Ives Collection Donated to Cooperstown Indian Museum

Museum Gets Indian Relics

According to Clyde B. Olson, director of the Cooperstown Indian Museum, an Indian collection with material dating back to more than 5,000 years, has been donated to the museum.

The collection was gathered over a 70 year period by Ralph S. Ives, a Roxbury attorney.  Mr. Ives died in the fall of 1960.

Mr. Olson said that while practicing law, Mr. Ives also was practicing a hobby of collecting Indian material in a more or less scientific manner, which makes the collection that much more valuable.  The collection comes from the east and west branches of the Delaware headwaters and contains also a great deal of rock shelter material.

The Ives collection dates back more than 5,000 years, including the Colonial Period and will be on display and available to students of archeology to study at the Cooperstown Indian Museum, Mr. Olson stated.

The Museum, located at the lake front at the foot of Pioneer Street, was formerly called the American Indian Museum.

The Otsego Farmer, 9 February 1961

The Cooperstown Indian Museum no longer exists.  I'll see if I can find out what happened to it, especially the Ives collection. 

Update 

I contacted Hugh MacDougall, the Cooperstown historian.  He then contacted Sarah Wilcox of the New York State Historical Association Research Library.  When the Cooperstown Indian Museum closed, most of its contents were transferred to the New York State Historical Association.  Unfortunately, the documentation wasn't transferred as well.  It seems very likely that Mr. Ives' collection is there, but not identified as such.  It's extremely unfortunate that the documentation was lost because that established the historical place of the finds.  Once again, Mohican history is lost.  It seems like the closest thing there is to existing documentation are these newspaper articles.

Village Sites and Indigenous Migrations

Archeologists Fill Gaps in Indian Data

Amateur archeologists from widely scattered sections of eastern New York spoke briefly of their discoveries at a meeting of the local Van Epps-Hartley chapter of the New York State Archeological association.

Main portion of the program, second in a series of five monthly meetings on regional archeology, was devoted to discussion of the chapter’s discoveries on two Indian village sites, thought to have been occupied by Algonkian Indians.

Vincent J. Schaefer, chapter president, led the discussion.

Ralph S. Ives of Roxbury, NY, said that he and  friends had found evidence of at least three major Indian migrations through their part of the Catskills.

Another gap in information of the Mohawk-Hudson are was filled by Kenneth H. Mynter of Claverack, who said he found evidences east of the Hudson river which point to the Owasco culture.

A number of discoveries in Washington, Warren and Saratoga counties were described.

Members have been invited to meet with Dr. Carl E. Guthe, director of the state museum, in Albany Saturday for a tour of Indian exhibits and a discussion of a classification system used by many archeologists.  Interested amateurs will meet at the state museum between 2 and 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

Schenectady Gazette, 27 March 1947

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. 

Indian Shelter Excavated

The Otsego Farmer, 25 May 1934

Ralph S. Ives, Sr., and sons, Charles K. Ives and Ralph S. Ives, Jr., of Roxbury, have just completed the excavation of an Indian shelter on the premises of Augustus Redmond of Arkville.  From a fire pit, they took out a great many pieces of broken pottery, a number of arrow points, two or three knives, flint scrapers, flint rubbingstones, a broken flint drill, hammerstones, one pestle, two stone sinkers and a muller.  The most important find however, consisted of two bone awls, in a perfect state of preservation, made from the wing bones of a turkey, a part of a polished bone needle, and a perfect bone arrow point apparently made from the bone of a deer.  These specimens will be catalogued and mounted so that a perfect history of the occupation of the cave can be made.  All the relics were of early Algonquin origin.

More Roxbury Artifacts Uncovered

While hunting for arrow heads on the farm of M. D. Parsons near Roxbury, Ralph S. Ives unearthed a quantity of ashes, arrow heads, a portion of a copper vessel and a skeleton.  When the weather permits, Mr. Ives hopes to pursue an investigation into this interesting find of Indian relics.

Richfield Springs Mercury, 19 January 1922

More Mystery Photos

I have a few more photos on my father's side of the family in which people are unidentified. I suspect the photo below was taken on West Center Street, Lee, Mass., in the 1920s.  The woman on the left is my great-aunt Janette Winchell Schwab.

Aunt Janette was the daughter of Henry Franklin Winchell Sr. and Alice Belle Snyder.  Henry and Alice were married in 1895 in Great Barrington.  In 1900 they lived in Shelton, CT.  By 1910 they settled in  Housatonic, Mass.

Janette was the granddaughter of John Martin Snyder and Jane Frances Hoyt.  In the 1870s the Snyders lived in West Stockbridge.  By 1880 they settled on North Plain Road in Housatonic.  It's likely the other women in the photos were either relatives or neighbors.

This couple may have lived in the same area.

This photo was probably taken on Golden Hill Road in Lenox Dale, Mass.

This is a lovely photo of a young mother and her baby, but I don't know who they were or where it was taken.

Lastly is this nice family photo, also at an unknown location. The woman wearing the hat and coat is my great-aunt Janette again, much later in life, possibly taken in the late 1940s.  It's possible the woman on the far left is a relative.

Update

I think the older woman in the first and last photos might be the same woman.  She strongly resembles Janette's mother, so she may have been a Snyder aunt.  I believe these are grandchildren posing with her, and that doesn't necessarily help identify her.

Methodist Church Records

I need to find Methodist church records for two different reasons.  Two men I'm researching were married in the Methodist Church in Hudson, N.Y., in the 1830s.  However, the present church was not established until much later.  I finally found some information on the matter.  This was taken from the web site of the General Commission on Archives & History of the United Methodist Church.  

Baptism and local church membership records are the two most frequently requested materials. The General Commission on Archives and History does not hold such records. In United Methodist practice these records are kept at the local church. If the local church has closed and merged with another church then the records should be transferred to the new church. If a church closes and there is no successor then the records are transferred to the annual conference archives - the regional depository. When searching for such records the best place to start is with the annual conference archivist. The Directory of Annual Conference Archives for The United Methodist Church will list the appropriate contact person. Look for the contact information for the archivist, historian or researcher.

I've been able to determine that  the Hudson area is currently part of the New York Annual Conference.  Its web site has informed me of the existence of the C. Wesley Christman Archives of the New York Annual Conference in White Plains, NY. According to its web site:

The C. Wesley Christman Archives collects conference records, closed church records, personal collections, journals, and monographs relating to the history and mission of the New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. There are additional Methodist historical records located in various other repositories in the New York area.

The big question is whether the present Methodist church has the records of the previous church that existed in the 1830s, or if it was considered closed.  I hope to have the answer soon.

There is also another repository I'd like to visit that has records of Briarcliff Farm in Pine Plains where my grandfather once worked.  Ideally since it's a long drive, I should stay overnight in the area to research both areas.  That's not going to happen for a while.

There were also four Methodist ministers in the Winchell family: William Francis Boyes (later Boyce),William Henry Winchell and his son Clarence Charles Winchell and George Franklin Snyder.  I can trace the careers of the Winchell and Snyder pastors.  The Winchells will be more complicated because I'll have to know which Winchell when.  I saw a newspaper article that said one Rev. Winchell substituted for the other one.