Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Yt Gallon of Rum

 

Uncle Peg’s Chronicles

October 6, 2022

“Yt Gallen of Rum”





Number of pages in Outline Descendant Report: 121 (up from 120 last chronicle)

Number of pages in basic Descendant Report: 181 (up from 177 last chronicle)

 

Francis Holmes is # 1. I am now # 286. # 285, where I was last week, is now Margaret Rose Holmes.

Matthew Williams, Jane William’s grandson, is last at # 402, up from # 398, and his son is # ii.

#398 is now Melissa Grace Wellman.

This should change weekly, if I’m doing my job.

 

It has been a crazy couple of weeks and phew, today, September 29th, I must start my cleanup and figure out where I left off in my genealogy, research, and writing. My brother and sister, Paul and Pat, came up for a visit and we had a wonderful catchup time and accomplished some things that needed to be done. Fiona visited as well. Although she was not too cruel to us, only taking out one big branch of a tree and it not falling on anything of any importance, she did leave a mess which, between the four of us, we managed to bring into the house. Pine needles everywhere!

I wonder how you fared through Fiona and Ian’s nastiness. Do tell. I know Grace Holmes has a little house in Florida and it was damaged. I’m not sure how they will deal with that whilst in Maine; maybe an unexpected trip is in the offing.

I have the “now you know the rest of the story” of John and Marcy written and now I am working on revision and cutting out unnecessary works, phrases, and sentences. Every word must contribute something to the article. It’s difficult to cut, as some of those words mean something and I hate to let them go. But, I must. I have one document that needs some words that still elude me.

~

The Rest of the John Holmes Story

 That concludes the legal paperwork. Briefly, here is the rest of the story. By the time young John reached the age of seven, he had three siblings – Hannah, Susanna, and Samuel Hait. Another sister, Mercy, would arrive the following year. John’s step-father, Samuel Hait, died on December 9, 1711. Poor Marcy was left to administer another intestate estate, which mentions her four children – Samuel by name and three unidentified daughters.

 Before Samuel died, he built what is now known as the Hoyt-Barnum House in Stamford. This is the oldest house still standing in Stamford. It was removed to a new location in 2017, repaired and restored, given a renewed status as a heritage location, and is now used as a museum.

 Marcy married Peter Ferris on June 15, 1716. She and Peter had a daughter, Mary, and a son, Peter, who died in infancy. Perhaps there was another son, Jonathan, as a Jonathan Ferris was mentioned in the abstract of Marcy’s probate records. Peter died on January 2, 1737.

Marcy married Dr. Richard Barnum after Peter’s death, and I have found very little information about him. I believe he outlived her.

As the documents have shown, dying intestate made life complicated for John’s widow, Marcy. However, John’s death was a good excuse for Stamford residents to throw a Puritan party. Recorded in the records, seven months after the event and available for us to read some three hundred years later:

Huntington concurs: “No doubt due to the manner of his death, the funeral service for Mr. Holmes appears to have been a public function, for at a town meeting held in Stamford 16 December 1703, ‘Voate is given yt gallen of rum for John Homes funarall’[1] be paid for by the town.”[2]

~


Before a deluge of genealogy duties landed on my platter this week, I did a wee bit of Moore research. When Paul and Pat were here, we went through my Grandfather Moore’s scrapbooks and one article stood out to Paul – the story of Walter “Gus” Kyle and his wife, Doris. Doris is our first cousin once removed. Paul was intrigued – knew who he was right away. I told him we were related by marriage. After they left, I pulled out the article to see if I could glean any vital stats from it and a mystery fell into my lap. There was another woman. But. . . no divorces. (That’s common – not many divorce records are on line.) And, there was a baby. Three years after the baby arrived, he married the other woman. Funny thing was, newspapers.com listed his wife as the former wife, Doris, in his obituary. As I don’t have a subscription, I emailed Ann Marie to see if she could find it for me. She did. How odd. I dug further into the scrapbook and found a letter from Gus’s wife to my father. In it, she told me of the death of her sister, but the letter concluded with this paragraph, and the answer to my mystery about a hockey player of my brother’s era. Paul collected hockey cards and I used to have to ask him random questions from his cards – a precursor to my daughter and her love of Pokemon cards.

 

 

"Walter and I are back together after all these years and thank God I had him as I don't know what I am going to do without Marge [her sister] as we were very close and talked frequently on the phone. I retired the end of April and am enjoying it very much. Walter is semi-retired but still sells some insurance and I help him in the office which he moved back into the house when he came, so it keeps me busy and I haven't missed working too much - not the work but I do miss the people. We have been doing a lot of golfing which we both enjoy and are planning on a trip in January to Bixoli, Miss. to golf and get away for a little while."

 

~

Now, what else have I been up to.

 I’ve been planning a visit with a professional genealogist, Mike Proctor, from North Carolina, who will be here in Moncton for two days only. He is a distant cousin on my Colpitts side – we know that thanks to DNA. On Thursday, five ladies from the society will give him a tour. His focus is the Steeves family. So, in addition to making the plans, I’ve been madly updating the Steeveses in our tree – both Alfred and Caroline (Holmes) Steeves and their descendants and my grandmother’s two Steeves grandmothers. As I recall from a Zoom meeting with Mike in May, I believe his compilation will not include living individuals. I will only be passing along those who are deceased. The plans I am making involve a visit to Resurgo Place, specifically the museum and archives, as well as the Free Meeting House and the Pioneer Cemetery. After lunch, we will head to the library where we can sit and chat in the Heritage Room.

 Also, I’m making the plans for the Annual General Meeting of NBGS in May. That involves, besides being in contact with the proprietor of Lady Smith Manor, a lot of motions and seconds and motions carried, both with my smaller group and the directors of the parent group.  Phew . . . I thought reunion planning was tough but this takes the cake. And, I haven’t even started looking for a caterer yet.

 I’m writing articles for both our News and Notes newsletter and Generations. They overlap; I’m just plumping up the Generations article. But it needs to be done now. Yesterday would be better. Tomorrow will be okay . . . Thankfully that will be a story for CCC.

 I have hurriedly updated my tree to include descendants back to Heinrich and Regina Stieff for Charles Alfred Steeves and Minnie Beatrice Colpitts and printed them off.

 And that’s all I have time for this week, folks.

Photos are from a 2016 skit at Settlers Landing - the arrival of the seven families on the sloop Lovey, ready to own their own piece of land in New Brunswick. I have a hunch that they weren't dressed quite that nicely after their sea journey from Pennsylvania. 

 



[1] Familysearch. Stamford Town Records. Image 342, page 367.

[2] Huntington, Rev. E B. History of Stamford, Connecticut, from its Settlement in 1641 to the Present Time. Page 126.

 

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