Eliza (Sornberger) Pierce Sanford and Her Descendants - Part 8
Julia and Merret Seeley
Two of Merritt and Lizzie Seeley’s children died unmarried within a few years of their father’s death. Julia died at age fourteen of typho-malarial fever at Great Barrington on 11 January 1887.[133] Typho-malarial fever was likely a joint infection of typhoid fever and malaria. Common symptoms were diarrhea, the red rash of typhoid fever, and the periodic fever of malaria. A case of typho-malarial fever usually lasted between two and six weeks.[134]
Like his mother, Merret Seeley died of consumption.[135] Merret had been in ill health for several years prior to his death. As early as 1895, he was spending winters in warmer climates in hopes of improving his health.[136] When his health permitted, he worked as a clerk in a clothing store, Hatch & Dewey, in Great Barrington. [137]
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| Figure 14. Battery Park Hotel. Asheville, North Carolina, 1902 [138] |
Sometime in the fall of 1896, Merret arrived in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, where the first tuberculosis sanatorium had been founded in 1875, with the goal of treating patients and preventing the spread of the disease.[139] On 5 November 1896, he wrote and signed his last will and testament at the Battery Park Hotel in Asheville leaving his estate to his Aunt Julia Seeley.[140] The Battery Park Hotel was the height of luxury in Ashville in the 1890s, with electric lights in the rooms and an elevator to bring guests up to the upper floors of the hotel.[141]
Merret’s health took a turn for the worse in early February 1897. On February ninth, his Aunt Julia left Great Barrington for Asheville to be with him.[142] Nine days later, on the eighteenth, his Uncle George left Great Barrington for Asheville.[143]
On the 26th, Merret, his aunt and uncle left Asheville for home. Unfortunately, they only were able to travel three hours to Hickory, Catawba County, North Carolina where Merret’s condition worsened.[144] That same day, another aunt, Mrs. John A. Brewer left Great Barrington to join the family in North Carolina.[145] Merret died in Hickory on 28 February 1897, with his two aunts and his uncle by his side.[146]
Eliza (Seeley) Hatch
Eliza was the only child of Merritt Seeley and Lizzie Pierce to live with her spouse and children in what we would think of as a typical nuclear family. She married Frederick J. Hatch of Great Barrington on 23 August 1894 at the Church of the Transfiguration in Manhattan.[148] Her husband, Fred, was twenty-eight years old, the son of Austin E. Hatch and Eliza A. Moree.[149]
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| Figure 15. Notice of Hatch & Dewey Dissolution Men's Wear. 10 January 1910 [147] |
For many years, Fred was one of the owners of the Hatch & Dewey clothing stores, first in Great Barrington and then in New Milford, Connecticut. In 1910, Fred Hatch and Russell T. Dewey announced the dissolution of their partnership, with Hatch taking sole ownership of the New Milford store.[150] His brother-in-law, Merret Seeley, had been a clerk in the Great Barrington store prior to his death in 1897.
Eliza
and Fred had three children. Their son, Robert Frederick, was born in Great
Barrington on 22 October 1895.[151] He married Frances Dorothy Havens at the same
church his parents married at in Manhattan on 20 June 1918.[152] Robert died of pneumonia on 30 September 1925 in
New York City, leaving his wife Frances and two daughters Barbara and Marian.[153]
Eliza
and Fred also had two daughters. Margaret died of pneumonia on 30 December 1896
in Great Barrington at the age of twenty-seven days.[154] Julia Eliza, born 15 May 1898 in Great Barrington,
never married. She died 24 July 1976 in Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont.[155]
The
Hatch family moved to New Milford, Litchfield County, Connecticut after 1900,
and Fred and Eliza remained there for the rest of their lives.[156] Fred died at their home in New Milford on
30 August 1925.[157] Eliza survived him by less than two years, dying in
New Haven, Connecticut on 27 July 1927.[158]
Over the course of 111 years, between Eliza Sornberger’s
birth in 1816 and her granddaughter Eliza Seeley’s death in 1927, the members
of their family survived many tragedies. From parents dying before their
children were grown, to children dying before they reached adulthood, death,
and the resulting changes in the structure link three generations of the
family. Hopefully, they also had good times and loving relationships to bring
them joy in all the times of sorrow.
134. J.W. Duncan, “Typho-Malarial Fever,” The Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal, 1892, pp 198-206; pdf, National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/).
135. “Great Barrington,’ The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 1
Mar 1897, page 5, column 4, Merret Seeley
136. “Great Barrington, The Berkshire Evening Eagle (Pittsfield,
Mass), 31 May 1895, page 4, column 4, Merritt Seeley “Great Barrington, The
Berkshire Evening Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass), 13 November 1895, page 3,
column 2, Merritt Seeley.
137. “Great Barrington,” Connecticut Western News (New Canaan,
CT), 4 March 1897, page 2, column 4,
Merret Seeley
138. William Henry Jackson, Battery Park Hotel, Asheville, N.C., (Detroit Publishing Company, 1902); Library of Congress.
139. “History of World TB Day,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention. See note 80.
140. Massachusetts,
Berkshire County, Probate Records, Probate Estate Files, no. 19501 Murtha,
William - no. 19567 Flynn, Magaret, File 19546, Deposition of Witnesses to
Will, 6 April 1897, Frank L. Baum; FamilySearch.org , DGS 103334486, images
924-927 of 1272. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Probate Records, Probate
Estate Files, no. 19501 Murtha, William - no. 19567 Flynn, Magaret, File 19546,
Handwritten will, 5 November 1896, Merret Seeley; FamilySearch.org, DGS 103334486, images 928-929 of 1272.
141. “Asheville’s
Original Battery Park Hotel,” Brew-ed
(https://brew-ed.com/ashevillebeerhistoryblog/battery-park-hotel-asheville/).
142. “Great Barrington,’ The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 9
Feb 1897, page 6, column 1, Miss Julia Seeley
143. “Great Barrington,’ The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 18
Feb 1897, page 6, column 1, George B. Seeley
144. “Great Barrington,’ The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 26
Feb 1897, page 6, column 1, Merret Seeley.
145. “Great Barrington,’ The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 26
Feb 1897, page 6, column 1, Mrs. John A. Brewer.
146. “Great Barrington,’ The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), 1
Mar 1897, page 5, column 4, Merret Seeley.
147. “Business Changes,” Men’s Wear, 10 January 1910, page. 110, New Milford, Conn.; Google Books.
148. New York, New York, New York, Manhattan, Marriage certificate 10369, 23 August 1894, Frederic James Hatch and Eliza Seeley; Historical Vital Records (https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/), certificate M-M-1894-0010369.
149. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Marriages, 1897, page 57, number 40, 23 August 1894, Fred J. Hatch & Eliza Seeley; image, “Massachusetts, U.S. Marriage Records, 1840-1915,” Ancestry.com, image 38 of 1729.
151. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Birth Records, 22 October 1895, Robert F. Hatch; Ancestry.com, image 519 of 2404. For middle name, see New York, New York, New York, Certificate and Record of Marriage, number 18423, 20 June 1918, Robert Frederick Hatch and Frances Dorothy Havens; Historical Vital Records (https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/), M-M-1918-0018423.
152. New York, Certificate and Record of Marriage, Robert Frederick Hatch and Frances Dorothy Havens
154. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Deaths Registered, 1896, number 84, 30 December 1896, Margaret Hatch; Ancestry.com, image 71 of 2206
155. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Birth Records, 15 May 1898, Julia Eliza Hatch; Ancestry.com, image 543 of 2527. Vermont Department of Health, Vermont, Chittenden County, Burlington, Certificate of Death, number 02219, 24 July 1976, Julia E. Hatch; Ancestry.com, image 1471 of 5811.
156. 1900 U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, ED 34, sheet 5, lines 89-93, John F Hatch household; Ancestry.com, image 10 of 48. 1910 U.S. Census, Connecticut, Litchfield County, New Milford, E.D. 263, sheet 6B, lines 83-87, Frederick J Hatch household; Ancestry.com, image 12 of 53. 1920 U.S Census, Connecticut, Litchfield County, New Milford, E.D. 199, sheet 6A, lines 40-42, F.J. Hatch household; Ancestry.com, image 11 of 55.
158. Connecticut, New Haven, Death Record, 27 July 1927, Elizabeth Hatch; database, Ancestry.com.133. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Deaths, 1867-1903, page 50, 11 January 1877, number 2, Julia E. Seeley; FamilySearch.org, DGS 007009244, image 59 of 89.
April 2024
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