Connable

Samuel Connable b. 1689

/ Kirstin Miller

Samuel Connable, 7th great grandpa on RootsMagic tree

Samuel Connable was born January 16, 1689 in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were John and Sarah Cloyes Connable. John Connable came from England, sources state all early American Connable’s descend from this guy. Samuel had 2 brothers and 7 sisters. This Samuel is the only son to carry on the Connable name.

Samuel’s first wife was Abigail Treadway they married June 17, 1710. Abigail and their 2 young children died by 1713. Samuel married Mary Wilson 2nd on July 23, 1713 in Boston, she was also a widow. Samuel and Mary had 11 kids.

Mary’s dad William Wilson was a chair maker in Boston and most likely sold Samuel his carpentry shop on January 14, 1714. To Samuel Connable, “housewright, for L45 the west end of their dwelling house and land bounded easterly by their other tenement through the middle of the stack of chimneys which divide the two tenements 17 feet”. The homestead … running from Back Street down to the Mill Pond … had a carpenter shop on Back Street now Salem Street and Cross Street.

In 1715 Samuel with his brother in law Daniel Bell bought more land near Bowker Street, called “Distil House Square”, in a neighborhood of distilleries.

In 1996, there was an archaeological dig about 2 blocks south of Salem and Cross Streets with no specifics on Samuel Connable but some details on the area. “The heyday of artisans on these properties was between 1715 and 1780 when the properties belonged to a joiner, a pewterer, and a goldsmith”. On the map, from the dig, Cross Street is north south, Back Street also Salem Street is east west. Samuel’s shop was a block or 2 from the excavation site, marked by an arrow, image 18 of 260.

Annotated snapshot of map at Arch. dig site, Samuel is pink, dig site is yellow

John, Samuel’s dad, was probably famous for the carpentry skills he brought from London, he left all his tools to Samuel. John’s will of 1724, “my said Son Samuel Cunnabel shall have all my working tools over and above his equal sixth part of my Estate as foresaid and that they be accordingly delivered to him Immediately after my Decease”.

Signatures of Connable kids in Genealogical Memoir at HathiTrust

Samuel died in 1746, age 57, without a will, Mary and children made an agreement to settle the estate. When Mary died in 1759 her and Samuel’s inventory was written up. It included: a small cast brass kettle, a table, a stool and a looking glass, a small picture and hand brush, a number of old books, 4 old swords, 3 silver spoons and “Real Estate consisting of a Tenement or dwelling house & Land in Cross Street near the Mill Pond”. The agreement between the Connable kids was signed, “it was agreed by all the Children that the Estate should be equally [ divided ] among them – that the Widow should have the Income & Improvement of the whole during her Life.

Sources

Samuel Connable b. 1717

/ Kirstin Miller

Samuel Connable 6th great grandpa on RootsMagic tree

Samuel Connable was born April 7, 1717 in Boston, Massachusetts and died December 3, 1796 in Bernardston, Massachusetts. His parents were Samuel and Mary Wilson Connable and he was the 2nd generation of his family born in America, his grandparents came from England. Samuel married Mary English in 1740, they had 2 sons, 5 daughters and stayed in Bernardston.

Samuel was an inventor, engineer, mechanic and bridge, church and mill builder. Books of family and local history state that Samuel invented a method to pull maple syrup from trees, “The process in Bernardston … a large tree, they box it … prepare a trough extending from the trunk … obtained thirty gallons in a day … produces a sugar equal to the Jamaica sugar, as pleasant to the taste; and the makers insist that it is as medicinal”.

The annual register, or, a view of the history at HathiTrust

Samuel designed and built in Bernardston the meeting house, his house which ‘shows the ingenuity of the builder’; first bridge ‘in 1741 over Fall River, another in 1750, one in 1760 over the river at the saw mill’. He was a private in the Lexington Alarm (Paul Revere’s ride) and took care of his sisters when their husbands were away at war, “At the blockade in Boston Mr. Connable went to get his sisters”.

Samuel was a widow in 1791. He died in 1797. Samuel and Mary are buried at Old Cemetery in Bernardston, Franklin County, Massachusetts. Their spectacular hand carved headstones are still right there.

Sources

John Connable b. 1749

/ Kirstin Miller

John Connable 5th great grandpa on RootsMagic tree.

John Connable was born in 1749 in Bernardston, Massachusetts, the 3rd of 7 kids of Samuel & Mary English Connable. John grew up in Bernardston on the northern edge of Massachusetts and stayed there for most of his life with a short time in Guilford, Vermont a town 10 miles north.

John farmed and owned a sawmill. He was a deer reeve- decided hunting quotas for the community. He was on inspection committees, a surveyor of highways and also built, engineered bridges like his dad Samuel. John was the executor for his dad’s estate and inherited the family home which he passed on to his oldest son Joseph Connable.

Genealogical memoir of the Cunnabell, Conable or Connable family

John and was a private in the Revolutionary War with Colonel Elisha Parker who kept a diary noting orders from General George Washington and from Colonel Benedict Arnold in an expedition to Canada with 1000+ men.

John married 3 times, was a widow twice. He and 2nd wife Sarah Dewey were parents of Leydia Connable who with her husband Obed Gaines went west to Black Hawk County, Iowa in 1854. Leydia and Obed’s son William had a daughter Mary Ella Gaines who married James Miller in Waverly, Iowa. Their son William married Lola and they were the parents of Faber Miller born 1905.

John Connable is buried at Old Cemetery in Bernardston, Massachusetts. His headstone still stands, it’s faded, with this inscription ‘Death is a sweet sonorous sound To those who have salvation found, It wafts them to the courts of bliss, Where all is joy and happiness’.

Sources

Leydia Connable b. 1795

/ Kirstin Miller

Leydia Connable 4th great grandma on RootsMagic tree.
Leydia Connable was born in Bernardston, Massachusetts on April 23 1795. She was the third of John and Sarah Dewey Connable’s 8 kids. She also had 5 siblings from her dad’s first marriage. Leydia married Obed Gaines in 1815. They have 2 marriage records. One dated August 10 and another dated September 23. The August record was probably an ‘intention of marriage’.

By 1820 Leydia and Obed had 5 kids, 3 of them triplets. So Leydia was caring for 3 infants, a 2 year old and a 4 year old- all at the same time! The 1820, 1840 and 1850 censuses show Leydia and family in Cazenovia, New York, then Steuben, Indiana, then Van Buren, Indiana. Leydia’s 6th child William Gaines, great grandpa of Faber Miller, was in Bremer County, Iowa in 1850. In 1854, probably in August, most likely in a covered wagon with a coupe horses, Leydia, husband and 2 kids made the 500 mile trip to Iowa. They would have traveled 10-20 miles per day probably for about 37 days. When the family entered Iowa they’d traveled 1,200 miles and 6 states.

Connable, Leydia d.1854

Headstone Leydia wife of Obid Gaines

A Connable family history book tells that Leydia died of cholera October 23, 1854. Her death date is verified in Iowa Cemetery Records. She is buried in Old Barclay Cemetery near Dunkerton, Iowa. Leydia is the only Gaines buried in the cemetery. Her family would have arranged a funeral, buried Lydia, then kept moving on to son William’s location about 50 mile north near Plainfield, Iowa. When Leydia was buried in 1854 Iowa was 80% native prairie. Barclay township was founded in August 1854, so the town was just beginning when Leydia was buried there.

John Connable b. 1650

/ Kirstin Miller

John Connable 8th great grandfather on RootsMagic tree.

John Connable was born in England about 1650 or so. An Ancestry source “US Craftperson Files 1600-1995” shows his occupation as carpenter, joiner, artisan. This craftsman source leads to a 30 page paper “The Seventeenth Century Case Furniture of Essex County, Massachusetts, and Its Makers”. Author Benno Forman researched ‘the origins of the joined chest of drawers’ in early America. The conclusion, “only one man John Cunnable could have brought this style to Boston’. The author includes the ‘Garvan’ chest at Yale’s Art Gallery as evidence.

Connable chest of drawers

The Garvan chest at Yale

Connable, John joiner

Then only one man, John Connable, could have brought the style to New England.

Connable, John signature

John Cunabell, joiner of London

Besides his skills in woodworking John married 3 times, had a large family, fought in King Philips War, took the Oath of Allegiance, was a freeman and for several years a ’tithing man’ responsible for arresting travelers on Sunday – travel was forbidden on the Sabbath.

His death is recorded in a diary of the time, “10. On ye 10 in ye morning about 5 old Mr. Connabell, ye joiner, dyed and buryed on ye 13 day aged 74 years 3 months 15 days”.

Online
The Garvan chest at Yale Art Gallery

The article Seventeenth Century Case Furniture
image 14 of 31
Catalog page http://www.jstor.org/stable/1180998?origin=JSTOR-pdf

“The drawers of the Garvan chest and the SPNEA chest (fig. to), in contrast to those in all the joined furniture known to have been made elsewhere in Massachusetts before 1675, are held together with dovetails, as opposed to the usual, rural Anglo-American technique of nailing flushcut drawer sides into rabbets planed into the sides of the drawer fronts”

At Archive.org
Volume 15 page 201 Diary of Jeremiah Bumstead of Boston 1722-1727 in The New England historical and genealogical register 1861 Volume 15.

At Ancestry
U.S., Craftperson Files, 1600-1995

At HathiTrust
Volume 1 page 9 several pages. Genealogical memoir of the Cunnabell, Conable or Connable family.

Joseph Connable b. 1782

/ Kirstin Miller
Joseph Connable b. 1782 3rd great uncle to Faber Miller who married Gladys Cable.

Connable, Joseph

Joseph was born in Bernardston Massachusetts to John Connable and first wife Amey Edwards. Joseph married Mary Polly Maxwell and was a farmer. In 1813 his dad died and Jospeh inherited the estate and became guardian to his younger siblings. In 1837 Joseph, his wife and his brother Samuel moved to Xenia, Ohio where they spent the rest of their lives and farmed. Joseph believed strongly in 2 things: drinking alcohol was wrong and owning slaves was a sin.  And he was somewhat famous for his gardening skills, “published in the Franklin Herald of Nov .12, 1816: An English mammoth turnip was raised by Joseph Connable of Bernardston measuring forty-six inches round the middle and weighed thirty pounds with top and twenty-three pounds without top.”

Mary Connable b. 1747

/ Kirstin Miller

Mary Connable 3rd great aunt to Faber Miller who married Gladys Cable.

Mary Connable was born in Bernardston, Massachusetts to Samuel and Mary English Connable. “She was one of the school teachers of Bernardston. Sept. 29, 1774, the town paid her L1 15s. for keeping school.” Page 354 History of the Town of Bernardston by Kellog . Mary is noted for being “a remarkably ingenious, enterprising and industrious woman.” She built a water wheel near her home and could spin five ‘run’ maybe pounds?, of linen in a day. Mary stayed single and lived her whole life in the home she grew up in which her brother John and then nephew Joseph, inherited with a room given to Mary: the south lower room “so long as she shall live single, or be disposed to reside at my house.” Her will was written June 18, 1818. Mary left $1 to each niece and nephew, $10 to sister Elizabeth, with land and possessions for her nephew Joseph. She signed the will.

Mary’s brother John Connable (1749 – 1813)
Leydia Connable (1795 – 1854)
William Newcomb Gaines (1825 – 1907)
Mary Ella Gaines (1855 – 1917)
William Earl Miller (1879 – 1949)
Faber W Miller (1905 – 1957) m. Gladys Cable (1913 – 1991)