Adam Misener (1798 - 1901)

Born 20 Feb 1798 in Crowland, Welland, Upper Canada

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Miller) Misener — married 21 Apr 1821 in Jerseyville, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada

Husband of Helena Laine (Coleman) Misener — married 21 Apr 1831 in Ontario, Canada

Descendants

Died 21 Sep 1901 at age 103 in Troy, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada

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Biography

Adam Misener of Troy, Ontario is the son of Nicholas & Jane (McClain) Misener. He is often referred to has "Old Uncle Adam". Most of the Misener recorded family history is attributed to having come from Adam Misener as recorded by an interview published in the book "Wentworth Landmarks", where Adam was interviewed at the age of 99 by the author. The article appears to be a rather flowery and romantic description of the author's visit with Adam Misener. Though not in his own words or in his own hand, we can assume that the article contains a relatively accurate account of his life as told to the author.

The interview is transcribed as follows: "Directly alongside the school house in Troy is a little frame cottage set on stone foundation that tells one of a capacious cellar below. In the school yard the youngest of the present generation play about; from the cottage window in winter and leaning against the line fence in summer the oldest man in many a county watches them and has pleasant thoughts of his own childhood, so long gone from him. This was my find, and a most happy find it was, for though Uncle Adam Misener is so old - 99 years on Feb. 20 of this year - he is young enough in activity to pass for a much younger man, and in conversation is a most delightful companion.

When the Psalmist wrote, "The days of our years are three scores years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away," he certainly did not include Uncle Misener, for though he is long past the allotted span of life's years his strength, according to his own statement, is not yet labor and sorrow. "I sawed and split all the wood we are using last summer, besides attending to the garden," said he, cheerfully. "Didn't it tire me? I wouldn't work till I got tired. I would take rests in between. But I will not be able to do so much next summer," he went on. And then he dramatically described what he called "his first stroke." It came one day last fall when he was alone in the dining room lying on the sofa. The room was warm and he had been dosing. "I got up," he said, "to open a door, but before I had taken a step I lost my breath, and with the feeling that my pulse had stopped there was a great flash in my eyes and I fell on the floor. I got over it all right, but I haven't been the same since, and have had done or two more strokes. The doctor says it would have settled me the first time if it had been a little harder.

Uncle Adam was a slip of a boy when the battle of Lundy's Lane was fought, and as his father's house was but very few miles from the scene of hostilities, and he was around at the time, he heard a good deal of the row, though, like a good sensible boy, he did not get in the thick of it. He will tell you now, if you care to ask him about it, how he and his sisters were out in his father's field picking peas on the day of the battle. They had heard there was to be an engagement soon and were looking for it. It started about half an hour before sundown, and as the old man now says, with a wave of his arms, "when I tell about it I get the same feeling I had then." The first noise the youngsters heard was the bang of a 32-pounder which nearly scared them out of their wits. Then came a rattle like hail on a roof, dying away and coming thicker and faster, just as the storm might increase or subside. This was the musketry discharge, and every once in a while would roar out like a great thunder peal the big piece of ordnance. Afterwards the children went to the battle ground, saw the blood-stained earth, counted 42 bullet holes in one fence rail, gathered a great store of emptied cartridges and went home with their little hearts sorrowful and their minds full of wonderment, just the same as little Peterkin.

One day when he was a small boy Uncle Adam lost the sight of one eye. It happened in a peculiar way, too. He was playing knife with some other boys, and when he came to "eyes" the blade of the knife went too far, blotting out the sight forever. When one considers that even now at 99 years of age Uncle Adam is just beginning to use glasses, though for nearly all his life the strain of sight has been upon one eye, one cannot but wonder.

March 13, eighteen and eighteen," as he puts it himself, was the time when the old man first came to Beverly. There were at that time seven families in the place and sixty-three names on the assessment roll, and forest abounded everywhere. Like nearly everyone else in those early days, Uncle Adam had to have a mill of some kind. He had a saw mill, and with it bad luck. It had been running but a month when it burned down with all the product of the month's sawing. He tells how the fire occurred: "I went in with another young man in the mill business, and we kept it running all the time, he worked from noon till midnight and I from mid-night till noon. At night we used pin knots for torches , and one night when my partner quit work, he went right home instead of calling at my house and waking me up. When he left he threw the pine-knot embers into the creek, as he thought. A little while afterwards I woke up and my room was all of a glare. I looked out of the window just in time to see the mill roof fall in and a great sheet of flame catch the piles of lumber we had cut. The pine-knot embers got into some sawdust.

Three years after settling there Uncle Adam married Miss Mary Miller, who died five years afterward. In 1831 he then married Miss Ellen Coleman, who died in April, 1895, at the good old age of ninety-five years.

Ten children were the joy of Uncle Adam's wedded life, and but not one of them has died as yet. The sturdiness of the Misener stock may be judged when it is said that of twelve brothers and sisters, of which Adam is one, all but two have lived to be over eighty years old. One of these two died young of scarlet fever and the other at seventy-nine years. A sister - Elizabeth - died a month ago, having reached ninety-three years, and now Uncle Adam the only one left of his father's family. but he has perpetuated his family's name, for last November there were in the little cottage at dinner no less than five generations represented. Mrs. Clement, of 271 Mary street, is a daughter of Uncle Adam.

I cannot begin to tell you all the interesting talk I had with the old man as we sat by his kitchen fire that morning. he told me, and I can readily believe it from the steadiness of his hand, that he shaves himself yet. I learned that all his long life he has been a staunch Reformer in politics, and but twice since 1818 has missed recording his vote for Reform candidates. He admitted that he would like very much to live till he had passed the 100 year mark, though he sometimes thinks that one of those strokes will carry him off before that time comes.

I gave him a paper to read, and as he sat by the fire as the artist, back from his ruined walls and his search for Helen, sketched him as he sat, he not knowing a thing about it, so interested was he in reading about the developments of the Cretan trouble. Goodly, kindly old Uncle Adam; may he live pass the century mark."^[1]

Adam Misener married twice and had ten children. His first wife is Mary Miller and his second wife is Helena Coleman. Very little information has been gathered on the families of his wives. Adam is buried in the Troy Cemetery. His children by Mary Miller are: Lydia Ann; Conrad; Jane; and Catherine. The children by Helena Coleman are: Nicholas; Elisha; John Colman; Henry Moe; Eliza; Amelia; Kate Hood. Misener, Adam (son of Nicholas and Jane (McClain) Misener), born at Crowland Twp., Welland Co., Upper Canada on 20 Feb 1798, died at Troy, Beverley Twp., Wentworth Co., Ontario on 2 Sep 1901.1 He married first at Jerseyville, Ancaster Twp., Wentworth Co. on 21 Apr 1821, Mary Miller, died c. 1826. Adam married second on 21 Apr 1831, Helena Laine Coleman, born on 28 Oct 1799, died in Apr 1895.1 Adam and Mary were buried in Troy Cemetery, Beverly Twp. On 13 Mar 1818, Adam received from his father a farm in Beverly Twp., Wentworth Co. at the village of Troy. He served in the Gore District Militia for many years. In the 1881 Census of Beverly Twp., Adam Misener was listed as a farmer 83 with his wife Hellen 82 and child Cathrine Hava 28. All were born in Ontario, Dutch and Episcopal Methodist. In the 1901 Census of Beverly Twp., Adam Misener was recorded aged 103. With him were an adopted daughter Kate Hood born on 8 Sep 1852 and a great granddaughter Hattie Vansickle born on 31 Oct 1885.

Sources

• Find A Grave Memorial# 10899570

• Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938, 1943, and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947, Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Series: MS935; Reel: 104

• 1851 Census of Canada, Year: 1851; Census Place: Beverly, Wentworth County, Canada West (Ontario); Schedule: B; Roll: C_11758; Page: 5; Line: 9

• 1861 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Census Returns For 1861; Roll: C-1086

• 1871 Census of Canada, Year: 1871; Census Place: Beverley, Wentworth North, Ontario; Roll: C-9924; Page: 33; Family No: 120

• 1881 Census of Canada, Year: 1881; Census Place: Beverley, Wentworth North, Ontario; Roll: C_13256; Page: 47; Family No: 222

• 1891 census of Canada, Year: 1891; Census Place: Beverley, Wentworth North, Ontario; Roll: T-6378; Family No: 157

• 1901 Census of Canada, Year: 1901; Census Place: Beverly, Wentworth & Brant (north/nord), Ontario; Page: 2; Family No: 16

• Photo Credit: James Mahar, California, USA

1. ↑ Pen and Pencil Sketches: Wentworth Landmarks Paperback – 1897, by Mrs. et al DICK-LAUDER (Author), J. R. SEAVEY (Illustrator) Chpt. XXIII, pg 124-8