August 2008 Archives

On his return from Lexington, in the night previous to the 19 of April 1775, where he had spent the evening in paying his addresses to the daughter of a Mr. Mulliken, he soon overtook Paul Revere and William Dawes on their way to Concord to alarm the people and apprise them of the intended expedition of British soldiers upon Concord. When the three had arrived near Hartwell's tavern in the lower bounds of Lincoln, they were attacked by four British officers of a scouting party send out the preceding evening. Revere and Dawes were taken prisoners, Prescott was also attacked and had the reins of his horse's bridle cut, but he succeeded in making his escape by jumping his horse over a wall; and taking a circuitous route through Lincoln, pushed on with the utmost speed to Concord, and gave the alarm of the approach of the British. he was subsequently taken prisoner on board of a privateer, and carried into Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he died in prison. [Source: "The Prescott Memorial" by Eben Prescott. page 66.]

Dr. Samuel Prescott (19 Aug 1751 - ?) was the 1st cousin to my 5th great-grandmother Ann Prescott Heywood. (For any Putnams reading this, you read it correctly; he is most closely related through the Heywood side of the family not the Prescott side of the family.) My grandmother had a much fuller speech on this ride that she delivered to her DAR chapter. But I don't know where that got to.

After I first posted this, Uncle Bob sent me the following addition via e-mail. - Your Dr. Sam Prescott story reminded me that I'd never shared with you the same incident as related in Allen French's book "The Day of Lexington & Concord". pp 91ff:

"In the meantime, (William) Dawes [another relative of ours, via the same branch by which Cal Coolidge enters, as I recall, but Nancy can confirm] having arrived (at the Clarke house in Lexington) Revere had set out again with him to alarm Concord. They were overtaken by a young Doctor Samuel Prescott (a Concord man who had been calling on his sweetheart in Lexington) whom they found to be a "high son of Liberty". As they rode Revere told his companions of his experience with the two officers, and his belief that still others were on the road before them. Nevertheless, they went on, arranging to alarm every house, Prescott willingly helping them, and useful because he knew the people. As Revere expected, he came upon more officers; it was when he was again alone, the others having stayed to alarm a house. Seeing before him two officers, as he thought, he called to his friends to come up: "there were two, & we would have them." In an instant he was surrounded by four, and! when young Prescott came up, the officers, with drawn pistols and emphatic oaths and threats, forced them to go through a pair of bars, which had been let down, into a pasture. [this spot is now marked by a tablet]
"When we had got in, Mr. Prescott said "put on,"" and taking to the left, while Revere took to the right, jumped his horse over allow stone wall, and escaped. Revere had no such luck. Observing a small wood, he spurred for that, intending to leap from his horse and escape on foot; but when he reached it, out started six officers, who seized his bridle, and at the muzzle of their pistols made him dismount.
Some of his captors abused him much; later, he said, they insulted him, calling him rebel, which we do not consider as much of an insult as did he. But one of his captors was a gentleman, questioned him courteously, recognized his name, and played a game of bluff with Revere, at which the Yankee had the better. "He said...they were only waiting for some deserters they expected down the road: I told them I knew better, I knew what they were after; that I had alarmed the country all the way up, that their Boats were catch'd aground, and I should have 500 men there soon."
Surprised, these officers called their leader from the road, Major Mitchel of the 5th Regiment. His questions getting no better answer from Revere, he ordered his whole party to the road, and with them Revere and four other prisoners who now appeared from the bushes. These were Solomon Brown, Hancock's messenger to Concord, and two other Lexington men; having fallen into the officer's ambush, they had waited here some two hours. The fourth man was a harmless peddler......at the sound of guns from Lexington) the major... consulted with his subordinates.
....But with Prescott escaped toward Concord, and Dawes vanished back toward Lexington, with Revere's story in their minds, and now this volley of alarm guns in their ears, they well have felt that their mission had come to a fruitless end.
.....Dawes had escaped from the two officers who pursued him by a trick characteristic of the man. Riding at full speed into the next barnyard, he shouted as if to call the inmates of the house to his aid. His horse stopped so quickly that he fell and lost his watch; but though the house was empty, his pursuers departed more quickly still, and he got safely away. The watch was later returned to him. But little more is known of his doings later that night; Dawes is out of the story."

This was apparently the answer given by my 5th great-grandfather no matter who was asking the question. When my son was studying the Revolutionary War in 6th grade, I showed him a list of all the ancestors he had who fought in the War. (You can be sure that one of these days, I'll get around to putting that list in a blog post.) Anyway, as he looked at the list, he asked if all of them were Patriots or had some of them been Tories.  After I proclaimed them all Patriots, I found this record just a few short weeks later in the book "The Robertses of New England," by Thomas A. Jacobsen.

Eliphalet Roberts (15 Apr 1750 - 27 Sept 1843) was one of the first settlers of Strafford, Vermont, having a 100 acre farm there as early as 1774.  He was also the father of at least 16 children. Yes, I said at least 16. The above-mentioned book suggests may he had 22 children in all, but I have names for only 16.[1]  Anyway, Eliphalet enlisted in the Revolutionary cause in early 1777 and served at Ticonderoga.[2]  The following petition signed by fourteen citizens of Strafford tells what happened next:

                "Strafford April ye29, 1778
   These may certify Any Gentlemen to whom it may concern that Eliphalet Roberts is an inhabitant of this town and that he did in July last desert his Countreys Cause and fled to the Enemy and their remaind til the Surrender of General Burgoin and Quick after that he returned to this town and Appeared to be very sorry for his Conduct made all the Recantations that could be thought proper He promises to be friendly for the future and to be subject to our laws since he came home appears to be Agreable to his Confession and promises He has a large family of small children and if he should be stript of what little improvements he has theirs some danger of his famelyes being some charge to the State Therefore if the Honorable Counsil in their wisdom should see fit sofar to Restore him as to allow him the use of his land upon his good behavour for the future it would be lokt upon as an act of generosity and be well accepted by the town in general."[3]

So... Patriot --> Loyalist --> Patriot again and with apologies this time. It sounds to me like Grandpa Roberts was on the side of whomever he judged to be the most advantageous to himself and his family. Can't say that I really blame him.

[1} By the way, the children listed in the book are incorrect.  The author lists 17 of the supposed 22 chidlren, but one of the 17 is actually his granddaughter, not his daughter.
[2]  Miles, pp. 77-8; Holbrook, Jay Mack.  Vermont's First Settlers.  Oxford, Mass.: Holbrook Research Institute, 1982, p. 71.
[3]  Document at the Vermont Historical Society.
 

On April 14, 1933 the following item appeared in the Bedford Gazette.

"Bedford State Police Clamp Down on Two-in-one Liquor Joint and Bawdy House." Stringtown "sporting house" ends year's existence as quartet are brought to justice.

A raid upon one of Bedford County's "sporting houses" which netted the county jail four lodgers for a good many nights to come occurred the night of Thursday, April 6, at a lonely house on a dirt road in Stringtown, about six miles south of Hyndman.

The house was not lonely in one sense. A great quantity of liquor and four residents, Lester C. English, 26,  Ruby English, 19, his wife, Carl Nissen, 26, and Ella Wilhelm,  33, were all taken from the house. The liquor was destroyed. Wilhelm and Nissen were arraigned before Squire H. A. Clark, on charge of operating a bawdy house and violating liquor laws. Lester English was charged with violating the liquor laws, and his wife, Ruby, for being an inmate of a bawdy house. All were held for court on $800 for each charge, in default of bail. They are now in the county jail.

The raid followed the receipt at the Bedford State Police Headquarters of a large number of complaints against the place. It was reported that a large number of youths in the vicinity of Hyndman and elsewhere had contracted venereal diseases there. The raid of last Thursday followed a preliminary plain clothes investigation of the premises Monday night. Enough evidence was secured on this visit to warrant the raid.

Accordingly, two state police appeared at the house earlier in the evening of the raid, Privates DeWitt and Hanmore. In plain clothes they were in such a position to aid their fellow police if resistance were made by those inside. The police who made the raid, shortly before midnight, were Corp. Maroney, in charge of the others, Corp. Tevelin of McConnellsburg, and Constable Harry Fetters of Bedford. The night was stormy and the roads were in terrible shape. But for this it is likely that twenty or so arrests would have been made, not an unusual number of "inmates" and customers for this place.

Ella Wilhelm is a former resident of Hyndman and had operated the place at Stringtown for about a year. Carl Nissen who rents the house from a Frostburg man, tried to take the entire responsibility for the raid, but this chivalry was rebuffed by the police's certain knowledge that the woman had been in charge on previous occasions.  [Nancy's Note:  if they knew this, it makes you wonder how many times the policemen 'staked out' the place].  Carl Nissen claimed Columbus, Ohio as his home and said that he had been in Stringtown only about five months, where he had formed a partnership with Ella Wilhelm to operate the place. English and his wife said they were from California, and that they had tarried with the others about a month, long enough to get enough money to move on. All those arrested were taken to the State clinic in Bedford for a health examination. It is alleged that as the volume of the business at eh "resort" demanded many girls, recruits were gathered from the vicinity and afar.

The house of the raid is a frame one-story bungalow which sits back from Stringtown's one and only street some 150 yards, along a narrow dirt road. It contains four rooms.

The living room is oblong, containing in the center an oilcloth covered table. About this and on the lounges which lined two sides of the room, sat many a night those who drank the beer and liquor served up from the kitchen.  Behind the bar on the night of the raid police found enough liquor to equip a sailor's hotel. There were 56 quart and 38 pint bottles of home brew and 5 ½ pints of moonshine whisky. In the wood shed just out back of the kitchen 80 more pints of beer were dug out from their hiding place. Also in the kitchen they found a 20 gallon crock of home brew, together with bottling apparatus, all ready to be bottled. No equipment was found for the distillation of whiskey and the supposition is they bought it. [End of newspaper story]

Bedford Co., has produced two Mrs. Ella Wilhelms. 

Ella Mason Wilhelm, daughter of Jesse D. & Laura (Devore) Mason of Hyndman, Londonderry twp. Was born in 1882. She married (first name unknown) Wilhelm and lived in Youngstown, Ohio in the 1920's. Her mother continued to live in Hyndman after her father's death in 1922. The Bedford Gazette reported her visiting her mother in April 1923 and Dec.1924. Laura Mason moved to Youngstown to live with her daughter prior to her death in 1944. In 1920, Ella MASON Wilhelm lists herself as a widow and she has two daughters, in 1930 she's still on the exact same street (Mahoning St.) in Youngstown. In 1944, her mother Laura dies in Youngstown, at Ella's house on Mahoning St.. In short, all the records I have indicate that  Ella Mason Wilhelm seemed to be staying put in the same house in Youngstown, Ohio. There is no indication that she ever came back to Stringtown (near Hyndman) for one year in 1932-33 to run the above-mentioned establishment and then moved back to Youngstown to the exact same house. So this leaves us with only one possibility for the Ella Wilhelm who was arrested in 1933 - my Aunt Ella.

Ella Robina Welsh, daughter of Henry & Cora Welsh, was born 3 March 1887. She married Clyde Mason Kennel 07 April 1908. Their only child, daughter Virginia, was born five weeks later on 18 May 1908. In 1923, Clyde divorced Ella as she was then living in open adultery with Frank Wilhelm. Ella was 36, Frank was barely 20. The divorce proceedings are fabulous, Clyde must have brought half the town in to testify, and clearly Ella and young Frank were the talk of the town. The divorce was final 15 Dec. 1923. She married Frank Wilhelm in Cumberland, Maryland on April 16, 1924 once he finally turned 21 and was able to marry without parental consent. On the marriage license they both still list their residence as Hyndman, PA. I cannot find Frank & Ella anywhere on a 1930 census. As an heir to her mother estate in 1937, she is listed as Ella Wilhelm living in Cumberland, Maryland.  However, sometime between 1924 and 1933, it looks like Frank disappeared from the picture. By the time of her death in 1958, Ella had married William E. Kemp and was living in Cumberland, Md. She is buried beside her parents in the Cooks Mills Cemetery without any of the above-mentioned husbands.  Her first husband Clyde (who died in 1963) is buried several miles away in the Palo Alto Cemetery. Frank Wilhelm is an unknown, and William Kemp was still living at the time of Ella's death.

Court records from the 1933 arrest of Ella Wilhelm list no witnesses. Ella plead guilty to the liquor law violations and the count of running a bawdy house was dropped. Nor did anyone bail her out.  She sat in jail from the time of the arrest to the court plea. Ella & Karl Nissen  were charged on four counts: (1) manufacture of liquor, (2) possession of liquor,  (3) sale of liquor & (4) maintaining a bawdy house.  [Note: all misdemeanors]. Both plead guilty to the first three counts only.  The fourth was dropped. L.C. English was only charged with the three liquor violations, it seems he was the bartender for the establishment. He plead guilty. Ruby English was charged only with prostitution, she did not plead guilty but she did not contest (nollo contesto). All four were sentenced to 18 months in the county jail to be paroled after 27 days.  The arrest was on April 6 (when they went into jail since they couldn't make bail) and they were released on May 19, 1933. So they spent about 33 days in the county jail.

So those are the facts and they tell quite a tale already. But naturally a story like this leads me to speculate why she would do such a thing.  I think that Ella had thrown over a seemingly stable home for a "boy toy" in 1923.  Times were good in the '20's, why not? It seems though that Frank then tossed her aside some time before 1932 (since he's clearly nowhere to be found in '32) and by then it was the depression and she had no means of support. She was already branded a fallen woman in the town with a scandalous divorce.  I think times got tough and she did the best she could to support herself. And since her own father Henry Welsh had died of syphilis in 1924, I'm sure she knew just how easily men were willing to spend money on that sort of thing.

Several things seem odd about Ella's first marriage to Clyde, Virginia was born about 5 weeks after they got married.  She was their only child in 15 years of marriage.  I see two options: 1) Something went wrong with the birth and Ella was never able to have any more children. 2) Clyde didn't really like women and that's why there were no more children.  There are actually several items that point to me thinking Clyde was gay. Is this wild conjecture? Sure.  But hear me out. After their divorce in 1923, Clyde lived the next 40 years as a bachelor.  Something men rarely stayed in those days. Also, what reason would Ella have in 1923 to go running around with a 20 year old? I think Clyde clearly never touched her. I'm further thinking that Virginia may not even have been his.  Perhaps Ella was in trouble and Clyde saw a convenient way to both do a chivalrous thing for Ella and cover up his own preferences.  In his divorce petition he indicates that she also committed adultery "with divers other persons to your petitioner unknown."  If she'd been stepping out for quite some time with many men, then why wait 15 years to divorce her?  I think it was because he didn't want to dissolve his cover marriage. Since Clyde worked for the railroad, (whether gay or straight), he could get his kicks somewhere out of town and no one would know. Ella however, was right there in town, and by 1923, had clearly become the talk of the town.  He had no choice but to divorce her once she actually moved out to live with Frank.

Since I named the Blog Witches, Madames, and Turncoats,  I guess I should start with the Witch...

As I've mentioned genealogy is my favorite hobby, my favorite obsession.  This was instilled in me as a child when my mother or grandmother would open up this vast handwritten chart that had names and dates going back ten generations.  This seemed impressive to me as a youngster, and I knew "where we came from."  As an adult, I began tracing my father's side of the family and the fun began.  Why?  The detective work, pure and simple.  I love this stuff. Once I began gathering not just names and dates, but actual stories about people, about the land they lived on and the times they lived in,  I was really hooked.  It made me go back to those names and dates on my mother's side and dig further. Really, who were they? For the most part, I'll never really know the full stories of those who came before, but  occasionally some story got put down for posterity and I feel privileged to find it and make it part of my own.  So here are some of my favorites.