What does Daniel Webster have to do with the question of whether Jeremiah Bulmore was the uncle of Jeremiah Delos Bulman?

The daguerreotype to the left is not a family member, but the family played a small part in his efforts to change the policies of President Andrew Jackson's administration. There will be more images as this post progresses. (Please note that I use images that I believe are in the public domain or that I have a right to personally use. If I am in error in any specific case, please provide the reasons for this and I will act accordingly.)

As readers of this blog are aware, I am trying to tell the story of my family from the reference point of my recently deceased grandmother, Verona Irene Bulman. I am doing this so that my adult children will be able to know, understand and pass on the stories. To begin with, I had been primarily outlining something of the losses that she was personally involved with. More recently, I have outlined some of the losses of her father, Frederick Albert Bulman. Some were shared with his daughter, such as the loss of his wife, mother and two brothers. However, the loss of his father, Jeremiah Delos Bulman, occurred before her birth. Yet, I suspect, if she was like me, she knew that loss as well. I have already spoken of this with reference to Otis Arthur Hayes’ death in the March postings.

In this post, I want to begin getting behind these stories. I want to explore the earlier generations. A spine to our story will, thereby, be elaborated. I will return to the later generations in time. Eventually, I will be exploring all of the other tributaries of the stream that is my side of the family. My children have already begun to explore their mother’s side through very creative means and with greater limitations in terms of resources.

The title of this post reflects a key issue faced by family historians researching the branch of the Bulman family with connections in Schenectady, New York. It has puzzled us all for years. With the increasing number of digitized records, it may be possible to someday solve many of these “brick walls” as we call them in genealogical research.

Recently, I received two records relating to William Franklin Bulman. They, along with more readily access to documents presented to a state legislator and to the Senate of the United States, might just open up some points for further investigation. I will remind readers that, except when directly quoting documents, I will typically use the Bulman spelling of the family name throughout these posts.

In this post, let me share my first bit of news from the public documents of the first session of the twenty-third Congress that were printed by order of the Senate of the United States. It has to do with, what is in effect, a petition “for the restoration of the Deposites, and recharter of the Bank of the United States” offered by the inhabitants of Utica, New York. On the right is an 1875 engraving of the facade of the Second Bank of the United States which effectively failed to retain its charter a few years after this petition.

It seems that the signatures were collected from the surrounding regions as well and that the names were transcribed in their hundreds for the purpose of printing. This had been part of the efforts coordinated by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster of “The Devil and Daniel Webster” fame (written by Stephen Vincent Benet; a trailer for the 1941 b/w film adaptation is here). Given the disastrous Panic of 1819, our ancestors may have been as tempted to doing deals with the devil as did the protagonist of this story. An early portrait of Webster called “Black Dan” is to left and may be from the era of the Bank dispute.

The document petition was dated “Oneida county, State of New York, March 10, 1834.” This is within a year of Jeremiah Delos Bulman’s birth in 1833 according to FAB’s list. He says that the official year of JDB’s birth was 1836. It varies in documents from 1832 to 1835. In any case, here are Patrick and Jeremiah as they are listed among their near neighbours in Marshall on page 38 of document number 309:

Wm. Page
Frederick Peck
A.C. Woodart
Isaac Dobson
Adam Hadcock
John M. Ditmore
Patrick Bulman
Abner Place
Jeremiah Bulman
Noah Brown
Hiram Hawks
Thomas Bishop
David Thompson
Lyman Woodart
Geo. P. Williams
Thos. Dean

The, perhaps, classic image of Webster is to the right. It would be worth the time of this blog’s readers to investigate the issues and persons involved as Webster is credited by some for delaying the outbreak of the Civil War some years after this event.

The text of the petition can be found here and gives some idea of the financial crisis that families and communities were experiencing as a result of political decisions that were being made. Opinion is divided over the issue. However, it is important to remember and reflect on the past to avoid, to paraphrase George Santayana, repeating it to our doom. In any case, the people of Utica did remember the Panic of 1819 and wanted something to be done to avoid another economic collapse.

Oh, the answer to the question in the title of this post? Because of their support for Webster's efforts, we have evidence beyond the family and the census data that Patrick and Jeremiah Bulman were both together in Oneida County after 1817. (By the way, the Second Bank of the United States received its charter in 1816 as a result of the inflation caused by the War of 1812.) We also are reminded that we must sometimes offer both well-reasoned and well articluated cases for holding a position we believe to be true in the face of often emotion-laden, and sometimes compelling, arguments for alternative positions. However, it does take time for people to consider carefully each aspect of what must be well deemed. Some do not have the patience for such endeavours; they can take generations to determine.

Finally, for reasons my family will well understand, I must mention that Daniel Webster was Noah Webster's cousin. And, Noah and his dictionary descendants are my best friends. Noah is on the right. For very complex reasons that cannot be argued for here, but are held none-the-less, I agree with what Noah Webster is supposed to have written in his preface to the 1828 edition of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (below). Of course, everything depends on what each of the words mean and that is the rub; it takes a mighty effort to make any sense of what is meant. Too few take the time and undertake the effort to prepare themselves for that task:

In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.