Here
I am on the first day of 1999 starting to gather some thoughts and information
to pass along to you. I am hopeful that this New Year will be every bit as
exciting and productive for genealogical research as 1998. I told several of
you fellow correspondents that I think I accumulated more new Olmstead
information in ’98 than all my previous 27 years combined. Not only that, but
it was almost too easy! In the past it required a lot of hard work and
persistence just to find one new record or fact. Now the information seems to
be pouring in faster than I can even keep it organized, sometimes overwhelming
me! I think the reason for this must have something to do with records being
made more accessible to the public and also because of computers. I don’t even
have one (as some of you have voiced your complaints) and yet people seem to
keep finding me anyway through Internet contacts and e-mail. It has been great
fun and I really appreciate all of you who keep sending me your family data.
In
this article I am going to fill you in on the discoveries made on our various
trips to Washington County, N.Y
Our
first trip to Washington County, N.Y. was frustrating and somewhat of a
disappointment. There didn’t appear to be much new to learn about our
Olmsteads. Except for a few early federal and state census records and a small
number of land records (Jedediah and sons and Aaron), one could very easily
have missed most of our large family of Olmsteads who settled there around
1785. Much of the credit for confirming the actual location of the Jabez
Olmstead (9088) family goes to the
local historian, Harold Craig, who shared with many of us his hand drawn copy
of an old 1794 map of the William Cooper Patent in Hebron. To this day it hangs
on a wall in the original Caleb Green home in Hebron along with a 1794 land
indenture that was witnessed and signed by Jabez Olmstead. This home is still
owned by descendants of the Green family. Neither of the documents is recorded
in the land record office in Fort Edward. Mr. Craig is one amazing fellow! He
is the Hebron Twp. Justice of the Peace, cemetery caretaker, gravedigger,
farmer, real estate agent, and more. Although his wife is the official town
historian it is Harold who has the passion for it and he is a gold mine of
information. On one of our subsequent trips he took us on an unforgettable
escapade that my husband still exclaims over to this day! He wanted to show us
several unmarked tombstones on what had been the original Jabez Olmstead
property according to the Cooper Patent. We drove partway up the mountainside
and then proceeded to walk (crawl would be a more accurate description) the
rest of the way uphill. We were on our hands and knees under barbed wire
fencing, tromped through the woods, brambles, and wild grapevines until we
reached our destination. The stones were so ancient, broken, worn, and hidden
in the undergrowth that we had no clue as to how he had ever discovered them in
the first place! At least two were children’s graves marked with both a head
and footstone, and at least three were adult’s. So far we have not yet found
any evidence of Olmstead graves in the numerous Hebron or Granville public
cemeteries. On a more recent trip we
visited the Washington County mapmaker in Fort Edward. He gave us a drawn to
scale map of the 1789 David Borry Patent in Granville Twp. that shows the
location of Aaron Olmstead Sr.’s (son of Jabez and Miriam) property. It is
adjacent to the Olmstead land in Hebron Twp. Because of the Cooper and Borry Patents
we now know the exact locations of our various Olmsteads, including married
daughters. Aaron’s property, which we found directly behind Mt. Tom, is across
the present day road from an old church foundation and small Taylor Hill
Cemetery. I found this especially interesting as a Lorenzo B. Olmstead married
a Lucy Taylor (daughter of Joseph and Lydia) of Hartford in 1828. The Hartford
Twp. line adjoins the Cooper and Borry Patents on the western side. Our most
productive trip to the area was just after the arrival of computers in the
county archives. Information that in the past had been unavailable was now
brought to life simply by entering the Olmstead surname into the computer.
Magically six entries appeared on the screen, all of which were court records.
The archivist brought us the six original documents. They were so fragile,
rolled and ribbon tied, dating from 1789 to 1826. We were allowed to unroll and
read each one and then have photo copies made. I was ecstatic and Bill was
highly amused with what we had learned from these wonderful court records. I
had always wondered why so many of our Olmsteads had left Washington County,
relocating in Ontario when they were neither U.E.L. nor had they obtained free
land from the Canadian government. In fact according to the William Lowing
Petition filed in 1792 in neighboring Pawlet, Vermont our Olmsteads had applied
for free land in Canada and were denied. Well, the unearthing of these court
records told a very revealing story about the character of these ancestors, and
answered many questions. As you may recall from my previous article we found
court records in Berkshire County, Mass. as well, indicating some trouble with
our Olmsteads and their finances (or lack of). It appears that the problems
continued in Washington County. Aaron was in considerable hot water between
armed burglary and defamation of character. In fact he was described as a
person of “ill name and fame”. His brother Gideon also was caught in thievery
in 1798 and brother Richard in 1796 at armed bank fraud. Jeremiah was in
trouble in 1826 for blasphemy and disrespect of the Sabbath. Aaron Jr. in
1817–1819 had serious financial debt that led to bankruptcy. The Case “boys”,
who seemed to run in the same mischievous circle, were also in several of the
same court records. Abigail Olmstead, probable daughter of Jabez and Miriam,
was married to Aaron Case (Cooper Patent). The Case family was also connected
to our Olmsteads in Berkshire County. What proved to be most revealing was the
date of Richard’s jury trial in 1796 and Gideon’s in 1798, both coinciding
exactly with their arrival dates in Burritt’s Rapids, Ontario. One would have
to assume that they either ran from their troubles or were “run out of town”.
These kinds of discoveries are what make our research so much fun and so very
interesting!
If
any of you are planning a trip to Washington County new information is being
processed into the computer each year. There is also a new county historian and
his office is open every Wednesday. There are a number of ongoing and new
projects that might prove helpful to us such as the completion of the old
newspapers on microfilm.
Before
closing I must mention the 1792 Lowing Petition again. It was not my find. In
fact I don’t really know who did discover it, but we Olmstead researchers have
shared it with each other for years. For those of you who are new and have
never seen or heard of the petition it is a terrific record of our Olmstead
family. Among the long list of applicants is a block of Olmsteads and
relations, in order as follows: William Bullis, Bridget Bullis, Jeremiah
Olmsted Jr., Nathan Robinson, Daniel Bullis, Jabez Olmsted, Jabez Olmsted Jr.,
Job Olmsted, Gideon Olmsted, Zenes Olmsted, Abraham Andres (notice that not all
are adults)
I encourage you to contact me if you have any thoughts, ideas or facts to share. I would enjoy hearing from you!