This week in #52ancestors I am faced once again with a woman, Emily Van Syckel Bonnell, who existed long enough to create six children and barely rates an honorable mention in her husband’s obituary. Can genealogists be feminists? Telling stories and giving names!
Emily may have lived a largely uneventful life but today she gets to be the star of her own blog post! Emily Van Syckel was born on 5 April 1832 in Union township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. She was the eighth child of Aaron (Jr., 1793-1874) and Mary Bird (1799-1863) Van Syckel.
Like many of her generation, Emily’s life was recorded either as daughter or as wife. In 1850 she is living at home with her parents and the most surprising thing about that census record is that at 18 she is listed as attending school within the year. And two years later, on 16 June 1852, she married Alexander Bonnell. I can find very little about Alexander, other than that he was a feed and seed merchant. His obituary tells of his membership on the New York Produce exchange and his life as an exemplary citizen of Jersey City, NJ. I found traces of him in Newark and Bergen prior to Jersey City and I think he was in a part of Bergen that eventually just became Jersey City.
Emily and Alexander Bonnell had six children:
- Sarah Bird Bonnell (1853-1914)
- Catherine V. Bonnell (1855-1918)
- Alexander Bonnell Jr. (1858-1888)
- Frank Roe Bonnell (1860-1903)
- Mary Deborah Bonnell (1862-1917)
- Charles Van Syckel Bonnell (Feb 1864-Nov 1864)
I don’t know whether complications from the birth of Charles lead to Emily’s death on 4 November 1864 but I think it likely there is a connection. Six children in eleven years in the mid 19th century would be a strain on anyone. She is buried in Bethlehem Baptist Cemetery in Pattenburg, NJ, along with Charles.
Emily died so young and with such small children at home, she probably did not get to make many friends in Jersey City. As for Alexander, barely a year went by before he married Sarah Dumont of Interlaken, NY on 11 October 1865. She traveled with Alexander when he went down to the pines in North Carolina and died there as a result of a miscarriage 25 January 1878. By the 1880 census however, Alexander has married a third time to Sarah Jane “Jennie” Douglass, with whom he had a daughter Edith Bonnell. Alexander died 30 September 1886 in Jersey City but is buried back with his roots in Hunterdon County at Bethlehem Cemetery in Union, NJ.
This is often how it works: you start trying to document the life of a woman and end up finding stuff on the men.
He appears to have been sent away to school as a teen, first to Dr. John Vandeveer’s school and then to Lafayette College, both in Easton, Pennsylvania. A bit of map-stalking will show that Easton is due west of Bethlehem, NJ, where the family was located in the 1850 Census. Chester also benefited from having a famous and well placed brother: Bennett Van Syckel studied law at Princeton University, graduating in 1846 and he went on to serve as a justice on the NJ Supreme Court from 1869 to 1904. This may have been what made it possible for Chester Van Syckel to attend Princeton, where he earned a Bachelors degree in 1862.
Shortly after graduation, Chester was admitted to the bar as an attorney and five years later in 1867 he was admitted as Counsellor at law.
George Grant Tennant was the son of 
George Tennant married Zora McBurney (1863 or 1869-1895) on 1 June 1893. She died shortly after the birth of their son Donald McBurney Tennant (5 June 1895-22 January 1896). Both mother and child are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
George and Anne Tennant had three children: 
Aaron Van Syckel inherited a sizable estate from his father totaling 240 acres, which he built into quite an empire. In 1800, he purchased a tavern owned by David Reynolds in Bethlehem township, which he made his home. There was also a store nearby which he ran with his son Aaron Jr. as well as a post office. The tavern is listed on both state and National Historic Registers and I remember as a child going to see the buildings at Van Syckel’s corner.
Aaron Van Syckel was a member of the Bethlehem Presbyterian Church and helped that congregation erect a stone church in 1830. It is no longer standing but there is a marker noting the construction and, of course, the cemetery is still there.
Chester appears to have suffered a heart attack on 26 March 1913 and died at home. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Clinton. There is no will, and he was a relatively young man. In 1915, the New Jersey state census puts his widow Anna living with her daughter’s family in North Readington. Later this family will move to Elizabeth and Anna goes with them. It is possible that the farm was sold, as the sons do not appear to have followed their father’s occupation.
Telling My Story 