Fifth and last in a series tracking my ancestor Arthur Bull’s family from the Catskills to the Adirondack foothills (1870-1875).
Three generations of my Bull ancestors — my great, great grandfather Arthur Bull, his wife and children, and his parents — appear to have moved north together from Broome County on New York’s Southern Tier to Lewis County in the Adirondacks region.
The Bulls seem to have pulled up stakes in late 1874, after the marriage of Arthur’s oldest daughter in Binghamton, N.Y.
For by early 1875 the extended family was already in Town of Lyonsdale, Lewis Co., N.Y. at the time of the next major event in their lives — the death of Arthur’s mother, Mary, at Moose River Settlement on 15 Jan. 1875.
Vital records registration was not required in New York State until 1881, so I have not found a death certificate for my great, great, great grandmother Mary Bull.
However, a notice of her death and burial (141 years ago this month) appeared in the Broome Republican and was abstracted in the book Genealogical gleanings from early Broome County, New York newspapers (1812-1880) abstracted and compiled by Maurice R. Hitt, Jr. — yet another clue my dad and I discovered together at the Onondaga County Public Library.
BULL, Mary [BR, 27 Jan. 1875] Died 15 Jan. at Moore [sic] River, Lewis Co., NY: Mary Bull, wife of Jeremiah Bull. Age: 65 yrs. 5 mo. 8 da. Bur. in the Shawsville Cem., Conklin, NY.
The abstract does not say whether my ancestor Mary Bull’s funeral took place in Lewis County (where she died) or in Conklin, Broome County, N.Y. (where she lived for much of her adult life and was buried).
But I have visited my great, great, great grandmother’s grave in Shawsville Cemetery, and the inscription on her stone is consistent with the date in the newspaper abstract.
MARY
WIFE OF
JEREMIAH BULL
DIED JAN. 15, 1875
Aged 65 y’rs & 5 m’s.
Mary’s death must have been particularly difficult for the Bull family, coming so soon after they moved north in search of a better life. Was the relocation too much for her? Had the harsher winter weather laid her low? Once again I long for family letters or a diary to fill in these personal details.
With Mary’s death, my great, great, great grandfather Jeremiah Bull became a widower. According to the 1875 New York State Census for Town of Boonville, Oneida County, N.Y. — enumerated on 7 June — he took up residence in a boarding house in the village of Hawkinsville, N.Y., and at age 70 returned to work as a tanner.
The Bull family surely mourned the loss of my great, great, grandmother Mary Bull. But before long they had a happier occasion to celebrate — the 1876 birth at Moose River Settlement of Arthur and Mary Elizabeth’s eighth child, daughter Alice Istora Bull.
More on my Bull ancestors at Moose River Settlement in the next post.
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