I grew up hearing stories about George Cornell Prince. Unfortunately, I did not ask the right questions of the people who knew him and I am left with a life story with a few holes in it. Perhaps one of my cousins will read this #52ancestors essay and can help fill in the blanks.
George C. Prince was born on 23 Mar 1869 in Bradford County, Pennsylvania to George M. and Elizabeth Alma Buttles Prince. He was one of three children but one of two who lived to adulthood. George grew up near Potterville, a very small community in Orwell township.
On 9 July 1894, George married Minnie Arabella Hine. They were both residents of Bradford County at the time, and their first child, George Raymond Prince was born there on 28 April 1895. However, by the time their second child was born (Philip Hine Prince (3 Dec 1896-31 Oct 1974), the family was living in Camden, New Jersey.
They do not appear on a census until 1910, at which point they have three living children: George R., Philip H., and my grandmother Kathryn Marie (1903-1993). I learned through the New Jersey birth index that there was a fourth child, Edwin Everett Prince who was born 9 June 1898 but who died 24 Feb 1899.
So this is the first mystery: why did they pull up roots in Bradford County and move down to New Jersey? Philip is born there as are Edwin and Kathryn but the family does not appear in either the federal 1900 census or the 1905 New Jersey census. And yet, in a 1955 Camden Courier-Post article, George C. Prince is credited with forming the Prince Concrete Company in 1905.
This article provided clues to George Prince’s public service: he served on the Camden City Council as well as the School Board. Widening the search to include Philadelphia area newspapers found articles about his election as President of the Camden Baptist Church Extension Society as well as a member of the Bradford County Society of Philadelphia. One intriguing article talked about the role Prince Concrete played in the construction of the new Camden High School, which opened in 1926. My father Barclay Gibbs Jones attended that high school.
George Prince died on 20 December 1959 at the home of Kathryn and Leonard Preston (22 Euclid Ave.). His wife Minnie preceded him in death on 23 June 1931. They are buried in the Prince family plot in Bethel Memorial Park in Pennsauken, NJ. My grandparents Kathryn and Leonard still owned that property when I was a child and my cousin would terrify me with ghost stories about all the relatives who died in that home. I was too young, and too modern, to realize that being able to die at home surrounded by family was probably the best way to go.
This week in #52ancestors I once again come up against that age old genealogical principal of looking for one record and finding not that record but another that solves a different mystery.
Chandler and family appear to have been involved in the Presbyterian Church, as on 14 January 1845, Chandler Prince puts up $5.00 toward the building of a Presbyterian church in Rome, Pennsylvania.
Mary Craw Frost was born on 13 May 1808 to Aaron (1778-1855) and Polly Craw (1782-1860) Frost. She was born in Wilbraham, a tiny burg in what is now Hampden County, Massachusetts. Mary was one of twelve children, a fact that appears in conflicting documentation about their names and birth order. Somewhere there is a bible…
I also have conflicting information about how she and her parents end up in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Some records state that she married her husband Henry Hine while in New York, which would make it Greene County. Cairo, NY is almost directly west from Wilbraham, so it is possible that on their way west they stopped off, or perhaps that was their destination, but when Hine moved on to Orwell, her parents went along as well.
Sadly, beyond the bearing of children, I have very little information about Mary C. Hine. I know that she was a member of the Presbyterian Church in New York but switched to the United Methodist Church in the mid 1870’s possibly because her daughter Sabrina Hine Hines did as well. Mary C. Hine lived with Sabrina and Joseph Hines after the death of her husband Henry W. Hine in 1868. Mary Craw Frost HIne died on 10 August 1889.
My first introduction to Sabrina Arzilla Hine was in 1990 or so. I was visiting Dad’s cousin Edith Hine in Athens, Pennsylvania, and she handed me an envelope and asked me to take good care of the contents. Inside were some family letters to Sabrina from her brothers written during the 1860’s. How cool! And how honored I was to receive such a gift. And so it is with pleasure that I share these treasures this week of #52ancestors, especially as she is an aunt although not maiden one!
Sabrina’s brother Percival joined the 141 Pennsylvania Volunteers at the start of the American Civil War, and served in Company D along with many friends and neighbors. This was the war in which the Americans would learn that while on paper the idea of serving with your brothers and neighbors might look like it would inspire bravery, but in reality it destroyed whole communities when their young men were wiped out in a single battle. Percy’s letters comment on his comrades, many of whom Sabrina knew, including their own father.
Telling My Story 