Brimfield: Erasmus Darwin Keyes
06/15/2009 15:45
Erasmus retired from the Army a Brigadier General, and bought land in the Napa Valley, where he planted a forty-thousand vine winery. (1) Erasmus was vice president of the California vine culture society, 1868-72. He died in Nice, France, in 1895, at the age of 85. (2) Keyes wrote extensively about his experiences, including Fifty Years’ Observation of Men and Events (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884).
1. Charles M. Hyde, Historical Celebration of the Town of Brimfield, Hampden County, Mass. (Sprinfield: Clark W. Bryan Company, 1879), p. 425ff.
2. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_D._Keyes
Auburn: Erasmus Lilly Burnap
06/15/2009 14:12
Erasmus married Susan R. Hawes of Auburn in 1834, (5) and had their first children there in 1836 and 1837. (5, p. 23). Erasmus and Susan moved to Cabot Vermont in 1837, and had five more children there. Erasmus became Deacon of the newly-established Advent Church in 1858, before moving to Calais Vermont in 1859. Susan Burnap died in 1862, and Erasmus remarried in 1867. He was a State Representative for Calais in 1876 (6). Erasmus farmed 170 acres of land, and kept 24 head of cattle and 700 sugar trees. Erasmus apparently lived through 1889, when the last record I could find of him was published (7).
1. Vital Records of Sutton, Massachusetts (Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1907), p. 28
2. William A. Benedict, History of the Town of Sutton, Massachusetts (Worcester: Sanford and Co., 1878), p. 389
3. E. Tucker, Genealogy of the Tucker Family (Higginson Book Co., 1989)
4. Vital Records of Charlton, Massachusetts, (Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1905), p. 132
5. Vital Records of the Town of Auburn (Formerly Ward) Massachusetts (Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1900), p. 61
6. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Vermont, Biennial Session, 1876 (Rutland: Tuttle and Co., 1877), p. 9
7. Hamilton Child, Gazetteer of Washington County, Vt., 1783-1889 (Syracuse: Syracuse Journal Co., 1889), p. 62
Attleborough: Darwin Ellis
06/14/2009 12:10
Darwin’s brother William “learned the jeweler’s trade at Attleboro, serving a three years’ apprenticeship.” Darwin probably had a similar experience, judging from reports that he engraved patriotic Civil War tokens in his later life. Both Darwin and his son Jarvis E. Ellis worked for the Scovill Company, where Jarvis was a “noted engraver” and after sixty years of employment, “the acknowledged grandfather now of all the employees there.” (4) In 1860, Darwin Ellis and P. Hine patented a “Portable Match Case” in Waterbury, Connecticut. (5) Darwin married Mary Dana Jackson (b. 1807, m. 1832 in Attleboro), who died in Waterbury around 1846. They had at least three children, two of whom died in childhood in Waterbury. The Waterbury records don’t contain information of Darwin’s death. (6)
1. The Dedham Historical Register, Vol. IX, 1898, p. 116
2. Duane Hamilton Hurd, History of Bristol County, Massachusetts (Philadelphia: J.W. Lewis, 1883) p. 110.
3. The Biographical Record of Ogle County, Illinois (Chicago: S.J. Clarke, 1899), p. 267.
4. Ferdinando Fasce, An American Family (Columbus: Ohio State University, 2002), p. 65.
5. Joseph Anderson, The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, Vol. II (New Haven: Price and Lee, 1896), p. 477.
6. Katharine A. Prichard, Ancient Burying0grounds of the Town of Waterbury, Connecticut (Waterbury: Mattatuck Historical Society, 1917), p. 48.
Ashfield: Darwin L. Gray
05/27/2009 16:41
Darwin’s older brothers, William (b. 1811) and Robert (b. 1813), both died in a dramatic accident in Ashfield while in their teens. On May 25 1827, the boys accompanied their grandfather, David Lyon, and two of their uncles to the Pond west of the Ashfield Plain, to wash sheep. The event turned into a party, complete with liquor. Six people set out in a large canoe, along with two sheep, for a tour of the Pond. About ten yards from shore, the canoe sank, taking four of its passengers down with it. David Lyon, a sixty-three year old deacon of the local church, jumped into the Pond to save his younger son and his grandsons (his older son swam to shore), but he too immediately sank out of sight and drowned. William and Robert were the last to be recovered after an hour or so. The boys were reportedly “locked in each other’s arms.” (2)
Eli and Betsey left Ashfield later that year, moving to Washtenaw County, Michigan. After eight years in Michigan, the family moved to Toledo, Ohio for two years. (3) Finally, Eli moved his family to Algansee Township, Michigan, in 1836. Darwin is remembered in the history of Branch County as a farmer who had “limited educational privileges.” The history says Darwin began his life in Michigan as a “poor boy,” but “by thrift and industry he became a prosperous, successful and prominent man of the county, whose business reputation was unassailable.” Darwin was held in high esteem by his neighbors, and became a member of the local Baptist church and the Republican Party. Darwin married Julia Ann Archer Fales (b. 1834), a widow with five children, in 1869. They had three additional children. Darwin died at his home in Algansee in 1897, at age 75.
1. Henry Park Collin, A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Branch County, Michigan, 1906, p.522.
2. Frederick G. Howes, History of the Town of Ashfield, 1908, p. 45.
3. Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, Historical Collections Vol. XXVIII, 1900, p. 310.
Ashfield: Darwin Dwight Sears
05/15/2009 17:51
Ahira Sears was the son of Roland (or Rowland) Sears, who settled in Ashfield in 1772. Rowland and the other farmers along Cape Street in the south part of town were all from Yarmouth. They all had large families, and the winter school in that district had “seventy-five scholars” attending. Of Rowland’s eight children, Ahira was the only one to stay in town, so he inherited the family farm. According to the town history, “he lived and died on the old place.” (1)
Ahira was born in 1783, and married Aurora Griffith (b. 1791, Haddam CT) in 1815. In 1816, Ahira Sears served on the Ashfield School Committee. (2) There’s no other information available on Ahira; so I’m left to assume that his responsibility for the Ashfield schools corresponded with an interest in subjects like the sciences covered by Darwin in his writings. In this sense, Ahira Sears is a great example of a very regular person who decided to name his son Darwin.
Darwin Dwight Sears left little record of his life. So far, I’ve not been able to find anything about him beyond the basics. The Ashfield Vital Records shows an 1842 marriage to Huldah J. Thomas of Cummington. (3) I have a note that he died in 1845, however, they may have had children in Cummington. I’ll have to check there.
1. Erastus Ranney Ellis, Biographical Sketches of Richard Ellis, the first settler of Ashfield, Mass., and His Descendants, 1888, p. 393.
2. Frederick G. Howes, History of the Town of Ashfield, 1910, p. 393.
3. Vital Records of Ashfield Masschusetts, to the Year 1850, 1942
