This week my #52Ancestors post focuses on James Haviland Tompkins, the fifth child of Samuel Dusenbury and Gettianna Vreeland Tompkins. Haviland (apparently his preferred name) was born on 15 July 1877 in Jersey City.
He graduated from New York Law School in 1900 and opened a commercial law practice in Jersey City. An interesting side note about New York Law School: it was established in 1891 by a group of Columbia College School of Law faculty, students, and alumni who were at odds with Columbia’s trustees’ desire to interfere with the faculty teaching practices.
In addition to his law practice, Haviland is also listed as the Secretary of the Smooth-On corporation. He and his brothers all seem to have been involved in the family business in one way or another.
Haviland married Eleonore Heike around 1908. An engagement announcement is as close as I can get to an exact marriage date as shortly after the engagement is announced, the scandal that rocked the Heike family also breaks. Charles R. Heike was the secretary of the American Sugar Refining Company was tried and convicted in 1910 of conspiracy to defraud the government in a case of fraudulent weighing. The sentence was waived when the judge determined that Heike was in such poor health that he would die in prison, and instead he died at home. His family was terribly affected by it as Eleonore (whose death may have been directly caused by something else) died in 1912 shortly after the birth of her daughter Eleonor Marie Tompkins in 1910. Heike’s sister later committed suicide and her brother left the country and was later committed to a mental institution.
Haviland and Eleonor appear to have moved back to the Tompkins home on Communipaw Ave. Seven years later, Haviland married Elizabeth Carol Baldwin (1891-1950) of Jersey City on 27 December 1919. Early on in their marriage they lived at 117 Bentley Ave, which was loaded with Tompkins relations. Eventually, they made their home in South Orange, New Jersey, where they raised Eleonor and their two children Carol Tompkins (1920-2016) and James Haviland Tompkins (1922-1995).
Sadly, Haviland died suddenly while vacationing in Southern Pines, North Carolina on 4 March 1942. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery in Kearny, New Jersey.
Telling My Story 