Family Stories: Wells, White

White family
Gaylord and Sophie White family. From left: Sophie (Jr), Gaylord, Sophie Douglass Young White, and Charles. In front, Katharine and Cleveland. (For a much higher resolution image, click here. It may load slowly.)

The Wells and White families were united in marriage when Franklin Chamberlain Wells, Jr. (1889-1969) wed Sophie Douglass White (1893-1980) in Manhattan on January 25, 1917.

This Web page assembles stories about the Wellses and the Whites, for the benefit of family, friends and the idly curious. The stories are not in chronological order, but are presented as they happen to come up. No stories of living persons are included and no genealogical information about them is posted anywhere on this site.

And the starting point for all this is me, Jeremy Gaylord Butler, and my parents: Jeremy Edward Butler and Penelope Wells Butler. You may contact me via email if you have comments: jgbutler@gmail.com .

Wells's Christmas Broadsides

Each year, the F.C. and Sophie Wells family designed their own Christmas "broadside" with news of the past year—from 1927 to 1966. They may all be viewed in this online gallery.

In 1956, The Newark Sunday News took note of, by that time, over 30 years worth of creative, whimsical, and hopeful broadsides that F.C. designed and his family hand-colored.

  • Wells Christmas 1931 Broadside
  • 1931 Christmas Broadside

The article begins,

"A family whose family whose peregrinations have carried its members to most of the civilized countries of the globe, and some that are not so civilized, would be expected to compile a Christmas card mailing list.

The Wells family of 179 Belleville Ave., Bloomfield, with members living in such divergent places as Karachi, Pakistan; Saigon, Indochina; and New Haven and Westport, Conn., has compiled a modest list of 700 names.

The patriarch of the clan, Franklin Wells, now a semi-retired architect, did more than his share to build the list. Born in Beirut, Lebanon (then part of the Turkish Empire), Princeton-educated and former head of a YMCA for foreign troops in Peking, China, in post-Boxer Rebellion days, Wells is no man to shirk the issue and buy a batch of cards in the corner drugstore."

(Click images to enlarge. The entire article is online.)

F. C. Wells, Senior's Professional Life

  • Portrait of F.C. Wells, FC Sr in Bellevue Hospital Medical College album 1886.
  • Portrait of F.C. Wells, FC Sr in Bellevue Hospital Medical College album 1886.

F.C. Wells, Senior, grew up in the Chicago region and received his medical degree from Bellevue Hospital Medical College. This photo is from a school album (1886). Initially, he practiced at New York Charity Hospital, but in 1888 he married Clara Downs and the two of them immediately departed for Beirut (which was then in Syria, not Lebanon; see contemporary drawing above from A Ride through Syria, etc by Edward Abram). His intention was to begin an obstetrical unit at the hospital of Syrian Protestant College (now The American University of Beirut), but the women of Beirut were wary of a Western, male doctor and the project failed. Not long after his son, F. C. Wells, Junior, was born Beirut in 1889, he returned to the Chicago area where he had two more children.

  • Chamber of Commerce building, Chicago
  • Equitable Building, NY

I found a listing for Dr. FCW Sr in a 1902 Chicago city directory: room 908 Chamber of Commerce bldg, corner of LaSalle and Washington (leftmost image above).

And he's listed as being "of Equitable Ins. Co." He moved to Bloomfield, NJ, shortly after this, in 1903, but a 1904 Chicago city directory mistakenly lists him there. I checked that Chicago corner using Google Maps and it is not the same building today (2014)—although it does not look like a new building.

The second image, from 1906, is the Equitable Building in New York, where he worked until a catastrophic fire destroyed it on January 9, 1912.

The Ancestral Home on the Market

click to enlargeF. C. Wells, Sr. and Clara Downs Wells moved into 179 Belleville Ave., Bloomfield, NJ, in December 1902 or January 1903. Wellses would live there until 1980. It felt odd, therefore to see it on the market in the 2010s. It eventually sold for $175,000 on May 6, 2013.

Evidently, the Wellses were not the first folks to live in this house.

By looking at the 1900 Census, I found that the Allen family was living there at that time and I think we can reasonably assume they were three years later.

Incidentally, Andrew Smith and Mary Allen shared the house with two children under the age of two, Andrew's mother (age 61) and father (age 64) , and a cousin, and a staff consisting of a "nurse" (nanny?), "servant" and Irish-from-Ireland "coachman"! Ten humans! The 1900 Census has his profession as "voice culture," which I guess must have paid pretty well.

'Course, when Dr. FC and Clara moved in, they installed their own Irish servant as well as a Polish one.


The Mystery of 179 Belleville Ave.

When was the house built and when did the Allens move in? The 1900 Census clearly indicates that the Allens were there by then, but, alas, the previous Census data, from 1890, was destroyed by a fire in 1921! And I can't find the house in the earlier, 1880 Census. I also haven't located any online property records for Essex County. Thus, by Census data we can only say that it was built between 1880 and 1900.

However, some other documents do still exist regarding 179 Bellville Ave!

Bloomfield City Directories

The Montclair Public Library has made many city directories for Montclair and neighboring Bloomfield available. It's quite the treasure trove of information. The section of Belleville Avenue that includes #179—between Williamson Avenue and Orchard Street—did not have house numbers through much of the 19th century. I don't know when a numbering system was implemented exactly, but numbered houses can be found In the 1894 directory. For example, Henry P. Dodd, of the Thomas Oakes & Co. woolen mill, lived at 182 Belleville Av, which was probably on the same block as #179, but across the street. However, there is no #179 Belleville Ave. listed in 1894.

The Allens are entirely missing from the 1894 Bloomfield directory—suggesting that they had not yet moved to the town. Incidentally, Ancestry.com records show that Andrew Smith Allen was born in 1869 and thus would be 31 at the time of the 1900 Census, when we know them to be at #179. He was only 21 at the time of the (missing) 1890 Census; it seems unlikely that he would have been able to afford such a grand house by that age. (By the time of the 1910 Census, he had moved to Pasadena and he died in Los Angeles in 1949.)

The first directory with a numbered house at 179 Belleville Av. is from 1898. This, then, is the first hard evidence I've found for when the house existed.

Surprisingly, the Allens were not living there then, even though they would be by the time of the 1900 Census. We must assume, however, that the directory information may have lagged behind people's movements and so it's possible they may have arrived and not been counted by the directory editors. Indeed, the 1903 directory still has Andrew Allen at #179 even though he moved out the previous year. In any case, the 1898 directory lists the Miller family at #179: Carrie (widow of Hugh), Frank, and Harry (a student). The relationships of these three folks are not specified. The Millers are the earliest inhabitants of #179 that I have found in any official source.

Bloomfield Maps

Athough I haven't tracked down Essex County property records, there are a number of interesting Bloomfield maps—especially in light of what the Bloomfield directories tell us. The greatest map resource for the late 19th- and early 20-centuries are the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. As Wikipedia explains, "the maps were created to allow fire insurance companies to assess their total liability in urbanized areas of the United States. Since they contain detailed information about properties and individual buildings in approximately 12,000 U.S. cities and towns, Sanborn maps are valuable for documenting changes in the built environment of American cities over many decades." Fortunately, the Historical Society of Bloomfield has assembled a list of pertinent maps, many of which are found on the Library of Congress' Website.

The 1890 Robinson Atlas of Essex County

The 1890 Atlas definitely shows that there were no structures on the north side of Belleville Ave, where it intersects with Fairview Ave. (later Claremont Place). The land where #179 would stand was controlled by Thomas Oakes and the Oakes Woolen Mill was just north of that property. The full Atlas is online. Source: Historical Society of Bloomfield.

Wells Christmas 1931 Broadside
  • 1931 Christmas Broadside

1906 Mueller and Sanborn Maps

I've struggled to find a Bloomfield map between the time of the Robinson Atlas (1890) and the first appearance of #179 in the Bloomfield directory (1898). Sometime in that interim, 179 Belleville was probably built. The closest I have come to an 1898 document are the Mueller and Sandborn maps from 1906. The Mueller map, in particular, clearly shows #179 and even though the Wells family had definitely moved in by 1906, it still shows the property as owned by an Allen family member. It is a bit curious that the property was in Mary's name and not that of her husband, Andrew. The Sandborn map, below, has less information about homeowners, but it has numbers (dimensions?) for fire-insurance purposes.

I find it interesting, having only known 179 Belleville since the Garden State Parkway cut through Bloomfield, that the 179 property extended virtually to the Oakes Woolen Mills and Yantecaw Creek. Did the Wells children play in that creek on a hot summer's day? Also, note that the Bloomfield train station was a short, two-block walk from #179.

Click on either map below to see a full-sized image.

Mueller map from 1906 Mueller map from 1906

1930s map that shows the Wells famil!

 

Westport, CT: The Summer Home that the Wellses Built

Sophie White poem to Clara Downs, 1948. In the mid-1920s, F.C. [aka, Pop] and Susie Wells were living with her father, Gaylord Starin White, at Union Seminary, where he was a dean. They built a summer home in Westport, Connecticut, at 86 Partrick Road—reportedly because it was something of an artists' colony at the time. Their daughter, Sophia Wells Pfeiffer offered reminiscences of the place, which were recorded by her daughter, Penny Pfeiffer Keenan:

"Around 1924 [F.C. and Susie] decided they needed a place of their own to relax and entertain away from [Union] Seminary (actually [Sophia] mentioned that being able to drink entered into it.) She wasn't sure how they picked Westport or that particular piece of land, but thinks Pop's office provided a loan to buy it. Then Pop found the barn and had it moved, presumably piecemeal.

Enter "Savi" and his paramour—two "Latin American revolutionaries" who were "saving up to go back home and blow things up." No idea what the nexus there was, but Savi did a lot of the carpentry in exchange for a place to live (paramour did "nice wool embroidery—on satin purses.")

While the construction was going on the 4 Wellses [F.C., Susie, and daughters Sophie and Lydia] lived in the bunk house; Savi and friend probably lived in some iteration of the Bear House—which was designated Katie's [Katharine White Hopkins] house. [Sophia] wasn't sure if these had been on the property or were also moved there. The Cow Palace was added later—I'm pretty sure in [Penny's] lifetime—but I missed the creation of the Rathskellar, which was dynamited out of the bedrock AFTER the house was built. So Pop. I do remember the light fixture in there that we would dare each other to touch and "get fizzed."

I'm sure we all have a vast store of Westport memories—so many happy summers were spent there—but one of my all time favorites is the story of Pop and the rat. People came down to the kitchen one morning to find a good sized rat neatly arrayed in a cellophane-lidded doughnut carton with a note saying it had died of a flux. And then there was the rubber mouse that Chris [Horton] had dropped into the large jug of Gallo that Mike [Horton] had been working away on all week (and commenting that it didn't taste quite right.) The look on his face when he finally tipped the last bit out and saw the mouse will go to my grave with me."

The Horton family was the only one to live in Westport through the winter. Lydia Horton reported, "For children who lived at Westport year round, it was all about the outdoors. On eight acres of swampy Connecticut woods, the property felt so vast it spilled over into the town next door. The house could not be seen from the road, and the steep, dirt driveway was called The Hill. Lore has it Douglas Hopkins walked all the way down the hill one winter day in the snow, barefoot.

In the summer, children did not wear clothes or shoes, we wore bathing suits. And we never took baths, because we swam daily at Compo Beach."

Sophie White poem to Clara Downs, 1948, Westport, CT

Sophie White poem to Clara Downs, 1948. Sophie White Wells composed this poem for her mother-in-law, Clara Downs Wells (1858-1955). The Oak Park referred to is a Chicago suburb and Uncle Walter is Clara's brother, Walter B. Downs. "Aunt Etta" is Henrietta Downs.

F. C. Wells, Jr., in the American Legation in Peking (Beijing) in 1912

He's wearing a round hat, in the center of back row. He was there with the YMCA, as a recreation and physical-education director.

This was also part of the "Princeton in Asia" program, whose Website says, "The essence of PiA is to provide transformative, service-oriented experiences for bright, talented graduates and to serve the needs of Asia as determined by our host institutions and Asian partners. PiA arranges fellowships and internships with Asian host organizations in the fields of education, health, international development, environmental advocacy, journalism, engineering, technology, law and business. Fellowships are the means of fostering person-to-person diplomacy, enhancing mutual understanding, serving vulnerable communities with unmet needs and providing transformative experiences for fellows and host communities."

More on the Legation Quarter and the Boxer Rebellion: "After several months of growing violence against foreign and Christian presence in Shandong and the North China plain, in June 1900 Boxer fighters, convinced they were invulnerable to foreign weapons, converged on Beijing with the slogan "Support the Qing, exterminate the foreigners." Foreigners and Chinese Christians sought refuge in the Legation Quarter. In response to reports of an armed invasion to lift the siege, the initially hesitant Empress Dowager Cixi supported the Boxers and on June 21 authorized war on foreign powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians and soldiers, and Chinese Christians in the Legation Quarter were under siege by the Imperial Army of China and the Boxers for 55 days. " (Wikipedia)

"Princeton Men In Peking," "The Princeton Work in Peking," and F. C. Wells's Start at Union Settlement

  • Princeton in Peking news article
  • The Princeton Colony in Peking

The May 13, 1913 Princetonian (left) reports on the activities of FC Wells, Jr., at the end of his two-year "term of service among the Legation Guards" in Peking. He was to return to the US the following fall and presumably soon afterward joined Union Settlement and began romancing the Head Worker's daughter, Sophie Douglass White (whom he married in January 1917)!

An article titled "The Princeton Work in Peking" in the Princeton Alumni Weekly (February 11, 1914) includes this photograph of "The Princeton Colony in Peking." The article explains, "Franklin C. Wells '11 has just returned, enthusiastic about the Peking Work, and is studying at Union Theological Seminary. He stood second general group in his studies at Princeton, barely missing the honor of a ΦΒΚ key [Phi Beta Kappa]. He is a member of Dial Lodge, was Captain of the Championship Wrestling Team of 1911, and speedily established his status among the soldiers in Peking by easily throwing their champion wrestler."

FC Wells, Jr chronicled his adventures during the first years out of college in a note to the editor of the Fifth Year Book Class of 1911:

Dear Andy:
During the first two years after graduation, I was in China with the Princeton work in Peking. In running Y. M. C. A. work for the troops of the legation Guard of whom there were 4000, and of ten different nationalities, one had some interesting experiences, and came to realize that fundamentally different kinds of men are very much alike.

The revolution which overthrew the empire of the Manchus occurred while I was in China. The attempted assassination of Yuan Shi Kai, and the looting and burning of large sections of Peking, were exciting events when at close range. Due to the fact that we protected some of the southern officials during the riots, we were among the few foreigners who were invited to attend the inauguration of the first president of China.

The trip home across Siberia and Russia was an interesting one.

For the last three years, I have been living quietly in the slums of the upper east Side of New York City. I choose to live here with the working people because I feel the greatest evil today is that too many men are paid too small wages. Although there is little one can do to change conditions, at least we can collect facts, so that if ever an opportunity comes, we shall not be uninformed. I have come to respect the Socialist party, for its internationalism, its intelligence and its appreciation of working-class problems, and aspirations.

At our Settlement we have many interesting neighbors. There are the Irish gangs that come to us from Duffey Hill. They are full of sociability, and often something else. Then there are Jewish circles and societies with traces of the idealism which has done so much to change New York City into one of the best of large cities. Also we have little Italian dramatic or art clubs, which seem to seek for a beauty not to be found in their ugly daily occupations. Sometimes we come across a fiery radical group like the Bresci anarchist society, made up of young men too impatient, because the world cannot be remade over night. Our neighbors come to us to box or play basketball in the gym, to summon a nurse, to dance in the hall, to leave little Yetta "by the Kinder garten" or to watch a play. Our aim is to make better citizen of ourselves and our neighbors, and in all of our work we have come to realize the uncommon good that there is in the common man.
Only recently I have been married, which is of course a logical ending to almost any kind of story.
With kindest regards,
FRANKLIN C. WELLS, JR.

Rank Badges Brought Back from Peking

Click an image below to see a higher resolution version. Also, for the back view of the bird embroideries click: round one or square one.

  • Princeton in Peking news article
  • The Princeton Colony in Peking
  • Princeton in Peking news article

F. C. Wells returned from Peking with a few souvenirs, among them were rank badges—embroidered 11x11" squares that signified military and civil rank. My mother wound up with the three above and others were eventually distributed to her siblings and their offspring. On the back of the tiger badge is written, in my mother's handwriting, "Insignia for officer. 1911 Peking, China." The others had no explanatory material with them.

After digging into these images for a while, I finally figured out that Wikipedia has an entire article devoted to the rank badge or, as they title it, the Mandarin square! Aka, in traditional Chinese: 補子; simplified Chinese: 补子; and pinyin: bŭzi. That's where the Qing Dynasty photograph of a government official (left) comes from. The Wikipedia article links to several illuminating references.

An article in The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles explains that many Westerners in China brought home rank badges as souvenirs: "During the late 19th and early 20th century, the badges were prized collector items for wives of western diplomats stationed in Peking or Shanghai, and missionaries throughout China. It is thanks to these collectors that we are able to find many of the badges that come available today."

The animals have very specific significations. The tiger is on a fourth rank military badge, with ninth rank being the lowest. There are no birds in the military badges and so the bird badge I have must have been a civil badge. The bird is the ninth-rank "paradise flycatcher," which is distinguished by "two long tail feathers with a single circle in each." An informative online exhibit by the Pacific Asia Museum (PAM) contends, "The most common badge to survive is that of the Paradise Flycatcher. Occasionally an attempt was made to imply a higher rank emblem by eye-fooling tricks. Here the feathery edges of the two long tail feathers, three shorter side feathers, and an all white body make the bird look at a glance like a fifth-rank Silver Pheasant. Only the faintly colored "eyes" at the ends of the tail feathers identify this bird as a Paradise Flycatcher."

PAM continues, "For members of the emperor's court in China's Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644-1911), the cloth symbols sewn to their robes conferred status and power." It's intriguing to think that these fabrics might be from the "Qing dynasty, 1850-70," according to PAM info. That makes them sound so antique, but when you think of it, 1870 was just 40 years before FCW was in China. So, 1870 to him then is the equivalent of 1982 to us now.

Further, the JAC article notes, "The way to distinguish the women's badges from the men's is the placement of the red sun disk, generally thought of as representing the emperor of China, that is found on all badges, civil and military. The man's sun disk was always placed in the upper left hand corner of the badge. Since the wife frequently sat next to her husband on official occasions, her badge was made in mirror vision of her husbands and the sun disk on her badge was in the upper right hand corner. This way her bird or animal was respectfully facing her husband's."

Thus, it would appear that my tiger badge was created for a woman while the square bird badge was for a man. The fact that the round one has no sun symbol suggests that it is not an official rank badge.

The tiger badge may have the character for king (王) on its forehead, although it's hard to be certain. Valery M. Garrett offers these comments on the tiger symbol:

The tiger (hu) represents the fourth rank. It is often mentioned together with the leopard in the Ming regulations, the former to represent the male and the latter the female. It also resembled a living animal with the stripes correctly depicted, until the end of the Qing dynasty [1911] when the stripes became comma-shaped lines. It often had the character for king (王) on its brow.

Garrett also explains the significance of the shòu character and the swastika which both appear in the tiger badge:

Shòu is the character for long life which often appeared in the border design around the square. When combined with the bat motif or swastika pattern it stood for long life and happiness. The sun is a symbol of heaven and the emperor, and intellectual enlightenment. The swastika pattern (wan) is one of the oldest designs in the world, and is said to have been associated with prehistoric shaman rituals. It became a Buddhist lucky symbol around AD 200 and represents the seal of Buddha's heart. It is often incorporated into a design with shòu to mean "ten thousand years of long life."

Finally, here is Garrett's description of the paradise flycatcher:

The paradise flycatcher (lianqiao) represents the ninth [lowest civil] rank. It was shown on Ming squares as a white bird with a prominent crest and two long tail plumes. The Qing and twentieth-century ones had broader tail feathers at the ends, marked with a large dot. The crest was in blue or matched the tail colour.

Valery M. Garrett, Mandarin Squares: Mandarins and their Insignia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 42, 45, 48.

Beverley Jackson and David Hugus provide more information about the paradise flycatcher badge and include an illustration in Ladder to the Clouds that is strikingly similar to the one I have (click to enlarge). Its caption reads, "Paradise flycatcher, circa 1830, embroidery, male." The colors are obviously different, but the birds are in very similar poses. Plus, this "male" badge confirms the JAC article above in its classification of male badges as having the sun disk on the left.

Jackson and Hugus do not have much to add to what I've already discussed regarding the tiger square, although they do mention that the pinwheel design was quite common on the tigers' flanks (as in my embroidery).

Beverley Jackson and David Hugus, Ladder to the Clouds: Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1999), p. 171.

I contacted a Chinese friend of mine about these pieces and he provided this info: "They all seem to be related to longevity. The round piece with a crane and flowers/plants looks like a decorative ornament for a baby carrier. These are usually given to mothers to wish the newborn vitality and long lives. The other two are more mythical. The first one with the tiger has longevity (the Chinese character [shòu 寿]) written on the sides. The way the clouds were woven seem to indicate heavenly skies." (See Wikipedia article on shòu.)

Also, I submitted images of all three pieces to Skinner, Inc., an auction house that specializes in Asian art. They confirmed that the square pieces are rank badges and suggested that the third, round piece "looks like a fragment cut from a robe. It wouldn't add any value, but you could send it along with the rank badges and we could sell them as a lot." They suggested an amount at which to auction all three pieces, but it wasn't enough to compete with their sentimental value.

Thus, the circular piece's origin and function remain a mystery.

The Rank Badge Story Continues: A Surprising Discovery at an Estate Sale

  • Rank badge
  • Caption on back of rank badge.

In February 2022, I got an email from a woman named Debbie who bought a framed rank badge at an estate sale in Sparta, North Carolina. On the back, she deciphered a faint caption that said it was brought "from Peking, China, 1913, by my brother Franklin C. Wells, Jr." (above, right)! She Googled around for more information on "Franklin C. Wells" and found this Webpage!

This required some sleuthing to figure out.

FCW lived 1889-1969. He had only two siblings: Howard Wells (1892–1986) and Elizabeth Wells (1895–1982), who became Elizabeth Shoemaker in 1921 when she married. Here's where it gets interesting. Elizabeth Wells Shoemaker's son, Franklin Wells Shoemaker, married a woman from North Carolina (Sara Storm). He and she moved to Sparta in 2007, where he died in 2010. She died in Maryland in 2017, but is buried with him at Christ Episcopal Churchyard in Sparta. My email correspondent, Debbie, bought the rank badge around that time.

Thus, it seems clear that the author of the caption on the back was Elizabeth Wells Shoemaker and that the rank badge must have been in the possession of her son and daughter-in-law, Franklin and Sara Shoemaker in Sparta.

Debbie sent me the rank badge and told me she took great pleasure in reuniting it with my family. I scanned the front and back of it and tried my best to enhance the caption on the back. My partial transcription is:

Piece of embroidery which was _____ _____
of a Mandarin's coat.
Brought from Peking, China, 1913 by my
brother Franklin C. Wells, Jr.
2 front pieces, stitched together are in
_____ frame.
Best to my Mother[?]
E.W.S. [Elizabeth Wells Shoemaker]

The note about "2 front pieces" may refer to the fact that rank badges were often presented in two pieces, on either sides of the front of a robe (see photo above).

After researching this new image in Jackson and Hugus's Ladder to the Clouds, I have come to the conclusion that the bird in this badge is probably a silver pheasant. I'm not entirely certain of this, but the five tail feathers of this badge's bird appear to fit the silver pheasant description. Jackson and Hugus write, "The silver pheasant seems to be the most common badge found today" (pp. 155-156).

In sum, it's not a rare piece, but it's very well preserved under glass (in a frame that was used as a tray!) and took a very long journey to reach my home in Alabama.

F.C. Wells, Jr., and Sophie Douglass White's Engagement Announcement

Recently I was ruminating about when FCW and SDW graduated from college. Then I found the NY Times engagement announcement (view PDF) for FCW and SDW, which includes that info. The article is dated May 25, 1916 and states:

"Mr. and Mrs. Gaylord Starin White of Union Settlement, 237 East 104th Street, announce the engagement of their daughter, Miss Sophie Douglass White, to Franklin Chamberlain Wells, Jr., son of Dr. Franklin C. Wells and Mrs. Wells of Bloomfield, N.J. Miss White was graduated from Vassar College in 1915. Mr. Wells was graduated from Princeton in 1911 and since then has been engaged in the Princeton Work in Peking, China, and also in social work in this city."

White Family Photograph, Circa 1898

White Family Photograph, Circa 1896Georgianna Starin White is the matriarch in the center, identified as "Granny White." There's no date on this photograph, but the babies in it give us hints about the year: Chas (Charles T. White, 1896), Norman Jr (Norman White, Jr, March 18, 1896), and Lawrence (Moore, November 25, 1897). Thus, the youngest baby—Lawrence Moore, on the far right—was born in late November 1897. Based on that date, and since the participants are not in heavy, winter clothes, I deduce that it must have been the spring or summer of 1898. It may have been taken at the Moores' summer house in West Falmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Clarence Day, Jr's Life with Father Family and my Ancestors

"Poem by Susie," Norton, Conn., July 1954In the 1930s, Clarence Day, Jr. published a popular memoir titled, Life with Father, that was made into a play and then a movie (1947). He was not an ancestor of mine, but his family and the families of my ancestors moved in the same circles in New York City around the turn of the 19th century to the 20th. His autobiographical books about his father and mother provide detailed portraits of life at that time and place.

For example, the chapter from Life with Mother titled "Father's Home Disappears" describes in entertaining detail the buildings in which the Days lived. I can only imagine that the homes of my ancestors, the Whites and the Starins, might have looked very similar.

The birth dates of Clarence Day, Junior, and Senior are remarkably close to some of my ancestors.

Clarence Day, Senior: 1844–1927
Clarence Day, Junior: 1874–1935

  • Charles T. White (my 2nd great-grandfather): 9 years older than Senior (1835)
  • Georgianna Starin (my 2nd great-grandmother): 7 years older than Senior (1837)
  • Henry Gaylord Starin (Georgianna's brother and my 3rd great uncle): same age as Senior (1844); however, he lived in Philadelphia
  • Gaylord Starin White (my great-grandfather): 11 years older than Junior (1864)
  • Anna White (GSW's sister and my 2nd great-aunt): just three years older than Junior (1871)
  • Sophie Young (my great-grandmother): 9 years older than Junior (1866)

Aerial survey, Manhattan Island

The New York Public Library has a cool map online from 1921, when the FC Wells, Jr., family was just beginning.

"Poem by Susie," Noroton, Conn., July 1954

"Poem by Susie," Norton, Conn., July 1954Seated adults, counter-clockwise: Cleveland White, Helen White (her head directly under Susie, her feet well shown), Susie (Sophie White Wells), Katie White Hopkins, Winifred White, Doris and Charlie White, Elizabeth Dun Young (aka Auntie), and Lydia Horton. Standing adults, from left: Uncie, David & Gay Mize, and Penny Butler (taking care of Jeremy Butler in a baby carriage). Kids, from left: Allison White (back to camera); Hilary, Chris, and Lydia Horton. Photograph by Mike Horton.

The White Family, Union Settlement

  • the White family
  • Union Settlement Hall
  • Union Settlement Gaylord White Community Center, in 2015.

More details on the photo included at the top of this page of (from left) Sophie (Jr), Gaylord Starin White, Sophie Douglass Young White, and Charles. In front, Katharine and Cleveland.

At the time of the photo on the left (circa 1909), GSW was the "head resident" at Union Settlement, 237 E. 104th Street, New York City, where he lived with his family. This is where his daughter Sophie met F. C. Wells, Jr., who was also a resident at the Settlement. You may wonder what a "settlement" house is. I know I did and it was only within the past few years that I came to understand there was a major settlement movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Essentially, they were community centers in poor neighborhoods. Union Settlement, for example, was in East Harlem—as pictured above, in the middle, from about 1900 (source: Union Settlement House Records, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University). On the right is a photograph of Union Settlement in 2015, featuring the Gaylord White Community Center, built in the mid-1960s. One key component of Settlement houses is that their social workers lived in the houses themselves. Thus, GSW's family in this picture (above left) all resided at Union Settlement.

GSW and family moved to Union Settlement in 1901 and remained there until 1923—last residing at 246 E. 105th St. (according to the 1920 US Census), on the other side of the block from the main Settlement building. Additionally, his first two granddaughters were born while they lived there: Sophia Douglass Wells Pfeiffer (1918-2015) and Lydia Franklin Wells Horton (1921-2012). In 1923, he became director of the Department of Church and Community Service at Union Theological Seminary (and, in 1929, Dean of Students), where he resided at the time of his death on 25 November 1931. Their Seminary residence was at 606 W. 122nd Street, New York.

His name lives on in East Harlem as a senior-citizen housing building at East 104th Street and 2nd Avenue has been named after him, as explained on the New York City Housing Authority's Website. And there is a bas-relief plaque in his honor in the entryway to the Gaylord White Community Center at the Settlement. (See photos below.)

Patricia Hopkins Shoyinka additionally reports, "1909 was the first summer that the GSW family spent in West Falmouth [MA]. They stayed for about 3 months at least (vacation time). And they summered with the Frank and Anna Moore family (Anna was Sophia's sister) in the same house. That house is still standing and lived in."

GSW's friend and colleague at Union Seminary, Professor William Adams Brown, included a touching description of the deaths of Sophie and Gaylord White in a memorial he wrote for Union Seminary's Alumni Bulletin, soon after GSW's death in 1931 (full text available here):

"One more memory, the most intimate of all, carries me back fifteen years to a cloudless afternoon in 1916, when all the White family were gathered at their summer home on Cape Cod [West Falmouth]. Mr. and Mrs. White had just returned from a week's motoring with friends, a sort of belated honeymoon, to which he always looked back as a time of peculiar happiness. In the afternoon the children had gathered for bathing at the beach and Mr. and Mrs. White were watching them. After a while she rose, saying she was tired and would go to her room to rest. When an hour later he rejoined her he found her sleeping the sleep from which there is no waking here.

What she had been to him in all their years of married life, no words of mine can tell. What the Settlement would have been without the home she helped to found, no one who knew it can imagine. Of all my memories of them, that center of peace in East 104th Street [the location of Union Settlement] is the most sacred and abiding.

And now he too, after fifteen more busy and useful years, has come to the time when rest was earned. How could one imagine a fitter homegoing. Like hers, it was a falling asleep after a useful and happy day. For him, as for her, we may be sure that useful and happy days are waiting."

  • Gaylord White Houses for older persons.
  • Bas relief portrat on Gaylord Starin White, in the entryway to Union Settlement's Community Center.

On right, above, is a bronze bas-relief of Gaylord white that is located in the entryway to Union Settlement, as seen in December 2015. The relief was sculpted by Adlai S. Hardin in 1965.

Once I started researching the settlement movement I found that there is quite a bit written on it—including a 1911 article by Gaylord Starin White himself, titled, "The Social Settlement after Twenty-Five Years," in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan. 1911), pp. 47-70.

Further, there are a few academic books on the topic, several of which mention GSW:

  • Allen Davis, Spearheads for Reform:The Social Settlements & the Progressive Movement, 1890 to 1914
  • Mina Carson, Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885-1930
  • Harry P. Kraus, The Settlement Movement in New York City, 1886-1914 (NY: Arno Press, 1980).
    • A thesis, written in 1970, about New York social settlements, which includes this acknowledgment: "l owe a special debt to Mrs. Franklin C. Wells and her brother, Mr. Charles T. White, for materials and personal recollections concerning their father, Gaylord S. White."
    • GSW is quoted and cited several times, and over three pages are devoted to his life and his participation in the Union Settlement (including his annual salary of $3,500!)—pp. 93-96.

Gaylord Starin White's First Settlement House: The City Park Branch

After I wrote the above piece about Union Settlement I continued to research Gaylord Starin White’s career. I learned that just after graduating from Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in May 1890 he went to Berlin with his great friend and fellow graduate, William Adams Brown. They continued their studies for two years as "fellows" of UTS. Before returning to the US, they went to London to learn of the burgeoning settlement movement—studying at Toynbee Hall (above), the first university-associated settlement house.

GSW returned to the US, was ordained in 1892, and appointed assistant minister at Rutgers Presbyterian Church (above), at 73rd Street and Broadway. From there, he took his first position as a full-fledged Presbyterian pastor—at the City Park Chapel (below; aka, the Institutional Church), on Concord Street. He served there from September 3, 1893 to 1901 when he became the head worker of Union Settlement.

  • City Park Branch illustration.
    City Park Branch of First Presbyterian Church (1896), formerly City Park Chapel, Brooklyn.
  • City Park Branch 1940 tax records photograph.City Park Branch, 1940 tax-records photograph.

 

Inspired by what he saw in Europe, GSW oversaw the replacement of City Park Chapel with a new building that was designed to be a settlement house. When it re-opened in 1896, it was named the City Park Branch of First Presbyterian Church. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle published a long article about it, including blueprints of the chapel’s layout (read the full article here). GSW is quoted at length:

"We aim to have an open church, an everyday church, on institutional lines; in other words, a people’s church working on the principle of self-support. We want to provide a church that will minister to the moral, intellectual and spiritual sides of the earnest seeker after truth, which will have something to attract his attention every day in the week. Of course, we don’t mean that it will be all amusement or intellectual education, but we do hope by this broad ministration to build men up in all that makes for righteousness.”
...Mr. White, in speaking of the theological students, who it is expected will, after a time, make their home in the new building, said he hoped that women might become interested in the work to the extent that by making their temporary residence in the neighborhood they could come into closer touch with those they desired to serve. [my emphasis]

I had never heard of the "Institutional church" movement before, but according to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Bible and Theology it was:

“A turn-of-the-century effort by Protestant Social Gospel leaders to regain ground the church had lost in the city, and particularly among the laboring poor. Pioneered by William A. Muhlenberg and Thomas K. Beecher, the first significant expression of this idea was William S. Rainsford’s St. George’s Episcopal Church in New York, beginning in 1882. Rainsford began by eliminating pew rents and then sought to expand the use of the church building to each day of the week. By the 1890s, Institutional Church programs included banks, game rooms, youth clubs, soup kitchens, kindergartens, deaconess homes, gymnasium classes, employment services, food and clothing dispensaries, sewing and cooking classes, clinics, hospitals and colleges—one of the more famous being Temple University in Philadelphia.”

F.C. Wells, Jr., Hosts an Urban League Benefit Show with Ed Sullivan

Wells, Franklin - Urban League Benefit NY Times 26 Nov 1933I can't be sure of this, but it appears that F.C. Wells, Jr., once shared the stage with famed TV host Ed Sullivan!

I just found a NY Times article about an Urban League benefit in 1933 "with Ed Sullivan, Rose McClendon [Broadway actress], and Franklin Wells in charge of the stage..."

The timing (1933) is right for this to be "our" Franklin Wells and I've found references to other presentations he hosted. So, it's clear he enjoyed doing this sort of thing.

Gaylord Starin White, Princeton Reunion Photographs: Class of 1886


  • G. S. White 20th-1906 reunion

Details from the group pix of GSW's class of 1886's reunions: first, tenth and twentieth. My favorite is the first, where he's reclining, age 23, between another guy's legs! Is there some object on his leg, aside from the bowler hat and the cane between his legs?

Gaylord Starin White 25th Princeton Reunion Book: Class of 1886

Gaylord Starin White, 25 renunion bookThe Princeton archives holds many treasures. Here are two photos of Gaylord Starin White from the class of 1886's 25th reunion book. I'm guessing the one on the left is from when he was a senior (1886) and the one on the right is from 1911, when he was about 47 and his daughter, Sophie, was about to graduate from Horace Mann High School and head to Vassar! He died in 1931, aged 67.

GSW's entry in the book reads:

Gaylord was born in New Rochelle, N. Y., on March 3, 1864, a son of Charles Trumbull White and Georgianna Starin White. He went to Williston Seminary at Easthampton, Mass., and Chapin Collegiate School, New York. From 1882 to 1884 he was at the University of New York, entering Princeton in September 1884 and graduating as A.B. in 1886.

After graduation, Gaylord went on The New York Tribune, as a reporter for the Fresh Air Fund, in which work he was succeeded in the following year by the Class Secretary. From 1887 to 1890 he was a student at Union Theological Seminary, New York. After graduation there, he became a student in Berlin and Oxford.

He was ordained by the Presbytery of New York on May 15, 1892, and became assistant minister of Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New York. From 1893 to 1901 he was pastor of the City Park Branch of the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, N. Y. He was called in May 1901 to Union Theological Seminary as Director of Student Christian Work and Head Resident of Union Settlement, and later became lecturer on Applied Christianity at the Seminary and Staff lecturer at New York School of Philanthropy.

Gaylord has been especially interested in social movements. He was in residence at Toynbee Hall, London, in 1892, and while an active minister developed his church work along "institutional" lines, with especial attention to the working classes. As Head Resident of the Union Settlement, Gaylord has accomplished a splendid work, and has been actively identified with charitable and educational work among the working classes.

Gaylord was married in New York on June 6, 1892, to Miss Sophie Douglass Young, and has four children, two boys and two girls: Sophie Douglass, born April 3, 1893; Charles Trumbull, born October 6, 1896; Cleveland Stuart, born July 28, 1900, and Katharine Gaylord, born April 9, 1903. All four children are now at Horace Mann School, New York. Sophie D. goes to Vassar in the fall of 191 1 and the two boys are headed for Princeton.

Gaylord writes, "My life has been uneventful but very happy, barring the sense of work undone that ought to have been done and the lack of results. I have been fortunate in having done the kind of things that I liked to do. My main interest for many years has been in social questions and for seventeen years I have lived and worked with those who live by the work of their hands—the industrial classes. Several of the old boys of '86 have given me good support in my work, both financial and otherwise, and I have found the friendships of college days a rich experience in many directions."

Gaylord was one of the incorporators in February 1910 of the Association of Tuberculosis Clinics of the City of New York.

 

Katharine White's Passport Application (1921)

I found this passport application from 1921 and another from 1924 on ancestry.com. That site has an amazing collection of digital databases (census data, passport applications, death notices, etc.). The 1921 application includes a note from her father indicating his permission for her to travel. (See photo of the back of the app below.)

Passports to Constantinople

The first passport photo is of Charles T. White from 1920 when he applied for a passport in order to work for Near East Relief in Constantinople! Remember, the armistice was signed just two years earlier and the treaty of Versailles was signed June 28, 1919! There he met his future wife, Doris L. Goetz, of Minnesota, who was also working for NER (1921, second passport photo). They were married in Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi, Georgia) on May 23rd 1923.

F. C. Wells, Jr.: Obituary in Princeton Alumni Weekly

"FRANKLIN CHAMBERLAIN WELLS, JR. died on Dec. 1, 1969 in the Overbrook Sanitarium, Montclair, N.J. He was born on Oct. 6, 1889 In Beirut, Lebanon, then a part of the Turkish Empire [aka, Syria], the son of Dr. Franklin C. and Clara G. Downs Wells. His father was teaching in the American University of Beirut.

Frank prepared for college at the Bloomfield, NJ, High School. At Princeton he was a member of Whig, the English Club and Dial Lodge of which he was president. Frank was on the wrestling team, and captain of the team in senior year when he won the intercollegiate heavyweight wrestling championship. He won the George Potts Bible Prize in senior year and graduated from Princeton with an AB degree, cum laude.

Frank was in Peking, China, during the first two years after graduation running the Princeton-sponsored YMCA work among the foreign troops guarding legations there. Returning to this country, he became director of boys work at the Union Settlement on the upper east side of NYC. Frank began his life career in architecture in 1921 with the firm of Henry Atterbury Smith of New York and 1wo years later changed to Arthur C. Holden & Assoc. continuing with its successor firm Holden, Egan & Assoc. until his retirement in Dec. 1956.

Frank's life evidenced his loyalty, he planned and supervised the renovation of our meeting room in the 1911 House, attended many reunions and dinners, and designed the emblem used in the publicity of our 50th.

On Jan. 25, 1917 Frank married Sophie D. White who survives him. To Mrs. Wells; their four daughters: Mrs. Timothy A. Pfeiffer, Mrs. Michael Horton, Mrs. David W. Mize and Mrs. Jeremy E. Butler; his brother Dr. Howard M. Wells; his sister Mrs. Robert C. Shoemaker, and their 13 grandchildren we extend our deepest sympathy."

—The Class of 1911

This obit suggests an answer to me of the question, "How did FCW go from Settlement worker to architect?" Well, apparently, the first architect he worked for was a strong advocate for settlements. In fact, Arthur C. Holden wrote a book titled, The Settlement Idea: A Vision of Social Justice! And cousin Hilary reports that Holden and FCW were pals at Princeton. I guess he must've pulled FCW into architecture!

 

Mrs. Gertrude Wells Dies in Acid Accident

Article about Gertrude Wells.The strangest, fairly grisly story I've come across as I've dug into the ancestral history is that of Gertrude Wells, who was married to F. C. Wells, Senior's brother, Samuel. Thus, she is my great-great-aunt, by marriage. However, Samuel and Gertrude were divorced sometime before 1919, when he married again.

In any event, in 1934 she died from accidentally swallowing acid. The burns took two months to kill her. As chronicled in this Chicago Daily Tribune article:

"she accidentally swallowed acid which she had been using to clean some of the rare coins In her collection at her home, 1511 Hyde Park boulevard. She was 60 years old.

While cleaning the coins Mrs. Wells contracted a headache. She swallowed a headache tablet, then reached for a glass of water. By mistake she picked up the glass of acid."

I cannot help but wonder how "accidental" this poisoning was. And why did she and Samuel Wells get divorced--which was extremely rare in the 1910s? The 1920 census shows her living in Colorado, of all places, listed as "divorced," with two of their kids. What's up with that? Did she move to CO to get divorced?

Incidentally, Gertrude's father, Thomas Hoyne, was a major Chicago politico who "won" a mayoral race in 1875 only to have it taken away from him by bureaucratic shenanigans.

Elizabeth Dun Young: In France During World War I

Elizabeth Dun Young, aka Auntie, was Sophie White's aunt, the youngest sibling of Sophie Douglass Young. Died in 1964.

I found some cool passport-application info for her today. She served with the Red Cross and the YMCA in France during WW I, 1917-1919! According to Penny Keenan, "she not only drove an ambulance, but was decorated by the French government for her service."

And check out this passport-application pic of her wearing a necktie in 1923!

Don't believe she ever married. The most recent census data I can find for her (1940) shows her living with her brother, Henry, who was an x-ray photographer at some Manhattan hospital.  I found her in Teacher's College's Annual Commencement, Volumes 138-153 (1892) and Catalogue of officers and graduates of Columbia university from the foundation of King's college in 1754 (1916) on books.google.com . 

According to the latter, EDY received her BS in 1907 and her AM in 1908. She received a "special diploma" (?) in "Kindergarten supervision" and a BS in education.

About her "Dun" middle name...

The Duns and the Douglasses and the firm of Dun & Bradstreet intertwine in many interesting and slightly scandalous ways. Most notably, as explained in Seventy-five years of the Mercantile agency, R.G. Dun & co., 1841-1916 (hooray for the public domain that allows such documents to be put online!):

"The trips made by Mr. [Benjamin] Douglass to Ohio while he was a merchant at New Orleans may have been the indirect cause of Mr. [Robert Graham] Dun entering the service of the [Mercantile] Agency, for at that time he met Miss Elizabeth Dun, a sister of Robert G. Dun, whom he subsequently married. By a remarkable coincidence Mr. Douglass also had a sister named Elizabeth, who married Mr. Dun. It was, in all probability, this relationship by marriage that directed the attention of Mr. Douglass to the advantages of bringing the young Ohioan [R. G. Dun] to New York to assist him in the management of the business."

To put this in the context of our family:

My great-great-great-grandfather, George Douglass (1790-1869), had many children, among them were Benjamin (1816-1900), Elizabeth (1817-1882), Jane (1821-1892), and my great-great-grandmother, Sophia Douglass (1838-1908, grandmother of Sophie White). 

The Douglasses and the Duns had quite an affinity for one another as Benjamin Douglass married Elizabeth Dun and Elizabeth Douglass married R. G. Dun! And, in terms of the Dun & Bradstreet business, its roots are in the Mercantile Agency, which was founded by Lewis Tappan, but brought to prominence by Benjamin Douglass. Douglass brought Dun into the business and Dun eventually bought him out and merged the company with Bradstreet.

Interesting, eh?

Well, here's the slightly scandalous last bit to this story: 

R.G. Dun's wife, the former Elizabeth Douglass, died in 1882. Two years later, he married Jane Douglass's daughter, Mary. That's right, he married his, by marriage, niece, who was 23 years younger than him!

It took me some time to suss this, because Mary's last name was Bradford. That's become the first of Jane's three marriages was to Charles Bradford, of Wisconsin. Mary is thus the daughter of Jane and Charles Bradford. 

I suspect this marriage was hushed up at the time as I could find no mention of it in newspapers from 1884—even though R.G. was a prominent millionaire by that time. (They were married at his estate on Narragansett Pier, RI, and not in New York.) When Mary died in 1910 it was revealed that she had NOT inherited all of R. G.'s wealth, that she was living on a (large) monthly allowance. Perhaps this was due to a pre-nup?

Thus, for me, R.G. Dun is both my great-great-grand uncle and the husband of a first cousin, three times removed.

One More Thing About the Douglass-Dun Connection

So, this Benjamin Douglass, a millionaire due to his early involvement with the Mercantile Agency/Dun & Bradstreet and my great-great-great uncle, also got involved in a bit of a scandal toward the end of his life. Decades after his wife, Elizabeth Dun, died he decided that he deserved to have some female companionship and, at the age of 75, married his maid—in Santa Barbara in 1897.

He was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle: "I am one of the old boys who feels like doing what he pleases."

His bride, Louise Kretzler, is described thus: "She is a native of Germany, good-looking and of pleasant manners."

This threw the Douglass family into quite a tizzy, leading several of Benjamin's children, who were older than his bride to refuse to sit at the dinner table with her. Also, Ms. Kretzler was apparently engaged to another man the year before she married BD and that guy sued them for "injuries to his affections," to the tune of $20,000.

Donald "Connell alleges that Miss Kentzler promised to marry him in 1896, and wore an engagement ring that she selected herself, and he had paid for and that she had held the horse while he went into the County Clerk's office to secure the license. He still has the license as a souvenir of the occasion, but he never had an opportunity to put it to its intended use."

The Chronicle does not report the outcome of his suit, or the situation of their horse.

This illustration comes from the front page of the Chronicle.

Wells-Downs Wedding (1888)

Article about Wells-Downs wedding.My great-grandparents, F.C. Wells, Sr. and Clara Downs, had their wedding announcement in the Inter Ocean newspaper (Chicago) on 9 Dec 1888.

The wedding was held at 1:00 on a Tuesday at the bride's family home. Then... "At 3:15 o'clock Dr. and Mrs Wells departed for Syria, where he is to assume a professorship in the American Protestant College at Beyroot [sic]."

Hmmm... kinda makes you wonder if the 4 Dec wedding might have been a rush job cuz little Frankie, Jr., arrived on 6 Oct 1889--just 10 months later...

New York Marble Cemetery, Incorporated 1831

This is a bit ghoulish, but also fascinating. The Douglass family, of which I am a descendant, owns an underground vault in New York Marble Cemetery, which is in the heart of Manhattan, in the East Village. Oh, and it should not be confused with nearby New York City Marble Cemetery, although it often is.

As a descendant of George Douglass, I am eligible to be buried in his vault. Weird thought, eh? And a little spooky.

Wikipedia provides some history:

"The cemetery was founded as a commercial undertaking of Perkins Nichols, who hired two lawyers, Anthony Dey and George W. Strong, to serve as organizing trustees. [4][5]Recent outbreaks of yellow fever led city residents to fear burying their dead in coffins just a few feet below ground,[6] and public health legislation had outlawed earthen burials. Nichols intended to appeal to this market by providing underground vaults for burial.

Dey and Strong purchased the property on Nichols's behalf, on what was then the northern edge of residential development, on July 13, 1830, and Nichols had the 156 underground family vaults, each the size of a small room, constructed from Tuckahoe marble and laid out in a grid of six columns by 26 rows. He was then reimbursed from the sale of the vaults.[5][6]

Access to each pair of barrel vaults is by the removal of a stone slab set well below the grade of the lawn, which has no monuments or markers. Marble tablets mounted in the long north and south walls give the names of the original vault owners - though not the names of burials - and indicate the precise location of each corresponding underground vault. As of May 2011, parts of the north wall had collapsed, and other sections of it were reinforced with steel buttresses.

Nichols, Dey & Strong, and the subscribers applied to the New York State Legislature for a special act of incorporation, and this was granted on February 4, 1831."

Photographs by (left to right, top to bottom): unknown, Mary French (2008), Allison Meier (2013), Mitch Waxman (2013), Edmund V. Gillon (ca. 1977), and unknown (ca. 1910). More photographs of New York Marble Cemetery are available from the Museum of the City of New York.

Sophie White at the YWCA College Day, Silver Bay, NY, 1909 and 1910

In 1909 and 1910, Sophie Douglass White went to a YWCA camp at Silver Bay, on Lake George, as a delegate from her high school (Horace Mann). Apparently, on "college day" each group of delegates would dress up and do skits and pranks. 

In the photo on the left, she (my grandmother!) in the back row, far right. And in the photo below, I believe she is third from the left, if the caption is to be trusted!

I found this pic and one other in the Horace Mann yearbook, The Mannikin!Sophie White at YWCA College Day 1910

Colonial Hijinks with Philip Starin

Today's story of colonial hijinks involves my 6th great grandfather, Philip Frederick Adam Starin (1715-1801):

"Among the well-authenticated traditions of the Starin family, also, regarding Philip, is the following: One day as he was at work at his forge, three Indians came in and peremptorily commanded him to drop at once the work upon which he was then engaged and attend to some job for them. Upon his not immediately complying with their demand, one of the Indians plunged a knife into his abdomen, letting out a portion of his bowels.

Notwithstanding, however, this terrible wound, he pulled out from the fire a red hot iron bar he was mending at the time, and with one blow laid the savage dead at his feet. Whereupon, the other two Indians fled in the direst consternation. Mr. Starin recovered from this terrible wound, and lived many years afterward."

—William L. Stone, The Starin Family in America (Albany, NY: Joel Munsell's Sons, Publishers, 1892), p18

Catoneras, a Native American Sunksqua

My ancestors never cease to surprise me.

For example: my 8th-great grandmother was Catoneras, a Native American sunksqua (queen or female sachem) from the 1600s.

She had an apparently consensual relationship with Dutchman Cornelis Jansen Van Texel (Tassel), out of which was born Jan Cornelissen Van Tassel, in about 1625. This image shows the lineage from her to me. There's a fascinating article online that refers to her as "Long Island's Pocahontas."

She was likely a Matinecock Indian, who were associated with the Montaukett on Long Island (source of the name, Montauk Point). In fact, as her descendant, I can apply for membership in the Montaukett nation at montaukett.net!

Timothy Pfeiffer and the Hall-Mills Murders (1922)

Rick Geary, Lovers' LaneRick Geary, Lovers' LaneA graphic novel was written about the notorious Hall-Mills murders of 1922 by Rick Geary. Titled Lovers' Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery, it includes a likeness of Timothy Newell Pfeiffer (1886-1971)—lawyer for one of the defendants and the father of my uncle, T Pfeiffer (1916-1999).

Sadly, there's just this one drawing of TNP in it.

(Click images to enlarge them.)


"Timothy N. Pfeiffer and Robert H. McCarter were members of the defense team, dubbed the 'Million Dollar Defense.' Pfeiffer was Mrs. Hall's personal attorney. Pfeiffer and McCarter (founder of the prestigious McCarter & English) were joined by State Senator Clarence Case and four other attorneys."

Photograph source: Fatal Tryst by Gerald Tomlinson. Found on the Franklin Township Public Library Historical Photograph Collection Website, as part of a group of photographs related to the Hall-Mills murders.

Sarah Gould Downs Marries an Andersonville Survivor, Calvin Durand

Clara Downs WellsThis formidable woman, my great-grand aunt Sarah Downs, married a man who was imprisoned in the notorious Andersonville during the Civil War. Specifically, she married Calvin Durand in 1867, just two years after he was released from captivity.

His entire ordeal is described in a memorial book published to honor the two of them, which is now on archive.org! See page 28 and following:

archive.org/details/calvindurandsara00dura

Discovering this interesting historical note led me to a tenuous connection between me and Lake Forest College that involves Sarah Downs Durand. (Lake Forest College interests me because several Wells and Downs family members went there in the late 1800s.)

Okay, so Calvin Durand is my great-grand uncle, by marriage. Now, his mother, one Lois Barnes Durand was apparently 
quite formidable herself (no picture yet found). According to a memorial book, "the influence of this mother's life upon each member of her family was profound. That influence secured the erection of the dormitory for young women of Lake Forest College that so fittingly bears her name, 'Lois Durand Hall,'" which was built in 1899, after she was dead (p. 27). Photographs of it are here and there's quite a bit of detail about the building's history:

http://puka.cs.waikato.ac.nz/cgi-bin/cic/library?a=d&d=p968

I know, she's my great-grand aunt's mother-in-law, so not much of a bond, but I'm intrigued about her family's connection to LFC as this was about the same time that the Wells and Downs ancestors were attending it. All very incestuous!

Also, the info on the building includes this nugget:

"Around 1905, Hull House founder Jane Addams spoke to the residents."

Of course, Hull House was Chicago's most famous Settlement House. By 1905, Gaylord Starin White was already the head worker at Union Settlement and must have known of Addams' work.

Aren't you intrigued?

Starin's Glen Island

I learned that my sister, Starin, apparently owns her own island, with a theme park on it. Kidding. It was actually the pet project of John Henry Starin. (Hat tip to mcnyblog.org for alerting me to Starin's Glen Island.)

John Henry Starin (1825-1909) is my first cousin, 5x removed. That is, his grandfather, also John Henry Starin (1754-1832), is my 5th great grandfather.

Moreover, in The Starins of America, I found this account of Glen Island:

"The famous Glen Island, one of Mr. Starin's hobbies, is beautifully situated opposite New Rochelle, on Long Island Sound. It was formerly called Locust Island. Having first purchased it with a view to a summer residence, the artistic eye of Mr. Starin at once perceived that by industry and by a lavish expenditure of money its natural beauties could be rendered the most eligible of all the places adopted for excursions in the neighborhood of New York.

The main island, which contains fifty acres, is shaded by maple and locust trees, and is the site of an elegant mansion, formerly occupied by the Prussian consul. There are also four smaller islands. This mansion is the center of unrivaled attractions, and was completed at a cost of $70,000. It is surrounded by lovely grounds, embellished with pretty alcoves and hot-houses, and contains fish-ponds, bathing facilities, bowling alleys, billiard rooms, etc. Tired citizens find welcome repose and recreation amid such lovely surroundings.

This island, moreover, overlooks Long Island Sound —always an interesting contemplation, both from the number and variety of the passing vessels and the exquisite beauty of its shores. Mr. Starin, within the last year, was offered $1,500,000 for the Glen Island property, by an hotel syndicate, which he refused."

I also found this:

""Starin's Glen Island." This was a destination geared towards the middle-class and featured five cultures of the western world on display on individual islands linked together with piers and causeways." —From a site devoted to preserving Starin's estate: fortroyal.org/about/

Camp Gaylord White

Camp Gaylord White was a spot in upstate New York where Union Settlement took inner-city kids to give them a taste of Nature.

It turns up in a few New York Times articles.

F. C. Wells, Jr., Fine Artiste

F. C. Wells, Jr., loved to paint. This one from 1943 is my favorite. It's a very allegorical work that represents the view outside his Manhattan office. Look closely at the reflection in the searchlight and you'll see an inverted window, with a figure looking out it. More paintings are available online.

Map of 17th-Century New-England

New-England map

Several of my ancestors came to the "new" world in the 17th century. This map—oriented with north to the right—shows major European settlements in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut from that time period. It includes Martha's Vineyard to the south and Pemaquid (modern-day Bristol, Maine) to the north and extends as far west as Hartford and Northampton.

The map appears in the fifth edition of Nathaniel Morton's New-England's Memorial, edited by John Davis and published in 1826. (The original had been released in 1669.) Davis describes the map as a "lithographic copy of an ancient Map," and provides no precise date. The map itself shows no date, but it is titled:

"Being the first that ever was here cut, and done by the best Pattern that could be had, which being in some places defective, it made the other less exact: yet doth it sufficiently shew the Scituation of the Countrey, and conveniently well the distance of Places.

"The figures that are joyned with the Names of Places are to distinguish such as have been assaulted by the Indians from others."

Barry Lawrence Ruderman, Antique Maps, explains its provenance: "This is a lithograph facsimile [from 1824] of a most important map originally issued in 1677 to illustrate the London edition of William Hubbard's Present State of New England. Though seemingly crude in execution, the map was for its time the most advanced map of southern New England. This is reflected in the number of towns identified, the vertical lines indicating the northern and southern boundaries of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the relatively accurate depiction of Lake Winnipesaukee. The numbered towns are those that suffered from the depredations of the Indians during King Philip's War (1675-76)."

Hubbard's original map (see below) is held by the Library of Congress.

New-England map

Mayflower Pilgrims

  • William Bradford statue

In one of the last boxes I sorted through at my parents' house during May 2014 I stumbled across quite a find: genealogies of the Downs and Wells families compiled by Elizabeth Wells Shoemaker in 1976! Wow! It tracks Clara G. Downs back to five Mayflower passengers: William and Mary Brewster (and their son, Wrestling [!] Brewster), John Howland, and Governor William Bradford. To this list we may add three more Mayflower passengers who are our ancestors: John and Joan Tilley and their 13-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. John and Joan did not survive the first Plymouth winter and their orphaned daughter, Elizabeth, was taken in by Governor John Carver's family. She subsequently married John Howland (Carver's servant) about two years later. Thus, Howland and Elizabeth Tilley both arrived on the Mayflower, but were not together at the time.

Elizabeth Shoemaker's genealogy also tracks her husband, Franklin C. Wells, Sr. back to Thomas Graves, who came to the New World in 1629. Elizabeth collected her genealogical research in a nice spiral binder. Although she does not note this, the Wells family (then spelled "Welles," as in Orson Welles) arrived in New England just a few years later, in 1636, when Thomas and Alice Tomes Welles traveled from Warwickshire, England to Boston.

One Mayflower passenger not included in Elizabeth's genealogy is Edward Doty. More about him below.

Embarkation of the Pilgrims, by Robert Walter Weir (commissioned 1837, placed 1844; oil on canvas, 12 x 18 feet, United States Capitol Rotunda). "William Bradford is depicted at center, kneeling in the background, symbolically behind Governor John Carver (holding hat) whom Bradford would succeed," according to Wikipedia.

The Mayflower Compact 1620, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899). Library of Congress description: "Print shows passengers of the Mayflower signing the "Mayflower Compact", including John Carver sitting at the head of the old chest on which they write, and a man Ferris identified as Winston, but who was probably Edward Winslow, holding the ink horn for John Alden, who signs his name. Myles Standish sits in a chair, turned to face the signers. In addition, Ferris singled out [left to right?] John Howland, William Bradford, Isaac Allerton, and a man only identified as Fuller, so either Samuel or Edward Fuller. Ferris chose to include Mary Chilton 'as a representative of the sex that did most of the real work of the colony'" (my emphasis). Source: The Library of Congress. Also at the signing of the Compact, but not pictured, was my ancestor John Tilley; he and his wife died during the first winter and thus did not attend the first Thanksgiving. Their orphaned daughter, Elizabeth, however, was at that Thanksgiving.

Ferris also painted the historically inaccurate painting, The First Thanksgiving 1621 (circa 1932). For example, the Wampanoag did not wear feathered headdresses and they would not have sat on the ground.

Remember: qua patres difficillime adepti sunt nolite turpiter relinquere (What our forefathers with so much difficulty secured, do not basely relinquish.)

Clara G. Downs Pedigree to William Bradford

Click to enlarge.

FCW, Sr. Pedigree to Thomas Graves

Click to enlarge.

FC Wells, Sr., pedigree chart to Thomas Graves.


(I found this photo of Bradford over here.)

The First Duel in the "New World"

The Mayflower in a riptide.My ninth great grandfather was involved in the what is reputed to be the first duel in the "new world."

Edward Doty (aka, Edward Doten) came to America on the Mayflower, as a servant to one Stephen Hopkins. Apparently, Doty was quite the rascal:

"In June 1621, he engaged in a sword and dagger duel with fellow Hopkins servant Edward Leister; both were wounded before being separated, and were punished by having their head and feet tied together for an hour (it was supposed to have been for a whole day, but they were let go early because of their apparent suffering).

Edward Doty made regular appearances in Plymouth Colony Court throughout his life, mostly just being sued for various misdemeanors (failing to pay on a contract; failing to keep his cows fenced; not properly caring for a servant), but occasionally for more serious infractions (twice for assault, once for theft, and once for slander)."

For more, see mayflowerhistory.com/doty/

The painting titled, "The Mayflower in the riptide and shallows off Monomoy Point, Cape Cod," is by Mike Haywood and may be purchased here.

Apparently, I work my way back to Doty through the Wells line of the family (see pedigree below starting with Miles Doolittle Wells; click it to enlarge). I'd never heard this story until a few months ago, although I had been told of my connection to Gov. Bradford of the pilgrims. The line to Gov. Bradford stems from Clara Downs, who married into the Wells line--wedding Miles Wells's grandson, F. C. Wells, Sr. in 1888.

So, Doty and Bradford are both my 9th great-grandfathers, because my great-grandfather, F. C. Wells, Sr., who descended from one of Plymouth's biggest troublemakers, married a descendant of one of its first governors, Clara Downs Wells.

F. C. Wells Sr.: Pedigree to Edward Doty

Compare with his wife's pedigree to Gov. Bradford above. Click to enlarge image.

 

John Howland, Swept Overboard the Mayflower

From Governor William Bradford's journal (transcribed into contemporary English):

"In sundry of these storms the winds were so fierce, and the seas so high, as they could not bear a knot of sail, but were forced to hull ["To heave or lay-to under very short sail and drift with the wind"], for divers days together. And in one of them, as they thus lay at hull, in a mighty storm, a lusty ["lively, merry; no sexual connotation"] young man (called John Howland) coming upon some occasion above the gratings, was, with a seele ['roll or pitch"]of the ship thrown into the sea; but it pleased God that he caught hold of the topsail halyards, which hung overboard, and ran out at length;

yet he held his hold (though he was sundry fathoms under water) till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with a boat hook and other means got into the ship again, and his life saved; and though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both in church and commonwealth." (Source: Tales in the Tree; with annotations in square brackets taken from Samuel Eliot Morison's 1952 edition)

As it originally appears in the Bradford journal: "In sundrie of these stormes the winds were so feirce, & ye seas so high, as they could not beare a knote of saile, but were forced to hull, for diverce days togither. And in one of them, as they thus lay at hull, in a mighty storme, a lustie yonge man (called John Howland) coming upon some occasion above ye grattings, was, with a seele of ye shipe throwne into [ye] sea; but it pleased God yt he caught hould of ye top-saile halliards, which hunge over board, & rane out at length; yet he held his hould (though he was sundrie fadomes under water) till he was hald up by ye same rope to ye brime of ye water, and then with a boat hooke & other means got into ye shipe againe, & his life saved; and though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both in church & comone wealthe. William Bradford, "The 9. Chap. [p. 92] Of their vioage, & how they passye sea, and of their safe arrivall at Cape Codd," Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation" (Electronic version prepared by Dr. Ted Hildebrandt, Gordon College, March 1, 2002), HTML version, PDF version. See also the Project Gutenberg eBook.

In Bradford's Own Handwriting

Scans of Bradford's original journal are available online from the State Library of Massachusetts.

Oh, and here's Howland's autograph:


Painting by Mike Hawood, available for purchase here.

John and Elizabeth (Tilley) Howland: Prolific Breeders

Pilgrim coupole

Once he escaped the hands of the briny deep, John Howland found himself to be one of the few single men to survive the devastating winter of 1620-21. Soon after, he married an orphan girl: 15-year-old Elizabeth Tilley. She had come over on the Mayflower with her mother and father, but they both perished during the first winter. She was taken in by Governor John Carver and his family, but he soon died, too. Soon afterward, Howland and she wed.

It proved to a providential union, resulting in prolific breeding: ten children lived to adulthood and they subsequently produced some 88 grandchildren.

Thus, the descendants of John and Elizabeth are not a select club. In fact, both of my grandfathers are Howland descendants—as can be seen in the relationship charts for Edward W. Butler and Franklin C. Wells, Jr.

Thomas Welles (1594-1660), Witch Hunter

"Thomas Welles is the only man in Connecticut's history to hold all four top offices: governor, deputy governor, treasurer, and secretary.... He was a member of the first Court of Magistrates, elected March 28, 1637, and was reelected as a member of the Court of Magistrates from 1638 until 1654. During his terms as magistrate in 1648, 1651, and 1654 he sat on the panel hearing the witchcraft trials of Mary Johnson, John and Joan Carrington, and Lydia Gilbert." Source: Connecticut State Library.

"Although Connecticut may not have experienced the same level of hysteria as Salem Massachusetts, Alse Young [hanged in 1647] was not the last person hanged for witchcraft. Mary Johnson of Wethersfield was executed in 1648 after having confessed to entering into a compact with the devil. Joan and John Carrington also of Wethersfield were executed in 1651. [After Welles's death,] Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith and Mary Barnes were found guilty of witchcraft and were hanged in Hartford on January 25, 1663. Ann Cole had accused Rebecca Greensmith of making her have strange fits. Witchcraft was last listed as a capital crime in 1715. The crime of witchcraft disappeared from the list of capital crimes when the laws were next printed in 1750." Source: State of Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Libraries.

I haven't been able to find many details about those trials, but I did locate a passage in Witch Hunting and Witch Trials: The Indictments for Witchcraft from the Records of 1373 Assizes Held for the Home Circuit AD 1559-1736, by C. L'Estrange Ewen--where Thomas Welles appears to claim that Alice Bakett "bewitched to death 1 milch cow valued at 40s."

Sophie Douglass Wells, Jr. Encounters Nazis in Wartime Germany

Senior portrait of Sophie Douglass Wells, Jr.

My aunt Sally, who passed away at the age of 96 to the accompaniment of fireworks (July 4th, 2015), led a rather remarkable life. Here we see her identified as "Sophie Douglass Wells, Jr." in the Vassar College yearbook of 1939.

She was the news editor of Vassar's Miscellany News and so this little gnome (below) accompanied her yearbook photo.

As I've dug around the Internet to find remnants of her time on earth, I found this fascinating tidbit from the Princeton Alumni Weekly—from 1940, after war had broken out in Europe but the US had not yet joined in. Here's the transcription:

"Sally Wells, after graduating from Vassar last June [1939], went abroad, was caught by the war in Sweden, was unsuccessful in getting permission to go to France or England, but finally was permitted to cross Germany [!] and, after visiting Greece, is now at Beirut—[her father, my grandfather] Frank's birthplace. Sally reports that the natal building is now used to manufacture liquid air (Frank says that at one time it was a camel stable). All this background perhaps explains Sally's attempt to teach Felix the Accordionist and a group of her contemporaries at our house to sing the 'Internationale' on the eventually-why-not-now theory."

The eventually-why-not-now theory! Holy cats!


My friend, Peter Berryman (who was once married to an accordion player) was intrigued by this reference to "Felix the Accordionist." He Googled around a bit and found additional references to one Felix Restivo, master of the accordion. For instance, in the July 2, 1937 issue of Princeton Alumni Weekly was this note: "If you have never been to a soirée at the Princeton Club of New York, don't miss the next one... After several rounds, accompanied by sweet woodland music from the piano-accordion of Felix Restivo, His Honor the Secretary saw through the bottom of his glass..." 

One can only imagine what "sweet woodland music" sounds like.

Sophia Douglass Pfeiffer's Genealogical Research, 1993

My aunt Sally, aka, Sophia Douglass Pfeiffer (19218-2015), prepared a genealogy for the Wells-Downs-White-Young family in the summer of 1993—in anticipation of a family reunion at Chelsea, Vermont. At the reunion, she distributed copies of her genealogical charts and explained them to us.

Sophia's Speech:

The White-Young Chart:

The Wells-Downs chart:

Franklin Chamberlain Wells' genealogy.

Franklin C. Wells and Frank Lloyd Wright

Guggenheim Museum, under construction.

I have long heard that Franklin C. Wells assisted Frank Lloyd Wright on the construction of the Guggenheim Museum, but only recently did I learn some of the details from my cousin once removed, Cleveland Stuart White Jr.

Stuart wrote me, "Frankie was the creative person at the firm [Arthur C. Holden & Assoc..]. When Frank Lloyd Wright built the Guggenheim Arthur Holden got the job as the local architect of record and Frankie dealt with Wright. He loved him. He told me with a big grin that there were “110 building code violations.” It was Frankie’s job to help get it built. I’m sure you can document this somehow – I sure would like to know more. He became a friend, traveled with Wright to Princeton when FLW was giving a lecture.

Frankie also knew Bucky Fuller and had a ride in his famous aerodynamic automobile, I think in Chicago. Frankie told me the car went along a tree-lined boulevard at 40 miles an hour and not a single leaf was ruffled."

Buckminster Fuller named his car the Dymaxion.


Guggenheim image source: the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/item/gsc1994007237/PP/

Gaylord S. White Sails on the Arundel Castle to Relieve an "Overtaxed Heart"

Arundel Castle

Stuart White provides the following excerpt from Gaylord Starin White’s ten page account of his ocean voyage in 1880,

"“A Seagoing Experience”: “During my last year at school I was found to have overtaxed the heart and a complete rest and change were prescribed. At last I saw my chance and proposed to the doctor a sea voyage as a restorative. To my delight he agreed that it would be just the thing; and so it came about that passage was booked for my brother and myself on the good ship Arundel Castle, about to sail from New York to London. The Arundel Castle was a full rigged iron ship of 1,027 tons. She made regular runs from London to Calcutta, thence to New York and from there back to London. This meant rounding the Cape of Good Hope twice and occupied about a year. Her captain, appropriately named “Steer”, was a typical English “sea dog” –a man of fine character who treated his crew like human beings and managed to give orders without an excessive amount of profanity.” Attached to this is a note from my dad: “Written about 1930 by Gaylord White describing his crossing in a full rigged ship in 1880 – Please do not lose!”

Painting by Franklin C. Wells.

Gaylord S. White Travels to Grand Manan Island, Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, Canada

Arundel Castle

Gaylord Starin White and his cousin, Stanley White, when they were 16 and 18 years old, respective, took a "grand ocean excursion" from August 19 to August 28 1880. Their destination was Grand Manan island, the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, Canada.

They kept a detailed diary of their excursion, which, as some unknown point was typed and an illustration was affixed to it of the sights they saw--a painting possibly by Franklin C. Wells, GSW's son-in-law.

Their narrative begins thusly, "We left Narragansett Pier at 7:15 a.m. and after a dusty ride reached Boston at 11:00. On our arrival we went directly to the Parker House, where we left our bags and got a room. Thence we went to Commercial Wharf and engaged a stateroom and got our tickets. The afternoon was spent loafing around the hotel, as we had "done" Boston two years ago and did not care to "do" it again.

Friday morning we got up at 7:00, went down in the hotel coach to the boat. Soon after embarking we got under way. The sail down Boston Harbor was very pretty, though the morning was not very pleasant. Towards noon it began to clear, and the rest of the day was fine . Neither of us was seasick though Stan had an attack of summer complaint and had to keep rather quiet in consequence."

The Chapins and Brown University

  • Puritan statue by St. Gaudens
  • Puritan statue by St. Gaudens
  • Pilgrim statue by St. Gaudens

I recently learned that a statue (dedicated 1887) of my 8th great-grandfather, Deacon Samuel Chapin (1598-1675), stands proudly in Springfield, Massachusetts. Apparently, it's become such an iconic representation of religious fervor in 17th century America that it's usually referred to as simply The Puritan. More on the statue can be found on Wikipedia.

There are smaller reproductions of it in various museums' collections, often referred to as The Pilgrim (photo on the right above)! (Photo credits: Wikipedia Commons and Los Angeles Museum of Art.) Of The Pilgrim, LACMA says,

This figure was originally created as a statue in honor of Deacon Samuel Chapin (1595-1675), one of the founders of Springfield, Massachusetts. Unveiled in 1887, the monument immediately confirmed [Augustus] Saint-Gaudens' reputation as the leading American sculptor of his day. Saint-Gaudens was one of several American artists who in the 1890s began to have their large public sculptures made in reduced size for broader distribution. The Chapin figure was cast in a thirty-inch format and, under the title The Puritan, became one of America's most popular bronzes at the turn of the century. The museum cast was produced by the short-lived New York foundry Aubry Brothers and Company around 1904.

Dressed in seventeenth-century colonial attire, the deacon carries a large Bible in his left hand and a walking stick in his right. The details of his face were modeled after one of his descendants, but Saint-Gaudens went beyond mere portraiture. The figure's stern visage and assertive stance convey his political and spiritual authority and suggest the determination of the Puritans who left their homeland in search of religious freedom. The figure is also cloaked in mystery: the shadows cast by the broad-brimmed hat and the heavy cape create an aura of introspection. In transcending the literalism of most sculpture of the time, The Puritan reflects a more general questioning of materialism at the close of the nineteenth century.

I'm connected to Deacon Chapin through my mother's family (see below and click to enlarge).

  • Puritan statue by St. Gaudens

He had many other famous and prestigious and just plain cool descendants—as detailed by Wikipedia:

United States Presidents Grover Cleveland and William Howard Taft, Canadian Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett, abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher and John Brown, financier J.P. Morgan, poet and playwright T.S. Eliot, auto industry pioneer Roy D. Chapin and auto executive Roy D. Chapin Jr., American painter James Ormsbee Chapin, and James Ormsbee's son, jazz drummer Jim Chapin, and his sons, singers Harry Chapin, Tom Chapin and Steve Chapin; singer Mary Chapin Carpenter; banker Timothy J. Sloan; Dwight L. Chapin; and world champion sailor Dave Chapin.

I became intrigued about several of these, including famed poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), whom I determined to be my sixth cousin, twice removed! Our common ancestor is Josiah Chapin (1634-1726)—my seventh great-grandfather and T.S.'s fifth great-grandfather. Poking around in Ancestry.com, I found T. S.'s draft-registration card for World War I (click to enlarge).

  • T. S. Eliot draft card 1918

Not included in this descendants list, but equally interesting to me, are the many Chapin descendants who were connected to Brown University, my alma mater. Of these, the most notable is Dr. Charles Value Chapin (1856–1941; Brown class of 1876). The Rhode Island Medical Association highlighted two achievements upon his resignation: "In the city, his two greatest achievements lie. First, in lifting Providence from a condition of well nigh medieval squalor in 1884 – to the hygienic and sanitary perfection of today – and second, in the founding of our City Hospital and its later organization, in which he played so important part" (quoted in Encyclopedia Brunoniana). Small surprise, therefore, that Brown University named a dorm after him, of which I had a fine view from my dorm-room window in Goddard House, across Patriots Court. Chapin and Goddard houses are in Wriston Quadrangle, built 1950–1952.

  • Dr. Charles V. Chapin
  • Chapin House, Brown University, 1972
  • Chapin House, Brown University

Photo credits, left to right: U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jeremy G. Butler (feat. his feet), Wikimedia Commons (AWeenieMan)