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Guiding Questions
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What major events marked the
life of Sheldon Kinsman? What kind of man was he? What was his relationship to his first-born child Nellie Kinsman?
Why did their relationship take the path that it did?
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Evidence &
Interpretations
We've
come to picture Nellie's
father Sheldon Kinsman
as a hardworking, hard-driving, hard-jawed frontiersman -- a
boy-man by age 10, wizened by 40, ancient by 70, his hands
calloused by years of toil, and heart calloused by years of
grief and loss.
(Right: Sheldon Kinsman,
ca. 1891, age 69, kindly provided by Margaret Bourdette; click on
image or scroll below to view full photograph)
"He was one of those hard working men,
neat
and precise in his work," reads his obituary, written by his
widow
and third wife Margaret Boyer Kinsman, "though he met with lots of hardship and trouble early in
life. He had a great delight in working in the timber and was
a master in his line."
What "hardship and trouble"?
Here his widow might have referred to the death of his
first wife Eliza (Louisa) Tuthill, sometime in the years 1848-1850.
Sheldon & Eliza married on July 1, 1847. Nine months later
baby Ellen (Ella, Nellie) was born. Soon after
Eliza died. Perhaps she died in childbirth, as so many women
did in the mid-nineteenth century.
It's our supposition
that losing his first wife thickened Sheldon's skin and hardened
his heart, making it difficult for him to love too deeply,
too painful to care too much about other people. Eliza's
death, we suspect, worked to make him emotionally aloof,
distant, a kind of loner who shunned emotional intimacy and sought
solace and meaning mainly in his work.
This seems to have been true
of the family he
formed with his second wife, Mary E. Burr Kinsman. In June
1880 she filed for divorce, after 26 years of marriage, claiming
he had been "guilt of gross neglect," had "willfully abandoned"
her, and had "refused and still refuses to provide her a home or the
necessaries of life, though abundantly able to do so." The
Court agreed, finding him "guilty of gross neglect" toward his wife
and granting the divorce.
A similar degree of estrangement
seems to have marked his
relationship with his eldest child Nellie Kinsman. Maybe
he blamed her for her mother's death. Maybe he associated her
presence, her existence in the world, with all the heartache and
pain of those years. We don't know.
Whatever the psychological dynamics at work,
it seems apparent that he and Nellie were never close, and grew
increasingly estranged as she grew older. By 1860, at age
12, she no longer lived in his household. In fact there's
no evidence that they ever lived together, except when they both
migrated from southern New York to northern Indiana to southwest
lower Michigan in the
mid-1850s. There's good reason to believe he dragged her with him. In
1866, at age 18, she left for Minnesota and never returned.
That he never saw or heard from her again, we expect, made nary
a dent in his emotional armor.
Maybe this "hardship and trouble early in life" also referred to his material circumstances -- the
sheer hardships of being a pioneer farmer year after year, perhaps
combined with a lack of business success. The fragments of
evidence suggest that Sheldon Kinsman spent much of his life walking
the perilous rope between surviving and not surviving, between
feeding his children and not feeding them. Acquiring property
-- buying land and owning a farm -- was something he seems to have
aspired to, but never achieved.
He evidently moved
around a lot, living in various townships and counties in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, never putting down
deep roots anywhere. His brother Asa E. Kinsman seems to have
done the same. Both give the impression of being somewhat
rootless men, emotionally and otherwise -- distant, aloof, perhaps
embittered. If they were, their relative poverty might have
contributed to such dispositions. Though we really don't know.
These speculative forays
into Sheldon's emotional self are based mainly on
an intuitive reading of the bits of
evidence we've gathered thus far.
What, in contrast, do we know to be
true of Sheldon Kinsman's life?
Four of the Kinsman brothers:
standing left is Dr. Hiram T. Kinsman; standing right is Kelsey;
seated left is Merritt, and seated right, Sheldon.
Probably 1891, on the occasion of their mother's death.
Photograph kindly provided by Margaret Bourdette.
Sheldon Kinsman was the
eldest of the twelve children of George and Mary (Eaton)
Kinsman, born November 26, 1818 in Shaftsbury, Bennington County,
Vermont, died July 28, 1904 at Coldwater, Branch County, Michigan,
and buried
in Trayer Cemetery, Bronson, Branch Co. A farmer and
woodworker all his life. Lived for periods of time in Vermont, New York, Ohio,
Indiana, and Michigan. His youngest brother, Hiram Kinsman,
born in 1841, became a prominent physician and has a well-documented
genealogy.
His
mother
Mary Eaton's family
has been traced back 10 generations, to
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640s, and earlier, to England in 1550s.
His father
George Kinsman's
family has been traced back to England to
1604. George Kinsman fought in War of 1812. George's father,
Thomas Kinsman, Vermont farmer and stone-cutter, fought in the
Revolutionary War. All were farming families.
There follows a fairly detailed timeline
of his life and some of the documents on which it's based.
Timeline of Sheldon Kinsman's Life
Birth
(26 Nov 1818)
Shaftsbury, Bennington County, Vermont.
Age 9-10
(1827-28)
Parents
George & Mary Kinsman
migrate west from Shaftsbury to just south of the city
of Elmira, Chemung County, New
York, with their four children: Sheldon (b. 1818),
Asa E. (b.
1819), Julia (b. 1823),
Ryland (b. 1825). The birth of
Selma
(1828, PA) marks the date by which family had migrated to the New
York-Pennsylvania border area as pioneer farmers.
Age 16
(1834)
Sister
Marcella Amanda, age 5, dies.
Age 17
(1835)
Father George acquires deed to several hundred
acres in Southport (Elmira), Chemung Co., and builds house that
reputedly still stood in the 1970s (though no traces of it were
found in 2007; see Mike's West Castleton Journal, Photo Pages
18-19).
Age 23
(1841)
Eldest of 11 children in Southport, Chemung Co.: Sheldon, Asa
E.
(1819-1899), Julia (1823-1907), Ryland E. (1825-1899),
Loomis
(1826-1847, d. in Mexican-American War), Saloma (Selma, 1828-1926),
Charles
Wesley (1832-1909), Lafayette (1834-1917),
Kelsey B. (1836- ?),
Merritt (1839-1922), and
Hiram Tirrell (1841-1934).
Age
29
(1
July 1847)
Marries
Eliza (Louisa) Tuthill.
Age 29
(8 March 1848)
Daughter
Ellen Kinsman born.
Age 29-30
(1848-1850) Wife Eliza (Louisa) Tuthill
Kinsman dies. Exact date and cause of death unknown. Her
death perhaps occasions the reference in his obituary to having "met
with lots of hardship and trouble in early life." We interpret
this as an emotionally traumatic period that left deep
emotional scars.
In summer 1850, listed in the census as a farmer and widower living
in Southport (Elmira), Chemung, Co., sharing a dwelling with
Nathan Wilcox, age 19, laborer, next door to his parents,
George and Mary Kinsman and their household of eight children, two
not their own, including Sheldon's daughter Ellen (age 2).
Age 37
(15
Oct 1854)
Marries second wife Mary E. Burr (b. 1821, New York) in Chemung Co.
Ages 37-41
(1855-1856)
Details murky, but he and his brother Asa
E. Kinsman and their wives and children migrate West, separately or
together or both, stopping for periods of time in Napoleon, Ohio,
Wauseon, Ohio, and northern Indiana, settling in St. Joseph County,
Michigan by 1856.
Age 41
(1860)
Florence Township, St. Joseph Co., Michigan.
Farmer with wife Mary and four children:
Sarah Kinsman (age 9,
b. PA, perhaps wife Mary E. Burr's daughter from a previous
marriage, or, perhaps Ella Kinsman's sister),
Sheldon Jr. (age 4, b. IN),
Mary (age 3, b. MI), and
Jackson (age one
month, b. MI). Value of real estate, $100, value of personal
estate, $30. Daughter Ellen Kinsman (age 12) absent from
household, and census. Brother Asa, wife, and children living
on farm
near Burr Oak Village in Burr Oak Township, St. Joseph Co.
Age 47
(12
Jan 1866) Daughter Ellen Kinsman marries
Frank Lang (Franz Lange, age 19, b. Germany) in White Pigeon
Township, St. Joseph Co, and gives birth to granddaughter
Jennie
Lang nine months later (Nov 10, 1866).
Age 48
(Dec
1866)
Daughter Ellen Kinsman Lang moves
to Hastings, Dakota County, Minnesota, with husband Frank and baby
Jennie. He probably never sees her again.
Age 51
(1870)
White Pigeon Township, St. Joseph Co., farm
laborer, with $1,500 in real estate, and $150 in personal estate.
Wife Mary (age 49), children Sheldon (age 14), Mary (age 13),
Jackson (age 11), George (age 10), and
Theodore (age 6). Daughter Ellen Kinsman Lang (age 22) in
Hastings, Minnesota with husband Frank Lang and two daughters,
Jennie (age 4), and Nelly (age 2, b. 1868, Hastings).
Age 59
(1878)
Father
George Kinsman, age 86, dies in Chemung Co NY. Deserts wife
Mary E. Burr Kinsman, who goes to live (or is living) in Napoleon,
Henry County, Ohio.
Age 61
(1880)
Living in Bronson, Branch County, Michigan,
working as a farmer,
divorced, in household of Cyrus Ulrich (age 43) and wife Elizabeth
Ulrich (age 42) and their eight children (ages 4-23). Census
notation for relationship: "makes it his home."
Wife Mary E. Burr Kinsman files for divorce in June, claiming that
her husband Sheldon "has been guilty of gross neglect of duty toward
[her] . . . that for the two years last he has willfully abandoned
[her], and has during that time refused and still refuses to provide
her a home or the necessaries of life, though abundantly able to do
so." She is unable to serve a summons on him for not knowing
his whereabouts. The Henry County Court agrees with her claims
and grants a divorce to Mary on October 2, 1880 in Napoleon,
Ohio.
Age 62
(1881)
Marries for the third time and becomes the
second husband of Margaret Boyer Snyder
(d. 12 Dec 1905).
Still living in Branch County, MI.
Age 71
(1890)
Still living
in Branch County with wife Margaret Boyer Snyder Kinsman, as seen in
this excerpt from an
1891 history of Calhoun County, MI (citation below).
Age 72
(1891) Mother Mary Eaton Kinsman dies, in her
96th year, in Chemung Co NY. Ex-wife Mary E. Burr Kinsman dies
on Dec 7 in Wauseon, Ohio, and a few days later is buried in the
Michigan Hart plot in Blissfield, MI.
Age 80
(1899) Brother Asa E. Kinsman dies.
Age 81
(1900)
Living in town of
Noble, Branch Co., with wife Margaret. (Daughter Nellie Kinsman Lang Blow, age 52, divorced, widow, cook,
illiterate, living with daughter Jennie Lang Sullivan and seven
Sullivan grandchildren in Minneapolis, Minnesota.)
Age 85
(early 1904) Takes
ill.
Age 85
(July 1904)
Dies. Various grown children attend
his funeral in Michigan, some coming from as far away as Kansas and
New York. Daughter Nellie Kinsman Lang Blowe, living in
Northeast Minneapolis with her daughter Jennie, son-in-law
Cornelius, and seven grandchildren, is not among them. Buried
in Trayer Cemetery, Bronson, Branch
County, MI.
Sources:
compiled from federal
censuses (1850-1900; relevant pages reproduced in
nellie to her 18th
year, 1848-1866); Jennie Lang Sullivan death certificate;
Nellie Kinsman Lang Divorce
Papers; William Charles Kinsman II, The Kinsman
Family, v. 2.; Burr Oak Acorn obituaries of Sheldon and Asa Kinsman; Portrait and Biographical Album of Calhoun Co, MI
(Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1891), p. 266; and with the kind help of Margaret Bourdette
and Jerry Kinsman.
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Documents
Many thanks to Jerry
Kinsman for kindly providing all of the following documents (click
on images for larger views).
1) Divorce
Papers, June-Oct 1880, Henry Co OH
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2)
Obituary & Gravestone of Sheldon Kinsman (1818-1904)
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3)
Obituary & Gravestone of Asa E. Kinsman (1819-1899)
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4)
Obituary of Sarah Rogers Kinsman
(1822-1889)
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5)
Obituary & Gravestone of Margaret Boyer Kinsman (1831-1905)
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6)
Obituary of Clarence Kinsman (1848-1933)
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7)
More Kinsman Gravestones
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Martha G. Kinsman, 1851-1907 (daughter of Asa E. and Sarah)
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Dora A. Kinsman, 1865-1933
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Martin P. Kinsman, 1856-1915
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Andrew Boyer, 1829-1867
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