inherit anything, he would have had to leave the family home at Holme-Pierrepont and make a living on his own. He did, becoming a merchant in a nearby town. But he also then became acquainted with the Puritans. William was the father of James and the grandfather of John and Robert who went to New England around 1640 – thus beginning the family line of the New England Pierponts of which we are a part.

There are many stories related to this part of our history – how at one time there were two Baron Pierreponts (the cause of the change in the crest), the daughtering-out of various lines, marriage to a bigamist and the salacious trial before the peerage, and others. I’ve blogged on all of these previously, and I refer you to the links on the PFA Facebook page to read those stories.

I’m going to leave the COA and these two pages here on the table for you to examine. However, I would ask that handling of the genealogy charts be kept to an absolute minimum. They have only been unfolded and handled perhaps a half-dozen times over the last 250 years and I would like them to continue in this pristine state for another couple of centuries. Feel free to take whatever pictures you like and ask any questions you may have, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

 

 

The Pierpont / Mill Plain Connection

[The below presentation was given during the 100^th reunion of the Pierpont Family Association on June 24, 2023]

The Saw Mill Plain Schoolhouse was built in 1833 where Chase School now stands (just up the road from the current church). Religious services were begun there in 1878. In 1883, the Mill Plain Chapel was built for $1,750. (One of the key ministers at the time was Rev. John Gaylord Davenport who was also a minister at the Second Congregation Church in Waterbury. He was a direct descendant of Rev. John Davenport who had founded New Haven in 1639 and a great*5 nephew of Abigail Davenport, the first wife of Rev. James Pierpont.)

[Mill Plain Chapel]

 

Rev. Davenport passed away in 1922. Planning for the first Pierpont Reunion began a year later in late 1923. The first reunion was held in May 1924 in the Mill Plain Chapel – just a short distance down the road from where we are today. There were about 80 in attendance. The minutes record that this was a reunion of the “North Haven branch of Pierponts”! (The North Haven branch were the descendants of Joseph Pierpont (1704-1748). Joseph’s grandson, Ezra was the one who moved from North Haven to Waterbury.) My grandfather was one of the attendees, but my grandmother was not in attendance as she was caring for two young children and was 8 months pregnant with my mother.

The 1925 reunion was held in the same place. Construction of the new Mill Plain Church had started so it was anticipated that the 1926 reunion would be held there.

In 1926, the reunion was held in the yet incomplete new church building. Supper was served in the dining room/gymnasium. The president, Morton Pierpont (owner of the Maple Hill Dairy) suggested that the association purchase the Pierpont Memorial window since members of the Pierpont family had been attending since before the first chapel was built in Mill Plain. Two committees were formed – one being the window committee and a second to investigate the Pierrepont Coat of Arms (more on that later today).

In 1927, the church was still under construction, so the meeting was again held in the gymnasium. It wasn’t until the 1928 meeting that the PFA was thanked for their contribution by the then pastor (Rev. J. O. Todd) and that the PFA had an opportunity to inspect the new window. All voted it a very beautiful church and complimented its designer.

While the 1929 meeting was again held at the Mill Plain church, beginning in 1930, the PFA began meeting in other less formal venues, but still in the Waterbury area. These included Fulton Park (1930), and Maple Hill Dairy (1931, 1932, 1933). In 1934, the first non-Waterbury location was used – the Congregational Church in North Haven. It was about the same time that the focus of the PFA was extended from just being the “North Haven branch” to being the “New England Pierponts”, i.e., going back through the Rev. James Pierpont to his father, John, and uncle, Robert, who were the first of the family to settle in Roxbury, MA.

After meeting at other locations around the state for several years, restrictions on travel due to gasoline unavailability during WWII necessitated a return to having meetings in Waterbury. The 1942 and 1943 meetings were once again held at Mill Plain with the 1943 meeting only having 27 in attendance – the lowest on record at that point. Essentially, only those who could walk to the meeting attended. But this included my grandfather who was elected president of the PFA in 1942 (he served for 3 years) and my mother who was elected secretary in 1943 at the age of just 18.

[Wedding]

 

My parents were married in the Mill Plain church in September 1946. They were among the last married there as on February 26, 1947, a devastating fire gutted the church. The PFA began a window committee to raise funds for a new window for the restored church. Like the first church which was built by church members, and which took over two years to build, the new edifice would take over a year to be constructed.

The new building was completed sometime in mid-late 1948. But just as my parents’ wedding was one of the last in the old building, so too our family had a part in the new building. I was born in August of 1948 and was dedicated/baptized in the Mill Plain church that November by Rev. Leon Dickinson. I was likely the first baby dedicated in this facility.

[Dedication Certificate]

 

The 1949 meeting was held in June and the main purpose was the dedication of the “beautiful stained glass memorial window.” Rev. Dickinson expressed his grateful appreciation for the effort, work and contributions which made possible the donation of this beautiful window.” That was also my first PFA meeting (at age 10 months). However, I was not the youngest there as my cousin Dave was also in attendance and he was only 4 months old!

[Pierpont Window]

 

The PFA has only been back to Waterbury a few times since the 1940s – meeting at Mill Plain in 1953, meeting at Mort Pierpont’s Grove (Maple Hill Diary) in 1960 and 1961, and our last meeting at Mill Plain in 1999 for the 50^th anniversary of the rededication of the beautiful window. Let me quote from the minutes of that meeting.

“Then historian Bob Kraft talked about the intertwined organizational and personal connections between the Pierpont Family Association and the Mill Plain Union Chapel (1883) and Church, as well as the Old Pine Grove Cemetery on which the buildings stand. It was pointed out that many objects in the church (including other windows) were associated with the wider Pierpont (-Miller, -Garrigus, etc.) family.

 

It has now been another quarter-century since our last PFA meeting at Mill Plain Church. This is our 100^th reunion and it’s only fitting that we are once again meeting in the place where we began. The connections between this church and the greater Pierpont family are numerous and I’ve only touched on the main ones. Let’s enjoy our day together here – getting reacquainted with each other, meeting family members new and old, and enjoying the history that this place represents – including the beautiful Pierpont Family Memorial window!

 

Genealogy Story – Martin Powell (Povelonis)

In preparing for the 100^th Pierpont Family Reunion, I was having a conversation with one of my third cousins, Bonnie Fleming-Richardson. We got talking about some of our shared experiences growing up in Wolcott and got on to the topic of the farm hand on her relative’s farm. I want to relate his story – which has never been told before – but I first need to put that part of our family into context. So let me give a background on the Miller/Northrop/Fleming/Kraft/Peterson family and their connections to me.

 

Extended Family Connections in Wolcott

I had written about this part of the family before (see here), but only mentioned that besides my uncles/aunts/cousins, they represented the primary other relatives in town. My connection to them is as follows.

My grandfather was Harold Granger Pierpont (1898-1969). His father was Wilson Levinus Pierpont (1855-1921). Wilson was one of six children of Charles Joseph Pierpont (1825-1884) and Wilson’s younger sister was Mary Ann Pierpont (1860-1938). Mary Ann was married to Charles Somers Miller (1858-1943). I’ve written about Charles Miller before (see here). Among other things, he was responsible for revitalizing and then leading the Mattatuck Drum Band for 50 years (see here).

Charles and Mary Ann had a daughter, Margaret Miller (1889-1987) whom I’ve also written about before (see here). Because she had such a long life, I knew Margaret while growing up in Wolcott. Her first husband, Clifford Northrop, had passed away in 1936, and her second husband, George Ransom Hall, had passed away in 1946, but she lived another 40+ years. Two of her children, who were second cousins of my mother, also lived in Wolcott.

Marian Northrop (1912-2006) had married Howard Kraft (1911-2000). Their children, my third cousins, included Charles (1932-), Robert (Bob) (1934-), twins David (1942-) and Daniel (1942-1942), and Sharon (1947-). Marian’s sister, Jean Northrop (1916-2009), had married Byron Fleming (1919-2017). Their children, also my third cousins, included Lisle (1943-) and Bonnie (1950-).

While the Peterson family were not directly related to me, Howard Kraft’s mother was Lillian Peterson (1889-1960) and she was from a large family which included her sister, Hilma (1892-1969), and Hilma’s husband, Carl (1891-1954). Carl and Hilma had four children, Carl jr. (1914-1969), Albert (1918-2000), Arthur (1920-1983), and Marjorie (1920-1990). They were all about the age of my parents. Thus, the Peterson children in Wolcott were 2^nd cousins of the Kraft children in Wolcott, as well as being cousins-of-cousins both to the Fleming children and the Pierpont/Russell children. All one-big-happy-family! The Kraft/Fleming/Peterson families all lived in close proximity to each other near the intersection of Spindle Hill Rd, Mad River Rd, and Peterson Lane. Our family and my Pierpont cousins lived just a few houses apart in the northern section of town.

But the interactions did not end at just family relationships. We interacted in school – not with the Krafts who were a bit older, but there were many same-grade connections between the Russell/Pierpont/Fleming/Peterson families. The Petersons owned a dairy farm and Albert Peterson was our milkman – delivering seven quarts of unpasteurized, un-homogenized milk to our house every other day. My life-saving instructor was from this family group (see here). And the songs in French that I learned on a beach in Dennis Port, MA, were courtesy of one of these distant cousins (see here). Finally, one of the school nurses with whom we all interacted was Doris Peterson, the wife of Albert. And my mother was a girl scout leader to several of the girls in this part of our extended family.

Thus, there were interactions at both our parent’s generation as well as my generation.

 

The Farm Hand

All of the above is just to set the stage for telling the genealogy story of Martin Powell (Povelonis).

In my interactions with Bonnie, she mentioned that the “hired hand, Martin” lived in the farmhouse with “Aunt Hilma”. That prompted me to look up the 1950 census where I could see the Fleming family (including Bonnie who was just a few months old), the Krafts, and a couple of the Peterson families all living in the same area. On the farm were living Carl, his wife Hilma, and their “farm helper”, Martin. But of interest to me was that he was listed as having been born in Lithuania. Since the Petersons were of Swedish background, that seemed unusual. I mentioned it to Bonnie, and she responded “How did you find out that? My Dad always said he was from Russia.” So, it was “off to the races” in my genealogy research to see what I could find out about Martin.

 

Martin’s Story

Martin was born on 11 October 1888 in Kaunas, Lithuania. However, while Lithuania has a long history – the first recording of that name being in the year 1009 – it was not an independent country for many centuries of its history. It became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569 to 1795, then was part of the Russian Empire. It was not until 1918 that it was re-established as a democratic state. That lasted until WWII when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. Finally, it became independent again in 2004. Thus, when Martin was born, he was born in Russia – even though he spoke Lithuanian. And it was not until he was 30 years old that he could say he was from Lithuania.

It is not known when Martin arrived in the US. He apparently took on the last name Powell as a shortened version of Povelonis. Except for his WWII draft card, the 1950 census, and his gravestone, all other documents list the name of Powell. (I have not been able to find any record of a formal name change.)

Martin served with the NY National Guard from 27 Jun 1916 until 16 Jul 1917. He was a private with the unit from Catskill, NY. Following his service, he moved from NY to Waterbury, CT where he was working for Scovill. When the US formally entered WWI, he was drafted, but was apparently not required to serve because he had already done so. On his draft card he recorded that he was supporting his father and five sisters who were still living in Europe – presumably in Lithuania/Russia.

Carl and Hilma Peterson began their dairy farm in Wolcott in 1923. About that same time, Martin began working for Carl. He stayed on for the remainder of his life, being recorded there in the 1930, 1940, and 1950 census.  In the 1940 census he is shown as only having a 3^rd grade education.

Incorrect/missing information:

·       Although Martin is in the Waterbury city directory in 1920, he was missed in the census which took place that year.

·       In the 1930 census, Martin is listed as being 40 years old, a typical off-by-one error.

·       In the 1940 census, Martin is listed as “US Citizen, born abroad”. This is clearly incorrect as both his parents are also from Lithuania. A correct response would have been either “Alien” or “Naturalized Citizen”.

·       In the 1950 census, Martin is declared to be a US citizen. In the 1918 draft record, it showed that he has recently applied for citizenship, but there is no record of it being granted.

·       In Martin’s WWII draft record, the name on the form was recorded as “Povilonis” where his signature on the bottom of the form is clearly “Povelonis”.

·       The spelling of “Povelonis” is quite unusual in Lithuania (only 6 results in Google), where the spelling of “Povilonis” has over 31,000 results. Did Martin not know the spelling of his Lithuanian name? Or perhaps since it would have originally been in the Cyrillic language, did he simply transliterate it wrong into the English alphabet?

·       I have been unable to locate any immigration record for Martin.

Carl passed away in 1954 and Martin stayed, living with Hilma and working on the farm. In 1962 the large barn on the property burned. It was at this time that our family could no longer get raw milk from the Peterson dairy (see article in Wolcott History website here). When Hilma passed away in 1969, Martin was still there. The Peterson children apparently helped him with the needed paperwork, and he remained until his passing in 1979 (at age 90), although death records indicate that he may have been in a hospital in Meriden at the end of his life.

Martin was buried by the family in the Edgewood Cemetery in Wolcott, near his Peterson and Fleming “relatives”. His grave reads, “Martin Povelonis, Oct. 11, 1888, May 22, 1979, A Good Friend”. A fitting tribute to someone who was more than just a “farm hand” – but who lived with the family for over 50 years.