400 years since The Mayflower: The Cooper

What did my 10x great-grandfather do for a living? Where did that profession lead him?

Family member name: John Alden
Tree branch: Smith
Lifetime: 1598 - September 12, 1687
Relation: My 10x great-grandfather (my dad's mom's dad's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's dad's mom's dad's dad)

John Alden was 21 years old when a group of families approached him to join the crew of the ship that would take them across the ocean.  He met them in Southampton, England. Little did he know they were to be called the Pilgrims, and they were inviting him on a historic journey on the Mayflower that would change his life.  

Why did the Pilgrims want him to come along? He was a cooper.

coop·er

/ˈko͞opər,ˈko͝opər/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. a maker or repairer of casks and barrels.

The cooper was a necessary position on any ship. He maintained all barreled supplies and provisions.

* Do you want your food to stay fresh and airtight, and therefore, not die of hunger?

* Do you want your precious beer to stay in the barrel and not leak out?

If the answer is yes, you need a qualified cooper.  They made many different containers from small buckets to large barrels, or casks.  The casks were made of wood planks and metal hoops that bound the planks together.

As a crew member of the Mayflower, and not a Pilgrim, he was expected to return to England when the ship went back in the spring.  However my 10x great-grandfather decided to remain in Plymouth and on April 5, 1621 watched the boat sail away.  He may have made his decision early on, since he was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, which was written when they arrived in November 1620.

The cooper would establish himself as a valuable member of Plymouth Colony. He and his wife Priscilla would have 10 children, of which I am one of tens of thousands of descendants.

Sources:

Wikipedia: John Alden
Colonial Coopers

Visiting the cemetery in Duxbury, MA with my dad.

Three Reasons Family Stories Get Lost

Why is information about our ancestors lost to future generations?  Here's 3 reasons that had an impact on my own family.

Family member name: Nelson F. Smith

Lifetime: 1859-1910
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 2x great-grandfather (my dad's mom's dad's dad's)

The lost story
My 2x great-grandfather, Nelson F. Smith grew up in a lighthouse.  Yes! A super cool, famous lighthouse called Chatham Light on Cape Cod.  My family was completely unaware of this until I found it through my family tree research.  But this was relatively recent family history, so how does information like this get lost?  Imagine the stories of storms and rescues and close calls!

Just to be clear, Nelson F. Smith was my grandmother's grandfather.  My grandmother just passed away a few years ago at the age of 98.  She never told us that her family had any connection to Chatham Light, even when we visited Chatham with her.  I don't think she knew.  How could she not have known?  Isn't fun family information passed down to the next generation?

1. Early death
Of course, early death is a major reason why stories don't get passed on to future generations.  Nelson Smith died in Boston at the age of 51 from complications of an infection in his heart.  He died five years before my grandma was born.

So grandma did not receive firsthand information from her grandfather.  However, why didn't her father, Charles Nelson Smith, tell her that HIS own father grew up in a lighthouse?  He may not have known either.  Why not?

2.  Separation
My great-great-grandmother Fannie Naomi was a single mom.  (She is the little girl in the tintype in my last blog post.) She and Nelson divorced at some point, which was very taboo at the time. She moved in with her brother, Francis Gibbs, in Fairhaven, Mass.  So my great-grandfather was not raised by his own father. Uncle Frank was the father figure in his life.  

The marriage of Fannie Naomi Gibbs and Nelson Smith did not get off to the best start.  They were married on Tuesday, March 22, 1887, and 4 months later (yikes! the #1 taboo at the time), little Charles was born on July 25, which is 133 years ago today. 

So, because of the unplanned pregnancy, the rushed wedding and subsequent divorce, Charles may not have had a substantial relationship with his own father, Nelson, and therefore never heard about his childhood in the lighthouse firsthand.

Charles Nelson Smith, my great-grandfather, sporting the world's best bow tie, may not have had a relationship with his father, who grew up in a lighthouse.

3. Hurt feelings
Was there bad blood?  Who divorced who?  Was Charles' father, Nelson, even mentioned at all in conversations?  Did he ever visit him?  Even if Charles knew about his father's childhood in the lighthouse, was there so much hurt that he didn't speak of him to his wife and daughter later in life?  We don't even have a picture of Nelson.

We don't know the circumstances of their relationship, marriage or divorce.  But since such a key piece of information in family history went missing so quickly, it must have been a combination of death, separation and hurt feelings that they just couldn't bear to repeat the stories of the lighthouse.

Tintypes

Want to see one of my favorite old family photos?  It's from 1868.  

1868: My great-great grandmother Fannie Naomi Abby Gibbs, about 3 years old and her older brother.

Actually, my family has several pictures dating from the 1860s.  However this one stands out since it includes children.  Who are they?  

Family member name: Fannie Naomi Abby Gibbs

Lifetime: July 15, 1865 (born 155 years ago today) - July 11, 1941
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 2x great-grandmother (my dad's mom's dad's mom)

Family member name: Lysander Gibbs

Lifetime: 1856-1923
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 3rd great-uncle (my dad's mom's dad's mom's brother)

I love this picture.  It's a tintype.  What is that?

According to The Science and Media Museum:

A very underexposed negative image was produced on a thin iron plate. It was blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling, and coated with a collodion photographic emulsion. The dark background gave the resulting image the appearance of a positive.

Believe it or not, that is the most non-technical definition I could find of a tintype. I really still have no idea what that means, but here's what I learned about tintypes:

• Tiny, usually 2x3 inches
• Made of thin iron, not flexible
• Mounted in paper or cardboard cases
• Developed in a darkroom in just minutes (a big advancement for the time)
• Inexpensive
• In use in the 1860s and 1870s

Notice this tintype has been ever so slightly hand tinted.  Do you notice the kids' pink cheeks? 

And how cute are they?  Isn't it great to see pictures of your grandparents and other ancestors as children? It reminds us that they had lives before we knew them.  Unfortunately, this darling girl's life probably didn't turn out the way she wanted it to.  Stay tuned for an upcoming post...

The Big Reveal

I found a piece of interesting information about my dad's 2x great-grandfather and wanted to tell him in person to see his reaction.

Family member name: Charles H. Smith

Lifetime: 1825 - 1900
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 3x great-grandfather (my dad's mom's dad's dad's dad)

I was researching the Smith side of my family, and I found that the Smiths lived in an interesting place.

The next time my dad and step-mom came for a visit, I printed out the 1865 Massachusetts State Census and walked them through the process I had recently completed to let them find the information on their own.  

Here's the video.  I'm pretty sure they didn't see I was recording. :)

So fun!

My 3x great-grandfather was the light keeper of Chatham Light, a famous lighthouse on Cape Cod.  My dad has visited most of New England's lighthouses by land or by kayak, and I knew he was quite familiar with Chatham Light.  So to find out that his direct ancestor (his 2x great-grandfather) lived there and manned the lighthouse for 10 years, from 1862-1872, is pretty cool!  Also, my dad's great grandfather, Nelson, grew up in the light keeper's living quarters.

Why did no one in my family know about this??  Stay tuned.

This is what the Twin Lights in Chatham looked like when our ancestor was light keeper.

1841 brick towers.

To read more about the quest for the Smiths, read my previous blog post here.

Sources
Wikipedia > Chatham Light
National Register of Historic Places in Barnstable County
Tours of Chatham Light

Namesakes: Charlotte Ellen Smith

Installment #2 in my series of namesakes is my paternal grandmother, Charlotte Ellen Smith.  Let's learn about the family members she may have been named after.

Family member name: Charlotte Ellen Smith Webber
Tree branch: Smith
Lifetime: 1915 - 2014
Relation: My grandmother (my dad's mom)

First name: Charlotte

There were two special Charlottes in her parents’ life. Who were they?

Special Charlotte #1:  Her father’s step-grandmother: Charlotte Whitton Gould Hardy Smith

Charles Nelson Smith was my grandmother's father.  His grandmother (Susan Stetson) died before he was born.  But his grandfather remarried just eight months later to a widow named Charlotte Whitton Gould Hardy.  According to the Hardy Family History, her first husband passed away when he was 30 years old aboard a ship bound for San Francisco when a fire destroyed the ship. This Charlotte Hardy Smith was the Smith grandmother that Charles knew from when he was born.  And he grew up nearby his grandparents.  

Did Charlotte treat Charles like he was her own grandchild? Did they have a special relationship? 

Then in 1914, this Charlotte passed away just four months before my grandma was born. Did Charles Nelson Smith want to honor his grandmother's recent passing? If so, he may have named his daughter after her.

Special Charlotte #2:  Her father's aunt: Charlotte H. Morse Gibbs

Uncle Gran (Granville Micah Gibbs) was married to Aunt Lottie (Charlotte Morse).  She seemed to be a favorite among the cousins.  Aunt Lottie was an expert seamstress who would make clothing for family members.

Was Aunt Lottie close with her nephew, Charles and his wife Florence? Could my grandmother be named after her great aunt?  

By naming her Charlotte, they got two for the price of one!

Middle name: Ellen

This is an easy one.  Ellen was the name of my grandmother's maternal grandma, Ellen Fripp Bromley, who was very close to her.

According to the US Social Security Administration, Charlotte was the sixth most popular name for a baby girl in 2019.  Wow, what a comeback!

Sources:

Hardy and Hardie, page 6 - A scanned online PDF file of the Hardy family history

US Social Security Administration - Popular baby names

"My Memories of the Family" - a typed paper copy in my possession written by Pearl K. (Gibbs) Thomas

New England, Select United Methodist Church Records, 1787-1922 page 60 via Ancestry.com

Shakespeare was a friend of the family. Maybe.

My 12th great grandfather was John Smythe.  I think he must have been friends with William Shakespeare.  :)  Just sayin.

Family member name: John Smythe
Tree branch: Smith
Lifetime: 1580ish - unknown death date
Relation: My 12x great grandfather (my dad's mom's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad)

John Smythe lived in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England. He was born around 1580.

You know what that means? Grandpa Smythe lived there during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He lived in the same town as William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway and he lived there at the same time that they lived there.  William was about 20 years older than Grandpa John. 

The population of Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1600 was 2,000.  It was still a small market town where everybody knew everybody.  Even if they weren't close friends, they definitely knew each other.

John's son Ralph was my immigrant ancestor who arrived in Massachusetts in 1630.

PS: All credit for the genealogical findings of the Smith family goes to the helpful genealogist at the Chatham Public Library on Cape Cod.  She sent me a big fat juicy envelope full of photo copies of vital records in the mail.  Amazingly, I received the package only about a week before leaving on our long-awaited vacation to the English countryside.  Before then, I had no idea that I had ancestors who lived in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which was one of our scheduled stops on the trip.

It made me look at the town in a whole new way, through the eyes of my family.  Here we are.

Dru and me in 2017, outside my 12x great grandfather's friends's wife's home.

My 12x great-grandfather's friend's house still stands today in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England.

My 12x great-grandfather's buddy, William Shakespeare.  Photo credit: British Library.

A mysterious first marriage

This week would have been my grandparents' 79th anniversary.  Their wedding date was September 2, 1939.  I never questioned this. I never had to research the date, it was undisputed.  Why? Because we celebrated it with them!  When your family tells you something, you don't ask to see proof from a notary.  

Family member name: Roger Pearson Webber, Charlotte Ellen Smith Webber
Lifetime: 1914 - 2000, 1915 - 2014 respectively

Places lived: Massachusetts; Rhode Island

Tree branch: Webber
Relation: My grandparents (my dad's parents)

Webber wedding - photo taken Sept 2, 1939

I was very surprised when I recently found a document that made me question their wedding date.  "Heavenly day!" as my grandma would exclaim.

This is my grandparents' newly discovered marriage certificate.  It shows them as married May 27, 1938 - over one year earlier than we thought.  The ceremony was in another state: New Hampshire, not Massachusetts.

I contacted my aunt, who sent me a photo of the marriage certificate she has in her files.  This is the marriage we all knew about - in Massachusetts in 1939.

Both marriage certificates are valid documents and listed in the marriage indexes for their respective states.

Wow, do you know what this means? My grandparents got married twice.  To each other. 

I have no record that they were divorced in between these marriages.  And they did not live together after the first marriage. (Notice that they fibbed on their second marriage certificate by saying it was their first marriage.) 

Why did they get married twice? We don't know. One possible reason could be that my grandmother's mother was dying of cancer.  In fact she died April 13, 1939 in New Hampshire. Maybe it was her dying wish to see her daughter married, I don't know. We always thought she died a few months before their wedding in 1939.  But, could she actually have attended their wedding in 1938?? Probably.

But why in the world get officially married again by a priest?  Why not just have a late reception? How many people at their second wedding knew they were already married? Now both of my grandparents have passed away, along with anyone who may have known the reason for the duplication.  

We now have a family mystery.

Sources:

New Hampshire Marriage and Divorce Records, 1659-1947, page 509

Massachusetts, US, Marriage Index, 1901-1955, page 175

The Snow Row

Do you want to go kayaking?  In Boston Harbor? In March?  Kinda frosty, right? Why would someone do that year after year?  The Snow Row!

A yearly boat race is held in Hull, Massachusetts and it's called the Snow Row.  It is for many kinds of boats without a sail or a motor, including kayaks. It seems that the race was named because most participants need to row, and there's usually snow on the ground in March in Boston.  But no!  It was named after a man named Edward Rowe Snow.

Edward Rowe Snow was born in Massachusetts in 1902.  He wrote over 40 books, mainly chronicling New England maritime history.  The Hull Lifesaving Museum is also devoted to preserving New England maritime history, and they sponsor the Snow Row as a tribute to Edward.

My dad has been racing in the Snow Row for over 20 years. It's become a family tradition.  I've had the chance to be the front person in his tandem kayak on a few occasions. We've been known to bring home gold or silver medals.  Here we are.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing research on my family tree and I found a Snow! I decided to trace the Snow family and found we have the same Pilgrim ancestor as Edward Rowe Snow. I should have known that all people in Massachusetts are related somehow.

Family member name: Edward Rowe Snow

Lifetime: 1902 - 1982
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 9th cousin, 3x removed

My 11th great-grandfather is Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower.  Stephen Hopkins is Edward Rowe Snow's 8th great-grandfather.

Yeah, we're family.

My dad is all signed up for the Snow Row again in 2018.  I'm sad I can't join him in the race this year.  But now he has an added bonus of knowing the race is named after his cousin Ed.

While telling my dad about this research, he said he met Mr. Snow in the early 1970s while taking a Boston Harbor Cruise.  Here is the famous Edward Rowe Snow.  Photo credit: Dad.

Building a 19th century resumé

Was Grandpa Smith a go-getter? An intentional seeker of new horizons? Or did life just happen? You decide as you read his resumé below.

Family member name: Charles H. Smith
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 3x great grandpa.  My dad's mom's dad's dad's dad.

The carpenter - Young Charles' first occupation was a carpenter. He lived in Chatham, Massachusetts which is the elbow of Cape Cod. (Make a fist and flex your bicep. That's Cape Cod. Now use your other hand to point at the flexed arm's elbow.  That's Chatham.) Chatham was a fishing and whaling town, so perhaps he made a good living repairing boats. We can't really know for sure. But this skill surely would have helped him in his next jobs.

The lighthouse keeper - Light house keepers have always held a beloved position in their community. Their role was to keep the town's mariner sons and husbands safe.  Grandpa Smith was entrusted with this position for over ten years, three of which were during the Civil War.  Normally lighthouse families were isolated because their homes are often located on islands or on remote peninsulas. Not so with Chatham Light. It is on Main Street in the middle of town. So I imagine their interaction with the community was as normal as their neighbors. Speaking of neighbors, Angeline Nickerson lived next door with her children. She is a local Chatham legend. Her husband was the light keeper until his untimely death. She took over the post and "manned" (pun intended) the station for 10 years until she was about 50 years old.

The twin lights as they would have looked in the 1860s.

I have yet to locate the lighthouse logs from Grandpa Smith's tenure. The logs generally recorded how many ships passed by daily, significant storms, sea rescues and lighthouse repairs. The Chatham Historical Society does not have them, the Chatham Eldredge Library does not have them. I have not yet contacted the current lighthouse keeper (the US Coast Guard), but often the logs were thrown away when the Coast Guard took over in 1943.  The result of these missing logs is that we know almost nothing about his service. In fact, he is barely (if ever) even mentioned in books about lighthouse histories. But he's on Wikipedia, so... it's all good.


The inn keeper - Grandpa and Grandma Smith transitioned from the rescue business to the hospitality business.  The Chatham Monitor local newspaper shows the chain of events.

Advertisement for Nauset House

Newspaper announces sale of Nauset House Aug 1872

Monthly advertisement for Nauset House

Nauset House is often listed in the paper as hosting town events on their large front lawn.  Unfortunately, Grandma Smith died just three years later, yet was remembered as a gracious hostess to town visitors in her obituary. 

Nauset House is still an Inn 150 years later (not run by family members that I know of). Consider staying there on your next trip to the Cape.


The tax collector - Holy career change Batman!

Here is Grandpa Smith's obituary, kindly sent to me by the Chatham Historical Society.

Looks like as the new tax collector, he whipped them into shape! Was he the type of person who could recognize a problem, devise a solution and had the power and energy to implement it? I admire those people.

From his various careers over his lifetime, it seems that Grandpa Smith was always reinventing himself, a catchphrase from the 2010s. What a diverse and interesting person.

Hingham

Hingham, Massachusetts holds a special place in my heart. It’s where I would visit my Grandma and Grandpa Webber and spend much time with my two cousins. My dad grew up in Hingham. I had no idea of our connection to Hingham other than knowing that my grandparents moved their young family there in 1952/53.

Family member name: Ralph Smith
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 10x great grandpa.  My dad's mom's dad's dad's dad’s dad’s dad's dad's dad's dad's dad

Why did my grandparents move to Hingham? They grew up in Needham and New Bedford. Maybe they just wanted to be commuting distance to Boston?  My Grandma Webber’s maiden name was Smith. Normally a difficult surname to research, but there have been mountains of information on this family with deep New England roots.

When reading a history of the Smith family in New England, many generations lived on Cape Cod, in the towns of Chatham and Eastham. But when going back further, a Ralph Smith lived in Hingham for almost 20 years, from1635 to 1653. He lived on Main Street and ran a store. When researching the history of the town of Hingham, it was founded in 1635. In fact, Ralph Smith, his three brothers and four other men originally arrived there in 1633 to begin clearing land and building huts in order to cultivate the land the following spring. Though it was called Bare Cove at that time, when they set up a town government, they renamed the area Hingham. Why? They had just arrived in the new world from their hometown - Hingham, England.

It’s so exciting that my dad grew up in the town that was founded by his direct ancestor, who was a pioneer of distinction.

Here is a plaque placed by the Association of the Descendants of Ralph Smith.  Disclaimer: I did not take this picture.  I copied it from another website. :)  But I hope to visit it someday.

Tree Branches

What is a branch of a family tree?

Is it the family line through my grandparents?  If so, each person would only have four tree branches.  And while this is technically a true statement, for this blog's purposes, I'm going to narrow it down a little further.

Going forward, when I reference a branch of my family tree, I'll be referring to the branch beginning with my (or Dru's) great-grandparents, as shown in the red box below.

Therefore, we each have eight branches.  Mine are: Webber, Pearson, Smith, Bromley, Boyle, Anderson, Sullivan and Goesch.

Meredith's Family Tree's branches

Dru's branches are: Hargreaves, Cottam, Jones, Newman, Kekos, Papoutsaki, Stevens and Papas.

Dru's Family Tree's branches

Each post will also be tagged with the tree branch so as to find information easily.  Hopefully this will add some clarification to what may be a bunch of random family stories and research findings.

Genealogy Jackpot

The dilemma
Almost 7 years. I have been researching my family for 7 years. There was one name that I never touched.  My grandma's maiden name was Smith. The misconception is that such common names would yield so many search results that finding your relative is like finding a needle in a haystack.

The rationalization
Why should I even try? It's the road leading to frustration and disappointment. I have other family members to research anyway. Yeah.

The glutton for punishment
Ok I might as well take a look. Zero expectations.

The search
1. Starting point: My dad's mom's maiden name was Charlotte Ellen Smith. Her father's name was Charles Nelson Smith. That's all I know.
2. Hold on.  I remember receiving info about this family once. In an email, I found that Charles Nelson was born in Chatham Massachusetts and his father's name was Nelson. (Makes sense). And his middle initial was F.
3. Ok Ancestry.com, whatcha got? Don't fail me now. I entered in the above info and got a hit! Nelson F's father, born in the same town, was named Charles H. Smith (Makes sense). Yay! I just found my 3x great grandpa. There's the family in the Mass state census of 1865. Nelson F is 6 years old.

The joy
What else can I learn from this census?  What was Charles Smith's occupation?  My ancestors were usually shop keepers. I had no expectations, but maybe a mariner? I had to make sure I was reading this right...  Do you see it?

 "Light keeper".  Cue the inspirational music.  Charles H. Smith was the lighthouse keeper of Chatham Light on Cape Cod from 1862-1872. His children, including Nelson F, grew up in the light house quarters. I now need to know everything about this entire family, Chatham Light and their whole life. Stay tuned.


The lesson
Don't skip the Smiths! If you have other family names, dates or auxiliary details, you may find a genealogy jackpot.

Don't sell wine to the Indians

My 9th great-grandfather, Edward Bangs, was a prominent member of Plymouth Colony.  He did not come over on the Mayflower, however, he came over 3 years later in 1623 on the Anne.  

Family member name: Edward Bangs

Lifetime: c1591-1677/78
Tree branch: Pearson

Places lived: England, Plymouth, MA, Eastham, MA
Relation: My 9x great-grandfather (my father's father's mother's father's father's mother's father's father's father's father's father)

He immediately jumped into life in the new world and began establishing himself. He is mentioned numerous times throughout the years in Plymouth Colony Records. Many times he is listed with Capt. Myles Standish, who is my 10th great grandfather.  I wonder if they were friends?

Here is some stuff he did:

* Division of land
* Division of cattle
* Founder of Eastham, Cape Cod
* Located boundaries of properties, including new meeting house
* Juror
* Survey highways
* Bought land
* Farmer
* Innkeeper / Tavern keeper

"Liberty is granted unto Edward Bangs to draw and sell wine and strong waters at Eastham, provided it be for the refreshment of the English, and not to be sold to the Indians," 6 Oct 1657, PCR 3:123. An account of liquor brought into Eastham dated 28 Nov 1664 included "Edward Bangs, six gallons of liquor," PCR 4:100.

He surveyed and divided up the land belonging to John Alden, a Mayflower passenger and also my 10th great grandfather.

Source:

Pilgrim Hall Museum - Passenger Biographies

North America Family Histories