Persis Howard Hammond's body stolen

My dad's family line starts with the Hagans, then goes back on a branch to the Deals and then to the Hammonds.  The Hammonds were an old New England family.

One of my Hammond family ancestors was Eli Hammond (1768-1840).  He was born in Bolton Connecticut, a son of Nathaniel Hammond and Dorothy Tucker.  His first marriage was to Olivia Howard in 179. and they lived in Vernon, Connecticut.  They had 10 children, the last of which was stillborn on July 10, 1813.  Olivia died August 10, 1813.  My guess is that her death was a result of a complication of childbirth.

Eli remarried on May 25, 1814 to Persis Howard, his first wife's sister.  (I've seen this happen many times during this time period).  Persis had a daughter on July 22, 1815.   She had no other children.  Then she died on Jan. 9, 1822.   She was buried in the Old Burial Ground of North Bolton, Connecticut.

I don't have any "official" records of her death.  However, we do have the following:
1) a tombstone; and
2) a newspaper article;

Here are 3 pictures of her tombstone, (photos from www.findagrave.com):

 

The complete tombstone inscription reads:

Persy, wife of Eli Hammond

died Jan 9, 1822

aged 49

 her remains were taken from the grave.

I've also been fortunate enough to have a transcription index of a newspaper article, which reads:

Mrs Hammond, buried at Vernon (Connecticut) on May 13, 1822.  The comments read "Wife of Eli.  Body was disinterred and stolen after burial)."  Death date was listed as January 10 (1822).

I had never seen this before and was intrigued.  Its very rare to be able to find a newspaper article from this time period, much less one with this type of information.  Why would someone steal a body from a cemetery?  So I did a little internet searching and found a couple websites that might explain:

1)  The first one is from PBS's show "History Detectives" and is about body snatching.
(http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/body-snatching-around-the-world/)

2)  Another I found is from Forbes about and includes information about how bodies were taken from graves for the purposes of medical school training.
(https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/07/13/dissected-bodies-and-grave-robbing-evidence-of-unequal-treatment-of-19th-century-blacks-and-poor/#39af473a6d12).
They had an interesting note in this article - that there was a rise in the number of medical schools in the 19th century in American from 4 to 160.  So there was a huge demand for cadavers and there wasn't enough supply of "legal" cadavers.   So grave robbing became rampant.  In fact, Connecticut was one of the states in the early 1800s that passed a law against grave robbing, but it didn't work. 

In summary:
So we know that her body was stolen from the grave, as a fact, based on the tombstone and the newspaper article.  Then from the other articles about grave robbing, it would suggest that her body may have been stolen for medical school purposes.

There aren't many "official" records from this time period.  So information on Eli and his family is scant.  If  I were to get some probate records and land records, that would probably shed more light on this family.

The strange tale of the tombstone of Elvira Edmunds

My 5th great grandparents were Joseph Edmunds (1780-1859) and his wife Susannah Chapman (1782-1867).

The family lived in Brutus, Cayuga County, New York.   Another family researcher has told me that Joseph was baptized a Quaker, but I have not been able to substantiate this.   The census records indicate they were involved in agriculture.  They attended church at the Sennett Baptist Church in Sennett New York, about 4 miles from Brutus.  They had 7 children, but only 2 lived past the age of 25.  One of their daughters was Elvira, who died at the age of 19.

 A lot of the family was bured on a small family cemetery.  The cemetery was originally called The Joseph Remington Farm Cemetery and later called the Nathan Bowen Farm Cemetery.  This was a family cemetery of their son-in-law and located in Brutus, Cayuga County, New York.

Data on this cemetery was taken from the Skilton Records Index, Cayuga County.  The original material was probably a hand written listing of the tombstones, but I cannot find any exact references or dates the cemetery might have been read.  I cannot find any listing or pictures of tombstones on www.findagrave.com, which is my "go to" website for cemetery listings and pictures.

Here is the listing of burials in this cemetery, from the USGenWeb site for Cayuga County: (http://www.cayugagenealogy.org/cem/cem19.htm):

Edwards  (Copied Edmunds)*
  Joseph  d. 2/6/1859 ae 78-10-14 b. 20-3-1780
  Susannah w. d. 4/11/1867 ae 84-4-22 b. 19-11-1786
  Elvira  dau. d. 12/21/1822 ae 19-8-2
  Joseph  son d. 7/19/1822 ae 2-3-11
  Cyrus   d. 10/2/1828 ae 18-2-25

I point out the daughter listed as Elvira Edmunds.  She's listed as having died on December 21, 1822, aged 19 years, 8 months and 2 days.

So, as I was working on this family, everything was pretty straightforward.  One of my research tools is to do a google search on the names of the family members.   As I was doing a search on Elvira Edmunds, look what I found!

I found a listing for Captain Tony's Saloon in Key West Florida. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/roadtrippers/key-west-bar_b_5094066.html)
 Apparently, buried in the floor of this bar, is a tombstone:

(Photo credit: www.findagrave.com)

According to this website, it indicates that the saloon was remodelled in the 1980s and the floor was taken up.  Under the old plywood flooring, they unearthed Elvira's tombstone.  The tombstone itself is now exposed in the cement on the floor next to the pool table.

(Photo credit: www.huffingtonpost.com)

Undoubtably, this is our ancestor's daughter.  The death date and age at death is EXACTLY the same as what is on the cemetery listing.  It also indicates her parents names - which match EXACTLY.

So here's the mystery....... How does the tombstone of a young New England Baptist girl end up in a floor in a bar at Key West Florida?

Possible theories:

1)  She ran away from home to Florida, died and buried in Florida.  Her family was so embarrassed that they had the cemetery listing made with her being buried in New York?

But here's a better question -  How does a girl from New York in the early 1800s even get to Florida? Women had no rights, no income.  They usually couldn't travel by themselves.  

2)   My Aunt Sue suggested that perhaps she died and the family couldn't pay for the tombstone, so the tombstone was not used for the burial and somehow ended up in Florida.  I personally think this is probably the best explanation.

3)  Another article (https://www.ghostsandgravestones.com/key-west/captain-tonys-saloon) indicates there was a terrible hurricane in 1865.  This article indicates that Captain Tony's used to be a morgue. And with the hurricane, some bodies were lost.  The article postulates that perhaps Elvira's was one of the missing bodies.  This one also seems highly unlikely.

4) Yet another article on https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10913211/elvira-edmunds, writes the following:

Elvira was 19 years old when she was killed by her husband, a mortician. This is impossible to document 182 years after the fact. Buried in a morgue that was demolished by a 1847 hurricane, her tombstone was found by Tony Tarracino. Tony of Captain Tony's Saloon in Key West, simple built his saloon around it. Some say she is the shadowy figure that haunts Key West's most famous bar today.

I think this one is just a story, written to explain the presence of a tombstone in a saloon.

So, we will probably never know, unless we're able to find newspaper articles from the time period.

 

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update from 21 December 2020:  

 

I received an email about this tombstone:   Here's the email verbatim:

 

"I saw your post about Elvira. Today is the anniversary of her death. A couple of decades ago, one of Captain Tony's kids told me he got the tombstone from a farm in NY. Don't know the details, but I'm pretty confident he imported the grave to Key West.  He didn't seem like the grave robbing type, so I'm sure there is a story, but we might never know what it is.".

 

Glad that we have a resolution to this strange story.

Family of Andrew Swartout - BREAKTHROUGH!

I just made a genealogical breakthrough on the family of Andrew Swartout, who was my 4th great grandfather!   His family is a very good illustration of how family groups migrated together.  So here's his story and the breakthrough.

The Father:

Thomas Swartwout (1756-1848) was a private in the Revolutionary War.  He and his wife and family lived in Olive, Ulster County, New York.  His wife Juda died sometime between 1810-1820.  He then lived with his son Andrew and family.


Because Thomas was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, he was entitled to a pension and benefits.  There were several acts passed, but the one that Thomas seemed to have been able to qualify under was the Act passed on June 7, 1832 because his pension started on Sept. 11, 1832.    I bring the matter of the pension up because now Thomas had an income, besides the farming income of his son Andrew.  (He might have also received a land grant, but I do not have information on that at this point).

 

The Son:

Andrew Swartout (1790-1859) married Judah Avery about 1812 and they proceeded to have 14 children, 11 who lived into adulthood.  They raised their family in Ulster County, New York.  I believe they were farmers (as were most families of this time period).


The Migration

It's possible that when Thomas received his pension benefits in 1832, they may have saved up that money to be able to purchase land and start a new life in Michigan.  Because in 1836, the entire family migrated to Lenawee County, Michigan.

Per the obituary of Zetus Swartout, son of Andrew, here is the tale of their migration:

In the year 1836, Andrew and Juda Swartout, with their family of 11 children, came to Michigan from New York. They crossed the land by ox team and Lake Erie by boat, arriving here the last of April.  (NOTE:  They would have landed in Detroit and then migrated into southeastern Michigan).  With them came their aged grandfather Thomas Swartwout, then aged 80 years.

In a later newspaper article from the early 1910s or 1920s, the article indicates that the 1000 acres of land was purchased by Thomas Swartwout for $1.25 per acre.

 

A Breakthrough:

So tracking children in these early 1800s in somewhat difficult.  US Census records from 1790-1840 only indicated the name of the head of the household and the number and ages of the wife and children, with no individual names.  In 1850, the census started listing the name and ages of each person in the household, however, the women were never listed with their maiden name.

When I was trying to track the 11 children that came with Andrew and Juda in 1836, there were 3 daughters that I had not been able to identify.  I only knew that they existed (assuming that the census taker wrote the information down correctly). 

Then www.ancestry.com loaded probate records of some counties in Michigan and I found the probate/estate records of Freeman Swartout (1818-1891), son of Thomas Swartwout, the Revolutionary Soldier.  Freeman and his wife had no children that lived in adulthood.  Freeman's wife pre-deceased him.  So when Freeman wrote out his will in 1891, he listed every heir (basically, all his brothers and sisters and the children of those siblings who had died).  Here' the wonderful  list:

Heirs at law listed in will:

1:  Zetus Swartout of Columbia, Jackson County, Michigan, brother of said deceased;

2:  Thomas Swartout of Columbia, Jackson County, Michigan, brother of said deceased;

3:  Andrew Swartout of Woodstock, Lenawee County, Michigan, brother of said deceased;

4: Mrs. Juda Lewis of Woodstock, Lenawee County, Michigan, sister of said deceased;

5:  Mrs. Miriam Brooks of Woodstock, Lenawee County, Michigan, sister of said decased;

6:  Mrs. Phoeba Ann Mix of Napoleon, Jackson County, Michigan, sister of said deceased;

7:  and the following children of Isac Swartout, deceased, being a brother of said deceased:

·         Daniel Swartout of Somerfield Kansas;

·         Albert Swartout of Somerfield Kansas;

·         Antonette Kelley of Columbia, Jackson County, Michigan;

·         Mrs. Abby Phurber of Quincy Michigan;

·         Mrs. Emma Bush of Lincoln Nebraska;

·         Mrs. Lavina Lewis of Wheatland Michigan;

·         Mrs. Adah Terrill of Woodstock, Michigan;

·         Mrs. Belle Briggs of Hudson, Michigan;

8:   and the following children of Cornelius Swartout, deceased, being a brother of said deceased:

·         John Swartout of Jackson, Michigan;

·         And Hattie Cara Cassius Harry and Della all of Mason Michigan;

9:   and the following children of Lavina Benham, deceased, being a sister  of said deceased:

·         Andrew Benham of Homer Michigan;

·         Mrs. Delecla Webber of Albion Michigan; (actual name - lavinia webster)

·         Ida Benham of Albion Michigan;

10:   and the following children of Mrs. Polly Kelly, deceased, being a sister of said deceased:

·         Marvin Kelley of Columbia, Jackson County, Michigan;

·         Percy Kelley of Woodstock, Lenawee County, Michigan;

·         Martin Kelley of Hart, Michigan;

·         Mrs. Gusta Leggett of Paris, Michigan;

Lavinia Benham and Polly Kelly had not been previously identified!  But now they're identified!