Harriett and the Clockmaker   

     As always, unapologetically unedited...                        

        Believed to be Harriett (Reeves) Burson

(Author's note: This post is straight-up family history, and, like a wise woman once said, "Nothing is more boring than somebody else's family history." This is a "reasoning account" - and a work in progress. Reader beware. :)

                       

Such is the story of Harriett and the clockmaker.

I've always wondered about Harriett. The poor gal has stuck around tethered to the not-so-distant branches of my family tree for many years. Her name, noted without detail as "Harriet Burson," is perhaps first recorded by my Grandmother Katheryn Record in the family album she bought on sale at the Sprouse Reitz back in about '65. The details must have been more than scant. My grandmother didn't have much more than a name to etch in that old book when it came to Harriett. 

By way of introduction, "Harriet/Harrietta/ Harriett Reeve/Rieve/Reave/Reeves" (1809-1880) was my great-grandmother Gertrude (Burson) Record's paternal grandmother. Now Gertude's family, the Burson family, is pretty well recorded, or at least anecdotally so through History of the Burson Family published in 1932. However, as to the families of the women who married into them, women like that of Harriett Reeves', the author didn't go beyond the basics. Until recently, there hasn't been much to go on. 

                                              

Not long ago, and purely by chance, I confirmed the name of Harriett's father was a man called "Benjamin Reeves" and her presumed mother, a lady simply called "Ann"_____. Again by chance, I had managed to locate the Last Will and Testament of Benjamin Reeve's, which named "Harriett" and her husband Thomas Burson - my great grandmother Gertrude's grandparents. This helped me push "The Reeves" branch of my Burson Family back just a little bit further, mostly from Ohio into Pennsylvania via the 1880 census.

It has also helped that the Bursons and the Reeves families were largely devout Quakers, and the Mid-Atlantic Quakers kept great records. 

Still, going further back from Harriett's father Benjamin Reeves has been challenging. Benjamin is well noted in the Quaker records, but there hasn't been much of anything to connect him to his father, at least not until recently. This is likely an extrapolation based on presumed onomastic family ties, but a record has come to light that mentions the Reeves family at the Middletown, Columbiana County Ohio, Meetings, and is a record grouped together chronologically. Here, and next to the entry about Benjamin Reeves, his wife Ann, and daughter Harriett, is mention of Joshua Reeves, his wife Millicent (Carr) Reeves, and their family. Noting this, I wondered if I wasn't looking at Benjamin's father and mother. I wondered: Could Joshua and Millicent be Benjamin's parents?  Elsewhere, Joshua Reeves and Millicent Carr Reeves appear to be pretty well documented. 

Yet somehow it just didn't work. The timeline didn't work for Joshua to be Benjamin's father. 

It does work though for them to have (likely) been brothers.                          

Using this as a genealogical supposition, I followed the line back from Joshua Reeves as a presumed brother of Benjamin and uncle of Harriet (Reeves) Burson. Interestingly enough, family trees show Joshua's father documented as being named "Benjamin Reeves, Sr." And while there is much work left to do to support this line, it was here where things were starting to take shape. 

I found birth records for both Joshua Reeves and Benjamin Reeves and found that both men were both were taxed in Columbiana County, Ohio in the year 1809 - Joshua was listed on page 20, Benjamin on page 19.

Based off of the submitted family trees and other secondary sources, (and the birth and tax records for both Joshua Reeves and his brother Benjamin)  they are the sons of Bejmanin, Sr, and his wife Rachel Tyler. Normally, these records wouldn't carry a great deal of genealogical weight. However, given the first record above showing both Joshua and Benjamin (and of course our heroine Harriett Burson too) all at the same Middleton Meeting House in Columbiana County, Ohio leads me to believe that if these two Reeves men were not in fact brothers they were very likely kinsman. Then there is the repetition of the name "Benjamin." While it is a common name, the fact of its repeated use in this instance gives this working theory more credence. 

Per Guilford College Library: "recrq" – received (into membership) by request, rather than by transfer of membership from another Friends Meeting.

The 1805 notation in the record for Joshua Reeves stated that he came from the "Mt. Holly" meeting house - is in New Jersey. The 1814 note for Benjamin Reeves states that she was received at the Middleton Meeting in Columbiana County, Ohio by "recrq." This is a Quaker term that means Benjamin was brought in "by request" possibly by another member, his brother Joshua. (The use of this acronym seems fluid by design.)

All of this lends to the theory that the men were brothers, however, transcripts of Benjamin Reeves Sr.'s LW&T don't name a son, Benjmain, Jr - though birth records certainly show he had one. Benjamin Sr. died in 1802. Benjamin, Sr. does name his son Joshua. The two men, Ben Jr. and Joshua certainly had to have known each other. Given the small population of Middleton, Columbiana County, Ohio at the time the odds of their being two separate and distinct Reeves families living "next door" to each other and worshipping in the same Quaker church at the same time seems beyond remote.

I may be going out on a genealogical whim here, but these two men, if not brothers, were surely kinsmen of Benjamin Reeves, Sr.

   

   

MIDDLETON MEETING HOUSE

Columbiana, County, Ohio

It opened in 1803 but split in 1828 due to a division within the Quaker Church

In any event, Harriett's family and Joshua's worshipped at this same place, making it likely that Benjamin came west to join his brother Joshua. If this supposition holds true (and based on the Quaker records found so far) this means we can now trace the Reeves branch of the Burson family back to Benjamin Reeves, Sr, (1737-1801) and his wife Rachel Tyler (1733-1778). 

Now this Benjamin Reeves, Sr is an interesting guy. 

You see, he was a clockmaker.

And a pretty dam good one too. 

In fact, if you are feeling flush with cash, you can still buy one of his clocks today:

http://antiquesandfineart.com/dealers/item.cfm?id=443&pid=6432&pg=3

Or, if you are poor, just stop by the museum to see one of his clocks:

Pushing the boundaries back on this branch of the family has been serendipitous but also bittersweet. As you will see in the above Quaker record Harriett Reeves Burson was considered "dis mou" by her Quaker community. This means basically that she was "kicked out" for some reason or other. (It may simply be because of the rift that was happening within the Quaker Chruch in 1828)  The true reason was likely because she married outside of the Quaker faith, though this may not be the exact reason either, as the Bursons themselves were certainly Quakers. 

To compound the serendipity here is the fact that Joshua Reeve's eldest daughter Hannah, married a man named William Schooley - The Schooley family was also Quaker, and also one that Harriett's granddaughter Gertrude (Burson) Record's husband Frank Record was descended from.

While The Record Family itself does not appear to have been Quaker or of Quaker origins, their Mid-Atlantic roots co-mingled early on through their intermarriages to the Quaker families, like those of the Reeves, Bursons, Schooleys, and Kents who moved westward to Kansas through Ohio in a similar (and concurrent) migration pattern. I hope someday to have a better understanding of them all.

"All in good time."

END