My Mayflower Ancestors

The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, William Halsall, 1882.

Crossing the Pond

I’ve mentioned in previous posts several distant family connections to passengers aboard the Mayflower, the ship famous for one particular crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. It carried along with its crew a group consisting of religious Separatists, who disagreed with the Church of England, and English merchants with their families and servants. The Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620. In mid-November of that year it came within sight of Cape Cod in present-day Massachusetts.

Before venturing ashore, most of the male members of the group signed an agreement known as the Mayflower Compact, by which they would govern themselves in the colony they founded at the spot England’s King James I had named New Plymouth. The first winter was hard on the colonists. Death from disease and hardship claimed more than half of the one hundred and two passengers. In the spring of 1621 the survivors stepped onto Plymouth Rock. Shortly afterward the Mayflower, its crew diminished by disease, bade farewell to the colonists and returned to England.

The Plymouth Colony struggled for survival, but with the cooperation of the Wampanoags and other native Americans, they were able to celebrate their first anniversary in the New World. That celebration is still commemorated in the USA on the final Thursday of each November, the holiday known as Thanksgiving.

Mayflower by Marriage

While researching my genealogy I’ve discovered quite a few connections by marriage to Mayflower passengers. Here are those I’ve found.

Catharine Rathbun Huss (1818-1894).

Catharine Rathbun (1818-1894), five-times-great granddaughter of Mayflower passenger George Soule (1597-1680), married Christian Huss (1815-1864), my five-times-great uncle.

Samuel Rider (abt 1601-1679) and Anne Gamlett Rider (abt 1605-1695), my eleven-times-great grandparents, arrived at Plymouth Colony between 1636 and 1638 and settled there. A number of their descendants married descendants of Mayflower passengers, as follow:

Hannah Harlow (1720-1792), great-great granddaughter of Samuel and Anne Rider, married Ebenezer Sampson (1716-1808), a direct descendant of no less than four Mayflower passengers: Myles Standish (1584-1656), Priscilla Mullins (1602-1685), John Alden (1598-1687)—all three immortalized by Longfellow’s poem The Courtship of Miles Standish—and Henry Samson (1604-1684).

Hannah Rider, great-great granddaughter of Samuel and Anne Rider, married Josiah Bradford (1724-1777), great-grandson of William Bradford (1589-1657), Mayflower passenger and second governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

William Bradford’s seven-times-great granddaughter, Rena Ann Newcomb (1883-1938), married my great-great uncle Charles Thomas Shanower (1882-1952), not a Rider descendant.

Samuel and Anne Rider’s son Samuel Rider (abt 1632-1715), my 11-times-great-uncle, married Sarah Bartlett, granddaughter of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren.

Roy Robert Grant and Hilda Lucille Stafford Grant.

Other descendants of Richard Warren, sisters Hilda Lucille Stafford (1898-1973) and Helene Thelma Stafford (1902-1985), married Roy Robert Grant (1897-1988) and Charles Elwood Grant (1900-1945) respectively, first cousins to each other and second cousins twice removed of mine. These Grants were both seven-times-great grandsons of Samuel and Anne Rider. I discussed the Grants and Staffords in a previous blog post here.

Richard Warren’s five-times-great granddaughter Mary “Polly” Knowles (1806-1879) married Silas Rider (1803-1871), three-times-great grandson of Samuel and Anne Rider. The same Silas Rider, my third cousin six times removed, was also the four-times-great grandson of Mayflower passengers Stephen Hopkins (abt 1580-1644) and Elizabeth Fisher Hopkins (abt 1595-abt 1643).

Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins have other Rider connections by marriage. Their great-great granddaughter Desire Godfrey married Nathaniel Ryder (1705-?), Samuel and Anne Rider’s great-grandson. Stephen Hopkins’s great-great-great granddaughter Mehitable Snow (1731-1813) married Reuben Ryder (abt 1717-?), great-great grandson of Samuel and Anne Rider. And Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins’s great granddaughter Elizabeth Pierce (1737-?) married Gershom Rider, great grandson of Samuel and Anne Rider.

The just-mentioned Elizabeth Pierce was also the great-great granddaughter of Mayflower passenger Edward Doty (abt 1599-1655), a servant of Stephen Hopkins.

I also have non-Rider connections to Edward Doty. His great-great-great grandson Aaron Doty (1807-1843), married my five-times-great aunt Polly Grandy (abt 1805-1838).

Celia Hietanen Woodland as a schoolgirl.

Ellis Doty (1861-1895), Edward Doty’s six-times-great grandson, was the first husband of Alta Lucinda Flowers (1870-1929). After Ellis Doty died, Alta and her second husband had a son Homer Floyd Woodland (1898-1959). Homer married two great-great aunts of mine, Ida Justiina Salo (1894-1967) and Celia Hietanen (1902-1925). You can read about Homer and his wives in this previous blog post.

Homer Woodland is also reputed to be an eight-times-great grandson, through his mother’s mother, Maza Rowley Flowers (1835-1910), of Mayflower passengers Edward Fuller (1575-1621) and his wife, whose name is unknown.

There may well be other marriages that I’m not aware of between my blood relatives and Mayflower descendants.

Fuller and Sons

Over the years, I’ve wanted to find more than simple marriage connections to Mayflower passengers. I’ve been hoping to stumble across a direct Mayflower ancestor.

I may have done that. The Mayflower passengers I mentioned just above—Edward Fuller and his wife—seem likely to be my eleven-times-great grandparents. I'm not absolutely certain of that because there's a weak link the in the chain of descent.

The first few generations descending from Edward Fuller and his wife have been established by decades of research by others into Mayflower passenger genealogy. Edward Fuller and his wife were part of the Separatists who moved from England to Leiden in the Netherlands in order to practice their form of Christianity. After several years in Leiden, members of the Separatist community formed the plan to move to the New World where they wouldn’t have to worry about their children being absorbed into the Dutch community of the Netherlands. Edward Fuller with his wife and younger son Samuel (abt 1608-1683) decided to go along. Edward Fuller’s brother, also named Samuel Fuller (abt 1580-1633), joined them on the Mayflower as physician. Brothers Edward and Samuel Fuller both signed the Mayflower Compact. Edward Fuller’s elder son Matthew, stayed behind, probably in England, and arrived with his wife and family in the Plymouth Colony on a later ship.

Both Edward Fuller and his wife were among the many Mayflower passengers who died during the first winter in Massachusetts. Their son, Samuel Fuller, survived and lived with his uncle Samuel’s family in the Plymouth Colony.

Samuel, son of Edward Fuller, married Jane Lathrop (bef 1614-bef 1683). One of their children was John Fuller (abt 1655-1726), who married Mehitabel Rowley (1660/61-abt 1732), and lived in East Haddam, Middlesex County, Connecticut. Mehitabel was a granddaughter of Matthew Fuller, the elder son of Mayflower passengers Edward Fuller and his wife, and so a first cousin once removed to her husband John Fuller. Church records from East Haddam provide information that one of John and Mehitabel Fuller’s children was Shubael Fuller (abt 1684-1748), who married Hannah Crocker. One of Shubael and Hannah Fuller’s children was Shubael Fuller, Junior, (1721-abt 1800), who married as his second wife Sarah Chapman.

Uh-oh, Jethro

Up to this point the line of descent from Edward Fuller and his wife is firm, proven primarily by wills and church records. Beyond this, the evidence for further descent grows scanty. The book Genealogy of Some Descendants of Edward Fuller of the Mayflower by William Hyslop Fuller, published in 1908 (hereafter referred to as Descendants of Edward Fuller), claims that Shubael Fuller, Jr., had a son Jethro Fuller (1770-1821).

This Jethro Fuller was Shubael, Jr.’s second son named Jethro. The first Jethro is attested in church records from East Haddam, Connecticut. Descendants of Edward Fuller claims the first Jethro died young. The idea of naming a child the same name as a previously deceased sibling might seem dubious. But this naming custom was common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I’ve run across so many instances of it that I don’t find it unusual anymore. So there’s no reason there couldn’t have been a second Jethro Fuller, son of Shubael Fuller, Jr.

I’ve found apparent geographical links between Jethro and other Fullers who seem to be his family. The 1810 US Federal Census records a Jethro Fuller and household of eight others living in Lenox, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Descendants of Edward Fuller says that Jethro died in Lenox, Massachusetts. Lenox was also the dwelling place of Jonathan Fuller, clearly a son of Shubael Fuller, Jr., as attested in East Haddam, Connecticut, church records. Both Jethro and Jonathan were also from Dawes Grant, a tract of land in Hawley, Massachusetts, where Jethro married Siba Kelsey in 1795. Other sons of Shubael Fuller, Jr., linked by Descendants of Edward Fuller to Lenox and Savoy, Massachusetts, were Jedediah and another Shubael. Eliezer Fuller had property exchanges in Massachusetts with Jonathan Fuller and Shubael Fuller. The idea that these Fullers were all brothers of Jethro, as Descendants of Edward Fuller claims, is well within the realm of possibility.

Town records of Savoy, Massachusetts, give two sons of Jethro and Siba Fuller: Japheth, born December 29, 1790, and Lorin, born February 8, 1798. That’s where the more-or-less documented chain of descent ends for this line descended from Mayflower passengers Edward Fuller and his wife.

Jethro Fuller and Siba Kelsey Fuller's children listed in Genealogy of Some Descendants of Edward Fuller of the Mayflower by William Hyslop Fuller, 1908.

Loring vs. Lorin

Elma Louisa Conkey Grandy, June 1, 1930.

But can I connect that line to my known ancestors? Let's see.

My great-great-great grandmother was Elma Louisa Conkey Grandy (1835-1934), grandmother of Adella Cecil “Dell” Grandy McElroy Evans Hundhammer (1888-1974)—who I wrote about in this blog post—and mother of Millard Curtis Grandy (1867-1941).

Elma’s maternal grandfather was named Loring Fuller (1798-1863). Census records, other written sources, gravestones, and the fact they and many of their immediate family members lived in Chatham, Medina County, Ohio, support this.

What are the chances that Elma’s grandfather Loring Fuller and the Lorin Fuller reported to be the four-times-great grandson of Mayflower passengers Edward Fuller and his wife are one and the same? This is the weak link I mentioned above.

Let’s examine the evidence for these two Fullers.

Spelling of names:

One is spelled with a “g”—Loring. The other isn’t—Lorin. Yes, they’re different, but only slightly. In a time when many Americans were illiterate and the spellings of words hadn’t been standardized, I’m not sure that the difference in these Fuller first names is significant.

Place of birth:

In the 1850 and 1860 US Federal Censuses, my certain relative Loring Fuller, who lived in Chatham, Medina County, Ohio, was recorded to have been born in Massachusetts. An entry for Loring’s son-in-law George Melton in the 1889 book Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas lists Loring as being from Massachusetts. That information is in general agreement with information about Lorin Fuller, the son of Jethro Fuller, who was recorded to have been born in Savoy, Massachusetts. 

1860 US Federal Census listing for Loring Fuller and family in Chatham, Medina County, Ohio. Remember you can click on any image to see it larger.

Date of birth:

The gravestone of Elma’s grandfather Loring Fuller stands in the Chatham Township Cemetery in Chatham, Medina County, Ohio. Here’s a photo of that gravestone. It gives Loring's death date as March 17, 1863, and his age at death as sixty-five years, one month, and eight days. That would make Loring Fuller’s birth date February 9, 1798. That date doesn’t match the birth date of Lorin Fuller, son of Jethro Fuller, which is February 8, 1798. But notice that the difference between them is a single day.

Other possible evidence for Loring Fuller, grandfather of Elma:

The 1840 US Federal Census lists a Loren Fuller living in Sullivan, Lorain County, Ohio. “Loren” is another spelling, but is this individual the same as either Loring or Lorin? There’s no sure means to tell. This Loren is between forty and fifty years of age, and any Loring born in 1798 would be about forty-two. So that matches. There’s a white female between thirty and forty years of age. This agrees with Loring Fuller’s wife who was born in 1801 and would be about thirty-nine in this 1840 census. Her name is variously spelled Orpha, Orphila, and Orphilia. Her maiden name is unknown. However, the age ranges listed for the other people in this 1840 census mostly match the records I have of Loring and Orphila Fuller’s children, but not exactly. There are also discrepancies in the number of them and their genders.

Jonas Chilson Conkey and Mary Loretta Fuller Conkey.

The 1830 US Federal Census lists a Loring Fuller living in Nichols, Tioga County, New York. Here the children exactly match the number, genders, and age ranges in my records for Loring and Orphila Fuller’s children. Also, Loring and Orphila’s first three children, including my four-times great grandmother Mary Loretta Fuller Conkey (1824-1877), were all born in the state of New York, where this Loring Fuller and his household were living. But this 1830 census lists both the adult male and adult female in the household as being between forty and fifty years of age. This doesn’t match with my relative Loring, who’d have been about thirty-two, nor with his wife Orphila, who’d have been about twenty-nine.

These two censuses, 1830 and 1840, might be the right Loring if the census-taker recorded inaccuracies. The censuses might record the necessary path of Loring and his family from Massachusetts through New York to Ohio. But they might not.

Too Many Lorings

There was another Loring Fuller, a son of Zephaniah Fuller, who was born in Kingston, Massachusetts, in 1789. He was a descendant of Samuel Fuller, the Mayflower physician brother of Edward Fuller, and a distant cousin to Lorin Fuller, son of Jethro. For a while I suspected that my five-times-great grandfather Loring Fuller might be the same as this Loring Fuller of Kingston. But I’ve come to discount that possibility because the birth dates of the two don’t match at all. There are still sites on the internet that conflate them, however.

But I don't want to conflate my Loring with Lorin, Jethro's son, if they were not the same person. If they weren't, are there any traces of Lorin, Jethro's son, that would disprove it? Other Loring Fullers, who were alive at about the right time, include:

A Loring Fuller was born 1800 in New York, as recorded in American Genealogical-Biographical Index, volume 59, page 349; and a Loren Fuller was born 1800 in New York, as recorded in American Genealogical-Biographical Index, volume 59, page 349. I suspect these two are the same person. He's possibly identical with Lorin Fuller, son of Jethro Fuller, although there’s a discrepancy between this Loring/Loren Fuller’s New York place of birth and Lorin Fuller’s evident birth in Massachusetts. And he's also possibly identical with Loring Fuller, grandfather of Elma, except for the same birth place discrepancy. The birth year is slightly off, too.

A Loring Fuller and wife Betsey had son Philo S. Fuller in 1827. Philo Fuller died in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1876, so it’s quite possible that his father Loring was the son of Jethro Fuller born in 1798 in Massachusetts.

A Loring Fuller and wife Laura had daughter Caroline A., born in Berkshire, Massachusetts, about 1827. It’s possible that this Loring was the son of Jethro Fuller, especially since Savoy, Massachusetts, where Jethro’s son Lorin was born is in Berkshire County, the same county where this daughter Caroline died.

I have no record that my five-times-great grandfather Loring Fuller had any child named either Philo or Caroline. There are no records that he was married to either a Betsey or a Laura. So if either of these two previous Lorings is identical with Lorin, son of Jethro, then the chain of descent doesn't connect. But I've found nothing to suggest that either of these other Lorings was, in fact, a son of Jethro Fuller. So this evidence is inconclusive.

There are many other Loring/Lorin/Loren Fullers recorded at various times and places in North America, but they all have birth years so distant from 1798 that I have discounted them from consideration.

Conclusive or Not?

So after sifting the available evidence, what is the chance that my five-times-great grandfather was the son of Jethro Fuller? They had a similar name. They had the same general birthplace. They had a similar birth date. In the end, it's that birth date, with a discrepancy of a single day, that I believe means they were almost certain to have been the same person.

A cousin of mine who has done years of research on this family line doesn’t accept that our ancestor Loring Fuller is the same as Lorin, son of Jethro Fuller, because there is no proof. I agree there isn’t proof. But the evidence weighs so heavily in favor of them being the same person that I accept the idea as true.

Of course, there’s a bit of wishful thinking in my acceptance—because if it’s true, then I’m a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers Edward Fuller, his unnamed wife, and their son Samuel.

That means I’m also related by blood to Edward’s brother Samuel Fuller, the Mayflower physician. That opens up a whole new slew of marriage connections to other Mayflower passengers, including Francis Eaton and his wife Sarah, their son Samuel Eaton, John Billington (the first murderer in the Plymouth Colony) and his wife Elinor, their son Francis Billington, and John Howland (who fell off the Mayflower in a storm and was rescued).

It also means I’m related by blood on my father’s side to Homer Floyd Woodland, who married two of my great aunts on my mother’s side.

So I conclude that I'm related by blood to four Mayflower passengers and have connections by marriage to fifteen more. I’ll take it.

Idealized painting of the first Thanksgiving by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.

A Rider from Revolution to Rest

Deacon Benjamin Rider and Sally Pratt Rider, about 1852.

My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Rider (1761-1854), was born in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on December 1, 1761, the second of at least six children. His father, also named Benjamin Rider (1725-1811), was at sea much of the time, so to ease the burden on his mother, Achsah Crosbe Rider (abt 1737-1780), young Benjamin was placed with another family to bring up.

Benjamin grew to dislike the way his foster family treated him. So when he was about fourteen, he ran away. He joined the Massachusetts Colonial Navy, which had recently been founded by the Massachusetts legislature on December 29, 1775, in response to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The legislature authorized the construction of ten ships. One of these, the sloop Freedom set sail in September 1776. The Freedom was later converted to a brigantine under the command of Captain John Clouston. Benjamin Rider served on board as a Boy, then as a Seaman, from August 29, 1777.

After Benjamin had been on the ship for sixteen days, the British Navy captured the Freedom in mid-September 1777. Benjamin was among the crew taken to the prison ships in Wallabout Bay, Long Island. He seems not to have been released from captivity until 1780 or 1781.

On June 13, 1781, at nineteen years old, Benjamin enlisted as a private in the Continental Army and served with the 1^st Massachusetts regiment under Colonel Joseph Vose. Benjamin served for over two years before the Revolution ended. 

Family tradition records a charming story. Near the end of the war the army roll call was being read. An older captain of the 4^th Plymouth Company approached Benjamin. The captain introduced himself as Benjamin’s father. He had heard Benjamin’s name during roll call and sought him out. It was the first reunion of father and son in many years.

With the war over, Benjamin’s regiment was disbanded at West Point, New York, on November 3, 1783. He was twenty-six years old when he married twenty-three year old Sarah “Sally” Pratt (1764-1860) on April 10, 1788, in Massachusetts. Sally was the daughter of Rufus Pratt (1738-1777), who had fought in the Revolutionary War and died from wounds sustained at the Battle of Bennington.

Benjamin's daughter Hannah Rider Gorman, circa 1870s.

Benjamin and Sally settled in Greenwich, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, where their eldest child, Crosby Rider (1789-1845), was born on March 19, 1789. Eight more children followed—Benjamin (1791-1878), my great-great-great-great-grandmother Polly Rider Marshall (1793-1870), Rufus (1795-1870), Nancy (1797-1817), Isaiah (1799-1886), Samuel (1801-unk), Hannah Rider Gorman (1804-1879), and Lucy (1809-1892).

In 1816 Benjamin and his eldest son Crosby became pioneers. They set out westward and ended up in Chardon, a town in Geauga County in northeastern Ohio. Benjamin bought an 800-acre tract of land for $4 per acre. There he and Crosby cleared timber, built a log house, and planted wheat. Benjamin returned to Massachusetts to get the rest of the family. In June 1817 they all arrived in Chardon to take up permanent residence.

Gravestone of Deacon Benjamin Rider.

As a devout leader in the church, Benjamin became known as “Deacon” Rider. In his later years, he and his wife Sally moved to nearby Painesville, Lake County, Ohio, and into the home of their son Reverend Isaiah Rider, the founding minister of the Baptist church in Chardon.

Benjamin died at his son Isaiah’s home on March 20, 1854, at the age of ninety-one. He was buried in Chardon’s Rider Cemetery on land that was part of his original tract. His gravestone can still be seen in that small cemetery on North Street, not far from Chardon’s town square. His wife, Sally, who died in 1860, lies beside him where they are surrounded by the graves of many of their children and grandchildren.

My Famous Relatives: Jaakko Ilkka

The 1978 premiere of the opera Jaakko Ilkka by Jorma Panula, with Tuomo Häkkilä, center, in the title role

Most people in the USA won’t recognize the name Jaakko Illka. But in Finland he’s a well-known folk hero, the leader of the Cudgel War of 1596.

I know the name Jaakko Ilkka because he’s my eleven-times-great grandfather, at least according to research by a Finnish cousin of mine. Finnish church records, which have been the legal repositories of birth and marriage announcements, are all that researchers have to rely on. Those records seem to confirm two lines of descent from Jaakko Ilkka to proven ancestors of mine on my mother's side.

One line of descent comes down through my great-grandfather Wilhelm Hirvi, who I’ve written about on this blog before. You can hear a recording of him singing here. 

The other line of descent comes down through my great-great-grandfather Matti Uhmusberg Hietanen, who I’ve written about on this blog here.

Sigismund III by Pieter Claesz. Soutman

In the late 16^th century Finland was a part of Sweden under King Sigismund III.  Sigismund lived in Poland, which he also ruled, so to oversee Finland he appointed a governor, Klaus Eriksson Fleming. At the same time Sweden was overseen by Sigismund’s uncle Kaarle. Governor Fleming of Finland and Duke Kaarle of Sweden did not get along. They vied for power, often at the expense of the poorest of the Finnish peasants.

The people of the Ostrobothnia region of central Finland resented the feudal military tax imposed to help pay for Sweden’s war with Russia. The Ostrobothnians had been legally exempted from this tax during the reign of Sigismund’s father, in return for their defense of Ostrobothnia against the Russians. But when Sigismund took the throne, the exemption was ignored. Crushing taxation—collected, often brutally, by Governor Fleming’s military—only added to the Finnish peasants’ woes, which already included the loss of men drafted to defend the border and poor harvests of the little ice age.  In some places the peasants faced starvation. Small rebellions broke out from time to time, but the taxation continued.

In 1585 Jaakko Ilkka (1545-1597), a farmer, lived with his wife and son in Ilmajoki in Southern Ostrobothnia, Finland. He bred cattle on his farm and became a merchant, shipping his cattle to Sweden. From 1586 through1588 he served as the second sheriff of Ilmajoki. This position increased his prestige and his income. He flourished and became the seventh richest merchant in Southern Ostrobothnia, managing shipping to Sweden, Estonia, and elsewhere.

His first wife died about 1588. He re-married and eventually had three more sons.

In 1591 Jaakko Ilkka joined the army. As a member of the military he was tax-exempt and collected feudal taxes. He participated in three expeditions in Sweden’s war with Russia. By 1593 his military activity stopped. He collected no more taxes from his peasant neighbors. In 1592 Governor Fleming declared a trade embargo in the Gulf of Bothnia. Merchant shipping in the Gulf of Bothnia virtually ceased. Ilkka concentrated on cattle farming.

By late fall of 1594 Sweden and Russia began negotiations to end their war. To support the negotiations Governor Fleming had Swedish troops transported to Finland. The Finnish people, already crushed by military taxes, refused to pay the Swedish forces’ costs. Fleming ordered the military to force collection.

On May 18, 1595, the Treaty of Teusina ended the twenty-five-year Russo-Swedish War. Despite the war’s end, Fleming’s militia continued to collect the feudal tax. Fleming wanted the revenue in order to combat Duke Kaarle’s efforts to take the Swedish crown. But this meant little to the Finnish peasants who lived in fear of being robbed, tortured, and having their homes burned if they could not pay.

Duke Kaarle, later King Charles IX of Sweden.

By late 1595 Duke Kaarle of Sweden was denouncing the oppression of the peasants by Fleming and his military. Encouraged by this, the entire population of Finland’s Ostrobothnia region refused to pay their butter tax.  A small force of Finnish peasants approached Jaakko Ilkka with the idea to take back the grain that had been collected as tax since the end of the war. He agreed to lead them.

On December 24, 1595, while the military was preoccupied with Christmas celebrations, the rebels attacked the Swedish cavalry in Isokyro and Rautalampi. They recovered their grain and drove the soldiers out of the region. But by mid-January 1596, the Swedish military had suppressed the rebellion and arrested Ilkka. He was imprisoned in Turku Castle in Turku, Finland.

Ten months later he escaped. One story says that a draft in his cell led him to a sewer duct that he crawled through to freedom. But the actual duct at Turku Castle is too small for a man to fit inside. Another story says he used a concealed knife to pick mortar from between the stones of his cell wall. He used the holes to climb the wall, then let himself down the other side with a rope made from his coat. A more plausible explanation is that friends, sympathizers, or possibly his second wife’s relatives used their influence to free him.

Unrest among the Finns grew. On November 15, 1596, St. Catherine’s Day, Duke Kaarle sent an emissary to a gathering at the church in Isokyro, Finland, urging the people to fight for their rights. He also sent a shipment of distilled spirits. The men at the church decided to stop paying the feudal tax and to defend themselves with arms. They gathered a small resistance army from all over Finland and named Ilkka their leader. In mid-December three groups of these fighters set out marching south by different routes toward Turku. Jaakko Ilkka and Yrjo Kontsas led the main group of about eight hundred, looting and burning soldiers’ farms and crown-owned properties and gathering adherents along the way.

The spiked cudgels carried by many of the peasants were effective weapons in piercing soldiers’ armor. These instruments gave their name to the rebellion, the Cudgel War—or as it’s known in Finland, Nuijasota.

On December 26, Ilkka and his men, now about 2500 strong, defeated a party of two hundred cavalry soldiers and set up camp in Nokia. On December 31, Governor Fleming attacked the rebels with his army of over 3000 professional soldiers and several cannons. The rebel army defended themselves successfully.

During the night Fleming, having failed to defeat the rebels and realizing that other groups of rebel reinforcements were coming, sent emissaries into Nokia to treat with the rebel leaders. The emissaries offered an end to the feudal tax and safe passage home for the rebels. In exchange they demanded the rebel leaders, particularly Jakko Ilkka. Fearing betrayal, Ilkka and several others fled on horseback into the night.

Now unable to fulfill Fleming’s demands, the rebel army broke up and began to flee. Fleming’s cavalry attacked the fleeing peasants and a massacre was on. Other groups of rebels were also defeated by the military. Peasants were slaughtered until one local governor pointed out that dead peasants could not pay taxes.

Jaakko Ilkka returned to Ilmajoki where he was captured by his neighbors. He was turned over to local governor Abraham Melkiorinpoika, who had orders to transport Ilkka to face Fleming in Turku. However, Melkiorinpoika feared that rebels would succeed in freeing Ilkka during the long trip to Turku. He staged a quick court martial in neighboring Isokyro. Ilkka and five other rebel leaders were sentenced to death.

Jaakko Ilkka’s exact method of execution on January 27, 1597, is unknown. The standard method of the day was to have the hands and feet crushed, the right arm cut off, and then the head severed from the body.  Ilkka’s parts were publicly displayed in Ilmajoki before the rebel army buried him honorably in the local cemetery.

The rebellion continued. The climactic Battle of Santavuori on February 27, 1597, was a disaster for the peasants. Many were brutally slain. The Cudgel War, one of the largest European peasant rebellions, ended in failure for the oppressed. Governor Fleming died a couple months later. Duke Kaarle, who had given lip service to the rebels’ cause but provided little in actual support, eventually became King Charles IX. But little changed in the lives of the peasants.

Duke Kaarle insults the body of Klaus Fleming in 1597, painting by Albert Edelfelt, 1878.

Jaakko Ilkka, the first Finnish freedom fighter, was hailed as a hero.  His example of a common man rising up to lead the fight against injustice has continued to inspire Finland as a nation.

Jaakko Ilkka monument in Ilmajoki, Finland.

Among the memorials to Jaakko Ilkka is a large monument raised in his home town of Ilmajoki in 1924. In 1978 Jaakko Ilkka, an opera by Jorma Panula with a libretto by Aarni Krohn, was first performed at the Ilmajoki Music Festival. A recording of the opera was released in 1979.  A Finnish television production of the opera was broadcast in 1982. The legacy of the Cudgel War has continued in literature, art, and academic studies. Each year since 2003 The Cudgel War has been reenacted at a camp in Kavalahti, Inkoo, Finland. In 2004, viewers of the Finnish television show Great Finns (Suuret suomalaiset) voted Jaakko Ilkka number 75 of the 100 greatest Finns of all time. 

I have no means to double-check the genealogical research that says Jaakko Ilkka is my forebear since I don’t speak or read Finnish and don’t have easy access to the records. But I’m happy to accept my descent from Jaakko Ilkka as true. 

Dropping Bombs

Lucille and her mother Dell.

I love my grandma. She’s a calm, matter-of-fact, generally happy woman, who laughs easily. She’s ninety-eight years old, and she plans on making it to one hundred.

Grandma’s not a secretive person. I’ve spent time with her discussing her life and our family. And she’s willing to tell me her stories. Yet not too long ago, when I was asking her about family matters, she dropped a bombshell.

For years I’d known the general outline of Grandma’s early life.

My paternal grandmother, Verna Lucille Evans Shanower Cote—called Lucille—was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1916, an only child. Her parents, Joseph Edward Evans (1884-1943) and Adella Cecil "Dell" Grandy (1888-1974), divorced when she was just four years old. Lucille and her mother Adella moved in with Adella’s parents—Millard Curtis Grandy (1867-1941) and Bertha May Flora Grandy (1868-1942)—at their home in Cleveland. For the next few years, while Adella worked as a telephone operator, Lucille was basically raised—along with her aunt Helene Grandy (1907-1987) and first cousin once removed Elva Flora (1907-unk)—by her grandmother, Bertha.

The Grandy Family, l to r: Clayton Curtis Grandy, Verna M. Grandy Lundberg, Elma Helene Grandy Haylor Humes, Bertha May Flora Grandy, Grace L. Grandy Draper, Millard Curtis Grandy, Inez Irene Grandy Balcomb Kolinski, Adella Cecil "Dell" Grandy McElroy Evans Hundhammer.

So much for the outlines, but I wanted to get some detail out of Grandma. “How much did you see your father after your parents divorced?” I asked her.

Joseph Evans and Lucille, c. 1917.

“Oh, he came by once in a while,” Grandma answered. “He’d send a card at Christmas. But I didn’t see him again after he married his second wife and moved to California.”

Whoa! Hold on! Second wife? Moved to California?

My uncle, Lucille’s son, who happened to be in the room, did a double-take.

Trying to process this revelation, I said, “Grandma, I don’t remember hearing this before. Your father re-married and moved to California? I thought he was buried in Cleveland.”

“They shipped his body back,” she said.

This was news to everyone except Lucille—including my dad, who I phoned to tell soon after. Was this the first time in over seven decades that she’d bothered to mention it?

Maybe. She wasn’t keeping it a secret on purpose. Until I asked, there just hadn’t been any particular reason for her to talk about it.

But what did my great-grandfather Joseph Evans’s second marriage mean? Did my grandmother have half-siblings out there somewhere?

I started research.

Grandma’s information was right. She’s in her late nineties, but her mind is unimpaired. On October 29, 1930, more than a decade after his divorce from Adella Grandy, Joseph Evans married Elizabeth Prosper (1891-unk) in Cleveland, Ohio. I uncovered no children from this marriage, so no half-siblings.

Sarah Jane Hopton Evans and Jonathan Rapier Evans, c. 1940.

It’s unclear when Joseph moved to California. The 1940 census, ten years after his wedding to Elizabeth, lists him living in Cleveland with his Welsh immigrant parents, Jonathan Rapier Evans (1860-1944) and Sarah Jane Hopton Evans (1860-1948). But California death records confirm that he died three years after that, June 12, 1943, in Los Angeles. His body was shipped back across the country and buried in the Monroe Street Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Elizabeth Prosper, Joseph’s second wife, had been married twice before. Before 1910 she married Harry J. Damme (1889-1923) in New York and they had four children. First husband Harry died, leaving Elizabeth a widow. In 1923 she married a second time to Turkish immigrant Steve Totolidis (or maybe Fotolidis) (abt 1894-unk) in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Perhaps Steve Totolidis died, although I suspect he and Elizabeth divorced, leaving her single to marry Joseph Evans in 1930.

That’s all I know about Elizabeth Prosper Damme Totolidis Evans. One of her four children with Harry Damme, Harry John Damme Jr., had descendants, but I can’t find any who might be able to provide further details about Elizabeth.

After learning about the second marriage of my great-grandfather Joseph Evans, I asked my grandmother whether she had any other deep, dark family secrets that she hadn’t told anyone. She laughed and told me that she didn’t, that her father’s second marriage hadn’t been a secret, there’d just never been a reason to mention it before.

No more family secrets. Right.

While doing more genealogical research some time later I came across the marriage certificate of Lucille’s parents, Joseph Evans and Adella Grandy. No surprises there—but, wait! What was that listed with Adella’s information? A previous marriage? Whoa, another bombshell.

I immediately e-mailed my dad and my uncle. What was this about their grandmother Adella’s marriage to a Charles E. McElroy (1888-unk), who she’d divorced before marrying Joseph Evans? Did any of them know about it?

No.

So my uncle asked his mother Lucille about this first marriage of Adella’s. Lucille explained.

After Lucille graduated from high school in the 1930s, a man she didn’t know paid a visit to her mother Adella. Lucille asked her mother who this stranger was. Adella explained that he was her first husband, Charles McElroy. Today Lucille suspects that if Charles McElroy’s visit hadn’t prompted Lucille’s curiosity, Adella would never have revealed to her daughter the fact of her first marriage.

Marriage record of Charles E. McElroy and Adella C. Grandy, May 9, 1911. Charles's first wife is listed as deceased. As always, you may click the image to see it larger in a new window.

My uncle told me that Lucille got a good laugh out of the idea that she’d kept this bombshell a secret on purpose. Actually, she hadn’t mentioned her mother’s first marriage to me simply because she’d completely forgotten about it.

(An aside: I should have discovered Adella’s marriage to Charles McElroy earlier. Another family researcher, a McNaughton cousin, had Adella and Charles’s marriage recorded on his family tree. I’d seen that information there, but I’d dismissed Charles McElroy’s name as being an error.)

Adella Grandy and Charles McElroy had no children together, so Grandma remains a single child. However, Charles McElroy was married both before his marriage to Adella on May 10, 1911, in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and again after their divorce in October 1913.

Lorriane F. McElroy Pecka, 1927.

Who was Charles McElroy’s first wife? I can’t find her name recorded anywhere, but in 1906 a daughter was born from their union, Lorriane F. McElroy (1906-unk). When Lorriane married James Pecka (abt 1901-unk) in Cleveland on June 1, 1927, she listed her mother on her marriage license as Anna Voelker (1886-unk). But Anna Voelker was Charles McElroy’s third wife, not his first wife who was Lorriane’s mother. Charles's first wife was recorded earlier as deceased. But is that true? Was third wife Anna listed on Lorraine’s marriage license as a matter of convenience, since she was Lorriane’s step-mother? Or was Charles McElroy actually married to Anna Voelker twice, both before and after he was married to Adella Grandy? Who knows?

Another question remains. Why did Charles McElroy pay that visit to his second wife Adella after Lucille had graduated high school in 1935, more than twenty years after Charles and Adella had been divorced? Was Charles trying to re-ignite their relationship, despite the fact that his third marriage seems to have been intact? Lucille doesn’t know, so there’s little chance anyone does.

Aloysius "Ollie" Hundhammer.

After marriages to both Charles McElroy and Joseph Evans, Adella Cecil Grandy McElroy Evans married a third time in 1924, just after Lucille turned eight years old. I knew about this marriage to Aloysius “Ollie” Hundhammer (1894-1964), since there had never been any secret about it. Ollie moved his new wife Adella and step-daughter Lucille to Mentor, Ohio.

According to Lucille, Ollie was a mean man. He was also Catholic. My Protestant grandmother Lucille for decades looked unfavorably at Catholics, partly because of her mean stepfather Ollie. Ironically, however, following the death of Lucille’s first husband, my grandfather, Stanley Raymond Shanower (1917-1987), she married a Catholic, Rene Cote (1906-2002), as her second husband in 1990.

After the bombshell revelations about her parents’ marriages, I asked Grandma again whether there were any more family secrets that she was keeping. She laughed and told me no.

But she hadn’t thought her father’s second marriage was any big deal, much less a secret.

And she hadn’t even remembered her mother’s first marriage.

So who knows what other secrets she may hold?

Grandma and me, 2014.

Mildred's Memoir

Nora Mildred Roberts Smith

I recently acquired photocopies of a short "memoir" written by a Kirkpatrick cousin, Nora Mildred Roberts Smith. I met her a few times when I was very young, but I don't really remember her other than that I found her name kind of neat - she went by Mildred. It was a very different name and it was fun to say; it sounded quite regal! I will let Mildred introduce herself in her own words:

My name is Nora Mildred Roberts Smith. At the time of this writing [1977] I am seventy years old, and the only living descendant of the Roberts/Kirkpatrick family.

Columbus Benton Roberts (1862-1939)

My mother was Nora Mason Kirkpatrick and my father was Columbus Benton Roberts. They were married April 18, 1886. At that time my mother was 19 years old, and my father was four years older, 23. They were married in Gainesville, Texas. During the next ten years six children were born - Effie, Wayne, Lyndon Kirk, Cleo Inez survived, with William Martin and Leta only living one day.

The Roberts girls with their mother: Wayne, Effie, Mother (Nora), Mildred, Inez

Lyndon Kirk died of blood poisoning and lockjaw at the age of ten. He died at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, January 1, 1905. This was a very tragic time for my parents for Lyndon was the only boy, and according to their reports, was the 'apple of their life.'

The story of Lyndon's death came down through my branch of the family as well - though with a few additional details. My grandmother, Edna Claire Kirkpatrick Mott (Lyndon and Mildred's first cousin), was very close to Lyndon.  According to my grandmother the circumstances were even more tragic as the blood-poisoning came about through Lyndon burning himself with a new cap pistol he had received on Christmas morning which resulted in his death six days later on New Year's Eve. My grandmother always got a very alarmed look on her face if I was playing with 'caps' and would usually take them away from me.

Lyndon's gravestone reads: "O how much of love and joy is buried with our darling boy." Let's continue on with cousin Mildred's writing:

Two years after his death, I was born, February 10, 1907, in Bridgeport, Texas. The entire clan of Kirkpatricks were living in Bridgeport, Texas. My grandfather and grandmother [William Henry Kirkpatrick (1840-1908) and Mackarina Bridges Hunt Kirkpatrick (1841-1921)] my Aunt Lillian, Aunt Willie, Uncle Louis and their husbands and wife, and children.

My grandfather died when I was an infant, so I did not get to know him, but I did know my grandmother, in fact I was a favorite of hers, for in her words I 'was the only one who would listen to her!' 

Mackarina Bridges Hunt Kirkpatrick (1841-1921)

I will try to tell one or two of the stories she told me of her youth, and of the civil war days that she and my grandfather experienced.

As my grandmother told me, when the war between the states broke out, she was young (I think she said seventeen) [she was actually 20] and living on a plantation in Tennessee. They had a number of slaves (I don't know how many) and she said her mother - my great grandmother [Penelope E. Bridges Hunt (1813-1873)] would give the slaves supplies each day. My grandfather [William Henry Kirkpatrick] lived on a plantation also, with slaves, and they [the two plantations] were near enough for my grandfather to visit (and 'court,' as she said) my grandmother.

My grandfather's father [Anderson Kirkpatrick (1808-1887)] raised blooded horses on his plantation, and my grandfather owned a very fine horse, a jumper, on which he rode to visit my grandmother. He was a little young to enlist at the beginning of the war, but before it was over he was in it. [In fact, William Henry Kirkpatrick signed up almost immediately with Company K of the 18th Tennessee Infantry.]

Their respective plantations were raided, occupied, and finally burned by the Union soldiers. My grandmother said [the Hunts] fled to a small place on the edge of their property, and there they stayed until the end of the war. They managed to salvage some of the family silver, and they hid it from the soldiers under the hens' nests in a chicken coop. The Union soldiers would come by fairly often, and they would take whatever suited them. They were always foraging for food, and my grandmother said they had one hen left. The soldiers decided they would catch that hen. My grandmother's sister became very indignant, and she decided they would not catch their only hen, so she picked up a broom and chased the soldier that was chasing the hen, and every time he would bend over, she would swat him with the broom! My grandmother would chuckle then, and so would end that tale.

Another time, my grandfather came on a hurried visit to my grandmother. As the soldiers did come by frequently, they sent her younger sister to the top of the hill nearby to watch out for them. My grandfather's parents had suffered the same fate as the Hunts and their horses had been confiscated by the Union army, with the exception of my grandfather's horse. During this visit, my grandmother's sister [the lookout] ran to tell them the soldiers were coming, and my grandfather ran out of the house and jumped on his horse. The soldiers were in sight, and they spotted him and gave chase. My grandfather, knowing the area so well, jumped his horse over fences that they had to take down to get by - he was able to elude them and rode to safety.

And another time he was not so lucky, for he was captured and put in a prison camp. [William Henry Kirkpatrick was captured at the fall of Fort Donelson in February 1862.] However, while in prison, his father came to see him. When they shook hands, his father [Anderson Kirkpatrick] pressed a bill into his palm. With this money my grandfather was able to get different clothes, and one day they were marching in line, and he managed to step over the barrier. He then made his way to the railway station, bought a ticket and boarded the train for home. He had quite a scare however, for the C. O. [of the prison camp] boarded the train, and sat in the same coach with him. He was very afraid he would be detected. [The escape occurred June 20, 1862.]

A letter home from W. H. Kirkpatrick mailed from Prison Camp (May 1862)

Other tales I know concern [the Kirkpatricks'] life in Texas. After they arrived in Valley View in covered wagon, Mama said Grandpa Kirk built their first cabin (her words). Grandma Mack was pregnant, and that their only son, [Louis Dillard Kirkpatrick (1873-1951)] was born shortly afterward. Mama said very hard birth, due in fact to long wagon ride. They came from Arkansas where Grandpa had operated a General Store and ferry on a river.

After Louis's birth, they moved to Gainesville, where Grandpa bought and operated a two story "hotel." They served meals, too, And both Mammaw and Willie (her sister) acted as waitresses. That is where Mammaw met Daddy. Mammaw did not tell many tales. I think she wanted to forget some of them!