Ah the Somerset Bowers

Alexander G. Swasey Sr. has been the subject of much of my posts lately.  His father was Jarmathmel Bowers Swasey. That Bowers is the direction we go today...

His mother of course was a Bowers of Somerset, MA, married to Joseph Swasey (1714-1801)

She was daughter of Jonathan Bowers; he had been born in Cambridge, Charlestown, MA, but lived in Somerset, and he was one of the well to do founders of the town.

I will try to bring a you copy of the news article from 1905 from the Boston Sentinel, which scathingly speaks of Jonathan's rise to riches, and then speaks mainly about his youngest son and his adventures.

But Mary Bowers Swasey is mentioned in it as well.

Oh fiddlesticks...it's a huge PDF file, which I've been able to copy into WORD as an image, but it doesn't translate to jpg, so can't show the original newspaper to you here.  I would love to!  It's so fun of ads, and pictures of various Bowers' houses...I'll keep working on it.

Jonathan Bowers house, 616 Main St, Somerset, built 1723

And there was a quilt done of the various historic homes which includes this view of the house.

It's third down from the top, second column from right, if you can try to focus upon it.

Part of the original Bowers property is the grave yard, established in 1708.

 Mary is bottom of right hand column.

There are some wonderful original census reports of Somerset, which will give me a glimpse at how the Bowers and Swaseys were living close to each other...and perhaps I can guess at birth date for Mary.  I only know she appears in 1823 in the Boston directory as a resident of a boarding house, as widow of Joseph Swasey.

The earliest ancestor

Well, Adam and Eve (or Lilith perhaps) might be on my tree somewhere.  With the new DNA searches, friends have followed their mitochondrial markers in various ways through tribes of ancestors.

I searched through some local cemeteries for the oldest person buried there.

In AncestryDOT com I've found the earliest ancestor on my father's Rogers line.  

It's Aaron John Roger, Birth 1265 in Rome, Roma, Lazio, Italy. Death 1356 in Somerset, England

I have no clue as to who found his data, or how these details of his life survived, not to mention those of his descendents.

Isn't this fun?  His wife's family was from Holland too, at least by the name.  

Elizabeth DeHoland, Birth 1270 in Italy.
  Death 1335 in Bodmin, Cornwall, England

And they both died in England...in different counties.  I'm also struck that he outlived his wife by 20 years or so.  Just a bit unusual. And he certainly was long lived!

 

Since I've never been to England, I wonder if any of my friendly bloggers can clue me in on any more information.

14th century Somerset or Bodmin, Cornwall?

 

I did find a mention of a ruined chapel next to the big church in Bodmin, so that chapel probably was around when my ancestress died in the vicinity.

 

Chapel of St. Thomas a Beckett, Bodmin, Cornwall, England