The Gage connection is through the Buttles line and the generation is three “greats” back. I have a lot of photographs of this generation, cabinet card and carte de visite photographs that were apparently shared with family like trading cards. Sometimes the annotations on the back lead to clues about marriages and other name changes. Sometimes they just leave me wondering.
My three times great grandmother Elizabeth Alma Buttles shared part of her name with her niece by her brother Harlow J. Buttles, Alma Dolly Buttles was born 18 March 1866, most likely in Bradford County. She married Charles H. Gage on 6 September 1893. He listed his occupation at the time of his marriage as farmer but I found evidence through newspaper notices that he and Alma may have moved down to Camden for a short period around 1900. By 1905 the family is living in Broome County, NY, a stone’s throw away from Bradford County, PA. Charles and Alma Gage had three children but only one grew to adulthood: Harriet Gage (1894), Mary Eugenia Gage (1896-1941) and Karl Gage (1899-1900).
This photograph intrigues me for many reasons: who is Mary Fisher, who took the photograph and what are they sitting on?
The Gibbs surname appears several times on my family tree, which is not surprising given that various portions of the family tree stayed in Burlington County, New Jersey for most of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the case of Joseph Gibbs (1781-1865) the intriguing part was reading the Quaker meeting records to get a better understanding of his family’s life and times.
The Quakers were great record keepers, in part because you either joined the meeting or you had a “birthright” to belong. As New Jersey and Philadelphia became more settled in the 18th century, there was considerable movement of individuals and families between meetings. This all had to be tracked through the monthly minutes as well as the committees. The commentary can be sometimes perfunctory, sometimes fascinating.
I first find Joseph Gibbs requesting permission in February 1809 to join the Upper Springfield Meeting. The record explains very little but much later in the year, Joseph Gibbs and Elizabeth Ellis begin the cumbersome process of requesting permission to marry. The final marriage certificate states that Joseph Gibbs, son of Benjamin and Deborah Gibbs of Dedford in Gloucester County, and Elizabeth Ellis, daughter of John and Elizabeth Ellis of Upperfreehold, have declared their intention to wed. It is signed by those present, but I don’t understand why Benjamin Gibbs’ name is not listed while John Ellis and family are.
Joseph and Elizabeth Gibbs may have remained at Upper Springfield until 1817 but the membership records are lost. On 8 May 1817, they transferred to the Mount Holly Monthly Meeting and stayed until 9 May 1844. At the time they joined they had three children. Shortly afterward their family increased with the addition of two more girls:
Martha Dorsey Gibbs (1811-1885) married John W. C Evans MD (1809-1860)
Rebecca Howard Gibbs(1816-1877) M1 John Corneau M2 Nathan Ellis
Elizabeth E Gibbs (1818-bef. 1850) married Owen Shoemaker (1816-1898)
Josephine Abigail Gibbs (ca 1829-1886) married Martin M Cox (ca 1814-1875)
This seems to have been a turbulent time for most of the meetings in the area, which seems reasonable given the rapid growth of the area and the introduction of new technologies. Joseph’s name appears in several records in the 1820’s and 30’s as he and several other men in the Meeting are cautioned, censured and dismissed for joining groups (the local grange would be such a group). Late in the 1830’s, Joseph seems to have made some bad financial decisions and occurs debt, which is a real problem for the Quakers. I could pair the monthly and men’s meeting records with newspaper notices which asked creditors to present themselves to Samuel Ellis by a certain date.
In 1844, the Gibbs family requested that their certificate be moved to Middletown, Pennsylvania, in Bucks County, Joseph and Elizabeth were accompanied by their minor daughter Josephine and seem to have settled in Bristol for several years. They are there long enough to marry off daughter Elizabeth (to Owen Shoemaker) and to bury wife Elizabeth (death 15 October 1845), returning to Burlington County by 1849 when Joseph begins proceedings to join the Meeting there. Fascinating sideways genealogy tidbit! In Quaker tradition all the Quakers at the meeting sign the marriage certificate: Richard Jones, Alice W. Jones, Benjamin Jones and Joseph G. Jones are all listed as signatures!
I need to do more research to find out what Joseph Gibbs does between 1849 and his death in 1865. On the census he is a gentleman (isn’t that just loaded with nuance) but I need to get into newspapers and other types of records to go beyond his acting as an elder in the Mount Holly meeting. Once again, if you have information, please share it!
William Tyrrell, and the whole Tyrrell clan, should be as easy to research as the Buttles, the Cowdrys, the Princes and the Hines. But, despite my best efforts, they remain shrouded in mystery. Staying true to my #52ancestors quest, I will write about them but I don’t have a lot of answers.
My Great-great-grandmother Catherine Tyrrel married James Edwin Hine. Her parents were William L. Tyrrell and Lucy Charlotte Doane Tyrrell. Both of these families were active in the early settlement of Bradford County and the Tyrrell’s even have a hill named after them but William died at a young age, and Lucy remarried. But I am getting ahead of the story.
William Tyrrell was born around 1813, possibly in Bradford County but also possibly in Connecticut. On 8 November 1840 he married Lucy Charlotte Doane (25 January 1820-25 October 1887). They had five children:
Catherine E. Tyrrell (1842-1868)
Joseph Tyrrell (1844-1864)
Jane Tyrrell (1847-?)
Eliza Tyrrell (1848-1863)
Seymour Tyrrell (1851-1917)
William Tyrrell died on 9 August 1852 and is buried in the Tyrrell Hill Cemetery. Lucy found herself with five children under ten years of age. William does not appear to have left a will and his $1000 worth of real estate (1850 Census) must have been held in trust for his children. Although the will index showed no William Tyrrell, I found an 1866 newspaper notice noting a partial account of C G Gridley guardian of Jennie and Seymour Tyrrell. The children do appear to have been split up amongst family as Catherine and Joseph are living with H C and Almira Tyrrell. Eliza and Seymour are living with Lucy and her second husband (a truly mixed family as Orinn Ross appears to have children from his first marriage, Lucy and Williams’s and then two new children oddly named Lucy and William).
Only two of William’s five children live beyond their twenties. Seymour stays in the Bradford County environs but Jane appears to have married a man named Camp and moved to the deep Midwest, eventually settling in Oklahoma.
There are other Tyrrells in the Bradford County area, but as I cannot find William’s parents, I have not been able to track his siblings. I will keep coming back to this branch but an examination of land and probate/guardianship records will probably get me a few more details. Interesting observation though: most of the family on my father’s side started off on the north side of the Susquehanna River in Bradford County.
Lost daughters, half sisters, connections. #52ancestors is good for many things, not the least of which is getting me to acknowledge the limits of my online research capabilities. This week I try to track down each of the children of Martha Eliza Hine Brown.
Mattie, as she appears to have been called by family, was the eldest daughter of James Edwin Hine (1837-1915) and Catherine E. Tyrrrel Hine (1842-1868), born 24 September 1864 in Orwell, PA. She was the older sister of Minnie Arabella Hine. In 1887, she married a widower named William Amos Brown. He had two children by his first wife Bessie Purvis: Camilla May Brown (1876-1966) and Annabelle Brown (1878-1964).
Mattie Hine Brown and William Amos Brown settled in Athens and had five children:
Edna L. Brown (1893-1984) married Lyman Edward Talada, moved to Michigan
Rachel A. Brown (1894-1990) married Daniel William Bean, stayed in Athens
Vera Margrette Brown (1897-1972) married Charles Gustav Peter Friedericks, moved to Reading, PA
Thelma Augusta Brown (1901-1984) married Harold Fred Chase, moved to Los Angeles, CA
John Edwin Brown (1904-1983) did not marry, lived in Sayre, PA
Mattie died of something called quick consumption on 16 April 1913 and is buried in Tioga Point Cemetery in Athens with William Amos Brown (1854-1941).
Arthur Thomas Hine is one of those relations that I did not question in childhood but was a bit of a mystery when I tried to figure out how he was actually related. I think he’s a great uncle by way of a second marriage. Curious labels one discovers with #52ancestors.
I have already written about my great-great-grandfather James Edwin Hine. Arthur is his son by his second marriage to Ann E. Phillips. Arthur was their only child and James’ only son, born 11 January 1874 in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. He lived with his parents until he married Flora Campbell (1875-1961) on 17 December 1902. They had two children, both girls: Edith Augusta Hine (1907-1998) and Ella Marie Hine (1913-1916). Ella Marie died of bronchitis related to infantile paralysis (polio).
Arthur Hine
Arthur appears to have worked as a general laborer, first for the “shops” or the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and then later for the local hospital.
I got to know Edith Hine after visiting her with my father. We drove down from Ithaca to visit her and take her out to dinner. Later, after I moved to Philadelphia, I would sometimes drive home by way of Athens so that I could stop by to visit with her. She gave me some family letters which I have used to write the blog about Sabrina Hine.
I don’t remember the year but it must have been after 1995, when it came time for Edith, who had been a nurse in the public schools for most of her career, to leave her home on Pine St. and go to live in a retirement home where she got more assistant with day to day living. My father and I went down to the auction where her furnishings were sold to help raise the money to fund this. We purchased a bedroom suite made up of a bed frame, bureau and washstand that had been Arthur and Flora’s wedding present. It was quite ornate Eastlake style and I held onto it for years. When I made the move from Ohio down to Kentucky, I sold it at auction myself, as it was too big for my new house.
I love having pieces of the family around me. Sometimes they bring memories and sometimes they are just great inspiration for my imagination.
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:
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.
Sometimes you come across a picture that helps you find a person. This week’s #52ancestors #52familyphotographs started out with just that discovery. I have already written about Philip H. Prince and his wife Gertrude, but I really knew very little about her. I came across this photograph and thought, hmm, I didn’t know she was a nurse.
So I went looking and low and behold, there on the 1920 Census, Gertrude Williams is employed as a nurse and is living at St. Mary’s Hospital, on Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia. That lead me to wonder where she got her nursing certificate (Pennsylvania would have registered her at that time) but I was unable to determine whether she trained at the hospital or elsewhere.
I wonder if she met Philip H. Prince while nursing?
This year for #52Ancestors I am going to focus on family photographs. I have so many and I think others will get as much amusement and interest out of them as I do. So ring in 2019 with #52FamilyPhotographs !
I just love this image: the car positioned across the street, the outfits on the ladies in the back seat, the chauffeur’s cap on the driver. The photograph identifies Harlow Buttles as the bearded gentleman in the front seat.
Harlow was born in 1834 in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. He was a farmer and the postmaster of South Hill, Pennsylvania. He married Susan Amelia Hill in 1862. They had two daughters, Hellen and Alma Dolly. He died in 1924 and is buried in South Hill Cemetery, Orwell.
This week in #52ancestors finds me back in Bradford County, Pennsylvania looking into my great, great grandfather James Edwin Hine and his family.
James Edwin Hine
James Edwin Hine was born 28 April 1837 in Orwell to Henry W. (1806-1868) and Mary Craw Frost (1808-1889) Hine. He and his siblings Erasmus and Harlow were baptized on 8 August 1847 by the Reverend John Iveson of the Presbyterian Church of Rome. He does not appear in 1850 with his family, or even with close relatives. However, after paging through 32 pages of the 1850 Census for Orwell, Pennsylvania, I found a possible match in Edwin Hines, 13 years, living with a Uri Cook. Two of the entries on the page, James O. Frost and Chauncey Hill are distant relatives (James being the son of Aaron and Polly Craw Frost and brother to Mary Hine). Perhaps he was hired out to work for as farm hand having expressed an interest in farming. His father was a tailor and his brother a shoemaker, so agriculture might not have followed naturally. Oddly, in 1860 he appears in Willet, New York living with a farmer named Orleans Brigham. If there is a relationship there, I must not have all the pieces.
Kate Tyrrell Hine
In 1862, he is back in Bradford county where he married Catherine Tyrrell on 30 December 1862. Catherine or Kate was born on 13 May 1842, the daughter of William Tyrrel (1813-4 Aug 1852) and Lucy Charlotte Doane (1820-1887). James and Kate Hine had two children:
Martha Eliza “Mattie” Hine (1864-1913)
Minnie Arabella Hine (1866-1931)
Sadly, Kate Hine died on 18 May 1868. James later married a second time, on 1 April 1870 to Ann E Phillips (1859-1929). James and Ann Hine had one child, a son Arthur T. Hine (1874-1962). I had the pleasure of knowing Arthur’s daughter Edith, but I digress.
Anna E. Phillips Hine
James Edwin Hine appears to have gone by Edwin within the family but as James in more formal situations, which makes finding him a bit of a challenge. He appears to have spent most of his life’s work on his farm, appearing in Census records and little more that I can find. James died on 23 March 1915 and is buried at Tioga Point Cemetery.
This week in #52ancestors I bring you quite the character: George Mortimer Prince. He was born on 27 September 1837, the third of six children of George Washington (1808-1888) and Emmaline Terrell (1810-1884) Prince.
George M. served in the US Civil War in the 5th Regiment, New York Cavalry as a corporal in Co. G. His dates of service are October 1861- November 1862. He is not mentioned in regimental histories and his military service was interrupted by a bad case of chronic diarrhea for which he was discharged. But more on that later.
George M. Prince married Elizabeth Alma Buttles (1842-1906) on 5 March 1864. They had three children:
George Cornell Prince (1869-1959)
unnamed daughter (22 June 1875-23 June 1875)
Edna Mabel “Ted” Prince (1878-1947)
George and Alma Prince
They lived in Bradford county, Pennsylvania until the late 1890’s when they relocated to Federalsburg, Maryland, bringing their daughter Edna Prince (Ted) with them.
Shortly after the death of his wife Alma (15 May 1906), George placed an advertisement in the York Gazette. I find the summary of his story here somewhat confusing: he appears to have written to the postmaster stating that he had recently lost his wife by death and would “be pleased to correspond with a Hanover widow of forty-five or fifty years of age, with a view to matrimony.” I don’t know if the rest of his letter explained his relationship with the people of Hanover, or if the postmaster simply assumed that a Civil War veteran writing fondly of Hanover must have fought in the battle at Hanover. However, George Prince had already been discharged due to disability in November 1862, which to my mind would make it very tricky to take part in a battle that happened on June 30, 1863. The 5th Cavalry was definitely there, engaged in hand to hand combat with Stuart’s cavalry, but George should have been at home by then.
Hattie Duff Prince
He did, however, find a wife. And this is where the story gets complicated. My first inkling of this was in looking through a box of family photographs that came from my dad’s side of the family. The photos all seemed to be identified by my grandmother, which made me wonder if my father had sat her down and made her look through them. Among the Prince family images was a photo of a woman identified as “Hattie Duff, George M. Prince’s second wife?” The question mark was part of her name. When the dickens did he remarry? Elizabeth Alma died in 1906 and George M. died in 1909 so this must have been a whirlwind romance, or something.
According to George’s Civil War pension record, George M. married Hattie E. Duff (ne Jessop, widow, aged 55 years (more likely 62 years)) on 10 November 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. Hattie Duff had apparently lived in Baltimore for some time with her first husband and children, but had been a widow since 1904. George M. Prince died on 28 February 1909, leaving everything to his new wife. She inherited everything, including his veteran’s pension.
This leaves me wondering just how his two surviving children felt about this. Perhaps it is summarized in that question mark on the back of her photograph.
Here are two images of George Mortimer and Alma Buttles Prince at the end of their lives.
My Great-great-grandmother Catherine Tyrrel married James Edwin Hine. Her parents were William L. Tyrrell and Lucy Charlotte Doane Tyrrell. Both of these families were active in the early settlement of Bradford County and the Tyrrell’s even have a hill named after them but William died at a young age, and Lucy remarried. But I am getting ahead of the story.
Telling My Story 