America250-Revolutionary War Patriots --#2--Col. Abiel Fellows

 Abiel Fellows Jr.  is Jim’s 5th great-grandfather. Abiel Jr. was one of five children born to Abiel Fellows (another veteran) and Elizabeth Rowe and was born on the 1st of Oct 1762. He was born in Canaan, Litchfield County, Connecticut and lived there prior to the Revolutionary War. At aged 15, he enlisted and served as a Private in the Revolutionary War and later during the War of 1812, he became a Colonel.

The following is a biography provided in the History of Kalamazoo County, Michigan (1880) pp. 454-455.

“COL. Abiel Fellows“ was born in Canaan, Litchfield Co., Conn., Oct. 1, 1762.  His grandfather emigrated from England, and was among the first settlers in the New England States.  He left a family of five sons and three daughters.  His father kept a public-house in Canaan, and married a Miss Rowe, by whom he had five children.  Abiel, the youngest, received a common-school education.  At the age of fifteen he went out with the Connecticut militia, who flocked to Gates’ and Schuyler’s army.  He was with his uncle, who commanded a division at the battle of Freeman’s Farm, Oct. 7, 1777, and at Saratoga, October 17th, when Burgoyne surrendered.  He then returned home, but shortly after re-enlisted, remaining in the service until peace was proclaimed.  For his services he drew a pension of ninety-six dollars a year.

  At the age of twenty-two he married Katherine Mann.  Their children numbered six,--Andrus, Amanda, Ann, Almira, Abiel, and Asahel.

 In 1785 he went to Luzerene Co., Pa., where he located several thousand acres of land; he sold a portion of it, retaining about one thousand acres, upon which he lived forty-four years, until 1829.

  In 1803 his wife died.  In 1805 he married Dorcas, daughter of Timothy Hopkins, and niece of Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Great Barrington, Mass.  Their children were Katharine, Thomas J., James M., Simon S., Timothy H., John M., Caroline, Emma, Sarah, Orville H., Milo, Elizabeth, and Lucy.

While in Pennsylvania he was county commissioner for several years, and justice of the peace eighteen years.  He was colonel in the war of 1812; his regiment was with Perry in the battle on Lake Erie, Sept. 10, 1813; afterwards joined Gen. Harrison.

  In 1817 he engaged in mercantile trade, and remained in the business several years.  In 1820 he explored several of the Western States.  He traveled on from Pennsylvania, on horseback, to Quincy, Ill., and located a land-warrant in Fulton County of that State.

  Having comfortably settled his older children in Pennsylvania, he concluded to take the younger ones West and locate farms in a prairie country.  Therefore in 1829, he started for Michigan in early spring, and reached Prairie Ronde in March.  He staked off his claim on Gourd-neck Prairie, returned to the eastern part of the State, and wrote his sons Thomas and James to come immediately to Michigan, for he had found the Eldorado.  They came, arriving some time in May.  In the mean time, Joseph Frakes and father came up from Young’s Prairie, took possession of his claim and held it.  He then located on the southwest side of Prairie Ronde, now section 36, T. 4 S., R. 12 W.  They built a house and commenced fencing and plowing.  The land not being in market, he could not secure it by purchase, and was obliged to remain on it in order to retain it.  In 1831 he purchased four hundred acres in a body, in Prairie Ronde and Schoolcraft townships.

  In 1830 he was appointed postmaster of Prairie Ronde, and also had the contract for carrying the mail from White Pigeon to Prairie Ronde.

  The same winter he built a saw-mill on Rocky River, on section 26, Prairie Ronde, the first saw-mill in Kalamazoo County.  He sold his mill to Wheeler & Crosby in 1832.  He was supervisor and highway commissioner, and with Christopher Blair and Delamore Duncan laid out the first road from Prairie Ronde to Bronson (now Kalamazoo), and assessed the first tax in the county.

  In 1832, the year of the Black Hawk war, when Col. Fellows was seventy years old, he carried for Lyman I. Daniels, who was acting colonel, and was also land-agent for parties in Detroit, important papers and some money to Detroit.  He rode a horse, carrying the papers and money in saddle-bags, and reached Detroit in three days, a distance of one hundred and sixty-five miles, and after transacting his business made the return trip in three days.  Lyman I. Daniels said he was the only man he could find with sufficient courage to undertake such a perilous journey.  He was brought up a strict Presbyterian, was generous, benevolent, ambitious, courageous, and of a strong temperament.

 He died on the 18th of August, 1833, in the seventy-first year of his age.”

Other References

As was mentioned above, he served in two distinct time periods during the Revolutionary War. He was first in battle as part of the Saratoga Campaign in October 1777 at Bemis Heights and Saratoga. It is likely that he wasn’t actually there for the Freeman’s Farm battle which was stated above, if the date is correctly listed.

The document below is related to his second enlistment and is from p. 570 of the Record of Service of CT men in the War of the Revolution. The list begins on page 569 as Capt. Matthew Smith’s Company. This is also documented in the DAR Ancestor record #A038829.

In Fold3.com, I found an 83 page file related to Abiel Fellow Jr’s pension to his wife Dorcas primarily for his Revolutionary War service but also mention of his service in 1812, in which he was a Colonel.

What is not included above since it was written prior to 1905, is that a DAR Chapter was begun in Three Rivers, St. Joseph County, Michigan and named the Abiel Fellows DAR Chapter in honor of the coordinating regent Lucy Fellows Andrews.

The most robust and well documented biography of Abiel Fellows Jr was found in the Wikitree.com community of Abiel Fellow Jr.

The Amazing Power of Newspapers: Part 3

My grandpa, Walter Elliot Tubbs,
and me c. 1983

Last week, I participated in the Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County’s monthly meeting which hosted a speaker from the Library of Michigan. As part of his overview of their services he reminded me that they maintain a newsbank of newspapers, which includes The Ann Arbor News back to 1923. I thought that I would do a search for mentions of my grandfather, Walter Elliot Tubbs, who was born in 1911 in Washtenaw County and lived in Ann Arbor into the 1940s.

His Name in Youth

As it turned out, I spent hours combing through the mentions of my grandfather in a myriad of activities in his teenage and early 20’s. What was interesting is that in most of these newspaper mentions he was named as Elliot Tubbs. When I was growing up, most people called him Tubby, a nickname he picked up while in the Army, except for my second cousins who always called him Uncle Elliot. I thought it was odd because I knew his first name was Walter. Then it dawned on me, his father was Charles Walter Tubbs, but he went by C. Walter or Walter. Since it might be confusing to have two Walter’s in the house, my grandfather must have been called Elliot as a child and my Aunt Helen, his older sister, would have surely had her children call my grandfather by his childhood name. The newspaper articles later shifted to using Walter Elliot in the 1940s, but the name must have stuck for my cousins!

Ann Arbor High School Yearbook, c. 1931

The Ann Arbor Times News
March 20, 1926

The Ann Arbor News
October 13, 1925

The Ann Arbor Times News
November 18, 1925

Activities of his Youth

I was a competitive swimmer in my youth and my grandfather was always so proud of me and on rare occasions he would mention he was also a swimmer and would share how much strokes, starts, and turns had changed and even the length of the pool (he swam in a 20 yd pool) since he was a kid. I found numerous articles during his teenage years participating in the Ann Arbor YMCA and Ann Arbor High School swim team. For example, on October 13th, he placed 5th in the “Athletics” division at the YMCA Carnival and 4th in the “Swimming” and 3rd in the “All-round” category. Most times he was a swimmer but I did find one time that he made it to the semi-finals for “Fancsy Diving”! And was on the Ann Arbor YMCA Team (Junior division) planning to defend their state title and he was a “low board diver”. 

Ann Arbor High School Yearbook
c. 1930

The YMCA also sponsored treasure hunts and at the first treasure hunt in the summer of 1925, Elliot Tubbs won the event. And he even played in ping pong tournaments!

Ann Arbor High School
c. 1929

My grandfather also prided himself on his singing voice, although I don’t ever remember hearing his tenor singing voice, he was a member of the Glee Club at Jones Junior High and Ann Arbor High School.

The Ann Arbor Times News
Aug 15, 1924

He was also a Boy Scout in Ann Arbor’s Troop 1 and went to Camp Medawewin on Patterson Lake in Pinckney, Michigan and learned about water safety, lifesaving, and techniques for swimming and diving.

Surprising Find

The most surprising find was in 1933, when Elliot Tubbs was identified as an Old Age Pension Bureau census enumerator. This took me down a giant rabbit hole where I learned an interesting lesson in Michigan History!!

The Ann Arbor Daily News
November 6, 1933

Most people know that Social Security as a federal program began in August 1935. What I didn’t know until reading this article was that Michigan began a program that could be considered a precursor to social security! Michigan was struggling with one of the highest unemployment rates (36% vs. 24% nationally) and had many poor houses filled with elderly persons. It became a very controversial law (I found a New York Times article from December 1933), but in 1933, Michigan was one of 10 states who began a program to support indigent persons over the age of 70. They levied a tax of $2 per person (over the age of 21) per year to fund the program. In order to know who to levy this tax against, census takers were hired to scour townships. My grandfather was apparently named the census taker for Scio Township in Washtenaw County, a township he would have been familiar with because his parents were both born there and he was too!

I have reached out to the Michigan Archives and the Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, but haven’t tracked down the census papers he took…yet!

I am again reminded of the power of newspapers and how they can bring a person's life alive! There was so much more to my grandfather than his military career and it's nice to learn a little more about him as a young man.

************

Extra Reading about the Old Age Pension in Michigan

-Old age assistance in Michigan, 1933-1937. State welfare department. Bureau of old age assistance

America250-Revolutionary War Patriots --#1--Capt. Nathan Stoddard

Capt. Nathan Stoddard is my 5th great-grandfather and my DAR Patriot (the Revolutionary War soldier through whose lineage I am a member). Nathan was born 8th August 1742 to Gideon and Olive Stoddard. He lived in Woodbury, Connecticut, married Eunice Sanford around 1767 and had seven children.

Certificate for Pension for
Captain Nathan Stoddard

The following is an excerpt about Capt. Nathan Stoddard from the book, “Ancestors of Rodman Stoddard, of Woodbury, CT and Detroit, MI” written in 1893.

My copy of Ancestors of Rodman Stoddard
that includes the birth of my
great grandmother, Florence Mary Stoddard

“In 1775 the air was full of rumours of war, the martial spirit of his father was inherited by the son, and as if preparing for the coming fray, Nathan, who had undoubtedly served ere now in the ranks, was in April of this year commissioned Ensign of the first Company or trainband of Woodbury which was known as the 13th Regiment of the Colony.

What service, if any, he saw in this capacity does not appear, but hostilities soon afterwards breaking out, a few months later he entered the army as a private in the 4th Regiment which was ordered by General Washington to join the troops opposed to the British near Lake Champlain and to garrison Fort Ticonderoga. In a skirmish with the enemy he was taken prisoner and carried to Quebec. Before he was ordered to jail he was concealed through the kindness of a French landlady, and was fed by her for a considerable time, and aided to escape, which it is said he did by swimming the St. Lawrence.

He finally returned to Woodbury and there and in the adjacent towns raised another Company of which he became Captain and was in all of the engagements near Danbury, Conn. and Horse Neck, NY in April and May 1777.

Revolutionary War Rolls, compiled 1894 - 1913,
documenting the period 1775 - 1783
Record Group 93, page 137

After the success of the northern Army under Gates and the surrender of Burgoyne in October, Captain Stoddard prepared to join the army of Washington on the Delaware. Early in November Captain Nathan Stoddard and Lieutenant John Strong who had been sent to Woodbury on Military service, sent forward blankets and military stores to the amount of (pound sign) 46. 13 s. 5d. And then joined their command, which was stationed opposite Fort Mifflin on Mud Island. Here they were opposed to Lord Howe who proposed to force the passage of the Delaware which was commanded by Fort Mercer at Red Bank on the Jersey side, and Fort Mifflin on Mud Island. By the 10th they had completed their batteries within 500 years of the American fort and began an incessant fire from heavy artillery.

Map of the Delaware River, Fort Mifflin,
Philadelphia and vicinity, 1777

Lieut. Colonel Samuel Smith of Maryland, who was in command, was wounded the next day and went to the mainland, and on the 13th the brave garrison of 286 men and 20 artillerists was confided to Major Simeon Thayer of Rhode Island, who now volunteered to take the desperate command. On the 15th surrounded by 6 large British ships of war and a large Indiaman armed with 24 pounders with the land batteries, now five in number, playing from thirty pieces at short distances, the ramparts and block-house on Mud Island were honeycombed and their cannon silenced. In this desperate attack Captain Stoddard was instantly killed by a cannon shot which severed his head from his body as he was sighting a piece to fire on the enemy. In the evening the garrison evacuated, and when the British entered the fort they found nearly every cannon stained with blood.

A 1777 British Map of Fort Mifflin

  

Captain Stoddard left one son, Nathan Ashbel, aged 9 years and six young daughters. He died intestate and his death is recorded in the Register of Woodbury. He was aged 35 years.

Connecticut Casualties

From the Record of Service of Connecticut Men published by authority of the General Assembly, under direction of the Adjutant General. Hartford, 1889”

Other Accounts

There are other accounts that have been published elsewhere. The earliest was written in 1830 by an old man who was a young private in 1777, Private Joseph Plumb Martin. The book was called, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin

In it, he provides a very descriptive account of the battle at Fort Mifflin and on page 69, is an account of a man killed which has been proffered (although unnamed in the memoir) to be Capt. Nathan Stoddard.

Another account of the battle was written by Major Amos Stoddard in an 1812 account prior to his death named The Autobiography Manuscript of Major Amos Stoddard. Both accounts were used to provide the memorial of Capt. Nathan Stoddard's Find-a-grave Memorial.

An account published in the 1896 Yearbook of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution on p. 120 describes Nathan Stoddard's military service drawn on the Connecticut Men in the Revolution and Heitman's Historical Register.

A more recent wonderful writing in 2017 by blogger Curtis Meckemson provides contemporary photos of Fort Mifflin and an account which draws on many of these resource. And in 2010 a blog by Daniel Segelquist. And finally, my mother's 2nd cousin, Peter Stoddard (1957-2024) had devoted much of his life to investigating the Stoddard family line and contributed a speech he had written as part of his SAR induction in 2016, which can be found in the comments of both of the blogs above.

This is the first of over 20 Revolutionary War Veterans I plan to highlight this year, who were ancestors of either me or my husband.

Bonus benefits of my business!

 There is so much to love about my new business (Family History Sleuth) helping people to reconnect with their past and their ancestors. If anyone has ever watched Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr you’ll understand how much can be learned and shared about someone’s ancestors and the feeling of groundedness most feel after reviewing their Book of Life. It’s an honor and so rewarding to be a part of other people’s family history mysteries.

The added bonus for me is that most of my clients are investigating people in places where either my husband or my families passed through at some point and sometimes while searching for a client I come across something for me!  This blog is about a recent added bonus about my family, that was made possible by a client’s search.

A find for my client

I learned that one of my client’s great-grandmothers was a “teacher” in 1880 as a 16 year old in Hebron, Potter County, Pennsylvania, presumably a one-room school house. In the 1880 census there were approximately 830 people living in this rural hilly northern Pennsylvania township. I found a map that identified all of the one-room school houses thinking that I might be able to locate the one (based on the census where she lived) that she worked at. 

At the same time, I contacted the Potter County Historical Society through their FaceBook page chat. I asked them for information about Hebron and possible listings of one room school house teachers. They responded very quickly, they looked, and responded that they didn’t have any records for teachers at that time. While I was in the chat, I realized that I had sent an acknowledged but unanswered message in 2021 about my own family, so I brought that to their attention and this is where it gets fun for me!

Sackman House

On 15 July 1856, my great-great-great-grandparents (Johann Sackmann and Christina Dunker) left Hamburg, Germany enroute to New York aboard the ship named John Herman. They joined up with a new settlement called Germania in Potter County, Pennsylvania founded by Dr. Charles Meine in 1855. I haven’t determined yet if they left Germany specifically to join them or learned about it and made their way sometime before 1860. According to the 1860 and 1870 census, they were living in Germania within the township of Abbott. They had three young children prior to leaving Germany (Louise, Carl, and Pauline) and two children in Germania (Emma–my great-great-grandmother and Henry). There may have been another child who died as a baby around 1860.

I have performed substantial research on the 3 sisters (Louise, Pauline, Emma), who I affectionately call the Sackmann Sisters. I have connected with 4th cousins who descend from each of the other 2 sisters. One of these 4th cousins, Amanda Grethe, has found among her family’s collection some incredible photos of the family. One of them is this amazing photo of the house identified as “The Old Sackmann House Germania, PA”. And this is what I was asking about to the Potter County Historical Society.

1869 Map of Potter County with Ownership was labeled “Mrs. J. H. Sackman”

Land Warrant Book,
Source: Potter Co.
Historical
Society

Over the course of a week, this time, the researchers at the historical society provided me with a copy of an 1869 map identifying where their farm would have been, which is where this house was located, AND the original deed with Johann H. Sackmann and his older brother’s name Jacob!! I’m hypothesizing that Jacob, who had been in the US since the mid 1830s and very successful in Kings County, New York, probably purchased the land for his younger brother in 1858. The land was advertised as farming land, but I have been there and this land would have been incredibly difficult to farm because of the rocks, hills, and trees! It’s absolutely beautiful, but definitely not what I would call prime farm land!

Section 15 No 5612
August 1, 1858

About 1887, Christina Dunker is sitting holding her
granddaughter, my great-grandmother,
Louise Hillmann. My great-great-grandfather,
John Hillmann & Emma Sackmann Hillmann
are to the left. This photo is thanks to cousin Marion,
who descends from the boy in the photo, Herman Hillmann.

I haven’t found the death records for Johann Sackman but he was deceased by the 1870 census and by 1880 most of the rest of the family was in Manhattan. My great-great-grandmother Emma Sackman married Johannes Willheim Hillmann (the man in front of the house photo) in 1882 and lived in Brooklyn owning a bar/liquor dealership. Emma Sackman Hillmann lived to be 88 years old, and was very much beloved by my grandmother and my father, who called her “Granny”. She lived with my father’s family for several years so my dad has some cherished memories of his great-grandmother. 

I am delighted to now know, thanks to my client, the exact location of the original farm and farm house!

A Well Traveled Postcard

 

Every summer I get together with college friends and spend several days telling stories while we scrapbook times in our lives. 

This summer, I was working on 1988-1989 when my husband (then boyfriend) and I studied abroad in Aberdeen, Scotland our junior year of college. While going through all of the negatives and scrapbooking paraphernalia I came across a postcard written in German to an address in Detroit, MI. When I saw it, I thought maybe it was a postcard I picked up while in Germany on our travels thinking that it was pretty fun that it was to someone in Detroit, MI?

         I thought I would investigate the addressee and figure out this person’s life. Here’s the postcard:

And here’s the writing and address on the back:

Using this address, and recognizing that this was written in 1929, I found Benno (a 32 year old single man) and his mother, Betty (a 71 year old widower) renting the house at 4918 McClellan Ave in the 1930 census.

I was curious about his life and searched out other censuses, finding him in the 1940 census and then again in the 1950 census. But now he has a wife and 3 children and lives at 17173 Centralia in Redford.

17173 Centralia in 1991

This is when my mind was blown! 

In 1991, my husband and I purchased our first house….17173 Centralia! Yes, clearly, we must have found this in the house and somehow got amongst my Scotland travel things, which I haven’t looked at in over 30 years. (I might add that since 1991 we have moved into 4 different houses, from Redford to Saratoga, Wyoming to Kalamazoo, Michigan to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania to Riverside, Pennsylvania!)

Neither my husband nor I recognized the postcard, but my husband is a very handy man and renovated the upstairs of our cute bungalow at 17173 and the only thing we can think of is that he found it in his deconstruction and we’ve held onto it since then?!

Reconnecting the Post card

In 1991, I would have never had the resources to figure out how to reconnect this post card with the owners, but with the tools today it was easy!

From the 1950 census I had 3 childrens’ names and through obituaries and other on-line tools, I found a relatively current address for one of the daughters, who is now 78 years old. She married and lived in Canton, Michigan. Although I found a street address for her, I didn’t just want to send the original postcard without knowing that she was still alive and living at that address.

Daughter's High School Photo

I sent a letter through US Mail to the address on Monday, July 21st explaining who I was and how I came to have this postcard I believed was her fathers, including a photocopy of the front and back. I included my email address and phone number so that if she was interested, I could send them to her.

On Saturday, July 26th, I received the following email response:

“Thank you for sending the information about the postcard. Yes it was sent to my father many years ago. He was born in Germany and came to the U.S. as a teenager so he left many friends and family there. They kept in touch thru the years. I will try to translate the message. 

I would love very much to see the pictures of your remodeling of the upstairs of the house. My sister and I slept up there for our childhood and teen years until we got married in the sixties. Thank you again. It brought back so many memories.”

So, there you go, 34 years after finding a postcard which began its journey in Bremen, Germany 96 years ago to a 31 year old man in Detroit and traveled to Redford to Wyoming back to Michigan to Pennsylvania and back to Michigan, it is now reconnected with the daughter of the recipient!