The Curious Case of Phalarius Russell
and one Zadok St. John Bennett
Edited along the way.
IN MY FAMILY, we have always been prone to taking in strays. From dogs and cats to people, it's just one of those things that seems to naturally occur in my tribe — not particularly special, or, as mother might have called it, "wondermous" in nature, but not something we ever set out to do either. It's just one of those things that seems to happen. Whether those stray spirits come looking for us, or we for them, that they end up part of us has always struck me as one of God's better plans.
I was reminded of this recently, thinking back on my stint at a school for special-needs kids — kids who often had no parents. I couldn't quite cotton to the idea that any kid, especially a wee one, wasn't worthy of being cared for, or worse, had no home at all. Lest you think I'm rearranging my own halo here — please, there's too much rust on it for that — just let me explain. We've had strays of every kind: the old guy (hey, I resemble that remark) lost in the grocery store, an aunt born out of wedlock, my grandfather's dog Spot in the 1950s, a cat-at-the-car-lot named Velvet in the '60s, a wayward young woman named Heidi who came to live with us in the '70s. They reach out to us, and we to them. This isn't another tell-tale-heart story, though — it's the one about the stray I found.
I stumbled on this particular genealogical stray while working through my mother's Salem ancestry — specifically the collateral descendants of those ill-fated "witches." It's nagged at me ever since, because it's both a family stray and a genealogical "who" that refuses to resolve. So if you're willing, and not too bored by it all, let me introduce you to my Uncle Phalarius Russell, and our stray in question, one Zadok St. John Bennett. (With names like that, how could I not be interested?)
I'd been amassing my great body of bullsh*t — that is, my great body of proofs and reasonings and examinations of all things old and connected to a lady named Betsey Carrier. To get to Betsey, I've needed to verify everything I can about her life and the life of her husband, Roswell Russell — which meant verifying, or at least accounting for, everyone connected to our dear boy Roswell Russell, of Colebrook, Connecticut, and later Genesee County, New York.
That's when I stumbled on Phalarius. Phalarius, you see, was Roswell's baby brother. And believe it or not, Phalarius held the key to identifying Roswell and Betsey's children as belonging to one and the same family. Morose as it is to say, Brother Phalarius did me a great favor when he died seemingly intestate and without a will or any heirs. In doing so, his estate fell to the intestate succession laws of 1830 New York. Kind of a bad break for Uncle Phalarius, but for his collateral-line relative two hundred years later, it was definitely for me, a Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
.jpg)
.jpg)
This deed's opening clause identifies seven parties collectively as "heirs at Law and to the Estate of Phalarius Russel late of the County of Niagara deceased":
- Elizur Russel & Margaret, his wife
- Gould Stratten & Cyntha, his wife
- Calvin Russel & Patience, his wife
- George W Darling & Nancy, his wife
- Lovina Russel
- Noah Brooks & Marcha, his wife
- Erastus Russel
Uncle Phalarius's probate administration and subsequent land sales have been a genuinely useful thing — it names pretty much everyone in my 1830 Russell family line, right on down to my three-times-great-grandmother's twin sister, the ill-fated Lovina. Everybody had to sign off on it as they sold their portion of what they'd inherited from "Uncle P." Talk about a genealogical checklist. LOL.
But working through Uncle P's estate administration turned out to be a little strange. The intestate succession as it reads implied he had "no direct heirs" — no children or wife with a claim were listed. Everyone shown is just "kin." That didn't quite square with what little I already knew about him. The 1820 census for Royalton, Niagara County, New York, showed him in a somewhat unusual household: two adult men, one adult woman, and four children. But hey, who am I to judge — that other adult male could just as easily have been a brother, a boarder, or Aaron Burr, for all one can tell from an 1820 census. What it did mean, in relation to Uncle P's 1830 probate, was that everyone in that 1820 household was either dead by 1830 or somehow legally excluded from inheriting.
Remember though, having "no direct heirs" doesn't mean not having any "heirs at law."
Above: Phalarius Russell in the 1820 Royalton, Niagara County, New York, census.
That was all well and good for my actual purpose — identifying the descendants of Roswell and Betsey. The probate admin verified two of their unmarried children (Erastus and Lovina), neither married nor minors in 1830, both apparently still in New York. So for my purposes, I had what I needed. It was a "yeah, that's a weird and sad genealogical moment" — but the reasons Uncle P's blended family had predeceased him wasn't a rabbit hole I needed to go down for my Salem line.
Still, it bugged me. Poor Uncle Phalarius, right? Manages his finances well, has a slightly unconventional 1820 household, and ends up in a situation where everyone's died before him and his collateral relatives get the spoils. Nobody left for Uncle Phalarius?
So I went back and had another look.
That's when I found "the stray" — and the stray did not make sense. That's when I first found mention of one Zadok St. John Bennett — "heir at law" to Mr. Phalarius Russell, of Royalton, Niagara County, New York.
The year is 1835.
.jpg)
Above: "Zadock Bennett of Henry County and State of Indiana, one of the heirs at law of and to the Estate of Phalarius Russell late of the County of Niagara in the State of New York deceased." New York, Niagara County, Land Deeds, FamilySearch.org
A curious indenture or land sale for Uncle P — the sale of land one naming all his intestate "heirs at law" — his probate administration had been closed for five years. Yet newly filed in that court, on some blustery day in 1835, is a document naming Zadok St. John Bennett a new "heir at law" to Uncle Phalarius.
So just who the hell is Zadok St. John Bennett, and why is he after my inheritance from Uncle Phalarius? Who is this pretender to our Royalton and Niagara Falls fortunes?
Nobody really seems to know.
The document itself is clear enough. But a search of the family lines turns up nothing. No Bennett family married into Uncle P's line. No St. John family married in through the Sage family or the Carriers. There's seemingly nothing tying Uncle Phalarius to any Zadok at all.
A quick dig into Zadok St. John Bennett's own life turns up a few clues — but only a few.
Zadok, it seems, was an orphan. According to his obituary, Zadok was taken in by one "Mrs. Russell" (first name unknown) when his mother died six weeks after giving birth. He was raised by Mrs. Russell until he was 17 or 18. When Zadok came of age, the obituary says, he learned that his biological father (unnamed) was still living, and rode a horse from Indiana back to New York to meet him — for the second time, apparently.
Here's the interesting part: the obituary never names any connection between Zadok and Uncle Phalarius at all. It only mentions the unnamed wife. We wouldn't even know Phalarius had a connection to Zadok were it not for Zadok's 1835 claim against the estate as an "heir at law."
But how?
The obituary states Zadok was born in 1814. He'd have reached his majority — age 21 — in 1835, which is exactly when he filed, making him legally able to bring a claim if he'd somehow been excluded from the estate as a minor. (He'd have been sixteen in 1830.)
But to be an heir at law, Zadok would have needed to be a bloodline relative of Phalarius Russell's. And even if Zadok was raised as a son in Uncle P and Mrs. P's household, legal adoption processes anywhere in the country at this point in American history were limited — the concept of a child having a legal claim on property through anything other than blood was complicated at best.
From what I can discover, it wasn't until 1873 that statutes were enacted in New York to allow for the creation of a legal parent-child relationship between persons who did not have a biological relationship.
So just who are you, Zadok St. John Bennett?
I have a few working theories, and no proof. Other researchers are chasing his parentage too — some name a Benjamin Bennett as his father, though I've seen nothing beyond wishful thinking to substantiate it. There's also a hefty old genealogical compilation, the St. John Genealogy, packed with "Zadok St. Johns," which makes it tempting to assume he belongs to that lot. He probably does. Proving it looks close to impossible.
The bigger puzzle is why Zadok should have any claim at all. Was he Phalarius's own child, born to a woman who died six weeks later, quietly absorbed into the blended 1820 household by Mrs. Russell? That would explain the later claim to a share of the estate — except the obituary already tells us Zadok rode off to meet his father as an adult, and that father wasn't Uncle P, who was long dead by then.
I don't know. Zadok is a stray.
In any event, he found his way into the Russell family, or the family found him, and somehow he was a stray legal heir enough to file a claim for his share. I've wondered whether the connection runs through Mrs. Russell's own family instead — whether Zadok's claim traces to what she might have inherited from her husband, had she lived to see 1830.
But she was dead. Indeed, they all were - and nobody thus far is talking.
Save, of course, for Zadok St. John Bennett.🕊
