When is a Bullman, a Bulmore?

Over the past few days, I have been able to catch up on this blog due to, of all things, being isolated with whooping cough, pertussis. I say this because I am reminded of how fragile life is. Children used to regularly die regularly of the bacterial infection in Australia and America, as they did of dyptheria. We have been giving innoculations against these diseases for decades now, at least in countries that can afford the expense. Yet, these infectious diseases are returning for reasons that I will not go into here. That would be too much like work.

However, without the antibiotics that we now take so much for granted, I would be in great strife. As it is now, I will take ten days worth of medication. Half of them will be spent at home with mild flu-like symptoms, at least now that the antibiotics have kicked in. I am very glad that I did not live in the nineteenth century in terms of its lack of medical knowledge. On the other hand, the moral, cultural and political sensibilities of the time were more to my liking and the sense that one was engaged in events of promise must have been rather intoxicating at times.

The woman to the upper right was born in the town I will be shortly speaking of not long after the Bulman families began to settle in Wisconsin. Her father was the famous "Puritan" author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose works are much misunderstood, if not misrepresented these days. Yet, she became a Dominican nun after the death of her estranged husband. She is now a Servant of God and well on her way towards beatification.

Her name in society was Rose Hawthorne Lathrop; in religion, it was Mother Mary Alphonsa. She was a social worker, an author and the founder of an order which works with those who are terminally ill with cancer and who are often destitute, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. She died in 1926 at the age of 75. She and her father are well worth following up.

I am grateful for both modern medicine and the sacrificial care of others. I am also grateful for technology well used. With it we may just solve a formidable brick wall.

Tonight I was able to review and reconfirm my hypothesis. And, it is only that; a hypothesis. Yet, it may prove to be fruitful by opening up or closing off lines of enquiry. So, here goes. I hope I can make this both clear and concise.

I begin by reminding readers that, according to my great-grandfather, Patrick and Jeremiah Bulman had a brother, Henry. He could supply precious little else except these bare facts. A number of us have been connecting the dots for some time.

For instance, distant relatives of ours discovered from church records that Henry Bulman and Jane Van Eps married in a Presbyterian Church at Ballston Center, Saratoga, New York just north of Schenectady in January of 1817. It also turns out that, in March 1817, Patrick Bulman and Sarah Vale/Viele also married in the same church before “returning to Schenectady.”

This is our Peter and Sally Bulman as can be shown later. I should also mention that construction on the Erie Canal was begun on 4 July, 1817 at Rome, near Utica in Oneida County, New York.

Also, a person, whom I shall refer to as "Mom" Bulman, shared a historical note she had discovered in a nineteenth century journal. It contends that Patrick and Henry Bulman were the sons of a Christopher Bulman who had arrived in Schenectady from Connecticut in 1794.

Additionally, Patrick was supposed to have served in the War of 1812 and to have subsequently taken his family to Texas. "Mom" can find no record of military service or a Texas sojourn for Patrick Bulman. FAB says the brothers' father was John. But, the 1794 date is interesting and will be raised again in the future. So will a theory about the mention of Texas.

I was intrigued by the idea of a Bulman having served during the War of 1812 and would have been delighted to have found that one had also served during the War of Independence. So, working from information supplied by this particular family historian and others interested in solving the mystery of the pater familias, I discovered that a family a Boolmore/Bullmore/Bullman family obviously connected to Henry through various ties lived in Schenectady as early as the 1800.

In the census for that year in Schenectady, you will find an Elizabeth Boolmore with two young males in her household. They are in the appropriate age range for Patrick (1792/4) and Henry (1796/98). There are no other Boolmores/Bulmores/Bullman, etcetera to be found. They do start showing up in 1810 and beyond. That is a story to be told later.

I decided to run Patrick, Henry and Jeremiah in the War of 1812 database with variations on Boolmore. I got both a Patrick and a Jeremiah Bulmore. Patrick was associated with Colden's 5th Artiillery and Infantry Regiment, New York. But, he will have to wait for later. I'll only say that Colden was heavily involved in developing the Erie Canal venture.

Jeremiah Bulmore was with Chamberlin's Regiment of Massachusetts Militia. Then, something else popped up. A Jeremiah Bullman was also in the same Regiment. In fact, in the index, they shared the same Roll Box and Roll Extract numbers. It was the same person with two spellings of the family name.

It took some looking, but I found a record with the rolls in the digital archives. It was published in 1913 having been transcribed into a print format with its inherent errors. On page 29 of the Records of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia Called Out by the Governor of Massachusetts to Suppress a Threatened Invasion During the War of 1812-1814, I found a Jeremiah Butmore listed as being a private in Captain D. Collin's Company, Lieutenant Colonel S.K. Chamberlin's Regiment. They served at Boston from September 10 to October 30, 1814 after having been raised at Lenox and vacinity.

Some fossicking around gave me more information about Chamberlin (and, his even more famous son who served in the Civil War). I also found out that this was D. Collins was Daniel Collins. Don't ask me how; I cannot remember.

And, that is as far as I had gotten for many years. I could find nothing more out about Jeremiah Bulmore/Bullman. However, recently I did find this obituary tidbit on a genealogy site related to Berkshire County wherein Lenox lies:

Collins, Daniel
At Richmond, Capt. Daniel Collins, at 81 yrs.; a revolutionary patriot.
(Boston Patriot, 6 March 1826)

Daniel Collins was sixty-nine when he raised the company during the War of 1812 having served in the War of Independence! Otherwise, he had a son of the same name who did so. I have found no evidence of this, yet.

But, there was an even more important discovery to be found in the Private and Special Statues of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [General Court] from February 1806 to February 1814 which was revised and published by authority of the Legislature in conformity with a resolution, passed 22d February 1822 and published in Volume IV in 1823 by Wells and Lilly of Boston. In effect it is an act incorporating the Methodist Episcopal Society of Lenox on June 22, 1811, as is explained below. Jeremiah Bulmore is a founding member:



Lenox is in the far west of Massachusetts and lies along the route taken by those who would move back and forth between Albany and Boston. It is just north of Stockbridge where one of the Mohican tribes settled after having been driven out of their home territory along the Hudson River in eastern New York. The Stockbridge Indians have a complex relationship with the Brothertown Indians.

If this is our Jeremiah Bulman, then he is, for reasons to be revealed in the next post, around thirty at the time of the incorporation and in his early thirties in 1814. In other words, he would be something on the order of a decade older than Patrick Bulman. Yet, as we shall see, his children are only slightly older than those of Patrick and Sarah Bulman.

There is much more, but it is too late to continue tonight.