It Only Takes One

My pursuit of family history is something I do because I enjoy it, but it is nice to know there's at least one family member who’s eyes don’t roll back in their head when the subject comes up.  One of my cousins is intrigued by the direction my Murray research has gone and took at sidetrip to Cayuga County, NY, our 2x great-grandfather’s birthplace. 

She sent me photos from her visit and I am posting them here to include them in the record.  I really appreciate it because I’m not sure I’ll ever make the trip there myself.

First up, the Auburn First Presbyterian Church where my 3x great-grandmother, Ruth Snow Murray, was a founding member in 1811 (structure now used by another church).

Brutus, NY probably looks much like it did in 1812 when my 2x great-grandfather, Erastus Murray, was born there in 1812.  Well, except for the power line.

Throopsville Rural Cemetery-The grave of Christina, the first wife of Erastus and my 2x great-grandmother, who died in 1856--not long after the birth of my great-grandfather, Albert.

Ruth and her daughters, Jane, Lydia and Lucetta, lived at number 26 in 1857.

Approximate place of 34 Canal Street where Erastus lived in 1857.  There are no homes now but there is evidence there were once homes on the street.

Auburn Prison, where Erastus was appointed a guard in 1859 (apparently you’re not allowed to get any closer for photos)

Current home of the he Cayuga Children's Home, formerly the Cayuga Asylum for Destitute Children, where Erastus’s children were taken before being bound out to other families. (original building at another location was torn down)

Gravestones of Ruth, Jane, Lydia and Lucetta.  Ruth’s is the tall one in the center, Jane’s is to the left, the small ground stone, then to the right, Lucetta and Lydia.

Sunday Serendipity #2

When I did research in college, I was forever getting distracted in the stacks.  I'd come across an intriguing book, completely unrelated to my research topic, and next thing I'd know I would be immersed in the book. So, it's no surprise that the same thing can happen to me in genealogical research.  As I follow through a Google search result, it's not uncommon for me to spot something that has nothing to do with my research, but has everything to do with amusing or intriguing me.  So, occasionally I will be sharing these unexpected discoveries here.

Because the census I was using is not indexed, I've been searching page-by-page.  While it is a slower process, it has its upside--the things that would have otherwise been missed.


From the 1865 NY State Census, Auburn, NY, Enumerator, William Boynton:

In the section “REMARKS ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE WAR ON PRICES”:

What other changes in the social condition of the people have (you) observed since 1860?

The effects of the war upon people have been various, it has opened the Hearts and (?) while on the other hand it has seemed to beget an almost unnatural desire for Gain or (?).  It has also been a fruitful cause of Prostitution and other Vice; in other words it has had a tendency to Unmask Human Nature, to bring out the Good and also the Evil.  

And from the same census in another Auburn, NY ward from Enumerator Daniel Hewson:

I think there has been an Increase of Intemperance.  Likewise of Licentiousness.

All this in a town known at the time for it's state-of-art prison (visited by Alexis de Toqueville in 1831), as a key point on the Underground Railroad, and home to Harriet Tubman.

Cayuga Asylum for Destitute Children

Working on Erastus Murray's Civil War participation rekindled my efforts at uncovering as much of the story of his family as possible.  Part of the oral history is that his children went into an orphanage around 1863 and later at least one of the children, my great-grandfather Albert, was placed in a private home.  As best I could determine, around that time there was only one orphanage in Auburn, NY, the Cayuga Asylum for Destitute Children.  Ancestry.com has a book about the orphanage so I was able to get a sense of what the facility did.  It mentioned that children were placed outside the orphanage as soon as there was an available home, so that supported the family story.


I learned the Asylum published a newspaper in support of fundraising called The Orphan's Friend.  I wondered if there was any possibility of tracking down the paper, but while doing some internet searches on that, I discovered the orphanage still exists, but in a different incarnation as the Cayuga Home for Children.  They provide services for children and families who need various types of support and assistance.  


On a whim, I decided to send an email to the general information address.  My email was pretty basic and said:

My great-great-grandfather (a mistake in the original email- -he was only my great-grandfather) was in the orphanage around 1863.  Do you have any historical records or know of a resource for me? 

I received back an unexpected response: 

I love this kind of question! 

We have most of the original ledger books listing children's placement and discharge information.  If you can give me any details you know about your great great grandfather, I'll take a look and see what I can find.  I can photocopy what we have and send it out.

I responded with the details--You can imagine  my excitement as I waited for a response to see if they found anything.  I could hardly contain myself.


And before I could post this, I got an email response and the first sentence made my heart sink:

I wish I had more information to share with you.  

But then the rest!

I couldn't find anything about George in our ledger book, but did find information about Richard, Hopkins, Standford and Albert.  It's interesting that the older three were brought here the same date, and the younger one not until a year later.  I'll transcribe it here for you, and will make photocopies of the handwritten entries and send them to you along with a 150th anniversary booklet done 10 years ago - it gives a little history as well as a photo of the building where the children would have lived in the mid 1860's.  We looked several years after Albert was placed, and at other kids named George and I also searched on the name Murry as that's a name I found in some census records that seem to show the whole family in 1860 - I'm including the web addresses of a couple other mentions of the adults - I tracked them down on the Cayuga County GenWeb site, which you may already be familiar with.  You may be able to find the families the boys went to, but there's not a lot of information listed. 

It seems a common practice that children were "taken on trial" by area residents. I don't know what that meant - were they like foster children?  Where they going to be adopted?  Some kids were taken, returned, and taken again.  And we've seen the word "bound" on some records - were they like indentured servants?  I'd like to explore that sometime.

Cayuga Asylum for Destitute Children Ledger Volume 1 April 1852 - June

10, 1875

Page 68

John Richard Murray aged 11 years

Brought by the overseer poor from Auburn Jan 9th 1861.  Taken by William

Warick of Aurelius June 3rd returned June 12 taken on trial August 15 by

Solomon ??Garnber?? of Varick Seneca Co. Bound

Page 68

Hopkins Murray aged 9 years

Brought to the Asylum by overseer Tuttle Jan 9th 1861 from Auburn July

8th '65 was taken on trial by Mr. Yates of Auburn

Page 68

Stanford Murray aged 7 years Sept 18 1861

Brought to the Asylum with the above at the same date.  Was taken on

trial by Mr. Clark Cummings Groton Tompkins Co.  12 Sept '63

Page 83

Albert Murray aged 6 years March 3rd 1862

Brought to the Asylum by the overseer of the poor Feb 13th 1862  Was

taken on trial by Mr. Daniel Brink of Summer Hill Sept 9 '63

I received the copies yesterday, including:

Talk about an act of genealogical kindness.  I'm making a donation to the Cayuga Home today. 

Geneasense

Geneasense –Like Spidey sense, it’s that sixth sense, or intuition, indicating you shouldn't ignore a person or piece of information and, ultimately, it will be important and lead to a genealogical breakthrough.

In the case of my research, Loretta Murray triggered my geneasense.  Her role was step-mother to my great-grandfather, so how critical could she be to uncovering the ancestral line?

My great-great-grandfather, Erastus Murray, who I wrote about earlier, this week in my Civil War post, and a month ago in a post introducing the Murray line, is a bit of a mystery.  I know he was in Auburn, NY with his family in 1860, I know he was in Rose, NY in 1864, and I know he was in New York, without his family, in the 1870 and 1880 censuses and I know he died in Rose, NY in 1895.  Seems like I know a lot, right?

Well, I’d been told my great-great-grandfather had died in 1863, not 1895.  And, except for Erastus, the family seemed to disappear by the 1870 census.  I found most of them again by 1880, but not his second wife, Loretta.  The family story is that the kids were sent to an orphanage.  For awhile, I had this hypothesis that Loretta died between 1860 and 1864 and that with the death of another wife (Erastus’ first wife died in 1856), he couldn’t cope with raising 6 kids and he gave them up to an orphanage.  Very Victorian melodrama and all that.  Something nagged at me about Loretta.   I started searching for her obituary, thinking it might mention the family.  I found it alright.  She died in 1884 not the 1860s.  The obit did not mention step-children, but it said she had a son in Utah and she was living with her daughter, Mrs. W.D. Dean in Elkhart, Indiana.  It also mentioned that she was married in Delaware County, NY and that she lost her husband in 1863!  The new insight about the time of her death sent me back for another census search--don't know how I missed her the first gazillion times, but there she was in the locations mentioned in the obit--Michigan in 1870 and Indiana in 1880.  In the 1880 census, she was listed as divorced!


My hypothesis may not be so far off.  After the divorce, Erastus probably did give up his family.  It looks like the year I need to focus on is 1863.  I really want to find out what happened to this family.  Thanks to Loretta, I’m fractionally closer.

The Mystery of Albert Murray, Sr--Or, Who the heck is Erastus?

So, now a post about actual research on my genealogy.

I started on our Murray line about a year ago.  I began with my grandfather, Riley Murray, Sr,  who was born June 21, 1895 in Cameron County, PA and lived there his whole life.  His father, Albert Murray, was born March 3, 1856 and married Katharine Doll on July 3, 1882.  I had the names of all their children, but as to earlier information, I had my grandmother’s memory as a reference. 

My grandmother’s notes said essentially this:  The Murrays came from Ireland and settled near Rochester, NY where Albert  senior was a prison guard.  Albert and his wife, Mary, had the following children:  Mary, Lucetta, Richard, Hopkins, Stanford, Albert, and Asa.  Mary died at Albert Jr’s birth in Syracuse, NY.  Albert Sr, died when Albert Jr was seven, and all the children were put in a Catholic orphanage to be raised.   From there Albert Jr was sent to a Catholic foster home.  And, beyond a few additional tidbits from other relatives, that was it.

As a novice to genealogical research, I wasn’t sure where to begin so went to the internet for census research.  My great-grandfather, Albert Murray, Jr, and his family were easily found in 1900 in Emporium, PA.  But when I started to go back further I was quickly overwhelmed.  I didn’t yet know of many reference options and I didn’t understand how to review search results with spelling variations in mind.  I searched and searched for Albert Murray, Sr, wife Mary and their family.  I pursued the possibility of orphanages but that seemed like a bottomless well.  I then decided to focus on prisons in New York, keeping the locales of Rochester and Syracuse in mind.   An internet search uncovered the history of a new, state-of-the-art prison built in the early 1800’s in Auburn, NY.  Bingo!  When I added Auburn to my search requirements, I found Albert, Jr in the 1860 census.  But, he was not in an orphanage, he was with his siblings, minus Asa, living with adults by the name of Erastus and Loretta Murry.  There was also another brother, George, I had never heard of.

So, who were Erastus and Loretta?  Foster parents?  Relatives?  How would I find out?  The next Eureka moment resulted from another internet search.  I turned up what seemed to me to be a rather obscure site, Old Fulton NY Post Cards.  However, a newspaper article I found there referenced the appointment of Erastus Murray as a gatekeeper at Auburn Prison in 1860.  The seed of doubt was planted and I became obsessed with uncovering the mystery of Albert Sr and Erastus.  

Then another clue through an internet search engine--an Auburn area 1856 burial record at Throopsville Rural Cemetery for Christina Murray, age 32, wife of Erastus.  Thus a second seed of doubt, after all Albert Jr was born in 1856, his mother supposedly dying at his birth.  Could Christina actually be Albert’s mother? And Erastus his father?

With these new pieces of information I decided to target Erastus and Christina, moving away from Loretta and much further away from where I had started with Albert Sr and Mary.  What a surprise when I found Erastus and Christina in the 1850 census, with all of Albert’s siblings who were born before 1850, and then with the help of the Cayuga County Historian’s office, again in the 1855 NY census.  I found Erastus, in the Auburn City Directory as a laborer, then as a soldier in Civil War records, and later in census records living as a farmhand, without his family, well into his senior years, and in a newspaper record of his death at a poorhouse in Rose, NY in 1895.

I still didn’t know anything but the most basic information provided in census records about where and when Erastus and Christina were born.  All indications from census records are that the entire family had been born in Cayuga County, NY.  There has been no sign of an Albert, Sr or wife Mary and son, Asa, although there was a daughter, Mary, who married an Asa (Van Patten).  I still didn’t know who Loretta and George were, but I am guessing that she was a second wife and that the son George was a half-brother.  And I didn’t know what happened to the family after 1860, but it appears Erastus deserted the family or the family otherwise fell on hard times.

I found out a lot and learned early the importance of using sources to verify (or invalidate) family stories. I still have a lot of work to do on the Murrays, but after pounding the internet in every way I could think of, I took a break to research another line.   But, the mystery, the puzzle, the clues, the history lessons, the surprising discovery…it’s just plain addictive.