Eliza (Sornberger) Pierce Sanford and Her Descendants - Part 5
Lizzie (Pierce) Seeley (1842-1878)
Lizzie
Pierce lived with an ever-changing group of family members as she grew up.
After her father’s death just a month before her second birthday, she likely
moved to Hillsdale and lived with her mother’s extended family. In the early
1850s, her family’s household changed again after her grandfather Uriah died in
September 1850, followed in 1852 when first her Aunt Emmeline married a
neighbor, William Leonard Johnson, and her Uncle George married Harriet N.
Osborn, who likely was Lizzie’s first cousin, the daughter of her father’s
sister Betsy. [67] And then, her mother married John Farnham Stanford,
giving Lizzie five step-siblings, and a half sister, Louisa, born in 1856.
After the deaths of her mother, half-sister Louisa, and stepsister Julia, Lizzie continued to live in her stepfather John Sanford’s houshold. In the spring of 1860, John’s household included, John, age forty-eight, his step-daughter Lizzie Pierce, age eighteen, his mother Aurora, age sixty-nine, his sister Mary, age forty-seven, his brother Frederick, age forty-five, his sister Aurora Lasalle, age thirty-seven, and her daughter Fanny, age six, his sons John, age fourteen, and Willie, age seven and a thirty-year-old Irish servant Fanny Prime. [68] Later that year, her stepfather married Sarah A. (Brown) Ingersoll. Lizzie may have remained in Great Barrington with the Sanford family rather than returning to her mother or father’s families in Columbia County, New York since both her parents and at least three of her four grandparents were deceased. [69]
Merritt Seeley and Lizzie Pierce
Just a few short years after her mother and sisters’ deaths in 1859, Lizzie Pierce married and started her own family. She married Merritt Seeley of Great Barrington on 8 May 1862 at St. James Episcopal Church in Great Barrington. [70] He was twenty-two years old to her twenty, the son of Isaac and Electa Seeley of Great Barrington. At the time of their marriage, he was a clerk for the Adams Express Company in New York City. [71]
Lizzie & Merritt had likely known each other since shortly after her mother married John Sanford and moved to Great Barrington. In 1855, Merritt’s family was listed just before Lizzie’s in the Massachusetts State Census. [72]
Like many families, the Seeleys moved often as Merritt progressed in his career as an express agent, where he facilitated the shipping and delivery of packages between cities. [73] Their first child was born before 1865, and presumably died young. On 1 September 1865 Lizzie gave birth to a son, Isaac, in New Haven, Connecticut. [74] After their son Isaac’s birth, the family moved to New York City, where they were living when Lizzie gave birth to her daughter Eliza on 2 March 1867 in Great Barrington. [75]
By 1869,
the Seeleys were living in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan where Merritt worked
for the Merchant’s Union Express Company, and then the
American Express Company. [76] Lizzie gave birth to at least three more children
while they lived in Detroit - Julia on 13 September 1872, Merret on 27
September 1875, and Mary on 2 January 1876. [77] Mary’s birth was most likely a
stillbirth, since her brother Merret had been born just four months earlier.
After the family settled in Michigan, they may never have lived together as what we would think of today as a nuclear family. While the younger children likely lived with their parents in Detroit, the older children Isaac and Eliza appear to have remained in Great Barrington with their grandparents. In 1870, they lived in a household with their grandparents Isaac and Electa, and their father’s siblings Julia, Alice, and George. [78]
Lizzie likely was not in good health in the 1870s. She gave birth at least six times between 1862 and 1876. At some point, she was diagnosed with consumption (also known as tuberculosis) and may have suffered the common symptoms of chronic cough with blood-filled mucus, fevers, night sweats and weight loss. [79] Prior to the discovery of antibiotics, there was no effective treatment for consumption. Instead, people were treated with rest, healthy food, and fresh air. [80] On 7 September 1878, Lizzie died in Great Barrington, leaving her husband Merritt a widow, with four children under the age of thirteen. [81]
67. For identification of Harriet N.
Osborn’s father, see John Francis Collin, A History of Hillsdale, Columbia County, New York: A Memorabilia of
Persons and Things of Interest, Passed and Passing (Philmont, New York,
E.J. Beardsley, 1883), page 99. For relationship of Melvin Osborn to Levi
Pierce, see New York, Columbia County, Will Book, F, 1827-1833, pages 276-277,
21 July 1830, Joel Pierce; FamilySearch.org, DGS 005512723, image 373 of 519.
68. For members of the household, see 1860
U.S. Census, John F. Sanford family. See note 3. For identification of extended Sanford family, see Carlton E. Sandford, Thomas Sandford, pages 867-868, John
Farnham Sanford. See note 52. The
Tommy Lasalle in the census is most likely Frances Aurora Lasall, daughter and
only child of Elias J. Lasalle and Aurora F. Sanford. See Theodore Studly
Lazell, John Lazell of Hingham and Some
of his Descendants,(Privately Published, 1936), page 45; Ancestry.com, image 45 of 130.
69. For deaths of Eliza Sornberger’s
parents see A History of the Establishment of the
Hillsdale Rural Cemetery Association, Its Proceedings, and Their Results, (Hudson, New York: Bryan & Webb
Publishers, 1872), page 25. For death of Levi Pierce’s
father, see New York, Columbia County, Will Book, F, Joel Pierce. See
note 67. The last record found for Peggy Pierce; Levi’s presumed mother is an 1839 deed. New York, Columbia County, Hudson,
County Courthouse, Deeds, volume CC1, 1839,
pages 9-11, 1 April 1839, Levi, Sarah and Peggy Pierce to Sandford Coe; FamilySearch.org, DGS 007120581, images
10-11 of 283. Peggy was likey the female age 60-70 in Levi’s household in 1840. 1840 U.S. Census,
New York, Monroe County, Rochester, Ward 3, page 309 stamped, Levi Pierce; Ancestry.com. image 5 of 50.
70. “Married,” The Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), 15 May 1862, page 3, column 3, Seeley-Pierce marriage.
71. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Births, Marriages and Deaths, Intentions of Marriage, page 74, number 16, 8 May 1862, Merret Seeley and Elizabeth Pierce; image, “Massachusetts, U.S. Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988)”, Ancestry.com, image 302 of 1282. For company name, “Superintendent Seeley,” The Boston Globe (Massachusetts), 9 Apr 1886, page 5, column 5.
72. 1855 Census, Massachusetts,
Berkshire County, Great Barrington, lines 4-19,
dwellings 172-173, Isaac Seely and John F. Sanford households Ancestry.com, image
43 of 44.
74. Connecticut, New Haven, New Haven, Births, Volume 15, Jan. 1864-Nov 1888, 1 Sept 1865, male Seely FamilySearch.org, DGS 007731213, image 705 of 949. Massachusetts, State Vital Records, Deaths Register, 1905, Grafton to Halifax, volume 26, Great Barrington, page 188, 16 September 1905, Isaac Seeley; FamilySearch.org, DGS 004292357, image 696 of 1846.
75. Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Births, volume 2, 1867-1903, page 1, line 15, 2 March 1867, Eliza Seeley; FamilySearch.org, DGS 007009244, image 117 of 492.
76. “Superintendent Seeley,” The Boston Globe (Massachusetts), 9 Apr
1886, page 5, column 5. Detroit (Michigan) City Directory, 1869-1870,
(Detroit: Charles F. Clark, 1869), page 359; Ancestry.com, image 183 of
231.
77. For
Julia, see Michigan, Wayne County, Record of Births, volume 4, 1873,
page 88, number 1531, 13 September 1872, Julia Suley; FamilySearch.org, DGS
005191244, image 414 of 676. For Merret, see Michigan, Wayne County, Record of
Births, volume 7, 1875-1876, page 105, number 7, 27 September 1875, Merrott
Seely; FamilySearch.org, DGS 005191246, image 93 of 287. Merret Seeley
(b 1875) signed his will as Merret Seeley, that spelling will be used to
distinguish him from his father. For Mary, see Michigan, Wayne County, Record of
Births, volume 8, 1876, page 96, number
87, 2 January 1876, Mary Seely; FamilySearch.org, DGS 005191246, image 96 of 287.
78. 1870
U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Great Barrington, population
schedule, page 77, dwelling 544, line 27, Isaac Seeley household; Ancestry.com, image 77 of 110.
79. Imogen
Clarke, “Tuberculosis: A
Fashionable Disease?,”, 24 March 2019, Science Museum (https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/).
81. Massachusetts,
Berkshire County, Great Barrington, Death Records, 1841-1915, _Pre 1903, 1878,
page 38, number 40, 7 September 1878, Elizabeth Seeley; “Massachusetts, U.S., Death Records, 1841-1915,” Ancestry.com, image 51 of 1134.
April 2024
Comments
Post a Comment