Wagner & Kraus Families: NYC, 1890s-1910s

When Barbara Wagner arrived in New York on Aug 12, 1899 aboard the ship Southwark she was traveling with six children (George, 14; Barbara, 11; Henry, 9; Peter, 5; Anna, 4; and Elizabeth, 2). The passenger list shows that they were meeting Barbara’s husband, Peter Wagner, whose residence was 137 E 36^th St (corner of Lexington Av), New York City. Today, that address is coop apartments called the Carlton Regency, built in 1966. It is located in the Murray Hill part of the city, a very nice area to live from all appearances. That address is a two-block walk from my Great Aunt Edna's old apartment at 7 Park Av (built in 1931). What was the neighborhood like in 1899?

Mulberry St (Lower East Side), New York City, ca. 1900

 In 1899, the area from 27th St. on the south to 59th St. on the north, and from 3^rd Av east to the East River, was called the Kip's Bay-Turtle Bay neighborhood, sometimes known as the mid-town East Side. Huge industrial enterprises—breweries, laundries, slaughter houses, power plants—along the water front faced squalid tenements not far away from new apartment houses built in the area for its river view and its central position. The numerous plants showered this district with the heaviest fallout of soot in the city—150 tons to the square mile annually.

Early in the 19^th century this region was the site of the country estates of many prominent New Yorkers, among them Horace Greeley, the editor, and Francis Bayard Winthrop, bank director and poet. By the 1880's, however, the estates had been broken up into lots and rows of brownstones had been built. By 1899, much of the district was a slum. Elevated trains of the 2^nd and 3^rd  Av lines thundered by constantly, and 1^st Av, an important commercial traffic artery, brought an endless, noisy procession of trucks. Kip's and Turtle bays have long been filled in, and their names have vanished from maps.

On the site of the old Kip’s Bay was the Kip's Bay Station of the New York Steam Corporation, 1^st Av and 35^th St, which supplied steam to midtown skyscrapers, such as the New York Central, Chrysler, Lincoln, Chanin, and Empire State buildings. This service made possible the elimination of heating equipment in large buildings and the utilization of additional rent-able floor area. The steam was forced through underground conduits at a speed of 200 mph. The huge Waterside Station of the Consolidated Edison Company at 38^th Street and the East River, near the load center of the city, could generate 367,000 kilowatts of electricity.

The Kip’s Bay neighborhood adjoins, or even overlaps, what was known for over a century as the Gashouse District. Con Ed’s Waterside Station stood among coal-gas storage tanks that lined the East River along First Avenue through the blocks of the East 20s and 30s. Few remnants of the old neighborhood remain. The Con Ed generating station was torn down for Sheldon Solow's $4 billion dollar, 6 million square foot, East River development of seven glass towers, a public pavilion designed by Richard Meier, and 4.8 acres of gardens, lawns and Parisian-style esplanades. That development, currently under construction, is about a block from where Martin and Annie Kraus, and Grossmutter Wagner, lived in 1900.

Tenements covered many of the small lots in the East 30s from 1890 onwards. Their residents could find employment nearby; the Hupfels brewery and the Hoffman Cigar factory were two of the largest businesses near 334 E 38^th St, the first residence of the Kraus family and Grossmutter Wagner. As late as 1899, many lots in the immediate vicinity were either vacant or the site of ramshackle wood-frame structures dedicated to low-skill industrial or agricultural uses. Slaughter houses and packing houses filled the streets north of 42nd Street from the early 1850s until the United Nations was constructed in 1952.
 Many blocks of this area were razed in the 1930s for construction of the Midtown Tunnel.

Of the few buildings that remain from this time, 325 E 38^th St has an interesting history. There are identical doorways to # 325 that used to be separate men’s and women’s entrances to a public bath house. The photo below is of children standing on the sidewalk in front of # 325 in 1904. In the distance, you can see the iron superstructure of the 2nd Av elevated train (demolished in 1942), along with a gas-lit street-lamp. All the structures in the photo are long gone except for #325.

Photo from the Byron Collection – Museum of the City of New York

The 1899 map of New York shows sewer and water lines down each street. However, water closets in hallways and simple taps in the kitchens were the most that could be expected in many late 19th century tenements in New York. Bathing was only possible by filling tin bathtubs from the kitchen tap, a cumbersome procedure in crowded and busy flats. A once a week full body bath was custom and practice, but many went without for longer periods of time.

Photo from the Byron Collection – Museum of the City of New York

 The city government did not begin to take responsibility for the construction of desperately needed public bathhouses in tenement neighborhoods until the turn of the 20th century. Until then, private philanthropy for the most part supported the construction of public baths for those whose homes lacked them.

In June 1902, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson announced that she would donate a public bath, to be built on a 50 by 98-foot lot on East 38th Street (# 325) on behalf of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (the “AICP”). Anderson was heiress to a founder of the Borden Condensed Milk Co.; she was a leading New York philanthropist. During her lifetime she donated approximately $5 million to various institutions, principally Barnard College. The bathhouse that she donated, known as the Milbank Memorial Bath, opened in January 1904. It cost $140,000 to build and could accommodate 3,000 bathers daily. In 1914, the AICP established a wet-wash laundry at the Milbank bath.

The Wagners did not reside for all that long at 137 E 36^th St. I can only imagine Barbara’s reaction to the home her husband Peter had found them. In fact, on the 1899 map of New York, that address is shown as a brick stable. Perhaps the address was transcribed inaccurately on the ship's passenger list. By June 14, 1900 (date of the 1900 US census), the Wagner family had moved to Vandling, PA, where Peter had a job as a coal miner.

Martin and Annie Kraus, however, lived at 334 E 38^th St, even closer to the river and the coal gas storage tanks, in 1900. As they immigrated in 1892, they probably had been living there for the better part of eight years by 1900. By 1892, they had five daughters, Mary, Rose, Lena, Annie, and Ella. The 1910 census shows that Annie Kraus had had eight children but only five were living. All five daughters AND Grossmutter Wagner were living at 334 E 38^th St in 1900.

The Kraus residence would have been almost right across the street from the Milbank bath once it opened in 1904. Before that time, there undoubtedly wasn’t much bathing. Martin Kraus was a butcher in 1900, and likely worked at one of the local slaughter houses. Can you imagine working in a slaughterhouse and not having a place to shower at the end of the day? The census shows that 17 families, at least 78 people, lived in their tenement. An 1899 map of New York shows that the building faced north and was 5 stories tall. Given the number of families living in 334 E 38^th St, there must have been 4 tenements per floor. The street level was typically occupied by shops. Tenements were commonly three rooms, a front room (the only one with windows), a kitchen, and a bedroom, totaling about 325 square feet. Four doors down was the Hoffman Cigar Factory. One block away was the Kip's Bay Brewing Co. Two blocks away were the coal gas tanks.

Other families in the Kraus’s building were from Germany, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Russia, and Hungary. Occupations of their neighbors were porter, steamfitter, butcher, waiter, tailor, several ironworkers, laundryman, laundress, cook, servant, lady’s maid, plumber, telephone operator, and bartender.

By 1910, the Kraus family had moved to 406 W 46^th St, in a neighborhood that in recent years has been gentrified but then, and for many years after, was known as Hell’s Kitchen. Their building faced north, had 5 stories, and was two lots over from a coal yard. Martin Kraus by then was working as a carpenter in a shop and his 18-yr-old daughter Ella was working as a clerk in a hotel. The census shows at least 21 people living in their building. Each family probably had their own floor. Families were from Ireland, Germany, and England. Occupations were carpenter, cashier, dressmaker, printer, saleslady, stenographer, book keeper, driver, and several hotel clerks. The only ones not working were several wives keeping house and a few children too young to work. By 1920, Martin and Annie Kraus has moved to Smithtown, Long Island. What a relief that must have been!



Internet sources: Gotham History Blotter, Gotham Center for New York City History;  New York Files; New York Public Library Digital Gallery; US Census data, ship's passenger lists, and other resources on ancestry.com.

Thias Johnson Sr (b. 1763, d. 1830)

I have a long way to go on Thias Johnson Sr, which is going to involve actual archival research and not just computer games with census data and e-books. Thias lived at a time that is tough for genealogy. The first US Federal Census was taken in 1790, but not until 1850 did they enumerate and list by name every individual in a household. From 1790 to 1830, they listed by name only the head of the household and tallied the other members according to age, gender, and race. As you might imagine, this affords much less information to later generations. Wives’ names and children’s names help identify a family and offer clues to family trees. For this time range, you really need to work with church records, gravestones, deeds, and local archives. Then again, every day, more and more information is uploaded to the web, so sometimes you get lucky just by waiting.

What is it that I want to know about Thias Johnson? Some of this I have written about before. I’ll just encapsulate here. In trying to find William Melancthon Johnson’s ancestors, all I had found was that his father was Thias Johnson and his mother Sarah McDougall. To bet back farther, I searched for 'Thias Johnson’ in ancestry records and found a promising family tree that started in Charlestown, MA in the early 1600s. From there, the family was among the founders of Marlborough, MA, near Framingham. I found a Thias Johnson born in 1733 and another, his nephew, born in 1762. So on the one hand, I had a Thias Johnson in Cambridge, NY born in 1783 and on the other a Thias Johnson born in 1762 in Marlborough, MA. Did they connect? There's only a difference of one generation! The Thias in Cambridge could be the son of the Thias in Marlborough!

I found some curious notes on US military pensions paid in 1818-1832 to 'Thias Johnson.' I figured these must be for the Cambridge, NY Thias Johnson, father of Wm Melancthon Johnson, who died in 1843. I found a couple other similar records and filed them under 'Thias 1783.' Then, as I was nosing around somewhere, I saw some mention of a decision by the US Congress to pay Revolutionary War pensions; the legislation was dated 1818! So, 40 years after the Revolutionary War, they decided to pay pensions to soldiers still living. The light bulb was when I realized that the pension payments were to Thias 1762, of Marlborough. One record even said that he was a resident of Cambridge, NY and had served in the Massachusetts Line (a regiment of the Continental Army).

Thias Johnson (b. 1762) first enlisted at Bernardston, MA. He enlisted a second time at Guilford, VT.

Not long after Thias finished his Revolutionary War service, he was living in Guilford, VT. On 13 May 1786, he was appointed “hog constable” of the town. A lofty position indeed. At least it places him in Guilford in 1786. The next I find him is in Stillwater, NY, in 1818, when he first applied for a Revolutionary War pension. Apparently, he lost his discharge papers when his pocket book fell in the Deerfield River as he was crossing. He had to go through a long involved bureaucratic process to prove he fought in the Revolutionary War and merited a pension. Eventually, he got the pension and was paid $8 per quarter from April 1818 until his death in November 1833. 

A page from Thias Johnson Sr's Revolutionary War pension application

Thias’s pension application also shows him living in Easton, Washington County, New York, seven miles from Cambridge, in 1820. In that year, he had to do some more wrangling about his pension. A notarized letter from him states that his wife at the time was Hannah, aged 47 years, and his son Stephen Van Rensselaer was 7 yrs old. Apparently, the boy was Hannah’s by a previous marriage. In his pension application, Thias enumerates all his worldly belongings: 1 axe, 1 hoe, 2 scythes, 1 cooper's axe, 1 cooper's adze, 2 draw shaves, 2 planes, 2 jigs, and 1 stove, for a total value of $40.

A letter from Thias pointing out his penurious circumstances.

When it comes right down to it, there is nothing to show that Thias Sr lived in Cambridge. So far, no one has found his grave or any other documents on his whereabouts when alive. By all appearances, we have a link between Thias Johnson (b. 1762) and Thias Johnson (b. 1783). So far, however, there is no hard evidence that the two are father and son. 

This has really bedeviled me. Therefore, I was amused and excited when I got a message from a librarian in Georgia asking me to please contact Doris Davies by e-mail as she also was researching Thias Johnson and had information on his children. That contact revealed that there is a branch of Johnsons of the same tree in the Macon, Georgia area, of particular interest, because of the name, Melancthon Brown Johnson Sr & Jr.  After Doris put me in touch with a cousin, Stephen Johnson, we had a sort of three way conversation. Stephen, and his father, over the decades have been in touch with Johnsons in Washington County, New York. Stephen’s father had a long and rambling, fairly incoherent letter from Henry Warner Johnson (son of Wm Melancthon Johnson, the pastor), which must have been before 1949, when he died. HWJ mentioned that his father and grandfather both were named Thias Johnson, which gives us at least some circumstantial evidence of the relationship. Stephen also told me some of the links to Georgia and also about links to Johnsons in Ohio. That of course got me going on even more computer games and turned up lots of Johnsons in the Columbus Ohio area and in Fort Worth, TX, of all places.  Hopefully, I’ll get  more details after the Holidays from both Doris and Stephen. It seems they both do this the old way, interviewing people and visiting archives and cemetaries. It takes both kinds. Perhaps we can finally figure out Thias Johnson Sr by putting our heads together.

After the holidays, Stephen will send me copies of all his family tree stuff. He even has a photo of William Melancthon Johnson. 

Robert Groat Johnson (b. 1899, d. 1970)

As my middle name is Johnson, I wanted to figure out the Johnson branch in my family tree. I had long heard of William Melancthon Johnson, the pastor of the Silliman Memorial Church in Cohoes. Gramp’s name comes from him: William Melancthon Johnson Lewis. It was easy enough making the links back to WMJ. Gramp’s mother was Sarah Mariah Johnson (the “Ri” of family lore, after whom Mariah Maloy was named), whose father was WMJ. Back before that, things got tough. I eventually found an obituary for WMJ published in the Princeton Theological Magazine that listed his parents as Thias Johnson and Sarah McDougall. Thias, at any rate, is buried in the Old White Church Cemetery in Cambridge, NY. He was a deacon and elder of that church. Going farther back from Thias has proved to be the crux genealogical puzzle of this branch of my family tree.

Sometimes it helps to work forwards, because you uncover names that give clues to the past. Or you can find living cousins who know other bits of family lore. Working forwards, then, WMJ had three children, Sarah Mariah Johnson, Hellen J Johnson, and Henry Warner Johnson. Henry Warner Johnson was an MD who practiced in Hudson NY. He also had a farm that he kept in Cambridge, NY, as a sort of rich man’s hobby. Dr Johnson (as Gray always refers to him) had two sons. The eldest was William Johnson, who was also an MD and practiced in Plattsburgh NY. SVL II consulted with him in the 1950s after he broke his leg. The younger son of Henry Warner Johnson was Robert Groat Johnson. Johnsons are ridiculously hard to research because the name is so common. It turns out that a middle name like Groat makes things easier. 

I found a surprising amount of information online about Bob Johnson, as Gray refers to him. He went to Princeton. Not only that, but he was a student at Yale when he was drafted to serve in WWI. He graduated from Philips Academy in 1919, when he was 20 years old (makes you wonder about his enrollment at Yale). Then in 1925, he graduated from Princeton. Why did it take him six years to graduate from college? Well, he went on multiple trips to France and Bermuda in that time and spent a good portion of it living at the Princeton Club in New York City. I don’t think he was given to working hard in college.

In 1930, I found him living in Miami Beach in a glitterati neighborhood (6009 N Bay Rd near La Gorce Country Club) with his wife Jane and son John W Johnson. The census data shows he was a securities broker. Curiously, his wife Jane was about 14 years his senior. He must have had some good reason for marrying someone so much older, I thought (he was 31, she was 45). Money? So I kept hunting.

It turns out that Jane Johnson had been married previously to Carl Fisher, who invented Miami Beach. Fisher was a talented entrepreneur from Indianapolis who started the Prest-o-lite Company, and made a fortune manufacturing headlamps for automobiles in the 1900s. He also started Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And then he bought some property in the boondocks of what would become Miami Beach and decided to develop it. Of course, first he had to dredge millions of tons of sand from Biscayne Bay to create the land he was going to develop. Once over the technical hurdles, though, development took off and Fisher made more millions. Jane Watts Fisher, also from Indiana, divorced Carl Fisher in 1926 and married Bob Johnson. Jane writes about the whole story, Bob and all, in her 1947 book “Fabulous Hoosier.” 

Jane Watts Fisher, Bob Johnson's wife #1

Jane Watts Johnson, abt 1945

 Bob and Jane were divorced in 1932. Bob married Beulah Sladden Meagher Snowden in 1934. Beulah’s father was a wealthy NY banker. She had already been married twice to Carl Meagher, a real estate developer, and James Snowden, an oil man, both of whom were extremely wealthy. Beulah brought to the marriage her two daughters, Mildred and Jean.

Let’s go back a bit to look at what Bob Johnson actually devoted himself to, when it wasn’t wealthy women and trips abroad. He was a stock broker for the firm Rhoades & Co. in NY from 1924-33. John Harsen Rhoades Jr. (~1870-1943) founded Rhoades & Co., which merged with Carl M. Loeb & Co. Rhoades was also a trustee of the United States Trust Company of New York and a director of the Home Insurance Company of New York. Our man Bob Johnson left Rhoades and Co. in 1933, when his wife apparently bought him a seat on the NY Stock Exchange. He went into partnership with a guy named Durant, who I suspect was Will Durant, an early president of General Motors who was forced out and then partnered with Louis Chevrolet to found Chevrolet. He soon bought out Louis Chevrolet, in 1914 and proceeded to build the company until he lost his shorts in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. In the 1920s, Durant had became a major player on Wall Street and on Black Tuesday joined with members of the Rockefeller family and other financial giants to buy large quantities of stocks, against the advice of friends, in order to demonstrate to the public their confidence in the stock market. Bob Johnson’s firm was called “Johnson & Durant.”  I couldn’t find anything more on this firm. I suspect it was a sort of shell company that allowed the two of them to piddle around in stocks a bit, as a kind of sideline to their social activities. The price of a seat on the NYSE in 1933 was about the equivalent of $5 million dollars today.

Just before WWII, Bob Johnson founded Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury, NY, a harness racing track. I have a 1940 photo of him there in the stands with his second wife Beulah. 

Bob Johnson & Beulah Sladden Johnson, wife #2

Beulah didn’t last long, however. They were divorced in Florida in 1946 and Bob married for a third time. I haven’t nailed down the identity of the third wife, but I have a 1946 photo of the two of them—she is dripping with jewels—at the Starlight Roof in the Waldorf Hotel. 

Bob Johnson & wife #3

 

Bob became the first president of the Maywood Park Race Track, a new harness track in Illinois, in 1946. I find a few mentions of him after that, mostly quotes in Sports Illustrated about comments he made at this party and that in places like Palm Springs. Of course, Southern California had plenty of historic race tracks. Bob Johnson apparently died in 1970 in Phoenix. Phoenix Trotting Park, a harness track, opened in 1964 and ran for about two seasons before closing. I don’t know whether Bob Johnson had any involvement with the development of the park.

Gramp used to tell of his visit with his cousin Bob Johnson at the Princeton Club. He was so accustomed to staff doing everything for him, “He doesn’t even know how ice cubes are made!”

Margaretha ‘Grossmutter’ Wagner (b. 1831, d. 1924)

In researching my Wagner relatives (Grays’ mother was Anna Wagner), I came across some curious census data that I just couldn’t understand. I found Gray’s great grandmother Margaret Grossmutter Wagner in 1910 and 1920 living in the home of Rose Friede and her son Frank Friede in Smithtown, Long Island. I asked Gray, “Who were the Friedes?” She told me, “Oh, Mother Friede had an inn at Middle Country Road in Smithtown. Then her son Frank took over the business and called it the Riverside Inn. That inn was on Jericho Turnpike in Smithtown. It was well known as a stop on the carriage trade between New York and the Hamptons. Everybody went there. It was a speakeasy.”

 OK, a speakeasy. I’ve heard of those… What IS is a speakeasy? I can look that up. A speakeasy is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition (1920–1933). During this time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States. So…Grossmutter was living in a speakeasy?

I had to wonder WHY she was living at a speakeasy.  First, I thought she was living at Mother Friede’s because her daughter Annie Wagner Kraus and son-in-law Martin Kraus happened to live next door to Mother Friede’s (the 1910 census shows them as next door neighbors). Maybe the Kraus family didn’t have enough room for Grossmutter. Or she was too ornery. So she lived next door at the inn. I also noticed that in the 1930 census Aunt Margaret Wagner (Gray’s aunt) and Uncle Frank Schmitt were listed as living at Mother Friede’s on Middle Country Rd. I passed that by Gray. She said, “Oh, well you know, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Frank ran the inn for Mother Friede. I remember going over there when I was a child. There was a large kitchen with a huge table. And on the end of the table there was a bird cage where they kept cockatoos. They let the birds out during the day and they roosted up in the trees. It WAS hygienic… I don’t mean to suggest it wasn’t clean.” The birds didn’t show up in the census. But here we have Grossmutter living with Mother Friede, and Aunt Margaret and Uncle Frank also living there AND running the place.

So I started looking into the Friedes. Somebody from Smithtown had taken an interest in the Friedes and put together a web page of old postcards, census data, and anecdotes of people who worked and partied at the inn over the years. It became clear to me that there were two inns, first Mother Friede’s on Middle Country Rd, then Frank Friede’s Riverside Inn on Jericho Turnpike in the 1930s and later. Mother Friede was still around in 1930 but Grossmutter Wagner had died by then. In 1930, the inn was still on Middle Country Rd. Frank Friede died in 1954. It seems the Riverside Inn was a popular restaurant, and place for weddings. Lots of notable people frequented it. Apparently, people would eat dinner and then go out to the barn for a snort and some gambling (the former is according to Gray, the latter according to another Smithtown local who grew up going to the Riverside Inn). 

 The Friedes, like Grosmutter, were from Hungary (though Grossmutter was ethnic German and hated being thought of as a “Hun”).  Grossmutter immigrated from Schalke, Germany in 1899 with Annie and Martin Kraus. They lived at first in New York City. Rose Friede immigrated with her second husband Heinrich Welzel and her two sons, Frank and Tanny Friede, also in 1899, also from Schalke, Germany. They went to Allegheny, PA, where Heinrich was a coal miner. By 1910, they were in Smithtown, running the inn on Middle Country Rd and Grossmutter was living with them; by this time, Heinrich Welzel had died. I looked back at all the census data to see if I was missing something. That often happens. I saw that in 1920 Grossmutter was shown as “grandmother” of the head of household, Frank Friede. Grandmother? What? Did everybody think of her as grandmother? Then I had a crazy hunch. Grossmutter was born in 1831. Rose Friede Welzel was born in 1863. Frank Friede was born in 1881. The ages all worked out for Frank to be the grandson, Rose to be the daughter of Grossmutter, and Grossmutter to be the grandmother of Frank.

I called up Gray. “Was Rose Friede a Wagner?”

Gray said, “OF COURSE! That’s why everybody ended up living there and working there! My Uncle Henry worked for Frank Friede, too.  For years, he was the clerk  at the Riverside Inn.”

I said, “Did you know this the whole time and just not tell me?”

“Well, I don’t know why I said ‘Of course.’ It does make sense. I didn’t really know all of them. They were much older than I was. I don’t necessarily remember all these details until you jog my memory and things fit into place. I don’t think I really knew that Rose Friede was a Wagner.”

So I had truly dredged up something that was pretty much lost to history. Rose Wagner, Grossmutter Wagner’s daughter and Gray’s great aunt, married Henry Friede in Germany and had two boys. Her husband Henry died and she remarried, then emigrated to the US in 1899 with her second husband and two boys. The rest of the Wagners emigrated too. Peter and Barbara Wagner (Gray’s grandparents), with five children, emigrated in 1899 and went to Vandling, PA, and then to Carbondale, PA, where Mom was born many years later. Annie Wagner (Gray’s great aunt) and Martin Kraus emigrated in 1887. They lived in Manhattan until after 1910. All of Peter and Barbara Wagner’s girls (Barbara, Anna, Rose, and Margaret--Gray’s aunts) were very close, and when one moved to Smithtown, they all moved. I suspect that Margaret moved first, to run the inn on Middle Country Rd with her husband Frank Schmitt. Then Poppop and Nana moved to Smithtown in about 1930. Aunt Rose and Uncle Walter Loughney didn’t move to Smithtown until after 1930. Henry Wagner had also moved there by 1930.

Ship that brought Anna Wagner & family to the USA in 1899.

One other interesting fact of little utility: the Friedes dropped a final “k” from their name. When the boys immigrated, they were listed as “Friedek.” And they were listed as Friedek in the 1900 census. They probably dropped the k in order to seem less foreign in their new country. I haven’t found much on Tanny Friedek. “Tanny” must have been a nickname as his real name was Peter. His WWI draft card shows he married a woman named Ava and in 1918 they lived in Buckner Ohio where he worked for the Old Ben Mine, mining coal. After 1918, I can’t trace him. He may have died in the war.

There you have it. How the Wagner family got to Smithtown, Long Island.

Christmas 2010

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Tangent 2

The other tangent I went on recently came up, again, because my mother has said on many occasions when I refer to our Pruyn ancestors, "You know, the North Country [Warren and Washington Counties, generally speaking] is full of Pruyns. And of course, they were quite a force in Glens Falls as they owned Finch Pruyn Paper Co." I can't tell you how many times I have heard that. No time like now to figure out how we are related. After all, I have the tools!

The Pruyn family, as everybody knows, were principals in Finch, Pruyn and Co., founded in 1865 and still a privately-owned mill though now called Finch Paper LLC. At their mill, located on the banks of the Hudson River, they convert raw logs into pulp and pulp into paper, all on their own premises. Finch Paper employs about 850 people, making it the largest for-profit employer in the Adirondack region, and is the second largest private landowner in New York. In 2007, The Nature Conservancy purchased all 161,000 acres of the company’s forest land in the Adirondacks for $110 million, or $683 an acre. Finch Paper has a twenty-year agreement with The Nature Conservancy to continue logging on the timber lands. Samuel Pruyn (1820-1908) was one of the co-founders of the firm.

In this case, the family ties are a lot closer. Samuel Pruyn's father, Hendrick VanNess Pruyn (1783-1859), was the brother of my relative, Hannah Francis Pruyn (1791-1874), who married Ludowecus Viele. The Pruyns were an old Dutch family who settled in Albany, NY in the mid-17th century. Francis Pruyn, the scion of the family, arrived in Albany in 1661 from Reusel-de Mierden, Noord-Brabant, Holland. Pruyns figure in all the early history of Albany, NY.

My branch of the Pruyn family became big landholders in upstate New York when Francis Samuel Pruyn (1757-1812) married Maria Hendrick VanNess (1760-1847). Francis and Maria were the parents of both my Hannah Pruyn and Hendrick VanNess Pruyn. Maria owned a substantial amount of land along the Hoosick River in what became Washington and Rensselaer Counties through her father, Hendrick Gerritse VanNess (1718-xxxx).

The Van Ness family were proprietors of the Hoosick Patent, which was granted in 1638 to Maria Van Rensselaer of Albany, Hendrick Van Ness of Albany, Gerrit Teunis Van Vechten of Kaatskill, and Jacobus Van Cortlandt of New York. The patent comprised 70,000 acres on both sides of the Hoosick River.

Tangents

It's been three months since my last post, but I've not been ignoring genealogy. I went off on a tangent recently. Here's what happened. My parents were invited for dinner with their friends the M****s. My mother dutifully sent a thank-you note on her Crane's stationery engraved with Mrs. Stephen Viele Lewis II on the front side. Her friend Liz later remarked that she and my father must be related somehow because she is a Viele and he is a Viele and all the Vieles in upstate New York are related. Well, I took that as a challenge. I had never had any connection to other Vieles outside my own immediate family. I started with the precious little I knew and directly came up short. I thought about starting from what I know of the Vieles and working forward. It was useless, however, to follow the strands of my Viele line out in all directions searching for Liz Viele. I went back and forth with my mother, who would relay my questions to her friend Liz, who, like my mother, is in her 80s. My mother would scribble down some notes in her faltering handwriting, since she can't see very well. Then my father would read me my mother's notes over the phone. And nobody's memory is very good any more so the conversations would have boiled down to a few words on a scrap of paper. ["Stephen, can you read this to me again?"] I'd get snippets of information in each phone call, a last name of a grandfather, a place where a grandmother was supposed to be from, a list of so-and-so married so-and-so but I can't remember whether these were her grandparents or her great-grandparents. Or on her mother's side or her father's side. Hmmm. Not going to be easy. My mother asked, "How do you know if you get on a wrong track?" Well, with so little information to go on, you basically can't hope for much. My mother told me, "Her father's name was Howard." OK, I dutifully plugged Howard into my genealogy software. Nothing. After some searching around, I did find a Harold. I asked my mother, "Is her father's name Harold by any chance?" "Yes," she said, "I knew that. That's what I said." Un-huh. In another conversation, I found out about a grandfather, Frederick Viele, of Glens Falls.

Eventually, after several false starts, I got lucky.  As Tim says, "Bingos don't just happen. You have to be ready for them." I found a link to Google Books for "The Fort Edward Book," in which the search engine had found a mention of a Fred Viele. Fred C Viele apparently owned a drug store in Glens Falls. The book said that Fred was the great grandson of Barney Viele, who was well known to the author as a prominent citizen of Fort Miller, NY. And Barney was descended through a long line of Vieles all the way back to Aernoud Viele, the 17th century interpreter between the Dutch and the Iroquois. Aernoud was the son of Cornelis Volkertsen Viele, the first of the Viele line to arrive on these shores from Holland in 1636. Vieles were some of the earliest settlers of New Amsterday (Manhattan), Schenectady, and Schaghticoke. Cornelis is MY ancestor, through Aernoud's brother, Lowis Viele. Finally, the relationship came clear. Cornelis Volkertsen Viele is the 8th great grandfather of both my father and their friend Liz. Our families ARE related, but the tie goes back to the mid-17th century.

I cleaned up the genealogy file for Liz and exported some snazzy documents listing the descendants of Cornelis Volkertsen Viele all the way down to Liz. And one listing Liz's ancestors all the way back to Cornelis. And finally a "kinship" list, showing how she is related to each person in the genealogy file. This last one shows that Cornelis is her 8th great grandfather. I sent it all off to my parents with the request that they print it all out and give it to Liz. She may not even give a crap but at least her kids can stash it all away someplace and then someday if somebody cares they can dig it out again and get some laughs at what a PhD geologist and cancer patient in New Mexico, with nothing better to do, spent the better part of a week figuring out.

Thias Johnson, Revolutionary War soldier

It's amazing the stuff you uncover when you start digging. I was snooping around looking for more information on the family of my great-great-great grandfather, William Melancthon Johnson. He had a doctorate in divinity from Princeton and served as pastor of the Silliman Memorial Church in Cohoes, NY. I knew he came from Cambridge, NY, but I couldn't find out anything about his parents. Then, in a copy of the Princeton Seminary Journal, in his obituary, I found the names of his parents, Thias Johnson and Sarah McDougall. Gold! I figured the genealogy would unfurl from there. Nope. I happened upon findagrave.com, where up popped his gravestone in Cambridge, NY. It said he died in 1843, at the age of 71. After that, I got stumped. I spent days working backwards and forwards, trying to find Thias Johnsons in all kinds of archives, census data, birth, marriage, and death records, military service records. I was staying up til all hours of the night wondering why I couldn't find out any information.

I searched for 'Thias Johnson" in ancestry records and found a promising line that started in Charlestown, MA in the early 1600s. From there, the family was among the founders of Marlborough, MA, near Framingham. I found a Thias Johnson born in 1733 and another, his nephew, born in 1762. So on the one hand, I had a Thias Johnson in Cambridge, NY born in 1783 and on the other a Thias Johnson born in 1762 in Marlborough, MA. Do they connect? There's only a difference of one generation! The Thias in Cambridge could be the son of the Thias in Marlborough! Dang if I could find out. I went to bed late one night and told Tim I had found a mention in a genealogy journal requesting information on Thias Johnson of Marlborough, MA. The notice was dated 1900! Would I ever be able to figure this out? I started thinking that given his birth date, he probably had served in the Revolutionary War. Maybe after that, he floated around, had a child out of wedlock, died and left him an orphan. I dredged through poor house records, orphanage records, prison records. 

I found some curious notes on US military pensions paid in 1818-1832 to 'Thias Johnson.' I figured these must be for the Cambridge, NY Thias Johnson, father of Wm Melancthon Johnson, who died in 1843. I found a couple other similar records and filed them under 'Thias 1783.' Then, as I was nosing around somewhere, I saw some mention of a decision by the US Congress to pay Revolutionary War pensions; the legislation was dated 1818! So, 40 years after the Revolutionary War, they decided to pay pensions to soldiers still living. The light bulb was when I realized that the pension payments were to Thias 1762, of Marlborough. One record even said that he was a resident of Cambridge, NY and had served in the Massachusetts Line (a regiment of the Continental Army). I went to bed with a big smile on my face and sat there hoping Tim would wake up so I could tell him, "I found him!" I found the grandfather of Wm Melancthon Johnson, my great-great-great-great grandfather. And he fought in the Revolutionary War.

Thias Johnson 1762 first enlisted at Bernardston, MA. His name appears on a list of men raised in Hampshire County for the term of 9 months from the time of their arrival at Fishkill. During the Revolution, Fishkill (near Newburgh) was the site of a large supply depot. The depot supplied the northern department of the Continental Army, which was responsible for securing the Hudson highlands and keeping the British from moving north of New York City. Thias arrived at Fishkill NY, ready for service, on July 7, 1778. He served in Capt. Shelden's company, in Col. Wells' regiment. Revolutionary War rolls show him as 5 ft. 4 in. tall, light complected, and 16 years old.

Thias enlisted as a private in a regiment of what was called the "Massachusetts Line." Many soldiers who fought on the American side during the Revolution were members of militia units who gathered as needed and then returned home, fighting for the most part in their home state. The Massachusetts Line was part of the full-time Continental army and fought in battles all over the American colonies. Each town in Massachusetts had a quota of soldiers that it had to supply. Most towns offered bounties to get enough men to fill the quota.

In a list of Officers of the Continental Army, I found Samuel Sheldon (NY), Lieutenant and Captain in the New York Militia (1775–1778). I also found David Wells (MA), Lieutenant-Colonel Massachusetts Militia (1776–1777). These were Thias Johnson's commanding officers during his first stint in the Continental Army. During his 9-month period of service, he likely fought with the Massachusetts Line 8th Regiment at Fort Anne, Martha's Vineyard, Boonesboro, KY, Unadilla, NY, Carr's Fort, GA, Fairfield, CT, and Green Farms, CT.

Thias Johnson enlisted a second time at Guilford, VT. He served as a Private in Col. Michael Jackson's regiment of the Continental Army. Pay accounts show he served from Jan. 1, 1780, to Dec. 31, 1780. He may have served a 3-yr term. He is reported as discharged (which told me, before I connected all the dots, that at least he hadn't died in battle). Michael Jackson was field officer of the Massachusetts Line 8th Regiment, which became the 16th Continental Army Regiment. Jackson served from January 1, 1777 to June 12, 1783.

In 1780, while serving in the Continental 16th, Thias Johnson would have seen battle at a number of locations in the south, mostly in South Carolina.

How much was Thias Johnson's pension? He was paid $8 a month, or $96 a year (in 1835 dollars). In today's dollars, he received the equivalent of $1,972 annually, for a total over the years 1818-1833 of $30,350. 

Sources: Revolutionary War rolls, US Military pension records, Wikipedia, and any number of other sources.

John Bostwick Lewis, Civil War casualty

I just figured out that John Bostwick Lewis, my paternal great-great grandfather, served in the Civil War. He enlisted at Troy, NY on Nov 18, 1861, leaving his wife, Margaret Jane Viele, at home in Waterford, NY with two infant sons, Stephen Viele Lewis (born Sept 11, 1860) and Morgan T Lewis (born Sept 29, 1861). John Lewis left for service in the Union Army less than 2 months after his second son was born.

Lewis served in the New York 70th "1st Excelsior" Infantry Regiment, organized under authority of the War Department as the 1st Regiment, Sickles' Brigade, at Camp Scott, Staten Island, N.Y., and mustered in June 20, 1861. The regiment left New York State for Washington, D.C.,  on July 23, 1861 and was attached to Sickles' Brigade, Division of the Potomac, until October, 1861, and then to Sickles' Brigade, Hooker's Division, Army of the Potomac.

The NY 70th regiment did duty in the Defenses of Washington, D.C., until March, 1862. They participated in the advance on Manassas, VA (March 10, 1862), followed by the expedition from Dumfries to Fredericksburg and capture of stores on March 18. The regiment saw action at Stafford Court House on April 4. They fought in the seige of Yorktown April 10-May 4 and the Battle of Williamsburg May 5.

Photo: Manassas battlefield.

The Battle of Yorktown or Siege of Yorktown was fought from April 5 to May 4, 1862, as part of the Peninsula Campaign. Marching from Fort Monroe, Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac encountered Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder's small Confederate force at Yorktown. McClellan suspended his march up the Peninsula toward Richmond and settled in for siege operations.
On April 5, the IV Corps of Brig. Gen. Erasmus D. Keyes made initial contact with Confederate defensive works at Lee's Mill, an area McClellan expected to move through without resistance. Magruder's ostentatious movement of troops back and forth convinced the Federals that his works were strongly held. As the two armies fought an artillery duel, reconnaissance indicated to Keyes the strength and breadth of the Confederate fortifications, and he advised McClellan against assaulting them. McClellan ordered the construction of siege fortifications and brought his heavy siege guns to the front. In the meantime, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston brought reinforcements for Magruder.

On April 16, Union forces probed a point in the Confederate line at Dam No. 1. The Federals failed to exploit the initial success of this attack, however. This lost opportunity held up McClellan for two additional weeks while he tried to convince the U.S. Navy to bypass the Confederates' big guns at Yorktown and Gloucester Point and ascend the York River to West Point and outflank the Warwick Line. McClellan planned a massive bombardment for dawn on May 5, but the Confederate army slipped away during the night of May 3 toward Williamsburg.

Photo: Library of Congress. Yorktown, Va., vicinity. Gen. George B. McClellan's tent, Camp Winfield Scott.

The Battle of Williamsburg, also known as the Battle of Fort Magruder, took place on May 5, 1862, in York County, James City County, and Williamsburg, Virginia, as part of the Peninsula Campaign. It was the first pitched battle of the Peninsula Campaign, in which nearly 41,000 Federals and 32,000 Confederates were engaged, fighting an inconclusive battle that ended with the Confederates continuing their withdrawal.

Following up the Confederate retreat from Yorktown, the Union division of Brig. Gen. Joseph Hooker encountered the Confederate rearguard near Williamsburg. Hooker assaulted Fort Magruder, an earthen fortification alongside the Williamsburg Road, but was repulsed. Confederate counterattacks, directed by Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, threatened to overwhelm the Union left flank, until Brig. Gen. Philip Kearny's division arrived to stabilize the Federal position. Brig. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's brigade then moved to threaten the Confederate left flank, occupying two abandoned redoubts. The Confederates counterattacked unsuccessfully. Hancock's localized success was not exploited. The Confederate army continued its withdrawal during the night in the direction of Richmond, Virginia.

Despite the ferocity of these campaigns, John Lewis did not die in combat. Rather, he died of disease while serving in the Union Army. Disease was the biggest killer of the war. Of the Union dead, roughly three out of five died of disease, and of the Confederate, perhaps two out of three. About half of the deaths from disease during the Civil War were caused by intestinal disorders, mainly typhoid fever, diarrhea, and dysentery. The remainder died from pneumonia and tuberculosis. Camps populated by young soldiers who had never before been exposed to a large variety of common contagious diseases were plagued by outbreaks of measles, chickenpox, mumps, and whooping cough. The Union army reported that more than 995 out of every 1,000 men eventually contracted chronic diarrhea or dysentery during the war; the Confederates fared no better. Typhoid fever was even more devastating. Perhaps 25% of noncombat deaths in the Confederacy resulted typhoid fever, caused by the consumption of contaminated food or water. John Bostwick Lewis was 22 years old when he died.

Photo: Library of Congress. Manassas, Va. Provost guard of the 9th New York Infantry

Lewis's regiment went on to fight numerous key battles of the Civil War, including the Battle of Fredericksburg, VA, December 12-15, the Chancellorsville Campaign April 27-May 6, the Battle of Chancellorsville May 1-5, the Gettysburg Campaign June 11-July 24, the Battle of Gettysburg, Pa., July 1-3, and the pursuit of General Robert E Lee July 5-24. The regiment lost, during service, 9 officers and 181 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 2 officers and 62 enlisted men by disease. Of the total of 254 casualties, 25% died of disease.

The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major battle of the American Civil War, fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville and the area from there to the east at Fredericksburg. The battle pitted Union Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac against an army half its size, Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. It is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because of his risky but successful division of his army in the presence of a much larger enemy force. Lee's audacity and Hooker's timid performance in combat combined to result in a significant Union defeat. The Confederate victory was tempered by the mortal wounding of Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to friendly fire, a loss that Lee likened to "losing my right arm."

The Chancellorsville campaign began with the crossing of the Rappahannock River by the Union army on the morning of April 27, 1863. Crossing the Rapidan River via Germanna and Ely's Fords, the Federals concentrated near Chancellorsville on April 30 and May 1. Heavy fighting began on May 1 and did not end until the Union forces retreated across the river on the night of May 5–6.


The Battle of Gettysburg, fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.

After his success at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Lee led his army through the Shenandoah Valley to begin his second invasion of the North—the Gettysburg Campaign. He intended to move the focus of the summer campaign from war-ravaged northern Virginia and hoped to influence Northern politicians to give up their prosecution of the war by penetrating as far as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or even Philadelphia. Prodded by President Abraham Lincoln, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker moved his army in pursuit, but was relieved just three days before the battle and replaced by Meade.

The two armies began to collide at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, as Lee urgently concentrated his forces there. Low ridges to the northwest of town were defended initially by a Union cavalry division, which was soon reinforced with two corps of Union infantry. However, two large Confederate corps assaulted them from the northwest and north, collapsing the hastily developed Union lines, sending the defenders retreating through the streets of town to the hills just to the south.

On the second day of battle, most of both armies had assembled. The Union line was laid out in a defensive formation resembling a fishhook. Lee launched a heavy assault on the Union left flank, and fierce fighting raged at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. On the Union right, demonstrations escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. All across the battlefield, despite significant losses, the Union defenders held their lines.

Photo: Library of Congress. Gettysburg, Pa. The center of the Federal position viewed from Little Round Top.
 
On the third day of battle, July 3, fighting resumed on Culp's Hill, and cavalry battles raged to the east and south, but the main event was a dramatic infantry assault by 12,500 Confederates against the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge, known as Pickett's Charge. The charge was repulsed by Union rifle and artillery fire, at great losses to the Confederate army. Lee led his army on a torturous retreat back to Virginia. Between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were casualties in the three-day battle. That November, President Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen and redefine the purpose of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address.

Sources: Civil War enlistment and service rolls, Wikipedia, Library of Congress photo collection, and assorted others.

Mathias Johnson, shoemaker

Mathias Johnson (1811- aft 1880) is listed in the 1860-1870-1880 census rolls as a shoemaker in Greenwich, NY, which is near Cambridge, where many other Johnson ancestors lived.  From what I can gather, Mathias was the older brother of William Melancthon Johnson (1834-1910). Likely, shoes in that era were still hand made in a small town in upstate New York. I have found several sites with information on shoemaking in the 18th and 19th centuries. Not until the end of the 19th century were shoes being made by machine. Shoes were usually made in small shops where each worker sat at a bench with his hammer, last, awls, pegs, string, wax, and bristles close at hand. During the 19th century, only farming occupied more people than shoe making.  Shoe makers worked in many cases for an entrepreneur shoe manufacturer on a piecework basis. Manufacturers then shipped most of the shoes for sale to the southern and western United States, the western territories and even the Caribbean. Some of the shoes were sold in New York and England as well. By the 1830s Massachusetts alone produced over 15 million pairs of shoes and boots each year. Custom shoemakers might learn their trade by serving an apprenticeship as boys. In small shops where shoe makers only pegged the soles and heels to one style of shoe, considerably less skill was required and could be learned from a friend or relative in a few weeks.

The expansion of wholesale markets around the time of the Civil War placed a premium on rapid, large-scale production. The invention of the automatic pegging machine (1818), the sole cutting machine (1844), and the leather rolling machine (1846) helped satisfy growing demand, but their impact was limited. They facilitated the standardization of shoe sizes and shapes, but they did not affect key manufacturing processes such as binding, bottoming, upper leather cutting, and lasting. It was only with the adaptation of Elias Howe's sewing machine to the stitching of leather uppers, in the 1850s, that mechanization of the industry really began. [Source: The Endicott Johnson Corporation:19th Century Origins, Prof. Gerald Zahavi, Department of History, University at Albany, Copyright © 1984, 2009 by Gerald Zahavi.]

Rev Pardon Tillinghast

In June 1979, I received my AB degree from Brown University at the First Baptist Meeting House in Providence RI. Now, I find out that an ancestor of mine, Rev Pardon Tillinghast, was the pastor there in the late 17th-early 18th century. Tillinghast is an old Rhode Island name, one I heard many times when I was a student at Brown. I am related to Pardon Tillinghast through his daughter Sarah, who married Job Harrington. The Harringtons eventually ended up in Cambridge NY and intermarried with Lotts (from Bennington, VT) and Warners (from Cambridge, NY). The Cambridge NY cemeteries are full of Harringtons and Warners. I am related to Tillinghast through Anna Warner Johnson, the wife of my great great grandfather William Melancthon Johnson.

William Melancthon Johnson

Quick post here. I have been kind of stuck on Wm Melancthon Johnson (1834-1910). He was born in Cambridge, NY and received a doctorate in divinity from Princeton University. For many years, he was pastor of the Silliman Memorial Church in Cohoes, NY. The church no longer exists. It was demolished some years ago. I have been searching for WMJ's parents and finally came across a mention of them in an obituary printed in the Princeton Seminary Journal, which says his parents were Thias Johnson and Sarah McDougall of Cambridge, NY. So I went to findagrave.com (finally went there; don't think that this was a straight line), punched in Thias Johnson and up popped two graves in the Old White Church Cemetery in Cambridge, NY. The first grave showed 'Sarah S, consort of Thias Johnson, Jr,' who died Aug 5 1830. I can't make out the full inscription, but it looks like the end of it says, 'in the 18 years of her age.'  'Consort', by the way, means husband or wife, companion or partner. 

The second gravestone shows Dea. Thias Johnson, which I take to mean 'Deacon' Thias Johnson, who died in 1843. In the accompanying photos, the first is the grave of Sarah S, the second of Deacon Thias Johnson. As Wm Melancthon Johnson was born in 1834 and Sarah S died in 1830, it doesn't make sense that Sarah S was his mother. From the Princeton obituary, I know that WMJ's mother was Sarah McDougall. Perhaps she was Thias Johnson's second wife. Who knows? The search continues.

Wm Melancthon Johnson is buried in Woodlands Cemetery, Cambridge, NY. This information from findagrave.com gives the location of the grave: 'Johnson, Wm. M., b. 1834, d. 1910, par: T. Johnson, Sarah McDougall, Sec. T 33, 35, 36.' WMJ's wife, Anna Elizabeth Warner Johnson, is also buried in Woodlands Cemetery: 'Johnson, Anna Warner, b. 1834, d. 1894, sp. Wm. Johnson, par: Jonathan Warner, Maria Snyder, Sec. T 36.' Her father is also buried there: 'Warner, Jonathan, b. 1802, d. 1882, par: Solomon Warner, Elizabeth Woodworth, Sec. C 33.' In fact, there are lots of Warners buried there, many of them obviously related. 

Meanwhile, I have also been researching Sarah Johnson Lewis (1871-1943), daughter of Wm Melancthon Johnson and wife of Stephen Viele Lewis. I find that she also is buried in Cambridge, NY. Here is her obituary. If you click on it, it will open in a large window and you will be able to enlarge it. The title of the article is 'Mrs Lewis dies at home.'

Herman Knickerbocker Viele

From: Who's Who in America, 1908

Francis Viele-Griffin

From: Who's Who in America, 1908

The Viele Map of Manhattan

From the David Rumsey Map Collection. Go here for a zoomable version and more information about this map made by Egbert L Viele, which is still in current use for the detail it provides on original watercourses and topography of Manhattan.

The Viele Divorce

From University of Delaware Library's Special Collections Department:

In the year 1870, prominent New York society members General and Mrs. Egbert Ludovickus Vielé sued each other for divorce on nearly identical grounds: adultery, insanity, and cruelty. General Vielé was accused of having an affair with Miss Julia Dana, and Mrs. Vielé with General W.W. Averill. The scandalous suits were further sensationalized by a custody battle over the Vielés' five children. In 1869, General Vielé had absconded with the children and his mistress, Miss Dana. Throughout the ordeal of trying to recover her children and divorcing her unfaithful husband, Mrs. Vielé kept these scrapbooks of "business letters, etc." Containing letters, newspaper clippings, and telegrams from attorneys and detectives, the scrapbooks document the high-profile divorce. In addition, they include evidence of sympathetic support for Mrs. Vielé's case: calling cards from remaining society friends (Mrs. Judge Roosevelt, Mrs. George McLean, Mrs. General Gates, and Generals Averill, Pleasanton, and Ingalls); invitations to balls, charities, or weddings; and programs for lectures, concerts, and church services.

Perhaps documentation of the drama appealed to Mrs. Vielé's literary instincts. Hers was a creative family. She had authored Following the drum: a glimpse of frontier life (1858), based on her experiences as a military spouse during her husband's tour in the American Southwest and fighting in the Mexican War. The General (1825-1902) published Hand-book for active service; containing practical instructions in campaign duties (1861). Their youngest son, Egbert Jr., accompanied his mother to France after the divorce and later changed his name to Francis Vielé-Griffin (1864-1937), gaining renown as a French symbolist poet. Older son Herman Knickerbocker Vielé (1856-1908) achieved fame as a novelist, playwright, and artist in New York, and was best known for Last of the Knickerbockers a Comedy Romance (1901). Teresa Vielé died in Paris in 1906 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

The Knickerbockers of Schatighticoke

An article published in Harper's Monthly, v. 54, p. 33-43, 1877, by Egbert L Viele.There are references to his Viele ancestors as well, some of whom also lived in Schaghticoke, including Aernout Viele (called Arnoud in this article), mentioned in a footnote. In fact, as a fluent speaker of Iroquois languages, he was a key go-between and more than a mere interpreter.



And now come back to Earth with this, from 'Reading America: Text as a Cultural Source' by Matthew Guillen, 2007:

Egbert L Viele

Egbert L Viele apparently formed this mining company to manage his interests in mines in Colorado, at least one of which, the Bosco mine, is located in Leadville. In the following article, the geology of the Gray Porphyry Belt is detailed. With these Google readers, you can read right in the window,but it's a little cumbersome. If you click on 'Books' at the lower left hand corner, you will go to Google Books and be able to read a larger format.

Wow! This is cool!

I just figured out how to embed a whole book in this blog. I am researching John Lewis of Westerly, RI, who was one of the earliest settlers in RI. He arrived in the 1630s, is known to have been in Westerly in 1661, and died in 1690. He is buried near Watch Hill Rd. The book I have embedded is about Captain Edmund Lewis, an early settler of Lynn, MA, who arrived there in 1634 with a 3-yr-old son John. This John seems to be confused in many family trees with John Lewis of Westerly. I am not convinced they are the same person. Other information I have found suggests that John, son of Edmund, inherited his father's lands in Lynn and lived out his life there, dying in 1710. So here's the book. Happy reading. What I wanted to point out all happens in the first 10 pages. Suffice it to say, tracing the Lewis line all the way back to Noah is probably not possible. It makes you feel like a real stud to get back to 80 AD but you are likely kidding yourself.

What have they been doing all these years?

What interests me most about genealogy is finding out how my ancestors actually lived their lives. I like finding information on their trades, their social status, their community activities. I like finding maps that show where they lived so I can imagine their world.

Last night (up til midnight doing genealogy), I found out that John Miller, who immigrated to the USA in the 1850s and lived thereafter in Green Island, NY, was a cooper in the old country. The ship's passenger list that shows his transit from Glasgow to New York lists him as a 20-yr-old cooper from Old Kilpatrick, Scotland. Old Kilpatrick now appears to be a suburb of Glasgow. Back in the mid-19th century, Old Kilpatrick, located on the River Clyde, was a thriving port.

In 1846, Old Kilpatrick had 7020 inhabitants, of whom 819 were in the village of Old Kilpatrick, 5 miles (E. by S.) from Dumbarton, and 10 (N. W. by W.) from Glasgow.

The book 'A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland' by Samuel Lewis, published in 1846, says this about the town:

The parish is bounded on the south by the river Clyde, along which it extends for nearly eight miles, and is four miles and a half in extreme breadth, comprising 11,500 acres, of which 6000 are arable, 600 woodland and plantations, and the remainder meadow and pasture. The surface rises by a gentle acclivity from the river towards the north, and is diversified with hills, of which the most conspicuous are those of Dalnotter, Chapel-Hill, and Dumbuck, commanding from their summits extensive views of the Clyde, the county of Renfrew, and part of Lanarkshire. The Kilpatrick hills, of which Dumbuck hill forms a part, terminate near the western extremity of the parish; they are a prominent and lofty range, and some of them attain an elevation of upwards of 1200 feet above the level of the sea. The parish, as seen from the Clyde, constitutes one of the richest features in the picturesque and beautiful scenery for which that river is so celebrated. A nameless stream is supplied from two small lakes behind the range of the Kilpatrick hills, and, flowing southward, by Faifley and Duntocher, falls into the Clyde at Dalmuir. The soil along the banks of the Clyde is a fine deep loam, resting on a bed of clay; and in the higher grounds, light and gravelly. The crops are, oats, wheat, barley, potatoes, and turnips. The system of husbandry is improved, and the arable lands are in a high state of cultivation; great attention is paid to the management of the dairy-farms, and large quantities of butter are sent to the Glasgow market, where they find a ready sale. The cattle are generally of the Highland black breed, and on the dairy-farms the cows are of the Ayrshire breed; both are chiefly purchased at the neighbouring fairs, few being reared in the parish. The sheep, of which considerable numbers are reared in the moorland pastures, are all of the black-faced breed. The rateable annual value of the parish is £23,524.

The plantations, which are well managed, and in a thriving state, consist of oak, ash, elm, beech, plane, lime, and the various kinds of fir, for all of which the soil appears to be well adapted; and both in the lowlands and higher grounds are many fine specimens, of stately growth. The substrata of the parish are principally of the coal formation; and the rocks are composed of greenstone, amygdaloid, trap, greywacke, and basalt. Limestone and ironstone are also found. The coal, which is wrought in the lands near Duntocher, occurs at depths varying from 120 to 200 feet, in seams about five feet in thickness, and of good quality. The limestone, which is also of good quality, is wrought for manure; and there are some quarries of freestone and whinstone in operation. The principal seats within the parish are, Cochno, Edinbarnet, Milton House, Auchintorlie, Auchintoshan, Glenarbuck, Mount-Blow, Barnhill, and Dumbuck, most of which are handsome mansions, finely situated in richly-planted demesnes. The village of Kilpatrick was formerly a burgh of barony, and, by charter under the great seal, dated 1679, was made head of the barony, and invested with power to create burgesses, and appoint bailies for its government. These privileges have long been extinct, though it is not recorded by what means they became obsolete; and the old gaol, with the iron bars on the windows, is now a private house. A post-office has been established under the office at Glasgow; and facility of communication is afforded by the turnpike-road from Dumbarton to Glasgow, which intersects the parish for nearly eight miles; by other good roads; by the Forth and Clyde and the Monkland canals; by the Erskine ferry near Kilpatrick; and by numerous steamers which frequent the Clyde.

Various branches of manufacture are carried on, to a very great extent, in the several villages within the limits of the parish. The principal works are the cottonmills at Faifley, Duntocher, Milton, and Hardgate, in which 74,045 spindles and 530 power-looms are employed, producing as many as 875,000lb. of yarn, and 2,000,000 yards of cloth annually, and affording occupation to nearly 1500 persons. At Dalmuir are papermills, producing paper of all kinds to the amount of £30,000 annually, and giving employment to 176 persons, of whom one-half are women and children. There are soda-works at Dalmuir-Shore, in which thirty tons of sulphuric acid are produced weekly, and used in the making of bleaching-powder, chloride of lime, and soda: about 100 persons are engaged here. At Milton are an extensive bleachfield and some calico-printing works, in which from 400 to 500 people are employed; and at Cochney were once works for dyeing cotton cloth a Turkey red, and printing them when dyed, in which more than seventy persons were occupied. At BowlingBay is a ship-building yard, where about twenty persons are employed in building sloops of 170 tons' burthen, and vessels for canal navigation; and at Little-Mill, likewise, nearly one hundred people were formerly engaged in building steam-vessels of large dimensions. There is an iron-forge at Faifley, for the manufacture of spades and shovels, in which thirty persons are employed. At Little-Mill and Auchiutoshan are distilleries, in the former of which about 50,000, and in the latter about 16,000, gallons of whisky are annually made. Several handloom-weavers throughout the parish are employed by the Glasgow and Paisley houses; and a considerable number of females are engaged in embroidering muslin.

John Miller might have made casks for the fishing industry or for the distilleries. He had perhaps finished his apprenticeship when he sailed for New York. In any event, once established in Green Island, he changed his trade. He is listed in both the 1860 and 1870 US Census as working as an iron molder. By the time of the 1880 census, he was disabled. The census lists his as 'paralyzed.' Presumably he was injured in a factory accident. His trade as an iron molder was dangerous, as this piece about another iron moulder attests:

In the 1860s, Troy was an important producer of the nation’s iron and iron products. In addition to the four largest iron mills in the country, 14 smaller iron foundries molded a wide variety of iron products like stoves, stove patterns, ranges, bells, nails and wheels, including the J. Griswold Rolling Mill Company, Rensselaer Iron Works, Clinton Iron Foundry, Bessemer Steel Works and the Albany Iron Works.

1886 Map of South Troy's Iron Works

Soon after he arrived in America in 1847, Charles Duffy migrated to Troy and worked in the iron industry for a company that manufactured merchant iron spikes and horse shoes. From 1855 until his death in 1859, he was a laborer living in Ward 6 near the Albany Iron Works, formerly the Albany Nail Factory. The Albany Iron Works' campus consisted of a company-sponsored public hall, a library and reading room, and a chapel.

Charles was employed at the Albany Iron Works at the time of his death. The record states he died at the Nail Factory—the cause was listed as diseased heart. (Obviously the recorder used the former name of Albany Iron Works in reporting the death.) We are unsure if he died on the job or in a separate building. An examination of Troy's death records at that time revealed numerous deaths occurred at the Nail Factory caused by various diseases. We conclude, therefore, that a medical facility was located on the premises.

After leaving Ireland for American shores in 1860, Edward Reardon also settled near Iron mills in a southern ward of Troy—Ward 9, located a mile or two north of Charles Duffy’s Ward 6. Since census records list him as an ironworker, he probably worked at one of several large iron plants which lined the Hudson River in South Troy. Nearby were Clinton Stove Foundries at Second and Ida Streets, Fuller, Warren and Company at Monroe and RiverStreets, and the Rensselaer Iron Worksat River Street at the foot of Adams Street.

Iron workers usually did not have a steady income during each 12-month period. Between labor strikes and the iron mills often closing for three months during the winter, it must have been challenging to make ends meet. Since Edward was able to purchase a home 11 years after moving to Troy, we must assume work was fairly steady and wages were relatively high.

Edward’s son, John (my great-grandfather), followed in his father’s footsteps as a skilled iron worker. He was employed as a molder at Ludlow Valve Manufacturing Company, maker of fire hydrants and valves, located on the former site of the Rensselaer Iron Works. Molding required a long apprenticeship of between four and seven years, great strength, and substantial skill. Also, the molder was allowed to hire a helper.

Although the pay was relatively high, the profession was not easy. John was engaged in the hot, dangerous, and delicate craft of casting molten pig-iron into hydrants and valves which had to be completed while the metal was molten. Sand or loam of the exact proper consistency and wetness had to be prepared; the wood or cast iron patterns (prepared by the pattern-maker) had to be filled with sand and rammed strenuously to make a mold; the mold had to be rapped carefully to remove the pattern without breaking the mold; and the molten iron had to be poured quickly and evenly into the mold. A mistake at any stage could render the mold

unusable and entail the loss of several days’ labor.

The temperature at the foundry was well over 100° F., and John would have worked multiple pourings each day with the molten metal. The work was so strenuous that it could not be done continuously during the ten-hour workday. Iron workers usually took rest breaks between pourings, sometimes visiting the neighborhood saloon for fortification and comradely relaxation.

Older family members report that my great-grandfather went to work at six o’clock in the morning and came home at six o’clock at night, six days a week, Monday through Saturday. During hot summer days, John’s wife would have a pitcher of ice cold lemonade ready for him when he got home from work, and he would drink the whole pitcher by himself.

As an interesting aside, the Duffy and Reardon familes listed in this story of the iron molder should ring bells with my immediate family. We were close family friends with Duffies and Reardons.

What other trades have I found for Viele-Lewis ancestors? I'll start with a list and expand as I have time:

tavern keeper (we come from a long line of these)

sailmaker

interpreter (Iroquois-Dutch)

cooper (more than one)

iron molder

sulfuric acid maker

workers in collar factories

tailor

blacksmith

owner of a brick factory

Revolutionary War quartermaster

hardware merchant

dealer in fancy goods (laces and whatnot)

Civil War general & engineer

Presbyterian minister (w/ DD from Princeton)

bookkeeper

postmaster

an ice house owner

a manufacturer of gelatin dessert

Of course, this hardly covers the ground. I have so little information really. I'll post more as I find it.