EXTRACTING HIRAM

AND THE NEBRASKA LEATHER COMPANY

                    

     Above: Hiram L. Wilcox ca. 1819-1893

(Author's note: You just never know what you'll learn about someone along the way. What follows is how I came to recognize an inventor in the ancestor I thought I already knew.)

As always, unapologetically unedited.

More often than not, when working any particular genealogy, we only see our ancestors in black and white. We hunt voraciously for those missing vitals records, those of birth, marriage, and inevitable death, all the time hoping to connect the dots from one generation to the next. Quite often we're stumped—with just exactly who somebody was. Do we have the right person? Are we letting a coincidence of names and circumstances, or the phonetic variance in the sound of someone's "call name" flavor our need to secure their identification? All of these answers and or questions can produce the greatest of genealogical rewards. Sometimes, those questions and answers can come from the places you least expect.

In all of this though, do we lose sight of the lives they lead?

This week, I was contacted by one of my Wilcox cousins, a man of some note, with questions about the identity of the father of our common ancestor, Hiram L. Wilcox (ca. 1819–1893). Now, I hadn't looked at Hiram L. Wilcox, (or his father) in nearly a decade. I'd assumed that what was known about Hiram had reached the proverbial genealogical dead end. (Hey, it happens!) However, this week, and with the improved access we have now to more and better sources, we were able to firmly identify Hiram's father as Jeremiah Sprague Wilcox and push Hiram's paternal line back by one more confirmed generation. All this had been great, and well, and good, but in doing so it also caused me to take another step back and to take another look at the life of Hiram L. Wilcox. And it was in doing so that I saw the most curious thing—a man beyond his vital records.

 

                                           

I found Hiram, the inventor.

An inventor, really?

Did I have the same man beyond a confluence of seemingly appropriate vital records?

       

        

At first, I didn't quite believe it. I'd just come through the somewhat arduous verification process of identifying that Hiram's father, "Sprague Wilcox" was one and the same man as "Jeremiah Sprague Willcox," of Smyrna, Chenango County, New York, and seeing as it has been a tough year all around for verifying folks as "one and the same" per GPS standards, my initial instinct was to doubt that I did indeed have "the correct Hiram L. Wilcox."

  

The crux of what I found was:—that a man named Hiram L. Wilcox was an inventor, or a scientist really, who had managed to extract a resin or substance from a plant in his 1860s Iowa corn field, and realizing that this resin would make the process of tanning hides easier, he subsequently patented and marketed it, and then sadly becoming a version of 1880s corporate villainary. This was astounding to me. 

 

My question could only be:

Was this "my" Hiram L. Wilcox?                    

         

I'd only ever known about the tired old rancher Hiram L. Wilcox. He was the tired old guy with the bad looking neck beard in the picture, the progenitor of my Wilcox family lines who'd settled in Wyoming with his family and died on Cow Creek in 1893. Yes, I'd known he'd come "from New York," and I knew about his pit stops from there through Wisconsin where he met his wife Eveline Clark, then their moves onto Iowa, and Nebraska, before finally coming to Wyo. However, I had not given my Hiram L. Wilcox much more credit than that of his being a hard working non-descript nineteenth century pioneer who'd made his way west. In my mind, the Wilcoxs of Wyoming were ranchers, horse people, all solid and staid.

Ah! The hubris of genealogy in forgetting that there were people behind all those vital records.

However, as I looked at all of this "tanning hides and leather" extracts business connected to "a Hiram L. Wilcox" I recalled something I'd seen more than once. It was, at first, something I couldn't quite place. I recalled that "our" Hiram L. Wilcox, in addition to his stated occupation as a farmer was also a "shoemaker."

   

               

                               

As in leather. As in tanning hides.

 

While not exactly a newsworthy revelation in terms of occupations genealogically, having a Hiram L. Wilcox in my own family tree who just also happened to live in Fremont County, Iowa, and also in Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska, and who was also a shoemaker, at the same time as this Hiram L. Wilcox who was of both of those same places and at the same time, and who patented an extract for the tanning process, well, it made me realize that I had indeed "extracted Hiram" and that they were one and the same person.

I was looking at the patent in the image above filed by filed by my ancestor.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HIRAM L. WILCOX, OF LINCOLN, NEBRASKA.

COMPOUND FOR TANNING.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 353,341, dated November 30, 1886.

Application filed August 26, 1885. Serial No. 175,380. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HIRAM L. WILCOX, a resident of Lincoln, in the county of Lancaster and State of Nebraska, have invented a new Improvement in Compounds for Tanning and for other Purposes; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable others skilled in the art to make and use the same.

In the manufacture of the extract of polygonum for tanning and other purposes the same is sometimes liable to fermentation, on account of the saccharine matter contained therein, and the object of my invention is to prevent this fermentation and the consequent deterioration of the extract as a commercial article, either in transportation or storage.

My invention consists of a compound or mixture of the extract of polygonum with the extract of Rhus glabrum, as follows: In preparing my new compound, take of the plant Polygonum amphibium or angusticum, say, two parts, and take of the green leaves or branches of the shrub Rhus glabrum, one part, and make an extract of the two substances by any convenient process. In this mixed extract the large quantity of gallic acid in the Rhus glabrum prevents the fermentation of the saccharine matter of the extract of polygonum, and thus affords a superior article of manufacture or commerce.

This new extract may be used not only for tanning, which is the chief purpose, but also for dyeing, medicine, and other purposes.

Having described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is—

As a new article of commerce and manufacture, the described compound of the extract of polygonum and extract of Rhus glabrum, substantially as and for the purposes set forth.

HIRAM L. WILCOX.

Witnesses:

HENRY E. LEWIS,

ISAAC WHITED.                        

 

I'm putting this out there because I think Hiram deserves his due, and well, because to have a patented inventor of something in the family tree, is well, kind of cool if you ask me. I guess what's remarkable to me is how the fact of this got lost to memory. It also raises questions as to what forced some of the Wilcox moves west. I suppose I never understood why any of them had traded in the green fields of Wisconsin for the harsher mountain life of Wyoming. I assumed that it had something to do with an 1880s style land grab. I did, and perhaps correctly so, assumed that Hiram and Eveline moved to Wyoming to follow all of their surviving adult children, Charles, John, Emma, and Dave there, and indeed this is probably no doubt true. However, what I couldn't see in this is the circumstances that helped flavor this move, that of Hiram's lawsuits and of his business collapse, and the loss of his Nebraska Leather Company to less than ethical shareholders.    

         

Indeed, based on the provided documents and historical records, Hiram L. Wilcox of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Hiram L. Wilcox who settled in the Wyoming territory are proven to be the exact same individual through the precise intersection of his unique name, family structure, and chronological migration - and no other individual of the same name who followed the exact same migration pattern. Census and state records explicitly track Hiram alongside his wife Eveline and their children moving step-by-step from New York and Wisconsin through Fremont County, Iowa, and onward to Lincoln, Nebraska—where he, as a farmer and as a shoemaker, established the Nebraska Leather Company and patented his botanical tanning compound. When that business collapsed, the ensuing 1880s Lancaster County court litigation and legal notices explicitly name him as "Hiram L. Wilcox, plaintiff," matching the exact timeline before he and his family completed their final migration west to Wyoming.

Hiram L. Wilcox's occupational arc in the shoe and leather industries is documented across multiple decades and regions, beginning in 1850 and 1860 where federal census records in Lafayette, Wisconsin, and Benton Township, Fremont County, Iowa, explicitly list him as a "shoemaker". His transition into tanning is established in the 1860s and 1870s, as detailed in historical articles recounting his discovery of the tanning properties of smartweed (Polygonum amphibium) in Percival, Iowa—resulting in a hide tanning process patent in November 1869—before establishing himself in the manufacture of leather and moving to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1874. In Lincoln, he became a founding force and stockholder in the Nebraska Leather Company, whose operations and subsequent legal disputes involving Wilcox are reflected in court reports, newspaper articles, and legal notices from 1874 to 1884. This trajectory is further corroborated by the 1885 Nebraska State Census, which explicitly lists his occupation as a "tanner," and concluded with his November 1886 patent for an improved tanning compound

I gotta think that after awhile Hiram just gave up and said, "Eveline, let's follow the kids out to Saratoga. I'll teach our boy "Billy" how to make a good shoe..."

"Why he'll be a chip off the old Wilcox block."           

Wild, wild, west. 

Still, it is a fascinating tale to me, and nearly an unknown and certainly near forgotten fact that Hiram L. Wilcox was quite a man, he was a scientist, even a botanical engineer. He was certainly so much more than what even his own obituary painted him out to be. In my mind's eye I see a sharp and observant soul who discovered something even if by accident and who had the acumen to put it through a scientific process, and discovering that his botanical theories worked and had practical applications, put them to work in an attempt to secure a better future for our Wilcox clan. To this end, and despite the failure of the Nebraska Leather Company, I gotta believe he was most certainly successful.

And just because The Nebraska Leather Company and Grandpa Hiram got screwed over by some nineteenth century Nebraskan robber-barons, doesn't mean we can't celebrate his accomplishments and inventor-syle acumen today. 

So in honor of that, and in honor of our ancestor Hiram L. Wilcox, I thought I'd print up a t-shirt. Ya know, for family solidarity.

                    

I mean who really likes nineteenth century robber barons stealing a hard working farmer's invention and subsequent patent?

Hey, it's all a fitting way of "extracting Hiram."

               ☮

    KILLING LOVE

AND THE DEATH OF CLARK RECORD                     

   (Author's note: There are no edits in tears.)   

                 

"You're doing the right thing," they said. "It was time."

No doubt it was. But saying that? The right thing? Right time? Can they not hear themselves utter those saccharine cliches?  Yet the anticipatory grief that I'd denied over the last ten days or so flooded away into clarity as I watched him struggle to the open door. He wanted out. He was done. He wanted out into that cool morning air and the relief it promised. He needed it, though he could no longer summon his legs to get him out that door to where it might surround him. 

We watched just momentarily. Our senses taking in all we could of his incredible being as we watched in useless hope and for dignity's sake that he might still succeed, that he might still prevail, before bending down to help him one last time to make his way out to the cool of the rough patio. There we'd laid a fine carpet for him to rest and to breathe that fresh rainy air. Yes, a fine carpet for our finest boy to lay down on for his final rest. There it was that he looked up at us, so tired, and that torpid realization came through the fogginess of our selfish denials that we "were there," that indeed we had arrived.

We'd arrived at Killing Love.

I mean where do you start?                                  

His name was "Clark" - a silly name I suppose for a dog but one that summed up his happy go lucky goofiest "best friend in the world" ways. 

His fur was as white and as pure as his heart was. A pup of the friendly "Scottish lines," there was never anything nefarious or duplicitous about our boy Clark aside from his occasional stubbornness at insisting on a treat when promised one, or that he watched the clock like a German clockmaker when it was time for his walk. (The boy kept a doggie wristwatch, no doubt) He'd traveled so far with us. Way back to when as a wee lad he'd attended my mother's 80th birthday party much to Mom's delight, and later on traveled the Oregon Coast to visit my elderly father for Thanksgiving. Clark was family. He was always up for a ride in the car, and always up for a good game of a "ha-cha" - a made up "chase around" game played in the backyard with our granddaughters.

Clark was laughter. He was fun.

Oh, he did have his dark side. 

You see, he had a running feud with Amazon.com and UPS as to who was better at notifying us when a package (or anyone) was at the front door. 

(Obviously, it was Clark.)

He also felt it was his duty to howl in unison with any passing fire trucks or ambulances.  We often laughed that he must have thought he was on the city's payroll in doing so. He was also a de facto  chairman of the Neighborhood Watch Committee. In sort of a "Gladys Kravitz" style, Clark was first on the scene and always looking out the windows to see what the neighbors were up to or if there was a party next door or in someone's garage he'd not been invited to.

He was utter goodness. He was joy. He was love.

So how could I do this to him? 

How could I make that final choice, that final call in favor of his death? How could I kill him who was so dear to our hearts? How could I kill this beautiful soul who would take his torn stuffed toys to his mother, my wife, and beseech her to repair them with his soulful eyes?

I don't know. 

And alongside all this the questions come...

Could I have done more? What didn't I do to help him? God, why did you not let me save him?

Yes, I know - it isn't like we hadn't all done it before - that is "euthanized" a dog. It isn't like we hadn't killed love before.  It isn't like we hadn't already experienced that beyond loathsome task that wrenches guts and questions your sense of what is or isn't moral, right, or natural. It hadn't been easy before. It had been horrible. Yet here we were hurtling headlong back into it again. 

After all, we'd made a deal with the Devil eleven years ago. 

Yes, that deal that said we'll give you anything to have that "dog love" that "Clark love" in our lives - and the Devil had said: 

"Yes, you will. And you will give him back to me when I call, no matter the how, the why, or the when, and you will wonder, and you will cry." 

So there we were: Here again watching that brilliant and precious puppy from eleven years ago - the one with the orange collar who licked my face and made me swoon - here we were again with that Devil and his bargain - killing love.

"You're doing the right thing," they all say. "It was time."

Yeah, well flock you, Devil. 

I guess I have to stop here. 

I am so fucking proud to have been his dad.             

My tears are blinding me, and to relay the experience of the tall Dog Reaper who came to claim him from us on Heaven's behalf yesterday seems silly or even morose. It does not matter, I suppose. Suffice it to say that Clark's passing was a peaceful one and we are grateful for this kindness sent to us by God and from the fates.

Time could no longer stand still for him, nor for us. 

Clark has made it out into the cool breeze. 

And we are gutted.                      

                                                                            🕊

                                                               

Epilogue: I picked his ashes up today. He was at some non-descript industrial warehouse "Pet Memorial Services" place across town. They were ok. I mean what do you expect when they're in the we turn you pets to toast sort of business. I know I raced over there to pick "him" up. It was like if I could just get him home it would all be better. Stupid me. A dead dog's ashes in a box to gather dust on a shelf. 

Still, he is home.

I've asked myself why do we do this - you know, over the course of this last week. Why do we put ourselves through the anguish of this love and lost, and, for folks like my wife and I doing so over and over again and making that same Devil's bargain.

   

I guess I have realized in the past few days that it was all so very worth it. That yes, all of this Hellish heartache over the loss of our boy Clark has been worth enduring to have been able to have had him in our lives for eleven years. And this is why we do this over and over and over again. Because, yes, despite all this Hell hole of grief we are in, Clark was so utterly f*cking worth it.

Rest in peace, boy. 

You are home now.

Love, Dad.

 An Uncommon Burr

Above: An unconfirmed Burr family photograph attributed to Abbie (Tuttle) Burr - though the concensus among Burr family trees is that this is a photograph of one of her daughters or granddaughters.

(Author's note: Sometimes you just gotta look at the person next to you and say, "Cousins?" Because it all could be oh so very true.)

As always, unapologetically unedited. I apologize for f'ing anything up from dates to names to WAY too many typos. What can I say? "Old Man Brain."

I.

This past week, I was reminded that I likely share a Burr family ancestry with an old college friend of mine, Timothy Burr. However, tracing any seemingly shared ancestry with a friend or anyone else for that matter to check on your "cousins ship" status can be a daunting task. And seeing as my connection to the Burr family is a few generations further back than Tim's very direct paternal line is, I could see that for me it would be even a more so.

Still, the possibility of this mutual Burr connection between us has always made me intrigued. It seemed genealogically worth while to check it out. So I thought that I'd give it a whirl to see what was out there in terms of possibly proving it.

To begin with - about the only things I knew for certain was that both Tim and I had Burr relatives buried in cemeteries in Nebraska. 

This is certainly very little to go on, but hey, at least a start.

Above: The gravesite of my friend Tim's great-great-grandmother, Abby (Tuttle) Burr, at the Juniata Cemetery, Juniata, Adams County, Nebraska. See: FindAGrave.com memorial number: 65501646      

Above: The gravesite of my great-great-great grandmother, Zeruah (Kenyon) Burr, at the Wilson Cemetery, Springfield, Sarpy County, Nebraska. See: FindAGrave.com memorial number: 139559252 

While both of these ladies lived out their best "Nebraska frontier" lives as contemporaries of each of other, and as the wives of Burr men, there is no immediate evidence that seems to connect their Burr husbands to each other.  

Before I get too much further, I need to mention that in tracing my friend Tim's paternal lines I have relied heavily on Charles Burr Todd's A General History of the Burr Family pictured in the image above. 

I need to mention also that it's in here (the book above) that things get extremely murky. 

Not to jump too far ahead of myself - but submitted Family Trees easily trace Tim's lines back to Abby (Tuttle Burr) in that Nebraska Cemetery in the image shown above. These same family trees alongside secondary accounts also attribute her husband to be John Burr "the second" whom she survived by thirty years or so. 

This John Burr (that is Abby's husband) is said to be buried in a grave in Vienna, Oneida County, New York, where, oddly enough, in both 1840 and 1850 we do find John, Abby and their family:

     

Above: The presumed gravesite of John Burr II, husband of Abby (Tuttle) Burr at the Braddock Cemetery, Vienna, Oneida County, New York. See: FindAGrave.com memorial number: 38221055

Further, family trees also generally assign this John Burr as the son of Lt. John Burr, shown in the images from Charles Todd Burr's book mentioned above and in the cropped image below: 

The trouble is, there is an eight year discrepancy between the birth date given for (#252) John Burr in the book's account and the date on the presumed John's grave stone. 

Now in genealogical terms, poorly carved headstones are just that, and the "went west" description alongside finding "John and Aby" in the same New York town all seems to fit. Still, without something more, pushing Tim's Burr family lines past this point (circa 1800) will need something more. 

However, even given all of this obscurity, Tim's Burr family lines are a lot more traceable in terms of Todd's book than mine might ever pretend to be. 

Remember my ancestor whose grave site is pictured above, Zeruah (Kenyon) Burr? The lovely and talented Zeruah married a guy named "Stillman Burr" - my three times great grandfather. 

Yet my ancestor, the mysterious Stillman Burr, doesn't even make it into the "maybe" category as a documented soul in Charles Burr Todd's book. Nope, my Burr ancestor is personna non gratis when it comes to even a theory about his bad self in the published Burr genealogy. LOL.

 So as far as "the answer goes" with regard to a Burr kinship between Tim and me, well, we share the fact that both our Burr lines are "obscured" in the "official" Burr book. Tim's lines being more like "Well, it looks like the line goes this way..." and mine being more on the 

"Who the Hell did you say you were?" type. 

II.

However, a lot of cool or interesting connections aren't made just off of one family surname. 

As I perused the shared family surnames in both of our trees I could see that there were some interesting twists in the branches. I found the surname "Mosher" in Tim's tree, a name I've encountered in my own family and a name with strong ties to Mayflower passengers Francis Cooke and Richard Warren. Tim's strong New England lines through his Dad very likely will lead back to that old boat at some point. 

I also explored the surname of "Tuttle" found in Tim's family tree. These are the lines of Tim's great-great grandmother, Abby (Tuttle) Burr. Abby's Tuttle lineage is one that, at least in the surface, appears to lead back to the John Wadhams family of Connecticut - a line I certainly connect to- and a line that, for both Tim and me, is mostly traceable.

Abby (Tuttle) Burr's father is said to be a man by the name of Ichabod Tuttle.   

Here's a wee bit of background history:          

Above: Harriet Weeks Wadhams Stevens, 1913, The Wadhams Genealogy, page 74. In the above book is found Ichabod Tuttle said elsewhere to be the father of Abby Tuttle Burr. My own ancestors are found in this same book giving Tim and I a shared line of descent from John Wadhams.

Below: The Wadhams Genealogy, page 23. The mostly traceable common ancestor that Tim Burr and I share is this man, John Wadham, of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Tim descends through his first wife Hannah Bidwell, and me through his second wife, Abigail Baldwin.

 

Above: The Wadham genealogy likely leading down to both Abby (Tuttle) Burr on Tim's side and from Abigail Baldwin Wadham on mine.

So by and large, the Wadhams line is mostly traceable for both Tim and me. The remaining unknown is a verification of the name of Abby's father as Ichabod Tuttle, and for his father as Ichabod, Sr.. There is a New York GenWeb piece that offers up some of this identification:

https://www.nygenweb.net/lewis/FamilyPhotoAlbum/BrooksBurr/BrooksNBurrFamilies.html

Still, the above link does not present with any source citations. 

Based on census records this is what seems to pan out:

The identification of Abby (Tuttle) Burr as Ichabod Tuttle's daughter rests on the agreement of several sources. Her 1884 obituary states that she was born at Turin, Lewis County, New York, and gives her age at death as 78, placing her birth about 1805. An 1876 Bible inscription names its owner as "Mrs. Abby Tuttle Burr," the only document found (aside from state and county biographies based on statement of her daughter) that attaches the Tuttle surname to Abby Burr. 

Ichabod Tuttle headed a Lewis County household in 1810 that included five girls under ten, and again in 1820, when it included one girl aged ten to fifteen. A daughter born about 1805 fits both brackets, and no other Tuttle household was found in Lewis County in 1820. In 1830 he was still in the same community, enumerated in West Turin. 

The evidence is consistent with Abby being Ichabod's daughter, but it remains more or less circumstantial until a record naming her parents is found.    

  Above: 1820 U.S. Census for the household of Ichabod Tuttle, at (likely) Turin, Lewis County, New York

  

In a lot of ways, this particular genealogical connection between Tim and me feels more than sound even though most will label it only an inferential one. True enough is that it would require a strong proof argument if it was to pass a lineage society application. However, the negative search results here are strong and favor the identification. 

And while not a "Burr connection" per se for Tim and me, it is an interesting one. 

I believe the tale of Tim's ancestor "Ichabod Tuttle, the elder" is an cool one and one taken right out of the pages of American history books.

Above: George Frederick Tuttle's (1883) The Descendants of William and Elizabeth Tuttle, page 522

                       

All in all, this can be stated as a tentative genealogy placing Tim and myself as "half eighth cousins" via the colonial gentleman John Wadham. 

Our shared lineage shapes up like this in the image below:

However, any genealogy is just hearsay unless you can back it up with valid sources, or at least a proof argument that meets the GPS ("Genealogical Proof Standard"). The chart above falls just short of the GPS but it provides a descent enough road map to follow up with at a later date.  

Works for me. :)

III.

It seems wrong to close out this blog post on a whole lot of "maybe" for Tim and myself in terms of genealogical connections. Indeed, I may be doing so again in my mentioning my own "third cousin seven times removed" Major Richard Hewitt- a seemingly direct ancestor of Tim's in the piece below - and a provable collateral relative of mine. (We descend from the same Hewitt progenitor)

Now I'm not going to go into the anecdotal connections that connect me to the good major. 

Suffice it to see that "we New Englanders of origin" often find ourselves related to each other in six ways to Sunday. Nevertheless, I think the connection to Major Hewitt is an interesting one for Tim, and with a very wee bit of spit and polish, I believe it would make him eligible for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution. 

https://www.sar.org/

Below: A brief description of some of the service of "Major" Richard Hewitt               

Often referred to as "the Major" I thought this RW war guy was kind of cool to have among Ye Olde Branches of Tim's family tree. He is already acknowledged as a "Patriot Ancestor" by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

        

And while no one has applied for membership at the DAR (nor likely the SAR) through the Major's son Richard Hewitt, "the younger," it certainly looks possible to do so. (Others have applied and been accepted through the Major's other children)          

I guess what I thought was cool is that the Major was in the Continental forces and wan't just a run of the mill colonial with a grudge against the high price of tea and Mad King George.

Anyway, Tim's line to the Major looks to plays out as shown below. (We will need to verify each generation from the major to Tim for the line to hold.) Anyway, I thought we'd take a look at the line and see what was there, and what still needs to be followed up on. 

It is proving to be an interesting genealogical exercise.

First- the line of descent from the Major to Tim:

 

Now below, let's take it generation by generation. 

GENERATION ONE - "Major" Richard Hewitt (1736-1825) who married Experience Leeds

Below are two cropped images of Major Richard Hewitt's Last Will and Testament. In it he lists his wife Experience, and his eldest son Richard Hewitt, "now deceased." The Major mentions (but does not name his grandchildren by his son Richard.)

GENERATION TWO - Richard Hewitt, II,"the younger"(1766-1813) who m. Sarah/Sally Guile

See the Will above - Richard Hewitt, the major's son, is mentioned in the will of his father. Richard "the younger," is said to have married Sarah/Sally Guile. A marriage record for Richard the younger to Sarah/Sally Guile wasn't found, but a birth record for her appears to exist, and seeing as Sally is named in his Will, and that he's buried next to her, I think it's a pretty safe bet that we've got the right "Dick and Sally."

 

   

 

Now because their stones are worn, and the information is considered second hand on FindAGrave.com, we may need to look for a cemetery transcription to go along with these images. Given that we have Richard the younger's Will, I think any of those mavens at the lineages society's would just be being unnecessarily picky to dispute this. And given that some of their other children are also buried near them at the same "Hewitt" family cemetery I think it's safe to move on)

Besides, the best part is still back up in Richard the younger's Last Will and Testament. 

You see, there he names his daughter "Phebe."

GENERATION THREE: Phebe Hewitt, (1799-1854) who married John Mosher

Okay, again, refer to Generation Two that names Phebe in her father Richard the younger's Will. But at this point we are going to have to stretch our muscles to show our gal Phebe married John Mosher. This will require a few twists and turns so bear with me.

First off, these burial records for "Phebe and John" below:

As there are no gravestone images at all to fall back on, we're definitely going to need a cemetery transciption to go with this and something more to tie this generation up. It helps that they are alleged to be buried with Phebe's parents in the Hewitt family cemetery, but again that is only genealogical hearsay at this point. 

Fortunately for us, the 1842 Fulton County, New York, Surrogate's Court has taken care of that for us in the image below that names "Phebe, widow of John Mosher..."

Can you say, "Winner, winner, chicken dinner?" 

GENERATION FOUR: Sarah Jeanette "Nettie" Mosher (1839-1888) who married Walter H. Burr

Now we may still have a few twists and turns to get to the easy parts of the lineage forward to Tim. Verifying the names of Nettie (Mosher) Burr's parents as John Mosher and Phebe Hewitt is not going to be a cake walk. 

BUT we can infer their names and who they were from the following records:

Well, for one, we know that John Mosher died in 1842, and, pending a cemetery transcription, that he and the lovely Phebe are buried in the Hewitt Cemetery in Oppenheim, Fulton County, New York. 

So what does the household for the widowed Phebe and her children look like in 1850?   

Okay, I am commiting a huge genealogical faux pas in using this index image of the 1850 census.

 However, the 1850 census "ink" comes out so faded on line this seemed a better alternative for the blog post. I believe that this index shows well enough Phebe Mosher, still in Oppenheim, Fulton County, New York, now widowed, with Sarah as her youngest child. I suspect the "Sarah B" shown in the transcribed index that the letter "B" is a faded out letter "J."

We could also use these records which I haven't imaged here to help bolster up this generation:

1. 1885 Nebraska census, Juniata, Adams County: Sarah Burr, 45, wife of Walter, with Giles Mosher listed as "Bro-in-law." Giles's age matches the 1850 Henry G., which ties Sarah back to Phebe's household.
2. 1908 marriage record of Nettie's son Theodore (Adams County, Book 11, p. 225): his mother's maiden name is given as "Nettie Mosher." It confirms her maiden name but not her parents.

I'm also going to "fan out" here for the sake of brevity and this blog, to show this excerpt from "Women of the West," an article talking about Nettie's daughter, Elsie (Burr) Ogden that gives her mother's maiden name as "Mosher." 

And yes, in case you were wondering this is cheating a bit - in a perfect world I would have a wee bit better records here - however for now I am going to rely on the obituary of Nettie Mosher Burr's husband, Walter H. Burr, which really ties it all nicely together in the image below:

  

 

The obit is important alongside the article from "Women of the West" in that it cross references "Nettie (Mosher) Burr as one and the same person as "Sarah Jeanette (Mosher) Burr." It does this via their daughter (and Tim's great grandfather's sister) Elsie (Burr) Ogden. 

Its kind of a bonus feature in terms of an easy verification - it's likely not acceptable without other docs if applying to a lineage society.- but really does exactly the same thing.

GENERATION FIVE: Theodore Sayer Burr (1882-1962) who married Myrta Poore

I'm not going to get too heavy here.

I figure Tim knows his grandparents just fine and doesn't need me to proof them out for a blog post. Nevertheless, I'd be more than a half ass wannabe genealogist of I didn't include some kind of identification linking Theordore to his parents, so here goes. 

This nice (and wonderfully complete) marriage record will do the trick:

 

And yes, it's time for me to stop right about here. 

So in conclusion to the Major Richard Hewitt lineage:

Richard Hewitt's will, dated 20 September 1819, names his "eldest son Richard Hewitt (now deceased)," his daughter Mary Gile, widow of Daniel Gile, and his daughter Experience, wife of Randall Hewitt. The will of Richard Hewitt, "the younger" dated 22 March 1813 and proved 28 August 1813 in Montgomery County, names a daughter Phebe. It was witnessed by Randal Hewitt and names Daniel Guile as an executor, these same two names that appear in the 1819 will as husbands of the elder Richard's daughters Experience and Mary. The 1810 census of Upenheim (Oppenheim), Montgomery County, New York, lists Mary Guile, Randel Hewitt, and Richard Hewitt within a few households of one another. Taken together, these records identify the Richard Hewitt who died at Oppenheim in 1813 as the elder Richard's eldest son, and his daughter Phebe as the elder Richard's granddaughter. 

No record found so far states that this Phebe Hewitt is the Phebe who married John Mosher of Oppenheim, although she was of the right age and lived in the same town. In 1842 Phebe Mosher, widow of John Mosher of Oppenheim, was granted administration of his estate. In 1850 Phebe Moshier, 51, lived in Oppenheim with Henry G., William B., John, Richard H., and Sarah, 11 (index). 

In 1885 Walter Burr of Juniata, Nebraska, headed a household that included his wife Sarah, 45, his son Theodore, 2, and his brother-in-law [Henry] "Giles Mosher." Theodore S. Burr's 1908 marriage record names his parents as Walter Burr and Nettie Mosher. In 1930 Warren H. Burr, 6, was listed as a son of Theodore S. Burr in Hastings, Nebraska (index). Warren's 2010 obituary names his son Timothy, and the California Birth Index lists Timothy Gerard Burr, born 26 October 1954, with mother's maiden name Quilty.

Any lineage society application will ask us to prove that Phebe Hewitt and Phebe Mosher are one and the same persons. That is why I have ordered gravesite photos and will keep my eye out for a Hewitt family cemetery transcription list. If they're all buried together, it's a pretty safe inference that "the two Phebe's" are one and the same person.

IV.

I didn't realize that I had written so much and blathered on so. I had asked my friend a simple question about looking into the possibility of our shared Burr family lines, and the other possibilities just exploded. I'm comfortable presenting Tim's lines here to Major Richard Hewitt if the Continental Infantry as resolved. Despite them needing a bit more polish I think the lineage is a solid one.

I think my shared ancestry with Tim through the Wadhams family lines is fun - and it's almost a "done deal" once we get a little bit better information on certainly of Abby (Tuttle) Burr's parents. I think we're close to resolving it.

As far as the main question goes about shared "Burr" ancestry in common. Hey, it's there. It's murky as Hell, but there are just too many parallel lines of descent and migration patterns for it not to be. Granted, I think Tim and I will discover it is likely a very distant tie should we ever figure out how to discern it - still it's a fun one to explore.

As an aside to this - I have to say that growing up even "distantly Burr" as it might relate to Tim, in my mother's family we were not a family who would ever have been first in line to purchase tickets to Hamilton. LOL. I have no idea why, but if the subject of our alleged politically expedient cousin "Aaron Burr" ever came up my mother was silent. It wasn't that we either favored Aaron Burr over Alexander Hamilton - though maybe we should have in a lot of ways - it was moreso a sense that in my mother's voice I could hear her ancestry; her blood was "circling the wagons" so to speak around and in defense our Burr family heritage. 

Even Aaron Burr.

I don't think my mother ever maligned Alexander Hamilton per se - but she was quick to mention that in our distant Burr family lineage, that bon vivant Alexander was not to be venerated like some unadulterated idol. 

Funny these things, these ancestral memories.

In any event, I hope I have both supplied some information and some entertainment.

One never knows.

Understanding our family lines has always been an "uncommon Burr" to me. 

Wink!