Pearson Family Immigration

 With the additional knowledge of the Wilson and Pearson families that we got from the Wilson Family Bible, I decided to search through the records at Castle Garden to see if I could find their immigration record. Castle Garden was the main immigration port in New York before Ellis Island was built.

Turns out "John Wilson" is a ridiculously common name and, while there were several possibilities in the 1830s, I don't know which one is him.

The Pearson family, however, was easier. I found the record of Robert and Elizabeth Pearson who arrived in 1835 along with their children John, Mary, and Ellen [this would be Eleanor Pearson Wilson, my great-great-great-grandmother]. The record is of the "Ship Alfred" out of Liverpool, Charles Cheever, master.

The record doesn't say much, just that Robert is a farmer, Elizabeth is his wife, and the three others his children, all from England. Their ages are given as 61, 58, 22, 16, and 12. I do wonder if the older children came to the US earlier and set things up for their parents and younger siblings.

The Wilsons of Michigan

Did you know I'm named after my great-great-grandmother, Rebecca Eleanor Wilson Manary? Well, now you do.

The Wilson family came from England. Rebecca Wilson Manary was born in the U.S. in 1852, and married Joseph Charles Manary in 1871. Her son, Otto, was my great-grandfather.

The Wilson family Bible has some interesting information about the family, although there seems to be a mish-mash of material inside. 

The Bible has a leather-embossed cover, fairly typical of the time it was printed, in the mid- to early-1850s. It is in decent shape, although the spine is falling apart. You can see my thumb holding it on in the picture above.

The first page inside the cover reads "Eleanor Wilson". This would, presumably, be Rebecca Wilson Manary's mother. The handwriting is fine but not extremely fancy. I mention this because someone who wrote in this Bible did have beautiful calligraphy. I assume it was not Eleanor Wilson, based on the handwriting on the front page. 

The second page reads "This book was purchased about the year 1858 at a book store near the corner of 5th and Water St. Bay City, Mich. given to C.J. Manary by his mother" It looks to me like this is different handwriting, but I can't particularly tell. C.J. Manary would be Otto's older brother, Charles, which would make "his mother" Rebecca Wilson Manary. I'm not sure how the Bible ended up in our branch of the family, but Rebecca Manary did live with her son Otto when elderly and died in his house.

As usual, the best information comes from the family pages between the Old and New Testaments. There are several pages of births, marriages, and deaths.

The first page has "Parents' Record". In fancy calligraphy, under Father it reads "John Wilson was Born Nov the 6 1810". Someone added, in much poorer handwriting, "in Suttontown Linconshire, England". The handwriting looks to me very similar to the name "Eleanor Wilson" on the first page. The E is the same. Under Mother, the Bible records "Eleanor Wilson was Born April the 13 1823". Again, in the same shakier handwriting, someone (perhaps Eleanor) added, "in Yorkshire England."

The Births page has a list of all of John and Eleanor's children. It has two columns, and most of what is in the column on the left is repeated on the right. Most of the writing here is the fancy calligraphy. I wonder if that is John's handwriting or if they hired someone to write the information when they first got the Bible? The actual information reads:

Elizabeth Wilson Born March the 7 Seventh 1842

Robert Wilson Born April the 9 Ninth 1844

 Thomas Wilson Born May 29 1846

Burton Wilson Born Oct the 10 Tenth 1848

Rebeckah Born February the 8 Eighth 1853 [note: there seems to be some confusion about when she was actually born, because it is written in on the left column where the date was missing entirely, and on the right column someone wrote over the original in blue pen. The original said February 9, 1852]

Jabus Born Nov the 1 First, 1855

John Born July the 10 1860 

The marriages page includes a list of the childrens' marriages, as well as that of their parents. The left column has three different versions of the parents' marriage information. It looks like someone was practicing their fancy calligraphy and just started over when things when bad. The information on the page is as follows:

John Wilson and Eleanor Pearson married February the 13 in the year of our Lord 1841.

 Elizabeth Wilson Married April the sixth in the year of our Lord 1859 [note: there's no mention of who she married. Maybe they didn't like her husband?]

The two entries above were written in the fancy calligraphy. Everything below was written in a much shakier hand:

Robert Wilson and Elizabeth J. Petherick were joined in holy matrimony April 20 1871 

John Wilson and Margaret Hagerty married September 28th, 1868

Thomas Wilson and Lizzie Garner were joined in holy matrimony Oct 28th, 1875

Joseph C. Manary and Rebecca E. Wilson married July 27th 1871 

 

The last page, of course, catalogs the deaths. It seems to have been filled in by a number of different hands over the years. The information is a little muddled in order because some deaths were put in the left column and others in the right. 

Jabus died July the 4 fourth in the year of our Lord 1857 [He would have been not quite two. A note in the bible, which I'll show later, said he died of whooping cough]

John Wilson died March the 28th 1866 [This is the son of John and Rebecca Wilson, who would have been five at the time. The same note that mentioned Jabus's death said John Jr died of typhoid fever]

Joseph C. Manary Died Nov 22 1916

Rebecca Manary Died May 1st 1930

The above entries were in the left column. In the right column are listed:

Eleanor P. wife of John Wilson died February 19th 1867 [note: the E looks a lot like the one on the first page, which does discount my theory that it was Eleanor's own hand.]

John Wilson Sr died January 20th 1897

Elizabeth Wilson Fagg died Feb 6th 1920

Thomas Wilson died Feb 28 1921

William W. Fagg husband of Elizabeth Wilson Grant [not sure what the Grant is there for?] died January 11, 1922

Elizabeth Garner wife of Thomas Wilson died November 1924 

One of the great things about family Bibles is that people often left important papers in them for safekeeping.  The papers I found in this Bible were mostly underwhelming. For some reason, there's a receipt for a piano payment from Eleanor Manary, Joseph and Rebecca Wilson Manary's daughter, dating to Nov 8, 1902. There is also some assessment paperwork from Monitor County in 1877. Maybe related to buying their farm out there? There are also some obituaries pasted onto the page. Two are for John Wilson. One reads:

John Wilson, aged 86, of Monitor township, died Wednesday night of cancer. He was one of the pioneers of Bay County and was well known in this city. The funeral will be held from the house at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Interment at Pine Ridge cemetery.

The second reads:

John Wilson, of Monitor township, died last evening of cancer, aged 86 years. He leaves a wife and four children, Mrs. W.W. Fagg of Bay City, Thomas Wilson of Vassar, and Robert Wilson and Mrs. J. Manary, of Monitor. He was one of the early settlers of the valley and had been a resident of Monitor for about 20 years.

Note the comment about a wife. Eleanor would have been dead for 30 years. It looks like he remarried, but if they had any children, none survived. The wife is not mentioned at all in the Bible.

Two other obituaries are pasted on this page, both related to the Pearson family, which is Eleanor's maiden name. The older obituary is for William "Pierson" [note: later in the same obituary it is written as "Pearson"] who died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Robson, on Dec 2, 1887 at 87 years old. I do not know who this person is in relation to Eleanor Wilson, but my best guess is an uncle. The obituary says that he was a native of England. He married Sarah Blackburn in 1832, and that they came to the U.S. in 1844 and had lived in Milford since. This is clearly the Milford near Howell, MI, as the final obituary makes clear.

The other obituary is for Huldah Cordelia Stedman Pearson, the wife of Joshua Pearson. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1840 but moved to her aunt's house in Howell. She married Joshua Pearson in 1862. They had three children, but only Burton and Frank survived. I have no idea who Joshua Pearson was, but I would guess William Pearson's grandson.

The final treasure in the Bible was a hand-written note about the maternal line for Otto Manary and his siblings. This is the note that gave the causes of Jabus and John Wilson's deaths. It gives the names of Rebecca Wilson Manary's parents John Wilson and Eleanor Pearson Wilson, noting that John Wilson had six sisters and no brothers. Then it gives Eleanor Pearson Wilson's mother's name as Elizabeth Massom Pearson. It does not state what her father's name was. John Wilson's parents were Thomas Wilson and Rebecca Gravis Wilson. 

I've been updating the Wikitree pages for John and Eleanor Wilson with all of this new information.

The interior has some water staining on the pages. 

Martha Hancock Wheat

 In a previous post about my great-great-great-grandfather, Ammon Goode Hancock, I mentioned his sister Martha. Martha's journal about her religious experiences was the focus of an article by historian Cynthia Kierner (Kierner 1992). Dr. Kierner kindly pointed me toward the archive where her transcriptions of the journal could be found and I was able to obtain them from the UNC Charlotte. She had originally obtained them from a descendant of the Wheat family.

Martha Hancock Wheat's journal is not gripping material, unless you are particularly interested in conversion stories, although it is fascinating how much her testimonies mirror modern evangelical testimonies. I'm not a scholar of religion, however, so my interest was entirely in the references to her family. 

For copyright reasons, I can't post the entire transcript here, but I will send it to you if you are interested Just email me! I'm going to quote parts of it and add in commentary that places her journal in the familial context.

She began writing her journal in 1850:

I was born in Bedford County, Virginia February 12 1823 -- and for several years thereafter neither of my parents made any pretention to religion, so I did not have the advantages of early religious training.

Martha's parents (the ones she throws under the bus here in her first line) were Justus Hancock and Harriet (Walden) Hancock. 

Family documents -- and public documentation in Virginia -- give Justus's birth as May 19, 1791 in Bedford, Virginia. Bedford is just outside of Lynchburg, where the Hancock family lived until at least the mid-20th century, and presumably still do, although our line moved to the west coast in the late 1800s. His family had been in Virginia since before the Virginia Muster of 1624/25 and he was also the descendant of early Huguenot settlers who arrived in the early 1700s. One of those settlers gave his mother her maiden name of Ammon, which was where his son's name came from.

Harriet Walden Hancock was the daughter of John Walden and Martha Hopkins, which is where Martha's name came from. She was born in 1795, also in Bedford, and her family also had been in Virginia since before the Muster. 

In 1820, around the time Martha was born, Justus Hancock's household was listed in the census with five enslaved people, suggesting they were moderately prosperous landowners (and, well, morally complicit). Martha had four siblings: her older brothers Ammon and Jonathan, and her younger brother and sister, Daniel and Lucy. 

Martha's statement about her parents' lack of religion seems to reflect her very specific definition of religion, since the very next sentence in her journal is as follows:

But when quite a child, I was sent to a school, taught in an old church called Antioch. Here the circuit riders preached every two weeks, and I had frequent opportunities of hearing them.

I honestly don't know where, exactly, is/was the "old church called Antioch." I'm pretty sure the Hancocks were Methodist, however. My guess is that Martha didn't consider them sufficiently evangelical. Antioch must have been in -- or close to -- Bedford County, since Martha is clearly living at home and mentions that her family was not encouraging her to attend the church. I have searched for some of the names of preachers and congregants that Martha mentions, including "Brother Peyton", "Brother John R. Bennits" and "Sister Jane Tate". There was supposedly a "Mary Jane Tate", daughter of Zachariah Tate, born around 1809 in Bedford County, VA. She never married. I have no information about which church she attended, but she may be related to Henry Tate, who was buried in the Patmos Methodist Church in Huddleston, VA, which is in Bedford County. Patmos's webpage claims the church was founded in 1834, but there's no mention of the "Antioch" name.

She was baptized by a "Brother Nathaniel Thomas" who was preaching on the Bedford circuit. He also asked her to lead a prayer, which I thought was an interesting commentary on the role of women in the church. She also mentioned attending a women's prayer meeting at "Sister Thurman's". There were a number of Thurmans in Bedford County in the late 1700s and early 1800s, but no idea where they went to church. 

Skipping over a bunch of religious commentary, the next interesting paragraph from a family history perspective is this:

Years past by and I had not obtained that which I sought [religious enlightenment, I think]. When twenty three years old I was united in holy wedlock, to him whom I had chosen, in preference to many others, as one who loved and served God.

Martha's chosen groom was Zachariah Wheat. They were married July 7, 1845, in Bedford County. Martha would have been twenty-two if she married in 1845 and was born in 1823. However, I'm pretty sure she's lying about her age, both here and in the very first sentence of her journal, where she gave her birth year. 

In the 1850 U.S. Census for Bedford County, Martha is listed as 30 and her husband Zachariah is listed as 38. (U.S. Census 1850). This would be a birth year of 1820. In the 1860 U.S. Census, her age is given as 36 -- a birth year of 1824 -- while her husband is 48, since he, unlike his wife, actually aged ten years over the previous decade (U.S. Census 1860). In 1870, her age is given as 46 -- consistent with a birth year of 1824 -- while her husband is only 52 (U.S. Census 1870). At her death, on August 21, 1874, her age was given as 53, which would make her birth year 1821. Our family records suggest 1821 is the correct date. 

Zachariah Wheat was born Dec 17, 1811, so he was around ten years older than Martha. He had been previously married to Clementine (Early) Wheat, who died April 21, 1844, about a year before Zachariah married Martha. Zachariah had three children from that previous marriage: Jonathan Wesley, Ann R, and Mary Louise. At the time of the marriage, Jonathan would have been around seven and Mary Louise about three. Martha seems to have had some concerns about stepping into the role of wife and mother, as she noted: 

When my Husband addressed me soon after we became acquainted, I thought there was an  insuperable barrier to our Union. He was a Widower, and I had often thought I would never be a step mother, as I had seen many who seemed to be very unhappy. But as I believed him to be a good man, I again went to my Heavenly Advisor, and the more I prayed for guidance the more I became satisfied that I should not reject him on account of his children. With streaming eyes I told my objections, how could I take so much responsibility upon myself, as to undertake to raise those motherless children. But then as clearly as the words had been spoken the answer would come. You wished to be useful and you wished to be a Missionary, and now that a door of usefulness has been opened to you, you refuse to enter in. My love for Him increased and I felt that at last I had my makers approbation and could marry the Man I loved.

Martha says that Zachariah "addressed" her soon after they "became acquainted". I don't know if this phrase refers to the beginning of courtship or if they truly hadn't known each other before. Zachariah's family had lived in Bedford County for generations, as had Martha's. Zachariah's mother, Edith Chastain Wheat, was a descendant of a prominent Huguenot family that had arrived in Virginia in 1699. Edith's niece, -- Zachariah's first cousin -- Charlotte Hewitt, married Ammon Hancock, Martha's oldest brother, in 1851. 

Martha and Zachariah had four children together:

Harriet J. Wheat - born 1846

Sarah L. Wheat - born 1848

William R.B. Wheat - born 1856

Otis P. Wheat - born 1860

I found this online as a picture of Martha Hancock Wheat and Zachariah Wheat, so I can't guarantee it's truly them. I don't have any pictures handed down through the family. If this is their oldest child, then this picture should be from 1846 or 1847. Gotta say, she's out of his league.

This blog post is getting long, so I will stop here and discuss Martha's children and later mentions of her family in the next post.

 

Bibliography

Kierner, Cynthia A. 1992. Woman's Piety within Patriarchy: The Religious Life of Martha Hancock Wheat of Bedford County. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100:79-98.) 

"United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M88P-YLD : accessed 28 December 2015), Martha A Wheat in household of Zachariah J Wheat, Bedford county, Bedford, Virginia, United States; citing family 496, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.)

"United States Census, 1860", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M41M-JJY : accessed 28 December 2015), Martha A Wheat in entry for Z J Wheat, 1860.

"United States Census, 1870", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFLJ-8YZ : Tue Mar 05 12:43:43 UTC 2024), Entry for Z J Wheat and Martha A Wheat, 1870.

What, Exactly, is a Farm?

A colleague with whom I share both anthropological and genealogical interests pointed me toward this webpage of Washington history. I didn't find much specifically about our ancestors, but this post about the origins of Oak Harbor in January, 1851 was interesting. It hits both my family history interests and my anthropological research on land use and historical ecology. Note this section:

Norwegian shoemaker Zakarias Martin Taftezon (also spelled Toftezen and Taftsen, among other variants) (1821-1901), Swiss Ulrich Freund, and New Englander Clement W. "Charlie" Sumner met each other at New Orleans while en route to the 1849 California gold rush. They did not strike it rich in the gold fields and headed north to the Oregon Country. In late 1850, they landed in Olympia and with the help of Samuel Hancock, took an Indian canoe north down Puget Sound to find available land....

According to pioneer Jerome Ely, Taftezon cut steps into the steep bluff at the mouth of the inlet the Skagits called Kla-tole-tsche to climb up and view the area to the north. He spied the Oak Harbor prairie free of the dense stands of trees that covered so much of the region....Much of Puget Sound was covered by dense stands of timber, but the grass-covered prairies where the Indians dug their camas roots offered good prospects for farming.

I love "the grass-covered prairies where the Indians dug their camas roots offered good prospects for farming." Yes, they did. Because they were farms! You will generally see these roots classified as "wild" foods but the boundary between "wild" and "domesticate" or between "prairie" and "farm" is a lot fuzzier than most people realize. Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest created fields of camas and manipulated soil and roots to make camas more productive. These prairies were created and managed ecosystems for growing camas. Sounds kinda like a farm, doesn't it?

Other crops grown by the Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest include various fruit-bearing trees, berries, and (my personal favorite) shellfish in aquaculture beds.

So why didn't the Euro-American settlers arriving on Whidbey Island mention that it was covered in farms? Partly because they did not recognize them. These Indigenous fields didn't look like European farms, with fences and plow furrows and red-pained barns. The settlers' ethnocentrism only allowed them to see Europe-style farms as "true" farms. 

But also, settlers often refused to recognize the farms right in front of their faces because that would mean recognizing that they had stolen someone's land. Land grabs in this time period were based on the idea that Euro-Americans were hard-working people who improved and built upon land while Indigenous people were not. As "proof" of this, Euro-Americans pointed to the fact that much of North America was made up of unsettled or unimproved land. And where that wasn't true (which it mostly wasn't) they pretended it was true.

Now for the genealogical connection: note the reference to Samuel Hancock and the implication that he's working with Indigenous people to transport settlers to Whidbey island. Some thirty years later Mr. Hancock helped his great-nephew, E.J. Hancock, to move to Whidbey island, where E.J. married Julia Kinney, the daughter of a local ship captain. They became my great-great-grandparents.

Mary Jane Robinson Houghton. Maybe

 My great-great-grandmother is Julia Kinney Hancock. We have a lot of documentation about her mother, Mary Elizabeth Houghton Hancock. Mary Elizabeth's parents have always been difficult to securely document. There are a number of family trees out there on the intertubes that make various claims for her parents, but actual proof is sparse. 

Here's what we know for certain:

• There is a marriage recorded for Mary Elizabeth Houghton, age 26, and Thomas F Kenney (we spell it Kinney), age 28, in Boston, MA, for March 20, 1858. This records her parents' names as William and Mary J. Houghton. Hopefully, this is true. I only express doubt because some of the information on the record is clearly false. Both Thomas and Mary Elizabeth claimed to be born in Boston and to be the children of parents born in Boston. In fact, both were born in Nova Scotia and all of their later census records list English Canada as the birthplace of their parents. [Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FC6Q-MCX : accessed 15 February 2016), Thomas F. Kenney and Mary E. Houghton, 20 Mar 1858; citing reference ; FHL microfilm 818,099.]

These are the transcribed marriage records for the city of Boston in 1858. Thomas Kenney/Kinney and Mary Elizabeth Houghton are second from the bottom. I really wish she had included her mother's maiden name and/or that we had the original documents

• The obituary of Julia Kinney Hancock, daughter of Thomas Kinney and Mary Elizabeth Houghton, states that she was born in Hall's Harbor, Nova Scotia, in 1859. Since Thomas Kinney was a mariner, he was away from home frequently. He had grown up in Yarmouth, 150 miles away from Hall's Harbor. If Mary Elizabeth was in Hall's Harbor when her daughter was born, it suggests that her family may have been from the area. Also, Hall's Harbor is small. It's not likely she was there because it was a major hub. The 1861 Canada Census has Thomas and Mary Elizabeth Kinney in Kings County (where Hall's Harbor is located). ["Nova Scotia Census, 1861," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQQD-MY2 : 8 November 2014), Thos F Kenny, Kings, Nova Scotia, Canada; citing line 17; Library and Archives Canada film number M-881, Public Archives, Halifax; FHL microfilm 865,126.]

My Great-Aunt Lilian, who is always proven right in the end, has Mary Elizabeth Houghton's mother's maiden name as Robinson. I don't know if that information was handed down in the family or if she found documentation. 

Finding a William and Mary J Houghton living in Kings County, Nova Scotia around the time of Mary Elizabeth's birth in 1831 has been a challenge. The names are quite common. I may have finally come up with a breakthrough, though, and it leads to an unexpected reason why we may know less about Mary Elizabeth's family than we do about the Kinney side, as well as why she and Thomas lied about their birthplaces: it looks like Mary Elizabeth was Catholic. Perhaps the couple eloped in order to avoid familial or religious barriers?

I base this on the most likely records I can find of her parents, a William and Mary Houghton living in Hall's Harbor around the time that Mary Elizabeth would have been living there with her newborn daughter:

• There is a William Howton in the Canadian census in Kings County, Nova Scotia, in 1861. ["Nova Scotia Census, 1861," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQQD-9K4 : accessed 18 November 2015), William Howton, Kings, Nova Scotia, Canada; citing line 10; Library and Archives Canada film number M-881, Public Archives, Halifax; FHL microfilm 865,126.]
• William Howton and his wife Mary J. are recorded in Kings County, Nova Scotia in the 1871 census, along with two daughters, Teressa and Louisa, ages 19 and 17. [http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1871/pdf/4396663_00061.pdf]. William is listed as 63, Roman Catholic, a farmer, and born in Ireland. Mary J is 60, Roman Catholic, and also listed as born in Ireland. However, when her daughter, Louisa Frances Murphy, died in 1934, her death certificate states that her mother was born in Canada. 
• In the 1891 census, William is recorded in Woodville, Kings, Nova Scotia, as an 87 year old widower. Woodville is about 10 miles from Halls Harbor. ["Canada Census, 1891," database, FamilySearch [https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MW23-4FX : accessed 18 November 2015), Wm Houghton, Woodville, Kings, Nova Scotia, Canada; Public Archives, Ottawa, Ontario; Library and Archives Canada film number 30953_148119.] 

Unfortunately, it's hard to tie this William Houghton and Mary J. to Mary Elizabeth Houghton Kinney. There are indications, however, that Mary J.'s maiden name was Robinson, which is the name in Aunt Lil's records. 

In the records of the Catholic church, St. John the Evangelist, in Windsor, Nova Scotia, I found the baptism of Patrick Houghton, son of William Houghton and Jane Houghton nee Robinson. It would not be at all surprising if Mary J went by her middle name. That's incredibly common in Catholic communities where every other woman is named Mary. Patrick's baptism was sponsored by Michael Donahue and Bridget Houghton. Patrick was baptized September 29, 1835. This would make him a perfect age to be the brother of Mary Elizabeth. Windsor, however, is about 30 miles from Hall's Harbor. ["Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DQJQ-D4MM : 27 May 2021), Patrick Houghton, 1835.]

The baptismal record of Patrick Houghton from the 1835 records of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Windsor, Nova Scotia. The relevant record is in the upper right corner

The same church records have evidence for a likely sibling of Patrick's, Jane. Again, the parents names are listed as William Houghton and Jane Robinson. She was baptized August 27, 1837. Her sponsors were Patrick Lyons and Elizabeth Doye (or Dolyle?) ["Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DXMX-4SMM : 27 May 2021), William Hauton in entry for Jane or Janne Hauton, 1837.]

The record of Jane Houghton's baptism at St. John the Evangelist in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1837. Her record is on the bottom right of the page.

OK, but if these are siblings of Mary Elizabeth's, this begs two questions: 1) why isn't Mary Elizabeth's baptism in the records?; and 2) why are these records from a church so far from Hall's Harbor?

The answer to the first question is just depressing: the records don't go back far enough to catch Mary Elizabeth's birth. The answer to the second question, though, may be that Kings County didn't have a church of its own and relied on an itinerant priest. Another possible sibling of Mary Elizabeth's is listed in the baptismal records of the same church, St. John the Evangelist in Windsor, in 1840. This record book, however, actually lists the locations in which the weddings, funerals, and baptisms took place. They are from a variety of areas around Windsor, such as Kentville and Horton. The record for the baptism of Lavinia Houton [sic], daughter of William Houghton and Jane Robinson, specifically states it took place in Cornwallis. Cornwallis was one of the original townships of Kings County. She was sponsored by James Houghton and Mary Porter ["Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DWHV-8JMM : 27 May 2021), William Houton in entry for Lavinia Houton, 1840.]

Baptismal record of Lavinia Houghton, March 24, 1840, in Kings County, Nova Scotia. Her record is on the right near the center.

Other children baptized at the same church to William Houghton and Jane Robinson include:

• Henry, on July 1, 1849, at 10(?) months old, sponsored by James Lyons and Mary Sullivan ["Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DWHG-V6N2 : 27 May 2021), Wm Houghton in entry for Henry Houghton, 1849.] 
• Agnes (baptized at 5 months old on May 30, 1850), sponsored by Joseph Henderson and Bridget Thompson ["Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:D7BM-YY2M : 27 May 2021), William Haughton in entry for Agnes Haughton, 30 May.]
• Theresa, on October 17, 1851, sponsored by . In this record, the mother's name is listed as Mary Jane Robinson and the location is Cornwallis. Her sponsors names are hard to read, but I think it says Patt Sarsfield and Johanna Sulivan. ["Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DW2P-9DMM : 27 May 2021), William Haughton in entry for Teresa Haughton, 1850.] 

Are Henry, Agnes, and Theresa from the same family? Are they all (or any of them) siblings of Mary Elizabeth? It's hard to tell. I suspect not, though, since they do not show up in the census with our "target" William and Mary J. Houghton in 1861. With such common last names, though, it's hard to tell. 

One last record that might be relevant:

The baptism of Anne Houghton, lawful daughter of William Houghton and Janet Robinson, on Oct 22, 1833. She was sponsored by Neil Kelly and Bridget Lyons. Note that Patrick had been sponsored by a Bridget Houghton and Jane Houghton was sponsored by a Patrick Lyons. Could these be relatives? Or just frustratingly common Irish names? Anne was not baptized in the same church as the others. She was baptized in St. Gregory, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, which is on the opposite side of the peninsula from Kings County. ["Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DH6S-SPMM : 27 May 2021), Wiliam Houton in entry for Anne Houton, 1833.]

Here's what I'd really like for Christmas: a baptismal record for Mary Elizabeth Houghton herself. Short of that, I'd at least like the baptismal records for the daughters listed in the 1861 census (Theresa and Louisa) so I can directly connect them to the same family. 

Killers of the King

I just finished an interesting book called Killers of the King by Charles Spencer. It follows the history of the men who were directly involved in the execution of Charles I and what happened to them afterward. (Spoiler alert: they were mostly killed in horrible ways. To quote the immortal Omar Little, "You come at the king, you best not miss.") 

The book is interesting in its own right but I kept thinking about the relationship this history had to our own genealogy. A large chunk of our ancestors -- the Kinney line but also some on the Manary side -- came to New England through the Great Puritan Migration. That migration took place in the context of the English Civil War, the Protectorate, and the Restoration. After the Restoration, some of the regicides fled to the Massachusetts colonies where they were protected by the authorities and population alike. The colonists were mostly not big fans of the Stuarts. 

Wikipedia has a list of all the regicides here. They were all major supporters of Parliament in the Civil War and many of them were Puritans, so I ran the names through Wikitree to see if we're related to any of them. Not surprisingly, we are, although mostly not in the ways I had expected. Many of our colonial ancestors were 2nd-5th cousins of these men, but in most cases it was our ancestors in colonial Virginia, not Massachusetts. My guess is that is because our colonial Virginian ancestors (the Hancock line, essentially) was more "aristocratic" and the leaders of the Parliamentarians were still fairly aristocratic/wealthy, despite their opposition to the king. By marriage, however, we're more likely to be related to these men through our Kinney or Manary connections, since their family members often ended up moving to the Massachusetts Puritan colonies.

We're distantly related to many of the regicides, but here are a few who have closer ties:

General Edmund Ludlow was my 12th great-uncle and one of Cromwell's great supporters. Cromwell named him military commander in Ireland until he objected when Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector. Ludlow was a member of the jury that convicted Charles I and he signed the death warrant. His brother Gabriel's grandchildren moved to Virginia and became our ancestors. Ludlow fled England after the restoration and lived the rest of his life in Switzerland. He was the only regicide who is known to have survived long enough to see the downfall of the Stuarts. He kept chronicles and letters and so his work is one of the main sources cited in the Killers of the King. He's the only regicide with anything like a direct relationship to us. Sara Ludlow Carter, my 10th great-grandmother, who moved with her brothers to the Virginia colony sometime around 1660, was the great niece of Edmund Ludlow. Her descendants married into the Hancock family.

Edmund Ludlow

Colonel Adrian Scrope is a 2nd cousin many times removed, again through our relationship to Edmund Ludlow, who was his uncle (or maybe great uncle?). Cromwell appointed Scrope head of security during the trial of Charles I, and he signed the death warrant. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Charing Cross in 1660. Parliament had originally just fined him for his role in the trial, but was executed after Richard Browne, Mayor of London, testified that he had confessed that he was unrepentant. Browne, incidentally, was a distant relative of ours by marriage. We're related to his uncle's wife. 

Adrian Scrope

Adrian Scrope in more difficult times (he's being disembowled in the lower picture)

Edward Wallop, another signatory, was found guilty but sentenced to life in prison and to a trip by sledge to the gallows at Tyburn. The sledge ride was the foreplay to execution at that time period, but Wallop was merely dragged through the city on the sledge and shown the gallows before being returned to prison. He was also some kind of 2nd or 3rd cousin of Edmund Ludlow, and therefore of ours, but it doesn't seem worth figuring out the details since he's even farther from us than Adrian Scrope. Spencer quotes a Dutch visitor's letter about January 27, 1662, "We walked with thousands of people to Tyburn and saw there Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay and Mr. Wallop lying in their tabards on a little straw on a hurdle being dragged through under the gallows, where some articles were read to them and then torn up. After that they were again dragged through the streets back to the Tower." (p. 245)

My husband and children are first cousins (many times removed) of the wife of Colonel John Dixwell. Dixwell escaped by claiming to be unwell and asking Parliament for an extension before he handed himself into the court. He was granted the extension but he used it to liquidate some assets and flee to Europe. He was mistakenly reported as dead to the Royalists so he moved again to the Americas and managed to live a long and happy life in Connecticut under the assumed named of James Davids. Joe and the kids to are related to Dixwell through his third wife Bathsheba Howe.

They are also direct descendants of Augustine Garland's brother in law, William Newbold. Augustine Garland was a lawyer and the first committee chairman for Charles I's trial. Surprisingly, he was granted life in prison, perhaps because he pleaded he had no real choice. In his own trial he told the judge, "My Lord, I did not know which way to be safe in any thing, without doors was misery, within doors was mischief" (Spencer p.244). He forfeited his estate and was transported to a prison in Tangiers where he died.

We're not really related to the Big Cheese, Oliver Cromwell, but we do have connections through marriage. The Manary line is descended from Sarah Bucknam Dexter, who lived in the Massachusetts colony in the mid-1700's. Her brother Samuel was married to one of Cromwell's sister's descendants, Deborah Sprague. Through that same connection to Cromwell's sister, Frances, we are related by marriage to two other signatories of the death warrant: her husband Colonel Edward Whalley and their son-in-law, Lieutenant William Goffee. Both had been powerful members of Cromwell's inner circle. Whalley and Goffee fled to Connecticut after the Restoration and lived in hiding for the rest of their lives.

Death warrant of Charles I

Julia Kinney Hancock, painter

When she visits, my mother often brings a treasure-trove of genealogical materials from my grandmother's stored belongings. This week, she brought this oil painting. On the back it says "Painted by Julia Kinney as a girl". Julia, who was my great-great-grandmother, was born in 1859. I'd guess her "girlhood" to be anytime before 1880. Before she reached the age of 20, Julia had lived in Nova Scotia, Boston, San Francisco, and Whidbey Island, Washington. This landscape doesn't particularly remind me of any of those areas, but it's more "east coast-y" than west. On the other hand, she very well may have copied some other painting and not seen this landscape in real life.

If you look closely, you'll see that the human figures are a bit stiff but the animals and landscape are quite good. Joe wanted to know if she kept painting, and if the family has any of her other work. Honestly, I don't know. Maybe some of my cousins do?