Autograph Book of Lois Mosely

"of"

Columbia, Herkimer County, NY

Through fortune, curiosity and serendipity, we occasionally come across articles and documents that do not belong to our own family. We pick them up and hold them dear, for someone else treasured them. Over 30 years ago (as of 2011) Marilyn K. Baumann found some family papers and an autograph book signed by persons with early Herkimer County names, as well as several family letters. Several of the signings were made in Wayne County, NY, where Lois Moseley may have attended the Newark Seminary in the Town of Arcadia. The autograph book, by the dates recorded, does show Lois MOSELEY to be at the Newark Academy in May 1838. We'll let Marilyn continue with the story:

"These documents came out of an older house in the neighborhood of my childhood in Mount Clemens, Michigan (a Detroit suburb), in an estate sale in the mid-70's of Clara Williams. I don't know her maiden name or family history, but we surmise these docs were special to her, or to her husband, or that they fall into that great category of "we don't know much about this, but don't throw it away." The autograph album seems to belong to a Miss Lois Moseley of Columbia, Herkimer County."

Samples of some of the verses -

Columbia Feb 12 1837

Remember well and bear in mind
a faithful friend is hard to find
When once you find one just and true
Change not an old one for a new

Deloss W. TAFT


Columbia Feb 17th 1837

To My Lois
How sweet the strong uniting love
that makes us both to part
and though far off you do remove
we shall be joined in heart

Eliza Ann CRISTMAN

Columbia Feb 18th 1837

To L P MOSELEY

When you are in a distant land
And you these lines do view
Remember They are from A Friend
That often thinks of you

H E Getman

The verses continue - here are as many full names as I can make out (some ink fading). I'll give you the verse date and signature:

>There are also in this box 2 folded letters. One is addressed to Mss Lois Mosley, Colombia is dated Exeter Oct 4th 1829 with the salutation "Dear Sister", and signed "Lavinia". The other letter is addressed "To Mss Louis Mosely, Columbia, Herkimer Co. N.Y.", is dated "Ripley Dec 1 [no year]" and is signed "Betsey Lawin". The ending of this letter says, "Please remember my love to Mr. Palmer and to your father and mother Louis Mosely and Eliza Palmer". There is one more letter in the box in badly folded condition, dated July 20, 1794, addressed "Elisha" and signed by Mr. E. Moseley. And to further the mystery, there is what looks like the address of a letter -

Mr. Elisha Moseley, Student
at New Haven College
Hampton
Connecticut

Marilyn K. Baumann
20506 Mada Avenue
Southfield, MI 48075

Marilyn is not related to the Moseleys. We asked her about her own family search:
When my twin sister and I were born, my father searched his maternal line because of other "rumored" twins in his family. The rumor was that the family was related to General Arthur St. Clair (Revolutionary War), who in his travels fathered twin girls with a Chippewa woman, and that these girls were raised in the early 1800's in a convent in Three Rivers, Quebec. My father found that the records from this convent were destroyed in a fire, but in the search managed to accumulate original birth/death/marriage/baptism/etc. records - the kind that you can get only copies of now. The docs in French he had translated. And yes, apparently the twin rumor was true enough from the info he gathered for the family to stop joking about it; the "honor" of being related to a general outweighed the bastard Indian twin angle, even in his deeply Catholic family. The surnames for this tale are BAUMANN, DeMARS/DUMARS, and ROI, all living in the Algonac, St. Clair County area of Michigan. Most of them are buried in the area: I have headstone pictures taken in 1977 in an old section of a church cemetery, and now 20+ years later, some of those stones have been vandalized, or have disappeared. When taking those pictures, I met a woman at the cemetery who approached me to offer help finding graves because she had cataloged the headstones the year prior for a Bicentennial project. It turned out we were cousins, and the first thing she asked me was if I knew anything about Indian twins in the family. Boy, did she hit the jackpot that day.

My mother's maternal line has been studied for years by one of her cousins, who shares all that info with us. My mother's paternal line was also studied for years by another cousin and is found in his published book, The Knight/Chase Familes by Robert Whiting Knight. My nephew's middle name is Whiting. Robert Knight branched off extensively thru his mother (my mother's father's sister), and we can count my nephew back 19 generations - his scholarship was amazing. At this point, my sister and I are the keepers of all of these documents, and really aren't involved too much in geneology because we can't figure out what else is left to do. But I have learned the importance of original documents finding their proper home, and that is why I'm using the internet to find the MOSELEY/MOSELY family from the Herkimer area.

Information as to the identities of any of the persons mentioned above would be appreciated by Co-coordinator Tim to post on this page. Marilyn is searching for descendants of the Moseleys.

Wayne County Historical Articles Section

the Wayne County NYGenWeb Page

Visit the Herkimer County NYGenWeb Page