Keziah (Gould) Purdy, 1823-1845

Once upon a time, about 1840,

There was a young girl named Keziah,

Who fell in love with a young man named Daniel.

They got married.

Within a year they had a daughter, Aurelia.

Twenty months later they had another daughter, little Adelaide.

Two years later, Keziah died of consumption.

Daniel and his little daughters moved 

In order to live near relatives that could help them,

Or perhaps because the grief was just too present where they lived.

A little over a year later,

Daniel remarried to a woman named Susan.

They had several children, 

Who they raised along with Aurelia and Adelaide.

Adelaide married in 1859, at age 16 to Wes.

Three days later, her father, stepmother, sister and step-siblings moved overland from upstate New York on to Wisconsin.

After the Civil War, Adelaide and Wes followed them in 1872.

None of them ever returned to New York.

Keziah's name became a memory in a family Bible.

Her birth and death dates recorded but fading.

Daniel died in 1881.

The information he knew about Keziah seemed to have died with him.

Who were her parents, her siblings?

Where was she born?

Where did she die?

And where was she buried?

No one knew the answers anymore.

For years after I started family history research, my family had only the birth and death dates and a name for my 3rd-Great-Grandmother. And the name that was "remembered" was Hezekiah Gould.  The name and dates had supposedly come from an old family Bible, but like so many things once owned and cherished, the Bible was long gone, and no one knew where it had gone to.

The name Hezekiah never felt right to me, historically it has been a man's name but like the dates that we had, I took them as good hints and kept looking. To not confuse the issue, at this point I will say that eventually I was able to prove that her name was Keziah.

According to the information that had been shared with me, Keziah was born 28 Jan 1825 and died on 20 Jun 1845 at age 20. She married Daniel Crane Purdy on 11 March 1841. The locations are not known for where Keziah was born or where she married Daniel.  

Two daughters were born to Keziah and Daniel. Aurelia A. Purdy was born 19 Nov 1841 in Wyoming County, New York. Her sister, Adelaide Fredora Purdy, was born 20 July 1843 in Allegany County, New York, possibly in the Town of Allen. According to family lore, Keziah died of "Consumption", known today as Tuberculosis, just two years later.

While also looking for information on Keziah, I noted that her mother-in-law, Daniel's mother, Abagail (Crane) Purdy died just a few months after Keziah on 1 October 1845 in Allegany County, New York. I found information on alleganyhistory.org that said that Abagail was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery, Town of Hume in Allegany County. I contacted the Town Historian, Rondus Miller, and she was kind enough to send me copies of the Cemetery Sexton's Plot book and another page that listed graves that had been "removed" from other cemeteries to Pine Grove Cemetery.  

It showed on the "Removed" list:

Abigal Wife of James Purdy Jr. Died Oct 1st 1845, Age 53y 

removed on May 13, 1887 and buried in Lot #139.

and to my great excitement:

Keziah wife of Daniel C. Purdy, Died Jun 20 1845, Age 22y

Removed    May 13, 1887 and buried in Lot #139.

 

Pine Grove Cemetery Sexton's Book, p.10

Filmore, Town of Hume, Allegany County, New York

Removals from other cemeteries reburied in Pine Grove Cemetery.

Note:  Click on the photos to look at full size images.

The name or location of the cemetery that Keziah and Abagail were originally buried in is not known. Rondus speculated that they may have been moved from the Mills' Mills Cemetery which had been located near a school, or possibly from a private grave on family property, but no record so far has been found that clarifies this.  Pine Grove Cemetery was established in 1860 and Keziah and Abagail's graves were moved on 13 May 1887.  By 1887, Keziah's husband, Daniel, was deceased.  It is unknown who had the graves moved.

This record from the Sexton's book also documents the marriages of Abagail to James Purdy, Jr., and that of Keziah to Daniel C. Purdy. It lists Keziah's age at death as 22 years old which would indicate she may have born in 1823 instead of 1825. While family lore says that Keziah's maiden name is Gould, no documentation has yet been found to support that.

Keziah and Abagail are buried in Lot #139 in Pine Grove Cemetery with seven other graves. There is no grave marker for Keziah, but there is a grave marker for Abagail. 

Abagail (Crane) Purdy, 1791-1845

Pine Grove Cemetery

Filmore, Town of Hume, Allegany County, New York

Others buried in Lot #139 with Keziah and Abagail are shown in the burial recording section of the Sexton's plot book, below.  Margarette Purdy and Sara A. Purdy (daughter of William Slagel) are relatives of the Purdy family. Other than Abagail Purdy, none of the others have grave markers listed in the current cemetery survey.  

Pine Grove Cemetery Sexton's Book, Lot #139

Filmore, Town of Hume, Allegany County, New York

Abagail Crane was married twice, first to Gideon W. Sowle about 1808. They are shown in the 1810 census in Camillus, Onondaga County, New York. They had two children, the only one who survived to adulthood was Aaron C. Soule. Gideon died in 1813. 

From 1813 - 1823, Rev James D. Purdy Sr, father of James Purdy Jr and grandfather of Daniel Crane Purdy, served the Scipio Circuit of the Methodist Genesee Conference. 

Rev. James D. Purdy Sr., lived in Camillus at the time of the 1820 census and possibly the entire time he was serving the Scipio Circuit from 1813-1823.

Abagail remarried in 1813 to James D. Purdy Jr. in Camillus, Onondaga County and they had six children, one of which was Daniel Crane Purdy.  

James Purdy, Jr. died in 1830 in Elbridge, Onondaga county when Daniel was 9 years old. The only adult male in the family at James Purdy's death was Aaron Soule and it appears that Abagail lived with Aaron and his family from then until her death.  

By 1840 Aaron Soule was living in Warsaw, Genesee County, New York with eight people in his household with ages appropriate to his mother, Abagail, and his half-brothers, Augustus, and Daniel C. Purdy.

It is unconfirmed where Keziah and Daniel were married. The date from the missing bible says they were married 11 Mar 1841 and locations that they lived in indicate strongly that it could have been in Genesee County. 

Their oldest daughter, Aurelia, was born in (then) Wyoming County, New York on 19 Nov 1841. Wyoming County was formed from Genesee County on May 19, 1841. Wyoming and Genesee counties are adjacent to each other with Genesee county to the north, so it is likely that Keziah was living in early Genesee County when Daniel met her, possibly near Warsaw where he was likely living with his mother and older half-brother.

Adelaide was born on 20 Jul 1843 in Allen, Allegany County which was directly south of Wyoming County indicating that Daniel and Keziah had moved between Nov 1841 and early 1843.

Aaron Sowle was living in the Town of Caneadea, Allegany County at the 1850 census, but given that Abagail is buried in the Town of Hume, Allegany County it is likely his family moved there prior to her death on 1 Oct 1845. 

Pine Grove Cemetery in the village of Filmore, Town of Hume, Allegany County is where Keziah and Abagail are buried. It is less than 10 miles from Allen, making it likely that Abagail and Keziah died in 1845 in the immediate area of the adjacent Towns of Caneadea and Hume. 

Nothing more has been found about Keziah. Still to be confirmed is her maiden name, who her parents were, and where she was born.

My line of descent from Keziah, my 3rd-Great-Grandmother:

Keziah (Gould) Purdy, mother of 

Adelaide (Purdy) Kenyon, mother of

Louis Avery Kenyon, father of

Charles Martin Kenyon, father of

Kathleen (Kenyon) Von Fumetti, mother of

Karla (Von Fumetti) Staudt

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.

Adelaide Fredora (Purdy) Kenyon, 1843-1928

The only records found in Adelaide (Purdy) Kenyon’s own name were her death record, obituary and tombstone.  The other information in this biographical image of her life came from researching and compiling data about her husband, children, parents, census records, land records, and pension records in other people’s names.  This documented data was then mixed with social history information appropriate to the time and locations of her life.  Adelaide is my 2nd Great-Grandmother.

Adelaide Fredora Purdy was born July 20, 1843 in the town of Allen, Allegany County, New York, the daughter of Daniel Crane Purdy and his wife, Keziah Gould.  At the time of her birth Adelaide had an 18-month-old sister, Aurilla Purdy.  Her mother, Keziah, was just 16 when she married Daniel who was 20, and she had her children at age 16 and 18.  Though Adelaide was by all appearances a healthy child who thrived and grew, her mother steadily declined in health due to “Consumption”, today known as tuberculosis. 

 

Imagine how Keziah felt, knowing that she was dying and leaving her two young daughters without a mother and her husband as a young widower.  How frustrated she must have felt not to be able to meet the needs of her children, often perhaps not even being able to console them due to her own weakness brought on by the illness.  Keziah died on June 28, 1845 at age 20, leaving behind 3-year-old Aurilla, and not yet two-year-old, Adelaide.

 

Keziah's parents have not been identified and it is unknown if they participated in the childcare of Adelaide and Aurilla after her death, but it is known that Daniel Purdy’s father died when Daniel was nine years old, and his mother died shortly after Keziah and would not have been available to help.  Daniel had brothers and sisters living in nearby Orleans County who may have helped to care for the girls.  No doubt, Daniel had his hands full taking care of his daughters and trying to earn his living in the shipping trade on the Great Lakes.  As many young men of the period did, he remarried just over a year after Keziah’s death to Susan Savage on 10 Sept 1846 in Niagara County, New York.

 

Daniel and Susan continued to live in Niagara County until 1859 when they made plans to move to the State of Wisconsin and homestead.  Just days before her entire family left New York, Adelaide Purdy, who had turned 16 five days earlier, married Charles Wesley Kenyon on July 25^th, 1859.  Their marriage was blessed by Rev. J. Bowan who pastored the local Methodist-Episcopal church.  It had to be heartbreaking to Adelaide to watch her parents and her sister and five young siblings, including a month-old baby brother, drive off in a horse-drawn wagon, never knowing when, or if, she would see them again. 

 

Both the Kenyons and Purdys had family members who were early pastors for the Methodist Church in the United States. Adelaide’s great-grandfather, James Purdy, Sr. was ordained by Bishop Francis Asbury and served as a circuit rider for the Methodist-Episcopal Church in upstate New York from 1798 until his death in 1844.  James and his wife, Sarah (Gereau) Purdy died as the result of injuries received in a run-away horse accident in adjacent Orleans County, NY.  Charles grandfather, Robert Kenyon, and great-uncle, Barber Kenyon, had founded Methodist Churches in Onondaga County, New York in the early 1800’s, and then in 1823 Barber founded another church and preached in Kenyonville, NY just a few miles from where Charles and Adelaide farmed.  The family was obviously strong in their faith and would have relied on it to see them through good and bad times.

 

Charles and Adelaide settled down and farmed land that had been part of the parcel his father, Samuel L. Kenyon, had tamed from a purchase in 1833 from the original Holland Patent.  The family lands bordered Lake Ontario and held a beautiful view in the summer, but were subject to the brutal winds, snow, and cold of upstate New York come winter.  Three years later Adelaide gave birth to their first child, William L. Kenyon who was born on the 18^th of October 1862.  Within weeks, Adelaide received the news that her youngest brother, Daniel Purdy, who was a babe-in-arms when her parents left three years prior, had died in far off Wisconsin.  She must have thanked the Lord that her little William was alive and well in her arms as she grieved for the little brother she had barely known and for a loss she could now fully comprehend. 

 

Charles enlisted in the Civil War on April 2, 1863 to serve with Co. A, 8^th Regiment of the New York Heavy Artillery.  Along with him, most of his brothers and first cousins also enlisted leaving behind young wives, children, and worried families.  Little William was only 6 months old when his father left, and Adelaide surely must have wondered how she would take care of her young son and the family farm they had worked for the past 4 years.  It had to have been a struggle to even get a crop planted, although the community must have pulled together during this time.  For the next 18 months the women and children left behind did their best to survive in a time when their entire country’s future was at stake.  Imagine Adelaide’s horror to receive a letter dated June 1864 stating that her husband had been shot at Cold Harbor and because he was not able to keep up with his Company, he had been left behind.  She was later to find out that he had been taken prisoner by the Confederate Army and was held in Libby Prison.  It is unknown if she knew of her husband’s whereabouts during that year or not, but she likely wondered if he was suffering at the hands of the enemy, or even alive.  Libby Prison was one of the acknowledged worst prisons of the war where many Federal soldiers died due to poor food and care, dysentery, and abuse at the hands of their captors and its horrors were well publicized.  Charles was transferred back into Federal hands early in June of 1865 and mustered out late that month.  Adelaide’s joy must have known no limits when her husband finally made his way home later that summer after being discharged.  Their happiness soon turned to sorrow when little William died that September at age 2 ½ and was laid to rest beside his grandfather, Samuel, his great-grandparents Robert and Amy (Eggleston) Kenyon, and his aunt Huldah (Kenyon) Thomas who had died in childbirth in 1860.

 

More children were born to Adelaide and Charles.  Louis Avery was born May 2, 1866, Daniel Charles on Mar 21, 1868, Cora A. Purdy Kenyon on January 11, 1870, and Edward W. on January 2, 1872.  Life must have been overwhelmingly busy for Adelaide caring for four very young children.  Like other women of that time, she would have been responsible for seeing that the cooking, housework, and laundry were done, and family garden was tended.  Charles and Adelaide decided to move to Wisconsin and join her family who had settled in a valley named after her father, “Purdy Valley” in Monroe County, Wisconsin.  Adelaide’s father, Daniel Purdy, had written to them that he had dedicated a tract of land for them to farm adjacent to her brothers and sisters.  The thought of reuniting with her family would have been wonderful and thrilling.  Adelaide and Charles also had to face the prospect of saying tearful, and probably permanent, good-byes to his family and both of their aunts, uncles, and cousins who they were leaving behind.  It is not hard to imagine the anguish they felt knowing that they might never see those dear faces again and that their young children would likely never hug their grandmother, Julia (Chaffee) Kenyon again in her lifetime.  Probably one of the last stops they made before leaving the area would have been to visit little William’s grave.

 

The trip was without a doubt, arduous and long.  The family probably followed a route across western New York, into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and then north into Wisconsin covering almost 900 miles during the sweltering heat of the summer.  Every earthly possession that they could take would have been packed carefully.  Treasures would have been stowed amongst the food and supplies that would have been needed to see them overland.  When they left in the summer of 1872, Adelaide and Charles traveled with three sons ages 6, 4 and 7 months, and little Cora who at age 2 was a toddler and still in diapers as well as little Eddie.  The children would have been able to do little to help with the move or the overland trip itself and Adelaide must have spent much of her time keeping them fed, clean, and occupied so that Charles could focus on transporting them.  Wisconsin must have seemed like a very distant destination.  It is unknown exactly how long the trip took the family, but two to three months would have been likely.

 

Upon their arrival in Purdy Valley, Adelaide and her family would have been welcomed by every member of the clan that had gone ahead.  Adelaide would also have met for the first time her sister Emmeline who was age 10, and her brother Byron who would have been 7, as both had been born after her parents arrived in Wisconsin.  It is likely that Charles, Adelaide, and the children would have stayed with the various relatives in the Valley while Charles built their new home.  Purdy Valley was fed by a stream known as “Squaw Creek” which flowed westward the length of Purdy Valley and joined the LaCrosse River.  Across the road, or trail, as it was then from the Purdy home[s], a large Winnebago Indian Camp was situated.  The Indians were friendly to this white family.  “Frank Purdy, Adelaide’s younger brother, told of playing stick and ball game and the moccasin game with Indian children.  He also told of dodging in and out among the dancers as they performed a “War Dance” to declare war against an enemy tribe.  Their rabbit stews and barbequed venison were also shared with the white children.”  Adelaide, as a mother with young children, must have kept an ever-watchful eye on her offspring and their interactions with the Winnebagos.

 

Adelaide and Charles farmed in Purdy Valley for nearly four decades.  Charles also acted as a stock buyer and Station manager in nearby Tunnel City as well as postmaster for several years.  Their family grew again in Wisconsin and they welcomed two more daughters.  Aurelia S. “Rena” Kenyon was born January 12, 1880 and “Gertie” was born March 14, 1882.  Grief would once more descend on the Kenyon household as little Gertie died a month later on April 12^th.  Rena also died young, at age 14 in 1894 and is buried alongside her little sister.

 

Adelaide watched her children grow up and marry other children who had grown up in Purdy Valley and other nearby areas in Greenfield and LaGrange Townships.  Her only surviving daughter, Cora Kenyon, married William Heser in 1886 and they settled near Adelaide and Charles.  Their oldest surviving son, Louis Kenyon, married in 1888 to Gertrude Vandervort and they too settled nearby.  Daniel Kenyon married in 1896 to Libby Scott and they settled for a short while in Portage County, Wisconsin before moving on to Montana in 1898.  Edward married in 1899 to Edna Fuller and they settled in Marathon County, Wisconsin. 

 

Adelaide and Charles lived amongst their relatives and friends the rest of their lives.  Adelaide was left a widow when Charles died March 10, 1910 of “La Grippe” or pneumonia as it is known today.  Adelaide’s daughter-in-law, Gertrude died from complications of asthma the following November and Adelaide moved in with her widowed son, Louis, and her grandson, Charles who was ten years old at the time.  Adelaide helped Louis raise Charles and ran their household so that he could farm the family lands.  She lived to see the grandson she had helped raise marry Harriet Shookman on October 6, 1915 and watch their family swell to 7 children.  Many other grandchildren and great-grandchildren were born as well and when Adelaide died April 10, 1928 at age 84, she left behind a heritage that would become part of this family’s story.

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.