Today, we invoke the aid of St. Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo-Saxon tribes, as it is his day in the liturgical calendar.Well, I have already pointed out the possible connection through the Methodist Episcopal Church. I am persuing equiries along that line. Also, I have demonstrated that a person very likely to be a relative of Jeremiah, Patrick and Henry (an older brother, perhaps half-brother to Patrick, or uncle), Benjamin Bullmore, changed his name through time to Bullman. It seems that his children followed the Bullman usage, thereafter.
Is there anything that might place Patrick's brother, Jeremiah Bulman, in Massachusetts prior to 1817 which seems to be the date after which Patrick and Sally moved to some place near to Deansville, Oneida, New York? Ah, there is a little more detective work that has been done with this. It is not conclusive. But, it is very interesting, none-the-less.
My first bit of data was discovered many years ago and discounted as a connection to the Patrick Bulman family. I have learned though time to be very slow and careful before discounting connections. I'll give an example of this later. It has to do with a Henry Bullman who showed up in the Calumet County census in Wisconsin for 1850. He is with his wife, Welthy (Wealthea), and their children, Griswold (10), Amelia (6), Clinton J. (3) and Amarretta (1). There were two other people in the household; his mother, Abagail (67) of Massachusetts and mother-in-law, Esther Samson (52) of Connecticut. Since, they did not fit my profiles, I moved on.
I also discovered a John Bullman in the same census at Waukesha, Waukesha County, Wisconsin. The proximity to Peewauke and Brookfield, two Patrick Bulman sites, got my attention. However, John Bullman was born in Massachusetts and his wife "W" was born in England. A son, John, was four and had been born in Wisconsin, as had "Harry" who had been born less than a year earlier. This did not seem at all promising. And, I had a lot of work to do to find known family members from the FAB (my great, grandfather) list.
However, in time, when I had filled in many gaps and found not a few brick walls in my path, I spent more time reading histories and annals of Oneida County, as well as those for the towns of Marshall and Kirkland. I began to rediscover a rather dim memory about Samson Occom and the Brothertown Indians from my graduate study days. I realised that Calumet and Fond du Lac were newer sites for the Brothertown Tribe. So, I kept digging deeper,until I found the following reference on page 359 of William Deloss Love's Samson Occom, and the Christian Indians of New England in the Internet Archives:
Abel Sampson (1James) married Esther, daughter of John M. Simons; received lot 115 in 1819; and died at Brothertown about 1830. His widow removed to Wisconsin in 1844. Chn.: 1. James. II. Melinda (Malvina). III. Welthea A. IV. Grizel H. V. Ralph W. VI. Eliza E.
Now, I admit that I am not overly swift about these things. However, here was a connection with the same area that my family was from. The Esther Sampson in the census was Abel Sampson's widow. Also, the date stared me down. On the FAB list, big as life, next to Patrick Bulman's son, Henry, was written "emmigrated to Wisconsin 1844". It seemed very likely that he had done so with Esther's family. He was only twenty-three at the time. I thought, "What if the two Henry's travelled together, cousins as they obviously might be...but how to prove it."
Although extremely helpful in our first correspondence, a key historian for the Brothertown Indians in Wisconsin could not provide me with much more information than I already had. Again, I will maintain the policy of not mentioning the names of the living; at least for now. But, I am very grateful to her none-the-less.
By now, I had tracked many people down through the strangest means and with the "guardian angel" help of so many different people, that I was sure I would find the connections. However, a trip to the States and work held me up until I found information about William Franklin Bulman that started me rethinking things. I also had a strange thing happen. Just for fun, I tried the Wisconsin Genealogy Index yet again for Bulman/Bullman and noticed the following which I had assumed was some irrelevant Germanic variation:
| Bullmannm, Polly | Marriage | Apr | 12 | 1846 | Fond du Lac |
By now, I knew exactly what I was looking at becuase I had earlier found this:
| Bulman, Henry | Marriage | May | 03 | 1846 | Fond du Lac |
I had learned how to ask the reverse question: who was the bride?
| Sampson, Wiltha | Marriage | May | 03 | 1846 | Fond du Lac |
So, I went back to Polly and got:
| Summons, Jas | Marriage | Apr | 12 | 1846 | Fond du Lac |
Now, this threw me off for a while until after much tracing through the various census databases, etcetera I realised that this was actually James Simons. Having done this, I found through a Calumet site that, indeed, James Simons/Simmons married a Polly Bulman/Bullman on 12 April 1846. The only problem was that his wife is listed as Martha in the 1850 census data. I knew from previous investigations that Polly rhymes with Molly which is a variant of Mary...think of the Princess Bride...Mawwwaaaage (see the end of the post).
Contacting the Brothertown Indians again and other sources clarified the issue. Martha was a Skeesuck (Sheesuck, Schesuck, Skeezuc, Skieezup) of the Narragansett Tribe. So, Polly had either died or had left the marriage. I can find no data on her anywhere and am of the belief that she died, perhaps in childbirth. By now, I was willing to start forking out cash to get the records that can be easily ordered from Wisconsin Historical Society. I had done it earlier with Jeremiah Bulman and others. But, it does take time.
The first that I ordered were for William Franklin Bulman which confirmed that his parents were Jeremiah and Abigail Bulman. This provided a very high probability that at least Henry in Calumet was his brother. Because Esther Sampson was the daughter of John Mason Simons, it made sense to see the relationship between her and James Simons. James Simons, Senior, John M. Simon's brother, was her uncle. Therefore, James Simons, Junior, who had married Polly Bullman, was her younger cousin.
I am a little slow with all of this and it took me some time to realise that, although Henry and Wealthea were married in 1846, there oldest son, Grizel, was born in 1840. I suddenly realised I was missing one of Jeremiah Bulman's children who had disappreared between the 1830 and 1840 Census in Oneida. In checking this, I discovered that it was one of the eldest males. Then, the penny dropped. Henry had moved out of his father's house and into the Sampson household, or a least into the Brothertown community. Again, I realised that Amelia, the next child, was also born in New York in 1844, while Clinton J. (Jeremiah?) was born in Wisconsin in 1847. Grizel always identified Henry as his father, even though he did not know his grandfather's name. There is more to this story, but it will have to wait for later.
I had previously thought that this child of Jeremiah and Abigail had died. Now, I needed an extra son. Of course, I actually had an excellent candidate in John Bullman, who had settled in Prairieville, Waukesha County, Wisconsin by 1846. The township would be renamed Waukesha the following year. In 1846, a P. Bulman is settled in Peewauke, Waukesha County near by. He is Patrick Bulman in the 1850 US Census and 1855 Wisconsin Census. Returning to the 1850 Waukesha, Waukesha County US Census data, I discovered on the image that "Harry" was clearly Henry. So, I now had a John Bullman whose sons were John and Henry. It also so happened that John was born in Massachusetts in 1816. But, Jeremiah in Kirkland was also born about 1816 in Massachusetts. So, if they are actually brothers, then one may have been born in 1815/16 and the other 1816/1817.
If he is Jeremiah and Abigail's son, and I believe that he is, the following would be the list of their living children and birth years in 1850:
John (1815/16) Massachusetts
Jeremiah (1816/17) Massachusetts
Henry (1818) Massachusetts
Louisa (1820)
Polly (1826 est.)
William (1830)
Here are Patrick and Sarah's children according to FABs list (Harris' birth year was not included and was extrapolated from census data):
Elizabeth (1816/1817)
Mariah (1819)
Henry (1821)
Phoebe (1824)
Susan (1827)
Nathaniel (1829)
Harris (1830)
Jeremiah (1833)
Abigail (1835)
William (1839)
Henry and Jane Bulman's children in Schenectady are as follows:
Levina (1817)
Eliza (1818)
Christopher (1825)
Caroine (1833)
Mary Melissa (1834)
Jane (1834)
James (1840)
I am still waiting on the marriage records for Polly Bullman. Unfortunately, those for Henry and Wealthea did not include their parents' details. So, I do not have a last name for Abigail as yet. Both of William Franklin Bulman's records have Jeremiah Bullman and Abigail Bullman as his parents. Now, it is only a mildly wild conjecture to suppose, in fact, that Jeremiah Bulmore had changed his name to his wife's name, Bullman. While this may not be the answer. It may be closer to the truth than we might wish to admit (more later). Since Jeremiah was their son and was born in 1816/1817, then his father could be Jeremiah Bulmore.
If they returned to relatives in Schenectady in late 1816, then Henry and Jane might have decided to elope at Ballston Center, Saratoga, nearby. This in turn seems to have precipitated the elopement of Patrick and Sarah. I have ideas as to why Jeremiah shot through to Oneida County rather than staying in Schenectady. I'll need another post to outline them.
It would be interesting to discover why Patrick and Sarah followed suit. I suspect that, unlike Henry, who married into a very well connected family, Patrick and Sarah found themselves with fewer prospects in life in Schenectady. But, why would both Patrick and Henry haved change their names?
If they did, then our Patrick could have been the Patrick Bulmore listed in the War of 1812 rolls. If that were the case, then, the historical article was correct. But, what of Texas? For now, all I will say is that two of Patrick's sons fought in the 28th Wisconsin which was posted, where? Yes, Texas during the Civil War. Henry Bulman of Schenectady died in 1871. I believe the article was written after this. It would be understandable, if his widow confused things in her memory.
An important question remains. If Patrick is right, and John (b. 1756 m. 1782 d. 1826) is the father of the three brothers, who is the Christopher in the article. Is Henry' child in Schenectady, Christopher, named after a father, or an uncle? If the uncle, why not the father? How does this family fit into the other Bulman families in New York of this era that seem to have some claim upon their being related? Oh, why don't you take a break and watch the wedding scene from the Princes Bride:
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