Family Archives

 This is a repost from last year...just to share again some interesting people on my family tree...

I'm enjoying this adventure into unknown ancestors. Though actually many of the photos are attached to someone or another. But if I should go back up the tree of a man who was married to my great aunt, I think I'll find some interesting photos. So these aren't blood relations...and indeed it can be confusing because my great aunt married a man named Rogers, and then my mother did too. Those men however, didn't have any relation to each other!

Robert Shelton Rogers Sr. was Rowena Eugenia Miller's husband. Rowena was my grandmother's sister.

They had two children, one of whom had five children...in my generation. And there are grandchildren now of course. 

The Miller sisters, 1951. Dorothy, Margaret (behind) Mozelle sitting, and Rowena. The Robert Sheldon and Rowena Miller Rogers family didn't have any photos on Ancestry. 

But to go back in Robert S. Rogers Sr.'s tree...we see he was 4th of 9 children in his family. Their parents were Almoth Dowden Rogers and Lila Stone Rogers.

Almoth went by "A.D." Rogers, here in 1905

He was elected to the Texas Legislature twice, though his obituary says he was a state Senator.

Almoth D. Rogers

Lila Stone Rogers (Mrs. Almoth Rogers)

A great family photo...with matriarch Lila Stone Rogers (Mrs. Almoth) in the center, and some of her children around her. On the left of this photo is Corrine, and behind her is Mary. Bascombe is behind Lila, and her son A. D. is next to her. I think Bascombe is a husband of one of the girls. Ah yes, Mary Rogers married Bascombe Renshaw!

Lila Stone Rogers in her later years.

The Rogers house on Mayflower St, Alamo Heights, San Antonio TX

And now to look at the children Rogers...

And here's the photo to match the prompt "Unknown faces." I have no idea which is which of the children Rogers, on the front steps of their San Antonio home.

Jessie Stone Rogers Matthews

Jessie and Thrace Rogers 1927 in NY

James Hogg Rogers in the army for WW II.

Wedding of Mary Elizabeth Schneider and James Hogg Rogers 1939. I'm so glad this photo was included in Ancestry...what a wedding that must have been!!

The family of James H. Rogers, Mary Elizabeth Rogers, Mary Schneider Rogers, James Hogg Rogers and James Hogg Rogers Jr. Austin TX April 1945.

I enjoyed visiting this other Rogers family. It was neat to see the James H. Rogers had a daughter in the same year I was born, 1942, with the same name as my sister (born in 1946). 

Hoping you have a great weekend!
Sharing with Sepia Saturday 

Today's quote:

This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in.

 -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (27 Oct 1858-1919)

Week 40 (Oct. 1-7): Longevity

 When I first saw the documents about Mary Bowers Swasey's life, I thought, there's got to be a mistake. She couldn't have lived that long, 1719 to after 1823!

But the last document says she was living with a large family, and was the widow of Joseph Swasey (1717-1799). He had lived a nice long life himself.

Another record says Mary was born between 1720 and 1729, according to The American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI) which has lots of records especially of the ancestry in the Northeast of the American colonies.

However, my family tree had had her birthdate in 1719, because that was the year her mother Ann Sylvester Bowers turned 50 years old. So the later dates for Mary's birth are pretty much unfeasible!

Can her mother Ann Sylvester Bowers have been born a bit later herself? If Mary had been born as late as 1723, her mother could have been pretty unlikely to have been age 54. Not in that day and age at least. So how about Ann. Is her birth date written in stone, as they say? 

The AGBI says Ann could have been born between 1670-79. My tree gives an exact date for Ann as 4 April 1669 (with AGBI as source of 70-79, and this new site, Geaneanet Community Trees Index saying 1677. Nothing to substantiate any of these dates that I could find.

But Ann's mother Grissell Wase Brinley Sylvester (16 Jan 1635-13 June 1698) was married in 1652, there's documentation of that. So she had only been 17, and then other children were born into that family from 1653-1674, with Ann tucked into the series of births of 14 in the middle! So that's the facts as much as we have them today.

Mary Bowers Swasey must have been born at latest 1720, unless another mother appears in the lineage!

. And lived until  that 1823 Boston City Directory said:

Mary Swasey
Gender	Female
Residence Year	1823
Street Address	Gh
Residence Place	Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Occupation	Boarding
Spouse	Joseph Swasey
Publication Title	Boston, Massachusetts, City Directory, 1823

In the 1820 Census, she is listed:

Record details

Name	Mary Swasey
Enumeration Date	7 Aug 1820
Home in 1820 (City, County, State)	Boston Ward 9, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA
Free White Persons - Males - 10 thru 15	2
Free White Persons - Males - 26 thru 44	9
Free White Persons - Females - 10 thru 15	1
Free White Persons - Females - 26 thru 44	2
Free Colored Persons - Males - 26 thru 44	1
Free Colored Persons - Females - 26 thru 44	1
Foreigners not Naturalized	1
Number of Persons - Engaged in Commerce	7
Free White Persons - Under 16	3
Free White Persons - Over 25	11
Total Free White Persons	14
Total Free Colored Persons	2

The only problem with that is she doesn't list herself as a female over 100 years old. She is among the 26-44 year old females.

So that gives me some doubt that this is our Mary Bowers Swasey. Though she had been married to Joseph Swasey Sr. after all.

How was their life before possibly turning up in Boston and living with all those other people?

Her husband Joseph Swasey Sr. is remembered thus:

Joseph Swasey, shipwright, Bapt. in Boston, Mass. Aug. 12, 1714; died in Somerset, Suffolk County, Mass; bef. 1801; married,daughter of Jonathan & Ann Sylvester Bowers, of Swansea, Mass. She was of Spanish descent.  Feb. 20, 1790, Shewamit (or Somerset) was set off from Swansea & formed a separate town.  Joseph, removed with his family to Salem, where he lived until 1749.  He followed there the trade of hatter.  In that year he bought Swansea of John Palmer, 10 acres of land on Taunton River for which he paid ~1300 O.T.

He put up a set of buildings, including a hat shop, built a wharf & engaged in shipbuilding, floating his craft down to Fall River.  The dwelling house occupied by the family for 3 generations was taken down several years ago.  The old cellar & the broad stone step still remain to mark the site.  The "Swasey burying ground" occupied about an acre of the original lot, upon which are many tombstones that mark the resting place of his descendants.

In 1758-9, he was a private in his Majesty's service from the Province of Massachusetts, in Capt. Stephen Whipple's Co;  Col. Jonathan Bagley's Regt; for the reduction of Canada.  In 1801, his estate was divided among his heirs which included the widow, sons Jerathmel & Joseph heirs of his son Samuel, & daughter Hannah.

SOURCE: Joseph Swasey, history.1714-1801, taken from the Swasey Genealogy. There wasn't any Spanish blood that I could find.

This is known as the Joseph Swasey House, Somerset Mass, built 1749 (now taken down.)

We have the probate records for Joseph Swasey Sr. in 1799, so we know he had to have died prior to that date. His estate inventory was done by sons Joseph and Jerathmel. Son Joseph married Suzanne Wise, so no confusion of Mary Swasey there. But there could have been a cousin Joseph, or second cousin, with wife Mary. I'll need to do some digging on that...

Joseph Swasey Sr. married Mary Bowers on Aug. 30, 1744. They lived and raised their family in Somerset MA. Their sons Jerathmel and Joseph fought in the Revolutionary war. They had three other sons, who I haven't looked into yet, and one daughter Hannah. As far as I know they only had these 6 children.

Mary Bowers Swasey had come from a family of 11 children. And her husband Joseph Swasey was one of 7 children. Of course I don't know how many lived to adulthood.

But this is my perhaps longest lived ancestor...if these records are to be believed. (Of course tomorrow I may find that these Boston Swaseys were just cousins.)

Week 39 (Sept. 24-30): Surprise

The biggest surprise to me about my family just happened a few days ago. 

Let's get the background. 

My generation had 8 cousins, namely seven girls and one boy. Since my mother was an only child, there weren't any first cousins on her family side...but I've learned of some second and third cousins in my ancestry work.

Of my cousins, one family was raised right in Houston where our grandparents lived. And one family moved to St. Louis, MO (mine). And another one lived in Wausau and then Stevens Point, WI.

So the cousins had few opportunities to meet each other as they were growing up. Back in the 50s it took several days to travel from Houston to St. Louis by car, and another long one to get to Wausau.

But the grandparents did make at least one trip to visit my family in St. Louis, (probably by train)...as my photo album attests to.

My dad, grandfather, grandmother and myself somewhere in St. Louis 1957-59 sometime

And the young St. Louis family did get together at least once in Wisconsin, while the Wisconsin family visited the Houston cousins at least once. And the Houston cousins even took the train without parents to visit the St. Louis cousins once. That's it during our childhoods.

Two Texas cousins in back and St. Louis cousins in front (me on right)

Through all 81 years of my life, I did see some of my Wisconsin cousins as an adult with my first 2 children. And I visited the Houston cousins as a young mother once when our grandmother was dying. I may have also seen them at the funeral but don't remember that at all.

Then several years ago I took the proverbial bull by the horn and emailed my one male cousin, who lives in Columbia SC, about 2-1/2 hours from my home in Black Mountain NC. And I asked if I could meet him for lunch (with my friend who was going with me to see the Escher exhibit at the Columbia Art Museum.) Thus two birds, etc.

So I met John again, after all those years. He'd been pretty young when I met him and his sister, the second family of our Wisconsin relations.

While I've been doing my ancestry, my oldest Wisconsin cousin who now lives all the way in Arizona, has a great family tree, so she helped me a lot.

Her two sisters now live in Austin and Conroe TX and have been my Facebook friends for several years...so I know a bit about their lives that they share there. And we make comments on each other's posts every once in a while.

I was surprised last month to be messaged by a "second cousin" (daughter of a Houston first cousin) who wanted some photos for her mother's upcoming birthday. I haven't had any contact with her mother in years. So I gladly sent her what I had, and wished her mother a happy birthday. After lots of emails and texts, it was great to actually have a phone conversation with this second cousin, who I maybe met when she was a baby in Houston TX.

I mentioned to this second cousin that I didn't seem to have a family that the cousins got together all that much...at least in the past, compared to my daughter-in-law's Italian descended family which gathers all the time, it seems, even over many miles. 

Here's my surprise. The very next day one of my Texas cousins on Facebook messaged that she was coming to visit her brother in Columbia SC and wanted to come visit me while she was in the east. She hoped her sister (also in Texas) could get some time off from her job and come too. And since then she has arranged it also.

So I now have a planned visit by three siblings...my cousins who had grown up in Wisconsin. I haven't seen then since they were much much younger (and me too!)

I've put it on my calendar. You know I'll take phone pics when I can.

Oh, did you want to see some of us as kids?

Back when I lived in Houston, my Texas cousin on L, then me with broom, my little sis, then other Texas cousin. Yes in 1949 Houston had a snow that stuck! Tex. cousin on right is having her birthday Sept. 28.

L to R...Texas cousin, Wisconsin cousin, Tex.cousin, and smallest Wisc. cousins taken in Texas (before two younger Wisconsin cousins were born.)

Sharing with 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks on Facebook at Generations Cafe' (a private group but I think anyone can join)

Card by Inge Look

Adversity - Week 38 (Sept. 17-23) - Spending the Civil War in Federal Prison

My great great grandfather was captured by the Union forces early in the Civil War. It's kind of perverse since he'd been born in Newport, Rhode Island, born a Yankee, however, he married and raised a family in Florida (before it became a state), and worked as a master of ships/schooners and then a steamer out of Charleston SC. He also had a home there. He had captained ships carrying slaves to New Orleans as well. You might wonder how close he came to breaking the law...

I have documents and other records that show he was imprisoned in Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor, MA, a Federal prison. 

 

He was captured when the ship he was captain/master of, the Ella Warley, was going between Charleston SC and Cuba as a blockade runner.  It had been owned by businessmen in Charleston, (under the name Isabell) and given over to the Confederacy at the beginning of the war. After the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter on April 12-13, 1861, the Isabel (renamed the Ella Warley) was used to evacuate Colonel Robert Anderson and his Union troops from the fort and convey them to Union warships off the coast of Charleston,

The blockade by the Union Navy was trying to keep all commerce from entering or leaving Charleston, and all confederate ports. Swasey captained the Ella Warley from Jan. 1862 until his capture on April 25, 1862. And he was definitely caught with his finger in the pie, as the cargo was various guns and munitions to be taken to the Confederacy.

Yesterday I found yet another document which indicated when he was imprisoned at Fort Warren, which is on an island in Boston Harbor.

I had to make the screen shots in two pieces. Here the second prisoner recorded was Capt. Alex G. Swasey from the (Sidesteamer) Str."Ella" which wasn't anyplace or during any battle. However the date right above for prisoner number 1 Major Reid Saunders, Staff of Charleston had been captured on Jan. 5 1863. We may assume Swasey, being number 2, was interred at Fort Warren after that, with still a missing part of his capture in April 1862 to that date. There is more information available somewhere in Folio 338, according to notes in the margin. (Something to chase another day!)

This blurry side of the form has remarks. In the original handwriting, he was a prisoner "By order of Navy dept." The next remark in a different handwriting states "Released on Oath, June 20, 1865."

I have copies of the 56 Prisoner of War accounting documents from the Civil War with Captain A.G. Swasey listed...with amounts of money spent throughout his stay (but somewhat confusing expenses.)  First entry I have found is Nov 11, 1863. If he had been imprisoned elsewhere, or simply the earlier prison records were lost, is not known. These accounting records start off calling him Captain Swasey, But by the next year he's just A. G. Swasey.  The last entry I've discovered in March 18, 1865. The Civil War officially ended on April 9, 1865. And the newest remark gives me his release date from the prison, June 20, 1965.

I wonder what that truce was like for the prisoners of war in Fort Warren. They had no income to speak of, unless someone had sent it to them. The Union Army was not inclined to be very hospitable, having performed their duties. That prison held mainly officers and sea captains, as I've seen by looking through the account books. The prisoners turned over many thousands of dollars of Confederate money, which of course was worthless. Those that had had gold for their welfare, usually had used it up by the end of their term as prisoners.

Captain Alexander G. Swasey somehow made it back to Charleston SC after his release. That city must have also been suffering from the end of the war.

22 Savage St. The home of Alexander G. Swasey. Perhaps it was inhabited by other people by the time he was released from prison. Did anyone even know he'd been captured within months of the beginning of the war? This is a modern photograph taken of the house.

His wife, Anna (Fanny) and 4 daughters had been living in St. Augustine FL in 1850 (by the census report.) But they also had ties in Charleston, where Anna's father and brother had lived until they both died in 1852. It isn't known where they were after the war, or even during it. The youngest son, Alexander John Swasey had been born in Charleston SC in 1853 (to become my great grandfather). So the Swasey family had moved to Charleston sometime after the 1850 census when they had lived with their mother, Anna, as head of household in St. Augustine.

Whenever Captain Swasey made it back to Charleston, he died in another house, at 1 Limehouse St,  on March 26, 1866. My cousin John Rogers, went to Charleston several years ago to try to find his grave. 

This is what John said about his search for the grave:

"A.G. Swasey is definitely recorded as being buried in Magnolia Cemetery.  Curiously, in the record, his place of birth is listed as Charleston.  However, the bad news is that there's no marker for him.  In fact, he's buried in Lot 332 (one of the oldest lots) in what is the Mahony Family plot.  I had a long talk with the women who work at the cemetery.  They said it was extremely common for people buried there who died right around the Civil War to have no markers.  Many people were just buried in graves of friends who did own plots, and sometimes attending physicians even buried the dead in their own plots.  A.G. Swasey's attending physician was not a Mahony, so the women there conjectured that Swasey was likely friends with someone in the Mahony family.  From documents they gave me, the only likely (male) candidate would be John Mahony, Jr (1830-1869), who would be considerably younger than Swasey.  The only other possibility is that there was a clerical error, and that he's buried elsewhere.  But the original document says "332" clear as day, so if he is buried elsewhere and there's a marker, it would be impossible to know without checking all 30,000+.  His cause of death is given as Phthisis" (tuberculosis.)

I discovered an Official records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861-1865, where there's an A.G. Swasey with some kind of classification "II, 4"  as well as Alexander Swazey with "II, 8" following his name. And I just discovered these refer to Vol. II sections 4 and 8, where his name was listed.  That's how I found the new record of his internment at Fort Warren (above.)

Sharing with 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks, at Generations Cafe' on Facebook.

And Sepia Saturday! Finding another piece of documentation is always worth sharing.

Week 37 (Sept. 10-16): Prosperity

 

A Five times Great Aunt who had her portrait painted by John Singleton Copley.

Mary Sherburne Bowers

1763

Somerset, MA

Painted by John Singleton Copley 

from Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Jan, 1916.

She was married to my 6 times great uncle Jarathmel Bowers (1720-1799). He was ancestor to my grandmother, Ada Swasey Rogers, or rather his sister Mary Bowers was (1719-1823) who married Joseph Swasey (1714-1801). As Aunt Mary's husband, Jerathmel Bowers was Quaker, he probably didn't want a portrait, or at least we don't know of one. I've been looking further into his history and it looks like he had been married before the Sherburne marriage. 

Her father was probably considered prosperous in his lifetime, Joseph Sherburne, Esq.  He had a portrait also painted of himself, by John Singleton Copley. 

 

 

Joseph Sherburne (1710 - 1779) (her father)

c. 1768

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan, New York, New York, USA

Artist: John Singleton Copeley (1738 - 1815) Medium: Oil on canvas Comment: Joseph Sherburne (1710–1799) was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the son of Mary Lovell and Judge Joseph Sherburne, a man of considerable wealth who served variously as mariner, merchant, selectman, member of the King's Council, and justice of the Supreme Court. The Sherburnes moved to Boston sometime before 1728. The sitter became active in the East India Trade, and later was a successful hardware merchant. Sherburne owned extensive lands in Boston and married three times, first in 1734 to Mary Watson, by whom he had one daughter, Mary. (15.128). Three years later, he married Mary Plaisted of Salem, whose two children both died at an early age".

The above information was published by the Metropolitan Muesum of Art in New York

Another biographer in 1904 wrote of Joseph Sherburne:

"He married first, Apr. 4, 1734, Mary, daughter of James Watson, by whom he had one child, Mary; married second, Feb. 2, 1737, Eunice, daughter of William Hubbard, by whom he had no issue ; and married third, Nov. 21, 1750, Mary, daughter of Col. Ichabod Plaisted of Salem, by whom he had Joseph and John, who died young, and Sarah, who married John Hunt, Jr., and died childless, in 1785-6. Mary, his sole surviving child and heir, married, July 7, 1763 Jerathmiel Bowers, the rich Quaker of Somerset, Bristol Co., Mass., whose son John laid out Somerset Street, on Beacon Hill, Boston, partly from the estate of Joseph Sherburne. (See Boston Rec. Com. Report, No. 5, p. 74.)"

Source: "Some descendants of Henry and John Sherburne of Portsmouth, N.H." (1904)

-------------------

I'm sharing a post from the past...from June 12, 2018.

52 Ancestors 52 Weeks

Week 36 (Sept. 3-9): Tradesman

 I always celebrate the skills of craftsmanship which have been part of many families in my ancestry.

So I look at some early settlers in Massachusetts. First was my great times 8 grandfather, Joseph Brown Sr. (1640-1694) a "Turner." These days a turner is often considered a wood worker on a lathe. But I prefer considering he might have been a potter, using a kick wheel to create the many bowls, mugs, and jugs that households and inns and other businesses might use. 

He lived in Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts Colony.

His son was Benjamin Brown (a yeoman and miller). Benjamin has a lot more interesting information on Ancestry because his original house was sold and enlarged and it stood until now (Google Street Map to follow)

There is extensive information about the bridge, the dam, the mill and who owned what. But I'll just touch on a few highlights.

Benjamin must have either owned a small farm (yeoman) or was considered an adjunct to a more substantial man. But since the original house was built by him, I'm voting for his small farm, as well as his working for the more substantial man as a fulling miller.** The home/farm was sold to Caleb Warner after his death ...and that is the name on the house since then.

Source: https://historicipswich.org/caleb-warner-house-50-mill-rd/

50 Mill Road, the Caleb Warner house (1734)

Just before you cross the triple stone arch Warner’s Bridge that connects Mill Rd. in Ipswich to Asbury St. in Hamilton, you can see on your left the large house built by Caleb Warner in 1755. Within it is an earlier home assembled of two structures before 1734, the year that Caleb Warner came into possession of the property. No records exist that would indicate exact construction dates of the two older sections on the right side of the house. We know that tanners operated on both sides of the river as early as 1667. Conceivably, one or both of those structures may have been part of the 1697 fulling mill. 

It is possible that Benjamin Brown, who sold the property to Caleb Warner, may have constructed or lived in the small house as early as 1720.

Caleb Warner house, photo from the early 20th Century. The enlarged house was constructed in 1755, and the dormers were added in the 19th Century. The right side of the house is older and has two smaller structures that were constructed before 1734, probably First Period. The smaller right entry door would have been the left side of the earlier “half house.” (see photo in gallery)

The living room is to the right after entering the left front door, (the tiny door seen to right of main entrance) and has fine hand-planed wall panels around the fireplace. Its large summer beam and corner posts are encased with bead-edge boards, suggesting a Georgian structure, built no earlier than 1734, the year when Caleb Warner purchased the property, but no later than 1755 when the full floor plan as we see it today was completed.

The Caleb Warner house faces the triple stone arch Warner Bridge which connects Mill Rd. in Ipswich to Highland St. in Hamilton. A (sic ?) was constructed in 1829, and in 1856, the present day bridge was reconstructed. 

Probate in 1735 at Benjamin Brown's death gave the occupation/crafts of his son and brothers.  Older brother Joseph was a cordwainer, brother John was a yeoman and turner, Lt. Samuel was a house carpenter and Benjamin's only son Benjamin Jr. was a tailor. His daughter Hannah became my 6 times great grandmother.

Apparently still standing at 50 Mill Rd, Ipswich, MA...Google Earthview, 2019

**  from Wikipedia: A Fulling Mill -

From the medieval period, the fulling of cloth often was undertaken in a water mill, known as a fulling mill, a walk mill, or a tuck mill, and in Wales, a pandy. In these, the cloth was beaten with wooden hammers, known as fulling stocks or fulling hammers. Fulling stocks were of two kinds, falling stocks (operating vertically) that were used only for scouring, and driving or hanging stocks. In both cases the machinery was operated by cams on the shaft of a waterwheel or on a tappet wheel, which lifted the hammer.
Driving stocks were pivoted so that the foot (the head of the hammer) struck the cloth almost horizontally. The stock had a tub holding the liquor and cloth. This was somewhat rounded on the side away from the hammer, so that the cloth gradually turned, ensuring that all parts of it were milled evenly. However, the cloth was taken out about every two hours to undo plaits and wrinkles. The 'foot' was approximately triangular in shape, with notches to assist the turning of the cloth.

Today's quote:

“The most appalling quality of water is its strength. I love its flash and gleam, its music, its pliancy and grace, its slap against my body; but I fear its strength.”  Scottish mountaineer and poet Nan Shepherd