One Question Answered

Earlier I wrote about trying to find out what happened with Georgianna Winchell and I wondered if I had found her living with her sister and brother-in-law in Susquehanna County, Pa.  I did!  This past week I did more research and found confirmation.

"Rev. Ira. N. Pardee, D. D., secretary of the University of the Northwest, Sioux City.  Among the public men connected with the promotion of the education and religious prosperity of Sioux City, there are none that are better known than the Rev. Ira N. Pardee, both as a teacher of the divine law and a financier, the latter being shown in his shrewdness as financial agent of the University of the Northwest, which position he took in April, 1890, when the idea of the building of a university at Sioux City was yet in its infancy. 

Mr. Pardee was born in Kingston, Ulster county, N. Y., July 29, 1840, and was the eldest of the three children that were  born to Captain James B. and Loretta (Van Valkenburg) Pardee, the former a native of Hunter, Greene county, N.Y., and the latter a native of Lexington, Greene county, N.Y.  His ancestors are of French extraction.  Ira N. Pardee spent his youth in his native county, attending the Kingston academy.  In his fourteenth year he entered the Amenia seminary to prepare for college, and there remained three years, then entered Wesley university and finished the course under the direction of a private tutor, Erastus Ladd Prentice, under whose instruction he remained two years.  He then taught in the schools of Ulster county, N.Y., one year, then entered the ministry of the M. E. church, for which he prepared by the usual conference  course of theological studies, supplemented with the course pursued in the Concord Biblical institution.

In 1864 he took charge of his first church, and since then his ministerial life has been uneventful, filling pulpits in Plymouth church, Wyoming Valley, Pa., Great Bend, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., Omaha, Fort Dodge and Sioux City.  In 1882 he was made superintendent of the M.E. church of Dakota, and served in that capacity and as presiding elder four years.  He was married October 12, 1869, to Mary L., daughter of George and Sarah Winchell, and granddaughter of Lord John Livingston of Scotland."

Counties of Woodbury and Plymouth, Iowa, including an extended sketch of Sioux City, Their Early Settlement and Progress to the Present Time; a Description of  Their Historic and Interesting Localities; Sketches of the Townships, Cities and Villages; Portraits of Some of the Prominent Men, and Biographies of Many of the Representative Citizens

Volume 2, Illustrated; Chicago, Illinois:  A. Warner & Co., Publishers, 1890-91

I am confident that his wife Mary L. Winchell was the same girl as Lucinda Winchell in the census records, particularly since she was born the same year and her sister named a daughter Mary Lucinda.  I have not discovered a marriage record for them yet.  Rev. Pardee died 9 March 1899 in Louisiana.  I haven't found any more information on Mary. 

I was very surprised by the comment "granddaughter of Lord John Livingston of Scotland."  Usually statements like these are created to help make ethnically dubious people more acceptable to the greater Caucasian society.  Native American ancestry has been well documented for George Winchell's family.  I would expect a tall tale from that side of the family. Instead it's on the Livingston side.   Was this created to help cover up the Winchell side?  Or was there something to cover up on the Livingston side?  There was a large, rich, land-holding family of Scottish origin in upstate New York named Livingston that greatly influenced New York politics.  I have not found a connection with that family.  Somehow I learned as a child that there was a mixed race family of Livingstons living in southern Columbia County.   I haven't found anything more.  Was this the family Sarah's father came from? 

There is still a remaining question, what happened with Georgianna?  Using information from another article I found on her brother-in-law, in 1872 Pardee was posted to the Oneonta District, which may lie in New York State.  In 1875 he was transferred to Fort Dodge, Nebraska.  At least I can narrow the search down to three areas.