Hi
I am providing two sets of information I am trying to find the family of Catherine Ely-1029 and Jonathan Andrew Tierce-21 and connect them to their proper families.http://tierce.us/pb/wp_8c99b2ca/wp_8c99b2ca.html
Jonathan Andrew Tierce’s brother-in-law, William H. Ely, was the Land Agent to the Connecticut Deaf and Dumb Asylum. The Asylum was to receive a land grant, and it was his job to find the best land. He scouted the Tuscaloosa and Birmingham areas in 1816. On this scouting trip he was accompanied by some of the Tierces. Ely and his grandnephew, William Cathar Tierce, stayed in Alabama. In 1819 Congress granted the asylum 36,000 acres of land and Ely chose 2,880 acres in and around Tuscaloosa. In about 1820 William H. Ely was quoted as saying, “The population now may be from 6 to 800 souls, not one of whom, except a few to whom I have sold land since I came here, have any title to the land they live on.” Our great-great-great-granduncle, William Ely, sold the remainder of the land grant on January 17, 1821. Having fulfilled his duty to the Asylum, he returned to his home in Hartford, Connecticut where he died in 1847.
Alabama became a territory in 1817 and on December 12, 1819 became a state. In 1817 Thomas Luke Scales (Mem Tierce, II’s 3rd great-grandfather) found the “Alabama Stone” near his home west of Tuscaloosa in Coker, Alabama. The 200 lb. stone had an inscription on it: HISPAN EN IND REX 1232, which translates to “King of Spain and the Indies.” This stone is considered one of the earliest pieces of evidence of the white man’s exploration in America.
MY OPINIONS: Jonathan Andrew Tierce (actually Tracy) Mem said Jonathan Andrew Tierce came from Ireland and the family well might have done that but the time he is quoting the Tracy's had already been in this country for about 100 years. It is possible that he took a trip to Ireland to bring his brother back or for a visit. Tierce-21 my wikitree follows what I believe to be his ancestory,I could be wrong
This is from the Ely ancestry book
"FOURTH GENERATION.
who was adm. to the church in Windsor, '30-'6o (O. C. R.)- Their fourth child,
Abigail, married, 1640, Elder John Strong.
Thomas Ford married (2) Mrs. Ann (widow of Thomas) Scott.
He died November 28, 1676. His first wife died 1643.
Ebenezer Strong, son of Elder John, was born 1643, died Feb. 11, 1729, mar-
ried Oct. 14, 1688, Hanah Clapp of Dorchester, born 1646.
Their son, Ebenezer Strong, born Aug. 2, 1671, died Nov. 12, 1729, married
Oct. 25, 169s, Mary Holton, of Northampton, who was born July 22, 1680, and
died Dec. 8, 1705.
Mary Strong, their daughter, born Jany. 16, 1701, died May 26, 1770, mar-
ried June 12, 1723, Benjamin Sheldon of Northampton, Mass., who was born 1697,
and who died Aug. 28 1773.
Their daughter, Jerusha Sheldon, born Feby. 28, 1737, died in 1797, married
Nov. 23, 1757, Rev. Richard Ely (245), who was born Sept. 30, 1733, and died Aug.
23, 1814.
It was a son of this devout Rev. Richard Ely, of Saybrook, who projected
and built the two first steamboats that plied between New York and the Con-
necticut river. The same Ely, with other philanthropic men, procured from Con-
gress, through Henry Clay, the grant of lands in Alabama which were the endow-
ment of that beneficent institution, the Hartford Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb.
The Ely Re-Union Pamphlet says that Rev. Richard Ely removed to Petti-
pang (now Centre Brook), and was the honored pastor of the Congregational
Society in that place, until years and infirmities induced him to accept Rev.
Aaron Hovey, his son-in-law, as a colleague. Having lost his wife, he concluded
to remove to Chester to enjoy the society of his son, Richard Ely, M. D., and his
children. After he was eighty years old he rode from Saybrook to Hartford to
visit his son William, on horseback, and returned in the same manner, a distance
of fifty miles each way"
- I thought I had solved the issue of Catherine's family. On Ely-1029 I have her parents listed as James Ely and Catherine Turner because Mem has it listed that(he gives a date maybe 1740) I found the person he referred to it is the information I have on wikitree,but now he refers (I have sent him my findings) to William H Ely as Jonathan Tierce's brother in law,he use to refer to him as our great uncle. The dates match up better for him being Catherine's brother. It has occurred to me that Catherine may have been married before and that is why I cannot find her marriage information. I cannot find where she is buried or where Jonathan Andrew Tracy(Tierce)buried. Tracy is supposedly buried in Virginia and Catherine is supposedly buried in Lauren Co SC
