http://www.danallosso.com/home.htmlDarwins in MA!endan@allosso.netCopyright 2009 Dan Allosso2009-06-15T15:45:58-04:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Thu, 14 May 2009 15:34:12 -0400dan@allosso.netNone2009-06-15T15:45:58-04:00http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/6c6cc0bf67b592d10c773abdb5ff68b2-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/6c6cc0bf67b592d10c773abdb5ff68b2-6.html#unique-entry-id-6 Erasmus Darwin Keyes was born in Brimfield on 5-29-1810. His parents were the renowned surgeon, Dr. Justus Keyes (1780-1835), and Betsey Corey (d. 1826). Erasmus was the second of three children, and the first son. He grew up in Brimfield, and at age 15 moved to Maine to stay with an uncle. At 18, Erasmus wrote a letter to the Secretary of War, and received an appointment to West Point. He served in the Indian pacification in the western states, and later in the Civil War.

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
]]>dan@allosso.netNone2009-06-15T14:12:57-04:00http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/9046f4080a53d44c343a0edb418ee867-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/9046f4080a53d44c343a0edb418ee867-5.html#unique-entry-id-5Erasmus Lilly Burnap was born in Auburn Massachusetts on 12-17-1813. Erasmus was the son of Ebenezer Burnap of Sutton (1756-1820) (2) and Ruth Tucker of Charlton (b. 1780, d. in Cabot VT) (1). Ebenezer was the son of Ebenezer, who settled “Burnap Hill” on “land that was first occupied by the Indians for growing Indian corn,” in 1750 (3). Ebenezer and Ruth married in 1809, (4) a year after the death of Ebenezer’s first wife, Thankful. Ebenezer and Thankful had five children in Auburn; Ebenezer and Ruth had another two.

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

]]>dan@allosso.netNone2009-06-14T12:10:26-04:00http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/bc748adb4a2d08236da268f071d015b8-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/bc748adb4a2d08236da268f071d015b8-4.html#unique-entry-id-4Darwin Ellis was born in Attleborough in 1806. The Ellis family was founded in Dedham by Richard Ellis, son of a Welsh immigrant. Darwin’s parents were George and Polly (Fisher). Polly was the daughter of Col. Daniel Fisher of Dedham, who’d fought at the Battle of Lexington and throughout the Revolution (and later, under Gen. Lincoln, in Shays’ Rebellion). (1) “They located on a farm in Attleboro, where they reared their family and spent the remainder of their lives.” George was “one of the most prominent and influential men of the community, and for one or more terms ably represented his district in the state legislature.” After 1816, George was a member and later a High Priest of the Adoniram Masonic Chapter. (2) George and Polly had nine children. (3)

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.
]]>dan@allosso.netNone2009-05-27T16:41:58-04:00http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/c611591921fee384c15f9907738f40a7-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/c611591921fee384c15f9907738f40a7-3.html#unique-entry-id-3Darwin L. Gray was born in Ashfield April 30 1824. His father, Eli Gray, was the son of Revolutionary soldier Robert Gray. Eli’s first wife, Lydia Sears, died in 1815 at age 31 after bearing four children. Eli then married Betsey Lyon of Connecticut, a cousin of Mary E. Lyon (1797-1849), founder of Mt. Holyoke College. Eli and Betsey had eight children, bringing the family total to twelve. (1)

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.
]]>dan@allosso.netNone2009-05-15T17:51:02-04:00http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/15de8837b7aed8670e27738f98c2bf91-2.html#unique-entry-id-2http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/15de8837b7aed8670e27738f98c2bf91-2.html#unique-entry-id-2Darwin Dwight Sears, s. Ahira & Aurora Griffith, b. 8-11-1818, d. 1845

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
]]>dan@allosso.netNone2009-05-15T13:39:04-04:00http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/4df7fcbce9adf92d84c32f7a66358768-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/4df7fcbce9adf92d84c32f7a66358768-1.html#unique-entry-id-1Erasmus Darwin Clary was the son of Ethan Allen Clary (1776-1849), who lived primarily in Ashfield and Springfield Massachusetts. Ethan’s father was Samuel, who was born in Sunderland (1736) and moved to Ashfield about 1780. Ethan was born in Sunderland, but grew up in Ashfield. (1) In 1799 and 1800, Ethan was a postal rider, covering a route for a private weekly delivery between Northampton and Ashfield, via Whately (25 to 30 miles). (2) Ethan married Electa Smith, daughter of Lemuel Smith (originally from East Haddam, CT) in 1802 or 1803 (Ashfield records say 7-16-1803). Their first son, Erasmus Darwin, was born 12-4-1803.

Ethan and Electa moved to Springfield in 1809, when Ethan was appointed to a position at the Federal Armory there. Ethan was almost immediately involved in a prosecution for selling a pint of rum to a soldier on Armory grounds. He fought the charge all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and lost. (3) In spite of this, Ethan held this Armory position until 1812, when he was posted to Boston as a recruiting officer for the war effort. Ethan was commissioned a first lieutenant and served in the Fortieth Infantry until the war’s end. He then returned to Springfield, and held a clerical position in the Armory from 1816 until his retirement in 1833. From 1833 to 1842, Ethan “filled different offices of trust and responsibility in the custom House at Boston, among them that of deputy naval officer.” In 1844, Ethan was proposed for nomination as Postmaster General, but rejected for political reasons. (5) Ethan retired and resettled in Springfield, where he was a Justice of the Peace in 1848. (6) Ethan died in 1849; Electa returned to Cambridge, where she lived until her death in 1871, age 90. (4)

Ethan and Electa had twelve children between 1803 and 1826, the first four born in Ashfield. Erasmus Darwin Clary was born 12-4-1803 (12-19-1803 in Sunderland), and entered West Point in 1818. Erasmus failed to complete his studies at the military academy, and worked as a clerk in the Army Quartermaster’s Department in Washington, D.C. In 1822, Erasmus married his first cousin Sarah Clary, daughter of Ethan’s older brother Arad. Erasmus died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1854 at age 51. (1)

In addition to Erasmus, Ethan and Electa had three other sons who survived infancy. They were all named for famous contemporary men, and the choice of names suggests much about the Clarys’ political leanings. Their second child, born in 1805 in Ashfield, was named for Robert Emmet (1778-1803), an Irish revolutionary executed in 1803 after a failed revolt in Dublin. The third child, a son named Albert, was born in 1806 and died in 1808. His name was reused for the seventh child, Albert Gallatin Clary, born in 1814. Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) was Secretary of the Treasury from 1801-1814, and an outspoken opponent of Alexander Hamilton and leader of Jefferson’s new Democratic-Republican Party. The final son, born in 1816, was named after Henry Dearborn (1751-1829), physician, veteran of the Revolution and War of 1812, and Secretary of War under President Jefferson.

Erasmus’ brothers were more successful and longer-lived. General Robert Emmet Clary graduated West Point and had a long military career. He served as Chief Quartermaster for the Department of West Virginia during the Civil War, and retired in 1869. After living in Springfield for several years, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he died in 1890 at age 85. Commodore Albert Gallatin Clary entered the Navy in 1832 as a midshipman, and ended his life in Lisbon, Portugal around the turn of the century. Henry Dearborn Clary began a thirty-year career in the Boston custom house at age 19. After retiring, he lived in Cambridge until his death in 1878, age 62. (4)

1. John Montague Smith et al., History of the Town of Sunderland, Massachusetts, 1899, p. 300.
2. Josiah Howard Temple, History of Whately, 1872, p. 186.
3. Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings, 1904-1907, Vol. IV, 1912, p. 232.
4. Charles Wells Chapin, Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield, 1893, p. 145.
5. Mason Arnold Green, Springfield, 1636-1886, 1888, p. 456.
6. Nahum Capen, ed., Massachusetts State Record and Year Book of General Information, 1848, Vol. II, p. 75.


]]>dan@allosso.netNone2009-05-14T15:46:46-04:00http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/27fa17166afdeb00307b6ed289235b0e-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.danallosso.com/darwins/darwins_files/27fa17166afdeb00307b6ed289235b0e-0.html#unique-entry-id-0Darwin Woods’ father, Asa, was born in Princeton, in Worcester County, Massachusetts. Asa was the son of Samuel Woods, who started Princeton’s first public school in a house on his farm. The history of Princeton is unclear exactly when Asa began teaching local children, but supposes that “it was about the year 1759, the date of the District’s incorporation.” (1) After ten years, Princeton had grown sufficiently to need a School Committee, and Samuel Woods was appointed to it.

Asa Woods was born on April 30, 1776. At 22, Asa married Permelia Mirick, whose father was a Captain in the Revolution. Asa and Permelia had three children in Princeton before they moved to Ashburnham in 1804 or 1805. The Woods settled on the east side of town, and Asa became well known as a farmer and a “prominent citizen...frequently chosen to office.” Darwin Woods was born in Ashburnham, April 19 1807.

Darwin’s mother, Permelia, died in 1814. Asa remarried three more times before his death in 1844. Darwin had fourteen siblings, at least three of whom died young. Darwin married Dolly G. Adams in 1828, and had three children with her: Mary, Cinderilla, and Edwin. Dolly died in 1842, and Darwin married Julia King, a widow with two young daughters. They had no additional children. (2)


1. Jeremiah Lyford Hanaford, History of Princeton, Worcester County, Massachusetts, 1852
2. Ezra S. Stearns, History of Ashburnham, Massachusetts, 1887]]>