A Nut Barely on the Family Tree: “Countess” Ida Marie “von” Claussen (1874-1960)

You are not supposed to diagnose a person’s psychological problems if you have not interviewed them and are not qualified, and I am not a psychologist. However sometimes a relative spawned so much absurd drama throughout their life that you feel confident in saying they had at least one personality disorder. Such is the case with Ida Marie Claussen, whose grandiosity, narcissism, histrionics and impulsivity were often on display in courts and newspapers. Her fifth husband was my second cousin twice removed, Raymond Hammond Maybury (1895-1970).

A picture of Ida from her book Forget It, available at Google Books but not recommended.

Ida Marie Claussen was born 21 Sep 1874 in New York City to successful merchant Adolph Claussen and his wife Jane Cecilia Byrnes. As of the 1880 census, her family lived on Lexington Avenue and employed two cooks and a waitress. Her maternal grandfather Matthew Byrnes was a wealthy New York City contractor who died in 1890, leaving a significant sum to Ida so that she always had a comfortable independent income.

Ida was first married in 1893 at Saratoga, New York to Robert Lyle Rayner, the son of a wealthy Chicago businessman. The wedding took place after a courtship of only a few hours, and the couple’s haste was such that they did not even change clothes, so that the groom recited his vows in a bicycling suit.

From an article in the Albany Argus of 19 Feb 1894, found on the New York State Historic Newspapers website.

Not surprisingly these newlyweds soon ran into trouble. They set up housekeeping in Saratoga Spa on Ida’s income alone, Mr. Rayner’s father having disinherited him, possibly because of this hasty and ill-advised marriage. Though Ida’s income was substantial, the couple lived beyond their means, buying expensive horses and “filling their house with servants” according to the article excerpted above. They stiffed several creditors and were sued for debt in the winter of 1894, though they still gadded about town daily in a fine sleigh.

I assume they divorced before Ida married Maysville, Kentucky-born physician William Francis Honan in 1898 at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Manhattan. They lived together in New York City until January of 1905, when the marriage had broken down due to “radical differences of disposition,” and Ida charged Dr. Honan with non-support.

This charge was dismissed when the court determined that Ida had plenty of money of her own, but the couple soon obtained a divorce in South Dakota. South Dakota had the most lenient divorce laws in the country at this time, so that Sioux Falls had quite a large “divorce colony”, temporary residents who stayed just long enough to meet the residency requirement and end their troubled marriages.

Ida then made a fresh start, emigrating to Germany. While there she supposedly learned that she was descended from German nobility and began to style herself Ida von Claussen. She later also appropriated the title Countess.

In 1907 Ida became obsessed with the goal of being presented to King Oscar II at the Swedish court. She pleaded her case via letter to the wife of the U.S. ambassador to Sweden, saying that “America has worked hard developing me,” as if she were the culmination of some major national project. Her support documents included the surgeon’s bill for her appendectomy and a carte-de-visite from a man she declared to be “the handsomest man in Paris”.

When the ambassador declined to help her, she tried to take her case to President Theodore Roosevelt who refused to see her. Presumably he had more important things to do.

Headline from the Boston Herald of 30 Mar 1907, found on GenealogyBank.

In October 1913 she was arrested in Manhattan for blackmail, having written a long, bizarre letter in which she threatened to shoot the recipient, New York attorney Charles Strauss. She claimed that he had botched her divorce from Dr. Honan, and that this was preventing her from marrying British coal millionaire L. Frederick Davis who, naturally, adored her.

Strauss claimed he had never even been Ida’s lawyer, and this whole incident led to a Manhattan court declaring her to be insane. She was sent to an asylum but was released that winter under the care of two psychiatrists, who declared her sane the following March. She did eventually marry the Englishman, at least very informally and, as usual, briefly.

In 1916 she wed a man using the name Francis Albert Dona, but whose birth surname was actually Donegan. Though she later claimed that her brother coerced her into marrying this man, newspaper accounts of the time seem to indicate she escaped her brother’s custody in order to run away with him. Though Francis did wind up serving in World War I, he filled out his draft registration card giving “Incompetent wife” as a reason that military service would be a hardship.

In 1920 Ida married my relative in Reno, Nevada, though there was much uncertainty as to whether she was actually even single and able to remarry legally. Why did aspiring Hollywood actor Raymond Maybury marry an infamous woman with four failed marriages under her belt, who was 21 years older than he? It is hard to sort out from the newspaper accounts. She claimed he had been stalking her, probably for her money, and that she only married him to get rid of him, which doesn’t make much sense. She tried to get the marriage annulled, but the couple reconciled for a time, supposedly because he promised her $50,000.

By 1930 she boarded at a house in Atlantic City, New Jersey, relocating to Miami, Florida by 1935.

Despite spending so much of her life embroiled in marital and other controversies, Ida found the time to write several books. Not surprisingly, one is a flowery semi-autobiographical piece of fiction entitled Forget It, in which the main character is named Countess Lorraine d’Importance. (The Hotel Lorraine at 545 Fifth Avenue had been one of her maternal grandfather’s properties.) Also predictable is a screed against her enemy, Theodore Roosevelt.

She aimed to solve the wealth gap with a book partially entitled Countess Ida von Claussen and Her Plan to Liberate the White Slave by Co-operative Profits in Capital’s Progress. Somewhat ironically, she also wrote a book on pacifism, When Peace Shall Come.

The “Countess” lived, apparently quietly, in Miami for the last decades of her life. She entered her toy poodle in a dog show in 1937 and was involved in a minor car accident in 1945, but otherwise did not make the papers until she died there 23 Sep 1960, aged 86. A requiem mass was held at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church.

This post would be far too long if it covered all of Ida’s wild claims, threats, brushes with the law and other antics that made the papers in her first 50 years. I guess we should have compassion for her, since she clearly had serious mental health issues, though her erratic behavior no doubt caused pain, fear, aggravation and embarrassment to many people.

David Howe (1750-1825): A Housewright and Revolutionary Soldier of Roxbury, Massachusetts

David Howe is a brick wall ancestor on my mother’s side. Daniel Wait Howe’s 1929 book The Howe Genealogies says that he was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts 20 Aug 1750 and that his mother was named Abigail, but I have not found anything to corroborate this.

I believe it is more likely that he was born in Dorchester and moved to Roxbury as a young man. His parents may have been worsted comber Caleb Howe (1720-1777) and his wife Abigail Stone (1724-?1799) of Dorchester. David did name his firstborn son Caleb, and Caleb was not a very common name, nor does it appear anywhere in his wife’s ancestry. Also, his mother being named Abigail fits with the information in The Howe Genealogies.

Only three of Caleb and Abigail’s children appear in the vital records of Dorchester: Hannah born in 1746, a little over a year after her parents married; James whose birth does not appear, but who died in 1758; and Patience, born in 1762. It seems likely that several unrecorded children besides James were born in the 16-year gap between Hannah and Patience, and that possibly David was one of them.

Map of Roxbury, showing that it was adjacent to both Boston and Dorchester.

I think he was likely the “David Howe of Dorchester” who was warned out of Roxbury in January of 1769, when he would have been about 18. Warning newcomers out of a town was a way to encourage them to leave, and to let them know that if they did stay, they could forget about any public assistance since they did not properly belong to the community.

Whatever his place of origin, David remained in Roxbury, becoming a housewright, a builder of wooden homes. A housewright in this time period might be involved in every step of the process, from cutting the timber to doing the framing, cladding and finish carpentry.

Minuteman statue in Lexington, Mass. Photo by GlennB33 via Wikimedia Commons.

In 1775 David was enrolled as a Minuteman, and he marched to Lexington on the alarm of 19 April, serving 13 days. In December of that year, he enlisted as a private in a Massachusetts regiment of the Continental Army for the term of one year and was honorably discharged after completing his service.

Cover to David’s pension file, found on Fold3.

On 16 May 1780 David married Roxbury native Elizabeth Chamberlain, the daughter of Stephen Chamberlain and Sarah Weld. He was baptized as an adult 10 Jun 1781, on the same day that he and Elizabeth baptized their son Caleb. This couple had eight more children, with the last two, Stephen and Sarah, named for Elizabeth’s parents. They had no daughter Abigail, but this is not too surprising since all of their children except Sarah were boys!

David’s adult baptism, which unfortunately omits his age, in the Second Church of Roxbury, found on Ancestry.com. This parish eventually became West Roxbury.

The family appears in both the 1790 and 1800 Federal Censuses. The 1800 count indicates that their household has three boys under ten (probably sons Thomas, Joshua and Stephen), one male 16 to 25 (this could be either Caleb or their second child, John), one man over 45 (David, who would have been 49), one girl 10-15 (perhaps a relative or hired household help), a woman 26-44 (Elizabeth, who would have been 37), and a woman over 45. This older woman could not have been Elizabeth’s mother, since she died in 1778, but could it be David’s mother?

Presumably the middle sons, Isaac, Joseph and David, who would have been in the 10–15-year-old category, were apprenticed or otherwise working and living with other families in 1800. Isaac became a carpenter, but farming became the primary occupation of most of this family. David Jr. and Thomas were expert ploughmen, winning cash prizes in local competitions in the 1810s and 1820s.

Ploughing contest write-up from the Boston Commercial Gazette of 22 Oct 1818, found on GenealogyBank.com.

Elizabeth died age 41 on 12 Dec 1803, of “bilious fever,” a diagnosis that could refer to any fever accompanied by digestive disturbances. Because her father Stephen Chamberlain had died 11 months earlier, leaving an inheritance, neighbor Michael Whittemore was appointed guardian ad litem in 1804 to protect the interests of David and Elizabeth’s seven children who were still minors.

In 1818 David applied for a military pension based on his Revolutionary War service, signing documents with a mark. The Selectmen of Roxbury signed an affidavit saying that he could no longer earn a living with his labor. He was aged 67 and even if he was not suffering from some debilitating disease, many years of homebuilding had probably taken a toll on his body.

David died in Roxbury of “Old Age” on 19 Dec 1825. I wonder if any houses he built still stand? His daughter Sarah, born in 1802, married Asa Fuller, another brick wall ancestor.

Unusual Occupations: Architects, Including a Brady

As far as I know, none of my direct ancestors were professional architects, though I am sure many of them planned and built their own modest vernacular houses before the modern era. It is a challenging and highly respected calling, which is why “George Costanza” always wanted to be one, or more realistically, pretend to be one.

There are only three architects in my entire family tree of over 10,000 people, which generally extends to first or second cousins and their spouses:

William John Marsden (1847-aft. 1901) descends from a family long established in Sheffield, Yorkshire. Most of the Marsden men made their living as highly skilled metalworkers from at least the middle of the 18th century, producing scythes, knives, razors and other items. William’s father however was an ivory cutter and dealer, ivory being used for the handles of knives and razors.

Today an architect must undergo a lengthy program of formal education and then be certified by a licensing board before establishing a practice, but in William’s time one became an architect in the same way that one became a cutler or razor-maker: Through an apprenticeship.

This is why we find William in the 1861 census, age 14, living in Sheffield with his parents, but with his occupation given as “Architect (articled).” This means that Articles of Apprenticeship had been signed between a Master Architect and probably William’s father, spelling out the terms under which William would work for him, and thereby learn his trade. I wonder if following this profession was William’s idea or his parents’?

William John Marsden with his family in the 1861 census, found on Ancestry.com.

In 1871 William was still single and living with his parents but was a full-fledged architect. He must have also learned surveying skills at some point, because in 1881 his occupation is listed as “Architect & Surveyor to the Corporation of Sheffield.” The 1891 census finds him in Broughton, Lancashire, where he worked as an “Engineer & architect” assisted by his son James, age 19. In 1901, the last census in which I can find him, he lived in Blackpool, Lancashire and gave his occupation as “Civil Engineer.” Unfortunately, I do not know of any buildings he designed or other projects he worked on.

John Joseph Brady (1829-1904) was an Irish architect and contractor who married my husband’s cousin Elizabeth (Willis) Glynn in 1877. (Elizabeth was the widow of Michael Glynn, Esq. of Caltra House, Claremorris, County Mayo.) John seems to have lived in Galway City, County Galway, Ireland for the whole of his life, though extant Irish records are so sparse it is hard to tell.

Interior of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Glencorrib, from the National Built Heritage Service website.

I cannot find anything about his training, but at least one building he designed still stands today. This is the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Glencorrib, County Mayo. He had completed the plans by 12 May 1875, when the laying of the foundation stone was announced in the Freeman’s Journal. Ireland’s National Built Heritage Service describes the building as a “stolid Georgian Gothic” style church, with a “restrained interior” and an exterior that makes a “pleasing visual statement.”

Arthur Hemsworth Byrd (1849-1902) is a cousin via the Linley and Hemsworth families. Born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, where his father worked as a draper, he moved with his parents to a farm in Staffordshire before the 1861 census. He was listed as an architect in both the 1871 and the 1881 census, though he was only age 21 in the earlier count. Using the British newspapers searchable at FindMyPast.com, I was able to find out that he designed a school in Coventry, Warwickshire in 1875.

In 1879 architect John R. Hilder of Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now part of South Africa) died, leaving the position of diocesan architect to the Anglican Church open. In 1881 Arthur was recruited to handle the enlargement of Bloemfontein’s cathedral which he did successfully. In 1882 he designed a building for the Mechanics’ Institute in the same neighborhood as the cathedral.

Interior of Bloemfontein’s Anglican cathedral courtesy of the National Archives UK.

In 1883 Arthur joined the Brotherhood of St. Augustine of Hippo, an Anglican missionary brotherhood, and moved to their base in Modderpoort, about 80 miles east of Bloemfontein, where he is thought to have designed one or more buildings. He lived the remainder of his life there, dying in 1902.

Suspicious Deaths and Inquests

Most people are familiar with modern coroner’s inquests from police procedurals on television, in which a medically trained professional leads an investigation into a suspicious death, usually performing an autopsy. He or she works to determine the cause or causes of the death as well as the manner: Whether it was an accident, a suicide, a homicide or due to natural causes. When the coroner is unable to decide on the manner of death, it is classed as undetermined.

I was surprised to learn that before the modern era coroners often had no medical training, though since medicine was fairly primitive until the 20th century, it is possible that a doctor would not have had much more insight into these matters than an informed layperson. British common law has long required that a Jury of Inquest be impaneled under certain conditions, in which case ordinary citizens are chosen to consider all the pertinent evidence and determine the cause and manner of death. Older inquests into a sudden and seemingly inexplicable death often ruled that the deceased was killed “by the hand of God,” which I guess is equivalent to natural causes.

I have already written about several inquests: The jury that determined that Daniel Wilkins–who had many puncture wounds–had died of “some cruel hand of witchcraft or diabolical art” during the 1692 Salem witchcraft crisis; the determination that Duncan Clerk Winter died from an accidental laudanum overdose in 1874; the inquest into the 1890 railway accident in Placerville, California that killed Patrick Noone; and the 1899 investigation into the poisoning of James Maybury, then an inmate at the Killarney Lunatic Asylum.

Coroner’s Court Building, Stockport, Cheshire. Photo by Jaggery via Wikimedia Commons.

Usually when I run across an inquest into an ancestor’s death, I get a little nervous. I don’t want to find that relatives have died in horrible accidents, or have been so despondent as to commit suicide, or have been the victims of foul play. Oftentimes however the death is ruled to have been natural, and sometimes the evidence provides interesting context to their lives.

For example, recently I found three depositions given regarding the death in 1888 of my relative Mary (Stead) Peace who died unexpectedly, aged 66, at her home in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Her son Lister Stead Peace lived with her and deposed that up until her death she was active, her health was good, and her mood cheerful, though she had lost weight recently. They had had visitors over on Saturday evening, and Mrs. Peace had just taken some “little cakes” out of the oven and rejoined the conversation for a few minutes, when she suddenly stopped breathing and died.

William Wilkinson, one of the visitors, deposed that Mrs. Peace had been going about dusting the furniture and doing little chores before they all sat down, and that they were conversing when all of a sudden her head fell back, she gasped a few times and died. And Sarah Gaunt, a neighbor, deposed that she had come over after the death to wash and lay out the body, and that it was warm with no signs of disease or violence. The verdict was that she died of natural causes.

Besides learning that the death was not suspicious after all, I learned a little bit about the social life and death customs in that time and place. It seems very odd to us today that people would call over a neighbor to wash and lay out their deceased mother, but I think people were much less squeamish about corpses then, encountering death much more often and often at home.

Testimony of Sarah Gaunt, found in the West Yorkshire County Coroner Notebooks 1852-1909 found on Ancestry.com.

How can you find out if an inquest was conducted with regard to an ancestor’s death? Suspicious deaths and the resulting investigations are often written up in the local newspaper. Most of the inquests I am aware of I have discovered accidentally while searching for obituaries in newspaper databases like Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank.com and the free Library of Congress website, Chronicling America. You can use Cyndislist.com to find other newspaper databases covering your regions of interest.

In addition, Ancestry.com has quite a few databases containing coroner’s notebooks, reports and court records. If you click on Search, select Card Catalog and use a keyword like “coroner” or “inquest” you will be able to see what is available.

Irish Catholic Weddings in Early 20th Century Scranton, Pennsylvania

Many people assume that the wedding customs currently followed in their subculture all have very deep roots. When I was growing up, I assumed that all Euro-American brides had worn white gowns for at least hundreds of years, and that their weddings had always had the order and timing you saw in mid-century America.

My knowledge of wedding practices came mainly from cartoons and sitcoms, and the rhyme listing what a bride needs for luck: ”Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in her shoe.” My mother-in-law gave me a sixpence coin, and I had all five items on my person when I got married in 1990, believing I must be following some ancient British tradition. However, according to Brides magazine, the earliest written reference to this rhyme and custom is in an 1871 periodical out of Lancashire.

Up to the late 19th century, the vast majority of English, Irish and American newspaper marriage announcements were very brief, giving no hint as to people’s attire, the ceremony or the celebration afterwards. The marriages of “ordinary” people did not often make the paper at all, especially in England and Ireland. If you were important enough to have your wedding mentioned, the typical British or Irish announcement reads something like “Lately, in Such-and-Such church, by the Rev. So-and-So, Mr. John Smith to Miss Jane Jones, [eldest/second/third etc.] daughter of Thomas Jones, [his profession or title] of Someplace.”

But by 1900 many American papers devoted significant space to describing local couples’ weddings. Sometimes the detail is almost excruciating, down to the accessories worn by the mothers of the bride and groom and the flowers in every bouquet.  It is very interesting to compare these descriptions to modern weddings, and to see how some customs have changed in a mere hundred years.

Based on newspaper accounts, I would say that my husband’s Irish Catholic relatives in Scranton, Pennsylvania in the earlier 1900s had weddings that were quite different from any wedding I have ever been to. For one thing they could be scheduled on any day of the week except Sunday, rather than the now ubiquitous Saturday.

The busy Sunday mass schedule of most churches left no room for nuptial masses, but Monday through Saturday were all workdays for most people because the five-day work week had not yet been established. Since you could only get married on a workday anyway, it made no difference which day that was. And for some reason these weddings almost always took place in the morning, sometimes as early as six o’clock! 

Another difference was the bride’s costume, which was usually stylish and colorful rather than old-fashioned and white. Her outfit is described either as a gown or, much more often, a “smart suit” or “traveling suit.” Wearing less formal clothing may have enabled the bride to leave on the honeymoon without changing. Blue was by far the most popular color for bridal wear of either type.

Traveling suit from 1904

Rather than any sort of veil, the bride usually donned a wide-brimmed “picture hat” matching the rest of her ensemble, so called because of the resemblance to 18th century hats in portraits by Gainsborough and similar artists. Her maid or matron of honor would typically wear a dress or suit in a different color, with her own matching picture hat. (Generally the bride and groom had only one attendant each, most often a sibling but sometimes a cousin or friend.)

A picture hat in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

After the wedding there was always a breakfast, sometimes at the bride’s parents’ home but often at the Hotel Casey.

The Hotel Casey, built in 1909 and demolished in 2001.

The newlyweds usually left for their honeymoon in New York City, Chicago or elsewhere by train the same day, so maybe the early wedding gave them time to catch their train, and to get away before they were completely exhausted. Sometimes wedding guests would accompany the couple to the train station to see them off, throwing the traditional rice at them there.

John Pell’s New York City Store in 1780

I previously wrote about John Pell’s life, mentioning that after he retired from the sea, he sold imported goods from a store in Manhattan, near the area now known as the South Street Seaport. He does not seem to have left the city during its occupation by the British during the Revolution, operating his business throughout the war. About 20,000 people lived on Manhattan at the time, and they still needed food, beverages and sundries. People living in the surrounding area probably came into the city for provisions as well.

His store was conveniently located near the wharves on the East River, and his operation was a wholesale distribution point for goods that came into port. His main customers were probably innkeepers, tavernkeepers, coffeehouse proprietors and retailers.

Advertisement from the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury 23 Oct 1780, found on GenealogyBank.com.

John Pell advertised his wares frequently in the newspaper and I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at what he sold. Here are the goods he carried on a regular basis in 1780:

Rose Butter: Rose butter from Ireland gets top billing in capital letters in every ad. It seems odd that Manhattanites would not get a basic staple like butter from surrounding farms, or by keeping a cow and churning their own if they had enough space, but even today American grocery stores sell premium butter from Ireland. There was high demand in the American colonies for rose or cultured butter, still the preferred form of this commodity in Europe. It would have been packed into firkins for transport, a firkin being a cask that would hold 56 pounds of it.

The Butter Museum in Cork, Ireland interprets the history of Ireland’s butter production and exporting and displays a 1000-year-old specimen of bog butter. Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen via Wikimedia Commons.

Molded and Dipped Candles: The ads do not specify whether these were of beeswax or tallow. Perhaps he carried both in order to have two price points, since beeswax candles were more desirable and expensive.

Castile and Brown Soap: Castile soap was made using olive oil, with Marseilles being a large center of production, while brown soap was made using tallow and rosin. These were probably shipped in slabs from which bars could be cut.

Tea: Tea was imported from China, packed tightly into sturdy wooden boxes.  The varieties available were classed as Bohea (teas that would now be called oolong) and Singlo (green teas). 

Coffee: Coffee in this period came from plantations in the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Sold in the form of green beans, people had to roast their own.

Chocolate: Roasted and ground cacao beans imported from plantations in Central America and the Caribbean were used to make hot beverages in this period. Additions might include sugar, spices and orange flower water.

Gloucester Cheese: Gloucester is a semihard English cheese traditionally made from the milk of Old Gloucester cattle, now an endangered breed. The type exported would have been Double Gloucester rather than Single. Double Gloucester had a higher fat content, was aged longer, and was colored yellow with Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum) flowers. I am guessing these and other cheeses arrived in large wheels.

Gloucester cow and calf by Philip Halling via Wikimedia Commons.

Cheshire Cheese: The oldest known named English cheese, this is a semihard, moist and crumbly variety made in Cheshire and the surrounding counties. Both Double Gloucester and Cheshire were exported in large quantities during the 18th century, so it is not surprising that John Pell carried them.

Old Rum: Made by enslaved people on Caribbean sugar plantations since the 17th century, rum was both a spirit and a medium of exchange. I think that by “old rum” he means rum that has been aged in oak casks for several years. He had a few hogsheads available at one point in time, a hogshead being a barrel of about 64 gallons.

Port Wine: Fortified wine made in the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. This and the Madeira below would have arrived in demijohns.

An antique demijohn. Basketry surrounding the glass would have protected it during transport. Photo by Doalex via Wikimedia Commons.

Madeira: Fortified wine made in the Portuguese Madeira Islands off the coast of Africa.

Neats’ Tongues: Beef tongues, salted, dried and smoked, likely from England.

Pepper: Imported from India, pepper was valued as it is today as a spice for almost every savory dish.

Peppercorns on the vine (Piper nigrum). Photo by David J. Stang via Wikimedia Commons.

Mustard, Loose and in Bottles: I think this probably means he carried both dry and prepared mustard. Mustard can be grown most anywhere, but it is likely this was imported from Europe. Yorkshire and Burgundy were large centers of mustard production.

Pickled Walnuts: These I had never heard of, but apparently pickled walnuts have been considered a delicacy in England since the early 18th century. Unripe whole walnuts are punctured, brined, dried and then pickled in vinegar and spices.

Apparently pickled walnuts are still a thing.

Holland Geneva: This is basically gin from the Netherlands.

Playing Cards: You can buy 18th century style playing cards from the Colonial Williamsburg website.

Pipes by the Box: Probably the white clay tobacco pipes that were ubiquitous at the time.

Starch: I am not sure what form this would be in, but 18th century directions for starching your linens mention that you have to mix it with water and boil it for quite some time.

Wrapping Paper: I am guessing this was something like butcher paper, so that retailers could wrap up their customers’ purchases.

Mess Beef and Pork: Mess meat was a mix of cuts salted and packed in barrels. John Pell sold it in three different quantities: Tierces (42 gallons), Barrels (31 1/2 gallons) and Half-barrels (15 1/2 gallons).

William Castlehouse (1646-1706), Yeoman Farmer of Horbury, Yorkshire

William Castlehouse was a farmer who lived in the West Riding of Yorkshire more than 300 years ago, leaving few records behind. Still we can learn quite a bit about his life and beliefs if we do a little work. He was baptized 10 Aug 1646 in the parish church of Horbury, near Wakefield, his parents being William and Susan (_____) Castlehouse. This record can be seen on Ancestry.com, but it is a poor photo of a messy page!

William’s baptismal record found on Ancestry.com.

The surname on this record is written “Casley,” but I have noticed that people who were definitely Castlehouses are sometimes recorded as Casleys or Castleys in parish registers. George Redmonds confirmed as much in his Dictionary of Yorkshire Surnames, saying that the name “occasionally appears as Castley or Castless.”

Redmonds also stated that the surname was not very old, originating about 1577 when a Liversedge family in the town of Gomersal began using it as an alias, taking the name of their home property, which had been known as the “Castel Howse” since about 1450. Gomersal is nine miles northwest of Horbury, and it is likely that William Castlehouse had roots in that town within just a few generations.

Tithe Barn Street in Horbury, by SMJ via Wikimedia Commons.

William married Elizabeth Robert on 28 Oct 1673 in Horbury. (In this record his name is spelled “Caslhouse.”) The following year Elizabeth gave birth to their daughter Susannah, who would be the mother of noted religious leader Benjamin Ingham. “Elizabeth wife of William Castlehouse” was buried at Horbury 5 Aug 1691, after almost 18 years of marriage, but apparently having had no children other than Susannah who survived.

William and Elizabeth’s marriage record, found on Ancestry.com.

“William Casley of [the] parish of Horbury” married a woman named Dorothy Johnson 22 Jun 1697 at Warmfield, which is only about five miles east of Horbury. When William wrote his will on 16 Aug 1704, he left all but 20 shillings of his estate to his “loveing wife” Dorothy, whom he also named sole executrix.

William Castlehouse’s mark on his will, obtained from the Borthwick Institute. An index to the wills they hold is available on FindMyPast.com.

William was buried 26 Dec 1706 at Horbury, and his will was proved 13 Mar 1706/7. It is this will and the attached inventory of his property that help us add color to our portrait of him, though questions remain. Based on the lengthy religious preamble, I believe that William was a devout Christian, possibly having puritanical leanings. A testator of this period does usually commend their soul to God and their body to the earth, requesting a Christian burial, but William goes into much greater detail.

With modernized spelling his will reads: “I commend my self and all my whole estate to the mercy and [illegible] of Almighty God being fully persuaded by his holy spirit through the death and passion of Jesus Christ to obtain full pardon and remission of all my sins and to inherit everlasting life to which the holy Trinity one eternal deity be all honor and glory forever. Amen.”

Another thing I infer from his will is that he may have known how to read, but I think he could not write, since he signed with a mark even though he was “in health of body and of good and perfect memory.”

Also he had possibly already given his daughter Susannah some personal property and/or money, perhaps at her marriage in 1697, but in any case seemed to want to make it very clear that the small amount he conveyed to her under his will was all that she could expect. The will states: “And I hereby give and bequeath to Susannah the wife of William Ingham my daughter twenty shillings…in full of what she or any for her can any ways have or claim to have of my personal estate whatsoever.” I think that his daughter and her husband were already thriving, and probably had no need of an inheritance anyway.

Lastly we get some sense of William’s lifestyle–at least toward the end of his life–from his inventory. The first items listed after his clothes are tables and chairs, kitchen tools including a kneading trough, pots and pans, hearth cooking implements, and pewter. Next are items in the “further parlour,” the “nearer parlour,” and the chamber, so it seems there were at least four rooms in the house. There is quite a lot of furniture including bedsteads, bed hangings, bedding and chests.

Unlike many of my other Yorkshire ancestors’ inventories, William’s makes no mention of wool combs, looms or sheep, and I think this household was not involved in wool production. There is some linen, so perhaps they grew flax. The largest amount of agricultural product however is three loads of beans, so I wonder if that was their main crop or if they alternated beans and another crop, maybe flax. As far as livestock, there are only one cow and one horse.

For further research, and partly for fun, I should look into 17th century Yorkshire farmhouses, country furnishings, and agricultural practices. I should also find out if William, Elizabeth or Dorothy have extant gravestones in the Horbury churchyard. And I should determine the identity of Dorothy Johnson, and find any other marriages she may have had before or after William.

Waco University and the Education of Carolyn Gay Chandler (1860-1902)

My husband’s great grandmother Carolyn Gay Chandler was born to the Rev. Pleasant Barnett Chandler and his wife Mary O’Kelley early in 1860, in Fayette County, Texas, which is about 65 miles southeast of Austin. Her parents had left Georgia for Texas in 1846 to serve as Baptist missionaries, and Carrie was the next to last of their 13 children. Not surprisingly, a large proportion of my mother-in-law’s closer DNA matches are also descendants of Pleasant and Mary!

By the 1880 census Carrie’s family had moved to Coryell County, about 100 miles due north of Austin, where she married future livestock agent Edward Freeman Tillman on 19 Oct 1882.

Carrie and her older sister Susan Amanda.

One might guess that the daughter of a 19th century American minister would have received at least a basic education before her marriage. She would certainly be literate and would have a solid knowledge of scripture. I am sure she would also be competent in arithmetic, but I would guess that her parents might not have considered further education in the arts and sciences to be necessary or even valuable. In Carrie’s case, this would be a bad assumption, because in 1879 she received a “Maid of Arts” degree from Waco University, that degree being the female equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts.

Waco University grew from a seed planted in 1856, a preparatory school for Baptist boys known as Trinity River Male High School, and later as Waco Classical School. In 1861 Rufus Burleson left the presidency of Baylor University, then in Independence, Texas, over disagreements in teaching methods as well as a coeducational dance controversy. He brought four like-minded professors with him to Waco, assumed the presidency of the Classical School, and reopened it as Waco University.

From the Dallas Daily Herald 20 Oct 1866, found on Newspapers.com.

The Female Department was established in 1866, with women and men having some of the same instructors and courses, but with classes segregated by gender. The advertisement above shows that in the first year that women were admitted, they studied History, Literature, Writing, Spanish, French, Natural Science, Music and the Ornamental Arts (embroidery, drawing and painting). The men’s course offerings did not include the embroidery and visual arts, but added Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics (called Mechanical Philosophy), Greek and Latin.

Waco University and Baylor were consolidated in 1886 as a fully coeducational institution, retaining the Baylor name and the more desirable Waco location. Originally founded in 1845, Baylor is the oldest continually operating university in Texas and the largest Baptist university in the world.

Benjamin Ingham (1712-1772) and the Inghamites

My Dad’s Yorkshire ancestors include a prosperous couple, William and Susannah (Castlehouse) Ingham, who married in 1697 and lived in Ossett in the parish of Dewsbury, just west of Wakefield. Their son Benjamin was a celebrated religious leader who established a Christian denomination whose members were known as Inghamites. (If you descend from people who joined these congregations, the book My Ancestors Were Inghamites by Paul Oates may be helpful.)

Pedigree from Whitaker of Hesley Hall, Grayshott Hall, Pylewell Park and Palermo by Robert Sanderson Whitaker.

Benjamin was baptized 16 Jun 1712 in Dewsbury’s parish church. He attended Batley Grammar School and then earned a bachelor’s degree at Queen’s College, Oxford University, graduating in 1734. While at Oxford he joined John and Charles Wesley’s Holy Club, a group that met for prayer and Bible study, and resolved to pursue a self-disciplined lifestyle. According to his diary he renounced “all pleasures which are obstructive of the love of God, especially shooting.” Like his American contemporary Jonathan Edwards, he became abstemious with regard to food, controlling his portions and avoiding snacks and desserts. He also set aside time each day for doing good works and for devotions.

Queen’s College, Oxford, from an engraving at the Wellcome Library, London.

Ingham was ordained at Oxford in June of 1735 and soon went to the American colonies with the Wesleys, intending to evangelize Native Americans in Georgia. Also on this voyage were missionaries from the Moravian Brethren. Their emphasis on the personal conversion experience, and on piety and good works appealed to Ingham, and thus began his long association with Moravian Christian ideas, leaders and congregations.

Field between Ossett and Horbury. Photo by Tim Green from Bradford via Wikimedia Commons.

Ingham returned to Yorkshire in 1737, where he preached at many West Riding churches and chapels as well as at private meetings. By 1739 the Church of England leadership decided that his doctrine was not compatible with Established Church teachings and disallowed his preaching in Anglican pulpits. He resorted to preaching in homes, barns, fields and city streets over a broad section of the country, sometimes traveling 200 miles in a week.

Marriage between “Benjamin Ingham of the parish of Dewsbury Clerk and the R[igh]t Hon[ora]ble Lady Margaret Hastings” of the parish of Aberford. Found on Ancestry.com.

In 1741 he made a very advantageous marriage to Lady Margaret Hastings, the daughter of Theophilus, Seventh Earl of Huntingdon, and moved to Aberford Hall near Tadcaster, northwest of Leeds. The following year he handed the administration of his approximately fifty congregations over to the Moravian Brethren, though he continued preaching far and wide.

Notice board at a surviving Inghamite church in Wheatley Carr, Yorkshire. Photo by Alex P. Kapp via Wikimedia Commons.

During the 1740s his thinking diverged from that of the Moravians to the point that he eventually formally separated from them and began establishing new “Inghamite” meetings and chapels. I will avoid delving into complicated theological issues, and will just say that according to his biographers, Ingham’s understanding of Christianity veered away from Methodist and Moravian viewpoints, and toward Calvinist ones.

Ingham’s obit from the Leeds Intelligencer 8 Dec 1772 found on Findmypast.com.

The Inghamite movement grew steadily during the 1750s, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire. However its lack of formal organization combined with internal disputes splintered and reduced the denomination in the following decade. In 1768 Lady Margaret died. Benjamin followed her in 1772. His obituary in the Leeds Intelligencer described him as a “learned and excellent christian.” His sister Susannah (Ingham) Whitaker is my 7th great grandmother.

Abraham Trefethen (c. 1720-1794) and the 1745 Siege of Louisbourg

The Fortress of Louisbourg is one of many sites I visited before I began doing family history research, so that I went there unaware of any ancestral connection to the place. My husband and I had a great time there on our honeymoon in September of 1990, though the costumed guards–all in fun–gave us a bit of a hard time for not being French. The food there was so delicious that I bought a cookbook of 18th century recipes which I still use. I also purchased Louisbourg Portraits, a fascinating book that uses documentary evidence to reconstruct the lives of several people who lived there.

Étienne Verrier’s 1741 plan for improvements to the Fortress.

Located on what is now Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada but was in 1744 Île Royale, Nouvelle France, Louisbourg was once a bustling garrison town, as well as a fishing port and center of trade, with permanent residents totaling about 2000. The population swelled in the warmer months with Basque, Portuguese, Breton and Norman men who came seasonally to fish. Large quantities of dried cod were exported, while most of the goods its citizens required were imported: Cloth, glass and wine came from France, clapboards from New England, rum and molasses from the Caribbean, grain, flour and dried vegetables from Quebec. Kitchen gardens supplied fresh vegetables and herbs, but there was little local agriculture.

Louisbourg quartered several hundred French and about 100 Swiss soldiers of the Karrer Regiment. Besides military, administrative and religious personnel, the Fortress supported people plying all the trades necessary in any substantial French settlement of the period, including seamstresses, laundresses, coopers, bakers, butchers, tavernkeepers, doctors, masons, and housewrights. Many households employed one or more servants, and there were some enslaved people, mainly brought from the Caribbean.

The 1745 attack on Louisbourg.

So what is my connection to this once thriving and vibrant community? My ancestor Abraham Trefethen was the owner and captain of one of the ships that laid siege to Louisbourg in the spring of 1745, during King George’s War, helping to capture it for the British. Though the Fortress surrendered in June of that year, it was returned to the French by treaty in 1748, only to be captured again in 1758 and then demolished by the British in 1760. The Louisbourg one sees today is a partial reconstruction using the original plans and foundations.

Shipping news from the 27 Jan 1774 Virginia Gazette, found on Newspapers.com.

Abraham Trefethen was a baker, mill owner and mariner, trading goods up and down the eastern seaboard. The son and grandson of shipwrights living in New Castle on the New Hampshire seacoast, he would have grown up immersed in the knowledge of ships and sailing. His birthdate is very uncertain, but he must have been a fully grown man to command a ship and crew in battle in 1745, so I think about 1720 or even earlier is most likely.

Though many New England men died in and after the siege and are buried in Louisbourg, Abraham survived to make many later trading trips. He appears often in the shipping news of the 1750s-1770s, bringing foodstuffs and other goods to Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Maryland and Virginia.