Did you
know there is a connection between Ellicottville and Brooklyn NY? Read on to
find out more.
First, let me talk about Schoolcraft, Michigan. I have mentioned before that I
subscribe to Michigana, a quarterly magazine of the Western Michigan
Genealogical Society. A couple of months ago, I noted a third installment
of an article entitled "Everything Has a Story" by Paula K.
Vander Hoven. The article mentioned a Beecher/Skinner family that migrated
to Schoolcraft, Michigan from Ellicottville, New York. Juliette Beecher Skinner
and her daughter Sophia Skinner were some of the early members of the first
Episcopal church there in Schoolcraft which was notable for having its
membership comprised of mainly women.
Juliette Beecher, the wife of Peter V. Skinner, was born in 1820. Her father
Moses Beecher was part of the 1829 organizational meeting of St. John's Episcopal
Church in Ellicottville and part of the church's building committee. The
church structure (completed in 1838) still stands. If you get a chance to
take a tour sometime, I highly recommend it. The church's records
includes many references to the Beecher and Skinner families. Peter V.
Skinner may have been related to J. King Skinner who married Hannah Saxton and
lived in the Baker Leonard house next to St. John's, but research on that has
not been completed yet.
What has been researched a little more is the Beecher family. According to
rootsweb.com, Moses Beecher of Ellicottville, NY was born in Hartford, CT in
1791. About the year 1814, he and his wife Lydia Dawson left Connecticut and
moved to Batavia, New York where he engaged in business as a merchant.
Later, Moses became an accountant in the Land Office of the Holland Land
Company. In 1827, he was transferred to a similar position in the Company's
Land Office at Ellicottville. He continued in that position for about the first
twenty years in Ellicottville and thereafter was engaged in a manufacturing
business, which he carried on until within a short period of his death which
happened in 1868. This information was obtained from an online tree at
rootsweb.com entitled "Descendants of John Beecher 1594-1637" posted
by James Shaw. The work cites "Dawson source" for the information
regarding Moses and provides further footnotes regarding the source. (For
additional research questions, you can also contact the author.) Moses had
ten children with his first wife and three more children with his second wife,
whom he married at St. John's in 1841.
Exploring the online tree further, I was delighted to note that Moses Beecher
was a fourth cousin to the famed American novelist and humanitarian,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Harriet was the daughter of
Lyman Beecher, a Congregationalist pastor and the sister of Henry Ward Beecher.
While researching this family, I also noted that Lyman Beecher was president of
the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, OH which was known primarily
for the debates held there in 1834 that influenced the nation's thinking
about slavery.
I set this work aside as I got busy doing other things in my day-to-day life.
Namely, I had to leave for a two-week trip to New York City for my day job (I
label my historical research as an avocation, hobby or obsession depending on
my mood). While there, I managed to visit at least seven different museums and
historical societies including the Tenement Museum, the 9/11 Memorial Museum
and the Museum of the City of New York. I stayed in Brooklyn during my final
week there. In anticipation of flying back home, I decided to mail home some
books and materials I purchased at a conference. I already had a 50 lb suitcase
and did not want to pay additional fees to fly more weight home. I found
directions to a post office that had early hours to accommodate my daily work
schedule and headed over there one morning. It was about a mile from where I
was staying. I did a LOT of walking during my stay, but always enjoyed the
different sights along my way. Just before I approached the entrance to the
post office in Brooklyn, I noted a statue in the plaza walking area. Coming
closer, I was surprised to find the statue depicted none other than Henry Ward
Beecher. "Nice to meet you," I thought, "what a coincidence to
see you here."
While I had initially recognized his
name when I was researching the Beecher family, I did not look into the details
of Henry Ward Beecher that closely. I only made connections between Connecticut
where the family originated, Ohio where his father was president of the
Seminary, and Ellicottville where his fourth cousin Moses Beecher ended up. I
never realized I would stumble upon him there in Brooklyn!
The Brooklyn Historical Society was also nearby, so when I had the chance I
took another walk to see their exhibits. One of their long-term exhibits
through the winter of 2018 is called "Brooklyn Abolitionists/In Pursuit of
Freedom." The Society also has a very nice online learning experience about
the exhibit which you can find at: http://pursuitoffreedom.org/.
This site has a section of biographies including one for Henry Ward Beecher
explaining that he was the inaugural pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn
Heights. In his role as pastor, Beecher was a very active emancipator and
held mock auctions to publicly raise funds to purchase the freedom of real
slaves. One of the highlights I noted at the actual exhibit was a facsimile of
an old ledger book from that time in which entries showed the names of people
who pledged a certain amount of money, say $1 or $2, each for the purchase of a
certain slave.
So there you have it, a historical connection between Ellicottville and
Brooklyn. There's more to Ellicottville's story of it's involvement in the
Abolitionist Movement, but I'll reserve that for a later day.
Comments
Post a Comment