Sarah Kniffen Vredenburgh: Circuit Preacher's Wife (52 Ancestors #5)

Week five opens with yet another mysterious female ancestor. This week I point the spotlight on Sarah Kniffen Vredenburg(h), my fourth great grandmother. The name Kniffen is one of those that can, and has, been recorded in several different ways. Sarah's parents are UNK, making it just that much harder to verify her surname. My grandmother, the Genealogy Queen, had in her notes a question as to whether it was Kniffin or Kniffen. I have recently discovered that it might also be Sniffen or Sniffin. 

Yup.

Another good challenge designed to drive me, and others searching for Sarah crazy.

Let's see what we know, and leave the door wide open for new discoveries.

 Sarah Kniffen was born in Westchester Co, New York in July 1792, according to her monument marker on Find A Grave. Nothing is known of her childhood.

Sarah married Hackaliah Vredenburg(h), a Methodist minister, sometime before 1812, when the first of their children was born.  Some accounts claim they had eight children, other claim nine. I have been able to prove six and speculate on a seventh.

Sarah Kniffen Vredenburg's America

In 1817 the young family moved to Terra Haute, in the new State of  Indiana, but it was not to be a settled life. Sarah's husband was an itinerant preacher, a circuit rider, with an assigned territory of 300+ miles. Some of the memoirs written on Rev. Vredenburg tell of winters where there was no shelter for the family, no food to eat, "the pittance received from the people being barely sufficient to furnish them with clothing". This must have been a terribly hard life. Oft spoken of as "privations, dangers and toils of the itinerancy" I can nary imagine what this sort of life was like. Yet, Sarah lived it. I would imagine quietly and without complaint. Traveling from town to town, raising her children virtually alone while her husband was gone for days or weeks at a time, "organizing new societies and circuits, carrying the Gospel messages to the scattering settlements, and enduring all the exposures and privations of pioneer life." For further reading this book contains stories of life in early Indiana.

It is unclear as to when the Vredenburg's actually moved to Illinois, but by 1860 Sarah and her husband had settled in Vermillion County to live the retired life. It is said the Rev. Vredenburg enjoyed the time he had spent in Vermillion County while on his circuits. Several of Sarah's adult children are found in Vermillion Co, Illinois as early as 1845.

In 1869 Sarah lost her husband to what can be described as a heart attack.

In August 1870 a widowed Sarah had moved clear across the State of Illinois to reside with her daughter and son-in-law in McDonough, Illinois.

In September 1870 Sarah died. She was 78 years old.

She is buried with her husband in Vermillion County.

Sarah was just one of the uncounted thousands of strong, silent, resilient pioneer women whose stores go untold, but without whom the American frontier would not have been tamed. A Founding Mother who sadly will remain in the shadows of her husband and his accomplishments.

Thank you Sarah Kniffen Vredenburg. For your strength to plow through, despite the harshest of conditions.

Mary Dempsey O'Connell: Irish Rebellion Immigrant (52 Ancestors #3)

I have not done a great deal of in depth research on Mary. She had proved to be a bit of a brick wall, as many women ancestors can be. I have chosen her as one of my 52 Ancestors because I have had difficulty finding more than census and city directory records for her. I hope that in writing what I know I may start to discover new bits to add to her life.

Pastoral Irish Cottages c.1820

Mary Dempsey was born about 1815 in Ireland. Her parents are as yet UNK. Nothing is known of her early life in Ireland. It can be presumed that it was hard, the population at that time was soaring and the work was leaving Ireland for more industrialized England. Workhouses were being erected to house the destitute. Life was becoming extremely difficult for native Irish men and women. Their traditional way of life was being threatened. Families were being split apart as the government tried to gain control of it's vast unemployed population. I don't imagine the prospects were encouraging for a young woman in such a depressed country at this time in history.

 Mary married James O'Connell, who was at least 10, possibly 12, years her senior, about 1838, and their first of twelve children was born in or about 1839. The Irish Rebellion was heating up and I imagine it was a time of much unrest as tradition was being pushed out by modernization and the English were imposing their ideas upon the Irish. Mary gave birth to her second child in or about 1841. By the time their third child was born, about 1842, I imagine things were looking worrisome for the new, rapidly growing family. [The alternate possibility I have considered is that Mary may have married James closer to 1843, that James was a widower and the first three children were not Mary's natural children.]

At some point between 1842 and 1844 Mary and James decide to emigrate to America.

Cutaway of ship

The trip would have taken between 6 and 14 weeks depending on time of year and weather conditions. They most likely would have travelled below decks in steerage, crammed with others who dreamed of a new life in America.. Mary quite possibly was pregnant during the voyage, and caring for 2 infants and a toddler. Conditions must have been dire at home for a young family with small children to gamble an ocean voyage to an unknown land.

Arriving in America

Upon arriving in their new country, the family lived for a time in Kings Co, New York, where Mary gave birth to four more children. New York in 1850 was most likely not a very hospitable place. The Irish immigrants were less than welcomed when they arrived. I imagine Mary, James and their young children had a tough time of it those first few years.

By 1850 Mary and James had settled in Poughkeepsie, New York. The family had grown to seven children under the age of 10. James is recorded as a cabinetmaker, Mary is recorded as unable to read or write. The neighbors in their new community were a mixture of Irish and English.

In 1860 the family has grown by another four children. James is now listed as a laborer. They do not own any real estate yet, but the value of their personal estate is equal to or greater than the neighbors. Things are going well in their new homeland. Mary is a very busy homemaker with 12 members of the household to care for, ten children and two adults. It appears that the first born son, Patrick, has left the family home.

1861. America is at war. With itself. Three of Mary's sons are old enough to fight. (To date I have found records for only one son, Hugh, who fought and survived. Hugh lived with his mother until the day she died.) If my alternate theory is correct then only Hugh would be Mary's natural son, the other two boys would be step sons. I can find no record of the first two boys after 1860.

Frame House c. 1870

1870 finds the family still in Poughkeepsie, NY. Their twelfth and final child (my paternal great grandmother) appears for the first time. James is a home owner and a U.S. citizen with voting rights. (I have not found the documents to prove this yet, but it is recorded in the census as such) Two more children have moved out of the family home. Their neighbors are Irish, English and New Yorkers. Their home is valued higher than their neighbors.

The 1875 New York census lets us glimpse at what Mary and James had accomplished since setting out from all that was ancestral and familiar, to forge a better life for their children. They are home and land owners, well, James is anyway. Their home is valued at or above the neighboring homes. The neighborhood has changed to include German immigrants and many native New Yorkers.

By 1880 Mary is widowed. She is living still in her beloved home in Poughkeepsie, NY with six of her grown children. But the story does not end there.

Mary has one final adventure ahead of her.

Sometime prior to 1888 Mary, along with two sons and three daughters, decided to leave her family home, her friends and many of her children behind in New York, and move to St Paul, Minnesota. I wish I knew why. I can find no evidence of the reason for such a long distance move so late in her life. All of her children were single. Perhaps something happened at home or perhaps one of the sons secured work.

Minnesota Street Car c.1890

The last records I can find for Mary are both in 1895. The 1895 City Directory listing and the 1895 Minnesota Territorial Census. She does not appear anywhere after this date. I have found no record of her death. no burial listing. Mary left the world as she came into it, mysteriously, quietly, unknown.

But she lived a most adventurous life. 

Mary was a strong resilient Irishwoman who left a land of poverty for the promise of a better life.

And succeeded.