Remember the Women as we Climb the Family Tree, part 2a

I made the decision to focus on the women when I head up our family tree.  So many family history books tell you about the vital records of the men, extol their deeds and adventures and maybe if we are lucky tell us the full names of their wives and a hint as to her family.  I feel that family history should be more than just birth, marriage and death dates -- to celebrate our families, we should include their stories, after all they were people, not just a list of dates, and thanks to them we are all here now.  Not all of their stories are going to include record-shattering achievements of world leaders, and most likely no one in the family is that famous person.

Last year I focused on three women in my grandmother's generation:  Adelaide Copeland Harvey Richardson, Marion Elizabeth Evans Dakin and Clarice Theodora Evans.

This year it is time to move on to my great grandmother's generation:  Mary Alice Smith Dakin, Caroline Matilda Helsten Evans, Mary Louisa Helsten Pomeroy, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson, and Alice Copeland Harvey.

Last year I knew all three women.  This year I've heard a few stories about these women, but all of them died before I was born, so I did not personally know them.  I have relied on what I was able to find in my research, and what I could confirm from family stories, and what I could find by following the clues found in "stuff" left in my grandmother's home when she died in 1974.

Starting with the women on paternal side, two great grandmothers and a great great aunt....

Mary Alice Smith Dakin (1855-1931)

Mary Alice Smith Dakin (30 April 1855 - 13 November 1931) was born and raised on the Smith family farm in South Kent, Connecticut.  Her uncle Orange Smith, who lived with her family, volunteered for the Civil War.  When she was eight, she received a letter from him from Louisiana.  Orange writes about feeling tried -- he doesn't say it, but they had lost a major battle just before he wrote.  There were two other letters to her father from Orange -- he was in the War till the end and his letters are revealing and interesting when compared to the documentation of the battles for his outfit, the Connecticut 13th.  But there was more to her life than her uncle's war experience and letters home.

Mary grew up to be the local school teacher who married Edward Dakin, the general store owner/postmaster for South Kent in 1880 -- that was definitely a home-based business with the store and postoffice downstairs and their family's rooms upstairs.  She was a farm girl, he had worked as a farmhand before purchasing the store and so they sold the store and bought their own farm in Gaylordsville and settled into their life on their animal-driven farm.  Her son Robert Edward (Rob) Dakin was born on 2 July 1888 and while he was growing up, a man with a vision approached farmers in Gaylordsville whose farms bordered on the Housatonic River.  He envisioned the power of water to generate electricity -- Mary and Edward sold a rather zig-way path across their farm, right past their home and barns, that the canal for the Bulls Bridge Power Plant would follow.  On the farm were tents housing the Italian immigrants who were hand digging the canal.  Unfortunately, the power plant was finished without bringing electricity to the surrounding neighbors who had put up with disruption to their quiet farm and small town lives. Her son Rob went to college -- first in the family to go-- and became a civil engineer who helped build the addition to the power plant and bring power to the community.

Some of Mary Alice Smith Dakin's quilts.

Mary was a talented quilter.  When I visited my grandmother Marion Evans Dakin, Mary's daughter-in-law, years after Mary had died, there were always hand-made quilts on the four beds in the house.  What I didn't discover until after Marion died, was there was a trunk full of quilts from her mother-in-law Mary.  When Marion was living in a nursing home, we brought her home for a weekend visit.  She collected Mary's quilts off of her beds and took a couple from the closet to put on a quilt show at the nursing home.  The quilts she collected included Mary's sampler quilt.

Mary Alice Smith Dakin's sampler quilt which was
donated to the New Milford Historical Society.

Mary was known as a traditional quilter.  In her church quilt group, individuals would bring square they sewed to contribute to samples for sale to raise funds.  If someone contributed a machine-sewn square, she'd take it home and take out the machine stitching and replace it with hand-sewn stitches.

There is more about Mary in Remember the Women!  Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, part 2.

Caroline Matilda Helsten Evans

Born a few miles away in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, and a couple of months before Mary Alice Smith, was Caroline (Carrie) Matilda Helsten Evans (13 February 1855 - 9 December 1918).  She and her siblings grew up not on a farm, but in front of the family tannery on the Wimisink Brook leading into the Housatonic River.  When she was growing up, her home always had not only Carrie and her siblings but also any apprentices working in the family business.  Her parents were immigrants from Sweden and Ireland -- both having come to the USA, both looking for work and a better life in the mid-1840's.

As a young adult, Carrie worked as a seamstress taking in piece work and sewing clothes for families in Kent between 1876 and 1880.  On 26 May 1881, she married Charles H Evans who lived at the top of the hill, just over the townline into Sherman.  Her father was a local businessman and so was her husband.  Her husband was building homes and buildings, including the new Town Hall for Sherman.  Charles and his brother Edward went into construction business together and built houses next door to each other in Sherman where Carrie and Charles started raising their family.  She had four children:  Harold H (born 8 January 1883), Clarice Theodora (born 21 April 1884), Marion Elizabeth (born 11 February 1886) and Howard Eric (born 1893).   In 1888, Carrie and her husband moved their family to Great Barrington, Massachusetts when Charles and his brother saw a business opportunity with the building boom up north.  Carrie raised her children there while coming back to Gaylordsville as her parents needed their help.  She and Charles moved eventually moved back and took over the family's business ventures in Gaylordsville when her parents died.  While in Great Barrington, Carrie joined the currents events group but she was a woman caring for others -- her children, her parents and then her grandchildren.  When her daughter Marion was married with two children in Danbury, her son-in-law got sick with the flu.  Carrie went to Danbury to help Marion nurse her husband and care for the children.  They sent the oldest child, Teddy to stay with Carrie's sister Mary in Gaylordsville.  Soon, Carrie was also sick.  In a 5 day period, Carrie, her grandson Edward and son-in-law Rob Dakin had all died from the flu, in the 1918 Flu Pandemic.

Mary Louisa Helsten Pomeroy

Carrie's older sister, Mary Louisa Helsten Pomeroy, was born in Haviland Hollow, Patterson, New York (7 June 1850 - 23 May 1942).  Her Irish mother, Mary Hearty, survived the coffin-ship trip across the Atlantic to to marry Swedish immigrant father Eric Helsten.  They both worked for Benjamin Cowl; he as a tanner, she as maid.  Mary and Carrie's thrifty parents saved their money and bought their own tannery across the border in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, moved to the house in front and raised their family there.  Mary was the oldest of four, so she was busy helping her mother in the household that also included apprentices who worked in the tannery.

Mary and Carrie's father was an entrepreneur.  Eric ran the tannery, but seeing there were other opportunities, he built a dam on the Wimisink and closed the tannery and opened a mill.  Now he was a dealer in grain and lumber.  Eric even published and sold a pamphlet on how to say a man from drowning after doing so himself.  Eric partnered with another local businessman, Charles Pomeroy for a while.  Then Charles Pomeroy partnered with Charles H Evans, who Carrie married.  The Charles and Charles partnership ended when Carrie's husband went into the Evans Brothers Construction business with his brother.  Gaylordsville and Sherman were small towns that bordered each other and so everyone seemed to know everyone else.  Charles Pomeroy was a widower with a teenaged son and Mary married him on 6 March 1878, even though he was sixteen years older.  Charles Pomeroy was also entrepreneurial, he sold lumber out of the barn on their farm, bought teams of oxen to sell, and opened a hardware store.  He was a very busy man, and close friend to Mary's father and mother.  This closeness is possibly what brought about some of the concerns and distance of Mary and Carrie's other two siblings, William and Sarah (you'll have to read the book for details).  He was so close that Eric named him executor of his estate.

Mary and Carrie's parents died four months apart, Mary in September 1902 and Eric January 1903.  Mary was still mourning the death of her parents when her husband died suddenly in July 1903.  She applied to the court to take on the job of administratrix for her parents' estate and she did so with a co-administrator.  She took on the job of running the family's home-based business of the lumber yard and hardware store for a number of years until her step-son and grandson took over many years later.

This is just a hint about the lives of these three women, born mid-1800s, before the Civil War and lived through World War 1.  They met the challenges of the first half of the 20th century.  The events of their lives fill about the first 200 pages of Remember the Women!  Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, Part 2.

My next blog post will be about the two women filling the last 200 pages of Remember the Women, part 2.

©2018 Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2018/01/remember-women-as-we-climb-family-tree.html

Oh, There was an Earlier DAKIN Family History Book... Marion Needed to Get It! Questions Answered?

In Family History Research before FamilySearch, Ancestry and other popular websites, I wrote about the tedious process family historians used to track down all the descendants in published family histories.  I told of Albert H Dakin working on his DAKIN family for years and finally after he died his niece Mrs. H B Yamagata published his 716-page work.

It turns out that this was not the first book on the Dakin family that Albert worked on.  The undated 79-page book: Descendants of 1 Thomas Dakin of Concord, Mass. and 4 Rev. Simon Dakin of North East, N.Y. 1624-1920, collected and arranged by Albert H Dakin and Emily L Reed.

In 1938, Marion Evans Dakin had an interest in her late husband's family and had inquired about the Dakins from Evelyn West who in March sent her a couple of hand written pages on the early Dakin Family based on this book.



My dear Mrs Dakin -
     Here are the jumbled 
notes I have in the Dakins --
     Sorry I didn't copy more -- but
am sure you will find it Easily
in a good library --
     Am so glad to know you
are interested -- It helps
so to fill out records --
     Sincerely
            Evelyn West

Then in April, Marion receives a copy of the book from Emily L Reed's son.
Marion Evans Dakin
                       Storrs, Conn.
My dear Mrs. Dakin --
                I am sending you
a copy of Dakin Genealogy
which my mother Emily L.
(Clark) Reed complied
some years ago -- A Mr A. H.
Dakin of N.Y. City has an 
immense lot of Data of the
Dakin Family which he is
getting together but I don't know
whether he will ever have it
in book form as it will cost
a good sum of money to have
printed in book form --
He is a man over 70 and I
don't think he feels financially
able to have it printed as there
is so much of it.  The Dakins
are scattered all over the U. S.
I haven't seen or heard from 
him in a number of years
and I don't know whether he
is living yet.
      Thank you for the order.
               Truly yours.
                J. Marvin Reed
                Lakeville Conn.
4/18 -- 1938.

Yes, Albert Dakin did have an immense amount of data.  When he finally published his 716-page book, it chronicled 6,843 descendants of Thomas Dakin of Concord, Mass.






Marvin Reed is writing to Marion Evans Dakin in April of 1938.  His mother, Emily Leora Clark Reed, died twelve years earlier on 1 June 1926 [Descendants of Thomas Dakin of Concord, Mass. Albert H Dakin, 1948, page 205].  Marvin's mother researched the Dakin family and was the co-author with Albert Dakin on this first Dakin family book.  Marvin had not heard from Albert for a while, and wasn't sure if Albert was still alive and working on his manuscript. However, we know that he was, since Albert wrote my grandmother in January of 1943, trying to verify and update our family history.
He ended his letter with "I will greatly appreciate receiving an answer from you as I am anxious to complete my records while I have the ability."  He died on 14 March 1945 at the age of 79 [Descendants of Thomas Dakin of Concord, Mass. Albert H Dakin, 1948, page 188].

The first Dakin family book, followed one line of descent from the original family settler Thomas Dakin, continuing through that of Thomas' great grandson, the Rev. Simon Dakin. Beginning with the 4th generation [that is why the title includes "... 4 Rev. Simon Dakin of North East, N.Y."], only the descendants of this one great grandson were included.  Marion ordered this earlier book in 1938, and unfortunately the book didn't include her husband Rob's ancestor, Timothy who went west to New York and joined the Quakers in Oblong, New York. Timothy was a brother of the Rev. Simon Dakin who also went west to New York but was pastoring in another eastern New York town and it was his descendants who are in this book.

Marion shared the first Dakin book with her son Ted, even though he wouldn't have found his family in it.  I remember he loved quoting the Dakin motto:

Strike Dakyn the Devils in the hemp.

I have no idea what that means, but it is in both Dakin books.

So, when Albert H Dakin's niece, Mrs. H B Yamagata, finally published the Descendants of Thomas Dakin of Concord, Mass. in 1948, did Marion purchase the family history book that included her husband?

Unfortunately not.  I don't know if she even knew about it.  Many years after she died, I purchased it from a used book store.  A friend of the family called me to say that he heard that "if you were a Dakin in the U.S. then your family should be in this book because every Dakin was descended from one family in Concord."  Willie Hills had met another person named "Dakin" and he commented that he knew only one other Dakin.  She said that my family ought to be in that book too, so our dear friend Willie called me to tell me about it.

The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2017/02/oh-there-was-earlier-dakin-family.html
©2017, Erica Dakin Voolich

Family History Research before FamilySearch, Ancestry and other popular websites

If you believe the ancestry ads on TV, you can subscribe, type in your name along with your parents' and VOILA! leaves appear and soon you have your family tree emerging.  Actually research is not exactly that easy today, but I want to look at researching in the not too distant past, before the internet.

For the DAKIN family, we have the 716 page "go to book" written over many years by Albert H Dakin, and published, after he died by his niece, Mrs. H B Yamagata in 1948.

Prior to the internet, I would write letters to town clerks, including the self-addressed stamped envelop (SASE) and a check to cover the cost of sending a birth, marriage or death certificate.  Then from that certificate, write more letters for the grand or great grand, etc. parents indicated there -- building the tree piece by piece as I'd learn parents' names of an ancestor.  Now with the internet and the availability of some new sources online, I get hints from more than just the birth, marriage and death records -- newspapers, census pages, etc. are full of research clues.  But I still send to the town clerks for the vital records for confirmation.

Just imaging Albert H Dakin working on this not just for years but for decades, starting with the original Dakin settler, Thomas, in Concord MA in the 1600s and working down to "his time" of the 1940's.  Checking every child, then every child, then every child .... continuing down the generations.  WHEW!!  716 pages of ancestors numbering in the thousands!  Actually Albert documented 6,843 descendants of Thomas Dakin and also included an every-name index in his book!  IMPRESSIVE work.

What else might Albert have done beyond writing town clerks in order to find these 6,843 descendants?
Well, he wrote letters!  Lots of letters.

These letters were before the days of email and computers.  So every letter was individually typed and contained some information that he already knew and asked for more information for his files.

This letter written to my grandmother in 1943, inquiring about her family.  It tells her who referred him to her, a reference to information sent by her husband a year before he died in 1917, and a chart to fill in and correct if anything is incorrect.  He is writing this in 1943, worrying about whether he will be able to finish his project -- he died in 1945.

                    ALBERT H. DAKIN        2064        12-35
                    977 Anderson Ave.
                    New York, N.Y.

                            January 21, 1943
Mrs. Marion E. Dakin,
c/o College,
Storrs, Conn.


Dear Mrs. Dakin:
    For many years I have been collecting the genealogical
records of the Dakin Family and am at present writing up my notes
in the final shape.  I have not known where to locate you until
yesterday when Mr. Charles R Harte gave me your address.  I am
very anxious to bring my notes up to date and am asking your
kind help to secure it.
    I am enclosing a blank which shows all the data I have
of your family and which is for the most part  data your
husband sent me in 1917.
    Will you please add to this enclosed blank any additional
data that may be missing, correct any errors of mine and return
the blank to me.
    I believe you had another child that I have no record of.
If either of  your children married will you please give me their
address so that I may write to them to bring my notes up to date.
    One other question: Is Mr. Dakin’s mother living and
if not can you tell me when and where she died.
    I will greatly appreciate receiving an answer from you
as I am anxious to complete my records while I have the ability.
                Sincerely yours,
                    Albert H Dakin

and of course, he enclosed a SASE!

The Chart arrived in the mail in January of 1943 -- a busy time for Marion.  Her son Theodore got married that month with the anticipation of being draft by the US Army & shipped out sometime in the next few months; and as the First Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut, Marion was busy preparing Farm and State Bulletins on how to manage with the Rationing for World War 2.

So, did Marion Dakin fill out the chart?


Sure looks like she edited incorrect information, added her new daughter-in-law, added her son who had died, and added death information for her husband.





So, did she mail it back?
Clearly not this one, since I found it among her paperwork when she died decades later.

Did Albert ask again?
It doesn't look like he did.
After all, I found the envelop sent from Albert to Marion in 1943.

Here is the book entry for her husband's father including his marriage to Marion and the birth of their son Theodore.

It does not any of Theodore's siblings who died young, or the information on Theodore's marriage.  Theodore is entry #3596, but there is no separate entry for him later in the book.

The documentation of our family line in the "Dakin book" stops with Theodore's birth.

Marion's not sending the letter back, means that any further information is not included in the Dakin family book.

But the gift Marion gave us by not mailing it back is to show us what our ancestors who documented our families in past decades and generation did in order to put their family histories together.


The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2017/01/family-history-research-before.html
©2017, Erica Dakin Voolich

Remember the Women, part 1

If you have been doing family history and have tried to trace your family name, you might been thrilled to have the "XX Family History" or "The Descendants of XX" book.  I know I was when I first started out and discovered the DAKIN history "was all in" the Descendants of THOMAS DAKIN of Concord, Mass. Compiled by Albert H. Dakin (Tuttle Publishing, 1948).  Albert spent many years sending out letters to folks all over the United States trying to trace all the descendants of Thomas who was in Concord, Massachusetts selling land in the 1650s.  He made an effort to include the names of the women who the Dakins married and when possible included their parents' names.  This is not always the case. The Dakin family descendants were lucky to have that information.  Sometimes, when tracing a family, the records only give the first name of the woman and don't identify their parents.  The DAKIN descendants were also lucky when  Elizabeth H. Dakin took the women in the first few generations and traced their families back in her The DAKIN FAMILY from THOMAS of Concord to THOMAS of Digby Including the Families of Their Wives (Plainville MA, 2008).

In my own research, I have moved beyond just looking for the names and dates of my ancestors, to also including some of their stories as you probably know just from reading this blog, if not from my genealogy books [shown on the right in this blog].  I have decided to focus on the stories and the genealogy of the women in my family.  This year I am starting with my grandmothers' generation.  Next year, will be the women in my great grandmothers' generation.  I will research not only the direct ancestors, but also interesting sisters who I have been able to include.

Adelaide Copeland Harvey Richardson with her daughter Alice.

Adelaide (Addie) Copeland Harvey married Robert (Bobbie) Worthington Richardson.  He always wanted a beautiful woman by his side; and as a young woman, Addie was beautiful.  A part of Bobbie's job with magazines involved entertaining the stars who came to town to be photographed and interviewed.  Tragically, Adelaide developed a skin infection that left open sores all over her body for decades.  Then she was blinded in one eye and partially in the other from cataract operations, as a young woman.

As their children grew,  Bobbie was "looking elsewhere," and when their two daughters were starting their own families, he started another family himself.  Then tragically for his new children, Bobbie and his new wife died.

Addie was a divorcee, legally blind, scarred by sores, and suffering from asthma.  How did she manage to survive in the world?

Marion Elizabeth Evans Dakin shortly before her marriage in 1913.

Marion Elizabeth Evans married Robert Edward Dakin.  He was an engineer who grew up watching the Bulls Bridge Power Plant being built, with the canal across his farm.  He came back and built the addition to Bulls Bridge Power Plant to bring power to the neighborhood.

When they married, she started a life moving around the state as he moved from one engineering project to another until he died tragically.  One week in December 1918, Marion's mother, husband and youngest son, died in the Flu Pandemic.  Marion needed to figure out how to support herself and her two-year-old son, Teddy.

Marion became the first Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut.  If something was related to nutrition in Connecticut from 1921 until she retired in 1946, she was probably involved in it. For example, during the Depression and the WW2 Rationing, she was helping people cook with the available foods.  She was giving talks and writing farm bulletins and serving on committees.

Clarice Evans visiting the museum with modern art -- one of her favorite places.

Clarice Evans started out as an elementary teacher in Connecticut.  She took classes at the State Normal School in Danbury and eventually earned two degrees from Columbia Teachers College.

Clarice taught many places around the US and even in England before she joined the faculty at New Jersey's State Teachers College in Jersey City where she taught fine art and industrial arts until she retired in 1950.  She was an early advocate of Industrial arts in the schools and traveled to Dartington Hall in England (1928-1930) to introduce industrial arts to Dartington teachers and to surrounding schools. She also studied other progressive schools in England and on the continent and to reported back to Dartington Hall with suggestions for modeling their own programs.

Since it took me 400 pages to report on what I found on these three women in Remember the Women,  Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, part 1,  I can not begin to describe everything here.  Basically, we have three women born in the late 1800s, who came into adulthood in the early 1900s: one a divorcee, one a widow, one never married.  All managed to find their way through the challenges of the 20th century.  Enjoy.


©Erica Dakin Voolich 2017
The link to this post is:  http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2017/01/remember-women-part-1.html

The Gaylordsville Tanner and the the Uppsala Swimming Society

Last May I received an email:

Dear Erica-
I am working on a short history article about the Uppsala Swimming Society for an upcoming issue of SWIMMER magazine, the official publication of U.S. Masters Swimming. In researching the topic, I came across your book, A Ring and a Bundle of Letters. I was intrigued by a note on page 194 that indicated that Knut Hellsten wrote a history of the Uppsala Swimming Society and I wondered whether you had a copy of that document or could you point me to where I might be able to view this history? (I’m based in Waltham, MA if that helps!) 

Many thanks for any assistance you can provide!
Elaine

Well, of course there was a story and connection
and
surprise someone besides myself was interested.

Eric Helsten was born in Uppsala in 1822 and in Uppsala there was a swim society, Upsala Simaällskap, that was started in 1796 by the mathematician and astronomer, Jöns Svanberg. The goal was to teach swimming and water safety to the children in the local rivers until they built a swimming pool in 1841.  Eric grew up learning how to swim and 13-year-old Eric even won a wreath for his achievements in the annual competitions in 1835.

Eric must have been proud of this achievement, because when he came to the US in 1845, this laurel wreath traveled with him.  It was in his belongings after he died in 1903.  His granddaughter Marion Evans Dakin gave it to me years later, when I was on a swim team  throughout high school.

Eric was one of 13 children.  One of his younger brothers, Knut, was the "studious, intelligent" one of all the children.  Knut became a well-known and beloved educator in Uppsala.  Eric's father died leaving this large family for his wife to raise, the youngest was only a few months old when their father died.  So, it was a stretch for the family to keep sending Knut to school, and Eric was mailing money home from Gaylordsville, Connecticut to help the family in Uppsala.  Knut was the author of the history of the Uppsala Swimming Society for their 90th birthday celebration -- this booklet in Swedish is the information Elaine, my correspondent, hoped I had to share.

Elaine had a friend who read the booklet in Swedish and summarized it in English for her.
The Swedes weren't swimmers before seeing Russian prisoners who could swim, mostly "dog paddle."  The Swedish Swim society emphasized both front and back swimming, with and without clothes on, carrying someone, treading water, moving a stone under water, and more.  Much of this sounds like things I needed to learn for both my own safety in the water and maybe saving someone else-- however, I was only picking up something small on the pool bottom rather than moving a stone.

At the Society's 90th year celebration in 1886, there were honored guests, including Eric, who were given certificates.  Here is Eric's, but we have no evidence he actually made it to Uppsala for the celebration.

Four years after learning to swim in 1835, there was the pressing need to help support his family--his father died in 1839 leaving 13 children, the youngest was 7 months old.  Each of the older children worked in different jobs.  Eric as the oldest boy was apprenticed to be a tanner, just as his father and grandfather before him.  By 1844, Eric was a Journeyman tanner, traveling around the country for a year looking for work.  Then in 1845, he immigrated to Havilland Hollow, New York and went to work as a tanner.  He saved his pennies, and in 1849 he married and then, in 1852 he and his wife Mary Hearty moved to Gaylordsville, Connecticut where he had his own tannery.

Eric's tannery was on the Wimisink Brook, very near the Housatonic River.
Working hard over the years to maintain his businesses, Eric didn't forget what he learned in Sweden.  Sixty years later, Eric saved a man from drowning on 22 September 1895 and then wrote a pamphlet about how to do it.
I have not found a copy of the pamphlet.  I do have the copyright

and a letter about how to copyright and advertise and sell:

He did follow  D W Beach's advice and even got letterhead made:

And this brings us back to the Uppsala Swim Society and Elaine K. Howley's article.  She took the time to research the society and her article is in the September/October issue of SWIMMER magazine.

Right at the top of the article is Eric's ad that was run in newspapers across the country advertising the directions on how to save a man from drowning!

Isn't that part of what Eric learned in his swimming lessons back in 1835!

The link to this blog post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-gaylordsville-tanner-and-the.html
©Erica Dakin Voolich, 2016.

60 Acres More or Less

Growing up, I remember my father telling the story of his Aunt Clarice buying land.  Clarice Theodora Evans (1884-1953) was a professional woman in the first half of the 1900s.  Clarice taught industrial arts when it was a new area of study in various schools around the US, advocated child-centered education, traveled to England to teach and to research for Darlington Hall, and spent her final years teaching at Jersey State Teachers College in New Jersey.

Clarice never married. Her sister Marion Evans Dakin was a widow who was raising a son, Ted.  Both were professional women, but neither woman had any extra funds -- they did not come from a wealthy family.  So purchasing land would be a luxury for Clarice.  Some land became available near the woods where their father had built a shack in Sherman, Connecticut.  Clarice wanted to purchase the land, but it was too expensive.  So, Clarice suggested to her friend Amy Herrick, that maybe they could buy the land together.  Amy had some money and she agreed. They would purchase the land together.

My father's story of the purchase:
The land was 60 acres and the farmer wanted three times what Clarice could afford. Clarice and Amy wanted the land surveyed before they bought it, but the farmer said, "It's 60 acres more or less, period."    The two women paid the going price per acre, Amy paying 2/3 and Clarice 1/3.  When they had the land surveyed to divide it afterwards, Clarice's share was 60 acres!

The story sounds a bit apocryphal, but I used to tell it in my middle school math class when we would study measurements --  an example of needing to have a sense of the size of measurements that you use each day.  In this case, the farmer would probably have some sense of what an acre actually was -- not what I would expect my students to know, but the farmer should.  Then we'd do an activity estimating the number of inches, centimeters, feet etc. something was before measuring. Then I'd end with "handy approximate" measures for the inch, and some estimating activities, for example.

Time to investigate the story:
1. Did Amy and Clarice purchase 60 acres of land in Sherman? 
2. Did they have it surveyed dividing it into 2/3 and 1/3?
3. Did Clarice end up with 60 acre of land as her 1/3?

This is a piece of a more complicated land record search in Sherman that I'm trying to sort out.
Here is the "truth" of the story about Clarice and Amy.

Amy and Clarice made two purchases of land in the northern portion  of Sherman, Connecticut on Ten Mile Hill on 13 December 1938, each with an undivided interest of 1/3 to Clarice and 2/3 to Amy.   One piece of property was for 10 acres, more or less, of woodland from Roland Mygatt [see Sherman Land Records, volume 16, pages 310-311].   The other piece was from Helen H Mygatt for 60 acres, more or less [see Sherman Land Records, volume 15, page 161].
Amy and Clarice purchased 10 + 60 acres on 13 December 1938.

1. Did Amy and Clarice purchase 60 acres of land in Sherman? 
Yes.

Amy and Clarice, paid to have the land surveyed and divided, 17 months later.
On 1 June 1940, they signed a portion of the land to Amy and a portion of the land to Clarice.

Clarice Evans Quit-Claimed three pieces of property to Amy Herrick, one was 5 1/2 acres, one was 10 and one was 10 acres, a total of 75 1/2 acres [see Sherman Land Records, volume 16, pages 340-341].

Also, on 1 June 1940, 1 Amy Herrick Quit-Claimed three pieces of property to Clarice Evans, total 55 acres [volume 16, pages 341-342].

Amy got 75 1/2 acres, Clarice got 55 acres.  This doesn't sound like 2/3 and 1/3.
They did own the property together as undivided 2/3 and 1/3 each.

Looking closely at the deeds on 1 June 1940.

The land had been surveyed and divided, giving Amy all of the 10 acre piece piece purchased from Roland Mygatt -- a totally separate piece of land sold, none of which went to Clarice.  Possibly this piece of land had a higher value.

The piece of land sold by Helen Mygatt, had been surveyed and divided into three pieces, one was a 6 acre plot which Amy got.

The rest of the "60 acres" purchased from Helen Mygatt, was divided into two convoluted pieces: a west portion (55 acres) and and an east portion (60 acres).

So the "60 acres, more or less" piece was actually 60 + 55 +10 acres when a survey was done.
Clarice received the west portion.

So, back to our questions....
2. Did they have it surveyed dividing it into 2/3 and 1/3?
Well, when they owned it together, it was as an "undivided" 2/3 and 1/3.  They had it surveyed.  They probably divided it into the real estate value of 2/3 and 1/3. Not explicitly stated, since no values were given in any of the original or later transactions].

3. Did Clarice end up with 60 acre of land as her 1/3?
Close to it!  She ended up with 55 acres of land bordering on the land her father bought and built a shack on in the 1920s.

I had always assumed from my father's telling of the story:
They bought "60 acres more or less, 2/3 to Amy and 1/3 to Clarice," with Clarice getting 60 acres  would have meant that Amy got 120 acres -- not exactly the the case, but not too far from the truth, I suspect if you look at land values.

So, did Clarice enjoy her new position of land owner?
Actually, Clarice was very generous.  Not long after her purchase, she filed two Quit-Claim Deeds -- giving her sister Marion Evans Dakin a 1/3 undivided interest and her nephew, Theodore Robert Dakin a 1/3 undivided interest.   [see Sherman Land Records, volume 17, pages 519-520.]

Where is the land located?
It is actually hard to find the exact location on Ten Mile Hill by the deed descriptions because names of adjacent land owners might have been long dead and the land is not a simple rectangular shape like suburban lots. ["BEGINNING at the stonewall fence intersection marking the Northeast corner of the six acres field which is bounded on .. thence Westerly along said Northerly boundary about 375 feet to land of Marion Evans Dakin; thence Northerly along land of said Dakin and land of Emery Thorp about 1520 feet to the Northeasterly corner of land of said Thorp; thence Westerly along land of said Thorp about 600 feet to the land of Robert Hungerford; thence Northerly along land of said Hungerford about 1220 feet to the Northeasterly corner thereof; then Westerly..."]

There was a statement in the deed giving Clarice her land that a photo [Fairchild Aerial Survey] was filed with the land outlined in red ink and filed with the land records.  Unfortunately, that photo doesn't exist there now.

The Town Clerk did find a map showing the land on a map for a nearby property -- Herman Mosenthal's land (actually the land originally owned by Jonathan and Ruth Evans when they first came to Sherman in 1801)

and here is a close up of the map:

Now, Clarice, Marion and Ted are land owners!


©2016, Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/08/60-acres-more-or-less.html

Honoring Some Fathers in the Family

In honor of father's day....

My father with his father:

Theodore Robert Dakin (Teddy) with Robert Edward Dakin (Rob)

[Ted: 11 November 1916, New Haven, CT - 20 November 1972, Berwyn, IL]

[Rob: 2 July 1888, Gaylordsville, CT - 15 December 1918, Danbury, CT]

Rob at age 30 died in 1918, when Teddy was 2.
Rob died in the Flu Pandemic the same week as his infant son Edward Evans Dakin and his mother-in-law Caroline Matilda Holstein Evans (Carrie) also died.  Carrie's husband (Charles H Evans) moved in with Rob's wife, Marion Evans Dakin to act as "baby tender" when she went to school at the U of Chicago for a term to get more training leading to her becoming the first Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut three years later.

Charles Harold Evans with Teddy in Chicago.

[Charles: 23 May 1853, Sherman, CT - 18 February 1928, Savannah, GA]

Other fathers in the family:

Edward Dakin (Teddy's other Grandfather)

[3 October 1836, Hudson, NY - 6 July 1914, Gaylordsville, CT]

Charles Evans (Teddy's Great Grandfather)

[2 August 1820, Sherman, CT - 4 December 1903, Great Barrington, MA]

Eric Helsten (Teddy's Great Grandfather)

[27 February 1822, Uppsala, Sweden - 4 January 1903, Gaylordsville, CT]

Beers Radford (Teddy's Great Great Grandfather)

[13 April 1784 Waterbury, CT - 15 February 1876 Middlebury, CT]

Ted had many other generations of fathers, but these are the only photographs that were left to me for our viewing pleasure!


Happy Fathers' Day, 2016!

The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/06/honoring-some-fathers-in-family.html
©2016, Erica Dakin Voolich