Posts Tagged ‘white creek’

While feeling quite patriotic for the holidays I decided to revisit one of my Revolutionary War patriot ancestors, Private Aaron HULET (1755-1835) who was a pensioner and is buried in Shaftsbury, Bennington County Vermont.

His second wife, my ancestor, was Cynthia (HOPKINS) HULET (1775-1860) and I have worked on them both for many years. Cynthia had at least two sisters, Bethia (HOPKINS) REYNOLDS and (presumed) ‘Sylvia’ (HOPKINS) PARKER, that I had previously noted were from an unknown place when they both signed an affidavit attesting to their sister Cynthia’s having been the widow of Aaron HULET.

Have you ever wondered what the Estate valuations meant in the various census returns where they were reported?

The 1850 federal census asked the value of real estate.
1860 census value of real estate and value of personal estate.
1870 census asked value of real estate and personal property.

You could actually use these numbers to put your family in economic perspective within the community in which they lived.  All you would have to do is enter the town or area into a database and then sort by the value to find out where your ancestors stood in the pecking order of their neighbors.

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Peter Force was a 19th-century politician, newspaper editor, archivist, and historian.

Born near the Passaic Falls in New Jersey, to William and Sarah (Ferguson) Force.

His greatest achievement came as a collector and editor of historical documents. He published Tracts and Other Papers, Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America.

His American Archives was a collection of the most important documents of the American Revolution, 1774–1776. 9 volumes were published between 1837 and 1853. Force’s lifelong desire to establish an American national library finally came to fruition in 1867 when Congress purchased his own collection of original documents for $100,000 to found the Library of Congress.