Buried Twice - Francis E. Williams

Several years ago, I collected information on family members buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, then visited the family burial plot (I wrote a brief blog post at the time to mark the occasion).

As is often the case, I was left with some lingering questions.  One was around Francis Eastman Williams, the third son of Mary E. Harrison and Henry C. Williams.  He was born on 1 April 1873 and died on 28 July of that same year, just shy of four months old.  He was the first of three children that the couple would lose at a young age. 

When looking into this a decade ago, the records all agreed that Francis (or Frank, as the family called him) died in Morrisania, in the Bronx. I haven't found an explanation for why the family was there - perhaps it's where they were spending their summer.

The cemetery's online database - a wealth of great information - listed his burial as taking place on 1 May 1874.  So where was his body for the nine intervening months?  I tried to search for more details at the time, and came up empty.

I recently saw that Green-Wood Cemetery now offers full scans of their original, hand-written burial records on their website.  After returning to Francis' record and doing some additional digging, I think I have an answer to that nagging question.

In the excerpt from the records shown above, Francis E. Williams is listed at the end of a section of burials from 31 July 1873 (followed here by the line for "August 1").  To the right of his name is the lot number where he and other family members are currently buried: 21543, then his place of birth (Brooklyn) and age at death (3 months, 28 days).  The full record can be seen on the Green-Wood Cemetery website.  It includes other useful information, most notably his cause of death: cholera infantum.

Above his last name, an additional notation has been inserted: "May 1, 74, 4259" with the latter number crossed out.  What immediately jumped out at me was that the record on the line immediately above this also showed number 4259 crossed out, in the same way.

It appears to me that 4259 is a lot number for a temporary burial location.  No less than 170 people were buried there between 1853 and 1874.  Many of those records show the individuals being moved, either to other lots in Green-Wood, or to other cemeteries.  Many of the individuals were children, but not all of them were.

So my current theory is that when Francis died of cholera, his stricken parents arranged to have him buried promptly in this temporary lot at Green-Wood, while they also began the process of arranging their own family lot and grave markers in that cemetery.  On 1 May 1874, they were able to reinter Francis in their own lot - he was indeed the first family member buried there.  May he and his parents rest in peace.

The Second Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn

While I was digging into details about Justus and Harriet Harrison's arrival in Brooklyn for my previous post, I came across this interesting tidbit: the records of the Second Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn show them both joining that church on Sunday 31 March 1839.

The handwritten ledger, covering memberships for the first three decades at that church (1831-1861), was only 150 pages long so I decided to check through the full thing.  Twenty pages later, it lists Justus and Harriet's son George joining the church on Christmas Day, 1842.  Interestingly, his departure from the congregation is listed as his being "Licensed" - a term I didn't see anywhere else in the ledger.  I suspect this is a reference to his ordination as a minister.

As you may have spotted above, Justus' departure from the congregation is noted as his death in 1850.  Harriet's departure isn't noted at all.  She does appear one more time, in an antiquated sort of list... every so often in the ledger there would be an accounting of the "widows belonging to the church", and she is listed in one of these at the start of 1852, giving proof that she was still connected with the church at that time.

Frederick and Mary Harrison didn't appear as members, nor do any of their children appear among the baptisms at this church.  I am curious about their church life.  My current theory is that they attended this church with Frederick's parents while retaining memberships at a church in New Haven.  At always, there is more to uncover.  This church was located at the corner of Clinton and Remsen Streets.

Sources:
U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970, available from Ancestry.com (with a membership).
Image from the Brooklyn Eagle Postcard collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.

The Harrisons Arrive in Brooklyn

The family records have long shown that my fourth great grandparents - Mary Mix and Frederick H. Harrison - moved from New Haven, CT to Brooklyn, NY some time after their wedding in 1840.  It's possible they made this move after the birth of their daughter Harriet in 1842 (I'll come back to this point in a minute).  As I've delved into Brooklyn records, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that Frederick and Mary weren't the first Harrisons to make the move to Brooklyn... his parents - Harriet Hotchkiss and Justus Harrison - have that distinction.

Justus Harrison first appears in the Brooklyn city directory for 1839-40 (published in 1839) at 14 High Street, where he and his family lived for about three years.  The earliest detailed map of Brooklyn that I can find online, from 1855, shows that address immediately adjacent to a firehouse.  City directories do mention an engine company on that same block between 1839 and 1842.

Justus actually appears in the New York City directory for 1838-39 as well, listed as an insurance agent with an office at 63 and a half Wall Street.  No home address is given there, and he does not appear in the Brooklyn directory for that year.  I don't know where the family lived that year.  The earliest New Haven city directory I can find is for 1840, and it does not include either Justus or his son Frederick Harrison.

Justus and Harriet's children were:

• Elizabeth Eunice Harrison - who had married Rev. Lewis Foster in 1835, and was widowed in October of 1839 (at age 29).  She appears in the 1840 census, living in Clinton, CT with a boy between 5 and 10 years old, and a girl under 5 years old.  She therefore doesn't seem to have lived with the family in Brooklyn.  She remarried in 1842.
• Frederick Henry Harrison - who married Mary Mix on 2 Sept 1840 in New Haven.  The event was noted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, suggesting that the family had established itself in Brooklyn by then.
• George Justus Harrison - who turned 16 in 1839 and had either already left or would soon leave home to pursue studies at Union College and Princeton Theological Seminary.
• Francis "Frank" Edwin Harrison - who turned 9 in 1839 and almost certainly still lived at home with his parents.

Other than Elizabeth, I haven't been able to locate any of these Harrisons in the 1840 census, which leaves city directories as the best source for where they lived.

I haven't seen any records indicating where Frederick and Mary lived in the first year of their marriage.  They appear separately from Justus and Harriet in the 1841-42 Brooklyn city directory, living just three doors down at 20 High Street.  They might have lived with either set of parents for a time, and secured that home soon after marriage.

Frederick and Mary welcomed their first daughter - Harriet Elizabeth Harrison - in June 1842 in New Haven.  I had previously thought this was an indicator that they were still living in New Haven at the time, and only moved to Brooklyn after that date.  I now suspect they set up house in Brooklyn after their wedding, and that Mary wanted the support of her parents (who lived out their lives in New Haven) and perhaps a calmer and more familiar environment when it came time to give birth.

One document which lends itself to the theory that Frederick and Mary came to Brooklyn after their first daughter was born is the 1855 New York State census for Brooklyn.  It shows Harriet, age 13, and her father Frederick (sadly, Mary had passed away by then), both only having lived in Brooklyn for 12 years, suggesting they moved there in 1843.  If that was the case, why is Frederick listed in the Brooklyn city directory starting with the published copies in 1841... and nowhere to be found in the 1840 through 1843 editions of the New Haven city directory?  I suspect that the census record is the one to take with a grain of salt in this case.

The Brooklyn city directories for 1842-43 and '43-44 show Justus (and Harriet and Frank) living with Frederick (and Mary and baby Harriet) at 20 High Street.  Starting with the 1844-45 city directory, this extended family moved to 194 Adams Street, just a few blocks away.  I'll have a bit more to say about that address in another post.

Frederick and Mary would welcome their second daughter - Mary Ellen Harrison - in Brooklyn in October 1844.

Justus and Harriet continued to live with Frederick and Mary at least until 1850, the year of Justus' death in Branford, CT.  They appear with the family in the census record for that year, as well as in city directories up to that year.

Frederick's mother seems to have moved back to New Haven after that.  She doesn't appear with his family in the 1855 New York State census.  There is a listing for a Harriet Hotchkiss of the right age in the New Haven census in 1860.  I would want to do more research before declaring for sure where she spent her remaining days.

This at least sheds some new light on how the Harrisons arrived in Brooklyn.