Recently, I alluded to the discovery of Mr. and Mrs. Stufflebean for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

It’s time to meet them:

This fashionable older couple are Jacob Henry Stufflebean and his wife Mary Anne Jane Hurlburt, who lived in Sheldon, Franklin, Vermont.

The person who contacted me knew this couple as Mr. and Mrs. Stufflebean and said the photos had been in his family for years, but no one today knew exactly who they were or how they were related.

From my own experience, I dated these photos to around 1870, especially with the style of paper border added to Mary Ann Jane’s photo.

My reader didn’t give much information about his mother’s family – not even her name, but mentioned that they lived in New York and Vermont for a long time. He also mentioned that the Bailey and Bixby families were in the tree.

He was quite sure the Stufflebean tie was to his mother’s family as his paternal line is French Canadian. However, he had no idea which branch of his mom’s tree led to these photos.

Knowing his name and the Vermont, New York and Bailey/Bugbee surnames, it only took me about an hour to pick up his family lines and find a connection to the Stufflebeans.

Unfortunately, the connection is by marriage so he isn’t an actual cousin.

Because there are living people involved, this story will be told from the Stufflebeans down a generation instead of working back in time.

Jacob Henry Stufflebean, son of Peter StufflebeaM and Janetje (Jane) Diel (Thiel, Teel) of Columbia County, New York, was born on 17 December 1818 in Ghent, Columbia, New York and died in Franklin County, Vermont on 25 February 1897.

Jacob was a relatively well-to-do merchant, although his business apparently had some ups and downs as he once filed for bankruptcy.

Mary Anne Jane Hurlburt was born in 1823 and died in 1887, likely in Franklin County, Vermont. Normally, I would question whether a person really had three given names, but she was enumerated once in the census as “M.A.J.,” which convinced me that was, indeed, her true name.

Jacob and Mary Anne Jane married on 30 March 1845 in Sheldon, Franklin, Vermont.

Jacob and Mary were the parents of two known children, but with the gap in birth years, it’s possible they lost one or more children.

Children:

1. Samuel B. Hurlburt, born June 1849, Franklin County, Vermont; died 9 December 1908, Burlington, Chittenden, Vermont; married Electa Caroline Walker, 1 March 1876, Sheldon, Franklin, Vermont. Electa was the mother of one daughter, Lena, by her first marriage, but Samuel had no children of his own so he has no descendants today.
2. Ellen, born c1858, Franklin County, Vermont; died 9 May 1924; married Eugene Abram Bates, 7 November 1877, Franklin County, Vermont. They were the parents of two children, but only one living in 1900, a daughter Lillian. However, Lillian was quite ill and died on 3 October 1900 of tuberculosis. The couple’s other child, Ellen Marion Bates, was born 15 February 1883 and died a few months later on 30 August 1883, both in Highgate, Fraklin, Vermont. Eugene was a doctor.

From this it is clear that Samuel and Mary have no descendants today.

However, the connection to my reader is through Samuel’s wife, Electa Caroline Walker.

Electa Caroline, born 1849; died 1923) was the youngest of eight children born to Robert Henry Walker and Caroline Thiel (aka Diel, Teel), who was related to Jacob Stufflebean’s mother.

The seventh child of Robert and Caroline Walker was another daughter, Harriet or Hattie L., as she was known, born 1847 and died in 1900.

Hattie married Robert Bixby on 7 December 1865 in Lincoln, Addison, Vermont. A daughter of theirs married a Bailey and that was the connection needed to figure out the identities of Mr. and Mrs. Stufflebean.

I also mentioned an unexpected surprise in the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post.

Back in 2016, I wrote about discovering these silver-plated teaspoons on EBay that I snapped up because they were engraved with Stufflebean on the ends.

It turned out that my husband is a 2nd cousin, 4X removed from the original owners of the teaspoons, who happen to be none other than Jacob and Mary Anne Jane Stufflebean!!!

How is that for serendipity?