Archive:The Connecticut Nutmegger, Volume 46

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Jane N. Ryan, "Last Words: The Stories Behind Probate Records and the Will of Charles Henry Wood of Meriden", The Connecticut Nutmegger vol. 46, no. 4 (Mar 2014):250-266.

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Wills and probate records are not only rich sources of genealogical information, but they are also windows into the human side of what might otherwise be dry data. An interesting will can lead you down unexpected paths. Whether or not the individuals you meet are directly related to your genealogical interests, their stories provide background and flavor to the period you are researching.

What follows is not intended to be and extended genealogy of one family, but rather a snapshot of the people and circumstances surrounding one rather curious will. In this case, the will of a Meriden bank teller led from a family that lived in Bermuda and Maryland to a home for indigent boys in Connecticut and then to the upper echelons of business and finance.

Charles H. Wood of Meriden, New Haven County, Connecticut, signed his will on 19 March 1906. In it he bequeathed to his "beloved wife, Honora C. Wood," the use of one third of all his property, real and personal, for her use during her life. The rest of his estate he left to Burtrand [Bertrand] A. Page of Hartford, to hold in trust for his son Edwin P. Wood. He gave instructions that Page ws to use the interest and as much of the principal as necessary for the support and education of Edwin, and whatever remained was to be turned over to Edwin when he reached the age of 21. However, should Edwin die before that age, the property in its entirety was to be given to his wife.

What follows caught my interest:

In justice to my wife, whom I call beloved because she is so, than whom no husband ever had a better wife nor child a mother, I desire to say to those who will make it their concern, that the strict statuary share of my estate herein give to my wife and the like selection of my friend Burtrand A. Page to be the trustee of my boy's inheritance are prompted by the desire to safeguard my boy's interests from the danger to which they would be exposed if my wife were in absolute control of them. Not that I think my wife loves our boy less than I do, but her unscrupulous aunt Rose W. Smead seems to exercise over my wife an influence which nobody can explain, under which my wife is ready to turn over to her aunt all that she possesses under a mistaken notion that all that she may ever get belongs to her aunt of right for services for which

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in fact my wife has too dearly paid already. To remove my boy's inheritance beyond the reach of Mrs. Smead's conscienceless influence -- to save my wife from her own misfortune -- I have done what a discriminating world will justify. Lastly in addition to appointing Burtrand A. Page my trustee as in paragraph third, I do hereby appoint the said Burtrand A. Page to the the executor of this, my last will and testament.^[1]

The will of Charles H. Wood was accepted into probate on 23 June 1913. The inventory of his estate came to $5,216.02, not a huge fortune, but certainly enough to give a young lad a good start.^[2]

I was especially intrigued by this rather outspoken will because I had run across the family of Bertrand Page while researching my own family.

CHARLES H. WOOD

Charles Henry Wood was born in Meriden on 9 Jul 1871, the son of Henry B. Wood and Alice E. Pomeroy.^[3] Henry Wood and Alice Pomeroy had been married just the year before, on 6 September 1870.^[4] In 1880 they lived in Meriden: Henry Wood, 36, Britannia worker, wife Allex [Alice], 30, son Charles 9, and son Nelson, 4. All were born in Connecticut.^[5]

On 2 August 1899, Charles H. Wood married Miss Nora [Honora] Catherine Whitney in an evening ceremony held at the Watkinson Juvenile Asylum and Farm School in Hartford.^[6] Nora was the niece of Edwin B. Smead, the first principal of the school.^[7] The school hall was decorated with goldenrod and hosted a party for some fifty guests. The newlyweds then spent two weeks honeymooning in the Adirondacks.

After their return to Meriden they set up housekeeping at 104 Wilcox Avenue. The 1900 census shows Chas. H. Wood, 28, and Honorah, 27, married nine months, no children. Living with there were Charles's parents, Henry B., 56, and Alice, 50, and his brother Nathan, 23. Charles was a bank teller, and evidently he was sufficiently well paid that they could afford a servant, Jennie Anderson, 26, born in Sweden.^[8]

The elder Woods soon moved to another location, living first at 37 Elm Street in 1901 and five years later at 60 Crown Street. Nelson moved to Brooklyn, New York, in about 1904. Charles H. Wood, teller at the Home National Bank, remained on Wilcox Avenue.^[9] By 1910, Henry B. and Alice C. Wood, 66 and 60, still lived at 60 Crown Street, while Charles and Nora with their son Edward [sic], 9, and two servants lived at 55 Wilcox Avenue.^[10]

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Charles H. Wood died in 1913, not yet 42 year old.^[11] His mother, Alice (Pomeroy) Wood, died the following year,^[12] and his father, Henry B. Wood, died on 28 August 1929 at age 85.^[13] All three were buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery, Section F, in Meriden.^[14]

HONORA C. WHITNEY, BELOVED WIFE OF CHARLES H. WOOD

Honora Catherine Whitney, daughter of George Orrett and Mary Jane (Jones) Whitney, was born in Bermuda on 20 October 1872.^[15] Honoroa, or Nora, as she was then called, immigrated in 1878, arriving with her family in New York on 12 August 1878.^[16]

In 1880 she lived with Rose and Edwin B. Smead in Baltimore, Maryland. With them were her sisters, Cecile, then 5, and Nelly, 10, as well as a young man identified as D. W. Smead, 19. All four young people were listed as the son and daughters of Edwin Smead and all were given his last name; all were born in Bermuda except Edwin, who was born in Massachusetts, and Nelly,. According to the census, Nelly was born in Maryland, as was her mother. The father of the three girls as well as the parents of D. W. were born in Bermuda, not Massachusetts. With the Smeads lived Edwin's brother-in-law F. A. R. Whitney, and several teenaged cousins named Cooper, all born in Bermuda.^[17]

Although identified as the daughters of Edwin Smead, Honora and her sisters Cecile and Nelly were actually his nieces. These relationships are outlined in family obituaries and wedding notices.^[18] The relationship of Nora's father, George Orrett Whitney, within the Whitney family has been unclear.^[19] However, these same newspapers indicate his likely position in the family.

George and Mary Whitney are listed in the 1870 census for Snow Hill, Maryland, at which time he was 32 years old; this gives 1838 as his calculated year of birth.^[20] Newspaper articles identify his daughters as the nieces of Edwin and Rosa Smead, suggesting that George Whitney and Rosa Smead, wife of Edwin, were siblings, though the Whitney family genealogy does not identify them as such.^[21]

Rosa (Whitney) Smead was the daughter of David and Ann Whitney of Bermuda.^[22] The Whitney Research Group and birth notices from Bermuda newspapers show that a son was born to David Whitney on 7 June 1837,^[23] which means that Rosa was a sister to that son. While the name of the son born in 1837 is not given in the birth notice, the date of this birth certainly fits that calculated for George Orrett Whitney.

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Honora's mother, Mary Jane Whitney, the wife of George O. Whitney, died in Baltimore on 22 September 1880.^[24]

Honora's aunt and uncle, Rose and Edwin B. Smead, moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in the early 1880s. They joined the First Church of Christ in Hartford in December of 894, also appearing in the city directory for that year.^[25] Honora soon followed, joining the same church in June of 1886.^[26] By 1895, she was a teacher at the Watkinson Farm School.^[27] She met Charles H. Wood of Meriden, as mentioned above, they married in 1899.

After her husband died in 1913, Honora moved from Meriden to Hartford.^[28] There she lived with her son Edwin P. Wood and worked as a substitute teacher.^[29] She continued to live in Hartford until 1925.^[30] She does not appear in the listing for 1927 or 1928 city directories, but she reappeared in both the 1930 census and the Hartford City Directory for that year: Honora W. Wood, 57, widowed, born in Bermuda, lived at 943 Asylum Avenue.^[31] She soon left for Cleveland, Ohio;^[32] by 1935 she had moved to Philadelphia.^[33]

Society news for Meriden reported that Mrs. Charles H. Wood, then of East Orange, New Jersey, and formerly a resident of Meriden, visited Mr. and Mrs. Harry F. Boyle at Allen Hill Farm in 1938.^[34] The 1940 census shows her still living in East Orange, where she was guest at the Hotel Edgemere.^[35] Her frequent moves during these later years correspond to moves her son Edwin Wood made (see below).

Honora (Whitney) Wood, wife of Charles H. Wood, died in East Orange, in early June of 1951. She is buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery, Meriden.^[36]

EDWIN P. WOOD, SON OF CHARLES AND HONORA

Edwin Pomeroy Wood was born in Hartford on 9 October 1900.^[37] He is listed in the 1910 census, living with his parents in Meriden.^[38] He attended Hotchkiss Preparatory School in Lakeville, Connecticut.^[39] In 1917, he started working for Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford.^[40] He continued to live in Hartford with his widowed mother Honora until 1924,^[41] but by 1925 he no longer appears in the Hartford Directory. Only Honora is listed.^[42]

According to an article in the Meriden Record,^[43] Edwin attended Cashiers Training School in 1924, completed a four-week course in life, accident, and group insurance in 1927 and was assigned to the Travelers branch office in Erie, Pennsylvania. The article continues to say that he became a cashier in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, office and then was transferred to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1927, where he is listed in the 1928 city directory (E. P. Wood, salesman for

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Travelers Insurance Company) and in the 1930 census.^[44] By 1935 he had moved to Philadelphia and was working for the company as a field assistant.^[45]

Edwin visited Bermuda in 1922 and again in 1935, no doubt to see his mother's relatives, though Honora herself does not appear to have gone with him.^[46] He married late in life, still being single at age 34 when he traveled to Bermuda in 1935. Five years later he had a wife and child. The 1940 census for East Orange, New Jersey, lists the family of Edwin P. Wood, 39, born in Connecticut; his wife Evelyn, 29, born in Massachusetts; and their daughter Barbara,3, born in New Jersey. He was an assistant cashier in the insurance industry and earned $3,000 in 1939 and had income other than his salary.^[47]

Edwin P. Wood, assistant cashier, and his wife Evelyn B., are listed in the Newark, New Jersey, city directory for 1938 and 1942, living in East Orange.^[48]

Edwin Pomeroy Wood died 1 April 1963.^[49] He is buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery in Meriden, Connecticut.^[50]

EDWIN B. SMEAD

Edwin Billings Smead was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on 19 January 1849, the son of Jonathan Smead and Lucy Adams.^[51] He attended Massachusetts Agricultural College (now University of Massachusett Amherst) and was a member of the first graduating class in 1871.^[52]

He moved to Baltimore, Maryland,^[53] where he was an officer of the House of Refuge and later worked in the coal and grain businesses.^[54] He lived there for fourteen years. In 1874, he married his first wife, Annie Elizabeth Whitney.^[55] Annie, the daughter of David and Ann (Wood) Whitney, was born on 20 December 1838 in Bermuda.^[56] She died on 25 January 1877, age 36, and is buried with her baby, Edwin Jr., in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.^[57] On 30 October 1879 he married Annie's sister Rose, or Roselvina, Whitney. They had one child, Edwin 2nd, who was born and died on 5 November 1880.^[58]

Although Edwin had no surviving children, he managed to acquire an extended family by his marriages to the Whitney sisters. His children, according to the 1880 census, included a son, D. W. Smead, 19, and three daughter, Nelly Smead, 10; Nora Smead, 8; and Cecile Smead, 5. All of these children were born in Bermuda except Nelly, who was born in Maryland. That they were note Edwin's biological children is shown by their ancestry: each child is reported to have a father born in Bermuda, while Edwin was born in Massachusetts.^[59] Also living with Edwin and Rose were three cousins surnamed Cooper, ages 12, 14, and 16,

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and his brother-in-law F. A. R. [Frederick Adolphus Ress^[60]] Whitney, 29. All were born in Bermuda.

Edwin and Rose moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in the early 1880s.^[61]] In May of 1884, Edwin assumed duties as the first principal of the Watkinson Farm School, where he served for nearly thirty-two years. He wrote a twenty-page book about the Watkinson Farm School titled Twenty-Five Years With The Boys, published in 1909.^[62]] The school buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places on 23 March 1995.^[63]]

Edwin wrote of his life at the school with Rose,

They unitedly cherished the four hundred homeless boys, who came at varying intervals to the Watkinson Farm School, of Hartford, Connecticut, being their family, and parental head, having been its principal from the inception of the school, in May, 1884, to his honorary retirement, Feb. 1917.^[64]]

Following the death of his wife in 1915, Edwin moved back to Greenfield, Massachusetts,^[65]] where he lived with his sister, Sarah Smead, in a new home built on the site of his family's homestead.^[66]] There he worked on the genealogy of his family, a book which was published in 1928,^[67]] the year before he died.

Edwin B. Smead died on 10 June 1929.^[68]] His obituaries list two surviving nieces, Mrs. Bertrand A. Page and Mrs. H. W. Wood, both of Hartford; and four nephews, Lewis Smead of Greenfield, Massachusetts; Preston Smead of Rochester, Massachusetts; Herbert Smead of Orange, Massachusetts; and Merrill Smead of New York.^[69]] According to the Spingfield Republican, he was to be buried in the South Cemetery at Greenfield Meadows.^[70]] However, a photograph of his gravestone in the Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, as well as those of his two wives, can be seen at Find-A-Grave.com.^[71]]

ROSA WHITNEY, WIFE OF EDWIN B. SMEAD

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Copyright © 2020, Robert L. Ward and the Whitney Research Group.