Tracing a Life Gone Awry: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Timeline”

From Independence to Asylum Inmate

Anna Stroy: 1877-1961

 

While researching my second-great-granduncle Johann Streu/John Stroy, I discovered that his youngest daughter, Anna, ended up in the Norfolk State Hospital for the Insane, spending over half her life as an inmate. I knew that in early part of the twentieth century, people with problems like severe intellectual and developmental disability and severe autism were often institutionalized with the mentally ill. Was Anna’s condition lifelong, or did it develop later in life? I decided to track the data points in the records creating a timeline to see what I could learn.

1877:  

Anna was born April 1, 1877 in Elmwood Nebraska to parents Johann and Johannah Kupke Streu. She was the youngest of their 6 children.  

1880:

Anna appears on the census with her family.

1900:

Anna appears on the census, age 23, living with her parents. She is not employed.

1901:

A news item in the January 4, 1901 issue of the Elmwood Nebraska Leader-Echo states “Miss Anna Stroy returned to her work in Lincoln, Tuesday evening.” So at 24, she was holding down a job and presumably living on her own in Lincoln, Nebraska.

1905:

Anna’s mother dies.

1906:

News item from the Ashland Journal on March 2, 1906 reads: “Anna Stroy and sister Emma Gakemeier are visiting relatives at Glenwood, Iowa for an indefinite period.”

1908:

News item from the Ashland Gazette on January 31, 1908: “Miss Anna Stroy was an Omaha visitor Thursday of last week.        

1909:

News item from the Ashland Gazette on September 3, 1909: “John Stroy and family and Miss Anna Stroy returned Tuesday from a three weeks outing in Colorado.” Note: it is unclear if the John Stroy mentioned is Anna’s father or, more likely, her older brother, who was married and the father of three children in 1909.

News item from the December 3, 1909 Ashland Gazette describing the removal of 700 apple trees from Anna Stroy’s farm, so they must have been running an orchard, but were now returning the land to farming use. Was this Anna’s father’s old land?

1910:

Anna and her father are living together in Elmwood, Nebraska in a house on Kansas Street. She is 33. Her father is 75. She is not employed.

1918:

Anna’s father Johann died on March 27, 1918.

1920:

The 1920 census finds Anna living at the Norfolk Hospital for the Insane in Norfolk, Nebraska. She is 41 years old.

1924:

The Elmwood Leader-Echo published an article on May 23, 1924 detailing a lawsuit brought by Anna’s brother John as her guardian. She owned farmland, and the school district had condemned five acres to use as a school site, but paid less for the land than Anna’s brother thought was fair. She is described as “incompetent.” The jurors awarded an additional $460 in compensation.

1930:

The census finds her still an inmate in the Norfolk Hospital.

1934:

Legal notice in the Plattsmouth Journal of Plattsmouth, Nebraska providing public notice that John Stroy has filed for paperwork requesting approval of his guardianship expenses and report for Anna, an incompetent.

1939:

Anna is listed as a surviving relative in her sister Emma’s obituary. Ashland Gazette October 18, 1939.

1940:

The census finds Anna still a resident at the Norfolk Hospital for the Insane. She is 62.

1961:

Anna Stroy died on July 11, 1961 at age 84. Her obituary stated that “She lived in the Murdock community until 1917 when she became a paitient at the state hospital in Norfolk. She remained there until about five years ago when she was transferred to a nursing home in Plattsmouth.” Obituary published in the Ashland Gazette on July 20, 1961.

1962:

Springfield Monitor, Papillion Nebraska published a Notice of Sale for Anna’s farm on January 11, 1962.

 

So what did I learn from this timeline? First, Anna had been independent early in her life. She was able to hold a job and live on her own. However, at some point she moved back home, and lived with her parents until she was committed to the Norfolk Hospital. Did her mental illness manifest in her early twenties when she moved back home? Schizophrenia can manifest in early adulthood. She could have been bipolar or severely depressed. Did her condition worsen as the years went by? Whatever mental illness she suffered, it apparently wasn’t apparent from birth.  

Anna’s mother died in 1905. Anna continued to live with her father and travel with family for the next decade. However, we see that her father was preparing for her support once he was no longer alive to care for her: he placed 160 acres of farmland in her name by 1909.

As her father’s health failed, the family must have decided that Anna needed more care than they could provide, for according to her obituary, she was committed in 1917, a year before her father’s death. The timeline shows that her siblings took responsibility for her—her sister traveled with her one year, and her brother another year. Her brother became her guardian after her father’s death, and managed her affairs until his death in 1954.

Dining hall at the Norfolk State Hospital around 1915

The Norfolk State Hospital for the Insane appears to have been a decent institution. The photographs I was able to find show attractive buildings and a clean interior with plenty of staff to care for the patients. I hope the hospital was able to provide good care for Anna, as she spent half of her life there, from age 39 to approximately 79, when she was transferred to a nursing home.

The use of a timeline helped me track Anna Stroy’s life more effectively. While I may never know the details, I can at least see the framework and milestones of her life,

Broken Ties Between Parent and Children Leads to Lawsuit: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Broken Branch”

A Crooked Lawyer, a Suspicious New Will, and Angry Children: the Ernest Kupke Estate Lawsuit

Johann Streu/John Story: 1834-1918

Ernest Kupke: 1840-1903

 

While researching my second-great-granduncle Johann Streu, I came across news articles about a lawsuit that named him as a defendant. To my surprise, Johann was being sued by his wife Johanna’s niece and nephew. They claimed Johann was involved in a scheme to defraud them of the inheritance they were due following the death of their father, Ernst or Ernest Kupke. Ernst was Johann’s brother-in-law and neighbor. What had happened to cause such mistrust and animosity? It sounded as if this branch of the family tree had been broken, perhaps beyond repair.

I collected as many newspaper articles about the lawsuit as I could find on Newspapers.com. The suit was apparently well-known in Nebraska, with articles detailing each ruling published in several newspapers. The case appeared, in various forms, before at least three different judges. I was able to piece together the basic storyline from all these articles.

So who was Ernest Kupke? He was born in July of 1840 in Silesia, Prussia. His parents were Carl and Johanna Setzer Kupke. Ernest and his family immigrated to the United States in 1863 when he was 23 years old. His sister married Johann Streu/John Stroy, and the 1870 census finds Ernst living next door to the Stroys in Wisconsin.

The next year Ernst married Johanna Caroline Tischer or Fischer, another Prussian immigrant. They had two children, John Christ Kupke, born in 1874, and Johanna Kupke, born in 1873. Shortly thereafter, Ernst and Johanna must have separated and divorced, for by the 1880 census, Johanna had remarried to a man named William Hoerner or Koerner, and she and her two children were living with Koerner and his children from an earlier marriage. Johanna Tischer must have married him quite quickly, for the couple already had three-year-old twins and a 7-month-old son named Gotlieb by 1880.

John and Johanna Kupke Stroy had already moved their family to Cass County, Nebraska around 1875. Ernest followed them, bringing his mother to live with him. He appears on the 1880 census in Cass County, marital status “D” for divorced, just two pages away in the census forms from the Stroy family.

Ernest’s ex-wife and new husband moved their family to Kentucky. Census records list Ernest’s children as Koerner’s children, so they incorrectly appear with the surname Koerner rather than Kupke.

I surmise that Ernest fell out of contact with his children over the years, for whatever reason. They seem to have built lives in Kentucky, and don’t seem to have traveled to Nebraska to visit him. His daughter married a man named Robert Sayre in the 1890s, and by the 1900 census, she was the mother of two sons and was living in Paducah. Her brother, John Christ, was 26 and living with his stepfather and mother in Clarks River, Kentucky, working as a house carpenter.

Ernest fell into poor health in 1903, dying July 27, 1903. His children didn’t know about his death until they received a visit from a slick Nebraska attorney, Carey S. Polk, who spun them a tale about their father’s will, which was written in German and incomprehensible to them. He told them Ernest’s estate was to be split among several heirs and their share was to be $3,300. He proposed that he help them out by buying out their rights in the estate for $700 more—so they would have $4000 to split. He must have been very persuasive, for the naïve pair signed the agreement. Polk scampered back to Nebraska where he tried to parlay his partial interest into a full interest, alleging that the will was improper and unenforceable—Ernest had an earlier will that left everything to his children, and that would come back into effect if the new will were tossed out. The total value of the estate was $22,000, so he had paid $4000 to get hold of four times as much money—a sweet deal for him.

Luckily for John Christ and Johanna, someone let them know the true value of what they had signed away, so in November 1903 they filed suit in Nebraska asking for the agreement with the slick attorney be set aside, and that they be declared sole heirs to their father’s estate. A newspaper article at the time stated; “They tender repayment of the $4000 with interest and seek to recover the value of the estate, asserting that the papers were signed in ignorance of their rights in the matter.”

So who was benefitting under the new will? John Christ and Johanna have a long list of defendants, including Carey Polk of course, and H. R. Neitzel, J. E. Baumgartner, Herman Schmidt, Agnes Schmidt, my ancestor Johann Stroy and his wife Johannah, and the Bank of Murdock.

So what were these people alleged to have done? According to an article in the Lincoln Star, the new will “is alleged to have been made while he was in a dying condition and it is charged in the action that others held the dying man’s hand and guided it to affix his signature to the document, which had been written in German.”

This sounds like something straight out of a crime show—a forged will with a forced signature. So who was holding the pen when poor Ernest was dying?

Another, longer article in the Plattsmouth Journal in October 1903 provides more details of exactly what crooked Mr. Polk was up to.

“The petition filed by these children and heirs at law tells a tale that is, to say the least, most outrageous. The will was written in the German language by [Kupke’s] spiritual adviser, Rev. Baumgartner, of the Lutheran faith, and contained a bequest of $5000 to the Lutheran church. Among other bequests, $3000 to the two children of Kupke’s who reside in Kentucky. The will was propounded for probate…After filing the petition for probate, C. S. Polk hied himself to Kentucky with a translation of the will and requested the Kupke children to join with their Uncle Stroy in a fight to have the $5000 bequest to the church defeated, representing to the heirs in Kentucky that the will was valid and binding on them, and if they would join their uncle in defeating the Lutheran church out of the $5000, Stroy and Mr. Polk would pay them the amount allowed them under the will ($3000) and their pro rata share of the $5000 so snatched from the wicked church.”

The article goes on to state that Polk was well aware that the two people who witnessed the new will were beneficiaries of the will, which is forbidden due to the obvious conflict of interest. That made the new will “incompetent, illegal and could not be admitted to probate under the law of Nebraska”.

While the total value of the estate may not sound like much to us today, according to Google, 1903’s $22,000 would be the equivalent of $718,000 in 2022. It’s easy to understand why John and Johanna were ready to sue to get what they were properly owed. It is also easy to understand why the church was so eager to get that $5000—that would be $163,000 in today’s money.

So how complicit was Johann/John Story in this attempted swindle? I suspect he was the other witness to the will who was also a beneficiary, along with the Rev. Baumgartner, although none of the news articles identify him directly. It would make sense that John’s wife Johannah would have been caring for her brother Ernest during his final days, so they would have been close to hand.

Also, not only was Rev. Baumgartner the Stroys’ minister, he was also their daughter’s father-in-law. Johann’s daughter Mary was married to Conrad Baumgartner, Rev. J. E. Baumgartner’s son. It sounds like the Baumgartners and the Stroys conspired to keep Ernest’s money in their family rather than see it go to his estranged children. Hardly the actions of true Christians!

Cass County Nebraska farmland similar to the Kupke land...

The courts eventually sided with John Christ Kupke and his sister Johanna Kupke Sayre. They seem to have inherited the full estate, although the slightly shady lawyer Polk was awarded $2500 out of the estate for attorney’s fees for his “work” as the administrator of the estate. I’m sure that didn’t sit well with the Kupke children, nor did it sit well with one of the local newspapers, which published a scathing criticism of the fee award, suggesting it was a political payoff.

Shockingly, the German Lutheran Synod persisted in trying to acquire their bequest from the invalid will. They filed suit to ask that the order throwing out the new will be vacated, and that they get their day in court to argue that the new will was valid. They claimed that, “Material witnesses living, who were present and witnessed the execution of the will, were never called, and the hearing was, from a legal standpoint, a miscarriage.”

The Synod was granted a hearing to present their case to the court. I can find no records in the newspapers of the result of that hearing. It appears that the Kupke children received at least a portion of their father’s estate. John Christ Kupke moved to Nebraska, and took up farming, presumably on his father’s land. His sister and her family remained in Kentucky. John Christ appears on the 1910 census as a single man. A year later, he seems to have married and his first child was born December 3, 1911. His wife was Louise Holare, and was eleven years younger than John, who was 37. They had three daughters.

John Christ Kupke headstone at Lutheran Cemetery. Findagrave. 

I wonder if John Christ Kupke made his peace with the Stroys. Johannah Stroy and her children might have been his only relatives in Nebraska after all. I’m not sure whether they deserved his forgiveness or not, but I hope they tried to mend the broken branch in the family tree eventually.

 

Sources:

Plainview News, Plainview Nebraska. “Sue to Recover Estate”. 13 Nov 1903.

Lincoln Star, Lincoln Nebraska. “Brief in Will Contest”. 8 Nov 1904

Omaha Daily Bee, Omaha Nebraska. “Kentucky Heirs Get Property.” 12 Apr 1904

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Get Rich Quick”. 29 Oct 1903.

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Court Orders Resitution.” 14 Apr 1904.

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “Get Rich Quick Scheme”. 4 Aug 1904

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth, Nebraska. “An Imposition on the Court.” 28 Apr 1904.

Louisville Courier, Louisville Nebraska. “Increases Bond of Administrator.” 5 Mar 1904.

Elmwood Daily Leader Echo, Elmwood Nebraska. “Kupke Case in the Supreme Court.” 18 Nov 1904.

 

A Road Trip Gone Awry: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Road Trip”

Runaway Horse Leads to Serious Buggy Wreck

Claire Stroy: 1895-1998

 

While researching the Stroy family for my previous post, I happened to run across an amazing news story from 1913 Nebraska that demonstrated that travel was dangerous long before cars ruled the roads.

Claire Stroy was my second cousin twice removed, the grandchild of my second-great-grandmother Sophia Streu Hoffman’s brother, Johann Streu/John Stroy. Claire was born October 13, 1895 in Murdock, Nebraska to parents John Stroy and Margaret Augusta Deusing. She attended local schools, along with her brothers Arthur and Herbert.

On August 4, 1913, sixteen year old Claire and two friends were traveling by buggy near Murdock when the horse bolted. The newspaper reported the resulting accident as follows:

“The young lady with two lady friends were returning from Murdock when the horse took fright and became unmanageable. In the course of its flight it struck a bridge, and jumped over the banister into a deep gulley, throwing the young ladies out with terrible force. Miss Stroy being terribly crushed, while the other two escaped with only minor bruises. The horse’s neck was broken and the buggy reduced to a mass of splinters. Miss Stroy was taken home at once and physicians called. Her condition is quite alarming.”

Horse and buggy image from around 1913

What a wild and terrifying incident! The horse must have been completely crazed to actually jump over the bridge railing, dragging the buggy behind, and plunge into a ravine. This is proof that accidents with horses could be just as serious as car accidents can be a century later.

The loss of the horse was probably also a financial blow to the family, as good horses could be expensive. I wish the article provided more details about how Claire was rescued and moved to her parents’ home. Did the other two girls go for help? Did someone happen along the road and discover the wreck?

While Claire’s condition sounded very serious, the newspaper reported two weeks later that she was “gradually improving from the serious accident”. She was able to return to school in the fall.

Claire went on to attend the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and married Fred T. Henderson in April, 1922. The couple had three children and eventually moved to Fred Henderson’s hometown, Winter Haven, Florida.

Obviously Claire’s injuries didn’t leave her with long-term health problems. She lived to the amazing age of 103, outliving her husband by forty years!

Sources:

“Miss Clara Stroy is Dangerously Injured”. Ashland Gazette, Ashland, Nebraska. August 7, 1913.

German, Americanized: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “How Do You Spell That?”

A Spelling Problem Simplified: Johann Streu Becomes John Stroy

Johann Carl Christian Streu/John Stroy: 1834-1918

 

Donald Trump recently made headlines for mocking a Michigan congressman’s surname, Meijer, a common German name, but weird according to Trump. He asked why Meijer didn’t just spell it “Meyer” so people would know how to pronounce it. This invited mockery on Twitter, as Trump’s ancestors immigrated to the United States with the surname Drumpf, which they changed to Trump, a little piece of personal history he apparently likes to forget. I suspect there were plenty of mocking comments like Trump’s directed at my second-great-granduncle when he arrived in the United States. Like Trump’s ancestors, he chose to “Americanize” his name, choosing a more phonetic spelling that even the cruel, prejudiced and ignorant could understand.

Johann Carl Christian Streu was born September 21, 1834 in Laage u Weitendorf in the Mecklenburg region of Germany. His parents were Johann Friedrich and Friederike Dethloff Streu. He appears to be the eldest of their six children; my second-great-grandmother, Sophia Maria Christiane Streu, was his younger sister, born when Johann was five.

Johann's baptism record

Johann left Germany for the United States in either 1851 or 1852, when he was only 17 or 18 years old. I have been unable to find any records of his arrival, or of his naturalization, so the details of how and when he travelled and arrived are lost. I don’t know if he was alone or with extended family or friends, but it must have been very frightening to head off to a new country where he couldn’t even speak the language. How did he decide where to go once he arrived? How did he afford the trip?

He first settled in Racine, Wisconsin, appearing on the 1860 census at age 25 as John Stroi, a laborer living in the home of a miller named Richard Thomas. It is unclear if he and the other boarder were laborers in Thomas’ mill operation, or if they just happened to board at the Thomas house. It is also unclear whether Johann chose the new spelling of both his first and last name, or if the census taker just wrote what he heard, anglicizing the German.

Johann’s family followed him to the United States in May 1857 aboard the ship Johannes. His parents, then 50 years old, his sisters Sophia (my second-great-grandmother) and Marie, then 17 and 18 years old, and his younger brothers Bernhard and Wilhelm, 15 and 11, sailed out of Hamburg. His parents also moved to Racine, and appear on the 1860 census farming with Bernhard and Wilhelm. My ancestor, Sophia, had married by the 1860 census, so was out of the house. Marie or Maria simply disappears from the records. Did she marry as well? Or did she die? Since one of Sophia’s middle names was Maria, other Ancestry trees merge the two sisters together, which is incorrect. The ship’s manifest clearly shows they both set out for America with their parents and brothers.

Streu family record from German ship Johannes

Was it Johann’s job to pave the way for his family to join him? Was he supposed to find a good place for them to settle, and then send for them? He was very young to take on such a responsibility if that was the case.

Johann married Anna Dorothea Kupke, another German immigrant, on September 21, 1864. The couple married in Milwaukee; the marriage certificate stated that Johann was living in “Town Lake” which no longer appears on any map. On the record, Johann’s name is spelled correctly, the German way. However, the first name of his spouse may have been incorrect; on all subsequent records she appears as Johanna or Johannah. She and her family had arrived in America just a year earlier; she was born in 1845, so was 11 years younger than Johann.

Johann and Johanna's wedding record

The next time Johann and his wife appear on records, on the 1870 census, Americanization of his name had begun in earnest. Johann had morphed into John, and Streu had become Stroy. Johann/John and Johanna had three children in 1870, all of whom had very English-sounding first names: Amelia, Emma and John. Johann was farming near the small Wisconsin community of Port Washington, which was on the shore of Lake Michigan just north of Milwaukee.

The family continued to grow, and sometime around 1875, Johann and Johanna moved to Nebraska, settling on a farm between the tiny towns of Murdock and Elmwood. Their sixth and last child, Anna, was born there on April 1, 1877.

The Stroys became solid members of their community, attending the German Lutheran Church in Murdock. Their children married area residents, and Johann/ John ended up helping his sons-in-law, serving as the guardian of Peter Gakemeier, his daughter Amelia’s husband, when the young man suffered some sort of mental health issue that led to his being deemed insane. Fortunately the issue was short-term. John also worked with his daughter Mary Louise’s husband, Conrad Baumgartner, helping to build a barn on Conrad’s property.

By the time Johannah died in 1905, she was described in the Ashland Gazette’s death notice as “the wife of one of the wealthy and highly respected citizens of Murdock.” Obviously, Johann/John had done well farming. By the time of Johannah’s death, the couple had moved into Murdock to live. Johann sold all his farm livestock and basically retired from active farming. A 1907 news clipping reported that he was “suffering severely from rheumatism.”

Johann/John died at age 83 on March 27, 1918. He and Johannah were buried in Murdock at the Immanuel Lutheran Church Cemetery. Curiously enough, after decades of Johann using the name “John Stroy” for legal records as well as in the community, the family chose to use the names “Johann Streu and Johanna Dorathea Streu" on the headstone. The surname at the bottom of the monument proudly reads “STREU”. In death, Johann and his family reclaimed their German heritage.

 Sources:

Baptism Record. Mecklenburg, Laage u Wietendorf, Taufen, Hieraten u Tote 1750-1885, accessed on Ancestry.  https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61229/images/0069280-00224?pId=14707424

Ashland Gazette, Ashland NE, 14 Jun 1907. Murdock news. https://www.newspapers.com/image/667950689/?terms=john%20stroy&match=1

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/51648589/johanna-dorathea-streu

Plattsmouth Journal, Plattsmouth NE 24 Sep 1903. Guardianship Notice.

Ashland Gazette, Ashland NE. 4 Jan 1901. Public Sale Notice, John Stroy Farm Property and Livestock

Census Data: Ancestry.com

Facebook to the Rescue: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Social”

 

Social Media Post Helps Solve Photo Mystery

Ragnhild Olsdatter Ve Syverson: 1848-1933

 

I have been weaning myself from social media, and rarely post anything on Facebook anymore. However, I still check my Facebook feed a couple days a week, swiftly scrolling past the ads, political posts and memes in search of the few items that interest me. That’s how I found a post last week that answered questions my family had about an old photo.

Ole Syverson and Ragnhild Olsdatter Ve Syverson in front of Syverson farm house--Linden Township circa 1920s

I belong to a Facebook group that focuses on my tiny Minnesota hometown of Hanska. Often people post old family photos from the early 1900s. This past week, a gentleman posted a series of photos related to his great-grandmother Jorgine Syverson Ahlness, who was my grandaunt. The photos included Jorgine’s wedding photo—a delight because until then I had no confirmed photo of her—and a photo of Jorgine’s mother and brother, Ragnhild and Ole Syverson, in front of their farmhouse in Linden Township. This was an exciting find, as my brother has a photo that he thought might show Ragnhild’s family on their front porch. We’d never been able to verify his hunch, as the faces in the photo were tiny and indistinct. But now there was a new way to prove or disprove the identification: Were the houses in the two photos the same?

My brother's photo of Syverson family, now confirmed. Likely year 1896, after death of daughter Anne Sirine Syverson--youngest son Syver looks to be about 14 years old

The photos were taken from different angles. My brother’s photo shows the front of the house, with the front door and front porch facing the camera. Mr. Trodahl’s photo shows the side of the house—the front is visible, but at a sharp angle. However, blowing both photos up showed the placement and shape of the windows, the rails and gingerbread trim on the porch, and the roof shape were all identical. The only difference I could detect was the trim under the two peaks of the roof: the paint pattern on the shingles had been changed.

Peterson photo of Syversons--porch and window area 

Trodahl photo--porch and window area

So my brother was correct: his photo shows Ragnhild Olsdatter Ve Syverson and five of her children on the front porch of their house. And we have social media to thank for the verification!

Blow-up of family on porch. Tentative identification: Ole Syverson, Syver Syverson, Jorgine Syverson Ahlness, mother Ragnhild, daugther Ragnhild Syverson Oren, Regina Syverson Peterson.

What is a Pointmaker? 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Textiles”

William Chandler’s Unconfirmed But Fascinating Occupation

William Chandler: 1595-1641

 

While I have persuasive genealogical records for my ninth-great-grandfather William Chandler once he arrived in the Massachusetts Colony in the 1630s (see previous post for the prompt “Worship”), I have been unable to verify details about his earlier life in England. I was intrigued to read the biography that accompanies his memorial on Findagrave. The author provided information about that period of William’s life which I am still trying to verify. One particularly fascinating item was the assertion that “William was a point maker (lace tags used before buttons).”

I had never heard of points or pointmakers. Even though I can’t yet prove this was William’s pre-emigration occupation, I wanted to learn more. How were points used with textiles? What did they look like when used to fasten clothing? And how were they made?

At first I imagined points as made from lace, because the Findagrave writer called them “lace tags”. However I realized that was a mistake once I found a couple definitions of “pointmaker”. According to the table titled “Occupations and Crafts in Medieval London” on Fordham University’s Medieval Londoners website (see No. 1 below), a pointmaker “made points, which were ornamental cords, often ending in a metal point, used in clothing.” The Family Tree Researcher website has another definition in their Dictionary of Old Occupations: “Pointmaker: made the tips of shoe and boot laces.” (See No. 2 below)

Points fastening man's hose to his doublet

But probably the best resource I found was a blog called “A Damsel in This Dress”, which described points in detail and provided some illustrations of their use in clothing from period artworks. The explanation, from No. 3 below, is as follows:

“Ties and points are, in a way, a variation of lacing as in principle the idea is similar – using a strip or two of fabric or a cord to tie garments together. Points were introduced first in medieval times, 11th-13th century, as a means of attaching a single hose to the braies. In the following centuries, as hose extended up and covered more and more leg and buttock, more points were needed, as was a more robust garment to which they could be laced. Late medieval doublets, pourpoints, etc, sport pairs of eyelets at the hem to which another pair on the hose corresponds – a cord with metal ‘aguillettes’ was passed through the eyelets and tied on top – a ‘point’. Similar method could also be used to fasten doublets in front. Holding up hose and later britches by attaching them to a doublet survived until about the mid 17th century – at the end, these were mainly a decorative item, often fashioned from silk ribbons and sporting pretty bows.”

Painting of Marie of Burgundy with points fastening sleeves to shoulder of dress

I wish I could find some sort of illustration of a pointmaker at work, so I could truly understand what was involved in William’s profession. If the point tips were made of metal, similar to the aglets or plastic tips of modern shoelaces, were they made by dipping the cord into molten metal, or were the metal end pieces pounded onto the cord? And did William make the cord himself, or did he just assemble the finished product from cord he purchased? I have so many questions, and have failed to find the resources that could answer them.

Renaissance Fair re-creation of points--braided cord with metal tips

When William Chandler came to colonial America, he apparently abandoned the pointmaking business for the more practical business of tanning. Leather was probably a more useful material in the rugged New World than textiles, no matter how they were fastened.

Sources:

1.     Medieval Londoners. Fordham University website. https://medievallondoners.ace.fordham.edu/occupations/

2.      Family Tree Researcher website. https://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/glossary/Dictionary-of-Old-Occupations-jobs-beginning-P5.html

3.     A Damsel in This Dress website. https://adamselindisdress.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/fastenings-across-the-ages/

4.     https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16059896/william-chandler

Killed in King Philip’s War: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Conflict”

Conflict Between English Colonists and Native Americans Lead to War Casualties

William Cleaves: 1638-1676

 

While William Cleaves isn’t my direct ancestor—he was married to my eighth great-grandaunt Sarah Chandler who I wrote about in the previous post—the Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts record of his death caught my eye:

“Cleave, Wm, under the command of Capt. Samell Wadsworth, slain by Indians at Sudbury, Apr 21, 1676.”

That was a story I wanted to pursue, despite the lack of blood relationship. William was obviously serving as a soldier, but why? This was a full century before the Revolutionary War. I wanted to learn what led up to William’s death. I was unfamiliar with this piece of American history.

From my research, I discovered that William Cleave was killed in one of the battles of King Philip’s War, a conflict between the indigenous people of New England and the colonists. After repeated broken promises and treaties between the colonists and the Wampanoag tribe who had been their allies, a war broke out, with atrocities on both sides. The indigenous people were led by the Wampanoag chief Metacom, who was also known as Philip by the colonists, hence the conflict’s name of “King Philip’s War”.

Illustration of fighting in King Philip's War

Wikipedia describes the significance of King Philip’s War as follows:

“The war was the greatest calamity in seventeenth-century New England and is considered by many to be the deadliest war in Colonial American history.[11] In the space of little more than a year, 12 of the region's towns were destroyed and many more were damaged, the economy of Plymouth and Rhode Island Colonies was all but ruined and their population was decimated, losing one-tenth of all men available for military service.[12][a] More than half of New England's towns were attacked by Natives.[14] Hundreds of Wampanoags and their allies were publicly executed or enslaved, and the Wampanoags were left effectively landless.[15]” (See 1 below)

As tensions escalated with the indigenous people, the colonists put together armed militias of soldiers to defend the frontier communities. William Cleave probably volunteered to fight out of a desire to protect his family and fellow colonists. He was one of several men from Roxbury, Massachusetts under the command of an experienced officer, Captain Wadsworth.

There are several accounts of the Battle of Sudbury where William Cleave was killed. Probably the best can be found in the George M. Bodge book on the war (See 3 below). An officer who served in the war, a Major Gookin, wrote about what he witnessed. Bodge used the Gookin account to describe how Wadsworth and his men discovered a small group of soldiers being attacked by a large group of native warriors. Bodge wrote that Wadworth’s men “rushed forward with the usual impetuous haste, and were caught in the usual ambuscade, for when within about a mile of Sudbury they were induced to pursue a body of not more than one hundred, and soon found themselves drawn away about one mile into the woods, where on a suddun they were encompassed by more than five hundred, and forced to a retreating fight towards a hill where they made a brave stand for a while (one authority says four hours) and did heavy execution upon the enemy…”

Illustration of the attack on Capt. Wadsworth's company

Here is a summary from the Sudbury Senior Center of the action on April 21, 1676 after Wadsworth engaged the enemy:

“The largest battle of the "Sudbury Fight" took place when hundreds of Native American warriors ambushed a combined force of roughly fifty English Colonial soldiers from the Boston area under the command of Captain Samuel Wadsworth, plus roughly twenty soldiers from the Marlborough garrison under the command of Captain Samuel Brocklebank, in the valley between two hills now called Green Hill and Goodman's Hill.

It is surprising that the combined force of Colonial soldiers would be easily ambushed, since both Captains were highly experienced and used to the ambush tactics of their enemy.

The Colonial soldiers fought their way to a more defensible position at the top of Green Hill, but they remained completely surrounded by large numbers of Native American warriors.

The Native American commanders dislodged the Colonial soldiers from their defensive position at the top of Green Hill by setting fire to a line of dry brush and trees upwind of them on the side of the hill.

The wind-driven flames and smoke from this forest fire forced the Colonial soldiers into a hasty and uncoordinated retreat down the hill toward a mill building in what is now the Mill Village shopping center south-west of the top of Green Hill.

Captains Wadsworth and Brocklebank and most of their soldiers who had survived the earlier phase of the battle were killed during this hasty retreat; some of their bodies were later recovered on the western side of Green Hill.

A few soldiers were captured, tortured, and then killed by Native American warriors.

A few Colonial soldiers made it to the mill building and were rescued that night by other Colonial soldiers most of whom were with the Watertown Company.” (See 2 below).

I surmise from this description that William Cleave was killed when Wadsworth’s company retreated toward the mill. It is believed that 32 soldiers were killed from Wadsworth’s company of about fifty to sixty men. Cleave was listed among ten Roxbury men killed at Sudbury under Wadsworth’s command.

Crest of Green Hill today: site where William Cleaves' company made a stand

The hill where William died is now part of a quiet residential area in Sudbury. It’s hard to believe that a fierce battle was waged there almost 350 years ago. I am so glad I was able to learn about this important piece of American history.

Sources:

1.   1.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip%27s_War

2.   2.   King Philip's War and The "Sudbury Fight" by The Sudbury Senior Center. http://www.sudbury01776.org/saved_pages/SudburySeniorCenter_KingPhilipsWar.html

3.  Soldiers in King Philip’s War: Being a Critical Account of that War, With a Concise History of the Indian Wars of New England from 1620-1677, Official Lists of the Soldiers of Massachusetts Colony Serving in Philip's War, and Sketches of the Principal Officers Account. George Madison Bodge. Leominster Mass. 1896. Pg. 229-231.