Tad Callin has been working on family history and genealogy since the late 1990s. He does most of his research on Ancestry and posts what he learns to WikiTree.
We began climbing our ladder to Providence with my great-grandfather, Alfred Tuttle. Our goal was to examine the available evidence connecting each generation of his ancestry back to the founding of Providence Plantations, Rhode Island.
Rung 1: Alfred Tuttle to his mother, Florence (Hart) Tuttle. Confirmed with records.
Rung 2: Florence Hart to her mother, Hattie (Wells) Hart. Confirmed with records.
Rung 3: Hattie Wells to her father, Harlow C Wells. Confirmed with records.
Rung 4: Harlow C Wells to his mother, Cyrena (Whitford) Wells. Tenuous connection; documents don’t directly confirm the relationship, but clues do support it.
Rung 5: Cyrena Whitford to her father, Greene Whitford. Weak support from available evidence; no direct confirmation, but plausible.
Rung 6: Greene Whitford – his mother, Alice Matteson:
Hattie (Wells) Hart’s ancestry
Greene Whitford (1759-c. 1816) was the son of Thomas Whitford (1734–1818) and Alice Matteson (1734–1818). We know this because Thomas’s will, proved in 1818, named Greene among his heirs, and because Alice’s maiden name was handwritten on the document.1
While we are missing documentary evidence of key facts about Greene’s life (birth, death, AND his first marriage) we have evidence placing him in Vermont and New York that generally supports the account recorded by his cousin, William Whitford.
Thomas’s will is a fairly solid piece of primary, documentary evidence that Greene was his son – and because it lists several other siblings, we have a lot of points of comparison to look for. Finding marriage records to confirm that Greene’s sisters married men with the surnames indicated in Thomas’s adds support to the reliability of that document for our genealogical purposes. We also have, of course, the marriage record of Thomas Whitford and Alice Matteson on 9 Jan 1752 in West Greenwich, Kent County, Rhode Island.
This is still not an overwhelming amount of evidence, but what we do have feels nice and solid after two generations of tenuous evidence, speculation, and theorizing!
However, now we have a different problem to contend with – that of (perhaps) too many sources telling slightly different stories. Our ladder moves up to Alice Matteson, and there are several published works that record the genealogy of Matteson, Whitford, and Greene families in Rhode Island, but not all of them have stood up to historical scrutiny.
We’ll take a look at the view from Rung 7 next week!
Ancestry.com; ”Rhode Island, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1582-1932”, extract from East Greenwich, R.I. Wills, Book 5, page 502; [membership may be required to view]; Lehi, UT, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
Note: I wrote this post near the beginning of my Callin Family History project, and I have done a bit of copy editing and added WikiTree links for key individuals – I’ll put my usual reminders to subscribe and comment up front here:
A Few Words About the Walkers
After reposting my piece on the 20th Century Callin Clan, I wanted to take some time to share what I’ve learned about the parents and siblings of Amanda Walker Callin since that piece was originally written. Strictly speaking, this extended Walker family isn’t part of the Callin Family History, but they have presented several tough puzzles and brick walls over the years, and I wanted to document what I know for sure.
William Walker was born on 24 July 1833 in Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York. He died on 27 December 1915 in Perrysburg, Wood County, Ohio. He was known in Webster township as “Yankee Walker,” according to one obituary. He farmed and raised his family in Scotch Ridge, and was buried in the Webster Township Cemetery there. Here is a detailed obituary I found in the Perrysburg Journal.
DEATH OF WILLIAM WALKER
On monday morning, Dec, 27, 1915, William Walker passed away at the age of 82 years, 5 months and 3 days.
Deceased was born in Ithaca, Tompkins Co., N.Y., on July 24, 1833, and was married on May 13, 1856, at Fairfield, Huron Co., Ohio, and moved to Wood County, locating near Perrysburg. To them the following children were born: Mrs. Mandy A. Collin of Elyria; Mrs. Martina Springstead and W.R. Walker of Sherwood, Mich.; J.S. Walker of Perrysburg; Mrs. Mary A. Dennis, residing in Michigan; James P. Walker of Gibsonburg; Mrs. Wm. Budd of Perrysburg; Henry F. Walker of Bowling Green; Mrs. Emma E. Kelley of Pemberville. Mrs. Walker died on October 13, 1879, and in November 1885 he was united in marriage with Mrs. Louise DeFrehn, and of this union there is one son, Harold Walker, who with his mother survives.
The family moved from the farm into Perrysburg about 12 years ago. The funeral services for the deceased will be held on Thursday, at the late residence, conducted by Rev. Dr. Pheley.
William married Lydia Bowen in Fairfield, Huron County, Ohio, on 13 May 1856 (note the erasure of her identity from the obituary), and we find their young family in the 1860 U.S. Federal Census living in Webster township, Wood County, Ohio – the post office listed is Scotch Ridge.
There are three people listed who ought to give us important clues to identifying the parents of both William and Lydia:
Household members: Name Age William Walker 32 Lydia A Walker 28 Lydia A Walker 3 Martina Walker 2 William Walker 1 Adelade Bowin 14 Elizabeth Walker 60 Jesse Walker 21
This 1860 record has a few details wrong – this is the only record I’ve found that puts William’s birthday around 1828 instead of 1833 – but it is definitely our William Walker. The 3-year-old “Lydia A” is our Amanda (referred to as “Mrs. Mandy Collin of Elyria” in his obituary), and Martina and William (age 1) match her two eldest siblings. While the 1860 Census does not identify relationships the way more recent Censuses do, Elizabeth Walker (60) is most likely William’s mother, and Jesse Walker (21) could be a brother or nephew.
Looking at the 1840 Census for Ithaca, there is a Richard Walker listed who had two sons between the ages of 5 and 9; they could well be William and Jesse. There are also three other Walker men listed in Tompkins County, all living in Lansing: Edward, James, and William. Each of them has sons who could plausibly be our William Walker. The 1850 Census does not seem to have any records that would tie the 1860 Walker family to anyone in the 1840s, and I have not found anything that indicates when Elizabeth Walker might have died.
Jesse Walker, though, left a lot of records behind. He enlisted in the Union Army on 1 July 1863, in Webster, Wood County, Ohio. According to his Veteran’s Headstone application, he reached the rank of Sergeant. After the war, he married Anna Samantha Fox (1844–1918), and they established a farm in Swan Creek, Fulton County, Ohio. They raised five sons and three daughters, and in the early 1900s, they relocated to Michigan. Annie and Jesse each died in Coldwater, Branch County, Michigan. Jesse died on 25 March 1925 and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery. His death record (which puts his birthday on 13 March 1838) does not name his mother and only gives his father’s surname.
Lydia A. Bowen (1828-1879) leaves almost as many questions as her husband. A lovely Ancestry user uploaded a scan of their 1856 marriage certificate, which confirms the date and location – Huron County, Ohio – and based on that, I think we can safely identify her in the Bowen family listed in Fairfield, Huron County, on the 1850 Census:
Household members: Name Age William Bowen 67 Mary Bowen 62 John Bowen 25 Lidia Bowen 23 Edward Bowen 18 Edwin Ball 26
Lydia would have aged more than 5 years between 1850 and 1860, but that just tells us that the 1860 record has misstated her age, the way it misstated William Walker’s age.
I have high confidence that William (67) and Mary (62) Bowen listed here in 1850 are Lydia’s parents, and her brothers are John (25) and Edward (18). I am slightly less confident that the same family is listed in Fairfield in the 1840 Census (the enumerator’s handwriting could say “Brown”), but there are about six children listed in that record whose ages would accommodate John, Lidia, and Edward.
There is a Mary Bowen buried in the “Old” Cemetery in North Fairfield. The marker (pictured below) gives her date of death as August 2, 1863, and her age: 80y 6m 13d. The 1850 record approximates her birth in 1788 in New Jersey.
Mary Bowen marker on FindAGrave
There are at least two men named William Bowen who have records in Ancestry’s Wills & Probate database, but they died in Stark and Jackson counties, respectively, and neither of these wills mentions people who match our Bowen family. Mary is listed in the 1860 Census, living with their son, Edward, and his wife and daughter in Fairfield, but William is not; I would expect to find a record of his death in the 1850s, but so far, no luck.
But, we still have the mystery of who Adelade Bowin might be. She is listed in the Walker household in 1860; she would seem not to be Lydia’s sister – otherwise, she ought to have appeared in the 1850 record as a girl between the ages of 4 and 6. Unfortunately, none of the records for Adelaide or AdelineBowen (or similar spellings) turn up any clues that match what we already know about the Bowen family.
We have been climbing a ladder of evidence for a couple of months now – a metaphorical ladder leaning against the side of one of my “family palm trees”. The first several rungs felt like very solid footing, but the last three have been increasingly shaky. Depending on who you are and what your skill level is, you might have a different comfort level with the conclusions I’ve accepted along the way and I want to take a moment to address that before moving on.
Evidence Standard
You may have run across several different “rules of three” in other fields, but when I use it in this post, I’m referring to a standard for judging whether a piece of evidence should be included in the profile you are building for your ancestor. The standard is that at least three points of comparison (three facts) in the new document or narrative you are evaluating should match what you already know about your ancestor. I want to be crystal clear: this is not a standard for proof. It is a standard for judging whether a document is even about your ancestor.
Almost every document will have the person’s name – that is almost always the first of the three facts to compare. Other facts will depend on the document you’re examining – date and/or place of birth/death/marriage, names of parents or siblings, addresses, and identification numbers (like Social Security or service numbers in more recent generations) can all add up and help identify a unique individual. The rule is that if three facts match each other (name, date of birth, and place of the event; name, relatives’ names, and time frame; gender, birth event, and parents’ names, etc.) that indicates that you can add the information in that document to “what you know” about that individual. Again, this isn’t “proof” but it is a way of figuring out which puzzle pieces belong in your ancestor’s picture, and can tell you where to look for more pieces.
Being appropriately skeptical means that any new evidence you find should be judged against what you already know – and if the facts don’t add up, you should be mentally prepared to change your mind about what you thought you knew, depending on what all of the evidence tells you. I would give you a specific example, but this whole series of posts is meant to be that example.
Types of Evidence
If you aren’t already familiar with the terms “primary source” and “secondary source,” there are a lot of good resources out there for learning more. (This page is a good start.) The most important thing to keep in mind is that the terms “primary and secondary” are not the same as “correct and incorrect” or “right and wrong” – one is not “better” or “more reliable” than the other.
For example, last week’s post about “An Old Man’s Memory” talked about a book that collected the firsthand knowledge of William Whitford. William’s book could be seen as both a “primary” source because he was a firsthand witness to events he documented, and as a “secondary” source, because some of the information he recorded was told to him by his parents and his older relatives.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be looking at several secondary sources – compiled lists of vital records (not the original records), family histories published by genealogical researchers, and local histories. Some of these published sources offer a tantalizing amount of information but can be disappointing in relevance and/or quality.
What Is Our Goal?
I started this series hoping to confirm a direct ancestor connection to a specific person – the surgeon, John Greene, of Rhode Island. The evidence supporting my case is thin, at best, and depends on several assumptions that might not be “provable” with existing documents. I keep going because I have not found evidence that contradicts what I have pieced together. I may need to plan a trip to Rhode Island to seek out un-digitized documents at some point, assuming I can figure out whether such documents exist.
This tree, from Harriet Wells to Green Whitford, is only plausible – not proven.
If my goal was to prove my case now, with the information I already have, I would have to stop. But my goal is to assess the work done by myself and others for weaknesses – and so far, what I have learned has encouraged me to continue investigating. There are leads; there are clues.
I would love to find solid, documentary evidence in vital records that allows me to declare Rungs 4 and 5 “confirmed” – but I have found evidence that suggests that isn’t likely to happen. In 1972, Burton Bernstein published a book called “The Sticks: Profile of Essex County, New York,” portions of which had originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine. According to Bernstein, “General Washington made a victorious inspection of both Crown Point and Ticonderoga in 1783, but what he saw was mostly sad ruins. Crown Point quickly reverted to pastureland and Ticonderoga was disposed of in a grant to Columbia and Union Colleges by the new State of New York.”1
According to the records we do have, Greene Whitford and his family lived in Brandon, Vermont, in 1788, in Hampton, Washington County, New York, from 1799 to 1801, and in Crown Point from about 1803. We have seen the evidence that his daughter was born in Crown Point. Her name doesn’t show up reliably (Cyrena/Irene/Anna, depending on the source), but we also know that women were poorly documented at that time – census records at all levels (local, state, or federal) only listed the heads of households, and remote or rural areas were slow to begin documenting vital records with any regularity.
All of this explains why there are no definite records tying Harlow Wells to his likely grandfather, Greene Whitford – and the remoteness of the area suggests that his family was the most likely origin of Cyrena and Harlow. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” – but until we find more evidence, I will continue.
Hopefully, I’m getting into families that have been researched by other descendants, and if you are one of those who have trod this path before, I’d love to hear from you.
Next week, we’ll continue up the trail, seeking firmer footing. Join us!
Let’s do a little bit of math, just for fun. (A thing my math teachers would never have predicted I would say.)
Starting with “one” – that’s you – and working backward through preceding generations, you have probably already noticed how each generation doubles in size. You, your two parents, their two parents are your four grandparents, etc. For me, a person born in the 1970s, My Sixteen great-great (or “2x-great”) grandparents were all born roughly 150 years ago, putting them in the era of the U.S. Civil War. Their 2x-great grandparents, most of whom would have lived in the Colonial era and seen the events of the American Revolution, would number 256.
My Millenial children are descended from 256 people on my side, and 256 different people (as far as I have been able to tell) on my wife’s side. If we take the Palm Tree Approach to look at each of those “lines” we are talking about 512 ancestors – each of whom likely had several siblings, leading to thousands of descendants of their own.
So far, I have researched two of my 256 Colonial Ancestors thoroughly enough to be confident that I know their identities and stories. (If you’re subscribed to this blog, you’ll get to learn about a third family in Friday’s post, From Bridport to Brandon… as soon as it comes out!) And since I finished my big project to compile the Callin Family History in 2022, I’ve begun working in earnest on my wife’s side of the family, too.
Which led me to the first of her Colonial American ancestors. (508 to go! Whee! Isn’t math fun?)
“James McCullough and Descendants” published 1991
For those who aren’t familiar with my methods, I have created several family tree “projects” on Ancestry – one for each of the eight great-grandparents of my children. I use my Ancestry membership to build back each line as far as I can, augmenting any gaps in the records available on Ancestry with other sources, if I can find them. Then, once I have built out the profiles for a full family – husband, wife, both of their parents, all of their children, and their children’s spouses – I add what I have learned about that family to WikiTree.
As you might recall from an earlier post, Family Reunion: McCullough, I had worked my way back to my wife’s 2nd-great grandfather, John Riley McCullough. Since that post, I have found and adopted WikiTree profiles for his parents, James McCullough and Nancy Fort – and spent some time in Ancestry looking for primary sources to help improve their biographies.
Census records and a will found on Ancestry led me to biographical sketches of two of John Riley’s brothers in Charles Blanchard’s Counties of Clay and Owen, Indiana, published in 1884. I spent a fair amount of time piecing together clues, and then I finally found a citation for the book you see above James McCullough and Descendants.
A lot of other researchers on Ancestry, Geneanet, and older forum sites had referred to this book or quoted it, but nobody’s source citations had included enough information to allow me to track it down. Finally, I ran across a reference to the author, Mabel Maxcy, and I was able to track down a copy for sale on Abe Books.
After reaching out to the seller, I was able to confirm that my wife’s family was listed in the book and that the compilers cited primary sources, so I ordered it.
Thanks to the work I had already done on Ancestry, I was able to quickly determine that I was on the right track. This book confirmed what I had learned from the wills and census records I had access to, but it also cited tax rolls and court documents that I either hadn’t found yet or did not have ready access to. Armed with the solid research done by Maxcy and McSween, I can now flesh out the stories of my wife’s colonial ancestors.
When I told my wife what I had found, and showed her that her Scottish ancestors had settled in pre-Revolution North Carolina, her eyes lit up. We have been watching recent seasons of Outlander, which, of course, should not be confused with history, but is set about five counties west of where her Scottish McCullough ancestors lived. I may not be able to interest her in dry facts and fun math trivia, but the Value of Fiction is its ability to make you feel what it’s like to be someplace else.
I’d love to hear from you if you have found a valuable source in the course of your research. Friday’s post will be about standards of evidence, and next Friday’s post talks about these kinds of secondary sources and how to judge their quality – so make sure you’re subscribed!
Genealogists urge each other to talk to their oldest living relatives and record their memories as best they can. This is difficult for a lot of people to do – the researchers might be unsure of themselves, or their relationship with their relatives might not make interviewing them in their old age a comfortable experience. I know I ran into a problem with my Grandma Alberta when I asked her to share her memories because she couldn’t remember a lot of facts (names/dates/places/etc.) and she considered other kinds of stories and anecdotes to be “gossip” and she didn’t want me spreading gossip about her family.
Fortunately for me, a man named William Whitford did not share Grandma’s sense of concern about collecting stories about family and writing them down. William was 81 years old in 1862 when he was persuaded to document everything he could recall about his Whitford ancestors and their descendants. In 1939, Walter John Coates typed up copies of William’s manuscript to share with genealogy researchers, and in 1998, Coates’s transcript was published by a small press run by the late Don Shaefer in Fayetteville, Arkansas. You can read a digital copy if you log into FamilySearch.org and follow this link.
Here is William’s account of how his cousin, Green Whitford, came to Shaftesbury, Vermont, from Rhode Island in 1781 and married his wife, Anna Pierce:
Green Whitford (Son of Thomas)
Cousin Green came to my father’s (Peleg’s) in Shaftesbury, Vt., in 1781, I think; I have heard my mother tell an anecdote about him. Clothen Pierce lived a short distance from my father’s. Mrs. Pierce was standing at the door or looking out at the window when Cousin Green with another young fellow was passing the house, going to my father’s for the first time from Rhode Island. Says Anna to her mother (for that was her name); “There goes my husband.” Her mother asked which one. She answered, “The one with [the] red plush jacket,” which was my cousin; and as she predicted, so it turned out, for in less than two years they were married, and their eldest daughter, Jimima, was married the same day that I was to a man by the name of William Conelly.
pg. 4
If you found that difficult to read, so did I. His phrasing made the story hard to follow, and he alluded to several facts that are either mentioned elsewhere in his text or are simply things that he figured a reader would already know. For example, he calls Mr. Pierce “Clothen” here, but in two places on the same page uses his correct name, “Clothier.” If I were Mr. Coates, I might have been tempted to “fix” William’s syntax and spelling a little bit:
In 1781, my cousin, Green Whitford, came to my father’s house in Shaftesbury, Vermont, from Rhode Island. Green and his traveling companion passed by the house of Clothier Pierce, a close neighbor. Mrs. Pierce and her daughter Anna saw them and Anna said, “There goes my husband.” Her mother asked which one, and Anna indicated Green by saying, “The one with [the] red plush jacket.” As she predicted, they were married in less than two years. Coincidentally, their eldest daughter, Jimima, married a man named William Conelly on 25 Dec 1800 – the same day I was married.
But the important thing is that William recorded his memories!
Thanks to this passage, I can begin piecing together the facts in Green Whitford’s biography. I haven’t been able to find a marriage record for his marriage to Anna Pierce, but some other facts are supported by documentary evidence.
My cousin Green had a large family of children, went to Puts Creek, New York, near his brother Constant, where he was quite a bear hunter; was treed by one on one of his hunting excursions, and had to remain out on the tree all night. Had some ten children by his first wife. Their names, as far as I now recollect them, were Jimima, Clothier, Hiram, Thomas, Sylvenus, Alden, Dimmas, Celia, and Anna.
I determined that “Puts Creek” is a reference to “Putnam’s Creek,” which is located just north of Ticonderoga, New York. Census and tax records found on Ancestry show Green in Brandon, Rutland County, Vermont, in 1788; in Hampton, Washington County, New York, from 1799 to 1801; and in Crown Point, Essex County, New York, in 1803 and 1810. You can see where these places are on this map – and Shaftsbury, Vermont, is another 45 miles south of Hampton:
Green Whitford: resided at Hampton, Brandon, Crown Point, and near Ticonderoga
If you recall last week’s post, I determined that Cyrena Whitford was probably born around 1800 in Crown Point, Essex County, New York. Other researchers identified her parents as “Greene Whitford and Anna Clothier Pierce.” And here we have a family member’s contemporary account of Green Whitford marrying Anna Pierce, and documents placing the family in Crown Point at about the right time. But William didn’t list “Cyrena” among Green and Anna’s children in that second paragraph above. He did, however, provide this memory of their daughter, “Anna”:
Anna married Thomas Wells of Bridgeport [sic], went to St. Lawrence County; there lived and died. I visited him once, had rather a hard place to get a living in, I thought. Had quite a family, most of them girls.
pg. 5
Technically, Thomas lived in Franklin County, to the east of St. Lawrence County; but if William’s memory could turn “Cyrena” into “Anna” it seems reasonable that he would get the county name wrong, too.
Conclusion:
Once again, we’re leaping to accept the tenuous threads of evidence that tie Harlow Wells, Thomas Wells, and Cyrena Whitford to Green Whitford. I don’t like relying on an old man’s memory and a chain of assumptions to prove my family connections – but considering how remote some of these places were at the time these people lived there, sometimes an old man’s memory may be all we get.
There is one other tiny, interesting tidbit of information in the records that feels important, even though on its own it doesn’t tell us much. William may have forgotten Cyrena’s name, but she did have a sister named Anna. Anna married Leonard Sherman and moved “to the West” – and the 1876 death record for Anna Whitford Sherman names her father, Green Whitford. That death record is found in the Wisconsin, Death Records, 1867-1907 on FamilySearch; her place of death is recorded as Fort Atkinson, Jefferson County. The same Fort Atkinson where Harlow Wells and his family appeared in 1870.
Taking all of this nebulous evidence and trying to determine what the whole story is might be difficult – but the challenge is what makes this such an interesting hobby. One day, I (or another researcher) will find a record that makes sense of it all.
Until then, I’m going to continue working from the assumption that I’m on the right track. So next, we’ll look for Green Whitford’s parents. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out!
And if you’re a descendant or just a fellow researcher interested in these folks, drop a comment and say hello!
Note: I composed this post before I discovered WikiTree, so you might find information here that I haven’t posted there, yet. At this writing, Henry B Opp(1811 – 1884) is as far back as WikiTree has documented this family.
Things Are Looking Opp
The Opp families that lived in and around Easton, Pennsylvania, typically came to Philadelphia from a town in the Rhineland during the 1730s or 1740s. They were generally members of the Evangelical Reformed Church (Evangelisch-reformierte Kirche), and many of them can be documented through church records available through Ancestry.
When I began writing up my Opp family, I discovered that I had fallen victim to a couple of common problems. Most of these Opp men I am researching were given traditional Reformation-style German names; almost all of them appeared in earlier records with the first name “Johan” or a variation. Their middle name was typically the name they used once they arrived in America, and it was common for fathers to name their sons after themselves and their male relatives. As it turns out, I confused two men who lived in Easton and operated taverns – both of whom were named either “Johann Jacob Opp” or simply “Jacob Opp.” After reviewing the available records, I think I’ve figured out who is who.
I suspect that three men with the Opp surname – Jacob, Michael, and Valentine – were either brothers or cousins who emigrated from the Rhineland when they were in their twenties. Their daughters married into families with names like Bixler and Bidleman, which were prominent in their way in the community. The Bixlers, in particular, would be important members of the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, which published some of the sources I will cite and runs the Sigal Museum (also at that link) in Easton.
Johan Michael Opp (1732-1803) appears in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Church and Town Records, 1669-1999 database. He was buried at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania on 28 May 1803. He is listed in many church and tax records as “Michael Opp” or “Michael Opp Sr,” to differentiate him from his son, Michael Jr, who lived nearby.
Satellite image of the old Michael Opp farm
The senior Michael was a weaver, and property and tax records placed him in Easton. I took a description of the boundaries of his farm from Historic Easton from the window of a trolley-car, published in 1911, and used Google maps to make the image [above], depicting the site of the old Opp farm. The Northampton County Courthouse and Prison occupy the western half of what was once Michael Opp’s farm.
I believe Michael’s wife was called Catharine Elizabeth, but I know very little about her. If my research bears out, then this couple would be my 6th-great grandparents. And their son, Jacob “Junior” would be my 5th-great grandfather. I found a mention of them in two articles published in 1997 in the local newspaper:
J Floyd S. Bixler, an early corresponding secretary of the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society, wrote a history of Easton’s early taverns in 1931. He noted that the Golden Swan Tavern was located at 460 Northampton St. This is confirmed by James A. Wright, whose 1993 history of taverns reaches beyond Easton to encompass all of Northampton County. Jacob Opp Jr., son of Michael Opp, was an early landlord at the Golden Swan. That was before 1813. —The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania; Thursday, July 24, 1997, Page: 13
Bixler tells the story of Theophile Cazenove, an agent for the French Land company on a tour of observation. “This Frenchman was a man of distinctive tastes, and traveled with a coach and four, a valet, a coachman, and a postilion,” says Bixler. “He also had an extra saddle horse along for a change when he became weary of his coach.” Cazenove stopped at the Golden Swan. He had a party of three men and three horses. Jacob Opp was the proprietor at the time. He charged Cazenove $3.90 for the night’s lodging. One assumes this included supper and breakfast. Bixler comments, “Jacob Opp was no profiteer.” Profiteer, no. But promoter, yes. Good service and a good price prompted Cazenove to write that the town of Easton could be proud of the Golden Swan. Bixler writes, “As he Cazenove always chose the best hotels, and was a critical judge of the service rendered, we may judge that Opp’s Golden Swan Hotel was a credit to Easton in its day.” —The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania; Thursday, July 24, 1997, Page: 25
Church records from St. John’s Lutheran Church in Easton also establish that Jacob was Michael’s son. For a long time, I mistakenly believed Jacob’s father was “John Jacob Opp,” who is described in two histories of the area:
In September of 1757 this property was conveyed to Adam Yohe, who had previously occupied the premises as a tenant. Yohe conducted a tavern which he called the Red Lion. This was Easton’s principal hostelry during the French and Indian War. Yohe disposed of the property in 1760 to George Cungware who still owned it in 1772. Later Jacob Opp became owner and continued to operate the tavern. Just when Opp secured possession is not known but as the 1776 assessment list refers to him as a tavern keeper owning a house it is assumed that he lived here during the war. In 1806 the Orphans Court adjudges the property to Elizabeth, the daughter of Jacob Opp, and the wife of Abraham Horn. Eve, the eldest daughter of Opp, married Daniel Wagener. Opp’s daughter Catharine married Christian Bixler. A frontier village, pre-revolutionary Easton p. 239-240; by Andrew Dwight Chidsey, 1940; Easton, Pennsylvania
Notably, this source ruled out the relationship to my ancestor:
John Jacob Opp, father of Catherine Opp, was born in Chur-Paltz, Germany, in the year 1740, came to the colony of Pennsylvania and died in 1805. He was appointed a commissioner of Northampton county June 22, 1776, to receive bounty money to be paid to the three hundred and twenty-seven men who completed Northampton’s first quota to the forces of the Flying Camp, as shown by the muster roll of Revolutionary militia. In addition to the sum of $981, he was also to exchange all saltpetre made in the county, this to be handed over to Capt. George Huber, to be used in the manufacture of gun-powder. John Jacob Opp became a large landowner in Easton, and by his wife, Anna Maria Hoffman, had four daughters, one of whom became the wife of Christian Bixler, the founder of the jewelry business which has been in the Bixler family one hundred and thirty-three years… History of Northampton County (Pennsylvania) and the grand valley of the Lehigh, p. 316; by William Jacob Heller, American Historical Society, Boston New York etc., 1920
Michael Opp and his wife had at least one other son, Michael Jr. (1767-1843), and a daughter, Anna Margareta, who married Michael Odenwalder (1750–1828) on 8 March 1775. Michael Sr. left behind a will, recorded in an index record in Pennsylvania, Wills and Probate Records, 1683-1993. It looks like I will need to make a trip to Easton one of these days to find that will and learn more about these folks.
Jacob Opp Junior (1763-1848) may have been named for an uncle or grandfather, which suggests to me that Michael Opp Sr. and John Jacob Opp (of the Red Lion Tavern) might have been related. Whatever the case, my Jacob – the proprietor of the Golden Swan – married a widow named Elizabeth Reynale, probably around the time of Michael’s death in 1803, if not a bit later. Elizabeth had a son from her first marriage, and she and Jacob also had a son in 1811 whom they named Henry. Jacob relocated the family to Dansville, New York, around 1814.
Once again, property and tax records seem to support what the local histories published later claim about their biographical information. Jacob figures into the biography of Elizabeth’s son, Dr. William H. Reynale:
Dr. Reynale was one of the earliest physicians and surgeons of Dansville. He was born at Quakertown, Hunterdon county, N.J., Feb 27, 1794. Very early in life he lost his father. His mother died in 1835. Soon after his father’s death he was adopted by Henry Bidleman, a maternal uncle [N.B. – suggesting Elizabeth’s maiden name must have been Bidleman] who was an accomplished scholar… After a severe and critical course of medical reading, he entered the University of Pennsylvania in January, 1811, as a medical student, and was graduated from there April 9, 1814. Soon after this he went to Dansville, at the invitation of Jacob Opp, a connection of Dr. Reynale, who was at that time building the well-known flouring and grist-mill south of Dansville, which is now, and has been for several years, owned by Benj. F. Readshaw. History of Livingston County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, pg. 194-195; by James H. Smith, Publisher: D. Mason, Syracuse, N.Y., 1881
According to his newspaper obituary, “Dr. Reynale came to Dansville for the first time in 1814, with his stepfather, Mr. Jacob Opp.” (Dansville Advertiser, Dansville, Livingston County, New York; Thursday, August 11, 1870 – emphasis mine.)
Jacob’s move to Dansville was further documented in the History of Livingston County:
[Col. Nathaniel] Rochester took up his residence in Dansville, and purchased a large tract of land, embracing most of the water power within the village, including the mills built by Daniel Sholl for the Pultney estate. He added to the other mills a paper mill, which was the pioneer of its kind in Western New York. In 1814 he disposed of his property in Dansville, in part to Rev. Christian Endress, of Easton, Penn., and in part to Jacob Opp, from the same place. …Jacob Opp’s purchase, which embraced the present Readshaw mill and site, was made in January, 1814, and in May of that year he moved his family here from Easton. He continued his interest in the mill property till about 1840, and died in Dansville in 1847, aged 84 years. Henry B. Opp is the only one of his family left here. p. 162
The grist-mill owned by Benjamin F. Readshaw, on the corner of Gibson and Main streets, to which reference has been made in connection with the early settlement of the town, occupies the site of the gris-mill built in 1796 by David Sholl for the Pultney estate. It was soon after burned and rebuilt by Sholl, who eventually became its owner, and was succeeded in possession of the property by Col. Nathaniel Rochester, the founder of the city of Rochester. In January, 1814, Mr. Rochester sold it to Jacob Opp, who owned it till about 1840. The mill contains three runs of stones, which are propelled by water from Little Mill creek, with a fall of thirteen and a half feet. p. 174
Henry B. Opp (1811–1884) was born in Easton, and at the age of three, moved with his family to Dansville, New York, in Livingston County. Henry was known as a miller, though after his father sold the mill around 1840 when Henry was 29, records list Henry’s occupation as a farm laborer.
Around 1839, he married Susan Karcher (1818–1903), daughter of William Karcher (1782–1852) and Magdalena Welch (1786–1869). Henry and Susan are my 4th-great grandparents. They spent their entire lives in Dansville, where they had five sons and two daughters.
I. Henry K Opp (1840–1908) served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. He was the paymaster aboard the USS Pocahontas. After the war, he married a woman named Mary, and they settled in Wellsville, New York, where he ran a clothing store.
Jacob Edward Opp
II. Jacob Edward Opp (1842–1913) was my 3rd-great grandfather. He married Mary Elizabeth Palmer, and we looked at their descendants in a previous post.
III. William Opp (1845–1920) served in the 21st Regiment, New York Cavalry during the Civil War. In 1868, he married Martha E. Fenstermacher (1846–1919), and they raised three daughters:
A. Theda W Opp (1871–1961) remained single her whole life, working for many years as a saleslady in a dry goods store in Wellsville. About her 70th year, she moved to Rockland, Maine, to live with her niece’s family. She is buried in Wellsville.
B. Adela “Addie” Opp (1873–1954) also remained single, working as a clerk or as a housekeeper to support herself. When Theda went to Maine, she appeared to have gone with her, and she, too, was buried in Wellsville after her death.
C. Edna P Opp (1877–1954) was born in Dansville, grew up in Wellsville, and married William F. Yewdall (1870–1932) in 1901. She moved to Thomaston, Maine, to live near her daughters after his death, and her sisters followed a few years later.
i. Helen Marlee Yewdall (1908–2008) married Joel Murray Miller Jr (1908–1987), and was 100 years old when she died.
ii. Margaret F Yewdall (1914–2011) married Dr. Frederick Collins Dennison (1908–1994). He served in the Knox County Hospital for many years. They are survived by their daughter, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
IV. Amelia J. Opp (1847–1922) She married Samuel H. Peterson, whom you might recall from the post about his grandfather, Samuel Peterson, New Jersey Shipwright. Samuel (b. 1847) was five years old on the 1850 Census, but later records dispute his birth date. On the 1860 Census, Samuel and his sister, Annie, appear listed in the same James Palmer household as their grandfather, Sam Peterson. According to a newspaper obituary for Amelia, they married in 1873 and moved to New York state.
Samuel and Amelia were in Deerpark, New York, according to the 1875 New York State Census, and they were in North Dansville with their daughter and three sons in 1880. When Amelia shows up in 1900, she is listed in North Dansville as a widow, but I have not been able to find Samuel’s death records. Amelia lived in North Dansville until she died in 1922. She was buried near two of her sons in Green Mount Cemetery.
They had a daughter and three sons, altogether:
A. Susan Peterson was born in 1874 and only appeared in the 1880 U.S. Census. It is possible that she grew up and married, or may have died young. Until some records turn up, I do not know.
B. James Henry Peterson (1875–1942) lived in East Rochester, New York, where he likely worked for the Foster & Armstrong Company manufacturing pianos. He married Julia H Sullivan (1878–1950) about 1903, and they had five children. The couple is buried in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester.
i. Charles H Peterson was born about 1904, and appeared in the 1905 New State Census and the 1910 and 1920 U.S. Census records with his family.
ii. Helen Amelia Peterson (1907–1942) married Joseph Seward Little (1897–1939) in 1937. He was a U.S. Navy veteran of World War I who died just two years later while living in the Veteran’s Administration facility in Tucson, Arizona; he was only 41.
iii. James H Peterson Jr (born 1907) followed his father in the piano-building business.
iv. George Peterson was born about 1913 and was seven years old in the 1920 U.S. Census, which is the only record I have for him.
v. John Richard Peterson (1916–1985) married Margaret Jean Race (1926–2003) in the 1940s, and they lived in Rochester, where they raised four sons and a daughter. They were survived by their children and seven grandchildren.
C. Samuel Hoffman Peterson (1878–1951) was a lifelong bachelor and resident of Dansville. He worked in a plant nursery for many years.
D. Henry K Peterson (1880–1962) married Charlotte Alice “Lottie” Wilcox (1880–1964). He served as superintendent of mail at the post office at the time of his retirement and lived in Dansville his whole life.
V. Lewis Isaac Opp (1851–1927) was a lifelong bachelor who spent his whole life in the Dansville area. He died at 74 of a stroke.
VI. George Benjamin Opp (born 1859) lived with his older brother, Henry, in Wellsville, from at least 1870. I have not found any records for him more recent than his appearance in Henry’s household in the 1880 U.S. Census.
VII. Mary Elizabeth Opp (1864–1867) died at age 3 and was buried in Green Mount Cemetery, in Dansville, near her parents.
There you have it – to me, it always seems like a lot of names, but also a lot of “lifelong bachelors,” which makes finding modern cousins tricky. I especially dislike having so many mysterious loose ends, but until more records are online – or I find time to travel around the Eastern seaboard! – they will remain mysterious.
Of course, if you recognize any of these folks from your research, I’d love to hear from you. I welcome any corrections and updates.
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Last week, we considered the evidence that ties Thomas Wells and Cyrena Whitford to Harlow C. Wells. I decided to accept that Harlow was probably their son, based on the few facts we have been able to find in the available records. I also spent some time looking through the local histories published about Franklin County and searched for other Wells families who might have been in the area, but those sources did not offer any other alternatives to explore.
This week, we are considering the next rung on the ladder, and looking for Cyrena Whitford’s origins. Once again, we don’t have a lot of information to work with. Other than this record of their marriage, there don’t seem to be any official documents that name Cyrena:
Whitford-Wells in “Vermont, U.S. Vital Records 1720-1908”
The only other source that names Cyrena gets her name wrong. The death record for their daughter, Melissa (Wells) Whitman, who died in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1886, gives her parents names and their place of birth. It names Thomas Wells and “Irene”, born in “Bridgeport, VT” and “Crown P….”, respectively:
detail of Melissa Whitman’s entry in “Massachusetts, U.S., Death Records, 1841-1915”
Once again, we have a very limited amount of information to work with if we want to figure out who Cyrena Whitford’s parents were. The two records that name her disagree on her name; there is no record of her date of birth; and the scan of the page that names her birthplace cuts off the placename. That said, I’m inclined to think that Cyrena/Irene was born in Crown Point, Essex County, New York, which is located directly across Lake Champlain from Bridport, Vermont.
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But… once again, we have some leads thanks to the online trees shared on Ancestry, FamilySearch, and WikiTree. According to those researchers, Cyrena Whitford is believed to be the daughter of Greene Whitford (1759–1816) and Anna Clothier Pierce (1760–1808). As we did with Harlow, we need to look at the available records for that couple to see if we can support this theory.
As always, I’d love to hear from any fellow descendants of these folks, especially if you have scans of the “family records” cited in their online trees.
And if you are interested in seeing how far up this ladder we can get, be sure you are subscribed!
I spend a lot of time on this blog emphasizing the importance of evidence and critical thinking in assembling a factual family history. But as some of my Substack friends will tell you, context and the construction of a narrative are also important elements for telling your family’s story.
I have a whole separate life in fiction that I don’t get to talk about here very often. Since about 2006, I’ve subscribed to the Escape Pod science fiction podcast, and since 2016 I have been an associate editor at Pseudopod, the horror fiction podcast. In addition to behind-the-scenes editorial duties, I’ve had the privilege of hosting and narrating a few episodes – full list here – most recently narrating the Veteran’s Day/Remembrance Day story, The Body Remembers, in 2023.
If you do go check out that story, pay attention to the Content Warnings; and take note that this, and stories like it, serve a purpose that purely factual history can’t serve. The fictional world gives us a glimpse of the kinds of pain and suffering that most of us never experience – and enough distance to avoid experiencing it. The goal is understanding.
Some amazing shows are being made that are based on historical events. Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequels, 1883 gave my imagination a backdrop for learning about my Huff and Witter ancestors – even though they settled in Kansas, not in any of the locations depicted in the show. The outlandishly fantastic Outlander – which takes a time-traveling erotic romance and grounds it in a visually stunning production – brought the Scottish Highlands to life in a way that I could never have accessed just by visiting. And Outlander’s recent seasons have (probably implausibly) woven the characters into events from the American Revolution – including places like Ticonderoga, New York, not far from where some of my ancestors lived, or in pre-Revolution North Carolina, where my wife’s ancestors settled.
While none of these would ever pass for historical works, the settings, costumes, and otherwise brilliant production work can give someone like me a sense of place for the stories I want to write about my ancestors.
Might your ancestors have remembered the feeling of riding in those wagons? (Sam Elliott in 1883.)
Of course, admitting an affection for historical fiction makes me feel a little bit guilty as if I’m betraying all of the serious historians out there trying to Tell the Truth. But I also can’t help observing how historical fiction drew me into the study of history. I remember discovering Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove novels in my teens, and the compelling story full of relatable characters helped me grasp the outlines of American history in a way that a simple recitation of names/dates/places never could.
We do have to be careful about maintaining the line between history and fiction. Alex Haley’s groundbreaking and influential work, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, was a phenomenon when I was a kid, and undeniably influenced my interest in family history. But because it wasn’t presented as a novel, and because Haley did not acknowledge that he borrowed parts of it from a 1967 novel, it suffers as a work of history and draws criticism from those who want to deny the underlying realism of the events it portrays.1
I personally still value Haley’s work, and the work of many others who could be described as “pioneers of ‘creative non-fiction” or the ‘non-fiction novel’” – my memoir/novel, Tad’s Happy Funtime, tells you outright that I don’t trust my memory and that I have probably altered my own stories over the years simply in retelling them. That is, after all, how the brain works.
The key is to give value to both fact and fantasy and to understand that your ancestors did the same thing. Any writings you have inherited from them have tremendous value as artifacts of their time and their internal lives – but always remember to be skeptical of what is factual until you have evidence.
And, of course, document your evidence – ideally on my WikiTree profiles – for posterity.
Looking for the link from Harlow Wells to Thomas Wells
Our story thus far:
I have been examining the evidence I have connecting my grandmother, Alberta (Tuttle) Clark back to our possible ancestor, one of the founding families of the Providence Plantations in what is now Rhode Island. We started with her father, Alfred Tuttle, and I feel confident that we have solid documentary evidence connecting him to his mother, Florence (Hart) Tuttle, her mother, Hattie (Wells) Hart, and Hattie’s father, Harlow Wells.
Harriet Isette Wells’s WikiTree
Unlike everyone else we’ve looked at to this point, none of Harlow’s records name his parents, and only one record gives us a precise place of birth: Brandon, NY.
detail from Massachusetts Death record for Hattie (Wells) Hart, 28 Sep 1879
Normally, I avoid looking to online trees for clues. They are almost always unsourced and rarely include enough information to help you get around a brick wall. But I’m out of options, so as long as I take a critical approach, maybe I can learn something useful.
I found three member trees on Ancestry that named Harlow, all supported by the source records we already looked at; his FamilySearch profile lists 22 sources, but none we have not already seen; and he had an existing profile on WikiTree which cited “Family records” and a couple of the sources we have already seen. All of these trees name his parents as Thomas Wells and Cyrena Whitford, but none of the sources tie them to Harlow, specifically. Lastly, Thomas and Cyrena each have memorials on FindAGrave, which include (unsourced) names of their children. (There are no photos of their markers, either, which I would be curious to see.)
Next, we’ll take a look at the evidence we have for Thomas and Cyrena, and see if we can rule out or confirm that Harlow is one of their children. We have Vermont Vital Records for Thomas’s birth (which names his parents) and for the 1819 marriage of Thomas and Cyrena Whitford in Bridport, Addison County, Vermont. Thomas and Cyrena moved to Brandon, Franklin County, New York, around 1824 – as is supported by U.S. Census Records and an entry in A history of St. Lawrence and Franklin counties, New York: from the earliest period to the present time by Franklin Benjamin Hough (page 484).
I hope to someday learn what “family records” the information came from, but for now, I’m going to take the list of children named in their FindAGrave memorials as a starting point. Those children are:
Melissa
Alonzo
Harlow
Julia
Olive
Eunice
Thomas’s will and probate documents aren’t as informative as I would have hoped, but they do name his son, Alonzo, and a grandson, Arthur Horrigan, as the heir of his late daughter, Eunice. Melissa’s 1886 Massachusetts death certificate also names her birthplace as “Brandon, NY” and her parents as “Thomas Wells” born in “Bridgeport, VT” and “Irene” born in “Crown…” (probably Crown Point, NY… but we’ll get to that in next week’s post).
Thomas’s family appears in Brandon in the 1830 and 1840 Census, as well, and while those records don’t name anyone other than the head of the household, what we do know about this family maps well onto the household enumerated in the census:
Thomas Wells in 1830: Brandon, Franklin, New York
Thomas Wells in 1840: Brandon, Franklin, New York
Conclusion:
This evidence isn’t 100% convincing and still doesn’t confirm a direct relationship between Harlow, Thomas, and Cyrena. I was unable to find obituaries (except for Alonzo’s, which did not mention his family by name), records, or other books like local histories or genealogies that named them. But the information that we do have seems to fit together. If Harlow was born in Brandon, New York, then it seems likely that Thomas and Cyrena were his parents.
If we learn any new facts or find any new sources, we will have to re-evaluate, but for now, I’m going to accept this connection and take one more step up the ladder.
I’d love to hear from you, especially if you’re one of the folks who put your work into one of the online trees I looked at this week, or if you’re descended from any of Harlow’s siblings. You should also subscribe so you can continue the climb with me:
Last week, we reviewed the evidence supporting the facts of Hattie (Wells) Hart’s life story. She was my 3rd-great-grandmother.
Hattie Wells Hart’s WikiTree
Hattie’s parents were documented well enough to assert that Harlow C Wells (1827–about 1880) was her father, but the documents we have tell us precious little about his life. Here’s what we know for sure:
His name – birth records for two of his daughters (Hattie and Nettie) give his name; he is recorded in the same household as them in two U.S. Census appearances.
His birth – all of the records that give Harlow’s birth date center on 1827 as the year, and list New York as the place. One record – Hattie’s Massachusetts death record – lists his place of birth in Brandon, New York.
Harlow’s earliest known record is the 1850 U.S. Census, which places him in Shroeppel, New York. He then married Sarah in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1853 and settled down with her in Reading, Massachusetts, until at least 1865.
Map of Harlow Wells life before 1870
We are missing a big part of Harlow’s story by not knowing when or where he died. He clearly took his family to Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin – 1500 miles to the west, about halfway between Milwaukee and Madison – but even if you assume the family returned to Massachusetts by the time of Hattie’s 1873 wedding, that is a large gap for Harlow and his son Osborne (age 8 in 1870) to disappear into.
But this particular brick wall isn’t completely blocking our path. Because Harlow’s name is attached to a Wells family that lived in Brandon, Franklin County, New York, beginning in 1824. Their profiles on WikiTree and FindAGrave didn’t lead directly to any documents that named Harlow – but we’re going to take a look at the evidence that is there and see what we can prove.
This is the first shaky step we’ve taken in our journey – and I’m not 100% sure where it will lead. If you think you know, I’d love to hear from you!
And don’t forget to subscribe to see where we go next.
Mightier Acorns 