William Street

As I searched through Sunday School records for Plymouth Church at the Center for Brooklyn History, I discovered an interesting connection. The name William C. Street jumped out at me... because Mary E. Harrison and Henry C. Williams named their fifth child William Street Williams. Up until then, they had used family names for the first and middle names of their children: Frederick Harrison W., Henry Clay W.  Jr., Francis Eastman W., and George Montgomery W.  I believe I have found the explanation for where the non-family name of Street came from.

William Cutler Street was born on 27 June 1839, to Jeanette Atwater (itself one of our family names - I'll come back to this) and Edwin A. Street, who came from the New Haven, CT area. Edwin was a merchant, and his obituary shares that he taught in Sunday Schools for 78 years. An Edwin A. Street is listed as a member of Plymouth Church, joining in 1854 and leaving the congregation in 1858.

William Street’s name appears several times in a record book for Plymouth Church’s Sunday School, as Secretary of the school between (at the very least) December 1862 and January 1864. A William B. Street [sic] was elected as Secretary and Treasurer of the Sunday School in February 1864, then replaced in those positions the following month.

As I mentioned above, the name Atwater also stands out here, since that is one of our ancestral lines. If we trust the information shared by other genealogists on Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com, Jeanette traces back to David Atwater (1615-1692) of New Haven. Mary E. Harrison also traces back to David Atwater - in fact, each of her parents traces back to him separately, as her parents were fifth cousins. They were also fifth cousins to William C. Street. Whether they knew of these connections is uncertain. They may have simply known him as part of the Plymouth Church congregation, and perhaps as someone else whose family hailed from New Haven.

William Street passed away of tuberculosis on 28 February 1874 in South Orange, NJ, only 34 years old. His funeral was held at Plymouth Church, and he was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. I have not found mention of his leaving a widow or children behind. His burial record lists him as being single.

Not quite three years later, Henry C. Williams (then 38) and Mary E. Harrison (32) welcomed their fifth child into the world on 22 December 1877, and named him William Street Williams. I have not seen anything in the family records which previously explained the origin of this name, but I fully believe they were honoring their fellow parishioner (and perhaps friend) with this name.

Tragically, William Street Williams died one day short of his first birthday. He, too, was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. Fred Williams recalled the funeral of his youngest brother in his memoir:

Henry Ward Beecher conducted the funeral services and tho I was not yet ten years old, one thing that he said impressed itself indelibly on my mind as he likened this baby to a little bird that hopped onto a limb, sang a few sweet notes, then flew away.

Sources:

The photo above comes from the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims and Henry Ward Beecher collection (1819-1980) at the Center for Brooklyn History, box 58, item 1: Church of the Pilgrims - Sunday School Record Book, 1845-1907. 

William Street's death notice: The New York Herald, 4 Mar 1874, p8.

Edwin Street's obituary: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 25 Jan 1909, p5.

William Street's burial record: Green-Wood Cemetery Burial and Vital Records,  vol 22 no 56.

William S. Williams' burial record: ibid., vol 25 no 69.