To research Jehial Stanton, I started with the documents and information I already had about him. Amazingly, I have two news clippings that mention him. The first is a small clipping about his birthday:
From this clipping I jotted down the following information with the hopes of cross referencing it to other information from other sources as well as finding new avenues of research:
Name is only written as J. Stanton (his name varies wildly from source to source)
Lived on 917 LeClaire St, Davenport (IA) with his daughter Sarah Jane Husted
Born on the 4th of July
Been in Iowa/Illinois since 1850
“Well known…” may mean that he shows up in biographies, histories and diaries of people in the area.
Blind
The second clipping that mentions Jehial is from Sarah Jane Husted’s Obituary.
Here’s the information I wrote down from this obituary:
Daughter Sarah J. was born in Loville, Louis County, NY Aug 7, 1848
Moved to Rock Island (IL) in 1850
Name is listed as Jehral Stanton
Wife’s name is Rebecca Stanton
Stayed in Rock Island at least until Sarah was out of school
Sarah is a member of the Old Settlers Association of Rock Island County so he might be too
Has a son Frank A. Stanton who at the time live in Kansas City
Possibly has a nephew Edward Remer in Davenport, IA
Rev. H.B. Cox presided over Sarah’s funeral, might have information on the family in his diary
Again this is just the tip of the ice berg of information I have about Jehial. I know that some of this information might not be correct but hopefully I can corroborate these articles with census information.
As promised in Part I, Part II is going to be about Elnathan Husted, son of Peter Husted. Elnathan is buried in the same cemetery as Peter, so for more information on the cemetery and Peter, check out Part I.
Elnathan was born on January 16th, 1775 in Greenwich, CT. He lived in Greenwich for all of his life, marrying Nancy Close in 1797. They had their only child, William A Husted on December 31st, 1801. In the History of Fairfield County, Connecticut, I found a nice little paragraph about Elnathan:
Elnathan Husted was a successful farmer and drover, married Nancy Close, and had one son William A. He was a member of the Second Congregational Church at Greenwich, Conn., and was a man respected. He died in 1825, aged fifty years. His wife died at seventy-three years of age.
Elnathan raised his son on the farm and William eventually took over the family business and became very successful as well. Elnathan passed away on February 1st, 1825 and was buried at Putnam Cemetery by his father Peter.
While I was visiting home for Thanksgiving, I took my family on an expedition to see the graves of our ancestors that we have never seen before. We visited four graveyards in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut and saw the gravestones of seven of my ancestors. I think most of my family was creeped out after awhile, but I really wasn’t. The day of the expedition was warm but overcast and raining on and off, so an overall creepy day, I don’t blame them. The only time I was startled was when the bells tolled church next to the graveyard we were visiting. I also tried to get some rubbings from the gravestones, but with the equipment that I had and the conditions of the gravestones, I wasn’t able to get a good rubbing. This will be a multi-part installment, examining the ancestors whose gravestones I found as well as a brief history of the graveyards (if possible).
The first graveyard that we visited was the Putnam Cemetery. This was the biggest graveyard, and it had many famous graves, at least famous for Connecticut. George W. Bush’s grandparents are buried there, as well as various U.S. Senators. Victor Borge, a pianist and comedian who once said, “The difference between and violin and viola is that a viola burns longer.” There wasn’t a website for the graveyard so we didn’t know when it opened, but we went anyway. Because this cemetery was so huge, at first it was daunting to find the two graves we were looking for. After about ten minutes, my brother found the two, they were a row apart. The first was the grave of Peter Husted, my sixth great grandfather.
Like I said the gravestones weren’t in a great condition. The moss and erosion of the stone made reading in the stone difficult and taking the rubbings impossible. It was easier to look at the stones from farther away than up close. I think that the gravestone says:
In memory of Peter Husted
Who died
March 24, 1821
in his 79 yr.
Peter Husted was born May 9th in 1742 to Moses Husted and Susannah Mead in Greenwich, Connecticut (his info comes from Ye Historie of Ye Town of Greenwich). He married Eunice Lyon on February 11th, 1768. They had nine children:
Amos, b. December 2, 1769
Cynthia, b. September 22, 1770
Peter, b. October 11, 1772
Elnathan, b. January 16, 1775
Moses, b. December 19, 1776
Aaron, b. January 23, 1779
Caleb, b. March 2, 1782
Eunice, b. January 21, 1784
Ebson, b. February 25, 1787
Eight of his children survived into adulthood. Two of his children are my direct ancestors Elnathan Husted and Cynthia Husted whose children, they would have been cousins, married each other.
The only other information that I have about Peter is that he was a soldier in the Revolutionary War under Captain Abraham Mead. The lieutenant of that company was Odle Close, another one of my sixth great grandfathers ( His daughter Nancy would marry Peter’s son Elnathan). Peter is listed as “returned having deserted at New York in August, 1776″. But, “It will, however, be noted that some of these men reentered the service and should have been returned only as ‘missing’, instead of ‘deserted’.”
I definitely have to do more research regarding the American Revolution in Connecticut and maybe I can learn more about Peter. I would hope that he did reenter the service, but as of right now, I can’t be sure.
Next in this series is Peter’s son Elnathan Husted.
I apologize for my long silence, my computer had a “gremlin” that had to be conquered and I am just picked it up today. I’ll be back to posting regularly. Next weekend, I’m taking a trip home and showing my photographs and research to some family members. Hopefully this will shed more light on to the identities in the photographs that I have.
In my photo collection there is this picture:
There are actually many different copies of this picture but on each of them, there are no names on the back and no adults. It’s difficult to link this child’s photograph with any other pictures. However, using the photographer’s mark, I was able to figure out more information about this photograph and get one step closer to figuring out who this is.
This photo was taken my H.J. Seeley who was located on 922 Main Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I couldn’t find a building that has the same address today. Right off the bat, this gave me a place where this picture was taken, thus a place that this child lived.
I looked at old city directories for Bridgeport, Connecticut and H.J. Seeley’s photography studio wasn’t always at 922 Main Street. From at least the 1870s to 1899 the studio was at a different address and from 1900 on the studio moved to the 922 address. This gives a rough time frame for the year this photo was taken.
The next thing to examine in this photo is the child. I’m not a good judge of children’s ages but I’m assuming this child is a toddler so, around three to four years old. In old photographs, the part in a child’s hair is a good indication of their sex, hair parted to the side is typical for a male and hair parted in the middle is typical for a female. This child’s hair is parted to the side, so he is probably a boy.
Thus far I know this child is a boy who lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut and was born around 1900-1910. I’m not sure if this child is related to me but I have multiple copies of this photo in my collection so I’m thinking that this child was very close to my great-grandmother (the pictures are hers). Looking at my family tree, this child could be my great-grandmother’s brother Robert, who was born in 1910. They could also be pictures of her husband Willard Everett who was born in 1903.
I found another picture taken at H.J. Seeley, and based on my other photos I believe her to be Lucy Lamb Husted, my great-great-grandmother who’s child is Robert.
Based on this information, I think that this picture is probably of Robert Husted, my great-great-great-uncle. I have four copies of this picture of Robert plus this other one.
I am still computer-less so research is difficult at this moment. The good news is that I’m supposedly going to get all of the information off of my computer, phew. I wanted to share my favorite picture that was in my great-grandmother’s box. It is a gorgeous picture, both crisp and soft at the same time. It shows two men by a pond or lake. One man is crouched down by the pond and looks like he may have a fishing pole with him. The other man, mustachioed, is looked off into the distance. The bushes and grass in the foreground are very stark compared to the dreamy trees in the distance. This is by far my favorite picture to look at.
Right now I cannot say who these men are, but the man crouching by the pond is my great-great-grandfather Lyman Husted. I also don’t know who took this picture, but whoever it was, they captured a perfect moment.
My Origin Stories 