The decade beginning 1850 finds some of the known vector families living in Europe and Canada, i.e., Garretts in Canada, Lindstroms in Sweden and Westurlunds in Finland.
In Ireland and Canada:
In USA:
Orlando became a Methodist preacher during the decade, and near its end he formed a class at the Wilson schoolhouse in West Climax late in the decade, which was the start of the West Climax Methodist Church. The earliest known marriage performed by Rev. Keyes (as notated in his record book) occurred at West Climax, when he united James A. Vandebogart and Margaret Harrison, both of Climax. Oftentimes Rev. Keyes would have members of his own family be witnesses to marriages he officiated.
From infancy “Dolly” has never walked. In stature she is but a child, her feet, hands, limbs and body are of about the same dimensions as a child five years of age. Her height is about thirty-six inches, but the most wonderful thing is the remarkable and unnatural development of “Dolly's” head, which now measures three feet in circumference and fourteen inches in diameter. The head is so monstrous in size that the diminutive body cannot supply sufficient strength to support it in an upright position. It rolls about upon the little shoulders like a huge cannon ball. The eyes are correspondingly large and almost expressionless, and the sepulchral tone of the voice as it issues from this immense ball is of a nature to frighten a person unaccustomed to such sights. “Dolly” is very loquacious and willful, as every visitor at her home can attest. She occupies a child’s high chair and persistently interviews every visitor who comes into her presence. The services of an attendant are required constantly, as the unfortunate child-woman is almost helpless, simply being able to feed herself.
Calvin and Seraph’s second oldest child, Samuel H., married Elizabeth A. Magraw and they had the first of two children: Brooks Mason.
Adelbert J. Sittser was David and Sarah’s grandson by son David, Jr. and Henrietta. As a young man he worked on the Erie Canal. In his 20s he and a cousin went west to Lower Michigan to hunt birds professionally (probably carrier pigeons). The Civil War broke out and he joined the 13th Michigan Infantry there at Hillsdale. Mustered in Berrien County and marched south to various skirmishes in northern Kentucky. At Shiloh his eyes were burned by three days of gun powder in the air and he was sent to Benton Barracks hospital near St. Louis, Missouri, later transferring to Detroit Barracks. While recovering he was signed up by the Custer brothers into the cavalry; as he was a combat vet they put him into the 1st U.S. Cavalry, Co. A. His first major action was Gettysburg. He was injured several times until mustering out at New Orleans as a sergeant near the end of the war. He was given land in North Dakota and later died in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
[The Sittser surname will now cease to be included as a separate subtitle in this narrative.]
Three of William Page, Sr.’s four known English-born children from his first marriage mostly remained in New York—in the Wayne and Monroe counties area. Esther attended Macedon Academy at Macedon Centre in Wayne County, New York, along with her sister Mary, became a teacher, and would remain single most of her long life. Before and during the Civil War years she was living in the part of Virginia that would secede from the Union, secede from Virginia and the Confederacy, and rejoined the Union as the new state of West Virginia. In Virginia she lived near and may have known Edward Postlethwayte Page, founder of the utopian society “Scientific Commonwealth” and self-proclaimed Priest of Nature and Emperor of the World, besides other titles. During the latter years of the war she, along with Lucy E. Shaw, contracted at Parkersburg, Wood County, West Virginia, to lease the mineral rights for property belonging to Stephen C. Shaw “for the purpose of mining and excavating and boring &c [etc.] for coal, salt, or salt spring coal or rock or carbon oil, or any other valuable mineral substance or substances.” Later returning to New York, this time to Palmyra, Wayne County, where her sister and brother-in-law Mary and Alonzo Langdon were living. She married widower Benjamin Hoag late in life and they settled at Macedon Centre, same county. She was his third wife.
Ebenezer was by profession a blacksmith. He married Elizabeth McDowell, had seven children, and would be a Civil War veteran of the 9th NY Heavy Artillery. During the war he was in the Battle of Cold Harbor and helped build forts in and around Washington, DC. He was also credited with being in the Battle of Monocacy, known as the Battle that Saved Washington. He and Elizabeth lost their firstborn son William Sanders, a member of the 111 New York Infantry, who had survived wounds received during the Battle of Gettysburg but died of wounds received in the Battle of Cold Harbor nearly a year later. He was buried in Gen. Robert E. Lee’s yard a.k.a. Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia.
Mary had attended Macedon Academy at Macedon Centre along with her sister Esther. She married Alonzo Langdon of Palmyra, Wayne County, and they had two children. Alonzo was a malster and distiller by trade but later engaged in farming. Also, from his obituary: “For a number of years he conducted a grocery store on Market Street, and served several terms as town assessor.”
The fourth and last born, Nathan S. Page, married Sarah J. Maynard and they had three children. Sarah was a daughter of Margret (Vanderbeck) by her first husband Samuel Degraff but later took the surname of her mother’s second husband Samuel Maynard. Like Ebenezer, Nathan would be a Civil War veteran, in his case having served in the 12th Michigan Veteran Volunteers Infantry, where Rev. Orlando Keyes was chaplain. Like Orlando he was discharged due to disability, but unlike Orlando he survived. He settled in Sodus, Berrien County, Michigan but would spend his last three decades in Chicago, where he, his wife, all their children, and other descendants and in-laws were buried. Some of Nathan’s professions over the years were: blacksmith, farm laborer, engineer, and machinist.
The firstborn of Chloe Page’s Robinson children was Clarkson “Clark.” He settled in Branch County but would die during the Civil War. Chloe’s second son and daughter-in-law Chauncey “Chancy” and Louisa (Hill) Robinson moved to Quincy, Branch County, Michigan about the same time as the Page migration, became hotel keepers, and had five children. Chloe’s third son and daughter-in-law Luther and Maria (Hill) Robinson had moved their family to Branch County a few years before the others, settling at Matteson. They had seven children. Chloe’s only daughter, Chloe M. Robinson, remained in Monroe County, New York, and never had children. She lived in Webster and was married to hotel keeper Henry Smith. (In later years, when Riley Page returned to New York from Michigan, he would initially live with the widow Chloe Smith and buy her house.) The last-born Robinson son, Lewis James, married Mary M. and they had three children. They tried settling in Camden, Hillsdale County, Michigan for a while but soon returned to New York.
© 2014 Charles W. Paige.
Last updated: Tuesday August 12, 2014
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