Sears Timeline

   I haven't been very active on this blog for awhile, except for a recent post about a brick wall in my Hitchcock/Sears line. I have had a website:  www.relativesintheattic.com for over 10 years, but it is time to close it down. My domain name will expire in early October, so please visit it before it goes away.

   The demise of the website is the reason I am going to be more active on this blog. So, to start with, please note my published articles from over the years in various publications. It should be easy enough to access most of them, but if you want to see something and can't get to it, let me know. I know some of them are linked and I will try and get the rest of them linked as well.

 

Please read my articles:

Ypsilanti Gleanings (Winter 2010, Winter 2011 and Fall  2020)
 on the Halstead, McDougall, Muir and Hazelton families can be found at:
http://www.ypsilantihistoricalsociety.org/publications/gleanings.html

Desert Tracker  (West Valley Genealogical Society, Sun City, AZ)
"Early Settlers of Augusta and Superior Townships"  Fall 2010, Vol. 31, No. 2
"The Second Wife" Fall 2011, Vol. 32, No. 2
"Who was Mickey" Fall 2012, Vol. 33, No. 2
"The Court Family" Fall 2013, Vol. 34, No. 2
"One-Room Schoolhouse" Spring 2016, Vol. 37, No. 1
"Hitchcock Brick Wall Ancestor" Spring 2020, Vol. 41, No. 1

Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly Vol. 46, No. 4, Winter 2014
"Water: Both Life and Death to the Beckington Family"

The Connecticut Nutmegger, by the Connecticut Society of Genealogists, Inc.
"John Chapman (1751-1814) of Sharon, Connecticut and New Marlborough, Massachusetts: Confusion and Errors Surrounding His Family" Vol. 55, No. 2, Spring 2023

 SAMUEL HITCHCOCK-SARAH SEARS BRICK WALL

   Samuel Hitchcock - b. 28 Feb 1731 (documented) in New Milford, Litchfield, CT, d. 19 Feb 1801 in Sheffield, Berkshire, MA. He leaves no will/no grave/no evidence of actual death date, except in my great-grandmother’s notes. He is on the 1790/1800 censuses for Sheffield, with the appropriate family members. When my great-grandmother was researching this (early 1900s), the Pittsfield Town Clerk, Berkshire Co., MA, said there was a letter in their files of Elizabeth (Samuel’s widow) responding as to why she didn’t probate his estate. Her answer - nothing to probate. When I called several years ago, they could find no such letter. He did have land that she later sold.
   Marriage #1 - Abt. 1766 in Middletown, Middlesex, CT, to Sarah Sears (no proof for any of this).  Sarah was b. abt. 1746 (some say to Joshua and Rebecca (Mayo) Sears, in Yarmouth, Barnstable, MA) and d. aft. 1771, prob in New Marlborough (again, no proof). She (and brother Thomas) are listed in the Samuel P. May book Sears Genealogy, with the Mayo/Sears couple – but she and Thomas are not in the birth records with the other children. In May’s book it states she is “married to a _____ Hitchcock.” She has no marriage/death/burial records nor records for births of children (prob in New Marlborough):
   Ebenezer Hitchcock (b. 23 Nov 1767)
   Reuben Hitchcock (b. 1769)
   Jerusha Hitchcock (b. 27 Mar 1771)**
New Marlborough has great b,m,d records covering this time period, but THIS Hitchcock family is not mentioned.

   Marriage #2 – abt. 1773 in New Marlborough, to Elizabeth "Betsey" Sears (b. 19 Jun 1738, Yarmouth, Barnstable, MA (sister of Sarah) and d. abt 1809, (prob) in Herkimer, NY. Child:  Silas Hitchcock,(prob) b. 13 Aug 1779 in New Marlborough.

   Betsey Sears, is listed in the May book with the same family and it reads: “m. Samuel Hitchcock.”  Mr. May leaves no sources, but his book seems credible and quoted in the Mayflower Descendants book for William Brewster.

   There is a division of land in 1757 for Joshua after his death on 27 Sep 1753, (no will) and Thomas and Sarah are not mentioned. Their oldest daughter, Rebeckah, is married to a Thomas Sears (which of the many Thomas Sears is he?) 
   Samuel was a Revolutionary War Soldier from MA, served in 1777 from Sheffield.

   I have spent YEARS (off/on) researching these people, have a 33-pg Research Log (which includes gen. info), have looked at more than 150 films (FHC), written Town Clerks/Berkshire area entities/NY Historians – you get the idea. HELP!
   Samuel P. May, 1890: The Descendants of Richard Sares (Sears) of Yarmouth, Mass (1638-1888).

   Mrs. Edward Hitchcock, Sr., of Amherst, Mass, 1894: The Genealogy of the Hitchcock Family (lists Samuel’s children (Silas out of order) but no wife/mother).

 SOMEONE TRIED TO STEAL OUR HESTER HALSTEAD!

OUR great-great-grandmother, Hester (Jane?) Halsted/Halstead, was born in Olcott Beach, Niagara County, New York, on 4 February 1824. She was the daughter of Benjamin and Anna (Wisner) Halstead and the last of 11 children, two of whom are unidentified and probably died at or near birth. I use the Halstead spelling. The children were:

            Sarah Ann  b. 1803

            Charles  b. 1805, d. 1894

            David Wisner  b. 1808, d. 1860

            Ransom  b. 28 Nov 1809, d. 30 Nov 1883

            James  b. 25 Jan 1812, d. 10 Jun 1869

            Morris  b. 15 Aug 1815, d. 08 May 1895

            Mary A.  b. 24 May 1820, d. Aug 1910

            Joseph  b. 1823, d. 07 Sep 1873

            Hester  b. 04 Feb 1824, d. 31 Jan 1914

 

Both Hester’s paternal and maternal grandfathers (Benjamin Halstead and David Wisner) served in the Revolutionary War, and it appears her maternal great-grandfather (Thomas Wisner) may have. I researched this family several years ago, but when DNA began to give me more family members to research, the Revolutionary War connections appeared. Since these would be the first on my paternal side, I was excited. These will give me twelve patriots for NS DAR.

Hester Halstead Fowler

 

One Halstead Family: A Root of Our Family Tree by John W. Harrold (1975) does an excellent job with at least the familiar part of the family. Also, it gives a comprehensive history of the areas of New York where the Halstead family lived during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. There is a timeline of the movements of Benjamin and Anna including their life before and after marriage in Romulus Township, in an area which eventually became Cayuga County, New York. They married there in 1802. The county boundaries changed again, and by 1810 Romulus was in Seneca County where Benjamin and Anna completed a transaction for selling land. Eventually, life found them in Olcott (that area having gone through several name changes also), Niagara County, New York. During that time, Benjamin served in the War of 1812 on two separate occasions.

Not one to stay long in any one place, in 1830 Benjamin moved his family to Michigan and eventually settled in Superior Township, Washtenaw County. He died in Michigan on March 11, 1834 and is buried in what may have been known as the Cross Cemetery, next to St. John’s Cemetery and Highland Cemetery in Ypsilanti. His widow, Anna, returned to the Niagara Co. area with several of her unmarried children, having family that had remained in that area. She died there in 1876, at the age of 91 and was survived by five children, including my great-great-grandmother, Hester.

Doing further research on this family, I began running into numerous Ancestry trees with a Hester (Ann?) Halstead, born in New York about the same time as OUR Hester, but eventually settling in Hillsdale County, Michigan, with a husband and children. Hillsdale is about 60 miles from Superior Township, in Washtenaw County. This Hester was given the same parents, Benjamin and Anna Wisner Halstead. I had done enough research and had records to make me confident I had the correct information on OUR Hester. Contacting people online responsible for those trees proved mostly fruitless. But one man in Indiana did answer. He said he had a box of papers and pictures from his grandmother and he would go through it to see what he could find to help clear up this confusion.

 

In the meantime, I continued digging for additional information. FAN (Family/Associates/Neighbors) work, in particular for all Hester’s brothers and sisters was done. One of the problems was that on Hester’s death certificate, issued in Washtenaw County (a clue that she is OURS) lists her father’s surname as “Bailey” with the mother’s name unknown. An additional clue was that the informant was a Chas. H. (Charles Henry) McDougall. This is Hester’s daughter Delphine’s husband’s brother (!!) Unfortunately, the family sent as informant a man (!!) and one who was related by marriage only (!!), AND who obviously didn’t know the answers to the questions!! Since most of the family still lived in that area, why Charles? Hester had three daughters who probably would have known that information. As it turns out, Bailey is the married name of one of Hester’s sisters, Mary A. Another clue – that she is OURS!! 

There had to be a second Hester and many less-than-thorough researchers had mixed them up. And it really wasn’t that difficult to figure out! The man in Indiana eventually sent a picture of some family members labeled by his grandmother. The picture had a man listed on the back, as “my great-uncle Smith Halstead.” That made him a brother to this man’s grandmothers’ grandmother, Hester Halstead. This is the family in Hillsdale County. So, I went back to Ancestry to research a Smith Halstead. Even though there was more than one, there weren’t many. It turned out that he was part of a Halstead family from Yates County, New York. Smith Halstead had been married three times – thank goodness! Because his third marriage record was on Ancestry and listed his parents’ names as Jacob Halstead and Betsy Reynolds. A couple of trees did have Hester born in Yates County, so one of my searches was to find out if there were any Halstead families in Yates County about the time of OUR Hester’s birth in 1824. The 1830 census had two: Qaieb and John Halstead. If you view the image of the census, it clearly says Jacob not Qaieb (those transcribers are inventive). Jacob had two daughters under the age of 10 – one could easily be this other Hester. I gave my fellow researcher this information. He agreed with my assessment – and that OURS was the daughter of Benjamin and Anna Wisner Halstead.

OUR Hester was named after her father’s sister and Hester’s sister, Mary A. Halstead Bailey, named a daughter, Hester. OUR Hester (married to George W. Fowler in 1839) had twins: Sarah Ann and Mary Ann (born 12 August 1842). OUR great-grandmother, Delphine, was born 4 May 1851 in Washtenaw County. The names of the twins certainly fit. There are no Jacobs or Johns in OUR Halstead family, at least in the generations I have followed.

 

George W. Fowler

 

 And a recent find -  Hester’s husband, George, died in 1893 and her sister, Mary A.’s husband, Almon Bailey died in 1891. They are found living together on the 1905 New York State Census in Newfane, Niagara County, New York. I would guess that Hester was visiting Mary A. for an extended stay and, thankfully, they are recorded together during the census takers visit. They are listed as Mary A. Bailey, 84, and Hester Fowler, 81.  Mary A. died in 1910 and Hester in 1914.

                                                PLEASE!! Watch those trees!

 

HALSTEAD/FOWLER Family (from New York to Michigan):

Richard Halstead (1701-1785) and Hester Oldfield (1707-1784)

   Benjamin Halstead (1740-1801) and Ruth Howell  (1748-1800)

      Benjamin Halstead (1775-1834) and Anna Wisner (1784-1876)

         George W. Fowler (1817-1893) and Hester J. Halstead (1824-1914)

            Children of George and Hester (Halstead) Fowler:

            Albert D. Herrick (1834-1925) and Mary Ann Fowler (1842-1920)

            Andrew John Huston (1835-1902) and Sarah Ann Fowler (1842-1926)

            John A. McDougall (1843-1920) and Delphine E. Fowler (1851-1941)

 

 

NOTE:  The picture of "Hester Halstead Fowler" is labeled "Mrs. Hester Halstead" and came from the Ypsilanti Historical Society's collection. I am making an assumption that this is OUR Hester, since I am not sure who else would be Mrs. Hester Halstead. The picture of George W. Fowler also came from their collection.

 

David Buchanan

18 October 1887-26 January 1953

Our Paternal Grandfather

                                                                              By Bruce Forrest Buchanan

  

   David, known as Davy and Pops to those of us in the family, was born in Glasgow, District of Gorbals, Lanarkshire, Scotland on October 18, 1887. He was the third of six children of Robert Buchanan and Mary Anderson. He met his future wife, Annie Mackie McAlister, possibly at a dance hall according to his niece, Margaret Truman (Buchanan) Lynn.

   Davy and Annie made plans to emigrate to the United States with Davy arriving first in 1913 in Boston, MA. He promptly joined the United States Army where he only served for a few months until he was discharged due to the discovery of a heart murmur. Davy and then Annie, as his widow, received a 10% disability from the US Army until her death at the age of 97, in 1986. He was a bugler in the Army, as he had played the trumpet as a boy in the Boys Brigade in Scotland (similar to our Boy Scouts). Unfortunately, with the start of WWI, Annie was not able to join him until after the war in 1919. They were married in Boston on October 8, 1919. Their only child, Stanley Mackie, was born on December 16, 1921. 

 

                                             

                                               Annie and Davy on their wedding day 

 Davy was a pattern maker by trade. He probably performed that work in Gorbals at the shipyards prior to coming to the US. And we assume he was able secure that type of employment in his early life here as well. At some point he was hired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a pattern maker and eventually became an instructor there as well. He made patterns and wooden models for the engineers there. His eighth grade education in Scotland served him well.                  
   I have very limited memories of him as he died just after my third birthday. But I do remember visiting Davy and Annie, or Granny and Pops, at their home in Dorchester, MA. They lived in a duplex and I remember being in their living room with Pops sitting in his chair and smiling as I was playing on a rug on the floor. I also remember the night he died. Davy and Annie were temporarily staying with us in Bedford while Granny healed from a broken arm. My father took Davy to work at MIT every day (neither Pops nor Granny ever drove) and then picked him up after work. One afternoon Davy told my father that he didn't feel well, so they went to the Doctor on the main street in Bedford. While they were sitting in the waiting room Davy had a heart attack and died. I remember my father arriving home and going into our living room with Granny and my mother. My sister and I were ushered to another room. The local family doctor arrived at our house shortly after, as he just lived down the street. Davy was 65. My father later said "it was a long drive home." After his death, Annie received a handwritten note of sympathy from E. L. (Edward Lull) Cochrane, Vice Admiral, USN, Dean of Engineering at MIT. In the note, he commented that “he was a man for whom we all had a deep affection, one whom I felt privileged to call by his Christian name, David.”

   Pops made quite a few pieces of furniture for Granny. She would take him to a furniture store and show him what she wanted. Then he would salvage wood, mostly mahogany, from MIT and other places and build her the pieces she wanted. He had a full set of wood chisels, many of which I now have. He mostly made tables of various shapes and sizes. Pops and Granny were very frugal, having grown up in Glasgow at a time when that city was no longer the thriving metropolis it had earlier been during the height of the ship building period of the 19^th century there.  

  Pops generally worked Monday through Saturday at noon, and Granny told me that on Saturdays he would regularly stop for a hamburger and a beer on his way home from work, a treat he relished. I often drink a beer with my lunch on Saturdays in his memory. He also was a soccer referee on Sunday afternoons, so he had an opportunity for exercise every week. Soccer was played as a semi-pro and professional sport in the early to mid-1900’s in Massachusetts, with games often drawing more fans than the Boston Red Sox baseball team. These fans were very passionate supporters of their teams. Once when Davy made a call the home team and their fans didn’t like, he had to be escorted off the field and out of the stadium by the police after the game because he was being physically threatened by the rowdy crowd.

    Pops was not a large man, only standing 5’5 tall, about the same height as Granny. And he was known to be a quiet man. They were a handsome couple, and in spite of living through the Great Depression, they seemed to truly enjoy the adventure they had embarked on early in the 20^th century together.