Tag: New Jersey

Fanny Van Syckel Leigh

Investigating women of the 19th century can be trying. Birth, marriage, children, death, burial are often all that can be found. This week in #52ancestors I continue with my quest to document each of the siblings of Chester Van Syckel.

Leigh_Fanny_VanSyckel_grave
photograph taken by Mark Alexander Oliver (FindAGrave)

Fanny Van Syckel was born 12 April 1824 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, most likely in Van Syckel’s Corners, the fourth child of Aaron and Mary Bird Van Syckel.  I do not know if she was formally educated. Really her life as documented by what was left behind starts on 11 January 1844 when she married John Taylor Leigh, a local farmer. Fanny and John produced seven children between 1845 and 1858, only two of whom died in infancy:

  • Sylvester V. Leigh (1845-1848)
  • Milton Leigh (1847-1862)
  • Bennett Van Syckel Leigh (1850-1929)
  • Mary V. Leigh (1852-1875)
  • Emily B. Leigh (1855-1937)
  • Charles W. Leigh (1857-1926)
  • John T. Leigh (1858-1888)

Fanny died of consumption shortly after the birth of her youngest son, on 8 March 1860, in Clinton, New Jersey where she and John T. Leigh had settled. I am not sure if she ever lived in the immense Leigh house John had built around 1860 but this is where her children grew up after her death.

 

The_Courier_News_Tue__Oct_8__1929_
from the Bridgewater Courier News, 8 October 1929

John T. Leigh remarried after Fanny’s death to Mary Van Syckel, Fanny’s first cousin. They went on to have ten additional children bringing the total to seventeen. Again, two died in infancy.

Fanny is buried in Bethlehem Baptist Cemetery in Pattenburg, New Jersey.

Minnie Arabella Hine

Hine_Minnie
Minnie Hine Prince

This week in #52ancestors #52familyphotographs Minnie Arabella Hine takes center stage as a good example of incorrect information in a marriage record.  Corroborate, double check and check again! Minnie was my great grandmother and figuring out her real mother set me a merry chase.

Minnie was born on 1 August 1866 in Orwell, Pennsylvania.  Her father’s name was James Edwin Hine.  Her mother’s name was Catherine Tyrrel or Terrell.  She was the second of two daughters of this couple.  Martha or Mattie, her older sister, clearly lists her mother on her marriage record as Catherine but Minnie lists her mother as A. E. Hine.  James Hine married Ann E. Phillips in 1870 when Minnie was about 4, and she may not have had any memories of her birth mother.  Luckily, I happen to have James’ bible which records Catherine’s death and his remarriage.

Minnie married George Cornell Prince on 9 July 1894 up in Bradford County.  George was living in Philadelphia at the time, employed as a stenographer with the Philadelphia Typewriter Exchange.  I am not sure when he went down to Philadelphia, but he appears in city directories from 1895 to 1904.  The family lived in Philadelphia until 1897, when the directory notes that his home is in Rosedale, New Jersey.

Minnie and George Prince had four children, the first born in Philadelphia and the rest in Camden:

Hine_Minnie_Arabella3a
Minnie Hine Prince with George? and Philip?

I don’t know much about her life in Camden.  I know she went home to Bradford County occasionally as her visits are tracked in the local paper.  Her father and step-mother had one son, Arthur Hine and she appears to have visited him and her sister.

Minnie Prince died at home on 23 June 1931 and is buried in Bethel Memorial Park in Pennsauken, NJ.  Her obituary mentions her children and grandchildren but does not highlight any other activities.

Sylvester Van Syckel

This week my #52ancestors continues the line of Chester Van Syckel’s siblings with Sylvester Van Syckel.

NJ-Hunterdon-County-New-Jersey-1905-Map-by-CramSylvester Van Syckel was the fifth child of Aaron Van Syckel and Mary Bird Van Syckel.  He was born 21 February 1826, most likely in Union township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Like his other male siblings, Sylvester was well educated and eventually made his way to the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), graduating with a BA in 1846.  He then went on to study medicine at New York University and worked at Bellevue Hospital. He graduated from NYU in 1849 and by 1850 he was back in Clinton, New Jersey establishing a medical practice.  Interestingly enough the medical association noted him as an allopath, which apparently means that he practiced traditional medicine rather than homeopathy.

Sylvester married Mary E. Carhart (1830-1917) on 24 March 1853 and they proceeded to have six children:

  • John Carhart Van Syckel (1854-1944)
  • George C. Van Syckel (1855-1860)
  • Chester V. Van Syckel (1858-1861)
  • William C. Van Syckel (1863-1942)
  • Lamar Van Syckel (1866-1948)
  • Mary C. Van Syckel (1868-1872)

The three little children have lovely grave markers in Riverside Cemetery in Clinton. The three boys who survived went on to have productive professional careers.

Van_Syckel_Sylvester_houseIn 1868 the family moved into the home on Center St. that remained in the family for forty years. Sylvester died in 1906 and his widow appears to have gone to live with William and his wife Elizabeth who had taken over the Carhart family farm outside of Clinton. Mary Van Syckel died 20 February 1917.  Both Sylvester and Mary Van Syckel are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Clinton.

I have childhood memories of driving down from Ithaca to visit my aunt Louise Tompkins in Princeton, New Jersey.  Most often our route was via the Delaware River Gap, which took us through Clinton.  It is a pretty drive and I seem to remember that there is a Stewart’s ice cream stand somewhere around there that we would stop at to refuel.

 

Family group including Florence Lewis Wells and Helen Grace Wells

This week in #52ancestors and #52familyphotographs I thought I would try to crowd-source the identities of all the people in this photograph.

127_Family_Group_Florence_Wells_001

Florence Wells and family

This image is pasted into a photo album created by my grandmother Kathryn Prince Jones Preston.  The accompanying notation says Florence Wells and family.  Most of the images in this album date from the first year of her marriage, 1924. With that clue, and a list of Florence and Moses Wells‘ children:

The only grandchild who could have been the right age for this picture would be Helen Grace Wells, b. 1916, daughter of Willard and Grace Hewlings Wells. I have no idea who the two men and the younger woman are.  Florence is on the left. Possibilities are Mattie and Samuel Horner and Willard K. Wells.  I am hoping that my Haines cousins will have some insights.

Christiana Van Syckel McLenahan

This week in #52ancestors, I traveled through multiple family census records to try and track the orphaned daughter of Christiana Van Syckel McLenahan. This was a good reminder that when you don’t find someone where you think they ought to be, look sideways along your family tree.  Chances are the individual did not get missed, they are just not where you are trying to put them.

167392174_1469464420
Grave marker found on Find A Grave

Christiana Van Syckel was born on 23 February 1828, the sixth daughter of Aaron and Mary Bird Van Syckel. She appears in early documents as Christy Anna and Christian but by the time of her marriage she is simply Chrissie.

Christiana Van Syckel married Robert Mills McLenahan on 16 December 1852 in Jersey City at the First Reformed Church of Van Vorst. They had one daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1856.  McLenahan was a prominent physician in Lebanon, NJ.

Christiana McLenahan died 8 March 1856 and is buried in Bethlehem Baptist Cemetery in Pattenburg, New Jersey. Robert McLenahan married again almost immediately to Sarah Johnson on 1 February 1857 in Hunterdon County and in 1860 they reside in Lebanon, NJ with Elizabeth.

Sadly, Robert died in 1864 and daughter Elizabeth is placed under the guardianship of Daniel C. Titus (married Elizabeth Gertrude McLenahan). I found a very detailed accounting of the guardianship which was interesting but not very informative on her life experience. I also found interesting details through Find A Grave, as the person living in Dr. McLenahan’s house put up all sorts of interesting documents.

21831224_1494011435
Found on Find a Grave

Interestingly, Sarah and Lizzie do not appear to ever live together after the death of Robert.  Lizzie lives with Daniel’s family in 1870 and by 1880 she is living with her uncle Robert Killgore and his two daughters.  She married Paul A. Queen in December 1880 and lived the remainder of her life in Flemington, where Paul was a lawyer.

Susan Emlen Jones

This week in #52ancestors closes the loop on a previous post. I posted pictures of Mortimer Oldham Heath, first husband of Susan Emlen Jones and now I want to finish her story.

Jones_Susan_Emlen_001
Susan Emlen Jones Heath ca. 1885

Susan Emlen Jones was the fourth child of Richard Jones and his second wife Alice Woodmansie Davis.  She was born 8 December 1855 in Florence, New Jersey.  After her first husband’s death she appears to have moved back to her father’s house at 1818 Delancey St., Philadelphia. In September 1901 the newspaper gossip columns in Philadelphia announced that Mrs. Mortimer Heath and George W. Carpenter, who had been visiting family in Ocean City, Maryland, had announced their engagement but not set a date for the wedding.  Carpenter was almost 20 years her senior and had daughters by his first wife who were married and settled. Susan and George married at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Germantown and then proceeded to travel extensively through Europe and the Caribbean.

Upon their return to Philadelphia, they resided at the Aldine Hotel. George Carpenter died in 1921 and Susan continued to live at the Aldine, where she died on 28 June 1925. She is buried at St. Andrew’s Churchyard in Mount Holly, New Jersey.

Carpenter_George_and_Susan_Emlen_Jones_002
George and Susan Carpenter ca 1910

 

 

Bennet and Mary Elizabeth Sloan Van Syckel

Continuing on my journey through the siblings of Chester Van Syckel, this week in #52ancestors brings us to Bennet Van Syckel. Due to his having served on the state Supreme Court, Bennet is relatively easy to track.  His wife and children, however, were not documented as prominently.

yuw25wuy_originalBennet Van Syckel was born 17 April 1830 to Aaron Van Syckel and Mary Bird Van Syckel of Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He was something of a prodigy, entering Princeton at thirteen and graduating three years later with high honors. He then studied law under Alexander Wurts, of Flemington, but he was forced to wait to take the bar exam due to his being under 21 by some years. He practiced law in Flemington until 1858, when Governor Theodore Fitz Randolph  appointed him to the New Jersey Supreme Court.  At that time the Supreme Court was still a circuit court and Bennet covered Salem, Cumberland, Atlantic and Cape May, and I would be jealous of his shore time except I am pretty sure he was traveling by horse. When the districts were readjusted, he took over Union and Ocean counties. He was reappointed five times, retiring from the court in 1904 due to poor health. One of the more significant opinions he delivered had to do with race track gambling and this lead to a change in the state constitution.

Bennet married Mary Elizabeth Sloan (1839-1899) on 21 July 1857 in Flemington.  She was the daughter of William Henry and Caroline Imlay Sloan of Hunterdon County.  Sloan was a noted attorney in the area.  Bennet and Mary E. Van Syckel had five children:

  • William Van Syckel 1858-1939
  • Mary Van Syckel 1861-1882
  • Charles Sloan Van Syckel 1864-1963
  • Bessie Van Syckel 1871-1946
  • Bennet Van Syckel 1873-1873

William Van Syckel was an attorney in Trenton, New Jersey. He attended the Trenton Academy, Trenton Business College, and was a member of the Mercer County Bar Association.

Charles Van Syckel remained in Trenton, as well. According to a Princeton alumni publication “Charlie” prepared for Princeton at the Trenton Model School, entered college in the fall of 1882 and graduated in 1886.  After graduation he took a Continental trip and then became assistant superintendent of the Mercer Rubber Company at Trenton. By 1890, he was the treasurer of Greenwood Pottery Company and the Greenwood China Company. He was married October 11, 1888, to Isabel S. Stephens, of Trenton, and had four children: James Stephen Van Syckel, born September 5,
1889; Mary Elizabeth Van Syckel, born March 12, 1892, died August 24, 1910;
Isabel Van Syckel, born June 18, 1897, and Helen Van Syckel, born December
24, 1901.

Bessie Van Syckel lived for most of her life with William in their parent’s home on Greenwood Ave.  She was active socially in Trenton and involved with various heritage societies.

Elizabeth Watts Jones and Barclay White Gibbs

“It’s a family name.” That is what I always thought my brother/father/grandfather’s name was. And it is, just not the way I thought. So this week #52ancestors is dedicated to the man who brought “Barclay Gibbs” into the family.

Benjamin and Mary Elizabeth Carrel Jones had eleven children and Elizabeth Watts Jones was number six. She was born in October of 1873, most likely in Pemberton, NJ and within the family was called Lizzie.

Gibbs_Barclay W_and_Jennie
Barclay White Gibbs and his second wife Jennie Greenwood Gibbs

On 23 December 1890 she married Barclay White Gibbs, son of Benjamin and Anna B. Gibbs, of Burlington County. Barclay was born on the family farm on 26 April 1868. Over the next ten years they had three children:

Around this time, the family is living in Neptune, NJ a lovely little seaside town in Monmouth County. However, at the turn of the century, Lizzie and the children are living with her mother and sisters in Pemberton.  Barclay may have gone off to find work elsewhere. Lizzie died on 28 August 1900 in Pemberton.

Barclay moved with the children to Philadelphia, where in 1902 he married Jennie Greenwood (1870-1947). Barclay worked in refineries in York, PA and in Camden, NJ, eventually becoming a respected auto mechanic in the Camden area.  He died in 1957, ten years after Jennie.

I don’t know how close they were in later life but at one point they were close enough that Arthur Jones named his only son Barclay Gibbs Jones.

 

Alice Jones Monier-Williams

I have always been intrigued by Alice Jones but she became especially interesting when I discovered that she died on the Isle of Wight.  A childhood fascination with all things Victoria still lingers and I always wondered if Alice was ever in her company (as if everyone in England met her!). This week’s #52ancestors #52familyphotographs is dedicated to Alice Jones Monier-Williams.

Jones_Richard_family
Left to right back to front: Cyril Monier-Williams, Mary Howell Jones, Richard Jones, Alice W, Davis Jones, Richard W. Jones, Susan Emlen Jones, Alice W. Jones

Alice Jones was the oldest daughter of Richard Jones (1812-1890) and Alice Woodmansie Davis Jones (1823-1899). Richard’s second wife Alice appears to have been quite a force and their five children appear to have lead very different lives from those of his first wife (Benjamin and Joseph).

Photograph of St Philip and St James' Church in Oxford [c 1930s-1980s] by John Piper 1903-1992
St. Philip and St. James’s Church, Oxford Copyright:(c) The Piper Estate / Photo (c) Tate
I know that for all of her youth and until 1870 Alice lived in her father’s household. In 1878 she married Cyril Faithfull Williams, son of Monier Williams. Sir Monier Monier-Williams, KCIE was the second Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, England. However, at the time of their marriage, Williams was not yet knighted and the family name was Williams. I do not know how Alice got to England.  I believe that Cyril came to the United States in 1873 “for travel.” Possibly they met here or there.  Oddly, the marriage banns note that Alice is a resident of Oxford.

When Cyril is admitted to the Lincoln’s Inn in 1888, the admissions register notes his Oxford address.  By 1891, Alice and Cyril live in London where he is listed as a retired civil servant.  And in 1894 he is elected Registrar of the Courts at Port of Spain, Trinidad. This appointment does not work out well for him as three years later, in a fit of depression, he commits suicide.

I am not sure where Alice is during all of this.  She may be right there with Cyril but I have no proof.  I do know that by 1901 she is back in England, living with a clergyman and his family in South Luffenham.

The Monier-Williams clan owned a house on the Isle of Wight and I do not know if this is what lured her there because her sister Mary Howell Jones also lived there.  They are living at Salopia (a named house) in Ventnor in 1911.  Alice remains at Salopia, Ventnor, Isle of Wight until her death in 1933 and Mary H. dies a short time later in 1935.

I would love to know more about Alice and her life.  And where does Mary Howell Jones fit into the story? Another blog for another day.

 

Amanda Van Syckel Hoffman

This week in #52Ancestors and #52familyphotographs I start on the process of fleshing out the branches of the Van Syckel family tree.  I wrote about Chester Van Syckel last year and at the time did a bit of research on his siblings but not enough, never enough! So this blog is about Amanda Van Syckel (28 June 1834 to 28 September 1917).

I can find very little about Amanda prior to her marriage to Theodore J. Hoffman on 22 February 1855. There’s not that much available on her after that fact either.  She and Theodore had eleven children, seven surviving to adulthood. She does not even merit an obituary, although Theodore got special accolades for being the oldest alumnus of Rutgers when he died in 1922. He was a lawyer in Somerville, New Jersey and I suppose she occupied herself with eleven pregnancies and raising seven children:

  • Alletta Hoffman (1855-1941)
  • Joseph V. Hoffman (1857-1894)
  • Kate V. Hoffman (1859-1862)
  • Mary E. Hoffman (1861-1943)
  • Alexander B. Hoffman (1863-1864)
  • Louisa C. Hoffman (1865-1866)
  • Ann E. Hoffman (1868-1868)
  • Alice V. Hoffman (1869-?)
  • Clara Hoffman (1871-1949)
  • Frank C. Hoffman (1873-1943)
  • Ogden Hoffman (1876-1948)

Amanda Van Syckel died 28 September 1917 and is buried in the New Somerville cemetery in Somerset County, New Jersey.

Wife of Theodore J. Hoffman