Lincoln - Rosette Connection ?!
Rosette Siblings
Family members~ would you believe our 3 x Gr Uncles (depending on your generation) worked with, AND, against Abe Lincoln? Read the letters concerning John and Louis' involvement in court cases with, and in the nomination of Lincoln, along with several other topics - including: Frank's eye-witness account of the "Battle of the Ironclads", comments on Charles' (our lineage) pursuit of the Anneke Jans NY land claims in 1867, Louis' first hand Civil War accounts, and general details on life in the mid-1800's for this family. Also, see a copy of David Rouset's original Oath of Abjuration in 1715. (below article) Intriguing associations to pivotal times in American history! (Courtesy Mr. Robert W.)(Cotham-Kagay-Rosette lineage)
1786 Thomas Cotham Bible.Articles
- 1786 Cotham Bible and Verby's "A Cotham Book" New (Thomas Cotham, Cotham lineage)
- Towns Mill - In Their Blood New (Mary McKibbon Towns Ellyson, Gibbs-Kilpatrick-Towns lineage)
- Anneke Jans NYC Property (Anneke Jans Bogardus, Cotham-Kagay-Rosette-Kip-Kierstede-Roeloffsen-Jans lineage)
- Lincoln - Rosette Letters (Charles, John, James, Frank, & Anne Rosette, Cotham-Kagay-Rosette lineage)
- Oath of Abduration 1715 (David Rouset, Cotham-Kagay-Rosette lineage)
- Cotham French and Indian War Service New (Thomas Cotham*, Cotham lineage)
- Involved Great Grandmothers (Sara Roeloffsen, Mary Ann Moore Crump, Cotham-Kagay-Rosette, Gibbs-Kilpatrick-Crump lineages)
- Mason Dixon Line (Hans Kagay, William Hearne, Cotham-Kagay, Cotham-Hudson-Fooks-Hearne lineages)
- Peters Colony 1842 Texas (Edmiston Cox, Cotham-Cox lineage)
- Frying Pan to the Fire (Volentine Livingston, Gibbs-Kilpatrick-Livingston lineage)
- Almost Forgotten Relics (Dr. James Hudson, Cotham-Hudson-Fooks-Hearne lineage)
- Christian Malford Origins (Christian Malford Cotham, Cotham lineage)
- Civil War uniform buttons New (Christian Kagay, Cotham-Kagay lineages)
- Miscellaneous New (Multiple lineages)
1786 Thomas Cotham Bible. Cotham lineage researchers:
- take a look at this new content. The remarkable 1786 Cotham Bible photos are now posted (Thomas Cotham Sr. 1734*/1750-1808 - family), and, we have received permission to share Verby Cotham Balinas' work - "A Cotham Book", along with the supplement "More Named Cotham". For those unfamiliar with her book, there is an extensive amount of family information on all branches of Thomas Sr.'s (1734*/1750-1808) descendancy for several generations - much more than I have input in the Family Ancestry / Cotham area of this website. This work was produced prior to widespread use of electronic word processing, so be sure and consult the supplement for corrections and additions to any given family structure. I have found a high degree of accuracy for the content on my family line (Moses Payne), but, as with any resource, independently confirm prior to absolute acceptance for yours. If any inconsistencies are found, share any suggested corrections with us, along with the basis, and we will red mark the pdfs and thereby share them with others. (Cotham lineage)
Townes Mill, Williamson Co., Tx 1870-1913.
Towns Mill - Williamson Co., TX Per Wikipedia: "Tennessee-native Thomas Weir came to Williamson County in 1856. Alabaman James Francis Towns (1850–1937) came in 1870 and settled nearby on the San Gabriel River. He and his brother, Robert W. Towns (1848–1938), operated a gin and blacksmith shop, as well as Towns Mill. In the late 19th century, the communities of Weir and Townsville (or Towns Mill) grew around these early settlers." Kim T. adds that James joined a wagon train headed for central Texas in 1870, apparently got the new mill started, and Robert followed a little later.
James and Robert's mother, Mary McKibbon, married Drury Ashbury Towns in Talladega, AL in 1847 and, besides the brothers, had a daughter named Sara Jane. Drury and his brother, Isaac Newton, are said to have been mill operators/owners/managers in Coldwater and nereby Oxford Alabama, respectively. Drury died in 1852 and Mary remarried to one Bryant Ellyson in 1859, and they had two more children, John Newton and Martha J.. Bryant also died young, sometime before1865. In the 1870 Talladega census, Mary McKibbon (pict) and Sara Jane are living practically next door to 18 year old Wylie Kilpatick and his family. Flash forward ten years - in the 1880 Williamson Co., Tx census, Wylie and Sara Jane are married and he is listed as a miller! No real surprise, with a mill already in the family, but interesting to see the numbers of family getting involved in milling. Wylie and Sara Jane were married for 60 years until her death in 1937. The pop-up (above left thumbnail link) shows the mill that was on the San Gabriel River from 1870 to 1913 when a flood washed it away. This painting of the old mill was done by E.S. Towns based on the signature. (Date?) We are not sure who "E.S." is, however, James Towns did have a son named Eugene Sellers Towns. Many thanks to JC for sharing these images with us!
(Gibbs-Kilpatrick-Towns lineage)
Anneke Jans 1604-1663
Anneke Jans 1604-1663a
David Rouset's (see Oath of Abjuration article) son Abraham (1728-1775), of New York City, was married to one Catherine Kip in Belleville, New Jersey, a Gr-Gr Granddaughter of the "renowned" Anneke Jans. Anneke Jans died in 1663 in Albany NY. The Anneke Jans family owned 62 acres of land (covering parts of current Greenwich Village, Soho, and Tribeca neighborhoods) in NY which it is claimed by descendants to have been improperly conveyed to the Trinity Church in 1705 by the Colonial Governor, Lord Combury, as a representative of Queen Anne of England. This conveyance has been hotly contested for hundreds of years now. The reference in a couple of the Rosette Letters to Charles going east in 1867-1869 to try to settle property claims, is referring to this land in the heart of New York City. See a more complete Anneke Jans story at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ghosthunter/Anneke/page2.htm , and in this Harper's Monthly 1885 article. (Cotham-Kagay-Rosette-Kip-Kierstede-Roeloffsen-Jans lineage)
Oath of AbjurationDavid Rouset (Rosette) 1690-1742, the first of our line of Rosettes to come to America, was the Gr-Gr Grandfather of Charles W. Rosette 1818-1876 (who, in turn, is our Gr-Gr Grandfather), and immigrated to the US in 1715 from Europe. He was a French Huguenot, who by virtue of King Loius XIV's persecution of protestants, his family was forced to flee France. Immigrants to the US at that time were required to pledge allegiance to King George by signing the Oath of Abjuration within nine months of arriving and in the presence of the mayor of New York City. A copy of that original oath is available to view here. We are told that it is rare to find intact originals. It seems that a common practice of the time was for the new owners to burn them right after being made to sign them ! (Again, courtesy of Robert W.) (Cotham-Kagay-Rosette lineage) |
Peters Colony, 1842 Texas Attempting to settle many areas of Texas in the 1840's was definitely not for the faint of heart. Promises of "free" land sometimes were not enough to overcome some very real and life threatening obstacles. Peter's Colony in North Texas was one such settlement that, well, I won't steal the punchline. But believe me, you will want to read the whole story as told by one of the daughters of Edmiston Cox (1809-1861) in 1913. Edmiston was certainly not the first of the family to be "tried" by severe conditions of the day. His grandfather John Cox (1758- 1832) is listed in DAR files, along with fifteen other extended family members. |
"Involved" Great Grandmothers In the same May 1885 Harper's Monthly article detailing the Anneke Jans NYC land claims are a couple of short references to the contribution of Anneke's daughter, Sara Roeloff Kierstede 1621-1693, to the settling of New Amsterdam/New York City. Too often in researching family history, details of the wive's and daughter's lives are few and far in between. This article gives us some interesting info concerning Sara's interests/abilities: "Sara Roeloffsen, the daughter who married Surgeon Hans Kierstede, lived on the present northeast corner of Pearl and Whitehall Streets... ...She was a great proficient in the Indian languages, and acted as interpreter between Stuyvesant and the Esopus and the Wappingers, the Agh-in-sack, the Long Island, and the Staten Island Indians, when their treaty was made with Stuyvesant in the spring of 1664."
(Cotham-Kagay-Rosette-Kip-Kierstede-Roeloffsen lineage) Mason-Dixon Line Two of the family have been directly involved in events that led up to the creation of the Mason-Dixon Line. This section of the Kagy History book illustrates the Kagay/Patterson link to Cresap's War in Pennsylvania (see map), and the family tree (below in the next article) for William Hearne (b. abt 1660) indicates that his family first moved to and settled in Maryland in 1681 but ended up in Delaware after the new bounderies were set. The boundary issue started the very year that William arrived, but the actual line was not surveyed until the 1760's. Civil War uniform buttons In a number of family lines, I see where multiple brothers of one family marry multiple sisters of the other. It is evident in the Stuart-Beery lines, the Cotham-Holligan lines, and in the Kagay-Stuart lines, among others. In the latter case, our Gr-Greatfather John Kagay (1835-1904) married Christina Stuart, and John's younger brother Christian (1837-1897) married Christina's younger sister Mary. John, with a budding young family at the outbreak of hostilities, stayed in Ohio and tended the farm, while Christian enlisted in the Ohio 62nd volunteers, and then later in the 159th. He was wounded and lost a leg, and almost died in a battle in Winchester VA, and yet still continued in the service as a skillful mechanic. These uniform buttons (and a stray political button) were passed down to us through Imogene Rosette Kagay, married to John's son Raymond. Rosette Uncles Frank and James also served (above Lincoln-Rosette article), but these most likely saw battle (excepting a few post war buttons in the group) while attached to Christian Kagay's uniform. |
From the Frying Pan into the "Fire" I find it very easy to settle into the area where my family has lived for many years and so am often curious what drive's people, our ancestors, to uproot their lives and move sometimes thousands of miles to places with many unknowns. The reasons in this particular case are not at all obscure, for many thousands of countrymen did the same. The potato famines in Ireland, specifically in the 1840's, caused many to immigrate to the US, sometimes finding conditions almost as bad as where they came from. History writes that thousands of Irish newcomers died from yellow fever in the New orleans area, for example. One fifteen year old, Volentine Livingston (1827-1869) from County Down, Ireland, as the story goes, stowed away on one of the many boats for America. He met and married Sara Jane Lawrence in Mississippi in 1851, and eventually made his way into one rough neighborhood in wild and wooly Evergreen, Texas in about 1855. You should see the write-ups in the cemetery books for this area! Lot's of "folks" were buried facing west, and were a little "longer" than normal when they went in the ground, if you catch my meaning. Almost Forgotten Relics The picture had been hanging in Dr. Cotham's mansion in San Antonio for almost forty years until 1959 and then inherited by a rarely seen cousin. I had not been aware of it's existence until that cousin contacted me in 1992 and asked if I would be interested in a few things from the "Cotham side" while he was cleaning out his house. Included in this gift was a 24 x 36 framed print of a family tree. The "prepared by" date read 1891. In bold letters at the bottom was "William Hearne". It was not until I had time to look carefully over the fine print out at the end of the branches that I was able to discern the name "Dr. Hudson and Ella - Millsborough, Del." and the adjacent leaf with the writing "Thomas, (Texas)". I knew my grandmother Forrest Hudson Cotham's grandfather's name was Thomas, ergo, I was almost certain that I had just gained knowledge of some heretofore unknown Hearne family relatives ! Given the print date, and that Thomas Hudson and son John came to Texas from Delaware in about 1856, this probably once hung on the walls of Thomas Hudson's (1831-1906) home in Rockdale, Texas. It's about time to share this old relic with others. Christian Malford Origins What are the chances that the same first and middle name would be used for four generations of males in a family, that a small village in England is named exactly the same, that the family ancestry points to English origins, that a neighborhood and many businesses just west of the beforementioned village (in Bristol) also carries the family's last name, and all these clues are just coincidental ? In a pig's what ? Yes, I agree. Some ancestor on one side or the other of the Cotham family surely came from the "Christian Malford", Wiltshire, England area. But who? The first (we think) Christian Malford's mother, Sarah Holligan's family ? Misc- 1581 Victim of the Tower of London - The Athenaeum, Issues 584-635: List of Prisoners Confined in the Tower of London, 1581 - "Thomas Cotham was a Catholic, and died probably of the effects of torture, which was applied for more than an hour. Luke Kirby was also racked, and died probably from the same cause." (Queen Elizabeth I opposition to Catholics)
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Updates:
2/28/2012 - site re-design
3/26/2012 - details for one family living members removed from PAF files
7/25/2012 - all details for living removed from PAF files
1/6/2013 - PAF content added for Cotham, Baker, and Rosette lines
1/28/2013 - Draft Cotham Bible document uploaded
2/1/2013 - A Cotham Book and Supplement
2/3/2013 - Towns Mill article
2/5/2013 - Thomas Cotham, French and Indian War article
2/10/2013 - Towns Mill painting, VA Soldiers image, Article index, Miscellaneous
2/18/2013 - Civil War uniform buttons
3/21/2013 - Thomas Purcell, Sr - DAR record (twentieth family member)
Blue Nile Diamonds