Although there are unanswered questions about the identity of Thomas Sandford’s parents on Long Island, there are no such questions about the ancestry of Jerusha Gelston. Her parents (our 5th great grandparents) were Hugh Gelston (1697-1775) and Mary Chatfield (1707-1775; her other married names were King and Pelletreau), both of Southampton, Long Island. They were married in 1737 or 1738, this being Gelston’s second marriage and Chatfield’s third.
Hugh Gelston came to Long Island in 1717 from Belfast, Ireland (his grandfather originating from Scotland). He was a merchant and later (1752-1773) served as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, New York.
The lives of 5th great grandfather Judge Hugh Gelston and his brother Reverend Samuel Gelston are described in Genealogies of Long Island Families, Volume I, 1987, compiled by Henry B. Hoff
4th great grandmother Jerusha Gelston was the second child of Hugh Gelston’s second marriageThe Gelston genealogy connects to our Sandford ancestors in Portland and Topsham, Maine
Hugh Gelston’s 1775 will contains additional notes and details on his life, including an explanation of what it meant to be “brought up to Gelston’s fence”.
From Abstracts of Long Island Wills of the New York Historical Society
Mary Chatfield’s father, Thomas Chatfield III (1680-1754), was also a judge. Her great grandparents (our 8th great grandparents) Captain Thomas Chatfield Sr. (1621-1686) and Anne Higginson (1626-1686) came to Long Island in the early 17th century from Sussex and Leicestershire, England. Mary Chatfield has several other family branches dating back to early colonial New England (some to be discussed in future posts).
The gravestone of Mary Chatfield and Hugh Gelston in the North End Graveyard in Southampton, Long Island
The gravestone of 6th great grandfather, Judge Thomas Chatfield III, in the South End Cemetery in East Hampton, New York
Having established that our second great grandfather Aaron Sechler (father of New York police officer George Sechler) completed two tours of duty in the Civil War, and having noted that Aaron’s first regiment, the Pennsylvania 132nd Infantry, took part in the infamous Battle of Antietam, I wanted find evidence that Aaron himself was actually at Antietam. I found this and much more.
The Pennsylvania 132nd Infantry existed between August 1862 and May 1863 (extending its originally planned nine month tour by about a month). It was recruited from a half-dozen Pennsylvania towns between Danville and Scranton at a time when the Union was panicking about early defeats in battles in Virginia at Chantilly and the Second Bull Run. The regiment started out at a strength about 1000 men and finished with about 600.
On a recent visit to the Antietam National Battlefield, it took a mere mention of the PA 132nd to spur the park ranger off to the back room to return three minutes later with a 22 page printout detailing everything one might want to know about this regiment’s role in the battle. (They have a list of about 75 other regiments for which they can do the same thing.)
The PA 132nd fought in the Bloody Lane (or Sunken Road) battle, one of the three massive confrontations that took place at Antietam on September 17, 1862 (the other two being The Cornfield and Burnside’s Bridge).
The National Park Service map of the Antietam Battlefield shows the location of the Sunken Road (Bloody Lane) battle near the center. Union forces including the Pennsylvania 132nd were to the north of the road and Confederate forces to the south.
The information provided by the Park Service about the PA 132nd includes maps showing their location every hour on the day of the battle. Having made camp the previous night in Keedysville MD, a couple miles east of what would become the battlefield, the regiment made its way west in the early morning and by 8am was at Roulette’s Farm, within sight of the Sunken Road and the Confederate forces occupying it. The PA 132nd were joined that day by three other Union regiments from Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia.
National Park Service maps show the locations of every unit at every hour of the day of the battle (marked by the large arrows). At 9am the Pennsylvania 132nd was situated to the northeast of Bloody Lane…
… and by late afternoon they had moved a little westward, more to the north of Bloody Lane. Accounts indicate that they changed positions in response to attempts by Confederate forces to outflank them from the northwest.
The two forces exchanged heavy fire through the late afternoon when the Rebel forces were finally pushed back. Antietam is considered to be the bloodiest single-day battle of the war. Of 100,000 soldiers who entered the Battle of Antietam, about 23,000 were killed, wounded or went missing, with Union casualties outnumbering those of the Confederacy. Although the Union forces held the field, Lee’s Confederate forces were able to withdraw to Virginia and the war’s overall battle lines were not significantly changed by the day’s fighting.
The Emancipation Proclamation would take effect the following January, and the Battle of Gettysburg would take place the following July.
Today’s view from the 132nd’s original position, looking west. Bloody Lane is out of the photo to the left and the Roulette Farmhouse is visible behind the trees. By the afternoon, the 132nd had moved to the far side of the farmhouse.
Today’s view of Bloody Lane looking west. Union Army positions were to the right, Confederates to the left.
Today, the PA 132nd’s role in the Bloody Road fight is commemorated by a large statue of a young soldier holding a flag, the bottom of the standard of which has just been broken off by a bullet. This image provides the backdrop for the next part of our story.
The Pennsylvania 132nd was among four Unions regiments that were in the thick of the fighting through the day at Bloody Lane.
The Pennsylvania 132nd’s monument. The specific story of the monument and the soldier depicted is explained below.
Listening-in on the talk of a tour guide passing through the Sunken Road area of the park, I learned of a book written by one of the officers of the PA 132nd, Major Frederick Lyman Hitchcock (who retired as a Colonel). Upon returning home, it took about five minutes to find and download a complete copy of the book, which has long-since passed into the public domain.
The book, War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863, is highly recommended reading. Hitchcock was with the 132nd for its entire existence between mid-August, 1862 and late-May, 1863. He kept a diary during and wrote the book after the war. It goes into detail on everything the regiment encountered and did, from major battles to daily life in camp. It is written in a way that it could have been narrated by anyone in the division.
The body of the book is about 250 pages, followed by an appendix which lists all of the members of the PA 132nd, including our ancestor, Aaron Sechler.
Our second great grandfather Aaron Sechler (bottom entry) is one of about 1,000 members of the Pennsylvania 132nd, all named in the appendix of Frederick Hitchcock’s book.
So, amazingly, we have a near-first-hand account of most of what our second great grandfather, Aaron Sechler, did and endured for 10 months during the first half of the Civil War.
Previously, I had been confused by the fact that Aaron joined the regiment only a month before the Battle of Antietam, which scarcely seems sufficient time to organize a regiment, let alone train, outfit and transport them to the site of the biggest battle to-date of the war. Hitchcock explains that this was indeed the case for everyone in the regiment, including its officers. Soldiers were recruited in Pennsylvania in mid-August and underwent brief training in Washington DC before marching up through Maryland, camping in Rockville and (recently liberated) Frederick along the way. For most of the commissioned officers and enlisted troops, this was their first wartime assignment.
By the time they crossed South Mountain (midway between Frederick and Antietam), the PA 132nd was on the heels of Rebel forces. They just caught the tail-end of the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, giving them their first views of the aftermath of combat.
By the evening of September 16, they were in Keedysville, just a couple miles from Antietam. Hitchcock narrates…
NEVER did day open more beautiful. We were astir at the first streak of dawn. We had slept, and soundly too, just where nightfall found us under the shelter of the hill near Keedysville. No reveille call this morning. Too close to the enemy. Nor was this needed to arouse us. A simple call of a sergeant or corporal and every man was instantly awake and alert. All realized that there was ugly business and plenty of it just ahead. This was plainly visible in the faces as well as in the nervous, subdued demeanor of all. The absence of all joking and play and the almost painful sobriety of action, where jollity had been the rule, was particularly noticeable.
Before proceeding with the events of the battle, I should speak of the “night before the battle,” of which so much has been said and written. My diary says that Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcox, Captain James Archbald, Co. I, and I slept together, sharing our blankets; that it rained during the night; this fact, with the other, that we were close friends at home, accounts for our sharing blankets. Three of us with our gum blankets could so arrange as to keep fairly dry, notwithstanding the rain.
The camp was ominously still this night. We were not allowed to sing or make any noise, nor have any fires–except just enough to make coffee for fear of attracting the fire of the enemies batteries. But there was no need of such an inhibition as to singing or frolicking, for there was no disposition to indulge in either. Unquestionably, the problems of the morrow were occupying all breasts. Letters were written home many of them “last words”–and quiet talks were had, and promises made between comrades. Promises providing against the dreaded possibilities of the morrow. “if the worst happens, Jack” “Yes, Ned, send word to mother and to —–, and these; she will prize them,” and so directions were interchanged that meant so much.
I can never forget the quiet words of Colonel Oakford, as he inquired very particularly if my roster of the officers and men of the regiment was complete, for, said he, with a smile, “We shall not all be here to-morrow night.”
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
The morning of September 17, they made their way across the Antietam River to the site of the battle..
Reaching the top of the knoll we were met by a terrific volley from the rebels in the sunken road down the other side, not more than one hundred yards away, and also from another rebel line in a corn-field just beyond. Some of our men were killed and wounded by this volley. We were ordered to lie down just under the top of the hill and crawl forward and fire over, each man crawling back, reloading his piece in this prone position and again crawling forward and firing. These tactics undoubtedly saved us many lives, for the fire of the two lines in front of us was terrific. The air was full of whizzing, singing, buzzing bullets. Once down on the ground under cover of the hill, it required very strong resolution to get up where these missiles of death were flying so thickly, yet that was the duty of us officers, especially us of the field and staff. My duty kept me constantly moving up and down that whole line.
On my way back to the right of the line, where I had left Colonel Oakford, I met Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcox, who told me the terrible news that Colonel Oakford was killed. Of the details of his death, I had no time then to inquire. We were then in the very maelstrom of the battle. Men were falling every moment. The horrible noise of the battle was incessant and almost deafening. Except that my mind was so absorbed in my duties, I do not know how I could have endured the strain. Yet out of this pandemonium memory brings several remarkable incidents. They came and went with the rapidity of a quickly revolving kaleidoscope. You caught stupendous incidents on the instant, and in an instant they had passed.
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
A later passage in the description seems to explain the mid-day change in position of the regiment that was shown in the National Park Service’s hourly maps. It was in direct response to a threatened out-flanking maneuver from Rebel forces…
Another incident occurred during the time we were under fire. My attention was arrested by a heavily built general officer passing to the rear on foot. He came close by me and as he passed he shouted “You will have to get back. Don’t you see yonder line of rebels is flanking you?” I looked in the direction he pointed, and, sure enough, on our right and now well to our rear was an extended line of rebel infantry with their colors flying, moving forward almost with the precision of a parade. They had thrown forward a beautiful skirmish line and seemed to be practicality masters of the situation. My heart was in my mouth for a couple of moments, until suddenly the picture changed, and their beautiful line collapsed and went back as if the d…l was after them. They had run up against an obstruction in a line of the “boys in blue” and many of them never went back. This general officer who spoke to me, I learned, was Major-General Richardson, commanding the First Division, then badly wounded, and who died a few hours after.
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
By nightfall, the fighting had died down. The regiment spent several more days at the battlefield. Hitchcock notes that it wasn’t until the day after the fighting when they began receiving praise for their performance that any of them had any idea of the overall picture of what happened on September 17, how well they had done, or even learned that the battle had stated to take on the name “Antietam”.
In the days that followed, the regiment was dispatched to Harper’s ferry, about 10 miles southeast. It was a period of relative calm…
We marched through the quaint old town of Harper’s Ferry, whose principal industry had been the government arsenal for the manufacture of muskets and other army ordnance. These buildings were now a mass of ruins, and the remainder of the town presented the appearance of a plucked goose, as both armies had successively captured and occupied it. We went into camp on a high plateau back of the village known as Bolivar Heights. The scenic situation at Harper s Ferry is remarkably grand. The town is situated on the tongue or fork of land at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. From the point where the rivers join, the land rises rapidly until the summit of Bolivar Heights is reached, several hundred feet above the town, from which a view is had of one of the most lovely valleys to be found anywhere in the world–the Shenandoah Valley. Across the Potomac to the east and facing Harper s Ferry rises Maryland Heights, a bluff probably a thousand feet high, while across the Shenandoah to the right towers another precipitous bluff of about equal height called Loudon Heights. Both of these bluffs commanded Bolivar Heights and Harper s Ferry.
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
During its existence, the PA 132nd fought two more major battles, both in Virginia–the Battle of Fredericksburg, December 11-15, 1862, and the Battle of Chancellorsville, April 30 through May 6, 1863. While Antietam was generally seen as a draw between North and South, both Fredericksburg and Falmouth were both decisive victories for the South and, judging from Hitchcock’s descriptions, even more perilous to the men of 132nd. The following is from Hitchcock’s narration of Fredericksburg, where the PA 132nd found itself in the center of the town, surrounded on three sides by Rebel forces entrenched in the overlooking hills…
REACHING the place in the rear of that railroad embankment, where I had left the brigade, I found it had just gone forward in line of battle, and a staff officer directed me to bring the rest of the regiment forward under fire, which I did, fortunately getting them into their proper position. The line was lying prone upon the ground in that open field and trying to maintain a fire against the rebel infantry not more than one hundred and fifty yards in our front behind that stone wall. We were now exposed to the fire of their three lines of infantry, having no shelter whatever. It was like standing upon a raised platform to be shot down by those sheltered behind it. Had we been ordered to fix bayonets and charge those heights we could have understood the movement, though that would have been an impossible undertaking, defended as they were. But to be sent close up to those lines to maintain a firing-line without any intrenchments or other shelter, if that was its purpose, was simply to invite wholesale slaughter without the least compensation. It was to attempt the impossible, and invite certain destruction in the effort. On this interesting subject I have very decided convictions, which I will give later on.
Proceeding now with my narrative, we were evidently in a fearful slaughter-pen. Our men were being swept away as by a terrific whirlwind. The ground was soft and spongy from recent rains, and our faces and clothes were bespattered with mud from bullets and fragments of shells striking the ground about us, whilst men were every moment being hit by the storm of projectiles that filled the air. In the midst of that frightful carnage a man rushing by grasped my hand and spoke. I turned and looked into the face of a friend from a distant city. There was a glance of recognition and he was swept away. What his fate was I do not know.
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
Hitchcock’s “decided convictions” boil down to the view (supported several pages of evidence and logical reasoning) that the Union’s role in the Battle of Fredericksburg was a total fiasco, driven by grave errors that came from high in the chain of command.
The Battle of Fredericksburg is the site of an incident which was to become the core how the PA 132nd saw itself and its role in history. Recalling the monument to the 132nd which was built at Antietam, a close look reveals that the standard holding the flags of the regiment has been shot off, the missing section lying behind the feet of the soldier holding it.
Image of the monument honoring the PA 132nd Infantry Regiment which appears in the preface of the Hitchcock book.
The soldier in the monument is, in fact, Major Frederick Hitchcock himself. It was he who was holding the flags in the Battle of Fredericksburg, having picked them up from another soldier of the 132nd who had just been killed. Immediately after, a shell exploded nearby, knocking Hitchcock unconscious. He regained consciousness a few minutes later amongst a pile of dead soldiers and staggered/ran back to the cover of his comrades, barely escaping with his life.
The flags, however, could not be found in the days following the battle. They eventually turned up in the possession of another regiment, and it was discovered that false stories had been circulated about the performance of the PA 132nd at Fredericksburg–stories suggesting a less-than-valiant performance. The entire 132nd was enraged that such stories had made it into the record, and they immediately appealed to higher authorities. The final judgement of the authorities was to recognize that the stories were false, completely exonerating the regiment. Their cherished flags were returned to them.
This story became part of the legend of the PA 132nd, symbolizing the extreme pride they took in their efforts on the battlefield. When Hitchcock eventually wrote the story into his book, the legend grew stronger. This was the time near the turn of the century that Civil War veterans groups were most active in constructing monuments to their war efforts. The statue was dedicated about the same time as the book was formally published (1904), and the statue, book, and deeds of the regiment all became synonymous with each other.
In the months between the major battles that the 132nd fought, there was plenty of down-time. The regiment spent winter of 1862-1863 camped near Falmouth, Virginia. Hitchcock goes into great detail on daily life during these times, including this description of the troops’ efforts to entertain themselves by putting on a steeple chase…
The chief event of the day and the wind-up was a hurdle and ditch race, open to officers only. Hurdles and ditches alternated the course at a distance of two hundred yards, except at the finish, where a hurdle and ditch were together, the ditch behind the hurdle. Such a race was a hare-brained performance in the highest degree; but so was army life at its best, and this was not out of keeping with its surroundings. Excitement was what was wanted, and this was well calculated to produce it.
The hurdles were four and five feet high and did not prove serious obstacles to the jumpers, but the ditches, four and five feet wide and filled with water, proved a bete noir to most of the racers. Some twenty-five, all young staff-officers, started, but few got beyond the first ditch. Many horses that took the hurdle all right positively refused the ditch. Several officers were dumped at the first hurdle, and two were thrown squarely over their horses heads into the first ditch, and were nice looking specimens as they crawled out of that bath of muddy water. They were unhurt, however, and remounted and tried it again, with better success.
The crowning incident of the day occurred at the finish of this race at the combination hurdle and ditch. Out of the number who started, only three had compassed safely all the hurdles and ditches and come to the final leap. The horses were about a length apart each. The first took the hurdle in good shape, but failed to reach the further bank of the ditch and fell over sideways into it, carrying down his rider. Whilst they were struggling to get out, the second man practically repeated the performance and fell on the first pair, and the rear man, now unable to check his horse, spurred him over, only to fall on the others. It was a fearful sight for a moment, and it seemed certain that the officers were killed or suffocated in that water, now thick with mud. But a hundred hands were instantly to the rescue, and in less time than it takes to tell it all were gotten out and, strange to say, the horses were unhurt and only one officer seriously injured, a broken leg only to the bad for the escapade. But neither officers nor horses were particularly handsome as they emerged from that ditch. The incident can be set down as a terrific finale to this first and last army celebration of St. Patricks day.
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
In early May, the calm came to an abrupt end as forces emerged from the winter and engaged at Battle of Chancellorsville, a week of slogging through dense forests, often with no idea of who was where on either side. The 132nd went through several situations where they barely escaped enemy forces moving on parallel paths to their own.
And then, suddenly, it was time to go home. The 132nd’s tour of duty had already been extended by a month, due to the critical situation surrounding the Chancellorsville battles, with little complaint. The regiment received orders to return to Washington and soon boarded trains back to Harrisburg.
Amid the joyous homecomings, amazingly, there was strong sentiment to keep the unit going, that their work was not yet finished. Hitchcock narrates the following tale…
I should mention a minor incident that occurred during our stay in Harrisburg preparing for muster out. A large number of our men had asked me to see if I could not get authority to re-enlist a battalion from the regiment. I was assured that three-fourths of the men would go back with me, provided they could have a two weeks furlough. I laid the matter before Governor Curtin. He said the government should take them by all means; that here was a splendid body of seasoned men that would be worth more than double their number of new recruits; but he was without authority to take them, and suggested that I go over to Washington and lay the matter before the Secretary of War. He gave me a letter to the latter and I hurried off. I had no doubt of my ability to raise an entire regiment from the great number of nine-months men now being discharged. I repaired to the War Department, and here my troubles began. Had the lines of sentries that guarded the approach to the armies in the field been half as efficient as the cordon of flunkies that barred the way to the War Office, the former would have been beyond the reach of any enemy. At the entrance my pedigree was taken, with my credentials and a statement of my business. I was finally permitted to sit down in a waiting-room with a waiting crowd. Occasionally a senator or a congressman would break the monotony by pushing himself in whilst we cultivated our patience by waiting. Lunch time came and went. I waited. Several times I ventured some remarks to the attendant as to when I might expect my turn to come, but he looked at me with a sort of far-off look, as though I could not have realized to whom I was speaking. Finally, driven to desperation, after waiting more than four hours, I tried a little bluster and insisted that I would go in and see somebody. Then I was assured that the only official about the office was a Colonel , acting assistant adjutant-general. I might see him.
“Yes,” I said, “let me see him, anybody!”
I was ushered into the great officials presence. He was a lieutenant-colonel, just one step above my own rank. He was dressed in a faultless new uniform. His hair was almost as red as a fresh red rose and parted in the middle, and his pose and dignity were quite worthy of the national snob hatchery at West Point, of which he was a recent product.
“Young man,” said he, with a supercilious air, “what might your business be?”
I stated that I had brought a letter from His Excellency, Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, to the Secretary of War, whom I desired to see on important business.
“Where is your letter, sir?”
“I gave it up to the attendant four hours ago, who, I supposed, took it to the Secretary.”
“There is no letter here, sir! What is your business? You cannot see the Secretary of War.”
I then briefly stated my errand. His reply was, “Young man, if you really desire to serve your country, go home and enlist.”
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
Which is exactly what Aaron Sechler and presumably a great number of his fellow soldiers of the PA 132nd did. Such was their commitment to each other and to the war effort. Aaron’s next tour of duty was with the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry and went from February 1864 to August 1865, about twice the length of his first tour. It took him deep into the South as the war ground to its completion. We probably won’t find a book that covers this period of Aaron Sechler’s life as well as Hitchcock’s book describes the prior period.
I believe this situation not to be terribly different from what we often see today, with soldiers who sign up for repeated tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, because of feelings that the job is not finished and because there is something about the comradeship of the battlefield that does not compare to anything in the daily world.
To close this chapter, I turn once more to Colonel Hitchcock, whose final reflections on the Pennsylvania 132nd Infantry Regiment far surpass anything I could come up with…
A word now of the personnel of the One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment and I am done. Dr. Bates, in his history of the Pennsylvania troops, remarks that this regiment was composed of a remarkable body of men. This judgment must have been based upon his knowledge of their work. Every known trade was represented in its ranks. Danville gave us a company of iron workers and merchants, Catawissa and Bloomsburg, mechanics, tradesmen, and farmers. From Mauch Chunk we had two companies, which included many miners. From Wyoming and Bradford we had three companies of sturdy, intelligent young farmers intermingled with some mechanics and tradesmen. Scranton, small as she was then, gave us two companies, which was scarcely a moiety of the number she sent into the service. I well remember how our flourishing Young Men s Christian Association was practically suspended because its members had gone to the war, and old Nay Aug Hose Company, the pride of the town, in which many of us had learned the little we knew of drill, was practically defunct for want of a membership which had “gone to the war.” Of these two Scranton companies, Company K had as its basis the old Scranton City Guard, a militia organization which, if not large, was thoroughly well drilled and made up of most excellent material. Captain Richard Stillwell, who commanded this company, had organized the City Guard and been its captain from the beginning. The other Scranton company was perhaps more distinctively peculiar in itspersonnel than either of the other companies. It was composed almost exclusively of Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad shop and coal men, and was known as the Railroad Guards. In its ranks were locomotive engineers, firemen, brakemen, trainmen, machinists, telegraph operators, despatchers, railroad-shop men, a few miners, foremen, coal-breaker men, etc. Their captain, James Archbald, Jr., was assistant to his father as chief engineer of the road, and he used to say that with his company he could survey, lay out, build and operate a railroad. The first sergeant of that company, George Conklin, brother of D. H. Conklin, chief despatcher (sic) of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and his assistant, had been one of the first to learn the art of reading telegraph messages by ear, an accomplishment then quite uncommon. His memory had therefore been so developed that after a few times calling his company roll he dispensed with the book and called it alphabetically from memory. Keeping a hundred names in his mind in proper order we thought quite a feat. Forty years later, at one of our reunions, Mr. Conklin, now superintendent of a railroad, was present. I asked him if he remembered calling his company roll from memory.
“Yes,” said he, “and I can do it now, and recall every face and voice,” and he began and rattled off the names of his roll. He said sometimes in the old days the boys would try to fool him by getting a comrade to answer for them, but they could never do it, he would detect the different voice instantly.
War From The Inside, The Story of the 132nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion 1862-1863 by Colonel Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1904.
Among the prominent historical figures found in our family tree is Nathan Sanford (1777-1838), a lawyer and politician who served twice as a United States Senator from New York, and once ran for Vice President as Henry Clay’s running mate.
Nathan Sanford was of the same generation as our fourth great grandfather Captain Thomas Sandford (1744-1811), although considerably younger. Both were born in Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York. By the time Nathan was born, Captain Thomas had already established his new life in Portland Maine.
Nathan was educated at Yale University and later at the Litchfield Law School in Connecticut. Somewhere along the line, Nathan dropped the first “d” from the name Sandford, using the Sanford spelling throughout his career. Perhaps he picked this up through association with some of his Connecticut cousins from the Thomas and Andrew Sanford family branches, which had already assumed the shortened spelling. Or perhaps as someone with political ambitions he simply decided he did not want to spend his entire life correcting others on the spelling of his last name.
Our exact relationship to Nathan Sanford depends on the unknown answer to the lacuna question, i.e. the identity of our 4th great grandfather Captain Thomas Sandford’s father on Long Island, as we have previously discussed in detail. Nathan and Captain Thomas are likely first or second cousins. Both were great grandsons of Ezekiel Sandford, the bridge builder, and may have had the same paternal grandparents. (Josephine Sandford Ware’s genealogy identifies Nathan and Captain Thomas as half brothers, but this relationship has been disproven.) We are likely Nathan’s first or second cousins (six times removed).
Our exact relationship to Nathan Sanford depends on the unanswered question of the identity of Captain Thomas Sandford’s father in Bridgehampton (the most likely candidates being those shown here). All of the likely answers would make Thomas and Nathan half first or second cousins.
Highlights of Nathan Sanford’s political career include the following:
In 1803 he was appointed as the State’s Attorney of New York by President Thomas Jefferson. He remained in this post through 1815.
Between 1808 and 1811 he served in the New York State Assembly.
He served as United States Senator from 1815 to 1821, in the Democratic-Republican political party. He was defeated for reelection by Martin Van Buren.
He was a delegate to New York’s state constitutional convention of 1821, which produced the state’s second constitution.
He served as Chancellor of New York from 1823 to 1826.
He ran unsuccessfully for United States Vice President in 1824 with Henry Clay (who was defeated by John Quincy Adams).
He served again as United States Senator from New York between 1826 and 1831.
The following diagram shows the context of Nathan’s two terms in the United States Senate. In his two terms he occupied both New York seats (the seat occupied today by Kirsten Gillibrand and the one now occupied by Chuck Schumer).
Nathan Sanford, at different times, occupied both of New York’s seats in the United States Senate (chart adapted from Wikipedia), separated by a five year gap.
At different times Senator Nathan Sanford was:
Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman of the Finance Committee, Chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
Chairman of the Naval Services Committee (which maps to today’s Armed Services Committee)
Posts occupied by Nathan Sanford (chart adapted from Wikipedia)
In her 2017 biography Reluctant Reformer, Nathan Sanford in the Era of the Early Republic, author Ann Sandford, our distant cousin from Bridgehampton, New York, examines the life of Nathan Sanford in great detail. Through painstaking and disciplined academic research, Ann Sandford paints a portrait of our mutual cousin as a highly ambitious man who, while leading a life of privilege and wealth, did not shy away from hard work and careful thought, often leading him to take valorous positions on important issues of the day. His positions sometimes conflicted with his direct personal interests, giving rise to Ann’s Reluctant Reformer appellation. During his legal and political careers, Nathan addressed key issues including anti-slavery, central banking reform, and voting equality. He worked with, and against, a long list of the era’s better known political figures in New York and the nation.
A local review of Ann Sandford’s 2017 biography of distant cousin Nathan Sanford
Ann Sandford, a historian with a Ph.D. from New York University has written extensively on the history of Europe and Long Island. She is also the author of Grandfather Lived Here: The Transformation of Bridgehampton, New York, 1870–1970, which traces homes and histories of long-established families of eastern Long Island, including the Sandfords, to modern times.
Upon leaving the Senate in 1831, Nathan returned to his home in Flushing, Queens, New York, where he continued to practice law. He built a large home, Sanford Hall, there in 1836. He died two years later and the house was later converted to a high-end mental institution. Ann recounted to me her search of the area for remnants of the home–I believe she concluded that it no longer stands.
But a look at today’s map shows the location of Sanford Avenue, two blocks south of the Flushing Main Street transit stations, less than a mile from Citi Field (NY Mets), Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the World’s Fair site.
Sanford Avenue, just south of the Flushing Main Street subway stations in Queens not far from the Mets’ Citi Field Stadium, is named after our distant cousin Senator Nathan Sanford
Died Tuesday, May 20, 1924 (97 years ago) in Ontario, California. Henry Edson Swan, great grandfather
Born Sunday, May 20, 1792 (229 years ago) in Cushing, Maine. Lydia Young, 3rd great grandmother, mother of Dorothy Young Burton
Died Thursday, May 21, 1914 (107 years ago) in Brooklyn, New York. John Nelson Wright, 2nd great grandfather, father of Laura Wright
Born Friday, May 21, 1784 (237 years ago) in Paisley, Scotland. Margaret Renfrew, 3rd great grandmother, mother of Elizabeth Walker Smith
Married Friday, May 22, 1807 (214 years ago) in Kilbarchan, Scotland. George Smith and Margaret Renfrew, 3rd great grandparents, parents of Elizabeth Walker Smith
Having tracked the Sandford and Tuttle family branches back to the origins of colonial Connecticut in the 1630s, a compelling question arises: did the two families know each other?
At first glance, the geography seems to work against us. Although today’s Interstate 91 links New Haven and Hartford directly, no such direct path existed in the water routes of the 17th century. New Haven is about 30 miles west of the mouth of the Connecticut River on the Long Island Sound, Hartford being more than 35 miles upriver. Supply ships traveling from Massachusetts likely went to one or the other, but not both. On a daily basis, the two colonies were far enough apart that there would be little or no interaction between them.
Travel between New Haven and Hartford in the 17th century would have been arduous and indirect.
But an entry found in Carlton E. Sanford’s Thomas Sanford, The Emigrant to New England, Ancestry Life and Descendants reveals a family connection.
From Carlton E. Sanford’s Thomas Sanford, The Emigrant to New England, Ancestry Life and Descendants
An Elizabeth Sanford was married to a Joseph Tuttle in 1691, in Milford, by the Governor of Connecticut, Robert Treat.
Carlton Sanford’s 1911 genealogy shows that Elizabeth was a granddaughter of the original Thomas Sandford who came to America with his brothers and settled in Milford.
Sequence of entries in the Carlton Sanford genealogy showing the connection between Elizabeth Sanford and the original Sandford/Sanfords in America.
George Frederick Tuttle’s 1883 genealogy The Descendants of William and Elizabeth Tuttle shows that the Joseph Tuttle who married Elizabeth Sanford was a grandson of William Tuttle, founder of New Haven.
Sequence of entries in the George F. Tuttle genealogy showing the connection between Joseph Tuttle and New Haven founder William Tuttle.
The following diagram summarizes the relationships detailed above.
230 years after Elizabeth Sanford married Joseph Tuttle in Milford, Elizabeth’s distant second cousin Joe married Joseph Tuttle’s distant niece Margaret Swan in Ontario, California.
It is important to note that there is nothing unusual or improper about the situation described here. There were no marriages of cousins, even distant cousins, to each other.
When Thomas Sanford (and, later, bother Andrew Sanford) left his brother Richard Sandford in Hartford to settle in Milford, he bridged the geographical gap between the Sanford and Tuttle families.
In our genealogical studies, we have come across a number of examples of something that was very common in the colonial days. In Connecticut, Long Island, Maine or any other new colonial region there were large extended families (having a dozen children was the norm) but not that many different families (perhaps numbering in the hundreds). With lots of children coming of age and looking to get married, repeated marriages between prominent families were common, in fact essential. Our Long Island family tree, as another example) has many repeated family names of spouses: Howell, Pierson, Topping, and so on.
There are probably many other intersections between the Sandford and Tuttle families. Entries for the name “Tuttle” in the names index of Carlton Sanford’s genealogy run for more than a page.
Numerous index entries for the name “Tuttle” appearing in Carlton Sanford’s 1911 genealogy.
Conversely, looking at the Tuttle genealogy (which has no index but can be searched on-line) the name Sanford appears 30 times, the name Sandford 3 times.
More generally, any time two families are fortunate enough to be able to trace their roots back to the origins of the same American colony, the likelihood that the families knew each other is very high, simply because there were not very many families present in the colony at that time.
As another case in point, Janelle’s Wright ancestors (with no known connection to our Wright ancestors from Prince Edward Island and New York) also trace back to the origins of Hartford. In 1640 there were perhaps 150 family homesteads in Hartford. It is inconceivable that our Sandfords and Janelle’s Wrights would not at least been aware of each other’s presence.
We have discussed that the Sandford brothers, Thomas, Robert, and Andrew came to America in the mid 1630s with their uncle Andrew Warner. Thomas settled in Milford, Connecticut to form the family branch detailed in Carlton E. Sanford’s Thomas Sanford, The Emigrant to New England, Ancestry Life and Descendants. Robert (our direct ancestor) settled in Hartford as a first- or second-tier city founder and had among his eight children Ezekiel (the Long Island bridge builder, our direct ancestor) and Zachariah (the owner of the Meeting House where the historic Charter Oak incident took place).
What became of the third brother, Andrew Sanford? He too would be recorded in Hartford history, but in a much more sinister way. Numerous sources are in fundamental agreement on the shocking details of Andrew’s life. (Note: Like Thomas, unlike Robert, most sources spell Andrew’s last name without the first “d”. )
Carlton Sanford’s 1911 genealogy sets the stage…
1. Andrew SANFORD (Ezechiell, Thomas, Richard) bapt. Nov. 1, 1617, Stanstad Mountfitchet, Exxex Co., Eng. (See “Midieval Origins of the Sandford” pg. 13.), d 1684, Milford, Ct.; m (1) Mary _____, d. 1662; m (2) Sarah, dau. of Wm. Gibbard of New Haven, Ct. Her mother was a daughter of Edmund Tapp of Milford, and sister to the wife of Gov Robert Treat.
The first record of him is in Hartford in 1651. His residence was on what is now lot 74 on Burr St. On May 21, 1657, he was made Freeman and was Chimney Viewer in June, 1662. It is very likely that he was in Hartford and married as early as 1638 and the first two children born soon thereafter. The records state that Mary, his second chid, was of marriageable age in 1667.
He and wife certainly got into serious trouble in Hartford…
Thomas Sanford, the Emigrant to New England… by Carlton Sanford, 1911. (The sequence “Ezechiell, Thomas, Richard” refers to Andrew’s and his brothers’ earlier ancestry in England.)
When Thomas Hooker, the leader of the founders of Hartford, died in 1647, he left a leadership vacuum that led to serious problems within the colony…
Within the Connecticut Colony an internal rift in the church at Hartford caused increasing difficulty. The Rev. Samuel Stone had led the church since the death of the revered leader, Thomas Hooker, in 1647. Rev. Stone was more authoritarian than Hooker had been and there was friction between Stone and the church elders. This led to an open split in the congregation in 1658 which could not be healed and for the next two years many prominent families left Hartford, moved north up the Connecticut River and settled at Hadley, Massachusetts. Thus, Connecticut entered the sixth decade of the seventeenth century facing an uncertain and insecure future and with the settlement at Hartford torn with bitter dissension and abandoned by many of its leading citizens.
Witchcraft Trials of Connecticut, R.G. Tomlinson, 1978
Time-honored traditions of scapegoating, honed over the centuries in mother England, took root in Hartford between 1647 and 1662. Several cycles of witchcraft accusations, trials, and executions took place between 45 and 30 years before the infamous events in Salem, Massachusetts.
From Witchcraft Trials of Connecticut by R.G. Tomlinson, 1978
Accounts of the events and proceedings in 1662 and 1663 give many details, but, as is to be expected in witch trials, follow no discernible logical path. Predictably, accusations often originated against women who were viewed as “difficult” in the community, and spread to neighbors and family members. The path leading to the accusation of Mary and Andrew Sanford is never much more clearly explained than in the following.
The origins of the Hartford outbreak are obscure, but the trouble apparently began in the spring of 1662, with the possession and subsequent death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Kelly, who in her fits had cried out on her neighbor, Goodwife Ayres. Convinced that their child had died from bewitchment, her parents demanded an investigation. Ayres was probably the first person named, but two other people, Mary and Andrew Sanford, were brought up for examination not long after. Ayres’s husband, who would eventually come under suspicion himself, accused Rebecca Greensmith, who in turn supported accusations against her own husband and implicated several other Hartford residents. And so it went. The community was caught in the grip of a witchcraft fear that would eventually result in accusations against at least thirteen people, and that would take the lives of four of them.
The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol F. Karlsen, 1998
Historical accounts are consistent in concluding that Mary was executed by hanging. Andrew’s charges were eventually grudgingly dropped.
John Demos’ 2004 book…
… shows that Mary was convicted and presumed executed. Andrew was eventually acquitted, moved from Hartford to Milford, and remarried.
Andrew subsequently moved to Milford to join his long-established brother Thomas, and remarried.
It is difficult to put these events into perspective with the other things going on in 1662 (or in any other frame of reference)…
Andrew was 45, Mary 39.
Andrew’s brother, Robert, was 47 and would continue to be a prominent citizen of Hartford until his death 14 years later.
Uncle Andrew Warner was part of the group that fled Hartford in the late 1650s to go to Hadley, Massachusetts, so was no longer in the picture.
Robert’s notable sons, Zachariah and Ezekiel, were 18 and 15. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that the incident involving Ezekiel’s aunt and uncle was part of what drove him to leave Hartford and establish his life on Long Island when he came of age (in which case we owe most of our family heritage, indeed our existence, to the 1662 Hartford Witch Panic).
The Charter Oak incident at Zachariah’s Meeting House Inn took place in 1687, 25 years after the Witch Panic.
Map from Witchcraft Trials of Connecticut, R.G. Tomlinson, 1978
The outlines of Hartford’s 1662 roads are still visible in today’s map. Events of the Witch Panic took place within blocks of the Charter Oak site and within a half mile of the Meeting House site.
Accounts vary, but Andrew had a dozen or so children (including a few that died young), perhaps 5 with Mary (just adding to the incomprehensibility of the Hartford events), and another 7 in Milford with his second wife Sarah.
Parts of Andrew’s family branch eventually thrived. Carlton Sanford’s 1911 genealogy, even though primarily devoted to Thomas Sanford, contains a partial account of Andrew’s family in a later chapter, showing multiple branches including many Sanford branches surviving through 1911.
Died Thursday, April 1, 1847 (174 years ago) in Topsham, Maine. Dorothy Young Burton, 2nd great grandmother, mother of Edward Thomas Sandford
Born Monday, April 4, 1836 (185 years ago) in Sharon, Ohio. James Burroughs Swan, 2nd great great grandfather, father of Henry Edson Swan
Born Saturday, April 5, 1800 (221 years ago) in Pennsylvania. Jacob Sechler, 3rd great grandfather, father of Aaron Sechler
Born Monday, April 5, 1858 (163 years ago) in Craftsbury, Vermont. Annie Calderwood, great grandmother
Born Tuesday, April 9, 1782 (239 years ago) in Paisley, Scotland. George Smith, 3rd great grandfather, father of Elizabeth Walker Smith who was the mother of Annie Calderwood
Died Sunday, April 14, 1907 (114 years ago) in Manhattan, New York. George Mowrer Sechler, great grandfather
Born Thursday, April 17, 1817 (204 years ago) in Topsham, Maine. Dorothy Young Burton, 2nd great grandmother, mother of Edward Thomas Sandford
Born Friday, April 22, 1796 (225 years ago) in Warren, Maine. Maria Halsey Head, 3rd great grandmother, mother of James Head Sandford
Died Saturday, April 23, 1887 (134 years ago) in Danville, Pennsylvania. Aaron Sechler, 2nd great grandfather, father of George Sechler
Three brothers Robert, Thomas, and Andrew Sandford, along with their uncle Andrew Warner, arrived at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Mayflower crossing had taken place nearly two decades earlier (1620) and new colonies were now forming across New England. Migrations and supply and trading missions to America had become almost routine, and settlers’ chances of surviving winters in the new world had improved considerably.
In 1638, Thomas was 30, Robert 23 and Andrew 21. Their journey seems mainly to have been motivated by the desire to seek new opportunities in a new land.
The Sandfords came from the small town of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, England, just north of London and south of Cambridge.
The family soon settled in emerging colonies in what would later become Connecticut. Robert (and initially Andrew) settled in the Hartford colony with uncle Andrew Warner. Thomas settled a little further south in Milford.
Robert and Thomas both started Sandford family branches which have thrived over the centuries. Our branch of the Sandford family began with Robert.
The first ‘d’ in the name Sandford has come and gone in various family branches at different times. Robert’s branch mostly kept the ‘d’ while Thomas’ branch mostly dropped it, becoming known as Sanfords (saving themselves lifetimes of correcting the spelling of others).
Hartford was first settled in 1635. It was named in 1637 in honor of Samuel Stone’s hometown of Hertford, England in Hertfordshire. Stone, a graduate of Cambridge University, was a student and follower of Thomas Hooker, the colony’s founder and leader.
Evidently the Sandford family’s decision to migrate to the Hartford colony was driven by direct knowledge of its neighbors’ founding journeys a year or two earlier, the Sandford home town of Much Hadham being located a few miles from Hertford. The Sandfords were not among the original founders of Hartford, but they were not far behind.
Robert, Thomas and Andrew Sandford came to America in the mid-late 1630s along with their uncle Andrew Warner. They came from Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. The Hartford colony in the future state of Connecticut was named after Hertford England a couple years before the Sandford family arrived there.
There are several well-worn publications describing the genealogies of various branches of the Sandford family, all written by distant cousins.
Robert Sandford and his wife Ann Adams Sandford and some of their Descendants 1615-1930, by Josephine Sandford Ware, published 1930
The Sandford/Sanford Families of Long Island, Their Ancestors and Descendants, by Grover Merle Sanford, published 1975
Thomas Sanford, The Emigrant to New England, Ancestry, Life and Descendants, by Carleton E. Sanford, published 1911
The first of these sources has been circulating around our family for generations. Josephine Sandford Ware lived in Los Angeles when she wrote it, and I would not be surprised if our grandparents knew her, or at least knew of her (even though our common ancestry goes all the way back to Long Island). Although the best overall source for our branch of the family tree, Ware’s book contains a couple of significant errors which are discussed in otherarticles.
All three of these publications discuss the early origins of the Sandford family. All are in general agreement about our Much Hadham roots and the generations of Sandfords going back two or three generations prior to Robert, Thomas, and Andrew Sandford.
Prior to the 16th century, the Sandford history is much more speculative. Links to Thomas de Sandford of the 11th century and Richard de Sandford of the 12th century, the Sandford Manor in Shropshire, references in the Domesday 12th century land survey, a family coat of arms and motto have been examined in detail. Thomas Sanford’s 1911 genealogy has the most thoughtful and detailed analysis of these that I have found, and he concludes that these stories of earlier centuries cannot be conclusively linked to the Sandfords of Much Hadham. (Thomas Sanford’s 1911 book deals mainly with the Milford branch of the family, so, excepting the chapters on the Sandford origins, is generally of less use to us.)
Page from Josephine Sandford Ware’s 1930 genealogy describing early family origins.
Page from Grover Merle Sanford’s 1975 genealogy describing early family origins.
The early Sandford origins from the analysis in Thomas Sanford’s 1911 genealogy. Richard and Elizabeth Sanford of the late 16th century are the earliest ancestors he can definitively identify. Brothers Thomas, Robert, and Andrew, the first Sandfords to America, are listed in the bottom row. Their uncle Andrew Warner, who accompanied them to America, was the brother of Rose Warner, the wife of Ezechiell (center left).Early photo of Much Hadham from Thomas Sanford’s 1911 genealogy.
In Hartford, Robert married his wife Ann (incorrectly identified as Ann Adams in the Ware genealogy) in 1643. They had eight known children: Zachariah (1644-1714), Elizabeth (1645/46-1695), Ezekiel (our ancestor, 1647/48-1716), Mary (1650/51-1727), Robert (1656-1728), Sarah (1661-?), Hannah (1663-?), and Abigail. Robert died in 1676 at about age 60, Ann six years later.
Re-created land maps from the early Hartford colony show uncle Andrew Warner’s plot of land (denoted #104) just down the road from founder Jeremy Adams (#115). Robert Sandford was still in his mid twenties, probably not yet qualifying for his own land. The meeting house in the town center would later be owned by Robert’s son Zachariah. The ‘Great River’ is today the Connecticut River. The ‘Little River’ is today known as the Park River, but has largely disappeared under Hartford’s urban landscape. The future “Charter Oak” would be located near the bottom center of this diagram.
Although their provenance cannot be proven, the Sandford coat of arms and motto have been circulated around the family for years, and they are fun to look at.
A commercially-generated genealogical summary that has circulated in the family for years, showing the original family coat of arms and motto.
The motto Nec Temere Nec Timide (neither rashly nor timidly) always seemed particularly fitting in relation to other parts of our family history, although, similar to interpreting horoscopes, this is probably mostly a case of seeing what you want to see.
As kids in the mid-late 1960s, during visits to Ontario, California, our grandmother Margaret would sometimes send us to visit Cousin Mary. A short walk down the alley, left on Flora Street and down a couple of houses, these visits were win-win-win propositions–the elderly Cousin Mary got company for 45 minutes or so, grandma got us out of her hair for a while, and we got our pick from Mary’s candy jar. Although we were semi-aware of her last name Davis, throughout these visits we never really understood who Cousin Mary was.
The key to answering this is provided in a 1936 obituary.
San Bernardino County Sun, January 17, 1936
From here, we have enough information to solve a logic puzzle and construct the family tree diagram which follows the rules of male-last-name-inheritance and places Edward Davis and Mattie (Mabel) Tuttle Swan as cousins.
Two other obituaries give us the information needed to fill in more of the missing names in the family tree.
San Bernardino County Sun, March 9, 1929
Clipping found in the Ontario Model Colony History Room, Ontario, California
The 1900 U.S. Census shows young Edward T. Davis (our cousin, we being 3x removed) living with his sister Franc and parents Christiana (our 2nd great-grandaunt) and Edward J. Davis in Blue Earth County, Minnesota. Edward Jefferson Davis (not a blood relative) was Civil War veteran (from the North, his name notwithstanding) and physician (who also comes with the bizarre poisoning story told in the obituary).
Edward J. Davis died on May 7, 1924 at his home just around the corner from the Swan’s home at 501 North Vine Ave. This death surely would have affected Henry Swan and may have contributed to his deteriorating mental state. Henry Swan took his own life less than two weeks later.
Benjamin Webber was a prominent orange grower and held various leadership roles in the Ontario Citrus Fruit Association. Newspaper accounts always identify him as B. F. Webber.
I have not been able to identify Mabel and Edward T’s common grandparents (our third great grandparents), although we know they were Thompsons. A possible answer comes from an 1860 census record from Wilmington, Illinois, giving the name Christiana (maiden name unknown) as the mother of Christiana and Jane Thompson. The ages of the children don’t quite line up, nor is there any mention of a father, so there remains some doubt as to whether this is the correct record.
Cousin Mary is Mary Noreen (not a blood relative). She married Edward Thompson Davis in 1913–they were married in Ontario but must have had some connection back in their common homeland of Minnesota. Mary was widowed in 1936 at age 60. She remained in the Flora Street house (with Grandma keeping an eye on her) for the remainder of her life, through 1969.
The mysterious “Olof” who lived with Mary was Olof Noreen, her younger brother, who died in 1968.
One mystery not explained by any of this is a photo of a Lewis Davis who was attending Chaffey Junior College in 1920. The photo was found in the family files of the Ontario Model Colony History Room, so there must be some family connection. But since Edward T. and Mary had no children, and Edward J. and Christiana had only one son, Edward T, there is no place on the tree to explain Lewis. Perhaps Edward J. Davis had another brother who also came to Ontario, with Lewis falling under this other branch.
Unexplained photo of Lewis Davis, found in the family files of the Ontario Model Colony History Room
This may have been about the happiest time in Elizabeth’s life, who spent much of her youth fending off improper advances from her father, spending some of her teenage years in the safety of the home of her aunt Addie Gordon, and who died three years after her marriage of Diphtheria or Rheumatic Fever. Our mother has vague, very early memories of Elizabeth lying ill in the Freeport home.
We still have no photograph of Elizabeth’s mother, our great grandmother Bessie Gordon Hynes. We can try (but it is not easy) to imagine her as a combination of her sister Addie and her daughter Elizabeth (minus any contribution of her husband James to her daughter’s appearance)….
We have previously discussed the lives of our 4th great grandparents Captain Thomas Sandford (1744-1811) and Jerusha Gelston Sandford (1748-1837), both born on Long Island and moved to Portland, Maine before the Revolution. Recall that Jerusha was first married to Arthur Howell, of whom Thomas Sandford was a business associate, and that she married Sandford after Howell’s early death. 
Having established that our second great grandfather Aaron Sechler (father of New York police officer 
Among the prominent historical figures found in our family tree is Nathan Sanford (1777-1838), a lawyer and politician who served twice as a United States Senator from New York, and once ran for Vice President as Henry Clay’s running mate.
As kids in the mid-late 1960s, during visits to Ontario, California, our grandmother Margaret would sometimes send us to visit Cousin Mary. A short walk down the alley, left on Flora Street and down a couple of houses, these visits were win-win-win propositions–the elderly Cousin Mary got company for 45 minutes or so, grandma got us out of her hair for a while, and we got our pick from Mary’s candy jar. Although we were semi-aware of her last name Davis, throughout these visits we never really understood who Cousin Mary was.
Bridging the Silences 