Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
January 19, 2023
“Now Stands Tall in his Final Resting Place”
Number of pages in Outline Descendant
Report: 153 (up from 151 last chronicle)
Number of pages in the basic Descendant Report:
236 (up from 231 last chronicle)
Francis
Holmes is # 1. I am now # 330. # 327, where I was last week, is now Mary Jane
Holmes Hamilton.
Jonathan
Marquez (Frances Anne Holmes Ballantyne line) is last at # 486.
#
480, where he was last week, is now Keith Wellman.
This
should change weekly, if I’m doing my job.
Something
new in stats, just for fun:
I put the
names of all descendants of Francis Holmes who are either in our Facebook group
or on my mailing list for chronicles, in a bag. Spouses and friends are not
included as they do not get numbered in the program’s default. Those who have
no descendants are also not numbered, but I’ll include them with their parent’s
number. I pulled out three names, and will follow them for two weeks. Next
week, I’ll draw three more. This is for fun, but if the three names I drew were
not in my tree that I am using now, I insert them. Win-win exercise.
The three I
drew last week are:
· Janet Holmes Griffith is now #
304. Last week, she was #302, who is now Jerome Stuart.
· Cathy Teakles Higgins is now #
309. Last week, she was # 307, who is
now Della Holmes Atkinson.
· Steve Holmes is now # 287. Last week, he was # 285, who is now Patricia
Holmes Yee.
New this week are:
·
Angela Gautreau is ii, daughter
of Lionel and Anne Marie Holmes Gautreau, # 327. I wrote about Angela and her
sister, Maryanne, when I drew the name of their mother, Anne Marie Holmes
Gautreau on January 5. I paste that excerpt here. “I must tell you the story
about when I met her daughters. Anne must have told them there was a reunion
going on, way back about 2012 or so. Anyhow, you know I’m an organizer and I
knew who was expected. I was in the kitchen at the farm and there was a long
lineup of people in the hallway where they used to keep hats and rifles at the
ready, and I heard some giggles. In all that chatter, I heard those giggles. I
didn’t recognize their laugh but then again, I did, and I don’t know why, but I
knew it had to be from an Uncle Bryce connection. They were, and introduced
themselves and proceeded to liven up our day. At the next gathering, they
brought their Mum and Dad. When our young ones are curious about their past, be
sure and tell them about it. Usually, the curiosity doesn’t start until retirement.”
·
Dan Fielding is # 477. Dan is in the Harriet Olivia (Hattie) Holmes line
and he is the son of the late Guy and Maryellen Mavrides Fielding. He’s a
former green beret, and has written a book based on this and other life
experiences, called “The Asset Mindset.” He is married to Kimberly Morse
Fielding and has two young daughters.
·
Karen Davis Jones is # 461. Karen is in the Charles R Holmes line, and
is the daughter of Warren and the late Susan Lutes Davis. I used to play with
baby Karen many years ago, until their family moved back to Warren’s hometown
in Colorado, where Karen grew up with her brother, Dan. She is married to Dr.
Joshua Jones, and they have a son and two daughters, in their teens. Well, one
is soon to be in her teens.
FYI, this takes
a lot of time, but it’s kind of fun. I do it on Tuesdays rather than Thursdays.
Watch for your name.
~
My genealogy goals for this week were:
1.
Get ready for the society meeting on Saturday.
2.
Send story about Phoebe McMonagle Holmes and her recipe for Raspberry
Dumplings to Jeff. Outline: bread and milk for Christmas; a summer drink for
the grandkids; sharing the dumpling recipe.
3.
Get the Louisa Ballantyne line article off to Elizabeth for her perusal.
4.
Continue revising the William Holmes line.
5.
Chronicle several times, and publish on Thursday morning.
6.
Add a few more people to the tree so the stats move.
7.
Make my outline for my next will article about William Lothan (not an
ancestor). The Fan Club Principle: Family, Associates, Neighbours, is my
outline. Francis Holmes is the Family section.
Due to a power
failure, I lost some research time. I had to focus on #1. I did accomplish #3 and
#5, referred back to my April 21st chronicle to get started on
William Lothan, and spent some time on other #s.
Click on photos to enlarge them.
~
I went down a
marvelous rabbit trail this week. Terry Bannister (not a cousin) sent me some
photos, and I have been chatting with Terry and also another fellow, Ron Berry,
who takes an interest in the area and its people. Generally, I write the facts.
This week, I write some of the chronicle with my feelings about the facts.
I’ve been
working this over in my head and I don’t know if I can make sense of it on
paper, but I will try. I don’t think everyone is cut out to be a
genealogist/family historian. I do think every genealogist/family historian is
different in their goals and approach. I do think we share something that
doesn’t come naturally to non-family historians, and that is an emotional bond
with our ancestors. It’s much like the bond that you share with family members
that you know or knew, but less intense. I say it is an emotional bond, for we
don’t love all of them. Some of them we dislike intensely. And it’s not all of
them – if they are just names in the genealogy there is generally no feeling of
attachment; it’s when we study them and get to know about their lives. Then we
put them into a place in our brain that is close to our memories of our parents
and grandparents. I’m not sure if that makes sense or not.
How do you
genealogists feel about it?
If you’ve
followed me in my meanderings for many years, you know that I love “the farm.”
I associate it with my childhood, and my cousins and aunts and uncles, and the
house and outbuildings, and the stories I was told, and going to the brook, and
the violin that hid in the closet. People, places, things. Tangible and real, I
can see them in my mind and my dreams even though they are gone. My memories
are real.
Then there is
Portage Vale, perhaps fifteen minutes’ drive down the road from Hillgrove,
nowadays. It’s no longer a dirt road, but it’s a potholed road, maintained
every few years or so by the province. I have absolutely no childhood memories of
Portage Vale. They are all genealogically induced memories. They started,
unbeknownst to me, when I took that violin out of the closet and looked at it,
and pondered it in my heart for the rest of the day. Sometime shortly
thereafter, I asked my mother if I could take violin lessons and use the violin
in the closet. With her father’s permission, she and Dad had that violin fixed
up (not properly, but adequately) and I played it non-stop for about ten years,
and the odd time after that. I never stopped loving it. I just don’t have the
words to explain that; I hope you understand because you have an object that
you love.
I started
working on genealogy as an absolute novice, and I am mostly self-taught, but I
grew in my knowledge by joining the genealogical society and meeting other
genealogists. Mum loved answering my questions, and I learned much from her as
she shared her memories. Some of the names I discovered in my quest took on
that feeling that I tried to convey to you. When she talked about Uncle Billy
and Aunt Maggie, she brought them to life. When I did their genealogy, I was so
surprised to learn that they died six years before she was born. I really
thought she had known them. She learned, I believe, from her grandfather,
Charles R Holmes. I wish I had met him; I believe he was a story-teller.
Charles used
to take his children and grandchildren to Portage Vale, so Mum knew a bit about
the place. She assured me that Uncle Billy built my violin, that the fishing
was great, and that the old Anglican Church that was gone well before her birth
was located in the triangle. I have absolute confirmation that the fishing was
great. I am relatively sure that the family lore about the violin is true, and
I hope someday that Wendy will pull hers out and look inside it for a name, for
the luthier that fixed it up last assured me that the quality of my violin is
such that its maker had some experience. The owner of the house where Uncle
Billy lived told me that there were no luthier tools there in his time of
occupying it. Others have heard about the church being in the triangle, but all
our questions to the archives, where the old Anglican records are kept, give us
some history but no location.
I discussed
the triangle with Ron this week; I discussed the church with Terry. As soon as
the weather is good, I intend to gather Richard, Sandi, John and Cliff for a
meaningful meeting in Portage Vale. Most of you don’t know those names, and
that is okay, but they will receive this particular chronicle, and they will
share my excitement.
I love Portage
Vale. As I drove down that rough road for the first time, let’s say twenty
years ago or so, the beauty of the place stopped me and my car. As the woods
opened up, I beheld the valley, and I saw the most beautiful farm I have ever
seen. I don’t say fancy like the farm up the hill from “the farm,” but trim,
well-maintained, verdant, lovely, and timeless. It still is. The current owner
passed away last year; I hope the owners retain its beauty and character. When
I drove Fen Holmes there, he had the same experience. He didn’t have a camera
with him, so when he left Moncton for Fundy Park and his return home to
California, he planned to buy a disposable and drive to the park via Portage
Vale so he could take a photo. It was, to me and to Fen, breathtaking. It still
is.
I have visited
the Anglican Church cemetery, also called the Gifford Cemetery, almost every
year since. With Richard, Sandi, John, and the last time, Cliff, I have
wandered and wondered. Sandi’s ancestors lived in what we think of as the
Davidson house, and last summer, I met the current owner, Kelly Bassett. I plan
to email him before our visit, so hopefully Sandi can see the inside of the
house of our ancestors and we can include him in our quest. We found the location of the Ketchum/Snider house,
which they called Riverbank. The two-hundred old house that Captain Isaac
Ketchum built burned in 2016, and the current owner, Howard Matthews, rebuilt.
He gave us a tour of the downstairs and a peek up at the loft, and a talk about
what he knew of the history of the house. One specific question I had was, how
many bedrooms did the old house have. It had four. That was important as I knew
and had written about the fishing lodge that Uncle Billy ran from the house
after the Ketchums died. How many people, I often wondered, could stay at his
“bed and breakfast.”
Uncle Billy
and Aunt Maggie, for those of you who don’t have my book, are both in our
family tree. Aunt Maggie was Margaret Eliza Holmes, daughter of Daniel and
Charlotte Holmes. Uncle Billy’s relationship is more distant and confusing, but
it’s through the Ketchums.
Riverbank, 2016
We knew that
there was another old cemetery in Portage Vale, and I think Cliff knew it from
his childhood, and as you will see, John knew it too. I don’t know if Richard
and Sandi ever saw it. I don’t even know where it is, yet. I’ll soon find out.
This week, some conversation came up about it in a historical Facebook group of
the area, and I put in my two cents worth. I had replies, a discussion ensued,
and one of my Facebook friends gave me a heads up that a Terry Bannister was
going to contact me and it was okay to open his message. I did.
If you read my
historical with a bit of fiction book, “Uncle Billy’s Fiddle,” which isn’t the
greatest writing but has the greatest meaning for me, for it’s full of Mum’s
stories and many old newspaper articles about the place, you would know about
this cemetery and the impossibility that I would ever see it. It was, I was
always told, completely overgrown.
What we refer to as the Davidson house. It has passed hands several times. It
now belongs to Kelly Bassett.
Cliff, Richard, and John at the Portage Vale Cemetery
Cliff meeting Howard, owner of the rebuilt house at the site of the
Isaac Ketchum house.
Genealogists sharing stories and repast at the Cedar Café in Cornhill,
NB:
Cliff, John, Richard, Sandi, and Peg.
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Terry
Bannister has an interest in old graveyards. “Impossible” is obviously not a
word in his vocabulary. He’s a local, so he knew where it was and who is in it.
He sent me four photos. I enhanced them and there, to my delight and a catch in
my throat, was, plain as day, Capt. Isaac Ketchum’s name on his tombstone. That
old rough-talkin’ sea captain of ours, who sailed back and forth from Norwalk,
CT, to Saint John, NB, during the American Revolution, now stands tall in his
final resting place. He had to skedaddle from New England, and he eventually
chose Portage Vale as his home. Before he officially received his land grant
there with the Hoyts and the Davidsons and the Sniders and a few others, he had
cut a four-mile road and built his house. He meant to settle there. In my
imaginings about Captain Isaac, I think of him as a strong-willed man who
wouldn’t take a “NO” answer from the province or the war. He brought his wife
and children to New Brunswick about 1800, and they added a few more children to
the population of Portage Vale.
This is one of
the photographs that Terry sent me; the black and white is from the same photo,
just cropped. Captain Isaac’s stone, far left, is legible, but I cannot read
the Mary Ketchum stone. As I can read the date, I know it belongs to Mary. I know what it says. I can hardly wait to see
it and photograph the cemetery for myself.
Written on Mary’s
tombstone: "Sacred to the Memory of
Mary, wife of Captain Isaac Ketchum who departed this life 20th May 1827, Aged
66 years and 12 days. She bid adieu with a Mothers Love and flew for comfort to
the realms above." (Source - Essay on Isaac Ketchum, probably written by
Sandra Keirstead Thorne. Can you confirm that you wrote an essay on “Ketchum,
Isaac,” Sandi? There’s no name on my copy.)
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I am so grateful to Terry (in above photo) for cleaning up this
pioneer cemetery, standing up the stones (one was already standing; he stood up
four more), and giving me permission to share his photographs. This cemetery
has been unkempt for decades. Probably some of the other tombstones are
underground. There are thirteen recorded burials in the Portage Vale Pioneer
Cemetery, according to Terry. I suspect there are more. Two of them are our
ancestors, Captain Isaac Ketchum and his wife, Mary Elizabeth (Ketchum)
Ketchum. I hope to meet Terry this spring, as soon as the ground is not snow
covered and soggy.
~
An
excerpt from Fenwicke Holmes’ “The Ketchum Line.” Page 48.
I
have probably found some updates since Fen wrote it,
but
I wanted to include Fen, for I think he knew the feeling.
“Captain Isaac
Ketchum was born about 1752, in Norwalk, the son of Samuel Ketchum and Sarah
Hurlburt. [For information about Captain Isaac Ketchum I am chiefly indebted
to Sandra Thorne . . . She is descended from the Ketchum and Hoyt lines and has
done extensive research and publishing on both families.]
Isaac’s name
appears in the probate records of Norwalk in 1774 when he and his brother,
Jesse, state that they are the sons of the deceased Samuel Ketchum and are
equally entitled with their brothers, Peter and Stephen, who are acting as
executors of their father’s estate.
During the
Revolutionary War, Captain Isaac Ketchum was the master of several British
vessels out of Norwalk, Connecticut, such as the ‘St. Andrew.’ He was also
Master of the sloop, ‘Schuldam’ out of Norwalk, trading to Saint John, NB, in
1785.
It is not clear
how, as a Loyalist, he could continue to operate out of Norwalk as late as
1785, nor how he could continue in Connecticut until about the year 1800, when
he moved with his family to New Brunswick. (He appears in the 1790 Census of
Norwalk as head of household with 7 in the family.)
About 1782/3,
Captain Isaac Ketchum married Mary Elizabeth Ketchum, the daughter of Jonathan
Ketchum (Cousin of Isaac). Jonathan had fled from Norwalk to Long Island in
1779. The marriage may have taken place there. In any event, Mary Elizabeth did
not emigrate to New Brunswick in 1783 with the rest of her father’s family. The
newly-weds settled in Norwalk and remained until about 1800, raising a large
family, the first 9 of whom were born in Norwalk:
·
Frances Ketchum; born 1784;
married 1808/9 James Hoyt (born 1784), more about this family appears below.
·
Jesse Ketchum; born about
1785/6; died about 1812/15 ‘lost at sea.’
·
Peter Ketchum; born 14
September 1787; died 20 November 1862.
·
Mary (‘Polly’) Ketchum; born
1789; buried 6 April 1871; married James Ketchum (born 1766, her maternal
uncle!)
·
Deborah Ketchum; born about
1790; died 15 January 1831; married, about 1809/10, Elias Snider.
·
Sarah Ketchum; born 1792; died
22 December 1867; did not marry.
·
Samuel Ketchum; born 6
September 1795; died 31 Jul 1884; did not marry.
·
Hannah Ketchum; born 1797; died
February 1860; married 10 May 1838 Humphrey Hayward (as his second wife).
·
Elizabeth (‘Betsey’) Ketchum;
born 1799; died 19 December 1883; married 5 January 1821, John Lamb.
·
Harriett Ketchum; born New
Brunswick about 1806; died 1888; did not marry.
·
Catherine Ketchum; born New
Brunswick about 1807; died 22 March 1844; married 8 January 1835, John G Tobin.
This family
moved to New Brunswick about 1800. The family first lived in the Sussex area
(Dutch Valley) and then, about 1812, in Portage. The name of Isaac Ketchum
appears on various land petitions during this period. None of the sons of this
family married and the property passed to the Snider family; descendants of
Deborah (Ketchum) Snider.
Captain Joseph
(sic – should be Isaac) Ketchum died 15 February 1835 at the age of 83; his
wife, Mary Elizabeth (Ketchum) Ketchum on 20 May 1827. The sandstone markers of
their graves can be seen in the Old Pioneer Cemetery, Portage Vale, NB.
Frances Ketchum;
the oldest child of Captain Joseph (sic - should be Isaac) Ketchum, was born in
Norwalk, Connecticut in 1784, and removed to New Brunswick with her parents
about 1800. She married James Hoyt III, probably in Portage, NB. They were the
parents of Charlotte Hoyt who married Daniel Holmes [my great-grandfather].”
~
Of the above
children, Frances, Peter, Deborah, Sarah, Samuel, and Harriet all died in
Portage Vale. Some of them are buried in the Anglican Church (aka Gifford)
Cemetery. Some may be in the Pioneer Cemetery, but are not recorded anywhere
that I have found.
Tombstones of
Peter and Sarah Ketchum (siblings) in the Anglican Church (aka Gifford)
Cemetery in Portage Vale. Photo by Peg, 2023.
~
I spent about 36
hours without power this week, as the ice storm took its toll. I know that
Brian and Jolynda spent a day without power as well. I tried to think of things
to be grateful for as I shivered. I am grateful for the generator, which gave
us minimal heat and kept our freezer and fridge cold, and we kept one light on
at a time. I could have used the main computer, but settled on using my tablet.
I am grateful for my son-in-law, Marc, who hooked it up perfectly. I am grateful for Bill, who did a lot of work
scraping and shovelling. He gave our birch tree, bowed low with the weight of
the ice, a good trim. He drove to the spring down the road several times for
water for the bathroom. I am grateful to Eleanor Holmes Wilson, who crocheted a
warm afgan for me. Someone covered me with it in the middle of the night. It
helped; I slept like a log in my cold, powerless house, for we turned the
generator off at bedtime. I though of our ancestors, even my Mum in her younger
days, getting up early to stoke the fire; emptying the chamber pots in the
privy; seeing by oil lamp and candles. For the poor linesmen, who worked in the
freezing rain, I am thankful. I am saddened that one of our linesmen was
electrocuted Tuesday night, and another injured, quite close to where Julie has
her cottage.
~
Thanks to my
first cousin, Brenda Holmes Batchelor, for her email and questions. I always
appreciate your questions and comments. Brenda’s main focus is on her mother’s
Davidson family, but as you know, in-laws have a way of making it into a tree.
~
Have a great
week. I wish you good power, both electric and in a combo of strength, wisdom and
kindness.
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