Tag: Stockwell

52W Mark V – Week 19: Violate Stockwell

Violate Stockwell (1794-1880)

I’m amazed – it feels like it’s been months since I last posted, but I see it’s only been three weeks. Yay me.

I am, however, eight weeks behind in the  52 Ancestors Challenge. When I commented on that fact a week ago on Amy Johnson Crow’s Facebook group, Generations Cafe, her only response was “You know what I’m going to say.” Of course I did! I even have the receipt to prove it.

October 2024. Not the first time I received that reminder.

So let’s get a move on and talk about my Great x4 Grandmother, Violate Stockwell. She was born on October 10, 1794 in Windham, Vermont, to Abraham Stockwell and Vilate (Violette? Vierlaty?) Gale, who were both originally from Massachusetts. They were third cousins. Even outside their common ancestor, Abraham and Vilate both had deep roots in colonial New England going back to the 1600s.

If I have fancy-pants ancestors or famous cousins, many of them are through Violate. Violate’s Great x4 Grandmother was Rebecca Towne Nurse, one of the accused who was convicted and executed by hanging during the Salem Witch Trials. Violate is also a descendant of the Putnam family, whose members included some of the accusers at Salem. As well, since it’s the Fourth of July (otherwise known as “Saturday” here) while I am writing this, I might as well point out that Violate is a direct descendant of Richard Singletary, who is my Gx 10 Grandfather. Richard is Barack Obama’s Gx9 Grandfather. So the former President and I are 1oth cousins once removed. As far as I know, he’s the only US President I connect to.

While Violate’s parents were from Massachusetts, they married in New Hampshire. I don’t know if they met there or in Massachusetts. Their first two of seven children were born was the third of seven children. Violate, Abraham and Vilate’s third child, was born in Vermont, as were the next three children. The youngest child was born in Hartford, Washington, New York. There was a 27-year difference between the eldest and youngest child. Violate was 23 and had been married for five years when her youngest brother was born. This may have foreshadowed the age span of Violate’s own offspring, for there was a 22-year difference between her eldest and youngest child.

Violate married William Burgess, Sr., on May 1, 1813, in Putnam, New York. While Hartford and Putnam are both in Washington County, they are over 40 kilometers apart, so I have no idea how Violate met her husband.

Violate and William had 12 children together. In fact, Violate appears to be the one who has had the most children of all the women in my family tree. Violate was 18 when she married and gave birth to her first child, Harrison, a year later. The next five children, including my Gx3 Grandfather William Burgess, Jr. were all born in Putnam, while the next five were born in nearby Warren County, New York. The youngest, Vierlaty (or Vilate!), was born in 1837, in Kirtland, Ohio, after Violate and William joined the fledgling Mormon church. Violate was 42 years old when she had her last child.

Extract from William Snow’s Journal, in which he writes about baptizing Violate and William, and two of their children.

Violate and William, along with their second and third oldest children (aged 14 and 18 at the time), were baptized into the church on December 2, 1832. This makes them amongst the earliest converts to the church, as Joseph Smith had only published the Book of Mormon in 1830. In fact, the church founded by Smith was known merely as the “Church of Christ” until 1834 when it was renamed as the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. They were all baptized by William Snow, who himself had only joined the church earlier in 1832.

Violate’s conversion, along with her husband and two children, came through her son Harrison’s involvement with the early Mormon church. According to Harrison’s diary, he first heard a Mormon missionary by the name of Simeon Carter in July 1832. Harrison converted and was baptized by Elder John S. Carter on Oct. 10, 1832 and confirmed as a member of the church by Elder Orson Pratt. Harrison described Violate as “a very gifted and talented mother and of a very religious nature.”

Violate and family joined the migration of Mormon adherents to Kirtland, settling there around September 1833. They remained there until about 1840, when they moved with the Latter Day Saints to Nauvoo, Illinois, which was to be a new Zion for the church.

However, tensions grew between the Mormons in Nauvoo and their neighbours elsewhere in the county, as well as the state. Matters culminated with the state revoking the city’s charter in 1845, followed by the expulsion of the Mormons in 1846. Brigham Young, by then the head of the church, called on church members to migrate west, beyond the western frontier of the United States into Utah, which was then still part of Mexico. Violate and family were part of that migration.

Due to the rushed departure from Nauvoo and the lateness of the season, in September 1846 the Mormons established a camp and waystation near what is now Omaha, Nebraska, known as Winter Quarters. While it essentially began as a refugee camp, it quickly evolved into a small organized town. Despite that, conditions were rough and there were waves of disease that took their toll. The Latter Day Saints vacated Winter Quarters by December 1848.

Violate and family were in Winter Quarters for most of its existence. Two of her children died during their time there. The family set out from Winter Quarters in 1848 destined for Utah, in a party of 662 individuals led by Heber C. Kimball, who was essentially Brigham Young’s right hand man. Violate and family arrived in Salt Lake City in September 1848 and settled in the 16th ward. Violate was 53 years old by that time.

Compared to the tumultuous events that marked Violate’s life from her conversion in 1832 to her arrival in Salt Lake City in 1848, the next 32 years of her life were relatively quiet. So much so that I have little indication of her activities, which presumably were centered around the home and domestic life.

Perhaps the most significant events during that time was Violate’s husband entering into a polygamous marriage in 1854 and the family’s move to Pine Valley, Utah in 1861 at the direction of the church. Coincidentally enough, the first bishop of Pine Valley was William Snow, the man who had baptized Violate into the church.

Violate died in Pine Valley on July 21, 1880, aged 85, having outlived nearly half of her children, and predeceasing her husband by only four months. Violate is buried at the Pine Valley Cemetery.

52W Mark II – Week 23: So Many Descendants

The theme for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is “So Many Descendants”. The approach I’ve chosen to take is to look at immediate descendants – children only – rather than foray into who in my tree might have the most grandchildren and beyond.

That said, I will take a moment to note my great x10 grandfather, Dirck Jansz. Dirck is the furthest back I’ve traced my direct paternal line, “van der Fluit”. One of my projects has been to find all known descendants of Dirck, a project which of course is nigh impossible and will never finish. That said, I’ve found about 864 direct descendants of Dirck.

Onward and upward, Dirck.

Of course, the person with the most children in my tree is a father. My great great grandfather, Horace Burgess, had nineteen children. He had nine children with his first wife, my great great grandmother Sarah Cook. Their eight child, and youngest son, was Milton Leo Burgess, my great grandfather. After Sarah died, Horace remarried, to Julia Josephine Lundquist, with whom he had ten children.

The woman in my family tree who appears to have had the most children is Horace’s paternal grandmother, Violate Stockwell. Violate and my great x 4 grandfather, William Burgess Sr., had 12 children, including my great x 3 grandfather William Jr. Violate had her first child, Harrison Burgess, a year after she married William. Violate was 19-years-old when Harrison was born. Violate was 42 when her last child, Vilate, was born. There is a 22-year difference between Harrison and Vilate. In fact, Harrison had been married for two years when his youngest sister was born.

Forget about so many descendants – so many kids! I highly doubt Harrison was put to work helping his mother with his younger siblings. I’m willing to bet that task fell upon the eldest of his sisters, Rosina, who was four years younger than Harrison. Needless to say, times have changed. My mother absolutely put me, the eldest of five, to work helping her with the household and with my younger siblings. It certainly provided me with plenty of life skills I am grateful to have.

52 Weeks – Week 33: Service

I’ve written about military service and religious service, so the twist I’ve taken for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, “Service”, is to look at domestic service. Most of my ancestry consists of labourers and agricultural workers, so none were so posh as to have had servants. However, I do have ancestors who were the servants.

Sometime in my early teen years, I heard it told that during the war my paternal grandmother worked as a domestic servant. I’m unable to verify the story, as there is no longer anyone who would have first-hand knowledge of that fact. What civil records that might provide more information are not yet publicly available due to privacy laws and the lack of passage of sufficient time.

Elizabeth Bakker

My grandmother’s mother, Elizabeth Bakker, was also a domestic servant (“dienstbode” in Dutch) before she married. It appears she spent time working in Amsterdam as a domestic servant before returning to her hometown of Den Helder, where she performed similar work until 1920 or 1921. However, by the time she married in April 1921, she as “zonder beroep” (“without job”). Elizabeth’s older sister Johanna and her younger sister Cornelia also worked as a domestic servants.

The Bevolkingsregister (“Population Register”) family card for Cornelis Jan Bakker and family. His daughter Elizabeth (my great grandmother) is shown as a dienstbode (“domestic servant”).

My third great grandmother, Maartje Mettes, was a domestic servant when she married her first husband, Klaas Buur. Klaas was also a domestic servant at the time of the marriage. My suspicion is that they may have worked in the same household, which I will need to research. However, by the time Maartje married her second husband, my third great grandfather Cornelis Komen, she was “van beroep zonder” (“without a job”).

My great x4 grandmother, Vrouwtje Hilbert Hilberts, also spent time as a domestic servant and was doing that work when she got married.

Marriage registration for my great x4 grandparents, Nicolaas Cornelisz (“Klaas”) Komen and Vrouwtje Hilbert Hilberts. Vrouwtje was noted as van beroep dienstbode (“working as a domestic servant”) at the time of marriage in 1811.

Although in the majority, women were not the only domestic servants in my tree. While I have not done much research on my great x4 grandfather, Thomas Hadlond, he was a domestic servant in England before leaving for America and settling in Nebraska. I also have a 3x great uncle, Petrus (“Pieter”) van der Fluit who worked as a dienstknecht (“manservant”). Finally, in another form of domestic service, William Stockwell, my 8x great grandfather, likely came over to America as an indentured servant, gaining his liberty before he married.