Ancestor Birthday - June 8th - Joseph Townsend - 1715

Joseph Townsend was one of my 5th great grandfathers. As the Quaker record shows he was the son of Joseph and Martha (Wooderson) Townsend, born the 8th day of the 4th month in 1715, so since before the calendar change it was June 8th. This was recorded at the Chester Monthly Meeting in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

His parents, Joseph and Martha, were from England and immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1712. They had been Quakers in England and brought a certificate from the Monthly Meeting at Newbury in Berkshire. Their oldest son, William, was born in England, but the other 7 children were born in Pennsylvania.

Joseph who was born in 1715 married Lydia Reynolds 17th day of 3rd month 1739, or 17 May 1739, as recorded at the Concord Monthly Meeting in Chester County, Pennsylvania, which is now Delaware County, Pennsylvania. I wrote about Lydia on her birthday 24 Apr 2017. There I named their 5 children and showed a portion of Joseph's will showing his bequest to his wife Lydia. He died rather young, at age 34 in Dec 1749.

His will did have bequests for his children when they came of age. The oldest son Francis was to receive the saw mill with 60 acres. Benjamin and Joseph were to get the other part of his plantation of about 152 acres. Benjamin would get the house and that would effect the division between the two. His daughter Esther was to get 50 pounds currency when she was 18. There was an unborn child when he wrote his will, so he designated that 20 pounds was to go to them when they were 21. Also if there was any money left over it would go to that child.

By reading his will we can deduce that Joseph owned a little over 200 acres and had a sawmill. He believed there was enough money to give cash in the future. As his oldest child was only 9 years old when Joseph died, I wonder if his wishes were followed, considering the amount of time before the children would be of age. All of the children did live long enough to be married.

Ancestor Birthday - June 7th - Nicholas Nicholson - 1741

He was my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Nicholas Nicholson. It all sounds a little repetitive. He was born 7 Jun 1741 in Pasquotank County, North Carolina to Thomas and Mary (Hill) Nicholson. It was 17 Nov 1762 when he married Sarah White, the daughter of Thomas and Rachel (Jordan) White.

Note that the Quaker record shows his birth date as 7th day of 4th month in 1741. Remember this is before the calendar change in 1752, so the 4th month was June. It also gives his parents as "dittos." This is in a series of the children of Thomas and Mary Nicholson.

Last month, May 2017, I wrote about some of his close family. His granddaughter, Phariby Nicholson, daughter of his son Nathan, was on my blog 12 May 2017. Then his niece, Miriam Bell, the daughter of his sister Miriam appeared on 23 May 2017. On 24 May I featured Rachel Jordan, who was his mother-in-law. I enjoy seeing how these family members connect to each other.

Apparently Nicholas was active in the Quaker Pasquotank Monthly Meeting as he signed as a witness for 10 marriages there plus 2 more from neighboring Perquimans County. Of course it didn't hurt that he had a number of relatives getting married. I was able to identify the relationship for 10 of these: his father's 2nd marriage, 3 sisters, a brother, a brother-in-law, 2 nieces, and 2 daughters. A family history does state they lived in Perquimans County.

Nicholas was the 4th child of 7 born to Thomas and Mary and then he had 3 half-siblings from his father's second marriage to Sarah (Smith) Nixon, widow of Thomas. This Sarah was a 1st cousin once removed to Nicholas' wife, Sarah White. Sometimes the relationships can get confusing.

In the abstracts of deed records in Perquimans County it shows a deed from 1777 where Thomas Nicholson deeded for "love I bear my son Nicholas, do give 100a[cres]." Then again in 1784 for "love I bear my son Nicholas Nicholson of Perq. do give 100a." It is good to have a father who loves you enough to give you 200 acres.

In their 30 plus years of marriage Nicholas and Sarah had at least 9 children. Their 7th child, Nathan Nicholson, was my 4th great-grandfather. When Nathan was married in 1799, his father was not listed as one of the witnesses, but the record did not state that Nicholas was deceased. Some family researchers have given his death date as 1800. Sarah died 22 Apr 1800. I have not found a record for Nicholas.

Considering the Censuses for Ichabod Howe

In order to look at the various censuses for Ichabod I had to look them up. I discovered that the indexers at Ancestry.com had been very creative in the ways they spelled his name. See some examples: 1850 - Pehabod Howe; 1830 - Iehabod Hone; 1820 - Jchabod Howe; 1810 - Schabod How; 1800 - Tchabod Now. All of these were located where he lived, in the town of  Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut.

1850.  Now I want to share my reasoning for some conclusions I have come to about Ichabod's family in the censuses. Since we are usually advised to start with the information nearest to us in time I began with the 1850 census. I found 81 year old Ichabod was living with a Norton Howe, age 40 with a wife Harriet and 3 children, Edward, Mary and Luman. When I wrote about Ichabod's father-in-law, Stephen Scoville, on 28 Jan 2017 I noted that Stephen's probate papers gave information about his grandchildren, the children of Ichabod and Irene. However I failed to give their names. They were Levi born about 1803, Thirza born about 1806, Luman born about 1810 and Lucy born in 1811. Since Luman was born about 1810, he was the same age as this Norton. Then I found that he was listed in some places as Luman N. Howe and that Luman had married someone named Harriet, so I believe this "Norton" is Luman and Norton was his middle name.

1840.  Now we move back 10 years to 1840. The indexers got this one right, although someone submitted a correction to change the surname to Flowe. In this census which only lists the head of household by name it gives the household composition as 1 male 70 to 79, 1 male 10 to 14, 1 female 70 to 79, 1 female 30 to 39. The older two would probably be Ichabod and his 2nd wife Lucy. Ichabod's daughter Thirza was born about 1806, so would be age 34 and she did not get married until 1842, so the 30 to 39 year old female is probably her. The 10 to 14 year old male is a mystery to me. But Ichabod's son Levi also had a 10 to 14 year old male in his household in 1840. Levi had 2 sons of about the right age, Dyer born in 1825 and Levi Jr born in 1827, so I suspect one was helping his grandfather. The 1840 census for Ichabod shows that 2 persons were employed in agriculture.

1830.  Since there was only 1 entry for Howe (sounds like or similar) in Cornwall in 1830, I found Ichabod. There were 4 persons in the household: 1 male 60 to 69, 1 male 15 to 19, 1 female 60 to 69 and 1 female 10 to 14. Again the older two would most likely be Ichabod and his 2nd wife Lucy. The 2 younger people do not fit any of Ichabod's known children with his first wife Irene. Since Lucy is listed as over 60, these children seem young to have been hers. Both daughters, Thirza and Lucy, were not yet married so they could have been in the household but these ages do not match them. A female 10 to 14 would have been born 1816 to 1820 and the male 15 to 19 would have been born 1811 to 1815. Since Levi Norton Howe was born about 1810, they could have made him a little younger and he would be the male 15 to 19. But the female 10 to 14 is still unknown.

1820.  The 1820 census shows two adults, 1 male over 45 and 1 female over 45, which would be Ichabod and Lucy. There are three who would probably be children, 1 female 10 to 15 which fits Thirza, 1 female under 10 which fits Lucy and 1 male under 10 which could be Luman. Since Levi would have been 17 or 18 he could be working somewhere. He did not get married until 1823.

1810.  The 1810 census is quite puzzling to me. It would be reasonable that the male 26 to 44 was Ichabod. The oldest female was 16 to 25 which was too young for Irene, his first wife, who should have been about 37 then. It shows 5 children and I know of 4 and the youngest of those had not been born yet. Did Ichabod and Irene have some children who died young, before 1813 when the children were named in the probate record? Were there nieces or nephews living in the household? I don't know.

1800.  The indexer really made Ichabod hard to find in the 1800 census. This census shows 1 male 26 to 44, 2 males under 10, 1 female 26 to 44 and 1 female under 10. The 2 adults fit the ages of Ichabod and Irene. However I have no record of any children born before 1800 and here are 3. With no names to check it makes it even harder. Maybe I will never know.

Ancestor Birthday - June 5 - Ichabod Howe - 1769-1857

Litchfield County, Connecticut

It seems so fitting that my 4th great-grandfather, Ichabod Howe, lived at Cornwall Hollow in the town of Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut. He was the son of John Howe and John's second wife, Lydia Norton. John married his first wife, Mary Wadhams, in 1756 and they had 4 children before Mary died in 1765. So Ichabod had 4 older half-siblings as he was growing up. John's 2 marriages and the births of the 4 older children were recorded in Goshen vital records. The Howe Genealogies published in 1929 state that the family moved to Canaan Connecticut in 1766, apparently after John and Lydia's marriage 15 Apr 1766. Ichabod was born on 5 Jun 1769, the 2nd of 7 children born to Lydia. At least 3 of these children died young.

Ichabod was in the town of Cornwall by the 1800 census. The censuses before 1850 only name the head of household and give numbers for the various age categories, so it is difficult to know who the members of the household were. Tomorrow (6 Jun 2017) I will plan to write about some of my conclusions about the census entries for Ichabod's family.

As his father did, Ichabod also had two wives. His first wife, Irene Scovill, died in 1813 and his second wife, Lucy ? , died in 1841. Both are buried in the Cornwall Hollow Cemetery. I have not found a record for Ichabod's burial after his death 30 Apr 1857.

The town meeting minutes for Cornwall mention Ichabod Howe as one of the surveyors of highways in 1803, 1811, 1821 and 1822. In Theodore S. Gold's book of Historical Records of the Town of Cornwall..., there is a section on ecclesiastical history. Ichabod was named as one of those "brought into this fold of Christ" in a revival held in 1795. By 1822 he was listed as one of the deacons on the committee "to settle difficulties between brothers." In a historical address given in 1865, the following was written about him as one of the prominent laymen of the church: "Ichabod Howe will be remembered as a man of Pauline gentleness, and Christlike spirit of self-sacrifice for his brother's good. To a life of rectitude and consecration he added a very fitting closing chapter, by giving himself almost wholly to visitation of the parish and prayerful lay-labors for the conversion of men to his dear Lord. He died in 1857." It makes me feel good that he had this good reputation.

How Many Howes?

Tomorrow (5 Jun 2017) my birthday ancestor is Ichabod Howe. I began wondering how many Howe ancestors I have in a row. So I constructed the following chart. It shows the Howes who lived in America. So you can see that the answer to my question is 8.

No.	relationship	name	birth date	birth place
1	3rd gt-grandmother	Lucy Irene Howe	16 Sep 1811	Cornwall, Connecticut
2	4th gt-grandfather	Ichabod Howe	5 Jun 1769	Canaan, Connecticut
3	5th gt-grandfather	John Howe	1 Oct 1732	Wallingford, Connecticut
4	6th gt-grandfather	Jeremiah Howe	17 Feb 1705	Wallingford, Connecticut
5	7th gt-grandfather	Jeremiah Howe	16 Sep 1675	Wallingford, Connecticut
6	8th gt-grandfather	Jeremiah Howe	8 Jul 1650	New Haven, Connecticut
7	9th gt-grandfather	Jeremiah Howe	abt 1614	England
8	10th gt-grandfather	Edward Howe	abt 1575	England

My Coat of Arms

When I saw this mug for sale a number of years ago, I just couldn't resist. So I usually have it proudly displayed on my piano.

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Ancestor Birthday - June 1st - Elizabeth Kent 1667 - 1748

There were two 8th great-grandmothers born on June 1, so since Rebecca Law was born 12 years before Elizabeth Kent, Elizabeth had to take 2nd place. However, I did write about Elizabeth before when I discussed which Elizabeth had married Samuel Nicholson. (See post of 9 Jan 2017)

I still believe that my 8th great-grandmother, the wife of Samuel Nicholson and the mother of my ancestor Abigail Nicholson, was Elizabeth Kent, born 1 Jun 1667, the daughter of Thomas and Ann Kent, and also the widow of William Charles.

Most researchers agree that Elizabeth Kent, daughter of Thomas and Ann, did marry William Charles on 8 Nov 1683. She would have been 16 years old. William and Elizabeth had a daughter Jane born 1 Oct 1685. Then William died between 4 Apr 1687 when he made his will and 23 Sep 1687 when the will was probated. William named his wife "Elezabath Charles" and his daughter Jane Charles in his will as well as his brother John and other legacies.

Then the question is, who did the widow Elizabeth Charles marry? I believe it was the Quaker Samuel Nicholson who did marry an Elizabeth Charles 6, 10m, 16[88?] as recorded in Gwen Boyer Bjorkman's book of Quaker Marriage Certificates in northeastern North Carolina (pg 85). In Weynette Parks Haun book of transcriptions of Perquimans Precinct Births, Marriages, Deaths and Flesh Marks 1659-1820 she lists their marriage 16 Dec 1688. Since this was the time for the old style calendar, December was the 10th month. One of the reasons why I believe this was Elizabeth Kent was that 2 of the witnesses for that marriage were Mary Kent and Hannah Kent, the only mention of any Kents in Bjorkman's book.

So, if this Elizabeth is my ancestor, who were her children? The Perquimans birth records show that Samuel and his wife Elizabeth had at least 4 daughters: Abigail, Hannah, Jane and Elizabeth. There were probably a few more. This may indicate that Elizabeth's daughter, Jane Charles, had died before this Jane was born in 1694. I haven't been able to find any further records for the Jane Charles born in 1685.

Elizabeth became a widow again when Samuel died 28 Mar 1728. He had made his will a few days before he died and gave to his wife "Elizabarth" "my whole estate during her life." It was then to go to his daughter Elizabeth Anderson. He also gave a bequest to his daughter, Sarah Nicholson.

Apparently Elizabeth then married for a 3rd time to widower Zachariah Nixon. And again she became a widow when he died in 1739. Elizabeth left a will, dated 19 Mar 1747/48 and probated January Court 1748. (This should probably be 1748/49) She named her son-in-law John Anderson and daughters Elizabeth Anderson and Sarah Jones, as well as grandchildren and others.

Elizabeth has been difficult to research and I am certainly not 100% sure that I am correct about which Elizabeth is my ancestor. But at the moment this is my belief about her.

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