Monthly Archives: September 2014

Johannes Whitmer, Muhlenberg County KY

John and Catherine Whitmer, Muhlenberg Co., KY

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John Whitmer, born 24 June 1751 in Barbelroth, Germany; died 10 Dec 1828 in Muhlenberg County, KY and Catherine, his wife, born  1 Dec 1760; died 4 September 1838, also in Muhlenberg County, are my husband’s 5x great grandparents. (Dates taken from their gravestones at Grundy Cemetery. )

Unlike some family lines, they have hundreds, if not thousands of descendants.  In April 1976, Dallis and (Sarah) Ann Whitmer published their work on the descendants of this couple and they did an amazing job, particularly since this happened in the pre-computer era. Their one major error was in attaching this John as a son of Michael Whitmer of Lancaster County, PA.

In the 1990’s, I spent many hours, days, weeks and months trying to prove the parentage of Johannes, known as John in Kentucky, and his wife, Catherine, whose maiden name was allegedly something like “Valde,” which could have been a corrupt spelling of a surname like “Welty.” I had also seen a reference to Catherine’s maiden name being “Tarwater,” but it was only heresay passed along orally. I have never found any primary document with that information on it.

In the Summer 1993 issue of Bluegrass Roots, the Kentucky Genealogy Society’s publication, my work on the Whitmer family was published as a lesson in how to research. I was very proud of that accomplishment and even prouder when I was told that I came in second place statewide for the best article submitted that year.

I will focus on John Whitmer at another time. Today, I want to tell you about his wife, Catherine, who is STILL a brick wall. I have an inkling of her maiden name, but that is only an educated guess based on records I have accumulated through the years on this couple.

Here is the introduction from my Whitmer article so you have some background on the family and the research I had done:

When I first began researching my husband’s family history, and rather quickly came upon the line of John and Catherine Whitmer, it appeared to me that it would be relatively easy to trace this family back for at least a couple more generation. The name did not seem terribly common and a maiden name of sorts (Valde) was given for Catherine. It could have been a corruption of “Welty.” What followed became a classic lesson in documenting all information firsthand, rather than accepting the word of others.

I began my search with the information about John Whitmer in Muhlenberg County, KY. Census records, land deeds, tax rolls, and John’s will provided more than enough primary documentation. However, I wanted to take him out of Kentucky back to his parents. A friend of mine saw an ad for a genealogical book titled The Family History of Eula Mae Miller Fisher. This Miller family was from Muhlenberg County and included some information on other local German families, such as the Shavers, who had ties by marriage to the Whitmers in Kentucky. I was very interested in this book because the Whitmers and other German families in the area appeared to be very clannish, intermarrying for at least 200 years. The Shavers had been traced from Botetourt County, VA. A while later, I also found a book called The Whitmer Family Genealogy about John and his Muhlenberg County descendants, put together for the Bicentennial by Dallis and Ann Whitmer. The Whitmers opened with an introduction that records had been compiled from cemeteries, court records, censuses, obituaries, marriage records, Bible records and archival information in Philadelphia. It also made the statement that there was an old Whitmer family Bible, written in German, that was given to John Whitmer by Frena Whitmer Nesbitt in 1809. This book also placed John Whitmer in the family of Michael and Barbara Whitmer of Manor Township, Lancaster County, PA.

Lastly, a quick check of the LDS Church IGI showed a listing for Jacob, John and Catherine Whitmer, children of John and Catherine, baptized in the German Reformed Church of Frederick, Maryland. The baptismal dates corresponded closely to birth dates on their gravestones in Kentucky, leading me to believe it was the same John Whitmer family.

There appeared to be quite a wealth of information about John Whitmer and his origins and enough information was provided in the various publications to being to prove this information to my own satisfaction, using primary sources.

However, as I wrote to confirm these facts, I quickly ran into stone walls. My only initial success was taking a guess that since the families were closely tied together in Kentucky and the Shavers came from Botetourt County, VA, perhaps John Whitmer followed the same route. The Botetourt County clerk found a marriage record for Martin Miller and Catherine Whitmer, identified as the daughter of John, married on 7 Jan 1808,  although this marriage was omitted from the published volume of Botetourt marriages. My next venture proved that Frena Witmer Nesbitt could not have possibly given the Bible to John in 1809, as she had died by the time her father wrote his will in the 1790’s. Frena Witmer, wife of Nathaniel Nesbitt, was the daughter of Peter and Anna Catharine Baughman Witmer of Lebanon Township, Lancaster, PA, now Lebanon County, PA. Peter left a will dated 31 Oct 1794 which was probated in Jan 1795 in Dauphin County, now Lebanon County, PA.4 In it, he left equal shares of his “movables” to four living children and to children of deceased daughters Veronica (Frena) and Catharine.

Finally, I traced the old German Whitmer family Bible (published in 1736 in Basel, Switzerland) to Christus Gardens in Gatlinburg, TN, where the clerk made a photocopy of the handwritten material in the Bible, I sent a copy of the writing to a translator for the German Genealogical Society of America, telling her only that I wanted to know if a typed translation done in the 1940’s did, indeed, match the original Bible inscription stating that John’s wife’s name was Catherine Valde. (Click on the PDF below to see the Christus Garden letter, the letter from translator Ann Sherwin and the two hand written pages of family information from the Whitmer family Bible.)

Her reply was that the original writing was a list of names which, unknown to her, were the names of the children of John and Catherine Whitmer, apparently in birth order. The third child named was Catherine, my husband’s ancestress. For this fourth child, a son, Valentine, John wrote “Valde”, probably meaning the nickname “Velty” or “Felty”, frequently used for Valentine. No mention of John’s wife was made in the writing of the Bible, and apparently from the 1940 translation came the misinformation that his wife was “Catherine Valde”, which was actually a combination of the names of two of the children linked without a comma.

I had now disproven John’s parentage and Catherine’s maiden name. On the positive side, I could place him in Frederick, Maryland in the late 1770’s, in Botetourt County, VA in 1808 and in Muhlenberg County by the 1810 census.

If any of Catherine’s family migrated with the Whitmers through Virginia and Kentucky, it wasn’t evident from the records they left. No marriage record has been found for Johannes/John and Catherine, but they married circa 1778, probably in Maryland, so I focused my search on Frederick County.

Calais, Coleman, John Adams Loyalist

Vernon Tarbox Adams, 1899-1968

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One of the reason I first became interested in my family history was because of my mother’s maiden name – Adams – and the fact that my grandparents lived in Massachusetts. Family lore was that we were not directly descended from Presidents John and John Quincy Adams, but that we were part of that Adams family. As I researched the Adams name, I found that the presidential lines were from Henry Adams of Braintree, MA, but who arrived in Boston about 1632 or 1633.

I realized that my grandparents were both born in Calais, Washington County, Maine, directly across from New Brunswick, Canada. However, that didn’t deter me at all since I knew that many early Maine settlers hailed from Massachusetts and Maine was a district of Massachusetts from 1647 until statehood in 1820.

What did deter me, though, was discovering all the New Brunswick family roots that my Adams family had and learning about the Loyalists of the American Revolution. It turns out that my Adams family was descended from Edward Adams of Milford, CT about 1640 and, more recently, from Loyalist John Adams and his wife, Sarah Coley, of Fairfield County, CT. In the fall of 1783, they joined other Loyalist families on ships sailing from New York to Canada.

I don’t think my grandfather was aware of any Loyalist ties – I didn’t start working on the family history until about a decade after he died – and my grandmother was unaware of family history beyond his grandparents.

Vernon Tarbox Adams, my grandfather, was born on 3 May 1899 in Calais, ME to Charles Adams and his wife, Annie Maude Stuart.

Vernon was an only child and seemed to have had a typical upbringing for a young boy living in Calais. Much of Calais life revolved around the sea.

His grandfather and great grandfather were boat builders and fishermen. His father walked a different path, working in the local shoe factory. Mother Annie was ahead of her time, as she had her own store where fine ladies’ goods were sold. I have a photo of her in her store, which I love, not only because Annie is in the photo, but because of the sign posted in the store: “Please do not ask for credit.” Annie is the lady behind the counter, dressed in the dark clothes. Vernon likely was put to work helping out stocking the shelves when he was old enough.

Vernon attended Calais Academy, later renamed Calais High School, and that is likely where he met my grandmother, Hazel Ethel Coleman, who would have been two years behind him, being born in 1901. She lived down the road a bit in the area known as Red Beach. Her father, Hartwell Coleman, was a master mariner so the families may also have known each other through their jobs on the ocean.

By September 1918, Vernon was working for the Boston Western Union in Massachusetts. However, his World War I draft registration card gives his permanent address as the family home at 29 Calais Avenue, Calais, ME.

My grandmother told me a tidbit about my grandfather that was very interesting and I decided to try to verify the information. She said that he went to Harvard University, but didn’t graduate. I promptly wrote off to Harvard, probably about 1979 or 1980 when I first started working on the family history. I received a very nice reply back from the Harvard registrar’s office, stating that no one by the name of Vernon Tarbox Adams had ever been enrolled there. Hmmm. My grandmother was a sharp lady and other family information that she shared with me had pretty much been proven. So where did this story come from about Harvard?

On October 7, 1918, Vernon enlisted in the U.S. Navy.  One month later, the war ended with Germany’s surrender.

I found a listing for Maine Military Men on Ancestry. Vernon served at the Naval Training Unit at. . . .  (yes) Harvard University in Cambridge, MA until 11 Nov 1918 and remained on inactive duty at Harvard until 7 Dec 1918. Hazel was right all along – Vernon did “go” to Harvard, but he didn’t graduate!

Vernon and Hazel married back in Calais on 19 July 1920. I never heard my grandmother call my grandfather by his given name. He was always “Ducky,” but I never asked her where the nickname came from.

My grandfather had a long career with Western Union and the family moved up and down the East Coast. My Aunt Barbara was born in Malden, MA, my mother Doris was born in Calais and my Aunt Carole was born in Portland, ME. Aunt Barbara and my mother both graduated from high school in New Jersey in the 1940’s. After that, Vernon was transferred back to Massachusetts, where he and Hazel lived out their lives.

Vernon retired from the Western Union as a district manager in 1964. I was too young to attend the retirement party, but my brother, my two cousins and I all received a souvenir – a shiny new Kennedy half dollar, which I was told was given to my grandfather by Ted Kennedy.

Vernon and Hazel enjoyed retirement times for several years, taking several cruises to get out of the New England winters. In October 1968, my mother received a phone call from her mother. She said Vernon had had a stroke in September and was now hospitalized because he was declining more and more. Doctors didn’t know why. Fifty years to the day from his naval discharge, on 7 Dec 1968, Vernon died at Faulkner Hospital in Boston.

My grandmother felt something was very wrong with the initial diagnosis of stroke and requested an autopsy. When the results came back, there was a new diagnosis – Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a degenerative neurological disorder that is incurable and fatal. It was so rare at the time (only three diagnosed cases in the 20th century)  that U.S. Navy doctors came to interview Hazel about Vernon’s symptoms and and decline from the onset until his death only three months later. Today, CJD is more commonly known as Mad Cow Disease.

Blyther, Calais, Coleman, Crouse

Reviewing the Blyther Family History

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Here’s a quick recap of Rebecca Jones Crouse Blyther‘s children:

Elias Crouse/Blyther – married, but died soon after and left no children.

Dean Crouse/Blyther – no record found after 1860 unmarried and with no children.

Samuel Crouse/Blyther – married twice. One daughter with Matilda Jane Carlow, also named Matilda Jane. Matilda married Luther Fickett. They had one daughter, Nettie, who married, but had no children. Samuel married (2) Eliza Smith. Sam and Eliza both died as young adults, but had daughter Sarah Maria and son Dean Samuel. Both married and left descendants.

Sarah Moriah Crouse Coleman – Sarah married William Coleman, lived to be 97 years old and had six children, Mary Adelaide, Alvin, William Edgar, Samuel Jones, Hartwell Thomas and Ethel. Alvin and Ethel died as children, but the others married and left descendants.

Mary Crouse/Blyther – not found after the 1850 census when she was 14. May have married by 1860 or died during that decade.

Martha Blyther – married Joseph S. Smith, but they had no children.

Helen Marr Blyther – married Charles H. Wright and had two daughters, Inez and Helen. Inez married Will Rogers Parker and left descendants. Helen married Harold Morgan Marriet, but it appears they had no children.

Ruth Blyther –  married Robert Colin Campbell and had three children, Gertrude, Robert Colin and William Wallace. William died in childhood. Gertrude married David Shoemaker and had two children, David and Ruth. David died young. Ruth married Everitt Hendrickson and left descendants. Robert died in adulthood, but no marriage or children has been found for him.

Henrietta L. Blyther – married Philip Roemmele and Edward S. Rusing. Philip died soon and they had no children. Edward and Henrietta had two daughters, Grace and Helen. Grace died soon after marriage leaving no children and Helen did not marry so Henrietta has no living descendants.

Not only did I learn a lot about the Crouse and Blyther families with this renewed search, I discovered that Rebecca traveled at least from Calais, ME to Nevada and California in 1879 and then back to Massachusetts by the time she died in 1897.

I’ve also talked to some new cousins in this family and shared family history information with them.

The lesson learned here is to take a second and even a third look at old research as new records are becoming available on line at a rapid rate. Some brick walls open by themselves!