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Author: mvelardi
Surnames:
Classification: queries
Message Board URL:
http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.nevada.counties....
Message Board Post:
To: richb888
Your Ann Matilda Summerbell, b. abt 1839, wife of Charles DeForest Burns, was actually the
daughter of Joseph Ferris Summerbell and his wife Mary (maiden name unknown). Joseph was
the son of James and Mary (Ferris) Summerbell, her grandparents. The older Ann Matilda
Summerbell, b. abt 1811, wife of Edward Hitchcock, was her aunt. The place where your AMS
was living in 1850 was a boarding house on Orchard Street in lower Manhattan operated by
her widowed aunt and grandmother.
Your AMS's father, Joseph Ferris Summerbell, was born on March 3, 1813 in Westchester
County NY. After the death of his father James in a mill accident (November 22, 1821), the
8-year old Joseph and his baby brother Benjamin were sent to live with their maternal
grandfather, Joseph Ferris of Peekskill. JFS married Mary (Unknown) about 1835 -- around
the time his mother and siblings relocated to NYC -- and became a merchant in Peekskill.
He is not listed as a head of household in the 1840 census, so I suppose the family were
living with relatives. Like his father James, Joseph died young (age 28) in an accident.
According to his nephew Dr. Martyn Summerbell, on December 10, 1841, on his way home from
New York City, where he had gone to purchase goods, Joseph was drowned while attempting to
swim his horse across the Croton River, whose bridges had been washed away by floods. He
was buried in the Methodist cemetery at Shrub Oak, Westchester County, near his father
James and hi!
s infant son Joseph (see below). The last record I have of his widow Mary, your AMS's
mother, is from Dogget's 1844/45 New York City directory, which lists her residence as
64 3 Av. She is not listed in earlier or later editions.
Your Ann Matilda Summerbell had 3 siblings I know of. I'm guessing they were all born
in or near Peekskill:
-- Joseph Summerbell, b. 20 July 1836; died 16 August 1836 at age 27 days. Buried in the
Methodist cemetery at Shrub Oak.
-- Mary Kate Summerbell, b. 1837/1838; married Edmund R. Bird, a carriage maker, in
Tarrytown, Westchester County on 21 November 1861. Had a daughter Tillie S. Bird, b. abt
1864. They lived in Mt. Pleasant, Westchester NY. No records of Mary Kate after 1870.
Tillie was living with her aunt Eliza (see below) in Brooklyn in 1880.
-- Eliza G. Summerbell, b. 3 March 1841; died 1 September 1922. Married banker Horace F.
Hutchinson in Tarrytown, Westchester County on 12 November 1862. They had children Ella
Kate (b. 1863), Ira Cumming (b. 1865), Mary Gale (b. 1867), Evelyn Schoats (b. 1870) and
Florence Brush (b. 1878). The family lived in Ramapo, Rockland County NY before moving to
Brooklyn.
For the record, Josephine Frost's listing of James and Mary (Ferris) Summerbell's
children in the Blakeney genealogy is in error. Besides Ann Matilda and Joseph Ferris,
there were, in order of birth, Nicholas, Benjamin Ferris and James Joseph. Martyn and
Ferris were of later generations.
I hope this help. I have your AMS's children as Charles, George Renwick, William
Summerbell, Grace and Horace H. Burns. Is that correct?
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