"She hides handsome and richly dressed aft the blinds of the window..."

Today being Hallowe'en, I wanted to post something mysterious, murderous, or macabre about my family history. Alas, we seem always to have been a pretty clean-cut, upstanding group. Where are my highwaymen, defrocked clergy, or sheep-stealers hung by the neck until dead? But I was able to find two apposite legends; so legendary, in fact, that they only concern possible family members.

The first story concerns at least one of the legitimate (by which I mean factual, not bastardy) children of Ira Baker Brown (28 Jun 1829 - 15 May 1899), a maternal second great-grand-uncle, oldest brother to Silas W Brown, about whom I have written before. Among many other occupations, including cooper, painter, soda maker (?), and photographer (he owned a panorama camera), Ira Baker Brown was also a sextant at the Edgewood Cemetery in Chillicothe, Missouri. Oooooohhhh! Not terribly spooky in itself, I know, although I did try to add a little atmosphere to the photo below.



Edgewood Cemetery, original photo by "mordecarr" at findagrave.com.

No, the grim component to this story is that his children, twins (a classic horror trope!) Orlando and Malvina (5 Oct 1859 - 15 Jul 1863) were apparently both struck by lightning while at school, and killed instantly. Let us pause to shudder while considering that idea.



Not our twins, but a suitably macabre illustration,
 from Edward Gorey's The Epiplectic Bicycle.

It is an awfully good story, and comes to us from no less an authority than Timothy Hopkins' John Hopkins of Cambridge, 1634, and Some of His Descendants (1932, Stanford University Press), the former Martha Abigail Hopkins (27 Jul 1834 - 1 Apr 1924) being Mrs Brown, and consequently the children's mother. The only problem is that the story is merely that. There are no records of daughter Malvina Brown, despite her "twin" Orlando appearing on the 1860 U S Federal Census. And it is doubtful Orlando, even allowing for the lightning strike, would have been in school, as he was just three years old at the time of his death. Like many family stories (and I am sure you can think of examples in your own lineage), there may be some truth in this tale, but not as it has come down to us.

The second legend involves an actual person, unlike the mythic Malvina Brown, and it involves everything from piracy to a haunted house. The stretch here is that I have not been able to prove our heroine is related to me (although it is likely); she certainly would have been known by some of my ancestors. I am referring to Mary Wilson (Jul 1720 - 13 [alas, not a Friday] Feb 1814). Who? She is better known to New Englanders and beloved by ghost-story fans as Ocean Born Mary.

The legend has inspired everything from a children's book to an indie album to a puppet show.

The story, aptly enough, does begin with her birth at sea, on board the sinisterly-named Wolf, coming from Ireland to the New World. The ship was overtaken by pirates, whose captain was named Don Pedro. Upon seeing the newborn girl in her mother's arms, the oddly sentimental Captain, struck by the beauty of the red-haired child, said he would spare the lives of all aboard, and return the plunder his men had taken--if the child would be named "Maria," after his own mother. Needless to say, Mother Wilson agreed, so the pirates departed, but not before Don Pedro returned to the cabin to present her with a length of sumptuous green brocade, for baby Mary to wear on her wedding day.

Upon reaching land, the Wilson family settled in Nutfield, New Hampshire (present-day Londonderry), where Ocean Born Mary grew up. Her father James Wilson, died soon after their arrival, and her mother, Elizabeth (nee Fulton), married James Clarke, also of Nutfield. Mary Wilson was known to be tall, with fiery red hair and aquamarine eyes. On 18 December 1742, she married James Wallace (1712 - 30 Oct 1781), wearing, as promised, a dress made of the ill-gotten seafoam brocade. The Wallaces stayed in Londonderry, and had five children, living a normal life until James died. Then Mary's tale takes another bizarre turn...

And it is here that I must interrupt (this is called building suspense) to explain how Ocean Born Mary Wilson Wallace may be related to me. As I have written before, my seventh great-grandparents, Thomas Steele (1683- 22 Feb 1748) and Martha Morrison (1686 - 22 Oct 1759) were among the founding families of Nutfield/Londonderry and were well-acquainted with the Clarkes and Pattersons (into which family Mary's only daughter married), so certainly would have known Ocean Born Mary. And the Steele's daughter, Janet (1703 - aft 1754), married John Wallace (abt 1700 - 1785) in 1720; they are my sixth great-grandparents. John Wallace is very likely  related to Ocean Born Mary's husband James Wallace, although it has not been proven. But today's theme is meant to be more chilling than genealogical, so to continue....

After her husband's death, Mary moved away from Nutfield to nearby Henniker, New Hampshire, perhaps to be near her now-grown sons. Don Pedro--remember him?--had since retired from piracy, but never forgot Ocean Born Mary. He sought her out using his stolen fortune, and upon discovering she lived in New Hampshire, bought land there and built a magnificent mansion on a hill, in which he intended to install Mary as, if not a bride, at least a companion. She accepted, and they lived a life of leisure and luxury, including a black carriage drawn by four white horses. They were a striking couple: the elegant Irish widow and the fine "Spanish" gentleman.

The only thing that marred their gentility was the occasional reappearance of someone from Don Pedro's piratical past. Mary once thought she saw figures, including her husband, digging a hole behind their home, in which to place an enormous trunk. When she asked Don Pedro about it, he denied everything, but less than a year later, she discovered him in that same spot, dead, with a cutlass stuck through his back! Rather than risk digging on their land, Mary instructed the servants to bury Don Pedro under the hearth. Although occasionally rumors surfaced about Don Pedro's background, and wild stories abounded about treasure buried there, Mary continued to live in the house until her death.

The home stayed in the family for nearly a hundred years, often occupied by tenants, who never seemed to stay long. The house fell into disrepair. Soon, ghost stories began to spread, tales of ectoplasmic buccaneers, or a tall ethereal woman descending the stairs; sometimes they told of phantom carriages driven by a flame-haired woman.

About 1918, a new family, the Roys, bought the home, and began to notice many peculiar things, from objects behaving oddly to apparitional appearances. Learning of the folklore surrounding their home, they decided to share the "haunted house" with neighbors, then tourists. Word got out to reporters and psychic investigators, and soon Ocean Born Mary's story was out. Her fame went as far as National Geographic magazine, which featured her in an article from 1939 about prominent American ghosts. Through the 1960s, members of the Roy family continue to charge for tours, and even rented shovels to those brave--or greedy--enough to want to dig for treasure.

Times change, and we learn more. Whether that is good or bad is hard to say. The family that bought the house next said the Roys admitted the entire ghost story was fabricated, as a way to make money. Historians have provided documents proving that Mary would have been over sixty (and Don Pedro older still) when they moved into the house. Researchers dug deeper and learned that the supposedly haunted house was not even Mary's, but her son Robert's. Although she did live nearby, she so disliked him it is doubtful she ever visited the house.



Ghost-y, and less-so. Left, the infamous "Ocean Born Mary House" touted by the Roys;
 Right, Mary's actual home.

Yet to this day, there are many that go to Ocean Born Mary's House--particularly on Hallowe'en--to try to catch a glimpse of the black carriage coming up the hill, or the fiery-haired woman of New England folklore. Will she be seen tonight? How much is true? Is she related to me? I suppose it depends on what you want to believe....

An evocative recent image by Victor Ambrus.



"I wish I could translate the hints about the dead..."

In a previous post, I talked about one of my brick walls: Isaac Burnett; in another, I discussed the unreliability of documents (Silas W Brown's obituary) and the consequent disappointment one feels when such a document does not reveal any additional information.

The crossing of these threads is today's topic, as several new bits of information--all exciting, some perplexing--have recently come across my desk (or, more precisely: into my laptop).

Isaac Burnett (1780 -May 1860), a paternal fourth great-grandfather, has no identifiable parents, and until recently, five children (of ten) whose names are lost: one boy, and four girls. Beginning with the discoveries of two distant cousins, we now know the name of one of those daughters, and are--perhaps--a bit closer to the identity of Isaac's parents.

Over a year ago, I received a reply to an online post inquiring about Isaac Burnett and his family. The respondent was from another Burnett family (that of Daniel Burnett and Mariah Burnham, the purported but impossible parents of Isaac), who, in her research on her Burnetts, had a stray bit of information from a copy of an only partially reliable typescript from the 'fifties she had located: an Abigail Burnett born in Newport, Maine in 1820 to an Isaac Burnett and Deborah (LKU); Abigail married a Rufus Carter in 1840.


A vintage postcard of Newport, Maine. If nothing else, it breaks up my text.

Fascinating! This fit perfectly with one of Isaac's mysterious unnamed daughters. Isaac Burnett was in Newport in 1820, his wife's name was Deborah (Grindle). The birth year was plausible. Case closed. Except I could find no other documentation that there was ever an Abigail Burnett; and while there were numerous Rufus Carters, none that I could locate married an Abigail that made sense. So that got put aside (and, admittedly, forgotten).

Just a few weeks ago, another Burnett descendant with whom I have been corresponding found a daughter as well: Mary Burnett. The document extract below shows her as the daughter of Isaac and Deborah Burnett, born in 1820 in Newport, Maine. Two daughters! Abigail and Mary, both born in 1820...? Possibly they were twins.

 

For those of you who did not trouble to enlarge the above, I would like to point out that it is a Death Registry, and the deceased in question is named Mary A Carter. A is in Abigail? The Abigail who married Rufus Carter? Connecting the dots, and researching further, it all worked out.

Mary Abigail Burnett was born in 1820 in Newport, Maine. She married Rufus Burnham Carter (12 Sep 1818 - 22 Mar 1884) in 1840. She died in Athol, Massachusetts on 2 Apr 1877.

 

Apart from the coincidence of Rufus and I sharing a birthday (theme of another recent post here), there were some odd things about him.

 

First, he was simply difficult to single out; there are two other contemporary Rufus B Carters who seemed to circle him. One lived for many years in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the same time as did our Rufus, although the impostor's wife was Lorena or Lozena, and he was a prison warden, not a furniture painter. The other was born in Maine (check!) and married a woman named Abigail in 1840 (check!), but there similarities ended. Helpful as Ancestry.com can be, family trees there must be triple-checked; there are several entries for the numerous Rufuses (Rufii?) with conflated census data, birth and death dates, and so on, picked out by their descendants like so many columns on a Chinese menu.

 

Second, the potentially significant oddity about Rufus Burnham Carter is his middle name. Many sources give his father-in-law Isaac Burnett's parents as Daniel Burnett and Mariah Burnham. Although this is not possible, Daniel Burnett just four years old at the time of Isaac's birth, the coincidence is striking, and threatens meaning--but what?

 

The Death Registry did yield one other factoid of interest: it states that Mary Burnett's parents were both born in Machias, Maine. Who provided this information, and how accurate it is bears looking into. Most other records show Isaac being born in Massachusetts in 1780, although Maine did not achieve statehood from Massachusetts until 1820, so arguably, Isaac might have been born in what was later called Maine. Deborah Grindle was born in what is now Maine, but the Grindle family was more often found in nearby Hancock and Penobscot counties, rather than Machias' Washington County. Anyway....

 

The really promising information--one hopes!--in regard to the mystery of Isaac Burnett's parents does not come directly from Mary Burnett at all, who is just a paternal third great aunt of mine, but rather her even more distant (first cousin, four times removed) daughter, Almira Ellen Carter (16 Sep 1845 - 6 Apr 1915). Which is why it is useful to follow collateral lines. While adding Rufus and their children to Mary Burnett, I did my usual cross-referencing and found this thrilling lead:



[Pardon the highlighting; it came from Google Books that way.]


Here was a mother lode (cousin lode?) of new and potentially wall-breaking information. Good old snobbish Mrs. Walter Simmons of Quincy, Mass! "...descended from Robert Burnett [!], a member of the Boston Tea Party...!" My recollection of American history needing the occasional assist, I had to use Google to find when the Boston Tea Party occurred. After scrolling through pages of recent right-wing frippery, I found the date: 1773. This being just seven years before Isaac was born (and perhaps confirming Massachusetts rather than Maine), this new (first) Robert should either be his father or grandfather, if Almira was a descendant. Huzzah--a breakthrough!

Except. In the last few weeks I have yet to find any record of a Robert Burnett participating in the Tea Party (and curse those upstarts who clutter the "Search" pages), and no Robert Burnetts who seem plausible for the time and place. It seems likely it should be true (and of course, I would love it to be); after all, in those pre-Internet days, when news sources and reference works were scarce, if someone was said to have had a noted ancestor it must have been passed down through the family, and this "Robert" would have been her mother's grandfather, so it wasn't coming from distant reaches of time. But if true, why can't I find him? If not, where did the story come from? Even if Tea Partier is an embellishment, surely "Robert" must be correct.



That third redskin from the right does kind of have my nose, don't you think?

While Silas W Brown's obituary merely contained errors, looking further into Almira's obituary, I find puzzles.
It states that her father was from Unity, Maine, but that was actually the birthplace of one of those other Rufii, who is well-documented to have continued to live there his entire life. It's possible that both R B Carter's were born there, but....

Continuing: "[a]mong her ancestors were the Rev. Thomas Dalton, one of the founders of Woburn, Mass...." My cursory research into the founding of Woburn revealed no one by that name, although there was a Rev Thomas Carter, which--again, coincidentally? Yes? No?--is her father's surname. More misinformation? Certainly more to research.

Am I closer to discovering Isaac Burnett's parents? Who knows. If nothing else, it's gladdening to see that one of my ancestors was well known for patriotic and charitable work. Rest in Peace, Myra.

Almira Ellen "Myra" Carter was born on 16 September 1845 in Stetson, Penobscot, Maine to Rufus Burnham Carter (12 Sep 1818 - 22 Mar 1884) and Mary Abigail Burnett (1820 - 2 Apr 1877). She would be the oldest of their four children. After living briefly in Wisconsin, the family moved to Massachusetts, where on 22 February 1869, Almira married Walter Everett Simmons (30 Mar 1846 - aft 1820), son of Ichabod Simmons (17 Feb 1801 - 12 Sep [again!] 1869) and Marcia Bates (29 Dec 1806 - 14 Sep 1877). The Simmons had five children, and lived in Quincy Massachusetts for the remainder of their lives, being especially active in civic and charitable works. Almira died on 6 April 1915 while visiting her daughter, Mary Florence (Simmons) Holmes (12 Sep [again!] 1869 - aft 1930), in Detroit  Michigan.