Calder Family

Part 1 of the Calder Family
Click on this link to access the post   "From the Highland of Scotland Our Family"

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Post 588 Wilna, NY

GAR Post 588 Natural Bridge, New York.   

Post meeting circa 1891

The bust of General Sherman
is on exhibit at the Augustus Saint Gauden
National Historical Park in
Cornish, New Hampshire

GAR Post 588 was chartered on April 13, 1891, remaining active until 1937 when the charter was surrendered.  It was named after General William Tecumseh (Uncle Billy) Sherman who died two months prior to the post's formation.   The photograph above was probably taken in 1891 when the post met for the first time.  It couldn't have been taken any later than 1905 as  Mr. Luther Wright, a member who is pictured, died that year. 

While researching the post and its history I was able to identify most everyone in the picture to include their Civil War Unit and dates of birth and death see the chart below for more details.      

On the back of the original photograph are handwritten notes identifying all the members present. 

Two family members are pictured in this photograph. 

The first Franklin Sanders born 1841 the son of Philander and Nancy Sanders.  

Frank Sanders 

Franklin is the 1st cousin of Jennie M. Sanders, Harvey Jesse Lake's wife.   Frank Sanders served in the 10th New York Heavy Artillery Regiment from 1862 to 1865 when he was discharged at the end of the Civil War.

Frank Ashcraft

The second is Frank Ashcraft he was born in 1836 and died in 1913 he was related to Lorenzo Ashcraft, the husband on Anna Clement, Daniel L. Clement's youngest daughter.  Not much is known currently about Frank Ashcraft and his connection, but there are other photographs of him with the old family pictures that indicate a close connection.   He also served in the 10th New York Heavy Artillery Regiment from 1862 to 1865. 

Members of GAR Post 558 pictured above

Name	Born	Died	Civil War Unit	Dates of Service
Bill Williamson	1843	1911	10th NY Heavy Artillery	1862-1865
Mr McCory	**
N. Williamson	**
Ed Weatherhead	**
Daniel Puffer	1837		10th NY Heavy Artillery	1862-1865
Henry Weatherhed	1844		10th New York Heavy Artillery	1862-1865
Luther Wright	1846	1905	186th NY  Vol Infantry Regiment	1864-1865
Charles Schultz	1839	1916	10th New York Heavy Artillery	1862-1863
John Davis	1842		94 NY Vol Infantry Regiment	1862-1865
John Shoemaker	**
William Nichols	1820		186th NY  Vol Infantry Regiment	1864-1865
Frank Datuch	1835		94th NY Vol Infantry Reg	1862- ?
Henry Crimmins	*
Frank Ashcraft	1836	1913	10th NY Heavy Artillery	1862-1865
Cal Graves	**
Frank Sanders	1841	1917	10th NY Heavy Artillery	1862-1865
Mr. Holland	**
Warren Harlow	1829		10th NY Heavy Artillery	1862-1865
Len Ward	*
Mr. Priest	*

* There are people of the proper names and approximate age and the Wilna, NY area that could be these three men however more research must be done to prove this conclusively

** No information available 

The mystery of Orlo Sanders solved

Another of those family mysteries;  I have been searching for Orlo Sander, he is my great grandmother's (Jennie Sanders Lake's) brother. He was born in 1861 in Jefferson County, New York to Jared and Sarah (VanAntwerp) Sanders.   

He lived most of his adult life in Watertown, New York, many newspaper articles of the day can attest to this.  On August 21, 1887, in Antwerp NY, he married Jennette Ervin of Philadelphia, New York.   Old newspaper gossip columns reported that they were visiting or were visited by,  friends and relatives on a regular basis.   The last mention of Orlo Sanders or his wife Jennette was November 19, 1889 when he purchased property on Hunt Street in Watertown, New York for $585.00.

When I received these photographs I noted a curious piece of information; Orlo's portrait was taken at the Rainier Studio at 707 Second Street in Seattle, Washington. Jennette's photograph was taken at Lewis and McCollester studio in Carthage, New York.  So it was clear that Orlo at some point traveled to Washington State.  There is no indication on the photographs themselves when either of them where taken.   The possibility that he relocated to Washington State could certainly explain the reasons for the lack of information in New York.   However, family lore says that Orlo was killed by a falling tree sometime after 1880 in New York State, and was buried in or around Wilna, New York.

Then to add to the mystery, meet Mrs. Orlo Sanders,  Grace Chapin. Note that her photograph was taken at LaRoche Photographers at the Rengstorff Building in Seattle, Washington.  On the back of the card the street address is given and it is the same building where Orlo's photograph was taken.

I have not located any information as to what happened to Jennette, if she went to Washington, and died there or passed away in New York, nor have I found a divorce record.   Above is the obituary of  Mrs. Jared Sanders dated May 6, 1893. She died in New York and her obituary identifies her survivors;  note that Orlo is not listed; it would appear that he died prior to his mother.


A search of  Genealogy Bank located this record, from the  Watertown Daily Times, dated February 24, 1891, an announcment from the Odd Fellows Fraternal Organization,  Watertown Chapter  that Orlo Sander,s one of their members, had died in Seattle,Washington of Typhiod Pneumonia and that he had been interred there.

I have tried to locate a death and burial record in Washington State but so far I have not had much success; however, it does seem clear that the mystery of what happened to him has been solved.

Calder Family Research Blog

Today I decided to revive an old project my Calder Family Research Blog.  Redesigned it and made my first post you can access it at this link  Calder Family Research blog   Or the blog list  on the top right of this page.

No longer a mystery, left behind in a box

For a number of months I have been working on a project to identify family members in very old photographs which have been condemned to the proverbial shoe box. Since many of these picture are unlabeled it takes a fair amount of work to identify them. 

This photograph came from material that belonged to Samuel and Emma Clement of Rowe, MA.  The photograph is of a male, approximately 20-25 years old, an extremely old tin type  image  1 inch tall by ¾ of an inch wide. It is taped to a card which measures 3 7/8 inches tall by 2 1/2 inches wide.  The photograph is extremely fragile and in all likelihood it has been physically handled for the last time.  I made several high resolution digital scans of it to preserve this important family photograph, while doing so I notice the back was severely corroded, and may need professional restoration to preserve it.  

Tintype photography, a style popular in the 1860’s,  was considered “instant photography,”because you could go into a studio and in 10 minutes or so walk out with your picture, like the first Polaroids.  They were called “Tin Types” not because they were made of tin, but because you cut them apart from a sheet with tin shears or snips.  The plates were made of a light sensitized steel a little thicker than modern aluminum foil.

Using research materials that have  known dated examples and references as a starting place, I now believe that this photograph was taken between 1865 and 1867, which makes it just about 150 years old. The image to the right has been digitally enhanced so that it can be seen better.

Who this is:  Daniel L. Clement was born May 8, 1847 in Philadelphia, Jefferson Co., New York. His father and mother were Charles & Sarah (Bromley) Clement.  In 1863 at the age of 16, he enlisted in the 47th New York Infantry Regiment as a private and participated in the Civil War. He served until his honorable discharge on 30 June 1865 at Munson Hill Virginia.   I have written a blog article about Daniel his wife and parents; you can access those articles at the following links: Who was Daniel L. Clement : Who was JClement : Charles B. Clement. He returned home from the service,  and the following year, on May 10, 1866, 2 days after his 19th birthday he married Mary Jane Palmer.  They had 6 children, four of whom survived and farmed land in the Croghan, NY area, until Daniel's death in 1894.  He was buried in the Evangelical Baptist Cemetery in Croghan, New York.  

Below are photographs that I have been collecting of Daniel and Mary Jane "Jennie" (Palmer) Clement's surviving children, from left to right is Mary "Mattie" Clement Herzig,  Anna P. Clement Ashcraft, Samuel E. Clement and Edwin Ira Clement. Look how closely Daniel's youngest 

son Edwin resembles him, and how the others have traits that closely match his, with the possible  exception of Mary, who looks most like her mother.  These comparison photographs have really been the key to sorting out this mystery, along with some very good research tools and knowing the source of the material has really helped in successfully identify this photograph.  

After Daniel's death Jennie travelled with her two son's Sam and Edwin to Colrain, MA where her daughter Mattie had relocated with her husband Albert and their family.  

About 1905 she returned to New York with Edwin, Sam decided to stay behind to start his family. Jennie returned to Massachusetts around 1910, living with her daughter, for a time. Whether it was home sickness or illness, she wanted to return home to New York.  While arraignments were being made with Edwin to get her back home, she died suddenly she was laid to rest in Christian Hill Cemetery, on top of the hill, in Colrain,  Massachusetts.    I enjoyed researching the photographs and the feeling of symmetry that comes from bringing them together again, as if the family itself were reunited.

“The people who have left us are never truly gone until there is no one left to remember them.”

In Search of Maclyn Brown

A year or so ago my father and I were discussing family history when the topic of his half-brother  came up.   He told me that this child was his mother’s son from a previous relationship,  his brothers had both met this person,  and the only information he had was based on conversations with his older brother Harve and an uncle, one of his mothers brothers.

My father was told that the child’s name was Macklin Brown and that he was raised by his paternal grandparents; and that several times prior to their mothers death, Macklin was brought to their home in Natural Bridge for visits.  

So the only information to go on was the child’s name and that they lived close enough to Natural Bridge, New York, to visit, in the 20’s and 30’s .   

This seems like a pattern in our family, the mysteries of Uncle Earl Lake and the Calder Family; little to no information and scant resources available to pursue.   Just once it would be nice to have good solid leads for some of these people.  But I guess that is what makes genealogy so interesting, the detective work!

I started this line of research by tracking the movements of my grandmother as best as possible, given how long ago this was and the fact there is no one left from her immediate family but my father and precious few records.  

A bit about my grandmother:   Leona G. Finley was born in July 1899 in Macomb, St. Lawrence Co., New York, she lived in Fine NY a great deal of her younger life. She died in Natural Bridge, Jefferson Co., New York in 1938 of cancer.  She married my grandfather Ernest Leon Lake on Dec 14, 1923; so this date becomes my search terminus. 

A newspaper clip in Dec 1919, from the “Ogdensburg Republican Journal”  identifies that she is living in Carthage, Jefferson Co., New York.  The clip, a gossip column of the day, says she was visiting a cousin, Mrs Lloyd Ward, in Oswegatchie, St Lawrence Co., New York. The census taken on January 9, 1920, Wilna, Jefferson Co., New York  line 71 identifies that Leona G. Finley is a resident in the household of George and Lottie Tharrett, where she is working as a “servant”.  With no other leads to follow at the time,  I took the most obvious next step, looking for Macklin Brown born between 1915 and 1923 in the Social Security Death Index.  Too easy and no such luck!

Using a map locating Natural Bridge New York as my center point, I made a circle with a 50 mile radius, and began to search newspapers, census reports, cemetery records, anything I could find in that circle relative to the name Brown.  There are a lot of Browns in that circle, but no “Macklin Brown” materialized.  

The newspaper, cemeteries, death records and census material for 1920 & 30 produced no new leads, so the only thing left was to wait for the 1940 census to be released and see if Macklin possibly (being an adult) would appear anywhere.  Now saying there were no leads is slightly misleading, I am sure that digging more and possibly visiting untold number of Village, Town, and County Clerks, etc, might have produced something, but with no information to go on, that kind of search may never produce a result.    As it turned out there was a bit of a clue but it was one of those hind-sight things that only show themselves after you find another piece of the puzzle; we’ll talk about that later. 

In April the census was released, but other issues cropped up that delayed my research; last week I finally got to resume the search.

One of the first searches I did in the new database was Macklin Brown with a date of birth range between 1915 and 1925 and the very first hit was “Charles Macklin Brown 18 YOA living in Edwards, St. Lawrence Co., New York.  I pulled the microfilmed digitized image and there he was, only if you looked closely at the image you could see where the census taker wrote his name, Brown, Macklin and then inserted a carrot adding Charles between last and first name.

The census identifies him living with his mother, Nellie Brown  56 YOA; she is listed as a widow. Checking the census of 1930, he is living with his father Bower Brown, mother Nellie Brown, and is identified as Charles M. Brown.  

Now one would think that being identified with parents in the census that would be it!  Wrong guy, right - well not so fast!  

With the information found in the 1940 census, it allows a more in-depth look into the Brown Family.  There were a lot of newspaper articles involving them in the Edwards NY area, the most important one for the purposes of this blogpost is Bower Brown's Obituary.   The attached image is the complete Obituary as published in the Dec 16, 1930 Canton Commercial Advertiser:   Third Paragraph is as follows; “He is survived by his window Nellie Wetherbie Brown; and adopted son Macklin; a sister Mrs. Mabel Clark of Canton.  

There is a lot more information involving the Brown’s that I will save for a later post, I will close this out for now with some interesting factoids.

First: The 50 mile radius, I used to determine search boundaries was based on what might be reasonable travel to visit Natural Bridge NY in the 1920’s & 30’s.    Edwards is 32 miles away.

Second: The little hind-sight clue,  Feb 28, 1923 Gouverneur Free Press  published under the “Edwards” town news:  “Miss Leona Finley of Ogdensburg is a guest of friends in town”  

Granted this could be coincidental; however, none of her family is living in Edwards, NY at this time, and "friends" could certainly mean anyone.   It is just a bit suggestive that Leona Finley having a child being raised by others, who’s name is Macklin Brown happens to be visiting in the town where a child with the same name, about a year old, is being raised by his "adoptive" parents, and their name is Brown.  Hmmm, kind of interesting coincidence, don't you think?  

Oh yes! Ogdensburg, NY, where she was living at the time, was 45 miles away from Edwards, and that doesn’t seem very far by today’s standards, but on 35MPH roads in a bus or maybe a car, in 1923 that was some trip.

This all needs more follow up and is by no means conclusive; however it’s highly suggestive at this point and I will continue to follow the leads until there are no more avenues of research.  

Scanners and Relatives

Yesterday, there was a rather large storm which kept me inside all day, after finishing what work I could do for my employer I started working on consolidating my computer building and repair tools, when I came across a negative scanner that I bought a year ago. This machine happened to be on sale at the time and I knew I had allot of negatives that were just sitting in boxes, and this little tool or as my wife calls them "toys" would be very useful. I remember using it on some slides when I first got it then put it away thinking; I'll get a lot of use out of this later. A year later I found this little negative scanner sitting right were I left it waiting to be put to some use. I took it out and installed the software and started working on a box of negatives that I hadn't looked at in years.

Being a photographer for many years I generated a lot of material, when I first started I shot black & white film exclusively. As there were so many photographs, I just printed proof sheets and filed the negatives away. For those that are not framilar with the proof sheet it is simply a process of placing all the negatives from the roll of film on a piece of photographic paper and exposing it to light. What you get are a small negative size prints of what you shot, 24 or 36 prints on a page.

Professional photographers used the proof sheet process as a quick reference to see what they had shot and a baseline gauge of the exposure and composition. In my case It would have been cost prohibitive at the time to print every one of the pictures as there were always multiples of each. So as you might guess with hundreds of photographs some of these negatives were never printed and even the ones that were have been lost to time.

So getting back to the scanner and more importantly it's application to genealogy research;

This little machine does an incredible job at scanning the negative and converting it to a digital format; if the negatives are in good shape , have been stored in a clean and dry place, the prints will look like you shot the photographs yesterday. I've done a pile of them so far and it works great, some of these prints I'm really seeing for the first time, what a great step back into the past.

Now Genealogy:

Coincidentally I had been working on a colateral ex-uncle in-law's family, my first cousin's father. He was the ex-husband of my mother's sister. He married a second time and I knew this lady (his second wife) relatively well; she passed on a few years ago and I realized I had virtually no data on her. Using Genealogy Bank and Ancestry.com I did find quite a bit and updated the record, but no one seemed to have a picture of her to add to the file.

While working with this scanner as I started through these black & white negatives, in the 3rd or 4th strip I loaded there she was sitting at the picnic table at my parent's home talking with other relatives. In the next strip I found a photograph of yet another relative my father's brother's wife Aunt Jean sitting in her Harrisville New York living room thirty years or more ago.

There is treasure trove of family history in these pictures, which I haven't seen in over 30+ years. I can't wait to get back to the scanning of the rest of these negative to see what else I can find.

Connection Made Earl and Suzanne Lake's family found

I have written in this blog several times about Great Uncle Earl Lake and his family. That he left home in upstate New York in the 1900's never to be seen by his family again. Well after about 2 years of search and VERY little information to go on I was able to make connections with relatives in his direct line. This photograph came from the Public Library in White River, Ontario Canada. More to follow...........

LakeGen Website Updated

Updates have been made to the design and some content added to family pages in the Calder, Sanders and Lake families.

www.lakegen.com or follow the links on this blog

Mystery Photograph "Reach Artists Lowville NY"

The mystery of this photograph is a simple one, the identity of the people pictured.

Very little is known about this picture, it was in the collection of my great aunt Merle Florence  (Lake) Clement; as with allot of these type picture no identifying information was located with it. Merle died in 1972 and none of her surviving line has any information about it.

These are a few facts known about the print.

1.) It was take by "Reach Artists" of Lowville New York
2). It appears similar to a "Cabinet Card"
3). The face of the card is blue and the rear gray
4). The card has rounded corners and a beveled oval inset for the picture

These factors will help narrow the time frame that the photograph was taken and may eventually help solve the mystery of who these people are. 

These facts are just a general guide to start looking as the cards could have been used well into the 20th Century if the Studio had a large enough supply.

In search of Macklin Brown b. c1920

Day before yesterday I was talking to my dad about progress on the family history, we were discussing his late brother Harve's children who all live in England and his uncle Earl whom I have been researching steadily for the past several months.  When kind of out of the blue he told me about a half brother he had that I never heard of before.  

Needless to say I was alittle surprise to discover this, I don't believe my father ever met this person although his brothers Harve and Keith had when they were children.

The only information that I have to go on is that his name is Macklin Brown, he was born sometime around 1920 but before 1923, in  possibly St. Lawrence, Jefferson or Lewis County New York. That he was raised; I believe by his paternal grandparents, (Brown) that he knew his mother; my grandmother and the circumstances which created his living situation. I don't know his fathers name nor his grandparents names.  I am assuming that he has in all likelihood passed away by now as he would be near 90 YOA if he was still alive. I am not sure that he stayed in New York State as an adult.  His mother, my grandmother died in 1938 and there is no indication of any connection with my fathers family after her death.

This one is likely to be a very difficult nut to crack, no census record have been located yet, newspaper articles or obituaries.  I have posted to the message boards in the affore mentioned Counties and Brown board seeking information and assistance.  

We shall just have to wait and see what information can be generated..............

What happened to Great Uncle Earl ??

Great Uncle Earl Joseph Lake was a man that I never met, nor did my father.

Earl was born in Natural Bridge, New York in 1884. He was the eldest son of Harvey Jessie Lake and Jennie Sanders and he had 4 siblings: Merle, Bessie, Ernest and Robert.

In the early 1900’s Earl disappeared from New York State never to return. He communicated very infrequently with his relatives back home, the only person that he exchanged letters with appears to be his mother, prior to her death in 1918 and his sister Merle. The last time anyone can recall hearing from Earl was in the 1950's when he wrote his sister to obtain information from the family bible. He made mention at that time that he was being assisted in writing the letter by his grand-daughter as arthritis was causing him a great degree of difficulty.

Earl's sister Merle died in 1972 and the last family connection was broken at that time.

When my father and I began researching our family history it was evident that there was almost no information to go on to find Earl Lake. What my Dad did know of him was that he went to Canada around 1915, in the “Three Rivers area,” and married an Indian woman and began his family.

As of 1982 Earl's only living sibling was his youngest brother Robert who was interviewed about family history but he had no information about his brother other than what has already been expounded upon.

So to recap the information available to begin research:

1. Earl Joseph Lake

2. born 24 September 1884 Natural Bridge Jefferson Co., New York

3. May have gone to the Three Rivers Area of Ontario Canada

4. Married an Indian Woman

That was about it.

I worked on this off an on for a number of years with searches in different databases, articles and books and nothing came of it; however, I only searched this as side line when I came up dry on other efforts.

About a year ago I set out make a direct effort in regards to finding Earl and his family; using the information I had and evaluating family history I drew up a research plan. A brief history of our family is in order to understand the research plan path.

The patriarch of the family in this country, John Lake, came from England in the 1600's and settled in what is now New York City. His great great grandson Thomas Lake was a loyalist, who lived White Creek New York and at the start of the American Revolution was a loyalist who was forced to flee to Canada after the War. To this day there are Lake family members, in my line, living in these Ontario Canada counties. Earl's great grandfather Jesse Lake was first of the family to return from Canada permanently and began farming St. Lawrence Co., New York in the early 1800's. Earl should have been at least exposed to this information and may have known of family still in Canada at the time; there was at least a possibility that this was why he went to Canada in the first place.

I started with a map, applied the known information and came up with nothing.

When Ancestry.ca came on line I searched that data base for information, nothing!

I then chanced a posting on the message boards for most of the counties in the Canadian / New York border areas. The message was sent out to about 12 message boards seeking information and amazingly enough within about an hour I had my answer as to what happened to Earl. I received information from no less than 20 people that they found Earl’s marriage record. This gave me the area to search, his wife and her parents name, his occupation and the year they married. For the next week I received further responses with the same information.

This information was the revelation necessary to open the doors for future discoveries; I found that Earl became a trapper in the White River Algoma Co., Ontario Canada community. He married an Indian woman who is identified in the document as Suzanne Potowissian, daughter of Louis and Jean (Legarde) Potowissian.

The next bit of information was discovered in the 1901 Census for White River Algoma Co., Ontario, Canada which identified the Potowissian family by the last name of Poto. The Census noted that Suzanne had a brother Albert who died in 1906, he was a trapper that contracted Pneumonia and after battling it for 6 months died.

This family, as with a lot of genealogical research, yields its secrets sparingly, you get a tidbit and information which leads you in a direction, then it all dries up again.

About a year later I discovered in the Drouin Records several references to Earl and his family, I located birth, baptism, death and burial records which have expanded my information base greatly.

Earl and Suzanne had the following children;

• Marc Mathias Lake 1915 – 1961

• Agnes Lake 1917 -

• Joseph Leonard Herby Lake 1919 -

• Marguerite Lake 1920 – 1923

• Beatrice Lake

• Marie Clara Lake 1924 -

• Helene Suzanne Lake 1926 -

• Almire Joseph Lake 1928 -

• Walter Joseph 1931 -

Earl died in 1966 of a heart attack at the age of 81 years, his wife Suzanne died in 1964, their son Marc in 1961 and a daughter Marguerite or Margret in 1932; the rest of the family information has not been sufficently developed at present.

There is still a great deal to do in this line but considering that 2 years ago no one knew what happened to Uncle Earl, we have come a long way! 

Family is posted on Gene.com and Lake Family Research Project website

The investigation continues............

Website Updated

Lakegen.com was updated today the John Calder and Elizabeth Forbes family page additions were made, last week some of the individual Lake Family Pages were updated

Thomas Lake b. 1734 New Jersey d. 1813 Wolford Grenville Ontario Canada

Thomas Lake, my 5X Great Grandfather. He was born in Middlesex NJ son of Nicholas Lake and Mary Janzen.  He married Mayke or Michal Williamson 16 Aug 1757 and started his family among the children born to them while they live in NJ was my 4thX Great Grandfather James or as the dutch called him "Kobus" Lake.  By 1761 Thomas and his family along with at-least 2 brothers had relocated to White Creek New York, in what is now Washington County. They began farming a plot of land, a small farm of about 5000 acres on what was known as the Arent Van Corlear grant, he and the Lake families split this land grant to create these farms.

When the American Revolutionary War began most of the Lake family were loyalist and took up the cause of King and Country.  Thomas participated in the Battle of Bennington which was primarily fought on his farm land, he joined a unit known as the Queens Loyal Rangers under the command of a former Green Mountain boy by the name of Peters who had received a commission as a LT Colonel in the British Army and was order to form a Loyalist fighting unit. 

This unit, a small force of British regulars, along with a group of German Soldiers known as Brunswickers was detailed to capture the Colonial Militia supplies stored at Bennington in what is now Vermont.  About 5 miles from Bennington the British Force engaged what they thought was going to be a small Colonial Militia Unit, not understanding what was happening they ran into a very large force that had been mustered to prevent there taking Bennington.  The result of this battle was the British, German and Loyalist force was stopped and forced to surrender, the German Commander was killed and many casualties were sustained.

Thomas Lake survived the Battle and was taken prisoner, he and the rest of his comrades were held at Cambridge NY until after the Battle of Saratoga NY they were ultimately released.  The loyalists were forced to leave the colonies many fled to Canada some the West Indies, everything they owned had been confiscated so they had to start again. 

Thomas took his family to Wolford, Grenville Co., Ontario where he remained until his death in 1813 at the age of 70 years old.  His son James was the first to return to the US when he refused to sign a loyalty oath in Canada around 1814.  James lost his property in Canada and was also forced to start from scratch.  James settled with his son Jesse Lake in Gouverneur St. Lawrence NY and is buried in Wayside Cemetery with several members of the family.

Much of the solid information about Thomas still must be proven and sourced there has been some research but there are credibility issues with it. So more work is necessary to complete the picture but I am finding solid information on a regular basis.

 

                                                                        The Search Continues >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Bringing together Blogs

Ever since beginning this documenting project I had it in my head that I would create a blog for each family group then post stories and research notes etc for those groups. Then I began looking around at other blogs that people have been working on and found just how much they put into just one. It also became apperent very quickly when I started building a seperate website just how much extra work I was bringing on myself.  So in an effort to keep posting to this blog current and work the website and research and, and, and!!!!    I have move all of the blogs with the exception of one to this place and made several posting of older information in this one spot and taken the others down hopefully this works better.

Samuel E. Clement & Emma M. Farnum

Samuel E. Clement was born 8 Sep 1881 in Croghan, Lewis Co., New York he was the son of a US Civil Union Soldier from New York and farmer Daniel L. Clement and Mary Jane Palmer. In 1894 Daniel Clement died suddenly of Heart and Bright’s disease, with an enlarged liver. This left Sam as the oldest surviving son at age 13; having two brothers Charles F. and George H. that died in 1872 and 1884 respectively. The family consisted of Mattie Clement Herzig the eldest sister who had left home to start her own family, Anna P. Clement, Ira Edwin the youngest; Mary Jane Clement his their mother and Sam.

The eldest daughter Mattie left New York State with her family and settled in the Colrain, Massachusetts area. At some point just before 1900 Mary Jane Clement who by this point was going by the name Jennie Clement, left New York State and moved to Colrain, Ma with her two son’s Sam and Ira Edwin. Jennie’s daughter Annie had married Lorenzo Ashcraft in 1895 she had one daughter and died in 1898. Interestingly enough Lorenzo Ashcraft was born in Brattleboro, Vermont about 45 miles from where Mattie and later Sam would settle to live out their lives.

Jennie did not like living in Massachusetts and wanted to return home to New York, however Sam did not he stayed behind and Ira Edwin return with their mother to the farm in New York.

While in Colrain, he met Emma M. Farnum who was a loom weaver in a textile mill, they married on 6 Aug 1905, and raised their family in the Halifax, VT, Whitingham, VT and ultimately settling permanently on a small farm on Cyrus Stage Road in Rowe, Franklin Co., Massachusetts.

Emma Martha Farnum was actually born Martha Emily Farnum 19 Jun 1873 to Cyrus Farnum and Miranda Gates, she was the second generation of women in her line to live an extremely long life. Her mother was 90 Year old when she passed and Emma was 104 when she died in 1977. Emma was the second of 5 children, and the only one to marry and start a family of her own. Her family's ancestry extended back to before the Revolutionary War and involved some of the founding member of the towns of Halifax and Whitingham, Vermont. The Whitney’s, Crosier’s, and Gates’ were part of her direct family line, many of the descendants of these families still live in both towns to this day.

Sam and Emma had 4 children, Elmer Farnum 1907-1977; Doris Emma 1909-1996; John Edwin 1913-2003; and Alfred Burton 1920-1990. They farmed or worked on farms in and around the towns we have already discussed until 27 July 1952 when Sam had a heart attack and died suddenly at the age of 70. Emma lived the remainder of her considerably long life on the farm in Rowe, Massachusetts with her eldest son Elmer, who after returning from World War II, Italy never really went much further than the area around home, for the remainder of his life. Elmer never married spending most of his time taking care or the few farm animals that were around the Rowe farm.

Jennie Clement made a final trip to Colrain around 1912, she had sold the farm in New York and travelled to Colrain, MA with her son Ira Edwin and his wife Merle Florence Lake. She initially had intended to stay, Ira and Merle return to New York, it is unclear whether Jennie had decided she wanted to go home or she became ill and wanted to return. Whichever the case money was raised to send her back to New York, when she suddenly died on June 13, 1912, she is buried alone in Christian Hill Cemetery in Colrain, MA, her grave sets just inside the gate marked with a field stone marker rough carved, "J. Clement" to this day no other family member has been buried in that Cemetery.

Sam, Emma and now all of their children are gone; John Edwin Clement Sr. was the last of his family to pass on at 89 years of age, my grandfather, left a rich family legacy to preserve, a history that is still incomplete but a history that he helped research, write and more importantly preserve.