The recent addition of the Massachusetts
Society of the Cincinnati database to the New England Historic
Genealogical Society’s website prompts me to share a story of my efforts
to locate the lineage and biography of one of its original members.
William Andrews was a notable Boston bookbinder whose work was showcased
in the publications of the American Antiquarian Society. 1Boston
was a small town in the mid-to-late 1700s, and William would come to
know many local tradesmen, such as Paul Revere, John Crane, and Henry
Knox, all later to become patriots of the Revolution. He was in the same
trade as Henry Knox, a local bookseller who had a great interest in
military science, particularly artillery. Before the Battle of Bunker
Hill, Knox had volunteered to General Artemis Ward, commander of the
Massachusetts Militia, who put him in command of several militia
artillery companies. Late in 1776, Col. Knox was ordered to create an
artillery regiment in Boston for the Continental Army. His knowledge
and energy attracted the attention of General Washington, who ultimately
made him commanding general of the entire Continental Artillery.
William was commissioned January 1, 1777, 2as a lieutenant
with Col. John Crane’s newly reorganized Third Continental Artillery,
and he immediately began recruiting in Captain Treadwell’s company in
Boston. By the end of March the regiment moved first to Morristown, New
Jersey, and then to Smith’s Clove, New York 3. They wintered
at Valley Forge and by the end of April were at Crossroads and
Brandywine. His pay receipts from the National Archives 4confirm
that he moved with the unit to the Hudson River area near West Point,
where British troops captured him on June 1. William was held at Fort
Lafayette in New York and exchanged on September 13, 1781. He was
immediately promoted to first lieutenant and sent to Boston by General
Knox, where, because of his parole, he was in charge of recruiting for
the duration of the war.
At the end of the war, veterans of the Continental Army met and
formed the Society of The Cincinnati. General Knox was a prime mover in
the organization. It was named after the Roman senator, Cincinnatus,
who, like Washington, was called several times from his beloved farm to
defend his country. The purpose of the organization was to continue the
“fellowship of arms” of the Continental officers, and to look after
their wounded, disabled, and destitute comrades. In addition, the
Society members vowed to continue pressuring Congress to pay the several
years of arrearage owed to the troops. In Massachusetts, Andrews
continued his association with his fellow soldiers by becoming an
original member of the Massachusetts Society as well as a member of its
governing “Standing Committee.”
The Society limited membership to the Continental Officer or his
descendant, and allowed only one descendant to represent each future
generation. Today there should be one member for each officer; however, a
number of lines have become extinct or forgotten. Qualified family
members next in the line of descent are eligible to represent these
families and become members of the Society. On several occasions the
Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati has shared its database with
NEHGS in an attempt to offer these memberships to qualified individuals.
5I am one of those individuals, who in the normal pursuit of
my lineage, stumbled upon qualification for the Society. This is my
story too:
My introduction to the world of genealogy began at the National DAR
Library in Washington DC. I went into the library and asked the docent
how to begin searching for my ancestors. I gave her the name of my great
grandfather, Isaac Hastings, and she proceeded to show me an index card
for a genealogy, a The Hastings Memorial 6. The
index showed an Isaac Hastings, who had died in Perinton, Monroe County,
New York, which matched information in a family bible kept in my
library. I hurriedly wrote down all I could before the library closed
its doors. That was thirty-five years ago, and I am still at it! Long
ago, after finding the easy lineages, I "hit the wall" with many dead
ends. Today each new piece of data found is greeted with great
celebration.
Lieutenant William Andrews was identified that day as well. The
Hastings Memorial showed that Simon Hastings 7married
Mindwell Andrews 8in Boston on November 19, 1794. She was
the daughter of Lt. William Andrews and Jane Hayes. I looked at a number
of Andrews genealogies and found many individuals named William. How in
the world does a person find the right one? The International
Genealogical Index at the Family History Center contained an abundance
of them as well, but none could be identified as the right one. The
question nagged at me while I went on with other searches that could be
accomplished with the resources at hand. William Andrews was left behind
for many years.
The amateur genealogist is constantly confronted with a blizzard of
data from which to select the one “snowflake” that will provide the
breakthrough needed to prove or discount a theory. In 1983 the purchase
of a new computer prompted a project to clean up the vast information in
my notebooks and enter it into a genealogical database. The “Andrews
problem” presented itself again. Several years later I began scanning
the DAR Patriot Index for Lt. William Andrews, in an attempt to
determine which company he was affiliated with, and to find, perhaps, a
listing of his parents. It showed several individuals named William
Andrews9
, one of which was from Massachusetts, married to
Jane Hayes, and an officer in Col. John Crane’s Third Continental
Artillery. I jumped at those words “Continental Artillery!” A new source
had presented itself.
Would the Society of the Cincinnati have the information and lineage
of this Andrews? I wrote the Massachusetts Society, and they responded
that they had no information about William’s parentage. They also wrote
that William Andrews was not represented by a current member of the
Massachusetts Society. The letter went on to say that I might be invited
to join, but there may be other descendants who had a prior claim to
the membership. I asked my older cousins if they were interested in the
membership and their responses varied between "what's that?" and "go for
it!" I found later that the individual who wrote the letter was
referencing Memorials of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.
This publication gives information about members, from the Society’s
beginnings to the present, and includes descendants of the members. My
great grandfather Isaac Hastings was shown in the book 10.
Still, no one knew the identity of William Andrews' parents.
As I already had documentation on William’s marriage and death, I
searched vital records, collecting information on at least eight
immigrant Andrews families. On a trip to Boston in 1992, I found
William’s obituary and will in Cambridge. The obituary established that
he was born in 1748 by showing his age at death.
I then turned again to the IGI, which listed about fifty men bearing
the name William Andrews. Collateral information narrowed the
possibilities to less than five. The dates of marriage for two of these
Williams matched the biography he had given the Society of the
Cincinnati. The microfilmed source material cited in the IGI turned out
to be the Boston Commissioners Reports, 11which listed a son
born October 19, 1748, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to William and
Mindwell [Clap] Andrews. While I had looked in Boston records, I had not
noticed Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, whose records are included with
Boston, but in a separate volume. The IGI’s reference to the Dorchester
vital records was the “snowflake” that opened up the whole story.
Further research of the Boston Commissioners Reports 12show
his lineage to be: William4and Mindwell [Clap] Andrews; John3
and Margaret [Lord] Andrews; Thomas2 and Phoebe [Goard]
Andrews; and Thomas1 and Ann [?] Andrews, all of Dartmouth,
Suffolk County, Massachusetts. A search through the vital records of
Dorchester uncovered a complete and extensive fan chart for the Andrews
family, including many maternal lines. Since William named his first
daughter Mindwell (after her mother) and since the date of birth matches
the obituary, there is no doubt this is the correct lineage for
Lieutenant William Andrews of the Third Continental Artillery.
1Early American Bookbindings from the Collection of
Michael Papantonio (Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society,
1985), 8, 9
2Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in
The War of the Revolution (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1896), 1:261
3John K. Robertson and Bob McDonald, “Orderly Books of
Artillery Units in Continental Service,” online
<http://www.revwar75.com/ob/artillery>
4National
Archives: Service Record of 1st Lt. William Andrews; John Crane's Third
Continental Artillery These were matched up with a Revolutionary War
time line showing places, dates, and orders.
5The New
England Historical and Genealogical Register 91 (Boston: NEHGS,
1937) 205-206 and 94 (1940) 95-96. Lists of vacancies were published to
attract qualified members.
6 Lydia Buckminster, The
Hastings memorial : a genealogical account of the descendants of Thomas
Hastings of Watertown, Mass. from 1634 to 1864 (Boston: Samuel G.
Drake, 1866)
7Simon’s lineage is: Simon4 and
Sarah [Coolidge] Hastings; Benjamin3 and Mary [Taynter]
Hastings; Samuel2 and Sarah [Coolidge] Hastings; Thomas1
and Margaret [Cheney] Hastings. The second Sarah Coolidge is the grand
niece of the first. The family is of Watertown, Massachusetts, and
connected to numerous Revolutionary War veterans and several U.S.
presidents, including Coolidge, Garfield, and the Bushes.
8A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston,
vol. 30: A Volume of Records Relating to the Early History of
Boston, Containing Boston Marriages from 1752 to 1809, (Boston:
Municipal Printing Office, 1907) 349
9Daughters of the
American Revolution, DAR Patriot Index (Washington: The Society,
1990, c1994), 103:30
10Bradford A. Whittemore, Memorials
of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, (Boston: Printed
for the Society,1964), 13
11A Report of the Record
Commissioners of the City of Boston, vol. 21: Dorchester
Births, Marriages, and Deaths to the End of 1825. (Boston: Rockwell
and Churchill, 1891) 143
12Ibid vol. 21, vol.
30, shows his ancestors to be many of the first settlers of Dorchester.