The Heaps/Spencers: AKA I'm My Own Grandpa

Oh boy let me tell you what a struggle sorting out this side of my family is. This will just be a short post on getting on the connections sorted out, I will post stories about each person/couple in more detail separately later.

I was originally trying to do a story on Joseph Spencer and Mary Cragg, my 4th-great grandparents on my paternal grandmothers side. The first issue is when I noticed Mary Cragg is my 4th-great grandma twice and my 5th-great grandma at one point. Needless to say, I was confused. I started trying to determine if their was an error in my records, or the church records, or an error anywhere! I didn't understand what was going on. But thanks to a buddy in my research group, the US West Genealogy Research Community, we got it sorted and discovered there was no error...just an extremely weird set of events and marriages that let's just say...they didn't travel far from the shallow end of the gene pool.

To understand all of this I have decided to create a visual aid. Prepare for the most amazing Microsoft Paint skills you have ever seen.

Can a girl draw or what? Anyway, the stuff in the black lines is what I want you to look at. Notice that Mary Cragg appears three times. She was married to William Heaps first, and then he stole a deer from the king and ran away, never to be seen again (more on that in a later story). Together they had Henry Heaps and Thomas Heaps.

After William ran away, Mary married Joseph Spencer and he pretty much took in all the kids. So Henry and Thomas are brothers. Henry is my 3rd-great grandpa, Thomas is my 4th-great grandpa. And their step-brother is Joseph Spencer Jr, who is my 3rd-great grandpa. And they all come from Mary Cragg, who as mentioned, is my double 4th-great grandma and my 5th great-grandma. which means that the lines before Mary Crag (i.g. her parents/grandparents/etc) are duplicated three times in my ancestry.

Apparently all the boys got along, because Henry, Thomas, and Joseph Jr. all immigrated to Escalante, Utah together. There Henry had a son named Henry Jr. And Thomas had a daughter named Mary Elizabeth, who had a daughter named Eliza Alice. And Henry Jr. married Eliza Alice, his 1st cousin once removed.

And that's probably why I'm so weird right?

Moses & Prudence Tyler: Witch Hunters & Guardians of Ancient Weapons

I know. That title sounds straight up fiction right? Wrong. It's very much the truth, and let me elaborate in this story on Moses Tyler and Prudence Blake, my 9th great-grandparents on my maternal grandmother Gearldine Robinson Wilson's side.

First off, this story is going to pretty much focused on Moses Tyler. Simply because Prudence apparently wasn't important enough to have her story written down anywhere or her records maintained in as much detail as Moses. Moses played a role, a very small tiny little role, but a role in a major event in American history. So we get a lot more information on him.

Secondly, I would like to inform you that the records for Moses Tyler Sr. have been duplicated and filed under Moses Tyler Jr. in the LDS church research center. They are two different people, and the records for Moses Tyler Jr actually belong to his father, Moses Tyler Sr. The researchers at the center know this, and are working (slowly) to get it sorted. So if you get on Family Search and wonder why nothing makes sense, that's why. It's taken me weeks to get this sorted out. Mostly thanks to the sweet women of the Godfrey Memorial Library in Connecticut who run the AGBI and helped my locate the primary sources for the Tyler line.

But this post is about Moses Tyler Sr. from hence forward.

Andover in 1886, two centuries later and still a small town

Moses was born on February 16, 1641 in Andover, Massachusetts (start the guessing on which major historical event he might have been involved with). Andover was the definition of a sleepy little puritan village in the mid 1600s. The town itself was actually settled the year Moses was born. He grew up in a time when Andover and the surrounding area was pretty much in constant unrest with the local Native Americans. Google King Philip's War.

Moses also unfortunately grew up being raised by his father Job, who one genealogist describes as being "a salty kind of guy who always felt he was getting the short end of the stick and wasn't afraid to exploit the court system, or other means, to try to get his due." Not a good atmosphere to raise your six kids in. And Job's whole attitude rubbed off on Moses big time.

Moses married Prudence (who was born in 1647) on July 6, 1666. I cannot even being to describe what a horrible wedding date that is.  That's a lot of 6's, and it makes it worse when you discover the historical event!!!! These two had kids and stuff. Very Puritan, blue law level Puritan.

And then in 1689, stuff started going downhill real fast in Andover. Prudence died. Moses married a lady named Sarah. Moses was named the quartermaster of Andover, and I kid you not, his official title was "Custodian of Ancient Munitions of War" I hope with all my heart he had the only key to a shed that had like...maces and broadswords. I really don't know what that title means, but I want it. Within the next couple of years he also became constable, and then a leader within his Puritan church. He started buying up land like crazy, and then using the money made from the land to buy more land. Moses became a man, if not THE man, of power in the area.

Witch Thing

Needless to say this made him some enemies. And then in 1692, almost literally, all hell broke loose. If you haven't guessed it already, or you know that date. You would know that this is the time the Salem Witch Crisis was underway. Crazy Puritan fanatics were throwing around accusations of witchcraft like there was no tomorrow. And for the most part, despite the hysteria, the accusations didn't really stick...

...unless you were a man of extreme power who was raised to seek vengeance from anyone that he didn't like. It started with a sickness. Some horrible man's wife got sick and then a whole bunch of other people got ick and instead of blaming...the flu...they blamed witches. And then the accusations started. Moses Tyler accused over 11 of HIS OWN FAMILY as being witches. Sisters, sister-in-laws, nieces, a freaking baby, a mother-in-law, and some cousins. And what's the best way to prove that some witch in the town cursed your wife? Cart down two of those attention-seeking teenage "afflicted" girls from Salem, walk them around town, and whoever they sneeze at is obviously a witch.

Hopestill Tyler's bond for Martha & Hanna

Ok, I don't know exactly how these two girls were supposed to identify a witch in Andover, but one researcher states that "The people accused of witchcraft were ordered to come together at the meeting house in Andover where the Salem girls were being kept. A strange test was conducted. It was believed that if the hand of a witch touched the body of the person whom they had bewitched, that person would immediately become well and could identify the witch. Mr. Barnard blindfolded the accused. The afflicted girls fell into their fits when the accused person came into their presence. Then the hand of the accused was placed on each of the afflicted girls. The girls would immediately come out of their fit and identify the person touching them of being the one who afflicted them. This evidence was enough to cause the arrest of the accused as witches."

Now a lot of those people Moses accused of witchcraft were deemed not guilty...but his poor sister-in-law Martha (also known as Mary) Lovett Tyler and her daughter Hanna arrested. Martha's husband Hopestill Tyler (very manly name) was like...super bummed that his own brother would accuse his wife and daughter of witchcraft. Hopestill, as far as I am able to tell, was a really REALLY nice guy. He tried to have his brother recant his accusation several times.

Martha's Official Confession

But despite his efforts, Martha was shipped up to Salem. Her brother Bridges was allowed to ride with her. Hanna was also taken to Salem, though it is unknown if she traveled with her mother. Bridges reported that he urged his sister to confess the entire ride to Salem. He was pretty sure his sister was a witch too. But Martha refused. And once they got to Salem, she was taken to a room where a Mr. John Emerson stated he would "attempt to beat the devil from her eyes." I don't know how long he beat her, but he must have beat her pretty bad. Because it wasn't until she was near death that she gave up and confessed.

In the written confession filed with the courts as told by another researcher: "Mary (Martha) confessed to making a covenant with the Devil and signed the Devil’s book, promising to serve the Devil as long as she lived. She confessed to being baptized by the Devil and renouncing her former baptism and thus became a witch."

In a later confession to a Rev. Increase Mather (Another horrible Puritan male name, although the dude himself sounds like a decent person), Martha insisted to him that by falsely confessing to being a witch: "She wronged her conscience in so doing, was guilty of a great sin in belying herself & desired to mourn for it so long as she lived." I cannot imagine the length to which Martha was beaten but the Rev. Mather writes; "Her affliction, sorrow, relenting, grief and mourning, exceeds any pen to describe and express the same."

A witch-trial

More horrifying, knowing what Martha went through, is knowing her daughter Hanna was subject to the same type of interrogation. At some point Hanna also confessed and stated that her mother and a couple other ladies were responsible for the sickness that went around. She also renounced her Puritan baptism. She sounded like she cared about her faith significantly less than her mother...anyway...no judgments. The two were imprisoned in Salem to await trial. During this time Hopestill sent in petition after petition to the general court, the governor, and the colonial council begging that his wife and daughter, having confessed, "be released to him so he could care for them until their trial."

Apparently this worked, and Hopestill was allowed to post bond for them, promising they would return at the time of their trial. Martha and Hanna went home until their court date, at which they both recanted their confessions, pleaded not-guilty, and were found not guilty. I assume they went home, hugged Hopestill a lot, and never spoke to Moses again.

Moses' Death Listing

To this day no one knows what grudge would have caused Moses to accuse all those people. One Salem Witches researcher I talked to theorized that it was all part of his power grab since their small Andover church was kind of splitting in two and he wanted to control all of it or one part of it or something. Of all the people he did accuse, only one was found guilty of witchcraft and was subsequently hanged alongside two other Andover residents accused by others.

Prudence (Forget about her yet?) died on March 9th 1689. She was spared the struggle of living with Moses during his accusations phase. Moses married two more times before he died on October 12, 1727 at the age of 86. He is buried in North Andover. He had 10 confirmed children, most of them with Prudence. He was a kind of a horrible person, pretty much every historical reference I consulted during this research trip at least once called him a "scoundrel" at least ten times. But hey, not all of our ancestors can be saints right?

Now, if you want some good reads. I encourage you to check out this, It is a research article on the Tyler Family in duing the Salem Witch Trials. And this, which is a completely insane BOOK on a family reunion where the Tylers all got together in 1900 and signed constitutions and creepy cult-like stuff about how proud they are of their ancestors and somebody wrote some horrible poem things. I don't know. It's weird. And then this, completely unrelated but it came up when I googled "custodian of anceint weapons" and I kinda thought it was interesting. Its a proceedings book from the Royal Artillery Institution.

And that's all for Moses Tyler. Cool story but a no bueno guy.

Robert Gardner and Margaret Calinder: Scots in the West

Visual Aid

With the annual Payson Scottish Festival this weekend, I only thought it appropriate to highlight the story of some of my Scottish ancestors. It is also the Haun's side turn for a story but..I have a ton of Scottish blood through my maternal family, but not a whole lot on my Haun side. So my choices were limited. But I did find Robert and Margaret, and I liked their story quite a bit. They are my 5th great-grandparents on my paternal grandfathers side. Here is their story:

Robert was born on March 12th, 1781 in Houston, Renfrew, Scotland. Margaret was born sometime in January of 1777 in Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland. Both pretty small towns at the time.

As far as childhoods go I can't really provide you with much information. I know they both came from pretty poor families. At some point Robert was apprenticed out to learn carpentry. Robert was especially tall for the area apparently, standing at 6'2". Margaret apparently liked tall boys because the two were wed on the 25th of May, 1800 in Lanark, Scotland. From there they moved to a small town called Kilsyth, on the outskirts of Glasgow.

Sterling Castle

In Kilsyth, Robert didn't stay with his apprenticeship. He owned a small farm, and rented a mill. He also worked running a tavern (The Black Bull Inn) and a grocery store. They lived a bit more prosperous than the majority of the people in the area for a time, but unfortunately for him, his tavern became a popular spot for Scottish agitators, people unsatisfied with the government. People who were often rounded up, beheaded, hanged, or shipped off to Botany Bay. While there is no proof that Robert himself was a Scottish rebel, he was accused, and was detained in Stirling Castle for 9 weeks before a judge came. 9 weeks of what we can assume was less than nice treatment with little food, overcrowding, and pee everywhere. The judge sentenced a lot of the men in Stirling Castle to banishment in Australia. However, lucky for us descendants, the man who accused Robert didn't show up to testify against him so Robert was released on lack of evidence.

The Gardner home in Kilsyth

The whole imprisonment thing really irked Robert, and he got fed up with the government. So he made the decision to come to America. In 1822 Robert, his eldest son, and his eldest daughter set sail for...Canada. A whole bunch of Scots were heading there so he must have figured he would too. He meant to save up money and send for Margaret and the rest of his kiddos as soon as he could, but he forgot his wife was a hardcore Scottish woman who didn't need no man to send her money. In 1823 she sold everything: The tavern, the store, the farm, the house, and every possession they could not carry in a few wooden chests. She and the remaining four children crossed the puddle aboard the Buckinghorn.

She did all this, by the way, without writing Robert. But Robert had heard a rumor that a whole bunch of ladies from Kilsyth were on this boat so he WALKED SEVENTY, yes 70, miles to the shore and lo and behold, met his wife.

Now, he told his wife the story of how the previous year he was offered land close to the shore but it was horribly rocky and useless, so he and the two eldest went off into the woods near Dalhousie and built a cabin. They had seeds for potatoes and stuff, but Robert remarked that in the winter "The Scotch whiskey was frozen solid. Either the weather was very cold or the whiskey was very weak."

Robert, Margaret, and their children worked very VERY hard for years. Clearing land by hand, with no oxen or mules. Neighbors had to be relied upon every time help was needed to raise a barn, house, or even a shed. Apparently it still sucked, because in 1835 they moved to Warwick, Ontario. A short jog away from the US border.

Twas here that Margaret heard the teachings of some LDS missionaries. She was determined to be baptized. However, it was the middle of winter and she was quite ill. But she, being the hardcore Scots woman she was, decided to do it anyway. She and her family went down to the lake and cut a hole in the ice. Margaret was baptized in front of a crowd of people. "The people had come to witness her death.  One man declared that if she did not die that night that he would become a Mormon."

Well she didn't die, and she even went on a stroll the next day to find the man and tell him he had to get baptized next. He didn't. What a weenie. I believe all, if not most of their children were baptized. Robert wasn't at that time. But, wanting to please his wife, took their entire family to Nauvoo in 1846, and on to Winter Quarters after that.

"24 Gardners left Canada.  They were assigned to the Edward Hunter company of 100 wagons.  During the journey to the west 3 of the family died, one baby was born.  On October 1, 1847, twenty two members of the Gardner family arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley."

Most of their children fanned out and lived around the Salt Lake Valley. Robert and Margaret settled next to their sons, Archibald and Robert Jr. in an area that is now Gardner Village, a little...park/shop area thing in Mill Creek. Archibald and Robert Jr. had a mill and got quite wealthy. Here Robert grew a garden he was insanely proud of, even cussing out a prominent church official when he came too close to his turnips.

"Robert had been a strong believer ever since he had first heard the Gospel preached in Canada, and he had paid his tithes and offerings for many years but had never joined the church. In 1851 he became very ill,· and thinking he was about to die, he had his folks place him on a stretcher and carry him to the stream.  There, John Borrowman, the man who had taken the Gospel message to them years before, baptized him. He recovered from his illness, was later ordained a High Priest, and received  his temple endowments. Robert was known as a scholarly man. He kept the business accounts for his son, Robert, Jr. until his death. On November 21, 1855 Robert Gardner died at Mill Creek at the age of 74."

Margaret died on April 28th, 1862. She and Robert are buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetary. Their grave is maintained by the Sons and Daughters of Utah Pioneers.