Mayflower Passengers: The First Year

I recently took an online course from American Ancestors titled "Beyond the Mayflower: History, Culture, and Encounter in Plimoth Colony."  It was comprised of five lectures that offered deep dives into specific topics, all of which I found very interesting and engaging.

One of the more intriguing thoughts that came out of this for me was in the fourth class, discussing the Women of Plimoth, presented by Donna Watkins.  She made the points that Mary Brewster was one of very few adult women to survive the colony's difficult first year - and the oldest of those that did.

I have long been interested in getting a better sense of my ancestor Elizabeth Tilley's life and experiences, since all of that was (sadly, but unsurprisingly) not as well documented as her husband's.  Ms. Watkins' remarks got me thinking about things in terms of who survived that harsh first winter and first year, and who didn't.  How did it impact women differently than men?  Children differently from adults?

I've done some data collection and processing, and even found an excellent poster available from Pilgrim Hall Museum which provides a visual aid for who survived the first year and who didn't.  Here are some excerpts for the Tilley families... 

Passengers during the crossing:

Elizabeth came over with her parents (John and Joan), her aunt and uncle (Ann and Edward), and their two wards.

 

And after the first year... 

All four adults perished in the first winter, leaving the children to be raised by others.  Perhaps in the case of Henry Sampson, he simply had to finish growing up and act as one of the adult males in the struggling colony.  Elizabeth was taken in after her parents' death by the colony's first Governor and his wife (John and Catherine/Katherine Carver), but they both died in the spring of that first year. 

Of 18 adult women (21 or older) who made the crossing, only 4 survived the first year: Mary Brewster, Ellen/Eleanor Billington, Susanna White, and Elizabeth Hopkins.  All five teenage girls survived that year, and 5 out of 7 younger girls who made the crossing also survived.

The infographic is available from Pilgrim Hall Museum as a poster or as a large brochure.  When seen in full, it definitely makes an impression!

I'll have more to share about my Mayflower findings, soon.

An Update

I have been busy lately, and distracted (as sometimes happens) from my previous line of research in which I was focusing on Brooklyn.

The theme of this past month has been ships: I greatly enjoyed a few days of checking out tall ships at Sail Boston.  I made a point to visit the Mayflower II, since I have been taking an online course on the Mayflower Pilgrims.

I have also been researching various family trips across the ocean, searching passenger records and passport applications. This topic has been inspired by a particular cachet: an envelope commemorating the maiden voyage of S.S. Normandie, addressed to Young Dan Butler (my great uncle) and canceled at Le Havre, France as the ship set out on 29 May 1935.

I have been hoping to find another family member or friend who was on that maiden voyage, but so far have not identified anyone likely in the passenger list who might have sent this cachet to Dan from the ship.  It's possible that it was acquired some other way.  Sadly, there is no letter that has survived with the envelope.

My research on this and on other items continues.  I'm regrouping a bit and will have more to share soon.

Jay St. and State St.

The early years of the Corbett family in Brooklyn are not entirely clear. 

In my initial search for ancestral addresses several years ago, I found the Corbett family listed at 283 Jay St. in the 1870-71 directory.  They disappear for several years, and the next listing I found for them was in the 1875-76 directory, placing them at 359 Jay St.  They also appear at 359 Jay St. in the 1875 NY State Census.

I long wondered about these two Jay St. addresses, much like the multiple Henry St. addresses for the Williams family in the same era.  When I learned about the major updating of addresses in Brooklyn around 1870, I wondered if this could be another case of the family remaining in place and their house number changing.

I ran my AI-assisted process to collect more details, and that strongly suggests this theory is incorrect.  There were five other names of either individuals or families at 283 Jay St. in the 1870-71 directory, suggesting that it was an apartment building and/or that there was more than one building with that number on it (something which did happen, and which the renumbering process attempted to clean up).  While the Corbetts disappeared from the directory the following year, John Cummings is listed at 283 and then 365 Jay St.  Their next door neighbors Roswell Baldwin and Thomas McAllister M.D. are both shown at 281 and then 363 Jay St.  So the street numbers increased by 82 at this particular spot, and 359 Jay St. doesn't fit the pattern.

I did another round of checking the city directories (most of which are easily available online, thanks to the Center for Brooklyn History and others), and found one entry which I had previously missed: in the 1873-74 directory (available instead from FamilySearch).  In that, the Corbetts show up at 318 State St.

I soon found another record showing that address: the return of a birth record for Alice E. Corbett shows her entering the world at 318 State St.

  

So it looks like the Corbetts moved away from Jay St. to State St., and then back again, three doors down from their previous address.  There are still a few gaps in the record, but this fills it in a bit.

 

Looking at Google Street View for 318 State St., it seems quite possible that the buildings there now have been in place since the 1870s.  I haven't verified this yet.

 

318 State St. in 2019

James M. Williams in Portland, Ohio

While searching for details on James M. Williams - brother of my third great grandfather, Henry Clay Williams - I found this 1850 census record for him in Portland Township, Ohio:

This shows him living with the Morgan family:

• Francis Morgan, 45, merchant
• S. Antonett Morgan, 39
• Frances W. Morgan, 14, in school
• Henry J. Morgan, 11, in school
• Jessie A. Morgan, 4
• Alexander C. Morgan, 11 months
• Mary Manser, 18, born in Germany (likely a servant)
• Dora Dutcher, 13, ditto
• James M. Williams, 19, clerk
• Edward M. Morgan, 47, banker 

Portland was a small town which was absorbed into the city of Sandusky.

I wonder if James worked for either Francis or Edward Morgan, in addition to living with them.

I feel confident that this is our James Williams because I can connect these Morgan brothers to a Henry T. Morgan who was a Wall Street broker.  After moving to New York City, James Williams worked at Henry Morgan's brokerage for several years.  He then made an introduction for his brother Henry, who also worked there.

Francis, Edward, and Henry Morgan were all sons of  Pamela Taylor and Archippus Morgan.  (Yes, I checked for a connection to J. P. Morgan, and no, I did not find any.). This census record seems to show how our family first got to know this Morgan family.

Here's a link to the full record on FamilySearch.

Henry St.

Henry Clay Williams seems to have had a favorite block on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights.  It is the first place where he is recorded as living in Brooklyn, and after moving away from it he returned, not once but twice.  Perhaps he felt a particular affinity for the street's name.  It is certainly a nice block, and was convenient to his work on Wall Street (accessible in those days by ferry).

Henry had moved from Ohio to New York, living in Manhattan for a few years and then serving in the Union Army.  In 1866, he was listed in the Brooklyn city directory for the first time - at 101 Henry St.  This was just a few doors down from the Zion Lutheran Church (where the Concert Hall is on the map below), and almost directly across from the First Presbyterian Church - both of which still stand today.

Henry St, from an 1855 map

In October of 1866, Henry C. Williams and Mary E. Harrison were married at her parents' home at 28 Lafayette Ave.  Not long after that, they moved several blocks further up Lafayette Ave, at what has been listed as either number 148 or 152 (I'll say more on that in a future post).  It was there that their first child, Frederick, was born in February 1868.  They moved again -  roughly two blocks away to number 130 Carlton Ave - and there they welcomed their second child, Henry Jr, in December 1869.

In the 1870-71 city directory they appear at 116 Henry St, which is at the location shown on the 1855 map above.  The directories for the six following years show them living at 138 Henry St.  I had been curious about this apparent double move.  Now I know that a major renumbering campaign was carried out in Brooklyn around 1870.  As I shared in my last post, there is an excellent online New York Times article which covers the details of that change.

Armed with that information, I decided to make this my first real foray into using AI to augment my research.  I used a tool called Claude to process details from the 1869, 1870, and 1871 city directories.  This showed me a consistency in address numbering between the first two years, and then a clear pattern of renumbering between the 1870 and 1871 publications.  Buildings to the north of the two churches on this block had their numbers increased by 14 on the even side of the street and by 16 on the odd side.  Those south of the churches had their numbers increased by 22 and 24, respectively.  Similar changes were taking place throughout Brooklyn.

What's even better... the building at 138 (formerly 116) Henry St is still there!  I included it in my photo survey last year:

138 (left) to 132 Henry St, in 2025 

The buildings from 132 to 138 Henry St were constructed around 1843 (first listed in the city directory for that year), and all four still stand today.  Numbers 138 and 136 have had their third story windows enlarged - they would have originally been closer in size to those of 134 and 132.

Mary and Henry welcomed three more children in that home - Francis, George, and William.  Sadly, all three died young.  Francis passed away in Morrisania, The Bronx (possibly where they were summering), George passed away at 138 Henry St, and William passed away at 126 St. James Pl - a new home to which they had moved in 1877.

In 1878, the family returned to Henry St, this time moving into number 134... just two doors down from where they had been - and a nearly identical building, at least from the outside!  Sadly, Mary Ellen Harrison Williams passed away there in October 1878.  This precipitated another move.  Henry C. Williams doesn't appear in the city directory for 1879-80, but likely moved into 28 Lafayette Ave.  Mary's father, Frederick H. Harrison, passed away there in December 1878.  The Williams family would remain at 28 Lafayette Ave for twenty more years.

We are left with two very nice brick buildings still standing on this block of Henry Street with family ties.  Nearby, number 117 (formerly 101) has been replaced since Henry C. Williams first lived there.

138 Henry St.

134 Henry St.

194 Adams St.

This is a tale of sloppy research (corrected over time), and strange connections.

Last year, while preparing for a research day in Brooklyn, I decided it would be fun to see some of the addresses where my ancestors lived.  I compiled a list from the family tree and checked through my options, using Google Street View to get a sense of what each address looks like now and whether there's any chance it could still be the same as it was in the 19th century.  Many, of course, were clearly rebuilt, while a few did seem like they could date back that far.  I took that quickly-assembled list on my trip and photographed a number of those spots on a lovely spring day.

One of the addresses I wanted to visit, despite the building being gone, was the location of #194 Adams Street - the home of Mary Mix and Frederick Harrison, their children, and his parents Harriet Hotchkiss and Justus Harrison.  They moved there from #20 High St (which I've previously discussed), probably in the second half of 1843 or the first half of 1844.  It is likely that at least four of Mary and Frederick's children were born in that house - Mary Ellen (my fourth great grandmother) may have been born there or at #20 High St.  Her younger siblings - Frances J, Frederick E, Henry H, and Edward - were almost certainly born at #194 Adams St.  Their older sister Harriet had been born in New Haven.  Unfortunately, Frances J, Frederick E, Henry H, and Edward all passed away young.  I suspect that Mary and Frederick moved to Lafayette Ave after losing three of those children at the Adams St address.  The family appears in city directories at #194 Adams St up until the 1853-54 edition, and then at #28 Lafayette Ave in the 1854-55 edition (published in 1854).  Mary Mix Harrison passed away in July 1854, likely at the Lafayette Ave address, as did Edward no more than two weeks later.

With so many significant family events happening at #194 Adams St, I made a point to stop by and take a photo at the location indicated by Google Maps, which was near the intersection with Johnson St:

On returning home from my trip, I checked over the details of this location once again, and noticed something I had missed... there's a statue of Henry Ward Beecher on Johnson St, at the far end of the block that I photographed.  It's hidden somewhere in the trees - and I had to kick myself a bit, given the family connections to Beecher, thinking I might have been able to include it in the shot if I had done better prep work and known it was there.  I also recognized the building on the right in my photo - it's the Federal Building and Post Office, which figures in the Atlas Iron Construction story.  See my past post about the Post Office Annex, which was constructed on the rear of that building in 1892.

This was all intriguing, and as I double checked the details, I found that I had made an even bigger mistake... maps of Brooklyn from 1874 and 1880 showed #194 not at Johnson Street, but halfway between Nassau and Concord Streets!

The 1880 map also showed a Gothic Hall immediately across the street from #194, which intrigued me.  It turns out that was a large hall used for lectures, concerts, balls, and so forth.  One online article shares that this was the premiere performance venue in Brooklyn in the early 1840s, "slipping to second-class status with the building of Montague Hall" in 1845, after which it "developed something of a rough reputation, what with its rowdy fireman’s balls and Irish Benevolent Society receptions."  I began wondering what the Harrison family might have felt, living across the street from such a venue.  Even more intriguing, that building had been originally built as the Second Presbyterian Church - the same church this family attended, in a different building, as I discussed in a recent post. 

 

As I continued to dig into this exciting new set of details, I realized that I was still on the wrong block!  Checking earlier maps of Brooklyn to see what the block might have looked like while the Harrisons lived there in the 1840s and 50s, I saw on an 1855 map that #194 Adams St was actually located between Concord and Tillary Streets.  Oops!

I've put together a version of the 1855 map to the right.  This stitches together three map files, marks the correct location for #194 as of that year, and includes both Gothic Hall to the north and the intersection with Johnson St where I took my photograph to the south.  The pink shading and single dot for the building at #194 indicate that it was a first class brick or stone dwelling, with a coped slate or metal roof.

This stretch of Adams Street has now been widened and replaced by Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard.  The Federal Court Building takes up the full block between Concord and Tillary Streets.

In the end, my sloppy work and mistakes have at least led to an interesting story - as well as a reminder to myself to prepare better even for "smaller" research items.

I also checked for more details on how and when the street addresses changed... and learned that there was a massive renumbering effort undertaken around 1870, covering almost every single address in Brooklyn!  There's a fascinating, interactive online article about this from The New York Times.

Learning about that gave me a stronger basis for checking the details of other pre-1870 Brooklyn addresses with family connections.  I'll have more findings to share about those, soon.

 

Sources:

The 1880 Atlas of the Entire City of Brooklyn (which led me astray), by G.W. Bromley, available from the New York Public Library.

The 1855 Map of the City of Brooklyn, by W. Perris, available from the New York Public Library.

For details on Gothic Hall:
The Brooklyn Theatre Index Volume I, by Cezar Del Valle, p1.
"Montague Hall" at Whitman's Brooklyn.

Williams Family Members in Green-Wood Cemetery

Here's the complete list of Williams family relatives buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY:

 

Section 173, Lot 21543 

Henry Clay Williams Sr., 6 Oct 1838 - 16 Sept 1896.

Mary Ellen (Harrison) Williams, 29 Oct 1844 - 3 Oct 1878.  His first wife.

Francis Eastman Williams, 1 Apr 1873 - 28 July 1873.  Their third child.  First buried in Lot 4259, then moved.  See this post.

George Montgomery Williams, 11 Apr 1875 - 30 Oct 1875.  Their fourth child.

William Street Williams, 22 Dec 1876 - 21 Dec 1877.  Their fifth child.  See this post.

Mary Haskell (Sellers) Williams, 22 Mar 1840 - 10 Apr 1911.  His second wife.

Alice Eliza (Corbett) Williams, 1 Mar 1872 - 14 Sept 1901.  First wife of Frederick H. Williams (Mary and Henry's eldest child).

Harriet F. Williams, 28 May 1898 - 16 Apr 1926.  Eldest child of Henry C. Williams Jr. and Ella (Jenness) Williams.

Helen A. (Garcia) Williams, 11 Dec 1876 - 19 Mar 1936.  Second wife of Henry C. Williams Jr.

Virginia Mary (Garcia) Williams, 5 Jul 1895 - Aug 1977.  Daughter of Helen A. Garcia and Manuel Garcia.  Adopted the Williams name.  See this post.

Burial order: Francis, George, William, Mary Harrison, Sarah, Henry, Alice, Mary Sellers, Harriet, Helen, Virginia.

Section 184, Lot 25828

Sarah Dulany (Addison) Williams, Nov 1805 - 26 Dec 1886.  Wife of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Williams (Henry C. Williams Sr's half-brother).  First buried in Lot 21543, then moved.  See this post.

Mary Florilla Williams, 18 Nov 1838 - 23 Nov 1917.  Their elder child.

Franklin "Frank" Ezra Williams, 26 Jul 1843 - 11 Sept 1911.  Their younger child.

Burial order: Sarah, Frank, Mary.