16: The Babcocks

Graves of Sarah, Charles, and William Babcock (source)

Three of the four Babcocks in the cemetery died within five months of each other. Twenty-four-year-old William Babcock died on August 9, 1861. His mother Sarah died on November 1. Then, on February 20, 1862, William's 23-year-old brother Charles died. Amos Babcock, bereft of his wife and two sons, lived for another ten years, dying in 1872 at the age of 63.

Amos was born in Massachusetts around 1809. In 1850, he and his family lived in Ossining, New York, where Amos worked as a "keeper in prison." This has to be Sing Sing Prison, built in 1826. It couldn't have been an easy job.

1850 US Federal Census

Of course, it was easier to be a "keeper" than an inmate. In this article, Mark Gado describes some of the ordeals suffered by the 19th-century prisoners at Sing Sing. Here's an excerpt:

Prisoners were not allowed to talk or communicate with each other in any way whatsoever. The prisoners ate in silence, worked in silence and existed in a quiet world where penitence was the goal. They walked together in lock step, in their striped prison uniforms, like robots, one behind another. One 19th century visitor wrote, "There was something extremely imposing in the profound silence with which every part of the work of these were performed" (Christianson). Inmates were given a Bible to read and were allowed no visitors from the outside world. Meditation was encouraged. Some prisoners were able to memorize huge portions of the Bible. One inmate committed to memory 1,296 verses, another 1,605 (Christianson). Any violation of the silent system was treated with harsh and immediate punishment. Most wardens believed that to ignore any infraction committed by an inmate was to encourage rebellion. Prisons became autonomous entities, impervious to the outside world.

Here's an engraving of Sing Sing Prison in 1855. I wonder what the position of "keeper" entailed. Was it like a warden or more like a security guard?

State Prison at Sing Sing, 1855 (source)

In any case it was a steady job, if we can judge by the fact that Amos was still working there ten years later, one year before the calamity that befell his family.

1860 US Federal Census

By 1870, Amos had remarried to a woman named Alice, and no longer worked at the prison. Strangely enough, his occupation is listed as "(retired) grocery." Had Amos also worked as a grocer, or did he keep his former occupation as a prison keeper a secret from the census taker? The other man in the household, 55-year-old Ebenezer Wheeler, is also listed as a retired grocer.

1870 US Federal Census

Alice was still alive in the next census, which is the first to illuminate the relationships between her and the two people living with her - Ebenezer Wheeler and Frances Westervelt. Ebenezer is her brother, meaning that Alice's maiden namew as likely Wheeler. Frances is her daughter, who is designated by the census as "idiotic." The 1880 census had five categories for those considered disabled: "blind," "deaf and dumb," "idiotic," "insane," and "maimed, crippled, bedridden, or otherwise disabled."

1880 US Federal Census

Since Frances's surname is Westervelt, I'm assuming that was the name of Alice's first husband.

I can't find Alice in the 1900 census, but by 1910 she was a boarder in the house of Morris B. and Mabel Oliver. This census reveals that Frances Westervelt, along with a second child of Alice's, was now dead. Alice was 93 years old.

1910 US Federal Census

This is very likely the last census in which Alice appears. But now let's travel back in time to when she was a Westervelt. In 1850, she lived with her husband, a carpenter named Jacob Westervelt, and their two children.

1850 US Federal Census

Although labeled "idiotic" in 1880, in 1850 thirteen-year-old Frances was attending school.

By 1860, Jacob Westervelt had died. This census suggests how she might have met her second husband. At the time she was living with her two children, her brother Ebenezer Wheeler, and three boarders who included a man who was also a keeper at the prison. Did he introduce Alice to Amos?

1860 US Federal Census

Despite marrying twice, it seems that Alice spent most of her adult life on her own. It couldn't have been easy to be a single mother of two children in 1860, nor the single mother to a disabled adult child in 1880. There couldn't have been much help and understanding for a person labeled "idiotic" in the late nineteenth century, when most people with mental disabilities ended up in institutions or died from lack of medical care or from neglect.

There are still lingering questions about this family, including: What happened to Mary J. Babcock? Presumably she married, but since I don't know to whom I can't trace her. And when did George Westervelt die? Did he marry and have children? These are some of the questions I may be able to answer in my next round, when I start visiting physical repositories.

1. Amos Babcock (1809-1872) m. (1) Sarah (1811-1861); (2) Alice J. Wheeler Westervelt (1817-after 1910)
1. William G. Babcock (1837-1861)
2. Charles S. Babcock (1838-1862)
3. Mary J. Babcock (1843-)

1. Alice J. Wheeler (1817-after 1910) m. (1) Jacob Westervelt (1812-before 1860); (2) Amos Babcock (1809-1872)
1. Frances E. Westervelt (1837-before 1910)
2. George E. Westervelt (1845-before 1910)