VERGENNES, VT – Chief of Nipmuc Nation and the Head of Elders Council Cheryll Toney Holley will be accompanied by her youngest son, Eric, at Sunday's unveiling of a historical marker commemorating Sheriff Stephen Bates, Vermont's first Black Sheriff, in Vergennes, Vt.
For them, it's a family affair.
Frances Mason, Stephen Bates' wife and daughter of Lafayette and Mary C. Wheeler Mason, is kin.
“She is my ancestor's sister,” Holley said.
“I am descended from Orphia. She married Jonathan Robert Storms. Her sister, Thirza, married a Storms, Jonathan's first cousin, Eugene.”
These 19th-century cross-lake romances and unions between the Masons of Clinton and Essex counties and Storms of Basin Harbor are documented in the Mason family Bible.
Lafayette and Mary's children are: George, Lewis, Frances, Thirza, Orphia, Jane, Phoebe, Caroline, Fanny, Margaret and Moses Norman.
They were all born between 1847 and 1866.
“In the family Bible, they record Lafayette's marriage," Holley said.
"They record Orphia's marriage. They record James' marriage, Phoebe's marriage. They didn't even record Thirza's and Eugene's. They didn't record Frances's either.”
Frances married in June 1871. Orphia married in February 1871, and Thirza on August 5, 1869.
“In 1865, Thirza was still living in Elizabethtown,” Holley said.
“I wonder how she and Eugene met. They all came to Worcester. That's why I'm here.”
Vermont researcher Jane Williamson recently checked her file on Black folks living in white households.
"Which I hadn't done in a while, and lo and behold there was a Frances 'Munson' - bad census taker handwriting or misunderstanding the name," Williamson said.
"Anyway, she was 18, born in New York, and working as a cook for Charles Bessie. That's our Frances!"
Frances' employment in the home of a retired hotelkeeper helps to explain why the Mason sisters were in Vermont.
LONG LINEAGE
Born around 1850, Jonathan Robert, was the son of Primus Jr. and Anna Ayres.
Jonathan Robert and Orphia Storm's daughter, Hattie, married William Bostic.
“I didn't really know much about the Mason line,” she said.
“Someone read one of my blogs and reached out to me, and it went from there.”
Her grandfather, Walter Bostic, researched his ancestry when she was at Howard University in the 1980s.
“He went all the way to Minnesota traveling around trying to see. This was before there was much internet. He was a truck driver, accountant, father, grandfather. He did a lot of things."
Holley knows her great-great grandmother Orphia owned her own home and land in Worcester.
Orphia also worked as a cook there and in Boston.
“Eventually, she want back to Vergennes and married Joshua Aldrich,” she said.
“She left everything to my great-grandmother Hattie. I have stories of her husband who used to be a horse jockey. I've seen some accounts in Vermont newspapers of him winning races or running races and things like that. He owned a horse-and-carriage taxi service in Worcester.”
PLATTSBURGH CONNECTION
Basin Harbor is a touchstone for Holley.
“Because my Storms family lived there and owned land there and owned tons of businesses and stuff from the mid-1800s,” she said.
The Storms arrived in Basin Harbor with Platt Rogers, who enslaved Pemelia (Parmelia), and her first three children.
“Pemelia was the wife,” she said.
“Primus was the husband. Primus was from Fishkill. Parmelia came up with Platt Rogers, and he followed them and he worked for Platt Rogers.
“After Platt died, his family released them. I have the copy of that deed. I got it right there from Ferrisburgh Town Hall.”
Platt Rogers' grandmother, Mary Platt, was the daughter of Plattsburgh's founder Zephaniah Platt and his second wife, Mary Van Wyck Platt.
“I looked up Gen. Storm,” Holley said.
“I can't find anything about his slaves. The story that I heard from Basin Harbor is that the original Primus Storms was in the Revolutionary War, and that's how he got his freedom. He worked for Gen. Storm as a manservant or something during the Revolutionary War, and that's why he got his freedom. Gen. Storm was from New York, Stormville, near Fishkill. Before, they were there before 1790, I know that.”
Platt Rogers came to Basin Harbor in 1789, which is the same year the third Storms child was born, according to a history written by a Basin Harbor Club descendant and acquaintance of Holley's.
“Primus Storms was the first,” she said.
“Primus Jr. is my ancestor, Jonathan Roberts Storms' father. Johnathan Roberts married Orphia. Hattie Storms is my great-great grandmother. She married Walter St. Clair Bostic in 1890.
“Their son, Walter A.L. Bostic, married Harriet McKinley Anderson, who's indirectly related to Stephen Bates descendants. They are double cousins.
“Then, their child is my grandfather, Walter Andrew Bostic.”
Her father is Walter Bostic, and her mother is Nellie Toney.
Holley is the mother of four and grandmother of eight, and her progeny know where they came from.
“My kids were visiting cemeteries when they were infants,” she said.
Saturday, Holley helped to repair the gravestone of Suzannah, a daughter of Primus and Pemelia.
“I'm not sure if she was born here or born in New York,” Holley said.
“Primus and Pemelia are in Basin Harbor and the two daughters, Suzannah and Pemelia are in there. That's the first and second generation. They all died there in Vermont. It was the third generation came to Worcester. They owned their own homes, businesses and farms and they sold all of that to work in factories and three deckers. That's one of the questions I have, why? Why did they leave en masse?”
Holley also wonders about the Masons' journey out west.
“Their first homestead was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota,” she said.
“They ended up in Minneapolis. The wife died in South Dakota. They ended up in Minneapolis. My understanding is he farmed.
“Those are all farms that he had. He died in South Dakota and is buried there.”
Most of the Masons remained in Minnesota.
“That's why my grandfather went there years ago, tracking them down,” Holley said.
Email Robin Caudell:
Twitter:@RobinCaudell
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