America250-Revolutionary War Patriots --#3--Corporal Eleazer Spofford (Spafford)

Source: Find-a-grave, Eleazer Spofford

 Jim’s 5th great-grandfather on his mother’s side, known as Corporal Eleazer Spafford/Spofford of Rowley, Massachusetts when serving as a Patriot in the Revolutionary War. Around 1778,  Eleazer Spofford and his wife Mary Flint and their first six children moved to Jaffrey, New Hampshire. He was a prominent business person and deacon of the First Congregational Church of Jaffrey which met in the town’s meeting house in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. He and Mary had 10 children in total, of which the 6th, Abner Spofford (1778-1859), is Jim’s ancestor who, with his wife Betsey Litch, had 8 children and were the first of this line to move to Tecumseh, Michigan. (I have written about this family in another blog “Sometimes you really luck out”, with great photos of Abner and Betsey’s daughter Harriet Spofford Hoag Webster (1816-1898). If you didn't follow that, Harriet is a granddaughter of Eleazer and Mary.

Revolutionary War Service

Eleazer Spofford appeared to provide his service to the Revolutionary War in two ways, the first was as a corporal in Colonel Daniel Spafford’s Massachusetts Militia under Captain Eliphalet Spafford and Colonel Samuel Gerrish. 

(Source: Fold3, US, Massachusetts, Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1801 https://www.fold3.com/publication/1430/us-massachusetts-soldiers-and-sailors-in-the-revolutionary-war-1775-1801 : accessed Mar 17, 2026), database and images, https://www.fold3.com/publication/1430/us-massachusetts-soldiers-and-sailors-in-the-revolutionary-war-1775-1801; p. 670 of Volume 14-page 13361 of digital source)

The second of his service was as a member of the Committee on Safety for the town of Jaffrey, New Hampshire in 1779. It appears to have been an annual post for several men elected to the committee that would have had a variety of functions, such as helping to run the town under wartime conditions, monitoring supplies, soldiers, and enforced loyalty and monitored dissent.

(Source: Archive.org, History of the town of Jaffrey, New Hampshire, from the date of the Masonian charter to the present time, 1749-1880: with a genealogical register of the Jaffrey families, and an appendix containing the proceedings of the centennial celebration in 1873, by Daniel B. Cutter (1881), Republican Press Association,  https://archive.org/details/historyoftownofj00cutt/page/134/mode/2up; page 135)

Summary of His Life

The following summary of his ancestry and life was found in the History of the Town of Jaffrey, New Hampshire (see link above) on p. 476:

A Fun Find

While I couldn't find any images of Eleazer or his wife, Mary Flint, I did find a photo of the actual shoes (!!) that Mary Flint wore at her wedding on 24 January 1765! When searching the internet looking for anything about Eleazer Flint, I found the following description and photo of her shoes:

These exact shoes are in the Historic Deerfield museum (Accession #2004.46) and the photo was taken by Penny Leveritt. There is a fun description about these shoes written in a blog "George Washington Orders London Shoes for Mrs. Washington..."

I think I need to take a trip to Deerfield, Massachussetts some day to see, in person, the wedding shoes Jim's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother wore at her wedding over 250 years ago, before her husband served as a Patriot!

Saturday Night Fun–Probate Record Reveals

Edward James Leach, c. 1890

Genea-Musings prompted Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with the prompt: “Today’s challenge is to Share something you learned from a probate file or will that you wouldn’t have otherwise known about.”

I don’t normally post twice in one day, but I was intrigued by this prompt and it is not something I’ve written about. 

One of my brick walls is Henry Edward Leach (1834-1892), my great-great-grandfather who when he died, left my great-grandfather, Edward James Leach (1883-1919) an orphan. He emigrated to the US in 1860’s from England and I knew nothing about any of his family, only a wife he met and married in Michigan in 1882 and his one son. Even though he died in 1892, I couldn’t locate a Death Record. I wrote about Henry early on in January 2023 (My First Brick Wall).

After writing that blog I came across an index to Michigan, US, Wills and Probate Records, 1784-1980, Houghton through Ancestry. It’s only an index, but it directs you to where it is held. I wrote to the State Archives who directed me to Michiganology and a Request form for Probate Court Research ($10). They said that it would be about 1-2 weeks before I received it. It took 19 days, but it was well worth the wait!

Probate Record

The Probate Record was 82 pages long! I have learned that probate records can vary wildly in what they contain, which depends on the familial circumstances and financial holdings. Henry was not a rich man and didn’t own the home they were living in, but he had a comfortable existence as a bookkeeper for a Copper Mine. The probate record included information about his death (location and date), his executor, friends, will, and lots of purchases made for young Eddie! His personal estate was estimated at $2,300 which in today’s dollars is about $79,000. All of the men that are mentioned are all men Henry knew through his membership in  I.O.O.F(International Order of Odd Fellows), which provides camaraderie but also Life Insurance.

Will

The will was a standard will handwritten by his friend and executor of the estate, Charles Smith just a day before he died. Looking at his signature, he must have had a stroke or something that affected his writing ability because this was clearly not his normal signature. We have confirmation that his son is E.J. (Edward James) and Charles Smith is his guardian. No information about his parents or other family.

Fun Expenses

The fun things for me were all of the expenses that little Eddie had in the first couple of years. Clearly nice clothes for a growing boy were important because there were several receipts for new suits, over coat, cap and socks from local clothier L H Richardson’s and a receipt for a suit for Henry from Detroit’s men’s clothier R. H. Traver. (The building does still exist and was renovated for offices.)

There were school supplies listed, link ink and pen tips, paper supplies like toilet paper, and even receipts for oranges and milk.

Unexpected finds

There were 3 unexpected finds: 

1) evidence of ownership of land in Minnesota! I looked it up in the BLO website and it appears that a George Sigel was the original purchaser in 1869. I haven’t figured out when Henry Edward might have bought it (yet) or if it was sold before Edward was of age?

2) purchase agreement for 2 grave markers for he and his wife. This is interesting, but unfortunately any evidence of their gravestones is gone. They were originally resting in what was called Pioneer Cemetery originally owned by the Quincy Mining Company. In the 1970s there were announcements asking relatives if they would like to move their loved ones. I’m guessing by that time, they had no knowledge of living descendants for Henry and Flora, so their headstones were removed and their bodies remain there with a small park between the Catholic Church and Lutheran Church. Some names were recorded, but Henry and Flora don’t appear on any of them. I actually knew this before learning about the purchase of their headstones, which actually made me a little sadder.

3) A receipt from Charles Smith to the County Clerk’s office for copies of his death certificate! So there was one at one time! I was so excited to find this, I had proof that his death was recorded and where. In 2023, armed with this receipt, I went in person to the County Clerk’s office. I had been through the on-line death records numerous times and never found him, but it must be there. There’s an amazingly wonderful clerk there who helped me with finding my grandmother’s birth record and she was anxious to help me. With this death record, I might actually find out his parents’ names!!

But alas, she said that she searched through the whole book and never found him recorded. It was so disappointing, especially because I know that at some point they did have it recorded somewhere.

I have gotten no further with finding his parents, but the Probate Records were still worth it!

 

Unexpected Treasures: A Win-Win!

 

Howell Family with George
(middle row 3rd from right)
and granddaughter Virginia Irene
(2nd from left)

A Win-Win Strategy

Years ago, I was introduced to the book “Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring A Win in A Chaotic World” (1990) by Dudley Lynch and Paul L. Kordis. It was the summertime and I remember reading it while lounging on a 1960s green sleeper couch at our cottage. It’s a great couch to sit on because there is a larger picture window overlooking the lake. (The couch, now very much “shabby chic” over 30 years later is still there.) I don’t remember who recommended the book to me, but at this time I had begun teaching high school and spent summers those first years doing paid  internships and professional development experiences. Maybe it was someone at the internship at Ford Motor learning about CAD-like computing to take back to the classroom?

Anyway, back to the book. 

The main premise of the book is that one can be successful with a Win-Win mentality. They use a metaphor of a dolphin to describe how a dolphin loves to win but doesn’t like to do it at the expense of others. Being creative and flexible and thinking outside the box for solutions that benefit everyone can be a successful strategy. For me, this book was a head nodding experience that resonated and has stuck with me for 30 years. I hadn’t consciously thought about this book in decades but when I reflect on my experience this summer, I can see its imprint on me in all aspects of my life, including family history.

I have always been service oriented, a member of Alphi Phi Omega (National Service Fraternity) in college and now an active Rotarian (our motto is “Service above Self”), it gives me joy to serve others. This summer, I decided to join the Tecumseh Historical Society. After my second visit to the Historical Museum where I found some amazing photos of my husband’s ancestors and helped to identify some unidentified photos (See Serendipity or Determination?), an officer in the club  invited me down to the basement where the archives are located and suggested that I might find some great finds but it was a restricted area and I could only go accompanied by others. At the same time, an email from the archivist was soliciting volunteers. I’m in! They welcomed me and were happy to invite me to help organize the archives.

By the time this all happened, it was mid-August, but for the last month I have spent one afternoon a week on a project that was assigned to me. I am organizing, cataloging and preserving the files in two drawers of a filing cabinet. I have learned a lot about Tecumseh and also about archival preservation and come across some very unexpected treasures!

Some Tecumseh History 

One of the local heroes is Musgrove Evans, a man born in 1785 in Pennsylvania with a thirst to explore west. He was a surveyor who came to Lenawee County and platted out the town of Tecumseh in 1824. He helped to settle the town but went further west to Texas after his wife died in 1832.

His surveying equipment is proudly on display at the Tecumseh Historical Museum.

Interestingly, this summer I came across a biography (more likely an autobiography) on p. 238 of Knapp & Bonner’s 1903 book Illustrated History and Biographical Account of Lenawee County, MI of Jim’s great-great grandfather George Howell in which states he not only learned how to use surveying equipment but was the possessor of Musgrove Evans’ instruments!

Imagine my surprise! 

Imagine my surprise!

When my husband and daughter saw the instruments and I showed them the text, we all agreed that maybe Musgrove Evans had many such instruments and maybe not this exact one. Note that George was not born until 4 years after  Musgrove Evans left Tecumseh.

Well, further research indicated that George’s father became a surveyor for other communities in the area, so it is not surprising that young George might have been taught by his father and his father was the original recipient of Evans’ compass and chain.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was doing my due diligence at the archives, working on the “E” file and found an envelope labeled “Musgrove Evans Surveying Equipment”. In it were a variety of handwritten titles and descriptions that looked like they had been used to help describe a display at some point. And among them was this placard mounted on some display board:

The last line is what stood out at me “It is now the property of Geo. Howell”. I recognized the handwriting because I had seen it this summer at the Bentley Library on an alumni response card and also a registry at medical school, it is Dr. George Howell, my husband’s great-great grandfather’s handwriting.

 

According to the archivist, the items found in the envelope were put in the envelope by her when she was cleaning out drawers of an old desk upstairs in the museum. My guess is that at one time, this placard was displayed with the other ones in the envelope. I am still investigating how the compass and chain made it back to the museum but for now I’m convinced that he did in fact own a compass and chain of Musgrove Evans!

This is not the only treasure that I’ve found while working. Last week, I had completed a task but still had a little time before my “shift” was over, so (with permission) I pulled out the Macon box and started reading through its contents. And came across a most wonderful photo of the 1910/1911 one-room school house photo in Macon. All of the people were identified on the back, so I quickly identified “Irene Conklin” and flipping it over I saw this sweet 13 year old girl on the left in the 4th row peeking around another girl that could easily be identified as Jim’s grandmother (and granddaughter of George Howell) as a teenager!

And the program from her Macon graduation exercises before she headed to Tecumseh for High School.

I feel good that I am helping in the archives and delighted that I am finding a few gems along the way. As I live the "Strategy of the dolphin" this is a total Win-Win and I can’t wait until I go back next summer to volunteer in the archives! 

Serendipity or Determination? The Cascading Photos of George

Dr. George Howell, Class of 1863
Enhanced by myHeritage

 My whole life “things” have worked out for me. I am a hard worker, goal oriented, and determined, but I sometimes wonder if I don’t live under a rainbow of serendipity. Instead of having a raincloud follow me, I tend to arrive when the rainbow appears and find a proverbial pot of gold! And it’s never been so true in my family history journey than the past two weeks!

It’s no secret that I love old photos, especially ones of our ancestors. I feel so fortunate to have as many as we do and have at least 1 photo of both Jim and my grandparents (collectively all 8), great-grandparents (collectively all 16), and great-great-grandparents (collectively 21 of possible 32). Earlier this summer I shared that I found a number of “new to me” photos about Jim’s ancestors I had photos of but a different point in their lives (See Sometimes you really luck out!), today this Blog is about Dr. George Howell (1836-1909) and a cascading number of photos I have seen and acquired in the past three weeks. Was it serendipity or determination?

Original Photo

Previously, my only photo of George

Prior to this summer, I had one version of a photo of Dr. George Howell, a portrait from the Lenawee County Biography (see Our Genealogy Angels). Over the last 3 weeks, I have acquired 5 more portrait photos from very different points of his life and numerous family group shots, which might not have happened if the order of events were different.

The first domino

After learning that George was instrumental in the Lenawee County Court House (see Connections at the Court House) and that he earned his MD from U of Michigan, I decided to go to the Bentley Library Archives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’ve been there before for my own family (see Always Check the Original), but there is so much more to their holdings. It was fun to find not only his original handwritten Thesis on Cholera Infantum manuscript, but also a Class of 1863 Photograph.

(These are over 160 years old!!) There were two versions of the photographs, one where his portrait was labeled and a second where he wasn’t identified. If the unlabeled version had been the only one to survive, I’m not sure I would have figured out which was George or even if he was present! (Call Number: 87253 Bimu C 46 2; Oversize Folder 3) (It is interesting to note that class photos like these were few and far between, in fact there is NOT a class photo for his brother who graduated the year before.)

Maybe you can see the resemblance, but I don’t think that I would have ever identified young George! I now had 2 portraits, young and old.

The Cascade

The next day I decided to go to the Lenawee County Museum, looking for images and records for my other project on Sand Lake. I didn’t find a whole lot, so I turned my attention to George and other ancestors from Lenawee county. There was a file on George Howell and in it was a fading pixelated copy of a family portrait scene and a distinguished gray George portrait. I definitely would have identified this George, but had never seen these photos before.

Two days after the Bentley and the next day after the County Museum, I was at the Tecumseh Museum to buy some tickets for a Bicentennial celebration and had time to chat with some other members and relook through the binders. I’m not sure if I missed a binder or now that I had seen young George’s image I was sensitized to it, but I found an unidentified tintype that looked like George! 

Equipped with a photo on my phone of young George, I compared them and was in awe that here is an image of George probably a year later for his wedding in 1864. If I had not had the Medical School photo, there is no way I would have identified this one now. Fascinatingly, it was with 4 other tintypes that I didn’t recognize but hoped to identify (I have since figured it out, a blog for another day!). My count had increased to 4 portraits and a hard to recognize family shot.

A Relative’s Collection

Jim and I became acquainted with one of his second cousins and her husband in 2016. They had several plastic tubs of photos and albums they were willing to bring to us to see. Her grandparents remained in Tecumseh through the 1960’s and her mother became the owner of all of the family photos and her husband is the family historian. Jim’s second cousin has since passed away but her husband is still actively searching and sharing the collection. I knew that he shared photos on Ancestry.com and also to the Tecumseh Library. I thought maybe he was the source of some of the other photos at the museums, so I reached out to ask if he was and if I could see the originals for better copies. I sent him the “new to me” photos and asked if he had seen them.

The young George photos were new to him and although he had provided a few photos to the Tecumseh Library, he had not provided any to either of the museums. He did have the original of the family shot and asked if I wanted to come over to his house to see the collection the next week. Of course!!

Spending nearly 5 hours with Rich Renaud and his collection of his wife’s family portraits, I took over 150 photos of his collection (not all George!) and among them collected four more family group photos and originals of another, and one more portrait and a fun little business card.

The cherry on top

After I left Rich’s that afternoon, he realized that there was one more photo he wanted to show me but had forgotten. He sent me a picture and asked if I knew who it was? 

Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that it was George Howell, probably a high school or Hillsdale College photo. A beautiful ambrotype in a case taken about 1858.

If I had not seen the 1863 identified photo, I would have never known it.

Serendipity or Determination? Maybe a little bit of both!

References and Compliments:

Thank you to Rich Renaud, Bentley Library Archives, Tecumseh Public Library, Tecumseh Historical Museum, and Lenawee County Historical Museum for maintaining and sharing their collections.

Inspiration in Surprising Places

 

Bertha "Birdie" Elizabeth DeBoer
(Enhanced by MyHeritage)

Nearly a year ago, I wrote about my great-aunt, Helen (Tubbs) Judson, my genealogy angel providing so much insight and research on the Tubbs and Orcutt families. The Orcutt family, my great-grandmother Cora (Orcutt) Tubbs’ line is the one that takes me back to the Mayflower.

Today, I would like to share about a different type of genealogy angel who provides me (and hopefully you) with inspiration. This is Bertha “Birdie” Elizabeth (DeBoer) Breyfogle, my husband’s paternal grandmother. I never had the pleasure of meeting Birdie, she passed away our freshman year in college. All four of Birdie’s grandparents emigrated from the Netherlands to the United States in the 1850s & 1860’s and settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her mother Aafke (Eva) Van Dam born in 1871 was the 2nd oldest of 10 children and her father William DeBoer also born in 1871 was a twin (definitely not identical!) and the 4th/5th of 11 children. Family, the Dutch Reformed Church, the United States, and education were extremely important to them. Bertha was born in 1901 and the youngest of 4, with 3 older brothers. Her three brothers all served in World War 1 and ended up in careers in various government agencies. She was a woman ahead of her time and given opportunities that a lot of contemporary women were not offered. She was given the opportunity to attend Olivet College and transferred to the University of Michigan to finish her Bachelors and also Master’s degree.

William DeBoer & Eva Van Dam Family
c. 1911 (Enhanced by MyHeritage)

Women & College

Women might be inspired by her being among a small number of women earning a bachelor’s degree ’22 and also a master’s degree before 1925. Just imagine, when she graduated from high school and began college it was 1918 and women didn’t have the right to vote! 

I was curious, how unique was it that she was attending college in the late 1910s and 1920s? In investigating how many women were graduating from high school and college, I came across some very interesting and enlightening statistics. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in a table that collected the percentage of persons 25 to 29 years old with selected levels of educational attainment by race/ethnicity and sex (estimated from census data): 

• 

  Bertha DeBoer 
  University of MI Diplomas

  in 1920, 22% of White and 6.3% of Black people completed high school,

• Also in 1920, 4.5% of White and 1.2% of Black people earned at least a Bachelor’s degree. 

• For comparison, in 2013, 40.4% of White and 20.5% of Black people earned a bachelors or higher. 

What was striking to me was the ratio of men to women. I had always assumed that women were significantly underrepresented in college, like 5-10% of the people in college were women. It turns out that in 1920, 47% of the people in higher education were women! (We won't, however, talk about what they were welcomed to study!) So while it is true that a very small percentage of White women were in college in the 1920’s, it wasn’t that they were women, rather so few people, overall, were college-attending. After 1920, the number of college attendees began growing but the number of men outpaced women, so women's attendance did fall to 40% of the total college-attendees by 1930 and 30% in 1940 but unsurprisingly in 1944 it surged to 50% and the women have (for the most part) kept pace or exceeded the college attendance.

Birdie as a young woman
c. 1920s

 

Birdie’s Inspiration

Additionally, I am inspired by Birdie’s record keeping! As I peruse her scrapbooks of her time in college, I am in awe of the meticulously detailed notes that she kept, especially of photos. I am sure that I would have loved knowing Birdie and we would have gotten along famously well and might have even scrapbooked together! My scrapbooking friends always make fun of me for my need and desire to “journal” on the scrapbook pages. (For those not familiar with scrapbooking, journaling is the text that you put on a page to help conjure up memories from the event or highlight the importance for the viewer.) But Birdie is my hero and inspiration!

As I flip through pages of her sorority and musical events, I am getting a sense of some of the social things she engaged in and what college would have been like for her and other people at the time. Here’s an example. She became a member of the Sigma Beta Society at Olivet College (it still exists today at University of Olivet-yes, name changed this past year!), this is the same college that my great-grandparents, Florence Stoddard and Edward Leach, attended and met at in 1903 (yes, funny coincidence!). 

Birdie's Scrapbook Page 

Billboard Advertisement for the silent film (1920)

Sigma Beta’s held an “Annual Public”, which appears to be a night of performance. I’m  not sure if Birdie was the photographer (I’m guessing so), but she had two photos of the scene/performers along with the program. The performance was a stage adaptation of the book “Old Lady Number 31” (1909) by Louise Forsslund (Mary Louise Foster) and made into a Broadway Play in 1916-1917 and a silent film starring Emma Dunn released 20 April 1920. Birdie included on the back the names of all of the women in the photo. I’m not sure why, though, that she wrote at the top “Old man 33” at the top of the back of the photo. I was confused, was this a different play, a spoof on the one that they were actually doing? I compared the photo with the program and indeed all of the people seem to be the same as the program. Was this just an inside joke? I’m not sure that I will ever know, but what I do know is the names of every person in the photo and the parts they were playing! I can’t say the same about most of my photos. 

"Old Lady Number 31"
Sigma Beta, April 1919

What I am so inspired by is the way that on EVERY photo, she identifies (almost always!) every person in the photo! I recognize that they took much fewer photos back then, but she always included as much as she could remember and that can’t be said about the thousands of photos I see in flea markets.

We probably all have thousands (if not tens of thousands) of photos with few of them identified. I, for one, am trying to make it a habit to enter in a title or description and name (tag) the faces in my electronic files. Maybe not all of them, but the special ones you upload into MyHeritage or Ancestry or some other format and the ones that shouldn’t ever be deleted!

I hope Birdie inspires you, too, so that all of your great photos don’t end up in the trash by some relative who hasn't a clue of who is in the photos or at a flea market with no prospect of being picked up my someone like me looking to reconnect them with possible descendants!