31: Nathan C. Avery (update)

Update. Claudia, who saw this post through Facebook, has provided me with the details of Nathan's parents and wife. Thanks, Claudia!

I'm always curious about people who seem to have been buried in the cemetery on their own - that is, seemingly without other relatives in the cemetery. In the case of Ann M. Shamp, my first impression turned out to be mistaken; that is, while Ann was the only person with the surname Shamp in the cemetery, she was actually a Sarles by birth. For obvious reasons, this can't be the case for Nathan C. Avery. There are no other Averys buried in the cemetery. Who was his family?

Nathan died in 1894 at the age of 64. Unfortunately, most of the 1890 census was lost in a fire, so the 1880 census is the last surviving census in which he appears.

1880 US Federal Census

This census provides a possible explanation for Nathan's burial in the cemetery. An unmarried 50-year-old stonecutter, he lived with Edwin A. and Sarah E. Purdy in Manhattan. There are four Purdys buried in the cemetery, although Edwin and Sarah aren't among them, and Purdy is a very common surname in Westchester County. Were the Purdys Nathan's family? Sarah Purdy is the right age to be his sister, although his relation to Edwin Purdy is given as "boarder," not "brother-in-law." Additionally, the census says that Nathan was born in Vermont and Sarah was born in New Hampshire.

Ten years earlier, Nathan had lived in Manhattan with a different family - one that provides him with more connections to the cemetery.

1870 US Federal Census

Haight and Hall are both common names in the cemetery. The Mary S. Haight and Elizabeth Hall listed here are both buried there; the transcription indicates that they were sisters.

But how is Nathan related to any of them?

In the 1860s, Nathan's trail goes cold, and I can't find him again until the 1850 census.

In 1850, we finally find Nathan in his native state, Vermont, in the town of Sherburne. Yet there are no other Averys to be found here either, but some Richardsons, a Rowe, a Hawkins, a Danville, a Goodrich, and a Converse. Nathan worked as a farm laborer.

1850 US Federal Census

Because he would have been ten years old, Nathan wouldn't have appeared in the 1840 census except as a tally mark in the household of his father or whoever else was the head of his household, so I can't find him.

UPDATE
Claudia told me that The Chandler Family: The Descendants of William Chandler and Annis Chandler Who Settled in Roxbury, Mass., 1637 (1883) provides information on Nathan C. Avery's family. She was also able to find the maiden name of Nathan's wife, Libbie, through the New York City marriage records index. It's Haight - are you surprised?

The book gives Nathan's date of birth as November 25, 1829. He was the son of Jeremiah Avery of Sherburne, VT, and Ruth Chandler of Alstead, NH; they married on July 4, 1825. Jeremiah was the son of Nathan Avery, a cooper and farmer.

Nathan C. Avery married Libbie A. Haight on April 28, 1881, in Manhattan. Is this the same woman as Elizabeth Haight, age 17, with whom Nathan was living in 1870? And was this Nathan's first marriage? He would have been 52 at the time. Better late than never, I suppose!

Nathan and Libbie would have appeared together in the 1890 census, but that census was destroyed in a fire. The next time Libbie would appear, she would be a widow in the 1900 census. I didn't find her there, but I did find a Libbie Avery in the 1910 census, living in the Bronx with a family of Walkers. She was 57 at the time, which makes her precisely the right age to be Elizabeth Haight, the daughter of Stephen and Mary Haight, who was 17 in 1870. In the 1910 census, her occupation is given as music teacher.

1910 US Federal Census

The next census in which I find Libbie is the 1930 census, when she was living at the Association for the Relief of Respectable, Aged, and Indigent Females in Manhattan. She was then 77.

1930 US Federal Census

Libbie was still living at the Association in 1940 at the age of 86. It was also known as the Association Residence Nursing Home. The building, constructed in 1883 and designed by Richard Morris Hunt, is still standing and is on the U.S. Register of Historic Places. It's now a youth hostel.

(Source)

Through one of the family trees on Ancestry, I was able to find the name of Nathan C. Avery's sister, Eliza Arabel Avery, who was born in 1823. She married Charles Fisher Lincoln in 1844. In 1850, the couple was living next door to Nathan and Eliza's father Jeremiah and his second wife, Laura, in Sherburne. They had three children, and also housed 14-year-old Charles Avery and 23-ear-old Alonzo Estabrook.

1850 US Federal Census

In 1860, the family had moved to Woodstock, VT, with their six curiously named children.

1860 US Federal Census

They were still there in 1870 with two more children, bringing the total number up to eight.

1870 US Federal Census

By 1880, Charles Fisher Lincoln had died. Eliza Lincoln was the head of a household that included three sons, two daughters, and two grandsons.

1880 US Federal Census

These are the children of Eliza Avery and Charles Lincoln that I have been able to trace:

Newman M. Lincoln was already a farmer of 35 in the 1880 census. He fought with the 6th Vermont Infantry Regiment in the Civil War. He is listed in the 1890 Veterans Census as living in Woodstock, VT. He married his wife Lettie in 1887 and had one child, Gladys. He was working as a carpenter in 1900 and 1910. In 1914, Newman was admitted to a National Home for Disabled Soldiers in Los Angeles, near to the home of his daughter Gladys Mellon, with a number of infirmities. He died in 1915 of nephritis.

Estell W. Lincoln married Sarah Gates in 1878 in Boston. He worked as a machinist. They were living in Los Angeles in 1910 and 1920. They didn't have children.

Arba Nelson Lincoln married Mira Kimball in 1876 and had five children. They lived in Bristol, Massachusetts, and he was a lawyer. You can see his biography from Who's Who in England of 1915 below. He died in 1922.

Who's Who in New England 1915

Mary E. Lincoln married George W. Clark in 1874. In 1880, they were living in Illinois, and in 1900, they were living in Los Angeles.

Loyal Tisdale Lincoln and his wife Emma were married in 1894. She had two children from a previous marriage. They lived in Los Angeles, where Loyal was a mail carrier.

1. Jeremiah Avery (1797-) m. (1) Ruth Chandler (1804-); (2) Laura (1798-)
1. Eliza Arabel Avery (1823-after 1880) m. Charles Fisher Lincoln (1819-1876)
1. Newman M.  Lincoln (1845-1915) m. Lettie (1858-before 1910)
1. Gladys Lincoln (1891-) m. Mellon
2. Estell W. Lincoln (1847-) m. Sarah Gates in 1878
3. Arba Nelson Lincoln (1849-1922) m. Mira Kimball (1850-) in 1876
1. Ernest Avery Lincoln (1883-)
2. Ralph Hayford Lincoln (1885-)
3. Grace Lincoln (1888-)
4. Kenneth Chandler Lincoln (1890-)
5. Carl Kimball Lincoln (1892-1961) m. Jean L. (1887-)
1. Nelson H. Lincoln (1915-)
2. Warner C. Lincoln (1920-2001)
4. Mary E. Lincoln (1852-) m. George W. Clark in 1874
1. William L. Clark (1874-)
2. Dona M. Clark (1886-)
3. Loyal N. Clark (1893-)
5. Loyal Tisdale Lincoln (1857-) m. Emma (1855-) in 1894
6. Julia A. Lincoln (1859-) 
7. Nettie Lincoln (1861-1924)
8. Charles R. Lincoln (1866-) 
2. Nathan C. Avery (1829-1894) m. Libbie Haight (1853-after 1940) in 1881

4: Charles and Deborah Haight

Grave of Charles Haight

While Gilbert Marten may be the longest lived person buried in the cemetery, Charles Haight may be the oldest, having died on October 3, 1799, at the age of 88 years and 1 month, placing his birth somewhere in September 1711; he was born in Rye, New York, the son of Jonathan Haight and Rebecca Gannung. (His death and age were inscribed on his gravestone, which has since deteriorated considerably. Fortunately a transcription was made in 1914.)

Charles Haight is also remarkable among the people of the cemetery for another reason. A farmer,* he once owned the land that the cemetery now occupies. He donated it to the Episcopal Church in 1761, and they built a small wooden church. That building was damaged during the Revolutionary War, when it served as a hospital for soldiers, and was torn down in 1819. The photograph below shows the church that was built in 1850, which is now gone as well. (This post shows a picture of the inside of the Episcopalian Church that exists today.)

Episcopalian Church built 1850

Not surprisingly, Charles also served as a vestryman and warden of the church. His father Jonathan was a Quaker, although he is mentioned as "on Episcopal Church records 1752," according to the Genung Genealogy. I don't know if this means he converted or, like me, was a Quaker who just liked hanging out in the Episcopalian Church sometimes.

Grave of Charles Haight

Charles's mother Rebecca was a granddaughter of Jean Guenon, a Huguenot who married into a Dutch family. Her parents were Jeremiah and Martha Gannung. Her father, who was baptized in the Reformed Dutch Church in Manhattan, moved to Westchester in the 1720s.

Charles married Deborah Sutton, who was born around 1714, in 1734 in Hempstead, New York. They had three known children: Charles Jr., James, and Hannah. None of them are buried in the cemetery. Deborah, however, is buried next to Charles, having died on November 23, 1793 at the age of 78. Her grave is in much better condition than her husband's.

Grave of Deborah Sutton Haight

Both graves are notable for being two of the fourteen sandstone markers in the cemetery. Eighteenth-century sandstone graves in New York and New England are probably my favorite type of American gravestones. I didn't see any when I was in England, but a reliable source suggests that they are there too, and presumably before they were here. They're just remarkable. The faces are primitive, yet exhibit endless variation. As one person pointed out to me, the design around the angel head on Charles Haight's grave is like the sun's rays.

There are a lot sadder stories in the graveyard than Charles Haight's, but there are few sadder gravestones. Surely the stone of the man who gave the Episcopalian Church its first home in the town deserves better than to have his last monument crumble away. Eventually, sure, they'll all crumble away, but we can certainly fix some of the damage for the moment.

There are two other Haights buried in the cemetery, both very small children. I've yet to determine how (if at all) they're related to Charles. There are Haights all over the county, many of them Quakers.

The first is Nicholas Haight, the son of Nicholas Haight and Jemima Halstead, who died on June 8, 1791, at the age of three months and 21 days.

The second is James C. Haight, the son of Stephen P. and Mary S. Haight, who died on April 22, 1850, at age two years, one month, and seventeen days.


*On the plaque in front of the cemetery, he is identified as "Charles Haight, Esq." In the U.S. today "Esq." after a person's name indicates that he is a lawyer, but apparently in the past it was simply a way of acknowledging someone of high rank (and perhaps this is still true in the U.K.?).

Sources
Nichols, Mary Josephine Genung and Leon Nelson Nichols. Genung, Ganong, Ganung Genealogy: A History of the Descendants of Jean Guenon of Flushing, Long Island. Brooklyn, NY: A. W. Heinrich's Printing Company, 1906.