Musings on Alce Townsend

Even people who live the most obscure lives leave a trail. Sometimes obscurity is intention, and sometimes it is not. While the history books go out of their way to avoid mentioning Absolum/Abraham and Alce, we know they existed. We know they were real, and they were trying to raise their families and live their lives on the winds of change. Alce lived through at least one war, and stuff happens during wars. Families often get separated, people die, and communication and travel is not always what it should be.

In sorting through Absolum/Abraham, or whatever his name is, it becomes rather tricky. There is one mentioned in the Keeler genealogy who has a father, Elihu Townsend, that takes off to Canada when the war begins and leaves the land to his 4 children. That family's Absolum is not noted for anything more than "died near Albany, NY." I suppose if one is in Connecticut, the Black River region might be perceived in such a way. However, there is scant to go on, except that an Absolum Townsend was related to someone who married into the Keeler family and that the father was Elihu Townsend.

Then there is another prospect in Herkimer County. There is a cemetery called New Jersusalem that has a group of Isaacs, Allenton, and other similar names. What is worse is that the gentlemen seem to be contemporaneous with ours, so without spouses, it is virtually impossible to sort them out, and I am not particularly motivated to do it. It becomes a pile of Allenton Townsend observations in Herkimer, Oswego, and St. Lawrence who don't want to stay put. All I can say is that one belongs to our group and one belongs to Israel Townsend, and maybe some day I'll have the patience to figure it out.

Then there is one that actually did run off to Canada who is contemporaneous with our guy. I'm not sure how this plays out but he apparently served in the New York Militia in Orange County and then headed to Canada to settle. Now his family is easy to distinguish from ours by geography after the war, and because he has a large number of daughters; he reenters the US via Michigan so he is squarely out of the state of New York.  But when they are single, I am left scratching my head.

Alce Townsend Land Sales

But Alce is another matter.  When she sells the land, the one thing she excludes is the land with the school.

That is how I can tell I am on the right track. This seems like someone who James would be connected to in some way.  James always seem to have a teacher living with the family, even when they leave Jefferson County.  Notice, the school is obviously in place because it is referenced in the land document. Now, I don't feel right posting the sale of the record here, as it is not mine, but if one looks at this sale, just by the date and time it is recorded, there are lands excepted from the purchase. They are the lands associated with the school.

The school is noted in the historical record by LH Lewis. It seems to be the one time our family gets some kind of mention. At least we know the school was built in 1821.























Now, who was the gentleman that bought the lands from Alce at such a fine bargain of $350? William Cooper. Who was that? Well, he went on to become quite a prominent man, based on his acquisition of a considerable amount of land. Yes, that is how the history books describe it. Not that there was widow who was ill with a large family that sold it to him and built a school, but merely that he became a large land owner. 

No mention of Alce, from whom the land was acquired. This is what John Haddock relates (I added the title). 




































Notice two things; first Haddock finally admits that there were people there before the Quakers arrived. Cooper was there in 1798, which predates the Quaker settlement by a decade.  But we also get the idea that he lived on the land and died there. Elsewhere in the book, Haddock provides a very romantic notion of the couple, portraying her as a woman of French Nobility who wept at the sight of the French Revolution.

So, our Alce sold the land to her highness the shirt-tail relative of Marie Antoinette.

Haddock also describes the lands they bought as deep forest and unimproved. You can read it for yourself below if you choose. He even has the couple's prenuptial agreement. He says nothing about the woman from whom the land was acquired.

 

While interesting, it doesn't shed any light on where Alce and the kids may be in the 1820 census and who might have raised them in the 1830 Census. We know they are somewhere, and they are not with her highness there and French Cooper.

We have no idea WHAT might have happened to the school. It clearly important to both Absolum and Alce.

The Family Group

I thought I would put together the census and try to put together a possible family group. This is highly speculative, but I wanted to discern if the theory I was working on was even feasible and how things would "play out" in subsequent census periods. To know what one is looking for in the 1820 census, one has to know the family structure in some detail.  This is a large contingent of boys and a couple of girls,  so they should be fairly obvious in the census. We have two census periods we can be certain about, and one that is speculative, down in Montgomery County. I have a suspicion that we do not have the whole family group, and may well be missing children. I suspect that there may be an older child who stayed behind, perhaps from a prior marriage, because he would have been old enough to be on his own.

This is highly speculative and is a working picture. Nothing here is proven except the numbers from the two census periods.

I parsed the boys out to see who might be eligible to fit in those slots, and to see if any of it did make sense. We don't know how old Absolum/Abraham is when he dies, but in the absence of an accident, one must assume it was old age, so I gave him a larger estimated time of birth. Given Alce's fertility, I am more inclined to go with a 1765 birth year for her, but there is a logical possibility that she is slightly older, and so I have included that. If she was 34, she would still be under 45 in the 1810 Census, and 35 seems like a reasonable date for a guess.

The ages and places parsed out by the children are highly speculative. Henry K for example, has a birth year that comes from the Ohio narrative, and not from the census. Baxter's age comes from his census. Charles's age is from a family history on Ancestry.com. William's age comes from his burial in Jefferson County. James's age comes from the 1855 state census. We have no way to know that this is the actual family group. Maybe none of these guys are related.

We could clearly be missing a child at the lower end and at the upper end of the family. In fact, I am certain there are missing older children.

By the 1820 census, we know the older 4 boys should be on their own, and they do present in the census. That still leaves the 3 little boys and one little girl, and a twenty something female. Sadly, we don't have her name, and if she married it isn't in the data on the NNYGenealogy website. I tried some bride surname searches and came up with nothing.

I have an idea that the Absolum that is in Millford is somehow the key to this. However, if his age is right on this census, he is too old to be Alce's son. An 81 year old man in the 1850 census would be born in 1769, and that is, I suspect before Alce is even born. But a 19 year old man off to war might have left a bride and baby, so it is possible that this old guy is the key to unlocking the past.

Milford is worlds away from the Black River region. But it is in Kent County and that is not far from where the Bucks County and Burlington County group originated. If the family was ever there, there should be evidence of some kind. There is a large Townsend clan in Cape May and that is across the bay from Kent.

I didn't find anything for Absolum the father except the tombstone inscription of the son in the Census above. But I did find something else interesting. A probate file for one Caleb Jervis in Milford, Delaware that mentions a daughter, Alce Townsend. IF this is our Alce Townsend, then we know they were married before 1789, and that they are from the Milford area of Delaware. That means the Census form that was found from 1790 would be  Absolum the son, not the Dad. It also means that we still have to find them in the 1790 census.

It is certainly jumping the shark, but at least we have an idea that we might be on the right track. If we can't find the kids in the Black River region, maybe they were taken to Milford?

Some Final Thoughts on Land Deals

I also thought about the land sale for .66 of an acre that Alce undertakes earlier, not long after she is widowed. That sounds like a small plot of land, like for a building or a store. It is too big for an easement, and really too small to farm.  I thought about this piece below that appears to be owned by J Howard by 1864, and wondered if it might be the same piece of land. If so, it might provide a clue where to look for Alce and the children in the 1820 Census. Notice there is a G Townsend and a W Townsend on either side in 1864. I suspect those two guys are among the missing children born between the 1800 and 1810 Census.





This parcel was bought by Stephen McCoomber. He later goes to Watertown, but one never knows what one will find in 1830.  So I decided to look at the census page with Mr. Stephen McCoomber to see who might be living with him, or who might be in the neighborhood in 1830.

How easy can it be to stash 3 boys and a girl? I found Samuel Kanady, who is the witness on the will. By the way, and by the 1830 census, he is the county supervisor and the post man. Stephen McCoomber looks like he is getting along in the world with his own little boys. The Barber family there and that  is who Old James goes to work for in later years. I'd say Mr. William Phillips has a rather large number of young men living with him. I wonder who he marries? He isn't his own household in the 1820 census, and is not very old himself in this census.













Perhaps we will never know. However, my guy appears out of no where in  and the 1840 census.

It would be helpful in establishing things to find him earlier, and know for certain which son, if any that James b 1819 originated.

The next step is to try to examine the households to determine to whom our guys belong.  I don't know if we will ever know for certain, but some kind of effort should be made to establish a solid connection.