25: Henry and Abigail Tyler (update)

Graves of Henry and Abigail Tyler

Update on April 23, 2013: This entry has now been updated to reflect information taken from The Richard Washburn Genealogy by Ada Clementine Acker Haight (1937).

In 1850, the Tylers - Henry and Abigail - lived with their four children near the cemetery.

1850 US Federal Census

Henry Dusenbury Tyler died in 1854. In 1860, his widow appears in the census with the occupation "farmer" - the first time I ever think I've seen a woman called a "farmer" in a 19th-century census. Also notable is the fact that the family's wealth had increased considerably since 1850, despite the fact that Henry had died and two children had left the house.

1860 US Federal Census

Henry and Abigail's son Gilbert died in 1868 at the age of 33. Meanwhile, their daughter Mary Freelove married Elisha Belcher Sarles, the son of Robert Sarles and Jemima Washburn. In 1870, Abigail was living with Elisha and Mary and their three children, including one set of twins. It's frustrating that the 1870 census doesn't say how the two other children in the household, Mary Jones and Elizabeth Sarles, are related to the rest of the family. At age 9, Mary Jones isn't too old to be Mary Sarles's daughter from a previous marriage, but that's just speculation. Elizabeth Sarles may have worked for the Sarleses as a domestic servant, but was she also a relative?

1870 US Federal Census

Abigail Brundage Tyler died in 1879 at the age of 81, and was buried beside her husband in the cemetery.

Mary's husband Elisha had quite a Civil War record. This is his muster roll abstract:

Let's see if I can work out some of the details. It looks as though he enlisted twice - in September 1861 and again in December 1863. On July 1, 1863, he was promoted to Corporal. He was sick in the hospital and later "wounded in the arm severely," but I have a hard time figuring out the dates - do they come before or after the event they describe?

In any case, Elisha Sarles belonged to the 49th New York Infantry, which happens to have its own reenactment group. Later he served in the 2nd Battalion, Veteran Reserve Corps, which doesn't have a reenactment group, but probably should.

I have recently become intrigued with Revolutionary War and Civil War reenactments, thanks in part to my friend Ramona. She's a journalist who documents her own investigation into Civil War history, including Civil War reenactments, on her blog The Civil War Tours. When I saw her yesterday, she showed me the catalog she'd just picked up from the current Metropolitan exhibition Photography and the Civil War. I was completely transfixed by the photographs in the catalog and am planning on seeing the exhibit for myself very soon.

Mary Freelove Tyler Sarles died in 1874. In 1880, Elisha lived with his four children and one servant, Betsey. Strangely, although his three older children are clearly the same three children from the 1870 census, two of them have different names. "Addie" is now "Abby," and "Jemima" is "Alice." In fact, these children are Abigail Tyler Sarles and Jemima "Mima" Alice Sarles. Tyler was clearly given his mother's maiden name as his first name.

1880 US Federal Census

After his wife's death, Elisha married Phebe Jane Ackerman, who was born in 1855 and died in 1890. He then married Jane Ann Jackson Mead, the widow of Gilbert Mead, who was born in 1843.

1900 US Federal Census

The 1910 census reveals that this was in fact Elisha's third marriage, and Jane's second. She had three children from her first marriage. They lived with one servant, Julia. Sadly, Jane died this year.

1910 US Federal Census

In 1915, I discovered something wonderful (well, to me, anyway). Elisha, having been widowed for a third time, was living with a family of Hamblens! My great-grandmother was Ruth Card Hamblin, and it was her research on the Hamblin family that first got me interested in family history, even though we never met. The Hamblens in this case are Elisha's daughter's family. Were they related to my Hamblins? We'll get to that later on.

1915 US Federal Census

By 1920, Elisha Sarles had died. Collins Emerson Hamblen, who was a tea and coffee salesman, and Abigail Tyler Hamblen were living with their four adult children: Allen Henry, also a tea and coffee salesman; Jessie Sarles, a bookkeeper in a dry goods store;  Edwin Tyler, a salesman for United Tobacco; and Harold Belcher, another tea and coffee salesman.

1920 US Federal Census

By 1930, only one Hamblin child remained in the house. Thirty-two-year-old Harold was still a salesman, and had married Violet Engleman in 1922, but apparently his wife and their son Harold Collins Hamblen, born in 1924, were not living with him at this time.

1930 US Federal Census

Both Collins and Abigail Hamblen died in the 1930s.

(Source)

This was Collins's obituary from 1937. It reveals the name of the business Collins and his sons owned - appropriately, C. Hamblen's Sons Teas and Coffees, which Collins had formed from the old Van Dyck Tea and Coffee Agency.

Yonkers Statesman 1937

Now, let's see if I can sum up the lives of Collins and Abigail's children.

Alice Estelle Hamblen was the Hamblens' first child; I neglected to mention her before because by the first census (1915) in which I mention the Hamblens, she was already married to Jonathan Holden, a lawyer and the son of Stephen Holden and Elizabeth Bentley. Between 1911 and 1925, they had ten children, including a set of twins named Haldis and Hildred. The family was living in Pleasantville in 1930 and Pine Plains in 1940. Alice and Jonathan died in the 1960s.

Allen Henry Hamblen worked as a grocery salesman and in 1920 married Agnes F. Jack, whose father was a Scottish immigrant. They were living in Yonkers in 1930 and had one child, Margaret Abigail, who was born in 1923. I can't find them in the 1940 census. Allen died in 1941.

Jessie Sarles Hamblen married Samuel Strachen McBride, who worked in real estate and was born in 1886 in Coreen, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. They lived in Yorktown and had four children, one whom they named Hamblyn. Jessie died in 1984.

Edwin Tyler Hamblen married a woman named Lissa in 1929 and worked in Collins's store in Mount Vernon. They had one child, Mary Jane Hamblen, born in 1930. He died in 1974.

Harold Belcher Hamblen married Violet Engleman in 1922 and also worked in his father's store. They had one child, Harold Collins Hamblen, born in 1924, who died in 1968. Harold Sr. died in 1978.

In the family tree below, you can see various members of the Tyler family whom I investigated, but haven't mentioned in the post above because it's simply too much.

Most popular names:
Abigail (4)
Alice (3)
Estelle (3)
Harold (2)
Edwin (2)
Ellis (2)

Surnames used as first names: Collins Emerson Hamblen, Hamlin McBride, Tyler Sarles

1. Henry Dusenbury Tyler (1795-1854) m. Abigail S. Brundage (1798-1879)
1. Reuben B. Tyler (1828-1877) m. Fanny Tripp (1833-)
1. Martha Tyler (1854-)
2. William Tyler (1858-)
3. Emma Tyler (1860-)
2. Sarah M. Tyler (1830-)
3. Gilbert Henry Tyler (1834-1868)
4. Mary Freelove Tyler (1838-1874) m. Elisha B. Sarles (1838-) in 1866; he later married Phebe Jane Ackerman (1855-1890) and Jane Ann Jackson (1843-1910)
1. Abigail Tyler Sarles (1867-1931) m. Collins Emerson Hamblen (1867-1937) in 1887
1. Alice Estelle Hamblen (1888-1961) m. Jonathan Holden (1881-1967) in 1910
1. Elizabeth Holden (1911-)
2. Janet Holden (1912-)
3. Randall Holden (1915-)
4. Shirley Holden (1916-)
5. Audrey Holden (1917-)
6. Haldis Holden (1920-)
7. Hildred Holden (1920-)
8. Roger Holden (1921-)
9. John Holden (1923-)
10. Edwin Holden (1925-)
2. Allen Henry Hamblen (1890-1941) m. Agnes F. Jack (1892-) in 1920
1. Margaret Abigail Hamblen (1923-)
3. Jessie Sarles Hamblen (1893-1984) m. Samuel Strachen McBride (1886-)
1. Harold Gordon McBride (1922-1925)
2. Abby Estel McBride (1923-)
3. Hamblyn McBride (1924-)
4. Robert McBride (1927-)
4. Edwin Tyler Hamblen (1896-1974) m. Lissa (1905-) in 1929
1. Mary Jane Hamblen (1930-)
5. Harold Belcher Hamblen (1897-1978) m. Violet Engleman in 1922
1. Harold Collins Hamblin (1924-1968)
2. Robert Ellis Sarles (1869-1887)
3. Jemima Alice Sarles (1869-) m. Ellsworth Carpenter (1862-) in 1894
1. Florence Freelove Carpenter (1896-1896)
2. Ellis Jerome Carpenter (1897-) m. Mary Anna Close (1894-)
1. Frank Jerome Carpenter (1916-1933)
2. Alice Adele Carpenter (1918-)
3. George Henry Carpenter (1919-)
3. Mary Estelle Carpenter (1899-) m. Harold L. Southworth (1902-) in 1922
1. Harold L. Southworth (1923-1926)
2. Evelyn Barbara Southworth (1925-)
3. Eloise Lane Southworth (1927-)
4. Alice Bliss Southworth (1929-)
5. Diana Mary Southworth (1931-)
4. Tyler Dusenbury Sarles (1874-) m. (1) Cora Edna Underhill (1879-1897) in 1896; (2) Mertie Van Tassel (1886-1917) in 1903

Now, to return to the urgent question: was Collins Hamblen related to my Hamblin family? If you're interested in the answer, you can continue reading.

Writing before I've done any investigation, I'd put the probability of a connection between Collins Hamblen and my Hamblins at near 90%. Virtually every American Hamblin I have encountered is a descendant of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, James Hamlin (born c. 1606), who traveled from St. Lawrence Parish, Reading, England, to the New World in the 1640s and settled in Barnstable, MA, with his wife Ann Scott and their children. I would be very surprised if Collins wasn't a descendant of James.

What clues to we have to begin with? The 1900 federal census states that Collins's mother was born in New York and his father in Massachusetts. Let's start with the first census Collins appears in before he was married to Abbie Sarles.

In 1880, 12-year-old Collins was living with Benjamin and Mary Odell and Henry and Emma Hilliker. Unfortunately, this doesn't give us any idea who his parents were. Or does it?

1880 US Federal Census

Let's go back to 1870. Collins was living then with Henry, "Mahah" (Mahalia), and Elizabeth Hilliker. Henry seems to be the same Henry Hilliker that Collins would be living with in 1880. Presumably, Mahah was his wife, and Elizabeth was his daughter.

1870 US Federal Census

I had a feeling that Henry Hilliker was Collins's grandfather. Well, here is Henry, his wife Mahalia, and their children in 1860. One of the user-submitted family trees on Ancestry.com gives Henry's daughter Carol(ine) as Collins's mother, and I am inclined to believe it. It also gives Allen Atwood Hamblen as Collins's father.

1860 US Federal Census

I then found this record of Allen Atwood Hamblen's birth in the collection of Wellfleet Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1763-1844:

This names Eleazer and Susanna Hamblen as Allen's parents. This is their marriage record from 1816:

Wellfleet records the death of Eleazer Hamblen on September 5, 1861, at the age of 64, of "dropsy of [the] brain," and names his parents as Cornelius and Ruth Hamblen. These are the children recorded in Wellfleet for Cornelius and Ruth:

I found Cornelius's birth to be in 1752, and his marriage to Ruth Brown took place in 1775. I was able to find this snippet about this branch of the Hamblen family in the DAR Lineage Book, Vol. 50, which gives Cornelius Hamblin [sic] and Ruth Mudge as the parents of Cornelius Hamblen who married Ruth Brown.

This Cornelius, born 1719, was the son of Benjamin Hamblin and Ann Mayo, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. Benjamin was the great-grandson of James Hamlin who came from St. Lawrence Parish, Reading.

Later, I consulted H. Franklin Andrews's The Hamlin Genealogy: A Genealogy of James Hamlin of Barnstable, MA (1902) to confirm what I discovered above. It also revealed that Allen Atwood Hamblen married again after the death of Caroline Hilliker, to Lavalette Elizabeth Dunn, and that they had one child, Jessie Lavalette, born in 1874. I don't know why Collins never lived with them, but obviously someone decided it would be better if he were raised by his mother's family.

To sum things up:

1.  Benjamin Hamblin (1692-1737) m. Ann Mayo (1692-)
1. Cornelius Hamblin (1719-) m. Ruth Mudge 
1. Cornelius Hamblen (1752-1811) m. Ruth Brown in 1775
1. Eleazer Hamblen (1792-1861) m. Susanna Smith Atwood in 1816
1. Allen Atwood Hamblen (1834-1878) m. (1) Caroline Hilliker (1846-); (2) Lavalette Elizabeth Dunn (1847-1892)
1. Collins Emerson Hamblen (1867-1937) 
2. Jessie Lavelette Hamblen (1874-)
2. Joshua Hamblin (1722-1797) m. Mary Lewis (1726-)
1. David Hamblin (1743-1806) m. Hannah Townsend (1748-1781)
1. David Hamblin (1774-1844) m. Lydia Roe (1775-1864)
1. Myron Hamblin (1807-1897) m. Rachel A. Tripp (1811-1899)
1. James Hamblin (1841-1924) m. Frances Collier (1841-1919)
1. Myron George Hamblin (1868-1959) m. Aletta Moore Card (1869-1959)
1. Ruth Card Hamblin (1896-1987) [my great-grandmother]

I think this makes Collins Hamblin my great-grandmother's fourth cousin twice removed? And therefore my fourth cousin five times removed?