This week's prompt in the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" Challenge is "starts with a vowel." I decided to focus on Elizabeth, who gave birth to Alma, who was Adopted and Unmarried when she had my grandfather, Erwin. Unexpectedly, I encountered an Almshouse.
Using DNA matches, I'd found the father of my adopted great-grandmother, which led to a name for her mother: Libby Barker, born about 1856. Applying DNA again, I'd found someone I believed to be the "right" Libby Barker, along with two siblings - John Gue Jr. and Mary Jane -- as well as Libby's father, John Gue Sr. According to the obituary of Libby's youngest sister, Mary Jane, their mother's name was "Hana West."
Unfortunately, I had only a notion of Hannah's age, and a guess she would be in New York somewhere. Without more to go on, the pool of candidates was too amorphous, so I turned again to DNA. This time, however, rather than just grabbing a "mystery" cluster of matches and hoping it would lead somewhere, I Got a Clue, and searched my matches for trees with the surname "West." One particular group jumped out. I hadn't mapped any of them to my other great-grandparents yet AND, according to the family trees they had created, they were all descended from either James Theodore West born in 1838 in New York, or from a man named George West, born in 1829 in England. Conveniently, Theodore's and George's death records both gave their parents' names as John and Elizabeth West; God BLESS the New York Digital Vital Records as well as Reclaim the Records, the group that regularly sues the State of New York to force the release of archives like these!
I built a research tree with these men and their descendants. One of the reasons that Ancestry is a powerful research tool -- as you have likely seen from their commercials -- is the power of their artificial intelligence engines to churn their their voluminous records and suggest "hints" for you to consider. Sometimes, these are right on the money; other times, they are... not. For this family, Ancestry fed me hints that led to the passenger list for the steamship St. Lawrence, which docked in New York on October 9, 1835. It included John West, 49; Eliza West, 29; George West, 5; Joseph West, 1; Eliz West, 7; and Anna West, 5. The parents' names were right, the age worked for George, Theodore hadn't yet been born. "Anna" could easily be "Hannah."
Ancestry hints also led to a record in "England Selected Births and Christenings," showing that John and Elizabeth West, living at Clarence Place in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London, had four children -- Elizabeth, George, Susannah (!) and Joseph -- baptized at St. Matthew's parish in Bethnal Green, all on the same day: 27 Mar 1835.
From there, however, the "expected" hints for census records, city directories and vital records were conspicuously absent, and purposeful searches didn't turn anything up, either. Instead, the AI engine was prioritizing records showing similar names in the database of the relatively obscure New York Almshouse records.
I figured that was a crazy coincidence.
I was wrong.
In case you're not familiar with the term, "alms" are "food, goods or money that are given to the poor as an act of charity." Those unable to purchase food or shelter were committed to what was variously called a "workhouse," "poorhouse," "debtor's prison" or "almshouse." Those of you who have read Dickens are especially familiar with the atrocities suffered in such institutions. In New York City, the churches were expected to care for the poor and indigent up until 1736, when city leaders realized two things: the number of penniless immigrants fleeing oppression and famine was outpacing the churches' ability to help them, and communicable diseases, especially cholera, diphtheria and smallpox, were regularly decimating the filthy, densely-populated city. Deciding that they needed a place to sequester the poor and the diseased (populations they didn't really differentiate), they built a Poorhouse on a Commons area that is now City Hall Park. It had a single room containing six beds and was quickly outgrown.
In 1797, the city moved the almshouse functions to the first hospital in New York, named "Bellevue" after the estate on whose land the facility was built. Still in operation today, Bellevue Hospital has been the site of much good as well as much evil; thousands and thousands of medical professionals have trained there, but some of the experimental procedures and policies were truly horrific. Anybody that the city didn't know what to do with -- the homeless, the disabled, the chronically ill, the "insane," the aged, the unemployed -- were sent to Bellevue. City leaders' intentions were good: to provide these people with sustenance, shelter, medicine and care, along with training for employment that would allow them to return to society. However, as is almost always the case, administrators were appointed through political favor rather than because they had any particular zeal for social reform, and then were given insufficient funding and guidance.
On 14 September, 1836, the ledgers at Bellevue show the admission of John West, 50, born in England, a seaman, "lame," for destitution. Also admitted were Elizabeth West, 30 and pregnant; George West, 6; and Hannah West, 4 years and 6 months. There is no mention of the eldest daughter, Mary Elizabeth, who would have been 8, or Joseph, who would have been 2. The family was released from Bellevue after two months, on November 16.
John West was a frequent guest at the Almshouse over the next fifteen years, sometimes for a few days, but usually for five to six months at a time. During this period, the almshouse was moved from the hospital to Blackwell's Island, where the city's social services -- workhouse, almshouse, penitentiary, and insane asylum -- were centralized. You may recall Blackwell's Island as the site of reporter Nellie Bly's 1887 expose, 10 Days in a Madhouse. Stacy Horn has written a modern account whose title also captures the conditions: "Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad and Criminal in 19th Century New York."
John West was referred to the almshouse by a doctor for "sickness" on some occasions; other times, he was committed by an official for destitution. On December 25, 1849, he was noted as having "eloped" (i.e. "run away in secret") Maybe he wished to see his family for the holiday? He was admitted again on the 27th and remained until June of 1850. On one occasion, he was taken up for being unable to produce his peddler's license for a policeman, but he was released so must have had one. Records of the licenses still exist and I don't find one for him, however. They were incredibly expensive (I think!), $10 -- plus a $2 processing fee, no joke! -- for a six month license for a peddler "on foot," i.e. no horse or cart or wagon.
The 1850 census includes a household comprised of John West, 68; Elizh West, 45; Mary West, 22; Geo West, 20; Hannah West, 18; Theodore West, 13; and Charles West, 7. So, although Mary Elizabeth hadn't entered the almshouse with the rest back in 1836, she had survived; perhaps she had already gone into "service" or was working in a factory. Joseph is not found again after the baptism and the voyage to America; presumably, he perished sometime during the family's first year in New York. I have to wonder whether his death was the crisis that brought them to the almshouse that first time. And, if Charles was born about 1843, then the child Elizabeth was carrying in 1836 must have also died.
I don't find mention of John, Mary Elizabeth or Charles after this 1950 census record, and expect that John died soon after this. The other two may have, as well. I also don't find Elizabeth, Sr., although there is an almshouse index record that gives only "Oct 20" for a date, no year, and indicates Elizabeth West was admitted and died. Is it the "right" Elizabeth West? My money is on "yes," but I just don't know for sure.
And that's how I discovered that my 4x great-grandfather was an indigent peddler on the streets of New York, who ended up with his family, including my 5-year-old 3x great grandmother, in one of the most notorious poorhouses in the world. While my family has certainly never been wealthy, the members I knew would at least describe themselves as "self-supporting." It's heartbreaking to think of a lame father and pregnant mother of four, newly-arrived in the country, being swept up and hustled off to a place where "overcrowding, disease, malnutrition and crime became rampant" (according to New York City's introduction to the Almshouse Ledgers). It is strangely unsettling to realize that these were my ancestors.
Nonetheless, the West children (or at least those who survived) seemed to do well for themselves, embodying the American Dream. George and Theodore both went into the boiler making business, installing and repairing the systems that provided not just hot water but heat to facilities throughout the city. They bought impressive homes, and married and had large families.
Hannah married John Gue Barker, Sr., a middle-class merchant. I found them with their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and a "new" daughter, Hannah (Jr.) in the 1860 census. There was also a ten-year-old George Barker, "son," which would seem to indicate he was the child of John Gue Sr. and his first wife, although I have not found George after this and wonder whether he, too, died. John Gue Jr. was born in 1862, "on 51st Street in New York City" according to his biography, although his obituary said he was born in Hoboken. And that city name -- Hoboken -- was the clue I needed to find John Gue Sr. in the city directories in that New Jersey city for 1867 and 1868. There's also a birth record for Mary Jane Barker, who was actually born on 26 April, 1866, rather than almost a year later as her obituary and gravestone both state. Instead, that particular day, March 26, 1867, was the date of Hannah West Barker's death of "cerebritis," or brain inflammation. She had survived the voyage across the ocean to a new country, a stretch in the disease-ridden almshouse, and the birth of at least four children, but died at the age of 36, leaving her husband a widower and single father for the second time. In the 1870 census, the Barker children -- Libby, Hannah, John and Mary Jane -- are living in the household of Hannah's brother, Theodore West.
I was able to track down several other "Barker" and "West" descendants, sending them a "snail mail" account of what I'd learned in case they were interested. We've struck up a correspondence, and one of Mary Jane's descendants was able to supply me with this picture of Hannah, for which I am so grateful.
Libby was ten when her mother died. Had Hannah shared any memories she had of living in the almshouse as a child? Did that affect Libby's decision to give her own daughter up for adoption, or her determination to re-invent herself, her brother and her sister as prosperous members of Society on the west coast? Was that how and why she met her husband, the prominent "social activist"? I hope I can tease out at least a few answers, but it sure 'feels' as though that may have been how it all happened.
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