HENDEE FAMILY

Family legend has it that Samuel Charles Hendee was born on May 10, about 1833 at Hendee Hall in France to Charles Hendee. This simply is not true. His father's name was Charles Jefferson Hendee and his mother is still unknown. It is probably true that an ancestor long ago was born in Hendee Hall, but it was not our Samuel. Samuel was most likely born in CT or Boston, MA where his father had settled. Charles remarried to Adeline Davis a native of Roxbury, Massachusetts and they lived and raised their children there.

Our Samuel married Mary Eliza Matthews who was born May 9, 1829 in Ohio. I believe Mary came from a substantial family back east. It is said that Samuel died in 1868 in Massachusetts. He was 34 years old and his death was the result of a fall from scaffolding while painting a house. However, other evidence suggests that he died in Ohio. I believe it very well may have been Ohio as that as where the family migrated from after his death. He was a carpenter by trade. They had a large family, the youngest being only two years old when her father died. Mary Eliza Matthews Hendee had been taught to sew, embroider and play the melodeon but not really to work, so that her husband and her daughters did most of the work and waited on her hand and foot. (she was a close cousin to the J.P. Morgan family) When her husband died, she was hard put to care for a family of 11 children. She immediately contacted her cousin, a doctor named Lawlor Carlton and he arranged for them to travel by covered wagon to his land in Marshalltown, Iowa. Emma remembered receiving boxes of clothing at Christmas and gifts. One gift she received was a red glass ring which was too large for her finger and she dropped it through a crack in the floor. As I study this family I find more and more inconsistencies. For instance, there are children born after 1868 and in Illinois!

At some point, the family moved on to Tama, IA. It was here that her brothers played the banjo and sang, hunted and fished. They had a tame crow that stole everything out of her mother's sewing basket; her thimble or anything bright such as buttons, etc. They lived on the side of Tama so that when they were going to Sunday School at the Baptist Church they would meet the Indians from the reservation. One in particular "Indian John" frightened them so that Emma and Mary would hide in a large culvert until he went by.

In Ohio, they caught crawfish and clams in the creek in Ohio and cooked them. At night they hunted coon and possum with their hound dogs, Sage and Smoke. Emma's sister "Min" (Viola Gwenanne) married very young and lived in St. Louis. Emma went to live with her the summer she was eleven and said it was the hottest place in the world.

Mary let her two daughters, Adeline and Mary Frances go to live with other people and Emma went to live part-time with a woman who lived in a sod shanty . The woman's husband was away most of the time working where they were putting through the railroad. In this sod shanty built in the side of the hill there was one room and one bed. These people only owned one cow and one morning the woman had been out milking and Emma wasn't up yet and when she came in she told Emma to put the quilt over her head and keep still and the lady took a shotgun and shot a blacksnake off of a rafter and it fell directly on the bed and Emma! She remembered that at night the water in the water bucket would freeze.

For Easter there was never any thought about dressing up. They wore what they had. They tried to have chicken or eggs and flowers of some kind if they could, but they basically just went to church in the morning and after dinner to Sunday School and again to church in the evening. The same on Thanksgiving.

Emma remembered that they used to wear petticoats made of two layers of materials of cotton in between and quilted. Thinner down to the hips and then two or maybe 3 layers down to their ankles. No one care about their size in those days. They also used to wear panties down below their knees. It would look funny to see a woman with panties that long now, wouldn't it? Emma remembered her first pair of underwear that her sister Adi made out of cotton flannel and shaped to fit her body. She wore her panties over it and her shoes came way up above her ankles. When she was 14 her dresses came to her shoe tops and when 18 her dress touched the floor. It looked terrible if a woman's dress was short enough to show any of her shoes.

Emma spoke of a Mrs. Wheeler who used to spin and weave all of the material for her family's clothes. (I don't know if this was the woman that she went to live with. Click here if you would like a brief history of how Emma's memories of her life with the Wheelers.

Mary Eliza Matthews died after Emma was married, so after 1881. She was buried at Ottawa, IL.

As you will see below, Mary used family names as middle names for many of her children. When a record of Mary can be found, these will make excellent clues to her background. However, it should be noted that this practice was common in the Hendee family anyway.

Samuel and Mary had the following children and possibly more:

Viola Gwenanne Hendee ("Min") married young and lived in St. Louis. A Minnie Hendee m: Rodman P. Jerome in Monroe, IL on 1/22/1873. The 1880 Federal Census for Illinois shows her and her family in Chenoa, McLean, IL:

Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace
Rodman JEROME Self M Male W 29 NY Painter --- ---
Minnie JEROME Wife M Female W 27 OH Keeping House CAN OH
Franklin JEROME Son S Male W 6 IL NY OH
Maud JEROME Dau S Female W 4 IA NY OH

Interestingly, Minnie is showing as being born in OH, which would be correct but it shows her father as being born in Canada.

Charles Omar Dunham Hendee

Alma Elizabeth Hendee was married to Walter Southgate, May 13, 1875 in Douglas, Nebraska. She divorced Walter and married a Turner later on. Contact: Mary Fobian

Belle Adeline Hendee

Samuel Warner Merton Hendee born May 10, 1824

Edward Hendee

John Edgar Benson Hendee

Jennie Dunham Hendee

Emily Morgan Hendee born October 11, 1863 in Mechanicsburg, OH died February 12, 1942 Prophetstown, Whiteside County, IL, married Benjamin Glass. Click here for obituary.

*Mary Francis Hendee born February 9, 1866 died July 21, 1951 married Gallagher..

Additional children according to 1880 Illinois Census:

Virginia Hendee b: abt 1867 in Fulton County, IL m: 10/13/1885 in Mason, IL to Simeon Saulsburry age 23. She was age 18.

Alice May Hendee b: abt 1870 m: 1/19/1888 in Champaign, IL to George Franke Strode.

Alma Elizabeth Hendee

Alma Hendee

Alma Photographs courtesy of Mary Fobian

Recently discovered in the 1880 United States Census, Census Place- Isabel, Fulton, Illinois:

Household:

Our Mary E. Hendee was supposedly born in 1829. That doesn't mean that the above census is necessarily correct. However, one wonders if she wasn't a second wife. Census records are notorious for being inaccurate. This woman is a widow, she is in Illinois, she was born in Ohio and we know for sure that she had a son, John who would have been about that age. Our Samuel Hendee supposedly died about 1868 in Massachusetts. If this were not true, if he died around 1869 the youngest child could indeed be his. Also, we don't know for sure when or where Samuel actually died.

Also, in the 1880 Wisconsin Census for Lanark, Portage, Wisconsin we find Mary F. Hendee living on the Leonard farm:

Household:

Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace
Patrick LEONARD Self M Male W 45 IRE Farmer IRE IRE
Mary A. LEONARD Wife M Female W 31 MA Keeps House IRE IRE
George J. LEONARD Son S Male W 10 IA School IRE MA
Leucy E. LEONARD Dau S Female W 7 IA School IRE MA
Francis B. LEONARD Son S Male W 5 WI IRE MA
John LEONARD Son S Male W 1 WI IRE MA
Mary F. HENDEE Dau S Female W 14 OH NOT KNOWN NOT KNOWN

Additional information from a Hendee descendant:

Now that I think of it, it's possible that two different Olive Gallaghers are being confused. As far as I know, Olive Mae Gallagher lived in Beloit, Wisconsin before being married to Charles Edwin Hendee. Also, if you follow up on the Pittsford, Vermont Hendees, you'll notice that Caleb, Sr. is referred to as Deacon Caleb Hendee. He was one of the founders of a Baptist church in Pittsford. He also has an interesting connection to the Revolutionary War, because a fort was built on his property during the war to defend against the British and their Indian allies. His son Caleb became a General in the Vermont Militia, and is often referred to as General Caleb Hendee. The History of Pittsford volume contains some interesting anecdotes about these and other Hendees.

Please let me know if you're interested in further information. I live in Wheaton, Illinois and have done some research in Beloit and in Newark, the township just west of Beloit where several of the Pittsford Hendees had settled by 1850.

Randal Hendee

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