THE LABYRINTH OF CANADIAN POMEROYS PART II

by Alethea “Lee” Connolly 

While we continue sleuthing through old deeds, wills, journals, letters, and church records, we spend a good amount of time sifting through images on the computer screen for newly posted resources. But sometimes we find gold, just because fellow searchers come forward and share what they found. They provide the missing link that leads us giant steps forward. Much research today is about such generosity and collaboration.

THE QUEBEC PONTBRIAND/POMEROY CONNECTION IN ONONDAGA
AND OSWEGO COUNTY

Recently, these random acts of kindness came my way when I continued researching the French Canadian brothers, Louis and Germain Pontbriand, who, for some reason, changed their name to Pomeroy when they emigrated from Canada to the United States. (See our August Blog) We discovered Louis and Jeremiah had the same father, but different mothers. They were half brothers. Louis’ mother was Marie Louise Martin dit Pelland (first wife, deceased). Germain/Jeremiah was a son of Louise Preville (second wife of the elder Louis). This was a very large family, though not uncommon for the times in French Canadian families. Therefore, age differences between siblings sometimes ranged between fifteen to twenty years.

Since our August posting, I’ve received information from several descendants of these Pontbriand/Pomeroys. The 1850 federal census showed Jeremiah and family then living in Syracuse, and later in nearby Lysander, New York. One descendant of Jeremiah sent me a very clear photo of the grave stone of John and Harriett Pomeroy Pomeroy, his great grandparents, located in Oak View cemetery, Frankfort, Herkimer County, New York.1 The inscription on the gravestone shows their new POMEROY POMEROY surname identity.

Gravestone of John Pomeroy and wife Harriet Pomeroy Pomeroy

 His ancestors, are both of Pontbriand lineage, as Harriett was a daughter of Jeremiah, and John, the son of his Jeremiah’s elder brother Louis. Richard, who sent the photos, is a great grandson, of Gertrude, John and Harriett’s daughter.

Richard’s cousin, Diane, also sent us family information. She descends from Jasper, John and Harriett’s son. She told us about Harriett’s sudden death in December, 1917. It was reported a “strangulation, ” Diane explained Harriet had a condition of a goiter which restricted her throat. Tragically, one day, while doing food preparation, she choked when she ate some peas! Who would have known such a detail?

Another cousin, Jane, sent me a copy of the wedding photo of her great grandparents, Jasper Pomeroy and Maud Littlewood. Jasper and Maud married in 1906 in Frankfort, New York. Jane also sent copies of family obituaries, and Jay’s (Jasper’s) death certificate, which noted he was born in Brewerton, New York, where the family lived before moving to Herkimer County. Every tidbit of information illuminates the portrait of a family and leads to other investigations.

Wedding photo of Jasper Pomeroy and Maud Littlewood

In fact, it was a comment of Diane’s that prompted me to go back and look at the Onondaga County Poor house records. She mentioned Jeremiah had been sheltered at the poor house prior to his death. These records indicate that prior to his admission in May 1888 he had been a “salt boiler,” not an unusual occupation for Syracuse men in that time period. Some might say Syracuse, New York was the city built on salt, as this industry started early and lasted lucratively until into the early 1900s. That was a very tough occupation. In the days of corporate salt boiling “men worked in 90-degree heat and humidity, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, from April to November, boiling brine to isolate salt,” according to one journalist.2 They could produce three to four bushels in five hours. The poorhouse record confirmed Jeremiah’s birth in Canada; that he had five brothers and two sisters, and died while in the poorhouse, either in 1890 or 1891.3

POMEROY/PONTBRIANTS IN OSWEGO COUNTY

 While we knew Jeremiah and family moved between Onondaga, Oneida and Madison Counties in the 1860s, we just recently noticed he was in in Oswego County, likely not far from Louis, his elder brother, for several years. My colleague Barbara Dix, historian for the Town of Schroeppel, checked the 1855 NYS census and found PUMEROY family.4 The census taker used initials for given names, but we were still able to establish this was Jeremiah “Pomeroy”. If information on the record is accurate, especially the birth locations and ages of the children, then it seems Jeremiah and family had spent ten years in Onondaga County before coming in 1854 into Oswego County. Since all of his children were recorded as born in Oswego County, we estimate he was in this county perhaps by 1851. We now speculate that the Pontbriands arrival into this area of New York is about the year 1844.

We know that Jeremiah and family were in Verona, Oneida County in 1860, then for a few years in Bridgeport, Madison County, before coming back and settling in Onondaga County. It is here that his daughter Harriett married John Pomeroy, and where their three children Jasper, Gertrude and Wayne are born. They later moved east, to Herkimer County, and then west to Ohio, as our generous correspondents have shared. Other descendants of Jeremiah have been more difficult to trace. One daughter, Maria, married in 1883, when in her late thirties, to Brazil Pepper, and they settled in Granby. The 1900 census data indicates one child born to Maria, not then living in the household.5 It is not clear whether this child was born to Brazil and Maria.

 It is not surprising that some of Jeremiah descendants remained in the Granby area, while others went to Herkimer, and Ohio, as their uncle, Lewis Pomeroy, and their “cousins” remained there. When son Lewis Pomeroy died in 1908, his will identified him by both surnames of Pomeroy and Pontbriant.6 This discovery propelled much of our extended French-Canadian research resulting in grandchildren with the names of DAVIS and VIEW. Many of his children remained in the county. Daughters and granddaughters married into households with surnames such as MURRY, DAVIS, VIEW, WILLIAMS, ADAMS, LA BEEF and BURDEN. Perhaps now they will know that some of their ancestors were once Pontbriants from Quebec whose surname was changed to Pomeroy!

POMEROYS FROM STANSTEAD, QUEBEC THAT MIGRATED INTO NEW YORK

In the midst of digging through Quebec records for information about the Louis and Jeremiah family lines, I came across another puzzle. Several years ago I researched Judge Selah Pomeroy who, migrated from Vermont into Stanstead, Quebec in the early 1800s, where he raised his family. They were direct descendants of the Eltweed line. We knew Nancy Pomeroy, a daughter of Judge Selah’s son Hazen Pomeroy Sr., and his wife Lois Mansur, married Horace Wells in Syracuse, New York in 1847. 7 It was curious, but didn’t, at the time, prompt any intensive investigation.

Then one day, our county historical association archivist mentioned to our director that she had seen a Pomeroy name in an old diary she had been looking through. When I went to examine it, I learned the name was “Adele Pomeroy.”8 I recognized Adele as Nancy Pomeroy (Wells) sister. She was, according to this small journal, employed in 1847 as a teacher in a select school in Syracuse, which was just opened by Madame Anastasie Julia Raoul. Madame Raoul’s life had its own mysteries and secrets. By 1847, her fortune was depleted. With debts piling on her doorstep, she started a select school, and saved herself from the poorhouse.9 This meant that two sisters, Nancy and Adele Pomeroy, daughters of Hazen Pomeroy Sr., Judge Selah’s son, and wife Lois Mansur, were in Syracuse in 1847 and 1848. Had Adele read some advertisement for teachers, and taken advantage of this opportunity?

It was certainly an interesting coincidence that two families from Quebec who were, or became Pomeroys, ended up in Syracuse, between 1847 and 1850. Was there any connection of these Stanstead Pomeroys to the Louis and Jeremiah Pontbriand/Pomeroys? It was a longshot speculation, but puzzles and labyrinths are the peculiar territory of genealogists.

 I started to trace the Horace and Nancy Wells family unit. I found that in the 1850 U. S. census record they were in Broome County, and was surprised at their household members. Nancy and Horace were living in Chenango then, with sister, Louisa, and their 11 year old brother Selah.10 Further research showed that brother Charles was in the U. S. at least by 1854, when he married Mary Calkins.11 Perhaps he traveled with them, and then the siblings split up. It seemed like half of Hazen Pomeroy’s family bolted out of Stanstead for the United States!

 In tracing the descendants of the Stanstead Pomeroy sisters and their brother Charles, I found some stayed in the United States, and moved west, but some descendants returned to Canada, though not to Quebec. Nancy and Horace moved west to Illinois Her sisters, and brother Charles, married and a multitude of descendants have been traced – whose surnames are HARPER, SMITH, REED, LAFRANCE, FLETCHER and CURTIS.

Charles married Mary Calkins, but five years after their marriage (1859) he died in Michigan at age 35, leaving a wife and two children. I was able to trace descendants of his son, Charles W. Pomeroy, but not his daughter Mary. Another “act of random kindness” from Guy, a great-great-grandson of Charles W. Pomeroy, filled in some interesting family details, because his great grandmother, Nettie (Pomeroy) Curtis left family notes. Guy shared with us some of Nettie’s memories. She wrote that “when her (Nancy’s) brother Charles died, she took his little daughter Carrie to raise.” She also wrote that Horace, had a “furniture business in Troy” and “was a professional singer” of both church and opera music. Such recollections spice up a family history!

I still don’t know what motivated the three sisters (Nancy, Adele and Emily Louisa), and their brother Charles to move to the U.S., but I found no connection between the Quebec Pontbriands and the Stanstead “Eltweed” Pomeroys.

“THE STRANGE CASE OF PETER POMEROY”

Sometimes when you follow a loose string through a labyrinth, you end up somewhere in an unknown land, maybe with Dorothy in Kansas. But if you are fortunate, it may actually make sense.

In April 2012 a Pomeroy descendant contacted our director. She had traced her ancestry through a Peter Pomeroy in Illinois, but found Peter did not “link up” with our Eltweed Pomeroy family tree. She then asked a male relative to take a DNA test to help solve her “brick wall” She was surprised when instead of getting a Pomeroy match, the “markers” lined up with a PONTBRIANT line!

 Since we were doing research into the Louis and Jeremiah Pontbriand/Pomeroys families in New York State, it seemed promising to speculate Peter was somehow related to these families. It was a confusing trail, complicated by multiple marriages and half sibling relationships. There seemed to be no direct link to Louis and Jeremiah. Since sorting out these multiple marriages in the Quebec Drouin and Tanguay records was a challenging maze, I decided to push back to earlier generations and documents, and noticed that not only did our Louis Pontbriand in Onondaga and Oswego counties, marry three times, but so did his grandfather. I finally realized his grandfather, Jean Baptiste Briand dit Sansregret, was the key to unraveling my puzzle.

Louis Pontbriand, whose sons Louis and Germain (Jeremiah) migrated to New York with him (and his second wife Louisa), was the son of Jean Pierre Briand and Marguerite Lambert. 12 Jean Pierre, was the youngest surviving son of Jean Baptiste Briand dit Sansregret and third wife Marie Genevieve Cantara, born 1779. 13

However, Jean Baptiste Briand dit Sansregret was married three times. By his first wife, Francoise Jodouin, he had a son, Jean Baptiste Brilland born abt 1760.14. There was then about a twenty year difference in age between these half brothers. Descendants of Jean Baptiste Brilland emigrated into the town of Chazy, Clinton County, New York, while Louis Pontbriand and some of his family, including Lewis and Germain/Jeremiah, settled in Onondaga and Oswego counties.

Specifically, the elder half brother, John Baptiste Brilland, married Therese Perron, and their son Francois Eustache Pontbriand Sansregret married Felicite Vandal.15 A portion of this latter large family came to New York, and their surname became POMBRIO.16 One of their children was a Pierre, or Peter. Peter’s mother Felicite died in 1848, and his father remarried. In the 1850 census for Chazy, Clinton County, Peter is shown, as abt 11 years old, with his step-mother, and several siblings.17 I could not locate Peter in subsequent census records, nor in cemetery records, though other family members were located in the old St. Louis cemetery in Sciota. 18

A month ago, having already done some research in the Chazy, New York area, I came across a POMBRIO Family genealogical posting. Following this thread, I fortuitously found the genealogy work done by Susan L. Pombrio on the POMBRIO family ancestry. I received a copy of some of her research through the Northern New York American-Canadian Genealogical Society in Plattsburgh. “Pierre” is listed as the 12th child of Francois Eustache Pontbriand-Sansregret and Felicite Vandal. After his name she has noted “ b ca 1839 Sciota, NY went either west or south.”19 Oh happy day!

This was another piece in the Peter Pomeroy identity puzzle, one that supports our belief that the Peter Pomeroy in the U. S. 1860 Illinois census, is Peter/Pierre POMBRIO in the 1850 Clinton County census, a descendant, linked generations back to Jean Baptiste Briand dit Sansregret, and, therefore, linked to Louis and Germain.

 In the 1860 census of Plainfield, Illinois Peter’s place of birth is listed as Canada.20 It appears from the household that Peter is an apprentice in the John Virgil household. Virgil is a successful carriage maker, it seems, and Peter, age 21, is listed as a “wagon maker.” As he is unrelated to the family, as far as we know, it is not likely information was given to the census taker by Peter, but by John Virgil. It probably “sounded like” Peter was “French Canadian,” and certainly the head of household would have known some aspect of his origins. In subsequent census records, when Peter is head of household, Peter consistently states his place of birth as New York.

One descendant said family memoirs reported Peter never referred to his French Canadian heritage, but apparently told his adult sons he was a stowaway and came from France. Our research shows this unlikely, as do census records over the years where he himself claims his birth as New York State.

A great granddaughter of Peter Pomeroy, in writing to us, noted, according to Peter’s “Civil War Records that he was born in 1839 in New York.” The old Kansas GAR Post records in fact reported his birth locality as “Clinton City.” Well, that’s 50% correct.21 When Peter Pomeroy was 76 years old, he was listed in the 1915 Kansas State Census. He and wife Karen were living in Mulvane, Sedgwick County. He was cited as born abt 1839, in Clinton Co. NY. 22 

It seems at least, for the time being, I’m out of the labyrinth, even if all mysteries haven’t been solved. Still, part of the family story may be true. Peter may very well have run away from his Clinton County family sometime after 1850.

There is the possibility that he knew he had these half-cousins, Lewis and Jeremiah, in Oswego, and Verona, at this time. Perhaps he went as a young teenager to work with one of them, seeking an off-the-farm opportunity, especially since Jeremiah was listed as a boat captain. It would have been quite easy, from that point, to stowaway on a boat and find one’s way to Chicago. But then, that’s another puzzle.

Peter Pontbriand/Pombrio/Pomeroy died in 1916.23

 ENDNOTES

*The surname Pontbriand has been recorded and transcribed Pontbriant, Pontbrillant, in the Drouin Records of Quebec for the same person and family, but I have used the “d” spelling for consistency here. Some branches of these ancestors were recorded as Briand, and Briand dit Sansregret, as you will see, and the descendants of a branch in Clinton County retained the Americanized change to Pombrio as a surname.

1. We have used only first names of our information donors to protect their privacy. I’m using the spelling on Harriett’s gravestone, with two “ts” for Harriett’s given name throughout this text.

2. Sewell Chan, December 31, 2009, “On the Road: A Proudly Salty Reputation,” City Room, New York Times, online at: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/on-the-road-a-proudly-salty-reputation/

3. Onondaga County Poorhouse records, Town of Onondaga Historical Society, 9/27/2012, Record Books HO-2, and M/W. Volunteer look-up by M. L. Michalec. It appears Jeremiah returned to the poorhouse after a dismissal in 1889. A later entry shows he died there September 6, 1890 or 1891, the date being difficult to determine due to confusion in page numbering.

4. 1855 New York State Census, Town of Schroeppel, Second District, Family 241. Ancestry.com.

5. 1892, New York State Census, First Election District, p. 2, line 12-13. Ancestry.com; also 1900 U. S. Census, Oswego, New York, 5A, Ed 108, line19-20.

6. In the matter of the estate of Louis Pontbriant-also known as Louis Pomeroy…, Surrogate Court, County of Oswego, New York, 12 September, 1910.

7. Marriage Horace W. Well and Nancy M. Pomeroy, Onondaga Standard, April 12, 1848, p. 3. C. 3

8. See: The Anastasie Raoul Collection, Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, New York at http://www.cnyhistory.org/

9. Ibid.

10. 1850 U. S. Census Chenango, Broome County, New York State, P. 348, Dwelling 1796, Fam 1866.

11. Charles Pomeroy married Mary Calkins of Lowell, Massachusetts in 1854 according to B. F. Hubbard’s The History of Stanstead County Province of Quebec, with Sketches of more that Five Hundred Families, (Quebec: Heritage, 1874), p. 123-124. A thank you to Guy G. for some confirmations and interesting new information.

12. Baptism of Louis Pontbriand, July 14, 1807, son of Jean Pontbriand and Marguerite Lambert. Yamaska, Quebec. Ancestry.com Quebec, (Drouin Collection, 1621-1967) [database online]

13. Marriage of Jean Briand dit Sansregret, widow of Jeanne Voine (Venne-Voyne) to Maria Cantara, 1779, Feb 15, Yamaska, Quebec. Drouin. Source same.

14. The marriage of Jean Brilland to Therese Perron, September, 1794, cites his parents as deceased Jean Baptiste Brilland and Francoise Jodouin. Drouin. Source same.

15. (1) Marriage of Jean Brilland, son of deceased Jean Baptiste Brilland and Francoise Jodouin, to Therese Perron, Sept 29, 1794. Contrecoeur, St-Trinite´ Quebec. (2) Marriage of F. Eustache, older son of Jean Baptiste PontBrillant and Therese Perron to Felicite Vandal, Jan 11, 1820, Sorel, St. Pierre, Quebec. Ancestry.com Quebec. Drouin. Source same.

16. See POMBRIO Family Genealogy researched by Susan L. Pombrio. Before coming into this family genealogy, I had noted this surname while looking at burials in St. Louis Roman Catholic Cemetery (see ftn 18) and researching the Clinton County census records.

 17. 1850 U. S. Census, Chazy, Clinton County, New York , p. 242, line 34 Dwelling: 1659, Family: 1768, “Eustace POBRIA.” Peter is cited age 11. Ancestry. Com.

18. St. Louis Roman Catholic Cemetery, (Sciota, Town of Chazy, Clinton County, NY.) Surname of POMBRAH shows Augustus, and Phillisa (Eustache and Felicite Pombrio Pontbriant). POMBRIO also recorded. Northern New York Tombstone Transcription Project at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~frgen/clinton/chazy/st_louis.htm

19. Susan L. Pombrio, A Genealogy of the Pombrio Family in the United States, (#008), p. 45. provided by the Northern New York American-Canadian Genealogical Society Library, Plattsburgh, N.Y.

20. 1860 U.S. Census, Plainfield, Will County, Illinois, pg 164, line 1, part of John Virgil household, Family # 1223. Peter Pomeroy notes his birth location as New York in the 1885 and 1895 Kansas State Census records, and also in the 1870, 1900, 1910 U.S. census records. Ancestry.com

21. Kansas Grand Army of the Republic Post Reports, The James Shields Post 57 (1882-1937) Wellington County Sumner, Kansas records Peter Pomeroy mustered roll citing his birth location as “Clinton City.” Ancestry. Pomeroy served until the end of the war..

22. Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925, Reel K-1-K-271, Kansas State Historical Society, 1915 Census, p. 7, line 23, Family 10. Ancestry.com

23. Peter Pomeroy, died 1916. Kansas, Find A Grave Index, 1854-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

Roy Jobbins Pomeroy, Oscar Winner and Early Hollywood Special Effects Technician: The Life of an Artist.

Research by Patricia Cusick Whipple

Story and additional research by Kate Corbett Pollack

Part One.

Darjeeling, Bengal, India, April 20, 1893. A baby’s cry pierces the serene atmosphere of this mountainous town, located in the Mahabharat Range of the Himalayas. A gentle wind rustles through the lush, verdant tea leaves that line the terraced hills. Mist envelopes the surrounding jungle, home to tigers, elephants, leopards and many other exotic species. On this day, William Henry Jobbins and Jeannette Shepherd Hauser welcomed the birth of their second son, Amos Pomeroy Jobbins. William (1851-1893) and Jeannette (1862-1938), an ambitious couple living in this beautiful area of India, were British subjects. Jeannette was a direct descendent of General Seth Pomeroy, the American Revolutionary war hero, a lineage she was very proud of. Keeping with the family tradition, she included Amos’ fourth generation great-grandfather’s surname as her son’s middle name. His first name was taken from his paternal grandmother, Sarah Amos, who married Thomas Jobbins on January 17, 1847 in Coventry, England. 

William and Jeannette’s first son, Arthur, was born in Calcutta in 1891. Little Amos would spend his early childhood in India, playing with his older brother and beholding the rich culture of Darjeeling, at that time still under the control of the British Empire. William, the boys’ father, was the director of the Indian Art School in Calcutta, the capital city of West Bengal. Previously, he had taught art in Nottingham, England, and had spent time in Venice, Italy, where he shared a studio with James McNeill Whistler in a 17^th century palazzo on the Grand Canal designed by Venetian Baroque master Baldassare Longhena. The two artists’ personalities clashed, and William did not enjoy working in the same space as the now legendary American artist, whom he felt was a second-rate painter with loose morals.[i]  Jobbins’ paintings of Venice are valued among art collectors today. Jeannette was born in India to American Christian missionaries, and had grown up traveling to India from her native Ohio. This colorful locale set the tone for Amos’ life, which would be a kaleidoscopic one full of adventure, mystery, beauty, and scandal.

Sadly, William Henry Jobbins died not long after Amos was born, resulting in Jeannette and the boys moving back to England. Jeannette remarried by 1897 to James Bernard Scale, and the family settled in London. Arthur and Amos were given their stepfather’s last name. Amos Pomeroy Jobbins Scale was enrolled at the Wells House Preparatory School for boys in 1897 at age five. The cold, dreary English weather [ii] and the strict school environment must have been quite a change for him after Darjeeling, and now he had a new father figure in his life.By 1901, when he was nine years old, Amos had begun going by the nickname “Roy”, based on his middle name of Pomeroy.

By 1917, when he was 25, Roy had moved to New York. There he worked as a self-employed artist,continuing to be the sole supporter of Jeannette, who had come with him. They lived at 1131 Broadway in Manhattan, in the heart of the theatre district. It was in this area of New York that Broadway hopefuls of all kinds lived, and Roy had possibly moved there to pursue a career as a scenic artist for theatre.  In the meantime, he procured a job painting advertisements for Ivory Soap, one of which included a scene in India. Roy registered for the WWI draft in 1917, and spent about a year in the air force inventing devices used for aerial photography, bomb sites, and aerial navigation. Among these inventions was a camera that could be used to render camouflaged objects detectable.

After the War, Roy began a business involvement with the Hippodrome Theatre on Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. It was the largest theatre in the world at the time, and was created by the same men who founded Coney Island’s Luna Park. Their formula for success was repeated with the Hippodrome, which was built in 1904. Like Coney Island, it was an entertainment spectacle, only an indoor theatre and not an amusement park. Live animals, choruses with hundreds of people, performances by Harry Houdini, dazzling sets, acrobats, clowns and performers of all types could be seen at the Hippodrome, which became New York’s most successful theatre. More research is needed to discern whether or not Roy was employed directly by the Hippodrome, but he did involve them in a lawsuit regarding the use of a contraption in their shows that he claimed to have invented: a bubble machine, which Roy in 1919 alleged the Hippodrome used in their shows and owed him royalties for. The lawsuit alleged that R.H. Burnside, owner of the Hippodrome, had agreed to pay Roy $50 a week (about $660 in 2012 dollars) to use his machine, but had never paid him. Burnside claimed that another company held the actual patent for the device, and he had rescinded the contract with Roy as a result. The total amount Roy was suing for was the equivalent of $3,333.00 today. By 1921, after several court dates, the judgment was reversed, and Roy was ordered to pay the Hippodrome $422 ($5,410 today), which financially ruined him for a time. This would not be the last time Roy attempted, to his own detriment, to stand up to a powerful and famous man whom he felt owed him money, and perhaps respect.[iii]

Despite his issues with the Hippodrome, Roy was continuing to excel in the scenic arts, and by 1921 had partnered with a mysterious, handsome Russian stage lighting innovator and artist who had come to New York in the company of world-famous ballerina Anna Pavlova. His name was Nicholas Vladimir de Lippe Lipsky, and he had ties to English royalty and Russian aristocracy. The two men worked together on inventions for the theatre, and produced a series of photoplays, which were films of stage performances. Newspaper and magazine articles from the early 1920s lauded their accomplishments. The attention Roy received piqued the interest of a man who would change the course of his life: Hollywood producer Jesse L. Lasky.[iv]

Lasky, a San Francisco native and former Vaudeville performer who had worked with Al Jolson, was one of the founders of Paramount Studios along with his best friend Cecil B. DeMille. In 1914, Lasky and DeMille produced “The Squaw Man”, Hollywood’s first feature film, in a rented horse barn which doubled as their production studio. It was such a hit that the team went on to produce a number of early silent films, many written and directed by DeMille.  They would eventually form Paramount Pictures. Prior to 1914, films weren’t usually made in California, but New York. Cecil B. DeMille and Jesse L. Lasky put Hollywood on the map as the new capital of the motion-picture studio.

In 1920, when he was 40 years old, Lasky opened Astoria Studios in Queens, which is still in operation today. By the time he met Roy Pomeroy in about 1921, Lasky had produced over 300 films. He had an apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan with his wife Blanche and their son, Jesse Jr., and frequently traveled by ocean liner to do business in Europe when he wasn’t in California, often bringing his family with him. Jesse L. Lasky was known as “the nicest guy in Hollywood”. Lasky recalled of Roy Pomeroy:

We had discovered Pomeroy as a struggling artist with an inventive mind, who had some exceedingly original and useful ideas about the employment of miniature sets and background projection to affect enormous budget savings in picture-making. I hired him and he did some fine creative work on tricks and special effects. He was the first specialist in that field and there has never been a better one… Perhaps it isn’t strange under the circumstances that he came to feel he was God…[v]

After being hired by Lasky for Paramount Studios, Roy packed up and headed for California. There he began work on Cecil B. DeMille’s epic masterpiece, “The Ten Commandments”, where he created the effect of the parting of the Red Sea using Jell-O, which is considered to this day one of the most impressive special effects in Hollywood history. Roy also created the effect of the Ten Commandments, given to Moses by God, lighting up and exploding into the sky as Moses carved them into stone tablets.

“The Ten Commandments” was the most expensive film ever made. Director Cecil B. DeMille had a life-size set built on the sand dunes of Guadalupe, California, where he re-created ancient Egypt (his 1953 version was shot on location). The set included four 20-ton statues of the Pharaoh Ramses, 300 chariots, a 110-foot high and 800 foot wide temple, 21 Sphinxes and a crew of 1,500 construction workers who labored to build it. 2,500 extras and 3,000 animals worked with the cast. It went over budget and caused constant tension between DeMille and Paramount during shooting. The film starred Estelle Taylor, a leading lady of the Silent Film era, Theodore Roberts as Moses, and Charles de Rochefort as Ramses. It premiered at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre, which was constructed prior to his Chinese Theatre. The result of Roy’s effects was triumphant: audiences loved the film, and it was highly successful, making Paramount a fortune and dissolving any tensions with DeMille. Paramount was impressed with Roy, and he quickly rose to prominence, becoming the head of the Special Effects Department for the studio. Oscars were not yet given in 1923, so he did not win anything for his work at the time.

After the success of “The Ten Commandments”, Roy did effects for “Feet of Clay” in 1924, and that year also worked on “Peter Pan”, making the characters fly using piano wires tied to their costumes. He gained a reputation as a miracle worker; the man who could make any movie effect happen. According to Lasky, Roy was “…something of a sacred oracle… we couldn’t have treated him with more awe and homage if he had been Edison himself.”[vi]  Certainly being treated this way by the founders of Hollywood, some of the most important people in the industry was thrilling for Roy. He had finally arrived, and his creativity was given free reign and plenty of funding.

By 1927, motion pictures changed from silent to “talkies” with the success of the first talking picture, “The Jazz Singer”, released by Warner Brothers and starring Al Jolson. Competing studios knew that they would need to incorporate sound effects and dialogue into their pictures to stay competitive. Roy Pomeroy was one of the few in Hollywood who was familiar with and good at sound technology, and the only person at Paramount who possessed these skills. In 1927, Paramount released “Wings”. While the film did not have speaking parts, it did have sound effects, and Roy was in charge of creating machine gun fire and airplane engine noises. The film is about two World War I fighter pilots who are in love with the same woman, and stars Clara Bow. The effects involving airplanes were considered especially impressive and exhilarating for audiences obsessed with Charles Lindbergh, and the film was a hit, making money for Paramount. That same year Roy patented a system he invented that made it possible for films to no longer be shot on location if they required a foreign backdrop. The background film could be shot separately, and then run through the camera later. Actors and actresses would perform against a blank backdrop, and the background film added. The concept was similar to a blue-screen, and would save the studio a fortune. Roy assigned half of the patent to Paramount.

After the success of “Wings”, Paramount Studios made Roy their Director of Sound Effects in 1928. He was also head of a committee formed by several different Hollywood studios, including MGM, to study sound effects for motion pictures. It was Roy who made the decision that sound should be a part of the actual film, and not recorded on a disc, as it was for “The Jazz Singer”. It is the industry standard today. Paramount looked to him as the man who would help them enter the new era of talking pictures. Another duty given to Roy was to test the voices of all of Paramount’s stars to see if they could be cast in talking films. This further inflated his ego, as he had been given the power to decide if a star should remain in their contract to Paramount. Even the fate of Paramount’s most famous star, Mary Pickford, was in his hands. He decided to keep her on.

In 1928 Roy was promoted to Director, and began work on a film called “Interference”. Jesse L. Lasky later joked in his autobiography that “No Interference” would have been a better title, as Roy would not allow any studio executives on the set, which was guarded by a policeman. This appeared to be over the top, but a closed set was necessary for Roy to be able to control sound recording. People coming and going on a movie set could disrupt the process. However, Roy would not even allow executives on the set, and his arrogant personality was starting to make him enemies. Roy truly believed that the work he was doing was revolutionary and would change the world. In the August 15, 1928 issue of Sound Waves magazine, Roy expounded on his ideas regarding sound and film:

In a few years I expect to see a central projection plant in theatre areas… and when science has accomplished all these things it will further be on the road to accomplishing that for which religious sects and human welfare agencies have striven for hundreds of years - the universal brotherhood of mankind, for within the limitless possibilities of this scientific art lies an unbounded field for the mutual exchange of art ideals. Ideals such as only the mechanics of the screen can successfully propound. I think two or three common languages (certainly not Esperanto) will become universal because of this…[vii]

If Roy was arrogant and controlling, it may have stemmed from his beliefs that the work he was doing was too important for anyone to interfere with, since it could very well bring about world peace. He also demanded an exorbitant rate of pay, telling Paramount that he should make what would be $46,000 a week in 2012 dollars, after he had already received a significant raise after “Wings”, making over $1 million a year. These demands combined with his personality caused studio executives to become disenchanted with him. By 1929, there were other technicians in Hollywood that knew the sound game, and Roy was becoming less of an Oracle.

William C. deMille, Cecil’s brother, was appointed by Jesse Lasky to assist Roy on “Interference”. Roy was thrilled to have William, a successful director, reporting to him. However, the plan was to usurp Roy: once William learned Roy’s techniques, the studio would have no need for him. Roy may have impressed Jesse Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille, Adolph Zukor and the other Paramount executives for a time, but he wasn’t ever accepted into their inner circle. William C. deMille was part of Hollywood royalty. The founders and builders of Hollywood, including Samuel Goldwyn, who for a time was Lasky’s brother-in-law and managed his first production company, had deep roots and similar backgrounds. Cecil, William and Jesse had known each other since they were kids and Samuel Goldwyn (then Goldfish) was a glove salesman. They had built Paramount and Hollywood together. Roy had only been in town for a few years, and by 1929, his bosses were tired of him. “Interference” was a flop, and not popular with audiences, although technically it was considered a very well-made film.

1929 was the year of the first Academy Awards, held at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood. Roy was slated to receive one for his work on “Wings”. He had been one of the 36 people who formed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which still exists today. “Oscars”, then called Awards of Merit, were given out to deserving pictures. Roy was awarded an Oscar for “Engineering Effects” for “Wings”,which also won Best Picture, the only silent film to ever win in that category other than the past year’s winner “The Artist”. Another award for special effects would not be given out for the next ten years. However, Roy was not at the Hotel Roosevelt to receive his statuette, he was en route to England with his wife, Sylvia Jewell, whom he had married in 1922. He may have been receiving an award, but Roy had left Paramount and was looking for directing opportunities in England. His troubles with the studio had culminated in their refusing to give him the salary he wanted, and his former position being filled by William deMille. He had been cast out. Roy went from making $32,000 a week to being unemployed.

Unable to make anything happen in England, Roy and Sylvia returned to Hollywood, where Roy attempted to find work as a director with another studio. By 1931, Roy was receiving offers from different studios to finish directing some of their films. He had started working for RKO in 1930, directing pictures and working on effects for that studio, but it appeared to be short-lived. Roy could not continue to make money as a director, and by 1940, he had been unemployed for quite some time, according to the census. He was described as an “inventor-technician” for the motion picture industry, but he did not have any work. Had Roy become blacklisted as a result of his demanding and overdramatic behavior at Paramount? Had a similar scenario happened at RKO?

Whatever the case, it does not appear that any major studio wanted to work with him. Dejected, Roy gave up his dream of being an important director and started his own company, Pomeroy Laboratories, located at 7554 Melrose Avenue. He and Sylvia lived in a bungalow at 1626 Crescent Heights Boulevard in Los Angeles, which was a short drive away from the Laboratory. 

On September 3^rd, 1947, Roy was found dead in his laboratory at age 55. He had taken an overdose of Seconal, a prescribed sleeping pill. The cause of death was undetermined, but it appeared that the once-famous director and special effects technician had committed suicide.

Sylvia was unable to tell the coroner any information about Roy’s parents, and their names are listed as “unknown” on Roy’s death certificate. Was she simply too distraught to remember, or was that part of Roy’s life a mystery to her? How much did Sylvia know about Roy’s past, and why didn’t she know his mother’s name - a person Roy had lived with and supported almost up to the year he had married his wife? It is possible that there was quite a bit about Roy’s past that she, nor any of his Hollywood acquaintances were aware of.

There is also the question of what has happened to Roy’s Oscar. In 2008, the APHGA was contacted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences regarding Roy’s Oscar statuette, which they wanted for an exhibit, and could not locate. They were hoping that perhaps we could find out where it was, or if someone in Roy’s family had it. Roy and Sylvia had no children, and as far as we can tell, there are no living descendants. After over 5 years of work, APGHA researcher Patricia Cusick Whipple did uncover the details of Roy’s fascinating life. The location of Roy Pomeroy’s Oscar, however, the first ever given for special effects, remains a mystery. 

Perhaps there are answers to some of above questions in part two of this story, coming next month: did Roy really commit suicide? Who was the mysterious Russian prince whom Roy met right before he left for Hollywood? Learn about Roy’s eccentric mother and father, and his adventuresome life leading up to his Hollywood years!

Links:

The Hippodrome:

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON027.htm

The Jazz Singer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jazz_Singer

Jesse L. Lasky:

http://www.jesse-l-lasky.com/timeline.html

More on Adolph Zukor:

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0107.html

Cecil B. DeMilles’ 1923 “The Ten Commandments” set: ruins still visible in California desert:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/18/local/la-me-lostcity19-2010mar19

---

[i]The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, University of Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

[ii] Variety. New York City, New York County, New York, 15 Jul 1921

[iii]Dramatic Mirror and Theatre World. New York City, New York County, New York, 14 May 1921

[iv]Pawlak, Debra Ann. Bringing up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy. New York: Pegasus, 2011. Print.

[v]Slide, Anthony. Silent Topics: Essays on Undocumented Areas of Silent Film. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2005.  79.

[vi]"Roy J. Pomeroy, Lasky's Famed Wizard, Tells Sound Possibilities." Sound Waves 15 Aug. 1928: 4.

From Berry Pomeroy Castle to Pompey, New York: The Incredible Historic Connection of the Pomeroy and Seymour Families.

by Kate Corbett Pollack

Berry Pomeroy castle is situated in Devon, England, and was the Baronial home of the Pomeroy family, which came to England during the Norman conquest of 1066. Ralf de Pomeroy assisted William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings and as a result was awarded land in Devon, where this branch of the family would move and settle, coming from La Pommeraie in Bayeux, Normandy. There they continued the genealogical line for the next five hundred years. Berry Pomeroy castle was constructed to provide security and comfort for the family, and its defensive style was a display of status. The Viking raids of 800-900 had caused European populations to remove themselves from settlements on the river systems and to move further inland, which led also to the development of a fortress style of architecture, originally called a Motte and Bailey. In the event of a Viking raid, inhabitants of a town would remove to the interior of the walled Motte and Bailey, which was complete with a moat and a defensive tower. The wealthiest person in the area, the feudal Lord, constructed the fortress and lived within its walls. He would provide protection in exchange for labor and goods, which came to be known as the feudal system. This style developed into the more elaborate and ornate walled castles complete with moats, gates and towers, that are today so synonymous with the Middle Ages. Berry Pomeroy Castle, for example, has Saint Margaret’s Tower, which was not only pretty, but could be used for defensive tactics. Devon was subject to Viking raids, and experienced them in about 900 AD. While the Pomeroy family may not have been in too much fear of invading hordes by the time of the castle’s construction in the late 1400s, being able to build a walled fortress was a show of their power and wealth. The ample grounds were abundant with deer, and having a personal deer park was also a luxury reserved for the upper classes in the Middle Ages. A stone wall was constructed on the property to contain the deer, and is still in existence. The deer park dates from the 13th century. The castle was also equipped with its own chapel, and faded images of painted religious scenes are still visible on its walls. Today, Berry Pomeroy is known as ‘the most haunted castle in England’.

The Pomeroy family lived in this area from the time of the Norman Conquest, but did not build Berry Pomeroy right away. They maintained several residences on the massive and extensive property awarded to Ralf de Pomeroy by William the Conqueror in exchange for his participation in the siege of Exeter and the battle of Hastings. William gave him 57 manors, which in this era refers to property and aristocratic title over it, including to the tenants. This tradition of granting land gained in battle or war by military leaders to their top ranking men was one also kept by General George Washington, who awarded landholdings to General Baron Von Steuben, among others. The medieval aristocratic tradition of holding large swaths of land occurred in the United States into the 1900s among settled European aristocracy or “new money” entrepreneurs like Ledyard Lincklaen and Jonathan Denise Ledyard, both of whom were a part of continuing the manor tradition in upstate New York during the 19th century. Small stone palaces were built by the Ledyard and Lincklaen families around Cazenovia, and the rent was collected from anyone who lived on the land.

The land at Berry Pomeroy was held by the Pomeroy family from the 11th century to 1547, when Thomas Pomeroy, due to financial problems, had to sell the manor to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and brother to Jane Seymour, third wife of King Henry VIII. Their father, Edward Seymour (senior), was one of the most powerful men in England next to the King. Edward Seymour was Uncle and appointed guardian to the future King Edward VI, who became King in 1547, the year his father, King Henry VIII, died. Edward VI was only a child when Henry VIII died, and Edward Seymour, his guardian, gained political influence as a result, as the boy could not yet make decisions. Edward Seymour held many important titles and offices including Protector of the Realm, and was known for his military prowess and success in battle. Like the Pomeroys, the Seymour family had come to the area as a result of the Norman Conquest, and their early ancestors fought in the battle of Hastings just as Ralf de Pomeroy had. Edward acquired immense wealth and property, and is also remembered for his influence over architectural styles that became popular in England at this time. Because of his great power, he had political enemies, and they were able to successfully overthrow and behead him by 1552.

Thomas Pomeroy was profligate with the family’s money and as a result had gone into debt and had mortgaged the castle. Lord Edward Seymour (Junior) and his brother John, in the years around the purchase of Berry Pomeroy, were imprisoned with their father, Edward, former Protector of the Realm, in the Tower of London, where John Seymour met his demise after a long illness. Knowing he was going to die, John petitioned from the tower for ancestral land around Berry Pomeroy known as Maiden Bradley, which had belonged to his mother, to be awarded to his younger brother Edward. Edward acquired more land and Berry Pomeroy castle in his purchase from Thomas Pomeroy once he was released from the Tower of London. Sadly, he lost his father and brother at the same time.

Thomas Pomeroy used the money he earned from the sale of the castle to purchase other land. During this time, tensions between Protestants and Catholics in England were highly charged, and Devon had seen some violent fights and destruction of Catholic Churches in the area. Thomas Pomeroy was a Catholic, and Edward Seymour was a Protestant. Two years after Edward purchased Berry Pomeroy castle and made it the seat of the Seymour family, Thomas participated in a battle between Catholic and Protestant forces known as the Prayerbook Rebellion, which would bring him into contact with the Seymours yet again. Lord Edward sent troops to fight the Catholic forces, which were made up of soldiers and ordinary men alike. Thomas Pomeroy was a drummer and trumpeter for the Catholics and sounded the alarm when the Protestant soldiers were approaching. Edward’s forces were momentarily startled and initially drew a retreat, only to strongly return, crushing the opponent. Many of the Catholics were drawn and quartered, but Thomas Pomeroy was able to escape this fate, likely due to his aristocratic family connections to the head of the Catholic army, who had been appointed by Edward. Thomas was, however, put into prison for a few years. After his release, he returned home and continued to be flagrantly wasteful with his family’s money, including his wife’s. It is because of this unfortunate relative that the Pomeroy family’s control over Devon for 600 years crumbled. They moved to another part of England.

Sir Edward Seymour’s son and namesake took over Berry Pomeroy castle in 1593, and was awarded title of Baronet by King James I. This Edward Seymour inherited vast land holdings from his father, and had already become Sherriff of Devon in 1583. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Devon under Elizabeth I. He was builder and architectural innovator of the Seymour House, which was an addition to Berry Pomeroy Castle. Like his grandfather, Edward the Protector, Edward was interested in architectural design, and the Seymour House influenced the building style in England for years to come. Edward started construction and expansion of the property in about 1600. He tore down some of the old 15th century Pomeroy Castle and built his new residence in the Elizabethan style. It may be referred to as the Seymour House, but in actuality, most would consider it a small palace. Edward added every fashionable status symbol that a palace of this era could have. Instead of using stone, as the Pomeroys did for the castle, Edward used wood and plaster to build his rooms and staircases, using a stone foundation in the walls, but covering it. When the Pomeroys built Berry Pomeroy Castle, as we have seen, it was built in the medieval stone fortress style, which in those days was the ultimate symbol of class and wealth. By Edward’s day, this was no longer the case. Edward also used elements of Classical design common in Italy and France, and in this way was innovative in bringing the style to England. He incorporated a Loggia into the design of the palace, which is an outdoor Classical walkway. Also built into the Seymour House was a new great hall which was very spacious and had one wall almost entirely made up of windows, rising two stories, which was very new and modern at the time. It overlooked the beautiful and picturesque Gatcombe Valley. In the Middle Ages, buildings were heavy and dark. By the 1600s, there was more focus in Europe on using glass and bringing light into structures.

The descendants of Edward Seymour, Protector of the Realm and guardian to King James I, continued to be successful and wealthy in much the same tradition as their relatives. Edward Seymour (who built the Seymour House) and his wife Elizabeth Champernoun of Dartington, had five sons. One of them, Richard, the youngest son, born 1595-6,left England and went to America. As the youngest son, he would not likely inherit very much, if any, of the family’s wealth. By this time in Europe, primogeniture, the tradition of giving all of the family’s land and money to the oldest son, rather than dividing it among heirs, was common. It is possible that this was a motivating factor in Richard’s leaving Berry Pomeroy for foreign shores. Once in America, Richard could establish himself separate from his family and obtain more land and property, even though it rightfully belonged to Native peoples who were already there, and there was difficulty and bloody battles that occurred as a result. Richard settled in Hartford, Connecticut in 1639, where he was allotted public land by the English settlers who had gotten there before him. Richard, in the tradition of the Seymours of Berry Pomeroy, took public office and was active in politics, associating with the highest ranking men in the area. He was not without money, coming from the wealthy background that he did, and being from a family like the Seymours led to him to be granted considerable amounts of land which would later become Norwalk, Connecticut. He possessed the bravery, financial means and skill to manage a landholding like that, which, as we have seen, he was commandeering already from Native peoples who were not happy about it. War between settlers and Indians would occur on and off until the mid- 18th century. Richard was in his forties by the time he settled in the New World, and had been married back in England to a woman named Mercy, where their first son was born. He continued the respectable tradition of the Seymours, holding office and being involved in public affairs up to his death in 1655. Mercy and Richard’s son John was born in Hartford, and in 1667 married Mary Watson of Norwalk. Their son, also named John, born 1666, married Elizabeth Webster in 1693. Their son Moses was born in 1711, marrying Rachael Goodman. Their son Moses Jr., born 1742, married Sally Marsh in Hartford in 1771. He became a Major and fought in the Revolutionary War. Major Moses Seymour and Sally Marsh were the parents of Honorable Henry Seymour, born 1780, who brings the story full circle to Pompey, New York, in 1810.

It is here that the Seymour family branched from their Connecticut roots after the Revolutionary War and headed to upstate New York where land, always the lure, had been made available now that it was no longer under British control. Henry Seymour and his wife Mary Ledyard Foreman traveled to Pompey as part of the Connecticut migration. During this era, many people left New England for New York to take advantage of the new land availability and followed the same trail, using covered wagons to haul their belongings. Henry and Mary would find themselves neighbors to Spencer Pomeroy and his wife, Mary Ann Coe. Once again, the Pomeroys and the Seymours, in the New World, were living side by side. Henry Seymour no doubt was very aware of his prestigious lineage, and one can only imagine if he ever mentioned Berry Pomeroy to Spencer or Mary Ann, who also might have known of the connection. Just as war had brought both the Pomeroy and Seymour families to Devon to settle, war had again opened up property and opportunity for the two families to establish themselves on land in upstate New York. Spencer Pomeroy had also come from a long line of prestigious and accomplished people, with forebears who had fought in the American Revolution and were founders and first settlers of Massachusetts, just as Richard de Seymour was in Connecticut. In their own way, both families made an indelible mark on British and American history for over 800 years. Readers may also recognize Henry Seymour because he was the father of Honorable Horatio Seymour, born Pompey 1810. In 1811, the family moved to Utica, settling on Whitesboro Street, where they lived in an American Federal style mansion that was, ironically, similar in style to the Seymour House of Berry Pomeroy. Horatio became governor of New York in 1852. He was an Abolitionist, Labor Activist and in 1868 was nominated for president by the Democratic Party, but was defeated by General Grant.

Mary Ann Coe Pomeroy, wife of Spencer and neighbor to Henry Seymour in Pompey, is the subject of much research by the APHGA, as readers may know. The fascinating stories of these subjects, the Pomeroys and the Seymours, so inextricably linked in history, continue to be revealed through research.

Sources:
"Berry Pomeroy and Sir Thomas 1547- - Pomeroy Twig." Berry Pomeroy and Sir Thomas 1547- - Pomeroy Twig. Google.com, n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2012.
 
Brown, Stewart. Berry Pomeroy Castle. London: English Heritage, 1997. Print.
 
Felch, William Farrand. The Connecticut Magazine.Vol. 10. Hartford and New Haven: Connecticut Magazine, 1906. Print.156-9.
 
Locke, A. Audrey. The Seymour Family. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914. Print.193-8.
 
Morris, Tyler Seymour. The Seymour Family. Chicago: [s.n.], 1900. Print. 180-1.
 

Links to images of Berry Pomeroy and the Serymour House:
 
This is a reconstruction drawing of the Seymour House, now in ruins, as it would have looked when it was first built:
http://www.englishheritageprints.com/low.php?xp=media&xm=5012200
 
Image of Berry Pomeroy Castle with part of the Seymour House in the background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berry_Pomeroy_Castle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_411651.jpg
 
View of part of the ruins of the Seymour House as it looks today:
http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/search/reference.aspx?uid=85655&index=300&form=advanced&county=DEVON
 
Engraving showing the grounds and valley around Berry Pomeroy:
http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Joseph-Mallord-William-Turner/Berry-Pomeroy-Castle,-From-The-Liber-Studiorum,-Engraved-By-The-Artist,-1816.html

Maternity, Gender and Class: A Comparison of the Spauldings of Buckland and the family of Hart Lester Pomeroy of Pittsfield, Mass.

by Kate Corbett Pollack

For the past year, I have been transcribing and writing about the letters in our archives written by the Spaulding family of Buckland, Massachusetts. The APHGA also has in its archives a letters collection written by members of the Pomeroy family of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Dottie H., an APHGA member, and descendant of Hart and Lester Pomeroy graciously lent us the collection which we scanned and photographed and returned to her.   

Portrait of Lemuel Pomeroy.

Readers may know of Hart Lester(1781-1852) and Lemuel Pomeroy (1778-1849). The couple was married on June 2^nd, 1800. Lemuel Pomeroy gained prominence as a small arms manufacturer and businessman who was contracted by the United States government and the state of New York in the early 1800s to provide weapons for the military. He was one of Pittsfield’s most wealthy and prominent citizens, and is memorialized in books for his contributions to American history and industry. He also owned a large woolen mill in Pittsfield. I discovered that the APHGA did not have very much in the database about his wife, Hart Lester of Preston, Connecticut. Like many women from her era, researching her life and genealogy is difficult and requires creativity, due to a lack of information. Having access to letters written by the Lester women in the late 1700s is invaluable, and provides a truly fascinating look into their lives. They also mention family members who otherwise may have remained unknown to us. Unlike the Spauldings, who were a rural family of modest means headed by a minister, the Lester-Pomeroys were a very wealthy, socially connected upper-class family. Many of their concerns and experiences were completely different from those of the Spauldings, who lived in the same region during the same era. The brutality of survival did not plague the Lester-Pomeroy family in quite the same way. However, certain things the two families did have in common. While I noticed many contrasts in the lives and letters of these two groups of women, I also noticed similarities.

Portrait of Hart Lester Pomeroy.

The Hart Lester letters include the correspondence of Hart, her sister-in-law Damaris Lord, and a yet unnamed aunt, some written before Hart was married and living in Plainfield, Connecticut, where the Lester family was from. It is also where Reverend Josiah Spaulding (1751-1823) grew up. A 1798 letter written to then 17-year-old Hart Lester by her aunt reveals that Hart was attending Plainfield Academy:

With Pleasure my dear Harty I received your letter…it is very nice, I am very glad to find you are at Plainfield under the tuition of A gentleman whose abilities I think capable of rendering you great advantage, I hope you will pay strict attention my dear girl & not think more of the tutor than you do of your studies, I only give you A little warning Harty as I hear he is A fine young Man, I think he has A fine chance to fix his choice among so many fine girls unless his heart is steel’d, but enough of him…

At first I thought that Hart was being privately tutored by a professor or teacher in the Plainfield area, because women did not usually attend this type of school in the late 1700s. Academies were for men. However, the History of Windham County, Connecticut: Vol. 1-2 in its chapter on Plainfield Academy reports that “the school was organized for both sexes”, and mentions Hart Lester directly:

“It may not be irrelevant to notice among the young ladies, Miss Catherine Putnam, granddaughter of General Putnam of the Revolution, who married Francis Brinely, Esq. of Boston; the Misses Lester of Preston - one of whom married Hon. Lemuel Pomeroy of Pittsfield, Mass.; …with many others who have adorned society by their example and their influence.[i]”

Plainfield Academy was founded in 1770. It endured through the Revolutionary War, and gained prominence as a superior academic institution, attracting students from all over the region and abroad. Plainfield through the late 1700s became a lively place full of bright young people from families respectable enough to send their children to the prestigious academy, which charged tuition. There young men were prepared for college, specifically Yale, or business. Young women received enough education, separate from the male population, to be considered eligible marriage material. From History of Windham County:

“Society in Plainfield was quickened and elevated by Academic influence. The brilliant young graduates who served as teachers found in this rural town a select circle of accomplished and attractive young women and usually carried away a wife, or left their hearts behind them.”

Teachers in this era of New England history were young, unmarried men (as I wrote about in last month’s blog post). Hart could not expect to have her own career, and her education served only to make her into a respectable lady who could marry well. The “advantage” Hart’s aunt was speaking of in the above letter was the opportunity for a prestigious marriage, which she did achieve with her betrothal to Lemuel Pomeroy in 1800, only two years after the letter was written. Hart was 19 at the time of her marriage. By 1801, she had given birth to the first of her eleven surviving children. Hart was either pregnant or nursing for the next twenty years of her life. Despite Hart’s wealth, education and social class, her role was ultimately to bear children, as many as possible. Hart’s Congregationalist background taught that this was women’s life purpose. Plainfield Academy was also a Congregationalist (Puritan-Calvinist) school, founded by members of the church. At that time, it was the only religion in the area. There were no other churches, and religion was not kept separate from education, nor was it separate from the state and town governments at this time.[ii] Most areas of Hart’s life would have been affected by her religion, although the letters in the Lester-Pomeroy collection do not mention religion as much as the Spaulding sisters’ do. It is possible that this family did not have the need to cling to it quite as much due to their wealth providing a less grim life for them.

Wealth and status aside, the lines between the Spaulding sisters and the Lesters start to blur in other areas. The Lester-Pomeroy women may have been wealthy, well-educated socialites who did not worry about having enough to eat or toiling over a burning hearth all day, as the Spaulding women did, but the hardships of childrearing and their limited ability to participate in the public sphere of life isolated them in much the same ways. The reality of childrearing is key to understanding the experience of women from this or any era. Dr. Judith Walzer Leavitt’s essay “Under the Shadow of Maternity”, mentions Mary Vial Holyoke:

“Take, for example, the life of Mary Vial Holyoke, who married into a prominent New England family in 1759. In 1760, after ten months of marriage, she gave birth to her first baby. Two years later, her second was born. In 1765 she was again “brought to bed” of a child. Pregnant immediately again, she bore another child in 1766… during the next twelve years she bore five more children. The first twenty-three years of Mary Vial Holyoke’s married life, the years of her youth and vigor, were spent pregnant or recovering from childbirth. Because only three of her twelve children lived to adulthood, she withstood, also, frequent tragedies… Mary Holyoke had little choice in her frequent pregnancies: her life reveals how the biological capacity of women to bear children historically has translated into life’s destiny for individual women.[iii]”

Mary Holyoke and Hart Lester both belonged to upper class New England families. In my genealogical research of New England, what first struck me was the enormous size of families common in the 1600s through the early 1800s. Family sizes were sometimes upwards of twelve children. A second wife in some circumstances would be brought in shortly after the death of the first and continue the pattern of constant childrearing, picking up where the first wife left off. This created gaps in sibling ages of up to thirty years. By the early 1800s, average family size was about seven surviving children.[iv] Throughout the 1600s this was also the average:

“In the early-17th century, women usually married between ages 20 and 23. (The aged [sic] dropped somewhat in succeeding generations and was younger in some locales than others.) They probably spent up to 20 years bearing children and most of their adult life raising them. There were some large families of 10 to 15 children, but the average family had six or seven. Many children died from disease in infancy or early childhood (only about half of Colonial infants reached adulthood). Most couples lost one or more children.[v]”

The above information does not factor in the instance of the second wife, however. It is referring to the childrearing of individual women. The addition of a second wife would also mean that she would be responsible for the deceased first wife’s children, of which the average was seven, as well as her own. It is also possible that a second wife would be bringing children from a previous marriage to the new family, and statistics don’t always factor this in. A genealogist will notice these patterns. Family size dropped as developments in women’s equality, public health and access to family planning, among other factors, progressed into the twentieth century. As we have seen in last month’s blog post on Mary Howes, the opportunity for college and career offered some women the choice of a different life, one where they had more control over their own destinies. Hart Lester attended a prestigious secondary school academy, but that was the end of her educational options. The expectation was that it would make her more eligible for marriage to a socially and financially prominent man, and as soon as she graduated, marriage and childrearing commenced. Her role as a woman of wife and bearer of children was not very different from the role of the women of the Spaulding family.

What is also similar in the letters of the Lester and Spaulding women is their bond. Like Mary Spaulding’s sister-in-law Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge, Hart’s sister-in-law Damaris Lord Lester fills the role of an actual blood sister, and there is no differentiation in how she is addressed, or what her role is: she is a sister to Hart, called one, and treated as one. Deborah Pomeroy Trowbridge was not only a sister to Mary Spaulding Pomeroy; she was considered part of the family by Nancy, Lydia and Deborah Spaulding, as well. What struck me during the course of transcribing the 144 letters of the Spaulding family was this incredible closeness and bond between the women (written about in my December 14^th, 2011 post The Spaulding Sisters). No important anniversary was left unremembered by the women, and they wrote to each other through the hardest of times, speaking candidly of death and offering mutual support. Damaris and Hart’s relationship was similar. From a September 21, 1800 letter from Damaris Lord Lester to Hart Lester Pomeroy referencing the death of a friend:

“I received yours [letter] My Dear Sister by Mr. Belcher for which I return you many hearty thanks… I hope you will ever feel inclined to pour balm in the bosom of the afflicted the wisest of all the sons of Adam said it is better to go to the house of Mourning than to the house of feasting, and I think I can truly say for one when I have attended those trying scenes have felt and inward satisfaction very different from the sensations of Mirth & jollity lest us, My Dear Sister bear a part in the joys and sorrows of all our friends…”

Damaris was telling Hart about her personal experience with the mourning process in this letter. Another aspect of the Spaulding and Lester-Pomeroy letters is the scarce mention of the men in their lives. The APHGA has many more letters written by the Spauldings, and it is in their letters where I have noticed this more, mostly because of the sheer amount of material. Evidently, it was not unusual for the time period, as written about by Dr. Carol Smith-Rosenberg in her seminal work “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America”:

“Several factors in American society between the mid-eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries may well have permitted women to form a variety of close emotional relationships with other women. American society was characterized in large part by rigid gender-role differentiation within the family and within society as a whole, leading to the emotional segregation of women and men. The roles of daughter and mother shaded imperceptibly and ineluctably into each other, while the biological realities of frequent pregnancies, childbirth, nursing, and menopause bound women together in physical and emotional intimacy.[vi]”

We are very fortunate to have letters written by these families in our archives at the APHGA, and their examination can contribute exponentially to the study of American History; specifically providing insight into the private world of America’s women in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. We cannot look up Hart Lester or Mary Spaulding in a history book; we cannot learn about their lives in the same way we can learn about their husbands’. The experience of genders, however, is critical in aiding our understanding of America’s past.

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[i]  Larned, Ellen D. History of Windham County, Connecticut. Vol. 1-2. Worcester, MA: Author, 1874. Excerpt from Ancestry.com  http://tinyurl.com/bj9dqq5

[ii]  "Town History."Plainfield History.Plainfield Historical Society, 2011.Web. 16 Nov. 2012. .

[iii]  Leavitt, Judith Walzer, and Jane SherronDeHart. "Under the Shadow of Maternity: American Women's Responses to Death and Debility Fears in Nineteenth Century Childbirth." Feminist Studies 12 (1986): 129-54. Rpt. in Women's America: Refocusing the Past. By Linda K. Kerber. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 184-91. Print. 185.

[iv]  "Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Family Planning." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 Dec. 1999. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. .

[v]  Gormley, Myra Vanderpool, CG. "Colonial Love and Marriage."Colonial Love and Marriage.Genealogymagazine.com, 2004.Web. 16 Nov. 2012. .

[vi]  Smith-Rosenberg, Carol. "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America." Signs 1.1 (1975): 1-29. JSTOR.Web. 16 Nov. 2012. 9