52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week #39. Should Be a Movie

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week #39. Should Be a Movie

 

There should be a movie of the colorful life Captain George Denison.  Adventurer, soldier in Cromwell’s army, public official, soldier in King Phillip’s War, founder of Stonington, and my 9^th g.grandfather. His is a story of heartbreak, war, love and success. The life and genealogy of George Denison is told in many articles and books; the most up-to-date and fully documented sketch is found in the New England Historic and Genealogical Society online database: Early New England Families, 1641-1700 [1].  There are many fanciful stories of Captain George Denison and many claim Capt. Dension as an ancestor.

 

George Denison was born in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, 10 December 1620 to William Dension and Margaret (Chandler) Monk (or Monck), about the same time the Pilgrim’s were settling into Plymouth for that first hard winter.

He left England in 1631 with his brothers and parents and settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony where he married his first wife Bridget Thompson about 1640. They had one two children (Sarah and Hannah) before Bridget died in 1643 of “feaver & consumption.” That he was deeply in love with Bridget is attested to by a poem allegedly written by George during their courtship and recorded in the Denison genealogy.

 

Upon his wife’s death in 1643, a distraught George Denison left New England and his two daughters and returned to England.

He enlisted in in Oliver Cromwell’s army and fought at the Battle of Marston Moor (or Battle of York) where he was taken prisoner and escaped. His service in Cromwell’s army was verified by his brother Daniel Denison, but other stories have Capt. Denison also at the Battle of Naseby a year later.  

 

                                                            The Battle of Marston Moor, John Barker
 

The story is told that he was wounded at Naseby and was in the care of a wealthy Irish leather merchant then living in England, John Borodell and his beautiful daughter, Ann Borodell, who was nursing George. George fell in love with Ann. There are many stories about this courtship of Ann (some have him making his way to Cork, Ireland, where John Borodell had property; some have him remain in England) and returned to New England in 1645 with his new wife. That Ann Borodell was well-born is undeniable as she had a considerable dowry and property in Dublin. The stories certainly would be fodder for a movie as embellishment of his life.

George and his wife Ann lived in Roxbury for a while until he had a run-in with the local church and in 1647, the Rev. Eliot of Roxbury wrote: “This winter we had a gracious p’vidence of God befell two brothers Edward & Georg Dennison, who had been proude incendiarys of some troble among us, & full of distempr, and disaffection. But the Lord left them to open and shamefull drunkennesse at Boston: especy edward.”

 

That got George excommunicated, but was taken in again. In 1647 the young men of  Roxbury wanted to choose George Denison “a young soldier come lately out of the wars in England.” However, the elders wanted someone else, noting that George was not a Freeman and was tainted by his service in Cromwell’s army.

Apparently George had enough of Roxbury and left to settle in New London in 1651, where he served as Deputy to the General Court. He also served on the War Commission for New London.

He was granted land in Mystic in 1652 and in Stonington in 1654. He was later granted land in what was Pequot territory in 1660, where he built his manor at Pequotsepos. The original house is gone, but the Denison homestead from 1717 exists on the same plot and is a museum operated by the Denison Society. He is listed as one of the founders of the town of Stonington, Connecticut, where he again served as Deputy to the General Court at various times between 1671 and 1694.

 

 

George Denison, having been rebuked for the military by the elders in Roxbury, was selected as a Captain in the King Phillp’s War in 1676 in command of New London County troops against the Pequot.  He fought at the “great swamp fight” in Rhode Island in 1675 and as Provost Marshall was responsible for raising forces against Narragansett and Wampanaug Indians. He was credited with the capture the Chief Canonchet, the Narragansett chief in April 1676.

 

 

                  Canonchet Memorial, Rhode Island. https://www.visitrhodeisland.com/listing/canonchet-memorial/8291/
 

George and his wife Ann Borodell were “both remarkable for magnificent personal appearance, and for force of mind and character. She was always called ‘Lady Ann’....He has been described as ‘the Miles Standish of the settlement’ [Stonington]; but he was a greater and more brilliant soldier than Miles Standish. He had no equal in any of the colonies, for conducting a war against the Indians, except perhaps Capt. John Mason.”

 

[1] Alicia Crane Williams, Early New England Families Project, 1641-1700. Database and sketch of George Denison online at https://www.americanancestors.org/browse/publications/ongoing-study-projects/Early-New-England-Families,-1641--1700.

 

Some References

John Denison Baldwin and William Clift. A Record of the Descendants of Capt. George Denison of Stonington, Conn. (Worcester: Tyler & Seagrave, 1881).

 

E. Glenn Denison, Josephine Middleton Peck, and Donald L. Jacobus. Denison Genealogy: Ancestors and descendants of Captain George Denison (Stonington, Pequot Press, 1963). A revision of the 1881 work by Baldwin.

 

Katherine Dimancescu, Denizens: A Narrative of Captain George Denison and his New England Contemporaries (Katherine Dimancescu, 2017).

 

“The Will of George Denison, 1683.” New England Historic and Genealogical Register, 13, (1859), 73-77.

 

Daniel Denison, “Autobiography of Major-General Daniel Denison,” New England Historic and Genealogical Register, 46, (1892) 127-133. This letter from George Denison’s brother provides a detailed first hand account of the life of George Denison and his brothers and parents.

 

The Denison Homestead, The Denison Society, Mystic, Connecticut. https://www.denisonhomestead.org/

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks- Week #38: On the Map. John McDonagh of Gorteen townland, County Longford, Ireland

 

John McDonagh of Gorteen townland, County Longford, Ireland

My maternal g.grandfather John McDonagh occupied a tiny plot of land in Gorteen townland, just south of the village of Ballinalee (formally St. Johnstown) in Clonbroney Parish, County Longford.

 

 

 

 

In the Griffith’s Valuation of 1854, John McDonagh leased his plot of land from Robert Grier, a landowner in County Longford.  [1] Actually, his leased property was just a house, valued at a whopping 10 shillings.  There were only four other plots in Gorteen, all owned or leased by Robert Grier.  John McDonagh occupied lot 2b.

 

The Gorteen House Book from FindMyPast, dated 23 December 1853 values the property at 16 shillings. [2]

 

The great web site at Ask About Ireland allows you to actually see the property on the map from the time of Griffith’s.

Amazingly, in a comparison with a satellite map from Google Earth, the small plot of land known as 2b is still there,  off the main road leading to Ballinalee.

 

 

 

It looks like a house is on that plot, but from the Google image it’s difficult to tell if it dates from John McDonagh’s time.  A trip to Ireland is in order!

 

John McDonagh died on 16 July 1895 in Balinalee at age 76. [3] He married Eliza Brady (probably late 1840s) and they had six children, although only four are recorded in the Clonbroney Parish records (two of them identified Gorteen as the townland of birth).

i.                John McDonagh (1845?-1905) died in Brooklyn, NY

ii.              Eliza (1851-1894) died in Greenwich, CT

iii.             James (1854-1905) died in Greenwich, CT

iv.             Patrick (1857-1910) died in Drumeel, Co. Longford

v.              Annie (1859-1935) died in Greenwich, CT

vi.             Frank (1864? – 1937) died in Greenwich, CT

 

 

[1] Griffith’s Valuation, 21 December 1854, p.46; Townland of Gorteen, Parish of Clonbroney, Co. Longford. http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/.

[2] Ireland Valuation Office Book, 23 December 1853, p. 54: Townland of Gorteen, Parish of Clonbroney, Co. Longford. https://search.findmypast.com/search-ireland-records-in-census-land-and-substitutes/and_land-and-estates.

[3] Ireland Civil Registration Deaths Registered in the District of Ballinalee, Union of Granard, Co. Longford.  John McDonagh,16 July 1895. #04681347.  Item #354. Age 76, Laborer.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks- Week #36: Labor. John McGlynn, Lamplighter

 

John McGlynn, Lamplighter

John McGlynn was a lamplighter in the ritzy Belle Haven area on the Greenwich, Connecticut waterfront in the early 1900s.

 

John McGlynn was the husband of my first cousin, 3x removed (1C3R), Mary Duffy. He was born about 1856 in Ireland, spent time in Scotland as a coal miner, and died in Greenwich, Connecticut on 18 April 1935, where his obituary stated that he had been a resident of Belle Haven, for 35 years. [1]

 

When John McGlynn came to America in 1896, he settled in Greenwich, Connecticut, where many of his and Mary's relatives resided. Belle Haven, in the early part of the 20^th century, was an area of the rich and famous along the Greenwich waterfront. John McGlynn was not.

 

According to the book “A History of the Greenwich Waterfront (CT) by Karen Jewell, “John McGlynn used to be the neighborhood lamplighter. It would take McGlynn the better part of three hours to light all of Belle Haven.” [2]

 

What does a lamplighter do? According to Wikipedia, “a lamplighter is a person employed to light and maintain candle or, later, gas street lights." [3] A lamplighter usually carried around a ladder and gas lamps were lit using a wick on a long pole.  

 

                                                                                     

                                            Credit: 11 jobs that no longer exist today                                  

                                                                                   https://imgur.com/gallery/S 3lOX

In the early 20^th century, gas was transported through pipes to the gas lamps and lamps were placed on the posts. Lamplighters lit them in the evening and put them out in the morning. Gas lamps started in Europe and then spread to America. The first gas lamp in America was installed Feb. 7, 1817, at the northwest corner of Baltimore and Holliday streets in Baltimore, Maryland. A replica of the original, with appropriate plaque, adorns the spot today [4] as a reminder of this long-forgotten, but important, occupation.

 

                                                                            Credit: American Oil and Gas Historical Society

                                                                            https://www.aoghs.org/technology/manufactured-gas/

 

 

[1] “John McGlynn Dies At Home Today,”

The Greenwich News & Graphic, Greenwich, Connecticut, 18 April 1935, clipping from Greenwich Library

[2] Karen Jewell, A History of the Greenwich Waterfront: Tod’s Point, Great Captain Island and the Greenwich Shoreline (Charleston: The History Press, 2011, 71.

[3] Wikipedia, “Lamplighter,” 4 September 2020 [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamplighter]

[4] The History of Lighting. http://www.historyoflighting.net/lighting-history/history-of-gas-lighting/: 2020

52 Ancestors. Week 35: Unforgettable: The forgotten brother.

Growing up, I knew my grandmother’s sisters. My grandmother was Gertrude Elizabeth McDonough Rogers and her sisters were known to me as Aunt Katherine and Aunt Lou (OK, I know they are great-Aunts, but that’s what we called them).

 

It was only years later (after my grandmother and Aunts had passed), that I located an obituary for my g.grandmother, Mary Doris McDonough that indicates that there was another sibling – her son, John McDonough still alive in 1951 and living in New Bedford, Massachusetts. [1]  As my Mom and I were both interested in family history, I asked my mom about her uncle, John McDonough.  She had never heard of him.

 

It was years later that I found out from my 2^nd cousin, Judy (granddaughter of Katherine McDonough O’Connor), that she had heard that "one day at about the age 16, John left the house to get a pack of cigarettes and never came back."  She had heard her mother say that he moved to Massachusetts. Everyone seems to have lost contact with him and he was forgotten.

 

As I started compiling my family history, I located his birth and baptism at St. Mary Church, Greenwich, Connecticut. [2]  According to the church record, John James McDonough was born 29 November 1893 and baptized 3 December 1893 (the official birth certificate says he was born 18 November 1893 and that is the date that John James uses throughout his life).

 

So where did John James go? I found his WW1 Draft Card from 1917 and he is living in New York City working as a chauffeur for a “Mrs. Woodcock” on Coney Island. [3] He says he has wife, but no name is given and he claims a “dependent” exemption from the draft.

 

 

 

Apparently he was less than truthful as he didn’t marry until 1919, when he married Mae (or Mary) Charlotte Frank, daughter of Gus Frank and Mary Even on 4 Feb 1919 in Manhattan, New York City. His parents are given as Frank McDonough and Mary Doris.[4]

 

From there, he is found in the 1920 Federal census with his wife, Mary C. living as “boarders” in Manhattan, NYC and his still working as a chauffeur. [5]

 

 

 

John J. McDonough and his wife disappear until 1940. They are not found in the 1925 NY State census and the 1930 census in New York, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island (or anywhere else for that matter), but they do show up on the 1940 Federal census for Newport, Rhode Island as John James McDonough and  Mary C. There are apparently no children as none are listed and he is unemployed. Their address in 1935 is given as South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. [6]

 

John James McDonough died on 2 February 1942 in Burrillville, Providence, Rhode Island of Pulmonary Tuberculosis and had last worked in 1938. [7] His wife Mary Frank is still alive at this time and his parents Frank McDonagh and Mary Doris are identified on the death certificate. He is buried in the St. Columba Cemetery in Middletown, Rhode Island. He had no children and none of his family even knew he had died. He now has a Find-A-Grave entry that connects him with his siblings and parents (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/213469734/john-james-mcdonough), although there is no photo of the grave (if one exists) yet.

 

 

 

John James, the forgotten brother, died 9 years before his mother, Mary Doris McDonough. Even in her 1951 obituary, John James McDonough’s siblings thought he was still alive. Despite whatever happened to cause him to leave home and his siblings, he is now restored to the family and will no longer be forgotten.

 

 

[1] “Mrs. Mary McDonough.” Greenwich Library clipping. Greenwich Times (Greenwich, Connecticut), September 7, 1951.

[2] St. Mary Church, “Baptism Register,” p.157, “Joanneum Jacobum,” baptism  3 December 1893, born 29 November 1893; Parish archive, Greenwich, Connecticut.

[3] United States World War 1 Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6482/ : accessed 20 July 2020), card John James McDonough, serial no. 123, New York City, New York.

[4] “New York City Marriages, 1829-1940,” database,

FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2143225 : accessed 21 May 2020), Entry for John James McDonough - May Charlotte Frank, 4 Feb 1919; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York, FHL microfilm 1,643,254.

[5] 1920 U.S. census, New York County, New York, Manhattan Borough, p. 8A, dwelling 22, family 182, line 19, ED 1070, John McDonough household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6061/ : accessed 26 June 2020); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication T625 roll 1213, Image 15/43.

[6] 1940 U.S. census, Newport County, Rhode Island, Newport, p. 61B, house 396, line 45, ED 3-37, John J.McDonough household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/ : accessed 26 June 2020); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm publication T627 roll 3760, image 45/47.

[7] “Rhode Island Deaths and Burials, 1802-1950,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F8H5-48K : accessed 21 May 2020), certificate of death image, John James McDonough, 2 Feb 1942, no. 42-23, citing “Rhode Island Department of Public Health, Division off Vital Statistics.”

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Troublesome.

 

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Troublesome.  

Abraham Morehouse was a very bad boy. He was a land speculator, land grabber, forger, debtor, a bigamist, and fugitive from New York justice.

 Abraham Morehouse, born about 1767, was the youngest son of Col. Andrew Morehouse of Dutchess County, New York. Col. Morehouse of the 3^rd Regimenmt of the Dutchess County Militia, was a well known proprieter of the Morehouse Taven on the Fishkill-Hopewell Road in what is now South Dover, Dutchess County near the Connecticut State boundary. His Tavern was frequented by General George Washington (where he wrote several letters in 1780-1781) and other important commanders of the American Revolution.

 In January of 1789, Abraham Morehouse ran afoul of the law in New York City. He was indicted on two charges of forging a bond and for uttering and publishing the bond, knowing that it was forged. In 1789, a guilty verdict meant the hangman’s noose. Abraham seemed to be brimming with confidence as he defended himself at the trial and even published a document of the trial. [1] He was only half successful as he was acquitted of the first charge, but not the second and, in May 1789, was sentenced to be executed. [2]

 

 

Of course, this must of horrified his father, a patriot of the recently won War against England. Hearing of the news, old Col. Andrew Morehouse wrote a letter to the President of the newly formed United States of America, his Excellency George Washington, dated 29 May 1789, calling on his past association with the General during the War, and to plead for his son’s life: “My youngest son, a promising youth of twenty three now lies under the sentence of Death on the City of Newyork & will be executed in the 5^th of June unless mercy can be extended, he was convicted of a Certain forgery, and many peopl thinks unjustly but whether that is the case or not, I do not know, but Your Excellency must be sensible that Guilty or Inocent his dying so shamefull a death must bring an Irreperable disgrace upon me and my family.” [3] No response was located in Washington’s papers, but on 6 June 1789, the Governor of New York (the esteemed George Clinton, friend of Washington and also associate of Morehouse during the War), announced that he “has been pleased to grant a respite, of one month, to Abraham Morehouse…who were to have been executed yesterday.” [4].

 Apparently no execution took place, but really not learning from the event, Abraham Morehouse again ran into the law. By 1797, Col. Morehouse and his family had moved from South Dover to Johnstown, Montgomery Co., NY. In the meantime, Abraham Morehouse had married an Abigail Youngs (about 1790) and had two sons, Andrew and George Youngs. But in New York City he was a wanted man and the Court ordered the Sheriffs of Montogomery County to find him.

 By 1798, Abraham Morehouse was some forty thousand dollars in debt (which is a LOT of money in 1797!) to an Edmund Prior. Abraham apparently did not show up in Court or respond to the Court order, but in 1796, he was found to be in the possession of some 50,000 acres of land granted to him in the new territory of Kentucky (recently split from Virginia). It was probably after this run-in with the Courts that he abandoned his wife and children and left New York and headed to Kentucky to engage in land speculation.

 It was in Kentucky that Abraham Morehouse met up with the land speculator, the Baron de Bastrop (not his real name and he was NOT a Baron). Morehouse purchased an interest from Bastrop in the Spanish Land “grant” in the Ouachita Valley, Louisiana (but no monetary documents exist) and was contracted to induce immigrants to settle the area.  Apparently he was only partially successful in fulfilling this contract while engaging in further land speculation in Ouachita and defaulting on loans, leaving a legacy of Louisiana Court cases. An extensive and scholarly treatment of these complex land grabs is described in detail in Mitchell and Calhoun (1939). [5]

 

Abraham wasn’t done yet! While still married to Abigail Youngs back in old New York, Abraham Morehouse, passed himself as a widower and married Eleanor Hook in 1799 at Fort Miró, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana and had several children by her. [6] Eleanor had no knowledge that his wife was still alive until about 1804. At the time of his 2^nd marriage he had also passed himself off as a Colonel (but he had no military service and probably took that title from his father). DeWitt Clinton, who was largely responsible for the Eire Canal,  upon visiting Johnson Hall in Johnstown, New York in 1810 describes Morehouse as “a complete villain, who was pardoned when under sentence of death. He is now in the Orleans Territory, a member of their legislature, and worth $200,000.” [7]

Abraham Morehouse passed away about October 1813 in the Mississippi Territory. [8] 

 

 

After hearing this, both Abigail and her sons, Andrew and George, came to Ouachita to claim Abraham’s lands along with Eleanor and her heirs, which resulted in lengthy court cases lasting over 30 years. In the final court case, widely reported in the press in 1846, the court decided to split the claims between the two wives’ heirs. [9].

 

 

 

Despite all of his shenanigans, the parish of Morehouse in northern Louisiana was named for Abraham Morehouse and the largest city in Morehouse Parish is Bastrop.

 

[1]  Morhouse, Abraham, The First Trial of A. Morhouse, for forgery. Written by Himself. New York, 1789 in the Evans Early American Imprint Collection, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/N17047.0001.001.

[2] “Supreme Court,” Daily Advertiser, (New York, New York), 11 May, 1789, Vol. V, issue 1316, page 2.

[3] George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: Andrew Morehouse to George Washington. 1789, Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https.www.loc.gov/item/mgw436404.

[4] “Excellency; Governor;Abraham Morehouse,” New-York Daily Gazette, (New York, New York) 6 Jun 1789, Issue 138, p. 546.

[5] Jennie O’Kelly Mitchell and Robert Dabney Calhoun, “The Marquis de Maison Rouge, The Baron de Bastrop, and Colonel Abraham Morehouse, Three Ouachita Valley Soldiers of Fortune. The Maison Rouge and Bastrop Land ‘Grant,’” Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XX (1937), especially  369-462.

[6] Ibid, p. 454-456.

[7] “Obituaries.” New York Weekly Museum, (New York, New York), 16 October 1813, Vol. 2, Issue 24, p. 95.

[8] William W. Cambell. The Life and Writing of De Witt Clinton, (New York: Barker & Scribner, 1849), p. 200.

[9] “Important Land Suit,” New York Herald, 20 January 1846, p. 3, col. 2