Benjamin Harrison and Me

Buckle up – this story encompasses a mass murderer, two Mormon polygamist families, a journey back to a parish church in 16^th century England that I visited in 2022, a detour to the Caribbean, two signers of the Declaration of Independence, two families that settled in the Northwest Territory before any states were formed, and the only man in history to have been both the son and the father of a President of the United States.    

Since I already wrote about my connection to Benjamin Harrison’s grandfather, President William Henry Harrison, on February 26 in this series, I thought I might have to find another person to write about this week.  But that was not the case, for two reasons.  One reason was that I couldn’t actually prove the suggested connections between me and William Henry Harrison a couple of months ago.  The other was that I am connected to Benjamin Harrison through lines other than his historic Harrison family.

At first glance, this WikiTree connection looks familiar, as it takes me through my Workman family line to John Lee (#8).  My regular readers may recognize this name; he and his wife Mary Workman (#7) also featured in my connections to President Washington and President Grant.  It’s not hard to understand why John Lee keeps popping.  Here’s what Wikipedia says about John Doyle Lee:

Lee was born on September 6, 1812, in Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory, and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1838. He was a friend of Joseph Smith, founder of the church, and was the adopted son of Brigham Young under the early Latter Day Saint law of adoption doctrine. In 1839, Lee served as a missionary with his boyhood friend, Levi Stewart. Together they preached in Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. During this period Lee converted and baptized "Wild Bill" Hickman. Lee practiced plural marriage and had 19 wives (at least eleven of whom eventually left him) and 56 children.

Wikipedia adds a bit more about John Doyle Lee:  Lee was later convicted as a mass murderer for his complicity in the Mountain Meadows massacre, sentenced to death, and was executed in 1877.  You can read more about the Mountain Meadows massacre in its Wikipedia entry.

One of the women he married was Mary Workman, my 1^st cousin 6x removed.  Her grandfather, Jacob Workman (1740-1821) was my 6^th great-grandfather.  Her father, John A. Workman, was among the people who converted to the Mormon faith in Overton County, Tennessee, in 1840.  He and his wife, Lydia Bilyeu, soon moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, to join the Mormons who were moving there to join up with Brigham Young and Joseph Smith.

Once in Nauvoo, John Workman and his family quickly became involved in the affairs of the new community.  John’s 17-year-old daughter, Mary (Polly), soon became John Lee’s seventh wife.  She moved with him to Utah later that year but returned to Illinois in 1847.  She remarried and lived the rest of her life in a normal marriage, bearing a half-dozen children and dying in Iowa at the age of 75.

The connection between John Lee and President Benjamin Harrison relies on Louisa Free (#9), another of Lee’s wives.  I was able to confirm this marriage pretty easily, along with the fact that Louisa had a sister named Emeline (#10).  But then I ran into another LDS polygamy thicket; Emeline was the 21^st wife of Brigham Young (he had something like 50 wives – the count is a little iffy).  Brigham and 16 of his wives had a total of 56 children. Emeline had 10 of those children; she married him in 1844 when she was 18 years old, and unlike many of his wives, never left him to marry someone else.  According to some accounts, she was his favorite wife, accompanying him to many social events and becoming extremely jealous when he married other, younger, women.

Her last child, Ardella Young, married Frank Harrison in Salt Lake City in 1855.  A descendant of the historic Harrison family of Virginia and Indiana Frank was born in Indiana and became a physician; I don’t know how he came to be in Utah.  It was also a little complicated to figure out how he was connected to President Benjamin Harrison; the Harrisons had lots of children and named a lot of them John, William, and Benjamin.  But after screwing up my Ancestry tree several times trying to document this connection, I deleted all of the Harrisons I had put in, got a good night’s sleep, and started over again, this time writing things out before I put them on my tree.  With this method, I documented the link through the rest of the WikiTree connection.  I can claim beyond a shadow of a doubt that President Benjamin Harrison is the 1^st cousin 1x removed of the husband of the niece of the wife of the husband of my 1^st cousin 5x removed. There ya go.

Here's another way of looking at this connection:

You can see that this connection wanders around a bit.  My 2^nd great-grandfather James Workman (1827-1874) is the generational peer of six people in this connection – his 1^st cousin Mary Workman (1829), Mary’s husband John Lee (1812), John’s wife Louisa (1824), Louisa’s sister Emeline Free (1826) and her son-in-law’s father John Harrison (1829), and John’s 1^st cousin, President Benjamin Harrison (1833).  Not to mention two LDS wreaths.      

After the excitement [sic] of the WikiTree connection, I wondered if Geni could top it.  A quick glance shows me that the answer is no — at least not through this link. Geni previously suggested this connection when I explored my relationshiop with President William Henry Harrison, the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison.  It fell apart then over the problem that Elizabeth Wyckoff (Workman) did not have a sister named Susannah.  She still doesn’t, so this connection is no good.

Geni gives me a second possible connection, however, and it has potential.  When I was working in Ancestry to verify the connection through WikiTree, I ran into the Symmes family.  I recognized this surname from my own research, and I wondered if there was a connection.  Geni suggests that there is. 

I was initially concerned because this connection is through my Walton family in Virginia, and I have discovered that Geni often gets this connection wrong.  However, I am pleased to report that Geni has it right this time.  Simeon Walton (in the middle of the second line) was my 6^th great-grandfather, and his mother was Mary (Sims) Walton.  (I will never stop being aggrieved that Geni puts women’s married names in the tree rather than their birth names.)

So how well does it work from this point? 

As it turns out, I know a fair amount about my Sims (Syms, Symms, Symmes, etc.) ancestors going back to England in the 17^th century.  The father of Mary Sims was indeed George Sims (as Geni suggests), and George’s father was named William Sims.  This is where it gets a little more interesting; William was born in Winterbourne in Gloucestershire County, England – and my husband and I were able to visit his church when we were in England in September of 2022. 

St. Michael the Archangel in Winterbourne, Gloucestershire, England

I am actually descended from two men who were significant figures of this church: 

Nicholas Crandall (1530-1589), whose grandson, John Crandall (1617-1676) settled in colonial Rhode Island in 1643; in the 1660s, he was one of the founders of the town of Westerly, Rhode Island, while serving as a Baptist Minister. 

The arrow points to Nicholas Crandall in this list of church rectors on the wall of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Winterbourne. 

Thomas Symes, father of William Symes, who is mentioned on the next plaque along with his wife Amy Bridges.  Amy’s name comes first. If you look back at the first plaque, you’ll see (if you squint) the name Richard Bridges underneath Nicholas Crandall’s name.  I think Amy is either a niece or cousin of Richard Bridges.  So her family was prominent, and that’s why they got a plaque all their own. When I asked the St. Michael’s Church Warden why he thought there was a plaque dedicated to this family, his response was “Money may have been involved.” Fair enough.

The story gets even more interesting.  Thomas and Amy Bridges Symes had 16 children – 12 boys and four girls.  I’m descended from their 7^th child, William Sims, whose path from Winterbourne to Virginia is crooked and unexpected.  William and several of his siblings moved to the Caribbean island of Antiqua at some point, but I have not been able to figure out exactly when.  It is not too surprising that they moved to Antiqua; the British colonies in the Caribbean were thriving in the 17^th century, and were not a bad place for the younger sons in a large family to earn their fortune.  I don’t know how much actual fortune they earned, however; according to one source, the three brothers left Antigua and went to Virginia in the 1670s or 1680s.  Richard soon returned home to England, but George and William settled in southern Virginia.  George moved north from there, receiving a land grant in New Kent County.  New Kent is about 20 miles from me.

But William in Virginia is not the end of this story.  In fact, I need to go back a couple of generations in England to get to the Harrison connection.  Thomas Symes's father was named John Symmes, as Geni suggests, but now things get a little squishy.  It appears that John had a brother named William, although I confess I have not examined every document that purports to prove this connection.  I mean, we’re talking about the middle of the 16^th century here.  William seems to have a son named Zachariah, so that’s good.  But I’m concerned – the information I have says he came to the colonies but settled in Massachusetts.  How did he get linked up with the Harrison family of Virginia?

As I worked my way through this connection, I realized that although “my” branch of the Symmes [sic] family came to Virginia, the Symmes in the Harrison line came into Massachusetts.  So where did these lines come together?  A little research showed that the 2^nd great-granddaughter of the Boston Symmes immigrant William was named Anna Livingston, daughter of William Livingston of New Jersey.  If that name sounds familiar, that’s because he was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 – as was President Benjamin Harrison’s grandfather, Benjamin Harrison V. 

I don’t think these lines met in Virginia.  I think they linked up in Philadelphia; William Henry Harrison (the son of one signer, from Virginia) married Anna Symmes (the granddaughter of another signer, William Livingston) in 1795, after both families had moved to the developing Northwest Territory.  William Henry Harrison went from being a member of the First Families of Virginia to being a founder of Indiana Territory.  Anna left her East Coast roots when her parents moved to North Bend Ohio (later Cleveland) in 1789.  Her father’s tombstone inscription reads:  Here rest the remains of John Cleves Symmes, who at the foot of these hills, made the first settlement between the Miami Rivers.”

This line checks out.  President Benjamin Harrison is my 8^th cousin five times removed.  This means that my 3^rd great-grandfather Joshua Botts (1813-1863) was the generational peer of President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901).  They had a common 9^th great-grandfather, William Symmes (1544-1597) of Winterbourne, Gloucestershire, England. 

Before I leave this entirely, I want to comment on why I found the Indiana connection particularly interesting this week.  In another genealogy research project I’m working on, I’ve been diving into the history of one of my more difficult lines.  The surname is Anthis (spelled a bunch of different ways) and the time is just after the American Revolution.  The ancestor I’m researching – my 3^rd great-grandfather John Anthis, Jr. – is an elusive character.  He was born in 1793, but the location has been difficult to pin down.  In the 1850 census, he said he was born in New Jersey.  In the 1860 census, he said he was born in Virginia.  And in the 1870 census, he gave his birthplace as Maryland.  He died before the 1880 census, but I bet he would have claimed a different birth state in that census.  I think he may have been born in Pennsylvania, but I can’t find evidence that he was born in any of these locations – the surname doesn’t seem to exist.

But where do I pick up his story?  You guessed it – he was an early settler of Vincennes, Indiana, not far from Indianapolis where the Harrison family gained renown in the 19^th century. I’m learning a whole lot about Indiana this week.