More Alonzo

I had the following surprise pop up in my inbox this morning and wanted to share it.  I had Bob Hatch from University of Florida, Department of History contact me today.  He is in the process of gathering all Hatch documents that he can find and depositing them in a public location- originals along with accessible scans.  Fortunately, he came across my searches for Hatch history and was nice enough to send me the photos below.  This looks to be a young Alonzo from his time in Chicago, Illinois.  I have1860 and 1870 US Federal Census' showing his residence in Illinois.  If I am reading the date correctly, he would be 28 years old in this photograph.  Other than the Census' and just a bit of his service as a very young (16 year old) Private in the Civil War, the only information I have on Alonzo has been his time as an opera singer in New York, so this was a fun find!

Doller Family Farm

Below is a photograph of the house that my great grandfather, Johannes "Hans" Doller, was brought up in.  It is located in Abtsgmund, Germany - east of Stuttgart.  The land was purchased from Baron Wöllwarth in 1890 by Josef Doller, my second great grandfather.  Hans ran away from home at the age of 14 with plans of going to South America.  He spent some time in Egypt and then China before sailing to America, stopping for what he thought was a brief layover in San Francisco, California.  He never boarded the ship again.  While in San Francisco, he met my great grandmother, Viktoria "Dora" Holl while attending a local German event.  They were married and settled in Oakland, California to raise their daughter, my grandmother, Barbara.  Hans worked as a butcher at Miller Packing Company and also owned hot dog stands in the Bay Area.  The farm in Germany continues to be passed down each generation to the oldest child within the family.

This is a plaque on the old house showing the date it was built - 1837.  The half moon is the sign of Wöllwarth.

Here is a photograph of a house on the family farm taken in Summer, 2011.  This house was built by Josef Zwikel (my 2nd cousin, 1x removed), who still resides in the home with his family.  My great grandfathers house is to the left.

This is the view from one of the bedrooms.  It looks out to the Barons Castle.  So Beautiful!

Thomas Hooker

My find today comes from my Father's paternal side.  As you look back in history on this side of the family, there are several prestigious ancestors.  Eventually, I will list them all here, but for now I will share my most recent find - Thomas Hooker.  Thomas is my 9th great grandfather.  I already had his granddaughter, Mary Hooker (married to Rev. James Pierpont, founder of Yale University), in my tree since I had done some research into the Pierpont Family which is connected down the line to the Bradley Family.  However, I had never gone any further on Mary until today which led me to Thomas.  Apparently, my 9th great grandfather led a group of men through the "wilderness" to find new land and ultimately became the founder of the Colony of Connecticut!  In fact, he is considered the founder of the city of Hartford and the State of Connecticut.  He is also cited by many as the inspiration for the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," cited by some as the world's first written democratic constitution that established a representative government.  It is said that Thomas Hooker was the first American Democrat.  Thomas' name is on plaques and Statues throughout Connecticut today and the State celebrates Thomas Hooker Day annually just before Halloween.

There is a little less out there about his wife.  What I do know is that her name was Susanna Garbrand and that she was a Lady-in-waiting for Joan Drake, the wife of Sir Francis Drake.  Apparently, Thomas lived with the Drake's for a time and fell in love with Susanna.  They married in Joan's hometown of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England and named their first child (which I have as Joanna) after her.  More to come...

Thomas Hooker Statue at the Old State House: The Statue and Plaque Reads: - West Elevation – THOMAS HOOKER 1586-1647 Founder of Hartford Pastor - Statesman - "The foundation of authority is laid firstly in the Free Consent of the People." - South Elevation - "The choice of public magistrates, belongs unto the people, by God’s own allowance. And it is in their power, also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place, unto which they call them." - East Elevation – Leading his people through the wilderness, he founded Hartford, in June 1636. Two years later he preached the historic sermon, which inspired the Fundamental Orders, and sowed the seeds of free Constitutional government in America. - North Elevation – "As God has given us Liberty, let us take it." - Bronze Plaque – To the People of Hartford from the Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford, October 1950.

Thomas Hooker - Wikipedia

Richard Kenderdine Sr.

After starting my family search on Ancestry.com, I was fortunate to come into contact with several distant cousins from several sides of my family.  It has been fun sharing information back and forth.  Below is a newspaper clipping of Richard Kenderdine Sr.'s obituary that I obtained from a cousin I met only a couple months ago.  Richard is my 3rd great grandfather on my paternal grandmother's (Speeden) side.  I did not have much information on the Kenderdine family (in fact, I didn't even have this mans name) when I started, so this was an exciting find!

You can click on the photo to get a better look.  I will also put a downloadable link below:

Click Here to Download a Copy

Jane Isabella Knowles Memoirs

My Aunt came upon this special document while she was looking through old family documents.  It is the hand written memoirs of my second great grandmother, Jane Isabella Knowles.  It is a little difficult to read, but well worth the effort.  Click the link below and enjoy!

Download Link Code

Juicy Family Secrets Revealed

I've slowed down in my family tree quest a bit, but sometimes when I have a chunk of time, I log on and randomly pick a name to research.  This afternoon, I picked Alonzo Hatch (Grandpa Kennedy's maternal grandfather) again.  

Alonzo is a fun one to look for because there is SO much out there on him.  Today, I decided to look for proof of his being arrested.  He is sited in many places for his opera singing, and I had noticed that a few of these sites talked of his arrest and quoted the New York Times.  I figured this was the best place to start.  There are TONS of newspaper clippings about Alonzo.  Most are about his stage appearances.  However, I did find an arrest.  The crazy thing is, it's NOT the arrest I was looking for as the dates didn't match up.  It looks as though our great great grandfather was arrested TWICE!  I had to do some digging in different newspapers to find the one I was looking for to be sure.  Luckily I found the articles for both.  It seems that Alonzo was quite famous in his day and made a nice chunk of change for his talent.  Unfortunately, he didn't save well ;).  


Here is the transcription from the first arrest in April, 1906.  It is from the Brooklyn Standard Union Newspaper.  Alonzo's age is different than what I have, however, I have this arrest from several sources as being our Alonzo.  He approached the wrong person on this night:

Alonzo HATCH, 45 years old, a broken down actor who lives at 2222 
Fulton street, spoted [sic] a benevolent looking gray-haired man 
standing at the corner of Ralph avenue and Halsey street about 8 
o'clock last night. He approached the stranger and asked him for five 
cents to get a drink.
"Do you think you could get a drink on Sunday if you had a nickel?" 
asked the old man.
"It would be a cinch," replied HATCH. "The captain of this precinct, 
O'REILLY, is a dub and the saloons are wide open."
"Is that so," said the white-haired man. "Well, allow me to introduce 
myself. I am the dub you speak of . You're a panhandler and you're 
under arrest."
In court this morning HATCH admitted that he had been begging. 
Magistrate VOORHEES gave him two days in jail to sober up.

The second arrest occurred 2 months before his death.  The judge recognized him and let him off.  This is the transcription from the New York Times in October, 1909:

ONCE NOTED SINGER A BEGGER

Magistrate Recognizes Alonzo Hatch, Who once Received $1000 a Night.

In an old man whom Detective England had picked up in the Grand Central Station for begging and brought to the night court, Magistrate House last night recognized Alonzo Hatch, who, the Magistrate told the reporters later, had once been a great singer, appearing under Col. Mapelson in this city twenty years ago and receiving as much as $1000 a night for a concert.

"I was once a great man," said Hatch, after he had given his name and his address as 242 Third Avenue.

Magistrate House was deeply sympathetic, and permitted Hatch to go home, after telling the old man how sorry he was for him.

I wish I had started this research earlier.  I would have loved to talk to Grandpa about this.  I wonder if he knew, or if his mom even knew.  She was quite young, only 10 years old when he died.

Doller Family Tree

I am very fortunate to have been recently connected to a cousin in Germany on my Maternal Grandmother's side.  My Grandmother's Father's family (The Doller's) still reside on the family farm.  Most of them do not speak English, but after sending a letter to the farm I was lucky enough to hear from Angelika, a sweet 14 year old girl who also happens to be my 3rd cousin.  She and I have now connected via email and Facebook.  She has been kind enough to not only answer my many, many questions, but also go in search for the answers we both don't have.  A couple weeks ago, her mother graciously traveled to the Church Archive to find the proper names and dates of our mutual ancestors.  We discovered more family members than we were even aware of!  You can see the family tree she sent me on the Doller page of this blog.  I am hopeful that Angelika and I can remain in contact for many years to come.