A Son Lost     

 

                                            WILLIAM ALLEN ADEN

(Author's note: What follows is a story that unfolded through the lens of a father's search, much like a letter home might reveal...)

As always, unapologetically unedited.

Dear Paige,

THERE ARE TIMES when the weight of family history takes its toll. We stumble upon stories that tug at us; they pull us further into the research, and to the 'specters' that link us to our own very personal past. If we're fortunate, this process of "discovery" moves us past the usual search for notable kin, patriots, or connections to Zachary Taylor or Taylor Swift, or to some distant war or event. It moves us to study of a life that was, in many ways, unimaginable, and to a life that was ultimately quite beautiful.

Yes, sometimes too, you find that these things go beyond the pale of just a study of "an ordinary life." I think I've found that here, in "A Son Lost." You see, there's nothing ordinary about this "son's" life. It's a true story that blends tragedy alongside the bittersweet taste of justice, the noteworthy, and so much more. 

Paige, it's the tale of a father's love for his son, his lost son. It is an utterly American tale, and a tale of the way west.

If you've heard it before, perhaps in the recollections of your Great Aunt or someone's brother-in-law recalling a not often spoken of story, or somewhere in the misremembered voice of your family's past, I hope you will forgive me as I bring it forward again for the telling. The story revolves around your great-great-great-uncle, William Aden, and his father, your great-great-great-great-grandfather, Dr. Sydney Bennett Aden. Dr. Aden was a Tennessee doctor who never gave up looking for his son. 

Before I get too far, let me explain your connection to them both. I'll start with some highlighted census records and work my way forward from there: 

The story begins about 1850. 

The above image is the 1850 US Census record for your four times great-grandfather, Dr. Sydney Bennett Aiden, and his wife, Delilah. It shows their son William living in the household with them.        

Then something happens. William, an artistic young man and a musician, decides to try his luck elsewhere and, in about 1856, heads to out California.

He is nineteen years old.    

His parents, shown below, won't ever hear from him again.       

                      

                            

The years will go by.

Below is the 1860 US Census for the same household of Dr. Sydney Bennett Aden and his wife, Delilah. The 1860 census shows their daughter, your three times great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Aden, living in the household:         

William's baby sister, Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Aden, who was about three years old when he left, went on to marry W.W. Hatch: 

                     

Above: Lizzie, who was the mother of Mary Ellen (Hatch) King

      

Mary Ellen (Hatch) King pictured with her daughter Edith, your great-grandmother, shown below:

 

Now, a little bit more about William. You see, as I mentioned, William went west, and he never came home. He never had the chance. He died at a place called the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857. His death and that of others were one giant horrible mess that simply got out of control. (I do not mean to over simply any of this.) The results of this tragedy are that his family did not know what happened to him. His family searched for answers about what had become of him for years.

   

      

I'm sorry to say that until yesterday, I had never heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. There is A LOT of history here, but this letter to you isn't about the history or even the massacre. It's about William, his life, and yes, his Dad. Maybe it's better to just start with the words of his father, your ancestor, Dr. Sydney Bennett Aden:

This is now FIFTEEN YEARS after their son had gone missing. (See news clipping below)

            

     

                   

            

Shortly after William went missing, in the beginning, his bereft father received the letter below, a reply from Brigham Young to his inquiries about his son. There are two letters from Brigham Young to Dr. Aden. I only wish I could have supplied you with copies of the Dr.'s letters of inquiry and all in their original script. 

I am told all of these letters are in Salt Lake with the papers of Brigham Young.

                          

Brigham Young 
                          

The above letter is one that your ancestor, Dr. Aden, received from Brigham Young regarding your three times great-uncle William. Below is a newspaper clipping of his father's quest and disbelief:

Now, Paige, there is a lot here. As I've mentioned before, I am only here to bring you these stories, you know, to blow a little bit of dust off these things along the way. I do not sit in judgment of any of the players in your Great Uncle's story. It would be too easy to do. The settlers, the Indians, and the Mormons, including their sanctioned gunman (The man who ultimately killed William), all share a responsibility for your uncle's murder at Mountain Meadows. Brigham Young too shares some historical responsibility for his death.

       

                      

     My heart goes out to his parents, your ancestors, and to the heartbreak they surely felt about learning the truth of what happened to their son and spending years not wanting to believe it at the same time. I'm "here" more so to celebrate William's young life by telling you about him and about who he was. He was a painter! He was a musician! He was doing all these things while making his way west at only nineteen years old. Sadly, he ended up a casualty in a war that went beyond reason or his control. 

I wanted to also let you know that you carry a piece of William with you, even now. I know that will sound a bit ridiculous, but you do. It's a part of William that was passed down to him by his mother, Delilah (Brown) Aden. It's his X Chromosome, a chromosome that is only passed on from mother to daughter. While a son also inherits "his mother's X chromosome he does not pass it on to his children. 

Paige, you are a direct line female descendant of Delilah's so just like William, you share that same "X."

I know you may find that a silly thing to share with a young man who died nearly 170 years ago, but I hope it will help you feel closer to his story, and to who he might have been if he'd only had the chance. 

I hope you will remember your uncle William Aden, and that in learning about his life, you will find peace and understanding in re-examining that old phrase of "There for the grace of God go I."

Thank you for your beautiful life, William!

Respectfully,

Jeffery Record

   

     

       

 Pirates, poets, and a ghost or two along the way    

(Author's note: Family history, and indeed the genealogical process of discovering it, is fluid. Many times it's "one step forward and two steps backwards." The good part is the discovery of what can be found on those last "two steps backwards.")

As always, unapologetically, unedited.

THERE ARE A FEW THINGS I don't have in my own family tree. Among these, are a pirate and a ghost. Heck, I don't even have anybody writing about the rumors of a pirate or a ghost. (Well, maybe one pirate...) In this family tree, however, I was able to find both - and written about by someone like the poet Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

How cool is that?

Allow me to digress...

Recently, I posted here about the discovery of a "dynamic duo" of Revolutionary War patriots, James Babb and Mary (McCool) Babb, and their possible connection to a new friend of mine, Paige. This connection was through their son, Sampson Babb, who also connected Paige to an alleged grandson of Sampson's, one Jesse Babb. Jesse Babb was an enslaveed person likely fathered by Sampson's son, James Kellett Babb. However, after a better examination of the records, I discovered that I had made an error in my research, and that my friend Paige is not a descendant of Sampson Babb, nor a great-great niece several times over of the enslaved man, Jesse Babb.

It was definitely a case of "a mistaken Babb" identity.

I followed up on this post with another to describe my error and how I had discovered it. It was disappointing, as the legacy of a direct relationship for Paige to two Revolutionary War patriots and an ancillary relationship to an enslaved person of color seemed like a pretty cool story to tell. All of these connections for Paige depended on her ties to the Babb family. And while Paige did lose these immediate direct connections to these members of the Babb clan, one thing is very evident:

It does not mean that friend Paige is not "a Babb."

Almost serendipitously, I discovered another "Babb" line for Paige. It's close to the original lines I had explored before, in that both of these lines (the previously discarded one from Sampson) and this newly discovered one extend from the same original Babb ancestor, Phillip Babb. This new "Babb line" is through Phillip Babb's grandson, Thomas Babb, Jr., whose daughter, Elizabeth Babb, married David Rees. 

Anecdotally, this line for my friend Paige starts to shape up like this:  

Follow the blue highlights to reveal the structure of the genealogy from Phillip Babb to Paige:

And further:                           

The above two excerpts are from Jean Sargent's Babb families of New England and Beyond, SLC, Utah, 1987

     Tracking the line to Paige goes even more smoothly from here:

  

Above excerpts from: Marshaleigh Orr Bahan's Captain David Rees, Fighting Quaker, PDF file as published through United Empire Loyalists of Canada

And further:   

             

  

         

The above three images are taken from: Emma Plunkett Ivy's, Ten Thousand Plunketts: A partially documented record of the families of Charles Plunkett of Newberry, South Carolina, Peachtree Letter Service, Atlanta, Georgia, 1969, and as viewed on Ancestry.com.

The above highlighted images will serve as an anecdotal and previously published line of descent from Phillip Babb of the Isles of Shoals, Maine, to Allison Paige Brown. 

As you can see, Paige is very much a descendant of "Old Babb."  

Now for the good part. Here are a couple of incredible things about Paige's ancestor, Phillip Babb:

Did you know that there are rumors that the ghost of Phillip Babb haunts the Isles of the Shoals, specifically Appledore Island? Did you know that there are rumors (however unfounded) of his connection to pirates' treasure? Did you know that Phillip Babb has a connection to two nineteenth-century poets, Celia Thaxter, and even some guy by the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne?

Now, how can you discount your own family's ghost? Wink!

               

              

 

Passages from the American Notebooks, Volume II, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

                               

                     

The above three images are from: Among the Isles of Shoals, by Celia Thaxter

  

Okay, who has ancestors from a place called Appledore Island? That is so so so Harry Potter if you ask me. Anyway, there is MUCH written about the Babb clan of which Paige is surely a part of both here directly and indirectly through folks like Sampson and Jesse Babb. There is even MORE written about hers and their ancestor, the infamous Phillip Babb, of Isles of the Shoals.

If it were me, I'd be planning a road trip.

You see, I've got a friend who's got an "in" with the "Ghost of Appledore Island."  :)

END

              

     

     

Genealogical Glass Houses and Other Mudpuddles 

(Author's note: In family history and genealogy, we must always work as hard to prove ourselves right as wrong; They don't tell us that we will have to eat a little crow along the way...)

As always, unapologetically unedited.

Well, I've gone and done it now. I've gone and made the absolute worst genealogical mistake I ever could have. No, I haven't committed any of my usual genealogical blunders, heresies, or any of my other assorted faux pas; you know the ones, like when I start believing in a secondary source over a primary one, or pulling some nineteenth-century parlor act by jumping over a generation to connect the dots, or worse, trying to copy and paste an upload of my family tree into some kinda TikTok tutorial. Eeeewww.

Nah, what I did was way worse. You see, I hurried.

Yeah, yeah, I know. If there's one thing the genealogist (even a wannabe one like me) cannot, should not, and must never do, it's hurry. What can I say? I messed up. And now I've gotta "pay the piper" and admit my hubris and attempt to make amends for my foibles. Did I mention how vainglorious we genealogical types can be, especially us old farts? Ugh! Foolish boy. Slap me down, I say! Ten demerits.

It all started with my new friend, Paige. You see, I wanted to show her the best of my sleuthing skills. So I quickly dog-eared a page of my American Ancestors magazine for future reference and briefly set aside my issue of Mayflower Descendant. I then attacked her ancestry like the proverbial dog with a bone.

True enough, too, is that her ancestry has been a different course of action for me; based largely in the South, her family lines have been a new experience for this "L.A. Yankee" in the learning of names, places, and the geography of things. Ah! But what did I care? I smugly thought. After all, I've had years of practice at proving ancestral lines. Heck, I'd even identified two babies switched at birth. How hard could it be to help Paige out with some of her ancestry? After all, I was raised on Anderson's Great Migration series and had been schooled in the ways of Gary Boyd Roberts. I'd even hunted serial killer Mayflower ancestors alongside Chris Child. 

I mean, I've had years submitting Mayflower lineages, DAR lineages, and the whatnots to the Salem witches, so how could "I" go wrong? Yep, that's me, just your average everyday genealogical Wonderboy Big Shot.

Yeah, not.

Did I forget to mention that I have also had literal decades of being absolutely one hundred percent genealogically wrong? (Just ask my wife...)

However, I guess it was in the middle of all my self-aggrandizing that I did find what looked to be a really awesome new family line for Paige. It was a line that connected her to a dynamic duo of Revolutionary War patriots, the Revolutionary War husband and wife team of Joseph Babb and his wife, Mary (McCool) Babb. (DAR Patriot #A004175)  How "cool" is that? Further, all of this connected them (Paige and the RW couple) to a present-day line of one of the couple's enslaved descendants, a fellow known as Jesse Babb. Yes! This was rich! This would be an awesome tale and legacy for my new friend. And for a brief moment, yes, perhaps it was.

I based the line on Lucretia Catherine Babb (1826-1898), who was married to John Adams of Greenville County, South Carolina, and through their son James A. Adams. I mean, everything appeared to be in order; I had census records showing their household and their children. I had cemetery records for each. I even had a death certificate for their son, J. A. Adams, naming his father John, upon whom the line depended. It all seemed to fit together quite nicely and matched up very well with online family trees, which had posted much of the same proof. I mean, really, what more could there be to do? Still, I raced on, not paying attention to what I was doing. (Yeah, I can hear you guys now yelling, "Jeff, slow down!")

Above: Fourteen-year-old James A Adams in the 1870 U.S. Census for Greenville County, South Carolina, in the home of his parents, John Adams and Lucretia (Babb) Adams

And yes, I knew that "J.A.Adams" was "one and the same with "James A. Adams." I had a copy of the 1880 census showing the household of "James Adams" along with his baby girl "Lillie," upon whom the line also depended. I had Lillie's death certificate naming her father as "J.A. Adams." Yeah, I figured I had it all. All of these documents appeared to agree quite nicely. I mean, really, what could go wrong? What wasn't I seeing? 

            

So I let it sit, and I swam about in my glasshouse feeling pretty smug, thinking I'd solved this tale and brought forth a really cool story for Paige. Something nagged at me a bit, though. The "connection" I was looking for was a "Babb" connection. It was a connection that I didn't have. Yes, I had the earlier census record showing "John and Lucretia and son James A." This was consistent with the information I'd been able to glean about the Babb's and Lucretia's father, James Kellett Babb. Still, my mind raced, wondering if indeed all those other pieces truly fit together. 

I could feel in my bones that something wasn't right. I didn't have at least one piece connecting James A. Adams to his mother, Lucretia Babb. Eh, it was okay, right? I had all the other pieces...

It was about then that a very murky image emerged. It seemed to crawl out of that abyss that I like to call a genealogical muddpuddle. I could barely see it. The image was terrible! The indexing was all wrong! I'd barely noticed it before.

 Then I saw it. Mother's maiden name: "Babb."

Yeah, I was had. There was no way any of what I had previously gathered held water anymore.

The truth is that in my haste, I had blended the information of two men, both called "James A. Adams" and both the son of John. Both men were born in South Carolina in 1855 and both lived in Greenville County. The problem was, one's mother was a "Babb" and the other's was not. 

In my defense, if I had not ever found the murky image of "Babb" on the second certificate, I might never have realized my blunder. I might never have gone back and taken another look at the census records and seen that these two men, while sharing so many similarities actually lived ten miles apart. I was foolish. I was hasty. While I hadn't copy and pasted anything, I had done the next worst thing. I failed to double-check my own faulty research.

So there you have it. My great tale of genealogical confessions, of living in glass houses, and of sloshing through the mudpuddles of bad research. The only saving grace I might have in any of this was that I did attach a caveat for Paige that "none of it was yet proven." The only thing to be done now is to "come clean" and wash off some of that well-deserved mud. It's time for me to remind myself to work harder, smarter, and definitely not so fast. 

Hey, what can I say? The mud washes off, but the lesson remains: in genealogy, patience truly is the ultimate proof standard.

Please pass the crow.

 The Bittersweet Truth of Sampson Babb                          

(Author's note: Sometimes the best family history comes from the discovery of the most unexpected and most ordinary of lives.)

As always, unapologetically unedited.

(Forgive me if I am repetitive. I have become an old man...)

This is an anecdotal tale...

Speculative at best.

FAMILY HISTORY is much like a game of fifty-two-card pick-up. You know the old game where you toss the cards up into the air and see where they land or which card falls out. However, in truth, and as a researcher of such things, I wouldn't have it any other way. You see, for as much as we all crave those ancestral and genealogical connections to this President or that, to some Magna Charta Baron, Salem witch, or a Mayflower Pilgrim, it's often the most normal life, the most random card that falls from the deck - and the one that can be the most intriguing of all.

As a genealogist, or rather as a wannabe family historian (and as a human being, duh...), my connection to the random far outweighs any connection to the notable. In family history, I have learned to revel in the lives like that of my insane Uncle John Sage locked up for poisoning livestock, and in my third cousin Harrison Lee who lived a life of mountain solitude because of his epilepsy, and especially that of my wife's step uncle, a soldier who never made it home from the Battle of the Philippines in '42. These are the ordinary ones. These are the lives to be researched and celebrated. (No offense to those notable kin, or Magna Carta Barons, but these are my folks) Truth too, is that all those Magna Carta Barons in the world ain't got nothin' on the very ordinary life lived by my dear old Aunt June.

But as usual, I digress.  

Aunt June 

Recently, I was researching a line for a friend of mine, Paige, who is hoping to complete her DAR application. Her's is a DAR line that leads to a Revolutionary War patriot, one James Brown, out of South Carolina. Paige's family has proved interesting to me, and I'm actively seeking to learn what else is out there in her family's branches. Are there more Revolutionary War soldiers to be found here? The likelihood of this is usually pretty good, and I've started perusing her tree looking for anyone of note or anyone that might catch my eye.

I'd like to tell you what it is that I've been looking for in particular, or what exactly it is that might catch my eye, but unfortunately, I can't. It can be the simplest thing, like a date or a place out of whack, or a curious lack of connection, or, quite often enough, it can be as simple as someone's name. With a plethora of branches and hundreds of names to crawl through - believe me, this can take a bit. Remember, too, like my crazy Uncle John Sage, it's the ordinary lives that we need to learn about, and the ordinary lives we need to celebrate.

However, it was about then (in the doing all of that falderal) that something did catch my eye in Paige's family lines. 

It was the name of Sampson Babb (1766-1851).

Okay, call me crazy, but how cool is a name like "Sampson Babb?" 

I had to know more.

I quickly did a once-over and could see that Paige's great-great-great-grandmother was possibly a woman by the name of Lucinda Catherine (Babb) Adams (1826-1898). Long story short, the hero of our story here, Sampson Babb, may have been Lucinda's grandfather. 

Checking out more on Sampson Babb, I was able to find those extra Revolutionary War patriots I had been looking for. They are the parents of Sampson Babb. They are even cooler in that they are a "dynamic duo" of a husband and wife team who fought and supported our new United States. How cool is that? Even more so, how rare it is to have a woman who is also an acknowledged patriot through the Daughters of the American Revolution. 

Dang, I think I'm glad I stopped and took a look at the ordinary life of Sampson Babb.

These are likely Paige's several times over great-grandparents:                 

Hey, at this point I figured I was done, right? I'd found a cool team, a dynamic duo of husband and wife ancestry. What more could there be to learn?

 It was about then that I stumbled upon the "Estate of Sampson Babb."

                     

      Jesse, property of Sampson Babb

Ruh-roh.

Now I am not a historical apologist. I do not generally subscribe to revisionist history of any kind, at least insofar as beyond making sure that grave markers are periodically cleaned of excess moss. If what I am about to write sounds like some "enlightened agenda," I can only tell you it isn't. I have no ill will for those who are, but I can surely tell you that I am most certainly not "woke." What follows is a very incomplete story about an ordinary life lost in obscurity. It is an unexpected story, though in truth not an unanticipated one. This is the South. It is the story of an ordinary life.

It is the story of Jesse Babb (1814-1886). 

What I immediately noticed was that a lot of people were still looking for Jesse, a slave of Sampson Babb.

                      

Now I wouldn't have known anything about Jesse Babb, or really would have bothered to look at any of the Slave Schedules. This is the antebellum South, and beyond anything glaringly interesting or relevant when it comes to slavery, I tend to not notice. It's not that I don't feel bad for the enslaved people of the times, I do. But their stories, like those of the Mayflower pilgrims, or my Cousin Harrison Lee, who went to live in the mountains alone due to epilepsy, or even crazy Uncle John Sage, are just lives lived. They are tragic, but they are, on many levels, also quite ordinary. They are American stories. We all have them.

And yes, they are the lives to be celebrated.

Okay, enough said.

Yes, Jesse Babb caught my eye. Not so much because he was listed along with seventeen other poor souls in Sampson's estate papers, but because people were (and still are) trying to learn just who Jesse was. There are many out there presently still discovering, learning, and researching the life of Jesse Babb.

Allow me to digress...

The Babb family is very well researched. What's more, from its earliest origins in colonial Maine through its various migrations into the South, it is a family that's very much still being actively researched. Part of that research is telling the story of any Babb - Jesse included.  

Yes, the story of another extraordinary ordinary life - that of Jesse Babb.

               

                                               

Now the Babb Family Association, which my friend Paige would certainly be a part of by extension, is guarded by a paywall but has several free blogs and publications. One of these deals with the subject of the parentage of Jesse Babb.  The author, researcher and webmaster of "all things Babb" has determined after some fairly extensive investigation, that slave Jesse Babb is likely the grandson of Sampson Babb via his son James Kellett Babb. 

                      

From: https://babbunabridged.com/2023/08/19/jesse-babb-an-enigma-wrapped-in-a-mystery-shrouded-by-slavery-part-2-of-3/

This makes Jesse Babb possibly Paige's several times over great-great-uncle.

Remember though, this isn't yet proven.

Okay, that's well and good, and likely there are DNA tests that have been run on the many Babbs, but what about the other end? What about the descendants of Jesse Babb? Are they out there looking for Sampson? Have they run their own DNA tests? Have they stumbled upon the Babb Family Association much as I have?

There's good reason to believe they have. 

                              

        A descendant of Jesse Babb

It's a bittersweet story, one filled with the need for much more research, testing, and yes, communication. But my, what an American story it is!!! It's painful, it's tragic, it ordinary and maybe it's even healing.

Now, some of this is speculative. Some of it is very anecdotal. There are still many verifications, etc., to be done - nonetheless, it's a tale worth investigating and, surely, one worth telling. 

So sometimes you just never know what you might find amongst the ordinary branches.

Just people. 

So here's to you, Jesse Babb, whoever you were, you were a grandson of patriots.

May you rest in peace. 

🕊️