My second great-grandmother, Esther Abigail Whitman, arrived in Boston from Guysborough, Nova Scotia, in 1849. She was in New York City by 1853 when she married James Pyle (also of Guysborough). Her parents and almost all of her siblings followed in 1857.
One Whitman brother remained in Canada.
George William Whitman (more often referred to as William or William George Whitman) was born in Manchester, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, on November 22, 1833, to Thomas Cutler Whitman and Diana Morgan, as their third child and oldest son.
At age 26, he married Esther French of Kent County, Ontario, Canada, on March 6, 1860.
By 1857, it would have taken about a day and a half to travel by train from Kent, Ontario (not too far from Detroit, Michigan) to New York City. The red circle in the map below indicates approximately where Kent County (now Chatham-Kent), Ontario, is located.
It appears that the newly-married couple traveled to his father's household in Jamaica,
Queens, New York, by July 1860 which is when the Thomas C. Whitman family was enumerated in the
1860 federal census. Perhaps he wanted to introduce his new wife to his family.
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| How long it took to travel from New York City to various locations in the United States; from the Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States |
Thomas C. Whitman, a farmer, is head of this 1860 household.
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| 1860 U.S. Census, Queens, New York, population schedule, Jamaica, pages 925 (lines 31-40) & 926 (lines 1-3), dwelling 873, household 964, Thomas C. Whitman household. |
Note that relationships are not explicitly stated, but my research strongly suggests the following relationships: Thomas is followed by his wife, Diana and children Judson, Ira, Harriet,
Charles, and Gordon. William Whitman (age 26) follows with his wife
Esther (age 23). The tic marks in
the third-to-last column indicate that they "were married within the
past year." (The fact that both are listed as born in Nova Scotia is not
accurate; this Esther was born in Ontario.) Since William is not listed with an occupation suggests to me that he was not a permanent resident.
Next is William Bruce, a son-in-law, and on the
following census page are William Bruce's wife and Thomas's daughter, Maria (Whitman) Bruce,
and their two children Caroline and James.
William Whitman and his wife moved back to Kent, Ontario, by early 1861 (probably by the end of the summer of 1860 if they were just visiting), when their oldest child was born.
He fathered seven children and spent the rest of his life living and working as a farmer in Howard Township, Kent County, Ontario, dying on November 3, 1900. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Ridgetown, Chatham-Kent Municipality, Ontario, Canada with his wife and some of his children.
All of his children married and I am still exploring the details of this family. I'm sure I have some fourth cousins among the descendants of William George (or George William) Whitman.
James Thomas Whitman (1861-1943) married Minnie T. Floeter (1860-1926)
John William Whitman (1863-1898) married Emily Ada Willey (1867-1944)
Edward Morgan Whitman (1866-1942) married Ada Susanna Rosebrugh (1868-1937)
Charles Rufus Whitman (1871-1932) married Anna Marie Freeman (1869-1960)
Mary Ann Whitman (1873-1960) married Thomas McGill (1883-1966)
George Albert Whitman (1878-1905) married Ida Jane McBrayne (1885-1967)
Harriet Esther Whitman (1883-1954) married George Henry Johnson (1884-1958)
These were first cousins of my great-grandfather, James Tolman Pyle (1855-1912), who was only five years old when this Canadian uncle visited New York.
J.T. Pyle lived his entire life in New York and New Jersey and I'm guessing that he lost contact with these Canadian cousins.
I descend from William's parents as follows.
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This week's theme is Lost Contact.
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