A Note on Contemporaneous Appearances Among Townsend Men in Upstate New York

In past blog posts we have explored some of the other Townsend lines. Now, on the surface, it might seem straightforward to begin making assignments of males as they matriculate as their own households in subsequent census periods. But there are a few complication.

Having excluded the Quaker group, John and Thomas Townsend because there are no eligible child slots,  and the Martin group (Josiah, Jonathan, Timothy) is not a DNA match, and this reduces the number of eligible Townsend males. 

First there is Abraham, who doesn't even appear in the 1810 Census index, but DOES appear on the census. He has 8 sons. We know he is there in 1810 and that he buys the "Great Lot" 597 among other pieces of land. Later, his widow, Alce Townsend is buying and selling land in LeRay with James LeRay's son Vincent. Vincent joins his father later and is largely running matters for his father at that point. At this point in history, 1810, Vincent is in school and Abrahm or Absolum, is still alive..

Now, we know the gent dies, because his wife is undertaking land transactions as a dower by 1823. Of course the easy thing to do, would be to get the will right? Well, it appears that Wills and Probate in Jefferson County begin later and she asserts the right. So, there is no will to give us an insight, at least none that anyone has found.

Now, Jefferson was a new county and it could be that the will is filed elsewhere.  It appears that if there is an  instrument, it is not being held in other counties I've checked thus far. The reader can look at my indexing of Townsend Wills, and note that I am sequentially moving through the surrounding counties to double check, and looking at all the wills in the relevant time frame to make sure I don't miss anything.

At present,  it appears that Alce asserts the right of dower at a later time, which is her right.

Now, at a later time in the land records, Vincent LeRay, son of James LeRay is acting as LeRay's attorney. However, before Vincent arrives to act on his father's behest, there is another man doing the legal work for LeRay. He must have been highly regarded, because LeRay leaves the region in 1810 for France for a time, as a grieving widower. This man is actually the man on site who is supervising  the paperwork and overseeing surveyors and making sure all the perches, chains, and rods are marked off properly in the deeds and titles.

 His name is Gouverneur Morris. His signatures are all over the land documents. Now, usually his signature is smashed at the bottom of the document where most of the damage to the aging documents occurred before they were microfilmed. However, I found one record (not my family) where Morris's signature is quite clear. The record continues to the top of the next page, so his statement is easy to read. It is very beautiful penmanship. He has a strange quirk about the use of his final "s" that many may not notice, and I imagine that if I looked at enough documents, I could track back this gent's education back to the region from which he came. However, genealogy of Morris' or his scribe is not of interest to me at the moment, the Townsend genealogy is, thus I leave that note for any future researcher looking at one of these men. 

At any rate, Morris is clearly not doing the survey work himself. Curiously, his official history has him serving a partial term in the United States Senate at this time, so it is strange that he is even in the area. Yet, there is his signature.

 Morris would have his surveyor go out and lay out the acres, rods, chains, and perches of the lots as the titles are being prepared. Morris would not have been doing a lot of hiking; he had a wooden leg due to a carriage accident when he was a small child. There is a famous story about LeRay and Morris camping in the Jefferson County region in 1803 when LeRay was originally considering the region. The tent caught fire as did Morris' wooden leg. LeRay nearly died, but the incident suggests that these men were not well acquainted with camping in the wilderness, and that Morris would not be predisposed toward occupations that required substantial hiking.

 The history books related that the surveyor for Morris was Richard Townsend. While Richard Townsend is best known in St. Lawrence County, he also did quite a bit  of the early survey work in Jefferson. Some of the early land surveys are also recorded in Oneida and Herkimer, but there is no doubt who is doing the legal work and the survey work. Now, Richard is not doing all this work by himself, he has a team of people, I am certain. Who are they? I've no idea, but there could be some clues among those in his employ and it might explain why the curious migration to the St. Lawrence area later.

Our gent, Abraham, may have left the planet by the 1820 Census. But Richard Townsend appears in St. Lawrence County with a good bunch of young boys. 

Now, I am not suggesting these are mine. They are quite likely not.  However, we know these gents are in and out of Jefferson County for a time and that Richard Townsend is overseeing LeRay's interests until Vincent arrives.  We know from the recollections of one of the sons of Richard (who grew up to live in Illinois) that they traveled all throughout the region doing survey work with their father. There is a gent in the region named James that has an age of birth that is wrong for our fellow; he appears contemporaneous with our James in LeRay in later years. Typically, he shows up as J.A. Townsend; he seems to stay put in the region for a time. They are contemporaneous fellows, two men with the same name living at the same time with different lives in neighboring regions. 

I did note that there is an older woman  living with Dr. Townsend. I imagine it is his mother in law, or even his mother. The family should be noted so it doesn't get confused with ours as they drift up to St. Lawrence. They are two contemporaneous families of similar size. 

Aging Up in Jefferson County in the 1820 Census

So, who is  "aging up" in Jefferson County? The reader will recall from a prior blog entry that Henry K, Baxter, and Allenton age up and present with their households and holdings in Champion, then seem to move onward. Now Champion doesn't mean much, because at that time, Champion was a good size area. The records in Oneida prior to the LeRay purchase refer to most of modern Jefferson County as Champion lands.

Henry K does have an eligible son in terms of age, so he was of some interest. He leaves Jefferson County eventually and heads to St. Lawrence, and then LaGrange County Ohio. Some in his line move onto Ashtabula, Ohio. His sons are now well documented, and none are James.

Baxter and Allenton also have eligible males and present as households in the 1820 Census. Baxter eventually leaves and moves to Oswego. He has a son, Egbert, with his first wife, Sally, who is mentioned in Baxter's will and appears to move to Oswego with his father. He dies in the Civil War and is easy to discern from James Townsend b 1816. He is known by the families researching the line, so he is easy to set straight.

 Allenton is a little bit more difficult to determine, but if the one in Oswego is him (and there is some doubt he is that one, he is Alenson in the census), then his sons are accounted for and are not James in LeRay. However, I still have yet to follow up on  the other Allenton so there is still an remote chance of James emerging from this line, but I regard it as doubtful at the moment.

That brings the research back to the 1820 Census in Jefferson County. Now, there is an "old James" as I call him. He is not the oldest child based on my theory of the family group, but he is old compared to my James, thus the "old" moniker. He was married to Fannie Ensign. Despite popular attempts to link my fellow to this fellow, the math doesn't work. They are a sweet couple, but they have no eligible son. This "old James" has a son born in 1825-7 time frame, and I suspect he is named William.

However, there is another gent that is missing from the index, but he is there in 1820. His name is Charles, and he is right next to James, and with the other boys in Champion. Why is he missing from the Census index? I leave that one to the reader to discern. He is there and he has two males who are the right age for the James b 1816 that is of interest, and for a Henry b 1818 who is the subject of another researcher.

Now, I've had some researchers suggest that this Charles cannot be him, because Charles drown at sea. However, the Charles who drowned at sea was from Brownsville, the son of Nathan Townsend. He never presented as his own household in Jefferson County from what I can discern. He has no issue, merely a little sister who is a minor child, and his brothers come to collect on his estate and meager possessions when he dies. The father is dead, there is no wife, and there are no children for that Charles.

 This Charles clearly has sons who are the right age. He is contemporaneous with the drowning, childless Charles.

Now, Charles has a man over 44 living with him in the 1820 Census. The lasts record of Abraham/Absolum transacting land is a sale to James LeRay on 3 March  1819 (Vol P, 517, image 569). The first time Alce asserts her right as a dower is on the 22 December 1823 (Vol U, 63, image 44). It seems likely that Abr'm dies before the census, and  that might be two of Charles' brothers living with the family.

Alce's estate is probated in 1827. The will is not in the file. I looked through all the wills to make sure it wasn't misplaced with another family. It is not there, just statements by people saying they knew her, and yes that was the will.

It seems the old couple is no longer around in 1830. Charles is in LeRay at this point, or at least the land he is on is defined as LeRay. 

In looking at Charles in 1930, there are two boys in the 10-14 age slot. The "older boys" who appear to be brothers to Charles in the 1820 census are now on their own.  This is exactly what one would expect for a man to be a progenitor for James and a Henry born just before 1820, and a new baby sister Paulina (b 1820). Notice, old James now has a family emerging. He has a son born after 1820, and a child born after 1825. It is suspect that the youngest son of Abr'm and Alce might be the extra male in the "old James" household.


Now, great care has to be taken to assert that this next record is the same Charles, but I suspect it is. It does need to be check against the St. Lawrence records. But given the actions of the other gents who head out to St. Lawrence County, and it may be that  Charles follows suit.  If so, the two boys who are in the 10-14 age slot in 1820 are gone in 1840. One of the girls has left the family group as well. 

Why does he go up there? I've no idea. However, it is clear that both Henry K and Allenton for a time head north to St. Lawrence, County, to the Fowler area. He is in Russell. The record has to be closely evaluated to make certain it is him, but it appears to be the case. However, it does seem that the age of the paternal male is a tiny bit older than expected compared to the 1830 record. If he turned 40 right  after the census in 1830, he could have turned 50 before the census takers arrived in 1840. While I have some reservations about this census record, it does fit a 1790 birth; and Abr'm has a son that was born in 1790 time frame. 

In looking at the history of Russell, it seems that it pulled away from Fowler in 1816, so it may be he just went to the next town over and isn't that far away from the other gents. Maybe they were trying their hand at garnet mining, or maybe they attended the school there. I've no idea what they were doing there, I just know that they seem to have gone there.

Back to LeRay

Meanwhile, back in LeRay, Jefferson County in 1840, the gent I believe to be James Townsend b. 1816 appears as his own household. 

Notice that he is a different James from the one that was an entry in the 1830 census. This James is younger and just starting out. He appears to have a young son, and his sister, a female too old to be a child, and one the right age to be a wife.

In examining the 1850 census, the females appear to be  Paulina, and a wife, Phebe McDaniel. 

In 1850, the Census lists the family and there is better surety of the matter. Paulina is still with the family, but this is the last census in which she is observed with them. Baby Jayne is with the family.  He says he is from Canada, U.S. This reference has kept me looking for many years in Canada, but I now believe it to be Canada Creek in Herkimer County, which would account for Canada, U.S. At his point in history, nobody knows where Canada, U.S. is (it is between Fairfield and Fonda) a place name lost in the assignment of jurisdictions and a new nation. Khan-a-dah is the Mohawk word for meeting place, so there were several of those in New York, but Canada Creek area, the gandaouage of the Hudson would have been known to a prior generation. 

My ancestor appears with the family group in the 1860 Census, which is very difficult to read but this is the family he is born into. The female mother here is Phebe McDaniel. She was suppose to be from an old Hudson River family, but I've no idea what "old" means in the context of a newspaper story from the 1880s about a circus freak, and "from the Hudson region" is a very vague reference.


There is also this fellow in Teresa, who appears out of no where, and seems to be unconnected to the other lines. They also have this peculiar Canada, New York location going on in subsequent census. The two gentlemen are close in age, and I suspect this is the other male in the census the 1830-40 census records with James. 

So what have a got here?

A) A Census record that doesn't appear in the index in 1810
B) A Census record that doesn't appear in the index in 1820
C) A will that seems to be lost
D) Some strange migratory pattern from Champion to garnet district in St. Lawrence County
E) Multiple researchers who have been stuck forever trying to overcome the records gap.
F) A lot of Townsend men with the same name.
G) A lot of conjecture.

It may be that none of these guys are related at all. It is all rather fanciful and they do seem to be a bit of a high-brow crowd and I simply do not understand how my people are all involved in these matters. I understand how glass blowers could emerge, because James LeRay was from a glass manufacturing family. The rest just seems rather peculiar. 

Random Historical Nibbles

Some historical notes that might be of use, or just decoys, but they may be fruitful to check. I've no idea how to check them, but there must be some record of this business. The son of James from which I descend  is Dexter. It is a rather odd name, and I don't see a lot of Townsend lines with that name. It could be from the mother's side, but I don't think so. Now, there is a community associated with some fellow named Simon Newton Dexter, so maybe James was acquainted with him some capacity. There was a road built in the area, and there could have been some construction associated with that road or the village of Dexter, and perhaps there was some Townsend gent associated with that might explain this mess. 


I also stumbled onto another historical note that might be useful. I mentioned before that there is a will in Delaware that mentions and Alce Townsend (Caleb Jervis, 1789) in the Milford area.   Now, I've seen Jervis and Jarvis, but the will abstract says Jervis. It may be nothing, but it may be that if the Alce, who has been the a subject of this blog, turns out to be the one in Delaware, then perhaps her family had some interests in shipping and might have worked for or with this LeRay fellow. There is an Andy Jarvis who is an informant on this historical note:

 A tract of land named Castorland was created by Macomb's Purchase, the land being between Black River and Lake Ontario and in the middle of what is now Rome and Watertown.  This was property put together by the Castorland Company run by Peter Chassanis, Le Ray's brother-in-law.  Castorland was created to be a new France and the company consisted of thousand's of stockholders who would get land there.

    The business was made of four commissioners - Chassanis, Le Ray, Peter Pharoux; an architect, and Simon Desjardines; an aristocrat.  Pharoux and Desjardines sailed from France and, after getting to New York, met Marc Brunel.  Brunel had traveled to the United States to escape the revolution in France and later designed a successful entry for the competition to build the new capital building in Washington, D.C; he also became chief engineer to New York City.  He then emigrated to the UK where he persuaded the British admiralty to make ships blocks by machine, starting one of the first mass production lines in history. Then he went on to design the first road tunnel under the Thames, to do this he invented the tunneling shield.  (Info on Marc Brunel provided by Andy Jarvis). On the way to upper New York, the group weathered many a hardship, including meeting and being temporarily held by a British ship (where Brunel was detained but escaped).

One last historical nibble, the year in which James was born was rather noteworthy in American history. It was called "The Year Without a Summer" was in 1816. It is a bit like a nuclear winter. Some of the records in Jefferson County in that year end with "1800-and-froze-to-death." Apparently there was a volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora on the island of Sambawa in Indonesia in 1815 that ejected a billion cubic yards of dust fifteen miles high into the atmosphere and continued far into the stratosphere. The history books state that

"New England saw a heavy and crippling snowfall between June 6 and June 11, 1816 and frost for every month of the year in 1816.  Crops failed in the New England regions as well as the Ohio River Valley, Western Europe, and Canada.  By 1817 most of the dust had settled and conditions had returned to almost-normal." (History of Jefferson County, page 2 Marc M)

It seems the area is also famous for cream cheese.

Another interesting item is that the area seems pretty well abandoned.  I'm not sure what happened, perhaps some shisters took over the area, but it looks like an area that had potential that was squandered.