William Heaps: Cheese Thief

Hopefully you have read my previous post located here. In it I talk about the craziness that went on with the Heaps/Spencer side of my family. I promised I'd elaborate more on the people in there, and here to fulfill my promise...I present William Heaps, the first husband of Mary Cragg. This post will just be on William, since I prefer to group Mary with her second husband. This post will also just be on William because frankly, the guy needs his own post. (Note: if you look him up on familysearch, LJTB-JH9, the photo's they have on there for him are incorrect. They are actually photo's of his grandson.)

William Henry Heaps was born in December of 1809 in Garstang, England. Garstang is a small market town near Lancaster. Around the time that William was born, the town was quite prosperous for being so small. It's on a canal that was used to transport all sorts of stuff, and almost everyone in the town was a trader of some sort. Garstang was famous during the early 1800s for producing the finest quality rope, it was also famous for the "Garstang Cattle and Cheese Fair." It was considered the "crossroads" town between Preston and Lancaster. The ruins of Greenhalgh Castle overlook the town. 

I don't know a lot about his childhood, I know that his father was in the British military and may have been in India at the time of his birth (I expect to learn more about that when I research his father specifically). I also know that the Napoleonic Wars were underway and there were some food shortages going on in Britain. Whatever struggles his childhood held, he still managed to marry Mary Cragg in December of 1831. Mary was also from Garstang. They were together for 7ish years and had 3 confirmed kids, two of which are my grandpas at some point. 

William's entry in an England Criminal Register

And then William decided to be a criminal. On October 18th, 1837 he is charged with Larceny, for the theft of a carriage-load of cheese. (I wonder if he stole it during the Cheese fair eh?). He is tried in Lancashire, England, found guilty, and sentenced to 7 years transportation. Which means he will be banished from England and will be sent to the penal colonies in Australia. Let me just say that being banished from your country for stealing cheese seems....a tad excessive... If you notice on the image of the register I included, several men were charged with receiving stolen goods, which was a consequence of the smuggling problem in Britain brought about by the Napoleonic Wars. Also note the wild difference in sentencing for these criminals. Other dudes who were charged with larceny got like 1 month in prison. But you know...apparently Britain takes it's cheese theft more seriously.

Moving on, William spent about half a year imprisoned on a hulk ship named the "Fortitude" moored at Chatham awaiting his transportation. A hulk ship is a ship that has lived out it's service days and can basically only float now. So England used them as prisons. This image to the left is a UK Prison Hulk Register for the Fortitude. On it you can see William's entry. It lists when and where he was convicted and how he stole cheese. What I love though, is it also lists that he can read (but not write) and that he will be a laborer. I also love that the Gaoler's report on him is that he has "bad habits in prison for poaching" which is where that stealing a deer thing I mentioned in my last post comes from. Also, it was kinda funny to read all the crimes the other people were convicted of, and their respective sentencing. I quite like the man who got 7 years for stealing a duck.

Anyway, he was at some time transported to a ship called the Bengal Merchant and that ship took him all the way to Botany Bay in New South Wales, Australia. He was one of 270 prisoners aboard the ship. The journey took about 4 months. They landed in Botany Bay on July 21, 1838. Now apparently, convict labor in 1800s Australia was really just slang for slavery. People in the area paid and laid claims for workers, essentially buying them. I also tracked down this newspaper article that ran in the Saturday 28 July 1838 Edition of The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. Found here. It's a to-the-editor article and in it some dude is complaining about the shortage of "convict servants" (maybe the reason they are sending a butt-ton of people to Australia for stealing cheese and ducks?) and the problems with allocating the labor. He pleads for the government to implement a "regular and just system of assignment."

Certificate of Freedom

I hope that William didn't go to that guy. But all I really know is that he was assigned to farm labor where presumably he worked until December 11th, 1844 when he was issued his certificate of freedom and became a free man. His certificate also provides a physical description of William. He apparently was 6ft tall and is described as having a "Dark and freckled complexion, dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes." He is also listed as having "eyebrows meeting, mole on right cheek, breast hairy, purple natural mark on the back of left hand, scar on middle finger of left hand, and mark of a boil on right knee" I drew a picture for your visual pleasure. Also, if at any point we try to bring back the descriptive term "breast hairy" I officially give permission to the aliens to blow up Earth.

What a babe

And apparently he gained his freedom, instead of going back to his wife and children (which I looked up, after he got his certificate of freedom, he was legally able to go back to Britain, but nah) he ran off to Pennsylvania where he may or may not (haven't found reliable proof) have married another lady. Mary Cragg told all her kids he died on the boat, she really...lost faith in him real quick. Probably because who wants to say they are married to a dirty cheese thief who got banished from Britain. But he does show up in one Pennsylvania census and he died on February 8th, 1882 in Pennsylvania. So yeah. Class act fella. Idk what his circumstances were for stealing cheese, and he did kinda get screwed by the British justice system (7 years for cheese?) but yeah...still not my most favorite ancestor. But wildly fun to research. And still not as bad as witch hunter guy right?

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.