Mary Mellon Cloward's Parents

Mary Mellon Cloward's Parents 

In my research preparing for the YouTube episode on the Cloward sisters, I had done a very basic search on Full Text Search on the FamilySearch website. The only two things I put in my query was "Cloward" for name and "Delaware" for location. That's it. It brought up 921 results. And I looked through all of them. And what I found through that process was pretty exciting! I found Mary Mellon's parents (she is Catherine Ann, Mary Jane, and Matilda's mother.) At first I didn't think Archibald and Mary Mellon were Mary's parents, as I had found Archibald's will, and he left everything to his wife, Mary and if she didn't outlive him, everything was to go to his brother's son. I would love to know the back story there as to why Mary wasn't listed in her father's will, written in 1812, not long before he passed away. He listed his wife Mary as his executor. The 1800 Census shows Archibald having a daughter Mary's age, and she is the only child listed in the census. Interestingly, I found John Cloward listed in the probate records for James Jameson, and for some reason it spells out that John is the "executor d.b.n." of Archibald Mellon's will. Here's what I found out about what that means:

 d.b.n." stands for the Latin de bonis non administratis, meaning "of goods not administered." It means the person is a successor who takes over an estate that someone else started handling but didn't finish.

One of the reasons listed for this happening is if someone else started to administer the will, then ended up dying, and the court had to appoint someone else to finish carrying out the wishes of the will. So, could Archibald's wife, Mary have died? I'm looking into that. It's just interesting that in the middle of someone else's probate record from November 1814, would list John Cloward, giving us the piece of information we needed to tie these two families together! Just goes to show, you never know where you'll find that one piece of information that will make all the difference in your research!

John Cloward and Mary Mellon were married July 1, 1813, so they were husband and wife for a year and a half when John took over as administrator.

Three Cloward Sisters - All indentured after the Death of Their Father

 

Full YouTube Episode on Cloward Sisters

I just uploaded the video I made about three sisters, our Cloward cousins, who had to be indentured out after the death of their father, John Cloward. Him and Mary Mellon had only been married for thirteen years, when he passed away. They had a son according to the 1840 US Census, between 0 -10 years old. I have found nothing more on him. Their three daughters all had to be indentured, I'm supposing that Mary had no way to care for the girls. They were indentured out one by one. Mary Jane, their second daughter was indentured first at nine years old. Then Matilda followed the following year, also at nine years old. In 1832, Catherine Ann, the oldest at 13 was also indentured. Matilda ended up being indentured twice, and both times, her master passed away. The terms of their indentures; they were to be taught "The art, trade, and mystery of housewifery" Who came up with that mouthful? They were to receive some education, one was detailed enough to say that it would be one year, the others did not specify. At the end of their indentures, each said they would receive two suits of clothing "suitable to her condition" and one of them spelled out, that just one of the two outfits had to be new... that's it! Watch the video to find out what happened to Catherine Ann and Mary Jane. I'm still looking for elusive cousin Matilda. I have not found her in any census records. I searched the 1840 Census in Delaware for any women named Matilda. There were two; one came from an entirely African American family, and the other one, I found her marriage record, listing her maiden name, wasn't our Matilda. I will keep you posted when I figure anything else out. 

The Indenture Book Index

Mary Jane, the first to be indentured at nine years old

                                            Matilda's first indenture record also at nine years old

                             

                                                        Mary Jane's second indenture at 13

Catherine Anne's indenture at 13

Mary Jane's marriage record

Mary Jane with husband Francis, daughter Martha, and her sister, Catherine Ann is living with them at the time of the 1850 US Census in Philadelphia

Newspaper clipping for the death of Mary Jane, Philadelphia, just one year after this US Census

This newspaper clipping was for a newspaper in Wilmington, Delaware, where she was from

Death Record for Catherine Ann, just three years later, 1854, in Blockley Almshouse, Philadelphia 

More to Come and some YouTube Videos I Made

 I'm going to work on being better at updating this blog regularly. Also, I decided to start a YouTube channel not long ago. I have my intro video, and first episode up, that i will post links to here in case you are interested. I will be making videos of the Cloward family, the first one will be up hopefully this weekend or the first part of next week. It will be about the Thomas and Margaret Cloward family, who had to indenture at least one of their children, (that's all I've found so far, it seems unlikely to me that they would have only had to indenture one child...and he was eight years old! Then their son John passed away young, and his wife had to indenture three daughters, two at the age of 9 and one of them at 13! Those were tough times...I will post here as soon as that episode is live. This is the introduction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Xrv_GhoME  and this is the first episode about my Grandpa Palmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbwgb25tqxU