GRAVE MYSTERY. He was of the right age for war. Many people around him strongly opposed slavery. The young man's brave end could have been at any Civil War location. To answer: Why might a NY state record for a Wesley Blanchard showing a death date of 1864 be his?
An old town/township history book was written by a former school principal with extensive family knowledge for Weymouth, Massachusetts. It said that Leonard Wesley Blanchard, listed elsewhere as son of Alexander and Susan, died at 21. There was little else- -No month or day, no place, no cause.
Fortunately, his birth or baptism, naming his parents, was already in the town-and-church records, preserved in the old "Vital Records" books for Weymouth. Adding his age of 21 to his known birth date in the summer of 1843 puts his death near the end of the Civil War. He thus died in the last half of 1864 or the first half of 1865.
Other infants taken to church for baptism were generally shown with middle initials only. He was an exception. His parents listed his full middle name of Wesley, generally done when the parents wanted all to know the child would use the middle name, not his first. (This might be done until the namesake's elder relative already using the first name was gone. This use of a middle name was more common among the Germanic Brits than the Celtic Brits. The Blanchards of Weymouth were often seen first listed as Blanchers. It's possible they had been part of the Germanic "weaver Flemings" going late to England, bringing the skill of "blanching" with them. This was presumed to be like the modern blanching of vegetables with boiling water, enough to clean, but not to cook. For the weaver industry, briefly dipping thread or yarn into boiling hot water, was not just to clean, but to pre-shrink.)
Nothing more datewise is entered above, as nothing else is certain from records found so far inside Weymouth. Note two things about the NY record. It used Wesley, not Leonard. It's birth year was "off" by subtracting an age from death years that was a mite too young. However, as the birth year is off in the NY records, the other Wesley Blanchards it could be have to be eliminated. To explain why it could easily be him: Perhaps fellow solders had taken this Wesley to the hospital, too in pain or unconscious, not able to answer his own questions. If someone much older made a guess about his age, they would be most likely to guess him as younger than he was.
FAMILY AND TOWN. His hometown of Weymouth was located a bit south and east of Boston. Also on the sea, like Boston, it was, for a very short while, perhaps more important than Boston, as it was on and along the mouth of a "fore-river". Its special location delayed freezing in the winter, due to both incoming salty tides and to being inset among hills, so more protected from ocean winds. This slowness to freeze attracted those wishing to move vessels around, to do maintenance and continue construction longer in the winter, shipbuilders like the Thayers, plus mariners, like his father Alexander Blanchard. Alexander was hired to sail the schooners. Sealife had become an alternative once the dream of his Blanchard immigrants to farm near their new England relatives was no longer possible. The ability of numerous sons of a given father to farm together grew smaller as Boston life crept further outward, turning rural areas into suburbs.
In his father Alexander's case, only one son survived long enough to "go west", common in the 1850s. Moving as California saw a gold rush, that half-brother to Wesley was also a mariner, taking his young family to San Francisco. Would Wesley have joined his half-brother's family out there, had both lived longer? Other Blanchards, descending instead of a brother to Alexander, were able to pursue the farming dream by making a different move out west as first Wisconsin and then southeastern Minnesota opened to settlement.
Weymouth's old " Vital Records" were made available online by archive.org. Volume two showed his parents' marriage in 1840 in the form of intentions only, indicating they married , not in groom Alexander's church, but in bride Susan's church elsewhere. Volume one showed births beginning with the Weymouth Puritans' infant baptisms, through the civil records of 1850. To see his birth page 50 of 353, paste this special Url into your browser (click the "plus sign" to zoom in):
archive.org/stream/vitalrecordsofwe1850newe#page/n101/search/Leonard+Wesley
Many in his family died of "consumption" (TB), a few more of childhood diseases. He could have sickened while soldiering, not have died in battle. The long marches on foot in bad weather worsened health problems. Camp-life made the spread of contagions easy in an era without childhood vaccinations, as quarantining was often not done in a camp until too late.
NY state's death record named a wartime cemetery as having a Wesley Blanchard who died in 1864. Located on an island outside NYC, I the cemetery was used for a short-lived military hospital and a longer-lived fort., offered for officers' families and not just stricken soldiers. That cemetery had most of its bones removed later, along with stones and tomb plaques, had they existed. However, as a reminder that it existed and was of some size, emptied vaults with tall and rusty iron gates have remained into modern times. The island lies in water between New Rochelle and NYC. City-style development spreading there after the military left means these vault gates will eventually disappear.
The military had a heart, so made a list of the internments moved elsewhere, at a much later date than the last burial. They listed what was easily known, Yankee and Confederate and a few civilians, with the dates, not always having names. That the graves were moved is indicated by crossing out the last column's pre-printed and tiny handwriting with a note.
Though NY lists his burial there, his name is not on the list of those moved.
When bones and stone dis-integrate, they cannot be moved.
The other possibility is that family came and took his coffin back home. His state of Massachusetts had better death record systems than did most, especially in the Weymouth area, but lists no death or re-burial for Leonard Wesley Blanchard (with other spellings checked), not in 1864, nor in adjacent years, not in Weymouth, nor in some other town.
His father Alexander and older half-brothers were already dead or distant. His mother , the former Susan Bates, remained to mourn him. She had raised the half-brothers, as well, after their mother died of consumption. She was seen post-War US censuses as barely getting by economically after her men were gone. Was there no one with the means to come and get him? put his body on a train for shipping and re-burial back home?
Could the death and burial recorded by NY state be someone else? He was the younger of two named Leonard Blanchard from Weymouth, the other, an uncle who never used a middle name. At the time, families would separate a namesake and his elder by calling the older the name he preferred, so the younger would be the one to use his initials or middle name. Once the "new lights" came into the former Puritan churches, changing religious ideas and ways of governing, a number saw advantages in Methodism, even if they did not change churches. They named sons Wesley, after Methodism's John Wesley, accounting for him having a middle name not shared by his older era uncle.
Expanding the search outside Massachusetts, there was no good match for the death of an L.W. Blanchard. There had been another young Wesley Blanchard in the family who died in a different state, his widowed mother dying first of consumption after moving the ailing two of them out of Massachusetts, so he could attend a university while she was in her sister's care. He would died of consumption as well.
That left just one Wesley Blanchard who died at the right time, in 1864, a Civil War death. The state of NY issued the death record, giving the location as at Davids' Island, a military site then. No birth place or parents or last residence or regiment was cited for him. The island's military hospital began operations in 1862, after the war began in the summer of 1862, meant to treat the Civil War wounded, from anywhere, North or South, not limited to local New Yorkers. Since it treated the families of the officers stationed there, infants were also among NY's death records for David's Island.
Published government sources at the time now online (in 2017, checking archive.org) would say too little about Davids' Island. The island being used for military purposes, certain things often secret, classified, its officers would not be not free to disclose much. The island stayed under military use for many decades following.
==========================================
DETAILS. Leonard Wesley's match to the NY record is not perfect. The age difference is about 3 years. Ruling out the other Wesley Blanchards in his age group, however, narrowed the grave to his, as the others were found still living after 1864.
SPECIFIC CHECKS MADE.
(1) The 1850 and 1860 Censuses were searched for all Wesley Blanchards born 1842 through 1847. These included ones using Wesley as a middle name. All had records showing they were still alive post-1864. The only exception was the Wesley Blanchard from Massachusetts with first name Leonard.
(2) Some individuals named Wesley Blanchard in that birth range showed considerable variation in year of birth across their records. Record-keeping was not as accurate then, due to end-of year collating of too many handwritten records at once by a county or town, transcription errors when sending copies to the state, rounding off of dates, etc.
(4) All records for him showing his parents were in Weymouth, Mass. He was--
*There for the 1850 and 1860 US Censuses, ages 7 and 17.
*In 1850, with both parents and two older half-brothers.
*In 1860, with his widowed mother, Susan B. Bates Blanchard. Worked as a mason. The war began in 1861.
(5) There was no indication his close survivors moved elsewhere. His mother was the closest family left. She lived alone in Weymouth for her last US Censuses, the ones in 1870 and 1880.
(7) Search link below. FamilySearch.org catalogued the list of removals from David's Island, and also put online archived images of the old microfilm of names and dates. It is interesting to explore as they show children and infants buried or put into crypts/vaults on the island as late as the 1870s, not just soldiers.
The database is called "United States, Burial Registers for Military Posts, Camps, and Stations,1768-1921". Logging in with a password is required, but search is free
FamilySearch.org/search/record/results?count=75&query=+death_place:"David's Island, New York, United States"+death_year:1861-1865~&collection_id=2250027
An old town/township history book was written by a former school principal with extensive family knowledge for Weymouth, Massachusetts. It said that Leonard Wesley Blanchard, listed elsewhere as son of Alexander and Susan, died at 21. There was little else- -No month or day, no place, no cause.
Fortunately, his birth or baptism, naming his parents, was already in the town-and-church records, preserved in the old "Vital Records" books for Weymouth. Adding his age of 21 to his known birth date in the summer of 1843 puts his death near the end of the Civil War. He thus died in the last half of 1864 or the first half of 1865.
Other infants taken to church for baptism were generally shown with middle initials only. He was an exception. His parents listed his full middle name of Wesley, generally done when the parents wanted all to know the child would use the middle name, not his first. (This might be done until the namesake's elder relative already using the first name was gone. This use of a middle name was more common among the Germanic Brits than the Celtic Brits. The Blanchards of Weymouth were often seen first listed as Blanchers. It's possible they had been part of the Germanic "weaver Flemings" going late to England, bringing the skill of "blanching" with them. This was presumed to be like the modern blanching of vegetables with boiling water, enough to clean, but not to cook. For the weaver industry, briefly dipping thread or yarn into boiling hot water, was not just to clean, but to pre-shrink.)
Nothing more datewise is entered above, as nothing else is certain from records found so far inside Weymouth. Note two things about the NY record. It used Wesley, not Leonard. It's birth year was "off" by subtracting an age from death years that was a mite too young. However, as the birth year is off in the NY records, the other Wesley Blanchards it could be have to be eliminated. To explain why it could easily be him: Perhaps fellow solders had taken this Wesley to the hospital, too in pain or unconscious, not able to answer his own questions. If someone much older made a guess about his age, they would be most likely to guess him as younger than he was.
FAMILY AND TOWN. His hometown of Weymouth was located a bit south and east of Boston. Also on the sea, like Boston, it was, for a very short while, perhaps more important than Boston, as it was on and along the mouth of a "fore-river". Its special location delayed freezing in the winter, due to both incoming salty tides and to being inset among hills, so more protected from ocean winds. This slowness to freeze attracted those wishing to move vessels around, to do maintenance and continue construction longer in the winter, shipbuilders like the Thayers, plus mariners, like his father Alexander Blanchard. Alexander was hired to sail the schooners. Sealife had become an alternative once the dream of his Blanchard immigrants to farm near their new England relatives was no longer possible. The ability of numerous sons of a given father to farm together grew smaller as Boston life crept further outward, turning rural areas into suburbs.
In his father Alexander's case, only one son survived long enough to "go west", common in the 1850s. Moving as California saw a gold rush, that half-brother to Wesley was also a mariner, taking his young family to San Francisco. Would Wesley have joined his half-brother's family out there, had both lived longer? Other Blanchards, descending instead of a brother to Alexander, were able to pursue the farming dream by making a different move out west as first Wisconsin and then southeastern Minnesota opened to settlement.
Weymouth's old " Vital Records" were made available online by archive.org. Volume two showed his parents' marriage in 1840 in the form of intentions only, indicating they married , not in groom Alexander's church, but in bride Susan's church elsewhere. Volume one showed births beginning with the Weymouth Puritans' infant baptisms, through the civil records of 1850. To see his birth page 50 of 353, paste this special Url into your browser (click the "plus sign" to zoom in):
archive.org/stream/vitalrecordsofwe1850newe#page/n101/search/Leonard+Wesley
Many in his family died of "consumption" (TB), a few more of childhood diseases. He could have sickened while soldiering, not have died in battle. The long marches on foot in bad weather worsened health problems. Camp-life made the spread of contagions easy in an era without childhood vaccinations, as quarantining was often not done in a camp until too late.
NY state's death record named a wartime cemetery as having a Wesley Blanchard who died in 1864. Located on an island outside NYC, I the cemetery was used for a short-lived military hospital and a longer-lived fort., offered for officers' families and not just stricken soldiers. That cemetery had most of its bones removed later, along with stones and tomb plaques, had they existed. However, as a reminder that it existed and was of some size, emptied vaults with tall and rusty iron gates have remained into modern times. The island lies in water between New Rochelle and NYC. City-style development spreading there after the military left means these vault gates will eventually disappear.
The military had a heart, so made a list of the internments moved elsewhere, at a much later date than the last burial. They listed what was easily known, Yankee and Confederate and a few civilians, with the dates, not always having names. That the graves were moved is indicated by crossing out the last column's pre-printed and tiny handwriting with a note.
Though NY lists his burial there, his name is not on the list of those moved.
When bones and stone dis-integrate, they cannot be moved.
The other possibility is that family came and took his coffin back home. His state of Massachusetts had better death record systems than did most, especially in the Weymouth area, but lists no death or re-burial for Leonard Wesley Blanchard (with other spellings checked), not in 1864, nor in adjacent years, not in Weymouth, nor in some other town.
His father Alexander and older half-brothers were already dead or distant. His mother , the former Susan Bates, remained to mourn him. She had raised the half-brothers, as well, after their mother died of consumption. She was seen post-War US censuses as barely getting by economically after her men were gone. Was there no one with the means to come and get him? put his body on a train for shipping and re-burial back home?
Could the death and burial recorded by NY state be someone else? He was the younger of two named Leonard Blanchard from Weymouth, the other, an uncle who never used a middle name. At the time, families would separate a namesake and his elder by calling the older the name he preferred, so the younger would be the one to use his initials or middle name. Once the "new lights" came into the former Puritan churches, changing religious ideas and ways of governing, a number saw advantages in Methodism, even if they did not change churches. They named sons Wesley, after Methodism's John Wesley, accounting for him having a middle name not shared by his older era uncle.
Expanding the search outside Massachusetts, there was no good match for the death of an L.W. Blanchard. There had been another young Wesley Blanchard in the family who died in a different state, his widowed mother dying first of consumption after moving the ailing two of them out of Massachusetts, so he could attend a university while she was in her sister's care. He would died of consumption as well.
That left just one Wesley Blanchard who died at the right time, in 1864, a Civil War death. The state of NY issued the death record, giving the location as at Davids' Island, a military site then. No birth place or parents or last residence or regiment was cited for him. The island's military hospital began operations in 1862, after the war began in the summer of 1862, meant to treat the Civil War wounded, from anywhere, North or South, not limited to local New Yorkers. Since it treated the families of the officers stationed there, infants were also among NY's death records for David's Island.
Published government sources at the time now online (in 2017, checking archive.org) would say too little about Davids' Island. The island being used for military purposes, certain things often secret, classified, its officers would not be not free to disclose much. The island stayed under military use for many decades following.
==========================================
DETAILS. Leonard Wesley's match to the NY record is not perfect. The age difference is about 3 years. Ruling out the other Wesley Blanchards in his age group, however, narrowed the grave to his, as the others were found still living after 1864.
SPECIFIC CHECKS MADE.
(1) The 1850 and 1860 Censuses were searched for all Wesley Blanchards born 1842 through 1847. These included ones using Wesley as a middle name. All had records showing they were still alive post-1864. The only exception was the Wesley Blanchard from Massachusetts with first name Leonard.
(2) Some individuals named Wesley Blanchard in that birth range showed considerable variation in year of birth across their records. Record-keeping was not as accurate then, due to end-of year collating of too many handwritten records at once by a county or town, transcription errors when sending copies to the state, rounding off of dates, etc.
(4) All records for him showing his parents were in Weymouth, Mass. He was--
*There for the 1850 and 1860 US Censuses, ages 7 and 17.
*In 1850, with both parents and two older half-brothers.
*In 1860, with his widowed mother, Susan B. Bates Blanchard. Worked as a mason. The war began in 1861.
(5) There was no indication his close survivors moved elsewhere. His mother was the closest family left. She lived alone in Weymouth for her last US Censuses, the ones in 1870 and 1880.
(7) Search link below. FamilySearch.org catalogued the list of removals from David's Island, and also put online archived images of the old microfilm of names and dates. It is interesting to explore as they show children and infants buried or put into crypts/vaults on the island as late as the 1870s, not just soldiers.
The database is called "United States, Burial Registers for Military Posts, Camps, and Stations,1768-1921". Logging in with a password is required, but search is free
FamilySearch.org/search/record/results?count=75&query=+death_place:"David's Island, New York, United States"+death_year:1861-1865~&collection_id=2250027
GRAVE MYSTERY. He was of the right age for war. Many people around him strongly opposed slavery. The young man's brave end could have been at any Civil War location. To answer: Why might a NY state record for a Wesley Blanchard showing a death date of 1864 be his?
An old town/township history book was written by a former school principal with extensive family knowledge for Weymouth, Massachusetts. It said that Leonard Wesley Blanchard, listed elsewhere as son of Alexander and Susan, died at 21. There was little else- -No month or day, no place, no cause.
Fortunately, his birth or baptism, naming his parents, was already in the town-and-church records, preserved in the old "Vital Records" books for Weymouth. Adding his age of 21 to his known birth date in the summer of 1843 puts his death near the end of the Civil War. He thus died in the last half of 1864 or the first half of 1865.
Other infants taken to church for baptism were generally shown with middle initials only. He was an exception. His parents listed his full middle name of Wesley, generally done when the parents wanted all to know the child would use the middle name, not his first. (This might be done until the namesake's elder relative already using the first name was gone. This use of a middle name was more common among the Germanic Brits than the Celtic Brits. The Blanchards of Weymouth were often seen first listed as Blanchers. It's possible they had been part of the Germanic "weaver Flemings" going late to England, bringing the skill of "blanching" with them. This was presumed to be like the modern blanching of vegetables with boiling water, enough to clean, but not to cook. For the weaver industry, briefly dipping thread or yarn into boiling hot water, was not just to clean, but to pre-shrink.)
Nothing more datewise is entered above, as nothing else is certain from records found so far inside Weymouth. Note two things about the NY record. It used Wesley, not Leonard. It's birth year was "off" by subtracting an age from death years that was a mite too young. However, as the birth year is off in the NY records, the other Wesley Blanchards it could be have to be eliminated. To explain why it could easily be him: Perhaps fellow solders had taken this Wesley to the hospital, too in pain or unconscious, not able to answer his own questions. If someone much older made a guess about his age, they would be most likely to guess him as younger than he was.
FAMILY AND TOWN. His hometown of Weymouth was located a bit south and east of Boston. Also on the sea, like Boston, it was, for a very short while, perhaps more important than Boston, as it was on and along the mouth of a "fore-river". Its special location delayed freezing in the winter, due to both incoming salty tides and to being inset among hills, so more protected from ocean winds. This slowness to freeze attracted those wishing to move vessels around, to do maintenance and continue construction longer in the winter, shipbuilders like the Thayers, plus mariners, like his father Alexander Blanchard. Alexander was hired to sail the schooners. Sealife had become an alternative once the dream of his Blanchard immigrants to farm near their new England relatives was no longer possible. The ability of numerous sons of a given father to farm together grew smaller as Boston life crept further outward, turning rural areas into suburbs.
In his father Alexander's case, only one son survived long enough to "go west", common in the 1850s. Moving as California saw a gold rush, that half-brother to Wesley was also a mariner, taking his young family to San Francisco. Would Wesley have joined his half-brother's family out there, had both lived longer? Other Blanchards, descending instead of a brother to Alexander, were able to pursue the farming dream by making a different move out west as first Wisconsin and then southeastern Minnesota opened to settlement.
Weymouth's old " Vital Records" were made available online by archive.org. Volume two showed his parents' marriage in 1840 in the form of intentions only, indicating they married , not in groom Alexander's church, but in bride Susan's church elsewhere. Volume one showed births beginning with the Weymouth Puritans' infant baptisms, through the civil records of 1850. To see his birth page 50 of 353, paste this special Url into your browser (click the "plus sign" to zoom in):
archive.org/stream/vitalrecordsofwe1850newe#page/n101/search/Leonard+Wesley
Many in his family died of "consumption" (TB), a few more of childhood diseases. He could have sickened while soldiering, not have died in battle. The long marches on foot in bad weather worsened health problems. Camp-life made the spread of contagions easy in an era without childhood vaccinations, as quarantining was often not done in a camp until too late.
NY state's death record named a wartime cemetery as having a Wesley Blanchard who died in 1864. Located on an island outside NYC, I the cemetery was used for a short-lived military hospital and a longer-lived fort., offered for officers' families and not just stricken soldiers. That cemetery had most of its bones removed later, along with stones and tomb plaques, had they existed. However, as a reminder that it existed and was of some size, emptied vaults with tall and rusty iron gates have remained into modern times. The island lies in water between New Rochelle and NYC. City-style development spreading there after the military left means these vault gates will eventually disappear.
The military had a heart, so made a list of the internments moved elsewhere, at a much later date than the last burial. They listed what was easily known, Yankee and Confederate and a few civilians, with the dates, not always having names. That the graves were moved is indicated by crossing out the last column's pre-printed and tiny handwriting with a note.
Though NY lists his burial there, his name is not on the list of those moved.
When bones and stone dis-integrate, they cannot be moved.
The other possibility is that family came and took his coffin back home. His state of Massachusetts had better death record systems than did most, especially in the Weymouth area, but lists no death or re-burial for Leonard Wesley Blanchard (with other spellings checked), not in 1864, nor in adjacent years, not in Weymouth, nor in some other town.
His father Alexander and older half-brothers were already dead or distant. His mother , the former Susan Bates, remained to mourn him. She had raised the half-brothers, as well, after their mother died of consumption. She was seen post-War US censuses as barely getting by economically after her men were gone. Was there no one with the means to come and get him? put his body on a train for shipping and re-burial back home?
Could the death and burial recorded by NY state be someone else? He was the younger of two named Leonard Blanchard from Weymouth, the other, an uncle who never used a middle name. At the time, families would separate a namesake and his elder by calling the older the name he preferred, so the younger would be the one to use his initials or middle name. Once the "new lights" came into the former Puritan churches, changing religious ideas and ways of governing, a number saw advantages in Methodism, even if they did not change churches. They named sons Wesley, after Methodism's John Wesley, accounting for him having a middle name not shared by his older era uncle.
Expanding the search outside Massachusetts, there was no good match for the death of an L.W. Blanchard. There had been another young Wesley Blanchard in the family who died in a different state, his widowed mother dying first of consumption after moving the ailing two of them out of Massachusetts, so he could attend a university while she was in her sister's care. He would died of consumption as well.
That left just one Wesley Blanchard who died at the right time, in 1864, a Civil War death. The state of NY issued the death record, giving the location as at Davids' Island, a military site then. No birth place or parents or last residence or regiment was cited for him. The island's military hospital began operations in 1862, after the war began in the summer of 1862, meant to treat the Civil War wounded, from anywhere, North or South, not limited to local New Yorkers. Since it treated the families of the officers stationed there, infants were also among NY's death records for David's Island.
Published government sources at the time now online (in 2017, checking archive.org) would say too little about Davids' Island. The island being used for military purposes, certain things often secret, classified, its officers would not be not free to disclose much. The island stayed under military use for many decades following.
==========================================
DETAILS. Leonard Wesley's match to the NY record is not perfect. The age difference is about 3 years. Ruling out the other Wesley Blanchards in his age group, however, narrowed the grave to his, as the others were found still living after 1864.
SPECIFIC CHECKS MADE.
(1) The 1850 and 1860 Censuses were searched for all Wesley Blanchards born 1842 through 1847. These included ones using Wesley as a middle name. All had records showing they were still alive post-1864. The only exception was the Wesley Blanchard from Massachusetts with first name Leonard.
(2) Some individuals named Wesley Blanchard in that birth range showed considerable variation in year of birth across their records. Record-keeping was not as accurate then, due to end-of year collating of too many handwritten records at once by a county or town, transcription errors when sending copies to the state, rounding off of dates, etc.
(4) All records for him showing his parents were in Weymouth, Mass. He was--
*There for the 1850 and 1860 US Censuses, ages 7 and 17.
*In 1850, with both parents and two older half-brothers.
*In 1860, with his widowed mother, Susan B. Bates Blanchard. Worked as a mason. The war began in 1861.
(5) There was no indication his close survivors moved elsewhere. His mother was the closest family left. She lived alone in Weymouth for her last US Censuses, the ones in 1870 and 1880.
(7) Search link below. FamilySearch.org catalogued the list of removals from David's Island, and also put online archived images of the old microfilm of names and dates. It is interesting to explore as they show children and infants buried or put into crypts/vaults on the island as late as the 1870s, not just soldiers.
The database is called "United States, Burial Registers for Military Posts, Camps, and Stations,1768-1921". Logging in with a password is required, but search is free
FamilySearch.org/search/record/results?count=75&query=+death_place:"David's Island, New York, United States"+death_year:1861-1865~&collection_id=2250027
An old town/township history book was written by a former school principal with extensive family knowledge for Weymouth, Massachusetts. It said that Leonard Wesley Blanchard, listed elsewhere as son of Alexander and Susan, died at 21. There was little else- -No month or day, no place, no cause.
Fortunately, his birth or baptism, naming his parents, was already in the town-and-church records, preserved in the old "Vital Records" books for Weymouth. Adding his age of 21 to his known birth date in the summer of 1843 puts his death near the end of the Civil War. He thus died in the last half of 1864 or the first half of 1865.
Other infants taken to church for baptism were generally shown with middle initials only. He was an exception. His parents listed his full middle name of Wesley, generally done when the parents wanted all to know the child would use the middle name, not his first. (This might be done until the namesake's elder relative already using the first name was gone. This use of a middle name was more common among the Germanic Brits than the Celtic Brits. The Blanchards of Weymouth were often seen first listed as Blanchers. It's possible they had been part of the Germanic "weaver Flemings" going late to England, bringing the skill of "blanching" with them. This was presumed to be like the modern blanching of vegetables with boiling water, enough to clean, but not to cook. For the weaver industry, briefly dipping thread or yarn into boiling hot water, was not just to clean, but to pre-shrink.)
Nothing more datewise is entered above, as nothing else is certain from records found so far inside Weymouth. Note two things about the NY record. It used Wesley, not Leonard. It's birth year was "off" by subtracting an age from death years that was a mite too young. However, as the birth year is off in the NY records, the other Wesley Blanchards it could be have to be eliminated. To explain why it could easily be him: Perhaps fellow solders had taken this Wesley to the hospital, too in pain or unconscious, not able to answer his own questions. If someone much older made a guess about his age, they would be most likely to guess him as younger than he was.
FAMILY AND TOWN. His hometown of Weymouth was located a bit south and east of Boston. Also on the sea, like Boston, it was, for a very short while, perhaps more important than Boston, as it was on and along the mouth of a "fore-river". Its special location delayed freezing in the winter, due to both incoming salty tides and to being inset among hills, so more protected from ocean winds. This slowness to freeze attracted those wishing to move vessels around, to do maintenance and continue construction longer in the winter, shipbuilders like the Thayers, plus mariners, like his father Alexander Blanchard. Alexander was hired to sail the schooners. Sealife had become an alternative once the dream of his Blanchard immigrants to farm near their new England relatives was no longer possible. The ability of numerous sons of a given father to farm together grew smaller as Boston life crept further outward, turning rural areas into suburbs.
In his father Alexander's case, only one son survived long enough to "go west", common in the 1850s. Moving as California saw a gold rush, that half-brother to Wesley was also a mariner, taking his young family to San Francisco. Would Wesley have joined his half-brother's family out there, had both lived longer? Other Blanchards, descending instead of a brother to Alexander, were able to pursue the farming dream by making a different move out west as first Wisconsin and then southeastern Minnesota opened to settlement.
Weymouth's old " Vital Records" were made available online by archive.org. Volume two showed his parents' marriage in 1840 in the form of intentions only, indicating they married , not in groom Alexander's church, but in bride Susan's church elsewhere. Volume one showed births beginning with the Weymouth Puritans' infant baptisms, through the civil records of 1850. To see his birth page 50 of 353, paste this special Url into your browser (click the "plus sign" to zoom in):
archive.org/stream/vitalrecordsofwe1850newe#page/n101/search/Leonard+Wesley
Many in his family died of "consumption" (TB), a few more of childhood diseases. He could have sickened while soldiering, not have died in battle. The long marches on foot in bad weather worsened health problems. Camp-life made the spread of contagions easy in an era without childhood vaccinations, as quarantining was often not done in a camp until too late.
NY state's death record named a wartime cemetery as having a Wesley Blanchard who died in 1864. Located on an island outside NYC, I the cemetery was used for a short-lived military hospital and a longer-lived fort., offered for officers' families and not just stricken soldiers. That cemetery had most of its bones removed later, along with stones and tomb plaques, had they existed. However, as a reminder that it existed and was of some size, emptied vaults with tall and rusty iron gates have remained into modern times. The island lies in water between New Rochelle and NYC. City-style development spreading there after the military left means these vault gates will eventually disappear.
The military had a heart, so made a list of the internments moved elsewhere, at a much later date than the last burial. They listed what was easily known, Yankee and Confederate and a few civilians, with the dates, not always having names. That the graves were moved is indicated by crossing out the last column's pre-printed and tiny handwriting with a note.
Though NY lists his burial there, his name is not on the list of those moved.
When bones and stone dis-integrate, they cannot be moved.
The other possibility is that family came and took his coffin back home. His state of Massachusetts had better death record systems than did most, especially in the Weymouth area, but lists no death or re-burial for Leonard Wesley Blanchard (with other spellings checked), not in 1864, nor in adjacent years, not in Weymouth, nor in some other town.
His father Alexander and older half-brothers were already dead or distant. His mother , the former Susan Bates, remained to mourn him. She had raised the half-brothers, as well, after their mother died of consumption. She was seen post-War US censuses as barely getting by economically after her men were gone. Was there no one with the means to come and get him? put his body on a train for shipping and re-burial back home?
Could the death and burial recorded by NY state be someone else? He was the younger of two named Leonard Blanchard from Weymouth, the other, an uncle who never used a middle name. At the time, families would separate a namesake and his elder by calling the older the name he preferred, so the younger would be the one to use his initials or middle name. Once the "new lights" came into the former Puritan churches, changing religious ideas and ways of governing, a number saw advantages in Methodism, even if they did not change churches. They named sons Wesley, after Methodism's John Wesley, accounting for him having a middle name not shared by his older era uncle.
Expanding the search outside Massachusetts, there was no good match for the death of an L.W. Blanchard. There had been another young Wesley Blanchard in the family who died in a different state, his widowed mother dying first of consumption after moving the ailing two of them out of Massachusetts, so he could attend a university while she was in her sister's care. He would died of consumption as well.
That left just one Wesley Blanchard who died at the right time, in 1864, a Civil War death. The state of NY issued the death record, giving the location as at Davids' Island, a military site then. No birth place or parents or last residence or regiment was cited for him. The island's military hospital began operations in 1862, after the war began in the summer of 1862, meant to treat the Civil War wounded, from anywhere, North or South, not limited to local New Yorkers. Since it treated the families of the officers stationed there, infants were also among NY's death records for David's Island.
Published government sources at the time now online (in 2017, checking archive.org) would say too little about Davids' Island. The island being used for military purposes, certain things often secret, classified, its officers would not be not free to disclose much. The island stayed under military use for many decades following.
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DETAILS. Leonard Wesley's match to the NY record is not perfect. The age difference is about 3 years. Ruling out the other Wesley Blanchards in his age group, however, narrowed the grave to his, as the others were found still living after 1864.
SPECIFIC CHECKS MADE.
(1) The 1850 and 1860 Censuses were searched for all Wesley Blanchards born 1842 through 1847. These included ones using Wesley as a middle name. All had records showing they were still alive post-1864. The only exception was the Wesley Blanchard from Massachusetts with first name Leonard.
(2) Some individuals named Wesley Blanchard in that birth range showed considerable variation in year of birth across their records. Record-keeping was not as accurate then, due to end-of year collating of too many handwritten records at once by a county or town, transcription errors when sending copies to the state, rounding off of dates, etc.
(4) All records for him showing his parents were in Weymouth, Mass. He was--
*There for the 1850 and 1860 US Censuses, ages 7 and 17.
*In 1850, with both parents and two older half-brothers.
*In 1860, with his widowed mother, Susan B. Bates Blanchard. Worked as a mason. The war began in 1861.
(5) There was no indication his close survivors moved elsewhere. His mother was the closest family left. She lived alone in Weymouth for her last US Censuses, the ones in 1870 and 1880.
(7) Search link below. FamilySearch.org catalogued the list of removals from David's Island, and also put online archived images of the old microfilm of names and dates. It is interesting to explore as they show children and infants buried or put into crypts/vaults on the island as late as the 1870s, not just soldiers.
The database is called "United States, Burial Registers for Military Posts, Camps, and Stations,1768-1921". Logging in with a password is required, but search is free
FamilySearch.org/search/record/results?count=75&query=+death_place:"David's Island, New York, United States"+death_year:1861-1865~&collection_id=2250027
Gravesite Details
Defunct cemetery. Newspaper photos showed gates remaining in front of cave-like crypts.
Family Members
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