French Connections

(A full and unabashed disclosure upfront, any connection that I have to Abolitionist John Brown and U.S. Presidents U.S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes are distant. For example, John Brown is a 3rd cousin/5 times removed. Third cousins share a second great-grandparent as their most recent common ancestor. “Removed” is used when two persons share a set of ancestors but are not the same number of generations (in my case 5 generations “removed”) in descent from those ancestors.

On March 20, 1630, a ship called the “Mary and John” sailed from Plymouth, England, carrying 140 persons bound for New England in the American colonies. On May 30, 1630 they landed at Nantasket, Massachusetts. Among these passengers were Matthew Grant, Michael Humphrey and Bygod Eggleston. (Bygod is my 9th great paternal grandfather) The Grant, Humphrey and Eggleston families briefly lived in Dorchester, Massachusetts and in 1635 relocated to establish Connecticut’s first English settlement, the town of Windsor. Michael Humphrey was a pitch-and-tar manufacturer who received land title in 1647, the same year he married Matthew Grant’s daughter Priscilla.  Matthew Grant was the land surveyor for Windsor and served as the towns second Town Clerk. (Matthew Grant Diary)

President Ulysses S. Grant was the 4th great-grandson of Matthew Grant (1601-1681) and Priscilla Grey (1601-1644). Grant was a U.S. military leader and the eighteenth President of the United States. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. In 1839, he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The congressman who appointed Grant submitted his name as Ulysses Simpson Grant rather than Hiram Ulysses Grant. It was because of this mistake that Grant changed his name.

In the years before the Civil War, Grant lived much of the time in St. Louis, Missouri, working as a real estate agent and as a farmer. He failed in both of these businesses. After the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Grant volunteered for military duty. He first served as colonel of the Twenty-First Illinois Infantry but soon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general due to his previous military experience. In February 1862, Grant led a Union force that captured Forts Henry and Donelson. He earned the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant” for demanding the unconditional surrender of the Confederate soldiers inside of these fortifications. In March 1864, President Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general and named him supreme commander of all Union forces. Grant focused his attention on General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. By early June 1864, Grant had surrounded Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Petersburg, Virginia, and a ten month siege ensued. The Northerners finally drove the Confederates from Petersburg in early April 1865, and The Army of Northern Virginia surrendered on April 9, 1865.

Grant served as President of the United States from 1869 to 1877. Grant worked to advance the South’s Reconstruction and supported the enactment of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, which stipulates that “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged . . . on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Source for Grant Material (edited): Ohio History Central

Hiram Ulysses GRANT is my 5th cousin -1 time removed of wife of 3rd great-grandfather.  Our common ancestors are Matthew GRANT and Priscilla GREY.

President
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio on October 4, 1822.   Hayes was educated at Kenyon College and
Harvard Law School. After five years of law practice in Lower Sandusky, he
moved to Cincinnati, where he flourished as a young Whig lawyer.

He fought in the Civil War, rose to the rank of brevet major general, had four horses were shot from under him, and he was wounded five times.  In 1864, Hayes was elected to Congress, from the Second Ohio District.  He was not present during the campaign, and after his election had to resign his commission in the army.   In 1867, Gen. Hayes was elected Governor of Ohio.  He was elected Governor for the third term in 1875 Beneficiary of the most fiercely disputed election in American history, Rutherford B. Hayes brought to the Presidency dignity, honesty, and moderate reform.  He was elected in 1876 and inaugurated on Monday, March 5, 1877. To the delight of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Lucy Webb Hayes carried out her husband’s orders to banish wines and liquors from the White House. Hayes had announced in advance that he would serve only one term, and retired to Spiegel Grove, his home in Fremont, Ohio, in 1881. He died in 1893.

Rutherford B. HAYES is my 3rd cousin 1 time removed.  Our common ancestors are George HAYES and Abigail DIBBLE.

“The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but, with blood.”  John Brown, 2 December 1859

John Brown, son of Owen Brown was born in West Torrington, Litchfield County, Connecticut on May 9, 1800 and died December 2, 1859 in Charles Town, Virginia (West Virginia).  On August 30, 1856 he led his men to battle slaveholders in Osawatomie, Kansas. On October 16, 1859 with his sons and other men he seized the U. S. Armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. He was hanged on December 2, 1859 in Charleston, Virginia, the only man ever executed for treason against an American state. This famous abolitionist is celebrated in the song, “John Brown’s body lies a-molderin’ in the grave, but his truth goes marching on.” Three years after John Brown’s martyrdom, Abraham Lincoln emancipated America’s slaves.

John BROWN is my 3rd cousin – 5 times removed.  Our common ancestors are Jonathan HUMPHREY and Mercy RUGGLES.