Orrin Porter of Chautauqua County, New York

I've been sharing some Porter thoughts with Nira at Door Keeper Genealogy and she too has been researching the Porter family in Chautauqua County, New York.  We both suspect William Porter, found on the 1830 census in Chautauqua County is the father of my Nancy Porter born circa 1817.

Nira was able to track William Porter to Knox County, Ohio.  She mentioned to me that William has a son named Orrin Porter which instantly rang a Chautauqua County Porter bell!  There is an Orrin (sometimes spelled Orin) Porter who is a contemporary of William Porter.  In fact they are the right age to be brothers.  So this post is dedicated to Nira and presents what I could find out about Orrin Porter.

Orrin Porter Locations
Place	Date
1850	Pomfret, Chautauqua, NY
1848	Chautauqua, Chautauqua, NY
1840	Hanover, Chautauqua, NY
1830	Norwich, Chenango, NY

The table above lists the dates that I can locate Orrin Porter.  Three census records and a probate petition basically sum up all I know about him.  The probate petition, below, is located on the Chautauqua County GenWeb site.

This petition mentions the estate of Mark Steere who died in 1847.  Orrin Porter is appointed an administrator of Mark Steere's estate.  Mark Steere has no widow and 7 daughters (all of age in 1848) are listed:

• Lydia Steere (co administrator)
• Harriet Cook, wife of Peyton R. Cook
• Sarah Ann Porter, wife of Orrin Porter
• Julia Steere
• Betsey Steere of Norwich, Chenango County,
• Mary Farnham, wife of John P. Farnham
• Eunice St. Amand, wife of Augustus St. Amand

So let's see what we can find out about this family.

 I know the image above is a little hard to read, but it is for Orrin Porter in 1850.  It reads:

• Orrin Porter 52 (b. 1798) b. CT? or VT?
• Sarah A. (Steere) 45 (b. 1805) b. CT? or VT?
• Julia Steere  28 (b. 1822) b. NY

I wonder if the female b. 1810 to 1820 is another Steere?  I don't think it could be a daughter of Orrin and Sarah as Sarah would be too young.

  The age for Orrin is slightly off, but I think it still seems to be our Orrin Porter.  I can't find Orrin in 1820 or 1860.  My next post will delve a little deeper into the Steere family...

My dear Sister

I start my introduction to Edna B. Humphrey with the letter below.  What a letter!  The reason I start with this letter is simply because it was the first one I picked up.  I also was drawn to the  little note written on the back of this letter - "My brother's last letter to me."

I'll tell you up front that "My dear Sister" is Edna B. Humphrey - or at least it is her box of 'stuff' I purchased. I found it rather interesting that W. E. Humphrey is living in Washington, D.C. He is writing to his sister in answer to letters she had written to his wife, Helen.  He mentions both he and his wife have fully recovered from their attack of tomaine poisoning.  Tomaine poisoning?  OK, I just cannot let that pass without mention.  

Good ol' Wikipedia (sometimes called the undergraduates encyclopedia) has my answer.  Ptomaine poisoning is a reference to food poisoning.  In particular, it is an archaic term referring to alkaloids created as food decays.  These alkaloids, it was believed, caused food poisoning.  This was disproved with the discovery of bacteria and bacterial toxins as the cause of food poisoning.   

It was a pretty easy thing to find out who the writer of this letter was.  William E. Humphrey was a U.S. Representative from the state of Washington.  He later was appointed to the Federal trade Commission by Calvin Coolidge.  He was reappointed to the FTC in 1931.  This is where his problems started.  He was a conservative Republican and immediately at odds with the new Roosevelt administration.  FDR removed him from the Commission in order to appoint someone more in line with his administration's views.

William Humphrey promptly sues the Roosevelt administration regarding being removed from his position for political reasons.  The case ends up being heard by the Supreme Court.  Unfortunately for William, he doesn't live to see his law suit to the end.  He dies on 14 Feb 1934.  I found the picture of William Humphrey at Wikipedia.

So let's see what else is in this box of stuff...

      

I did it again!

I just don't know what it is about the letters people write that I find so irresistible.  Maybe it's the fact that, with  the possible exception of the famous, the letters we write are momentary.  That is to say, an individual wrote a letter to someone as a means of communication to the addressee.  I can guarantee you that the individuals who penned these letters would never have dreamt a perfect stranger, i.e. me, would be reading their correspondence a hundred years after it was written.

When I read a letter or look at a newspaper clipping or document contained in a collection of 'stuff', I realize it survived for a reason.  It was important to someone at some point, otherwise it would have ended up in the trash which, I would submit to you, was the original destination these documents were designed for.  So when I manage to find a box of stuff collected by the same individual or family, it draws me like a magnet.  These collections of documents are like time machines to me.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of bidding competition when these boxes of ephemera come on the market.  There are stamp collectors who are not interested in the contents of the letters, just the envelopes.  There are collectors of letterheads who are interested in only a document or two.  Dealers in ephemera are likely to break apart the box of documents, selling letters, letterheads, envelopes, and what ever else is in the collection a piece at a time.  And then there are people like me.

I approach a box of documents as an historically significant record.  As long as the collection remains together, it creates a window into the past.  It speaks to us one individual and one place at a time.  Events that may have long been forgotten live once again.

So with that in mind, I will introduce the Humphrey family to you.  I purchased a collection of letters and documents relating to the Humphrey family at an auction in New York.  It looks to me like the documents had been sorted by an ephemera collector, ready for piece by piece sale.  For whatever reason, the collection remained intact.  So now, we get to put back together a little section of the tapestry we call history...              

Looking Back

Well, this is not my usual kind of Blog post here at Gen Journey, but it really is a journey of sorts.  Even though winter still has its icy grip around my home, there are signs that those old boney fingers are loosening their grip.  The mornings have more sunlight and an avian chorus greets me as I leave for work.  Even the air seems to have an excited ‘feel’ about things to come.  For some reason the early stirrings of spring always make me think back to family long past.

 

I just recently came across a shoe box full of old 8mm home movies my father had taken in the sixties.  I had the movies converted to DVD and it was like looking at a time machine.  The various moments in a typical family, vacations, birthdays, Christmas morning, family reunions, and the like are remembered once more.  Why the stirrings of warmer weather make me think of family has long intrigued me.  I guess it has to do with renewal.

 

Our lives can be compared to seasons, too.  Spring is the magical step in this process.  It is the renewal of the cycle.  Life goes on.  However, it is also a time to remember all the lives come and gone.  Remembrance is a very complex ‘emotion’.  Memories have powerful abilities to stir many different types of feelings from sadness, anger and remorse, to happiness, joy, and contentment.  I have often wondered if it is the complex interplay of memories, emotions, and feelings which family tree research stirs up, creates the hook that draws so many people to this pastime.

 

I guess the point I am trying to make is that regardless of how mundane we may think ‘our ancestors’ were, their lives mattered.  They were part of the giant tapestry of life.  A single loose thread in a tapestry can unravel the whole thing.  Every thread in a tapestry counts – it is needed.  This is why we need to remember those who have walked the living world before us.  Every life is part of this tapestry, whether they were good or bad.

 

Ok … enough of that … 

Samuel Porter of Chautauqua County

In my previous post on Chautauqua Porters, I mentioned two of the three Porters listed in the town had a female of the right age to be my Nancy Porter.  I can pretty much rule out Samuel Porter, shown below in the Chautauqua 1830 census.

Samuel and his wife are buried in the town of Chautauqua.  He dies 18 Oct 1863 and his head stone lists his date of birth as 20 June 1787.  His wife, Mary Justina, dies on 14 Nov 1848 (she is listed as his wife on the head stone).  Her age at death is recorded as 68 years 7 months 14 days.  Using my handy date of birth calculator, I compute her date of birth as 31 Mar 1780.  I wonder if the census taker placed her in the wrong column on this record?

The reason I know the female born 1815-1820 is not my Nancy Porter is because of the 1850 census along with a small passage in the History of Chautauqua County, New York.  The 1850 census from the town of Chautauqua, is shown below.

Samuel Porter, aged 63 is living the household of Robert Huse (actually spelled Hewes).  There is also a 15 year old female named Hortensey Porter living with them, too.  The section from the The History of Chautauqua County, New York is displayed below.

So we know that Samuel is living in the house of his son-in-law Robert Hewes.  Olive is 30 years old in 1850 making her born circa 1820.  I think it's a safe bet to say the female born 1815 to 1820 in Samuel Porter's household is Olive.

Nancy Porter, Where Are You?

I just got back from Roots Tech 2011 in Salt Lake City.  I have to admit the conference felt more like technology looking for a use rather than a use in need of technology.  Sometimes a pen and paper is all you really need.  Of course the conference proximity to the Family History Library was another great reason to attend Roots Tech and will certainly be the reason I attend the 2012 conference.

I decided to try and break through a couple of my toughest brick walls.  One of these lines I have blogged about quite in depth - my Fox family.  The other line I worked on is that of my great great grandmother's family, Nancy Porter.  Nancy marries Horace Pratt on 11 Feb 1835 in Chautauqua County, New York.  You will see this marriage date listed every where.  According to one source, the marriage announcement was listed in a local paper in the town of Chautauqua as published by the Chautauqua Genealogical Society.

As is usually the case, no one seems to actually be able to 'find' the particular issue of the "Gleanings" newsletter that listed this information.  I even contacted the Chautauqua County Genealogical Society hoping they might be able to clear this up.  Unfortunately, they too could not locate the particular source for this information.  Luckily for me, my great great grandfather, Horace Pratt, applied for a Civil War pension based on the service of his son, John Nelson Pratt.  By this time, Horace's wife Nancy had been deceased for years.  Horace listed his marriage to Nancy Porter in the town of Chautauqua, New York on 11 Feb 1834.  This is a year off from the generally listed 11 Feb 1835.

Horace Pratt can be found in the 1840 Federal census in Livingston County, Michigan.  I figured he was part of the mass migration to Michigan from New York in 1836.  The population of the Michigan Territory quadrupled in 1836.  Three out of every four new Michigan residents were born in New York.  Nancy Porter dies 25 Jan 1872.  The photograph, below, is the only picture I have of her.  According to family lore, she was sickly and never fully recovered from the births of her last two children.  She looks exhausted in this photo.

I started my hunt for Nancy in Chautauqua County, New York.  I once read that most marriages took place in the county were the bride lived.  If this is the case, Nancy Porter would have been living in Chautauqua County.  There really is not much to go on, but as usual, I'm always up for the family tree hunt.

I have started with the 1830 federal census for Chautauqua County, looking for any Porter families which have a female who would be approximately 13 years old.  Of course this is assuming Nancy Porter is living in Chautauqua County in 1830.

I've listed the Porter families for the town of Chautauqua below:

 Two of the Porter families have females in the 1815 to 1820 age bracket which theoretically matches my Nancy Porter.  I can also tell you that there are three other Porter families living in Chautauqua County.  I just thought it would be best to start looking in the actual town of Horace and Nancy's marriage...