Hylbom Family Ancestry Project

John Trumbull’s famous painting is often identified as a depiction of the signing of the Declaration, but it actually shows the drafting committee presenting its work to the Congress.

I’ve posted an article on George Wythe, who was a signer of the Declaration of American Independence in 1776 and an important figure in the history of Virginia in the colonial period and the early years of the Republic.  His first wife, Anne Lewis (1726-1748), is my 1st cousin 8x removed in the Waller family line, which I have recently been researching.  In addition to signing the Declaration of 1776, Wythe was the first American law professor, a noted classics scholar and Virginia judge, as well as a prominent early opponent of slavery.  He also served as one of Virginia’s representatives to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.  Wythe taught and was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay and other men who became American leaders.  In John Trumbull’s painting “The Declaration of Independence”, Wythe is in profile farthest to the viewer’s left.  Trumbull’s painting was used for the back of the U.S. $2 bill, but Wythe’s image was cut out of that depiction.  Other Waller family relations that I have discovered and written articles on are Edmund Waller (1606-16887), English poet and politician; Benjamin Waller (1716-1786), an eminent lawyer in colonial Virginia; Littleton Waller Tazewell (1774-1860), U.S. Senator and Governor of Virginia; Edwin Waller (1880-1881), signer of the Declaration of Texas Independence (1836) and first mayor of Austin, Texas and Sam Rayburn (1882-1691) of Texas, the longest-serving Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. (7)

Captain John Smith’s Old Map Of Virginia (1606)

I have started publishing my research on the family line beginning with my 9th great grandparents, Cornelius Dabney (1631-1694) and Susanna Swann (1643-1724).  They are my ancestors through both a son and a daughter.  Cornelius arrived in Virginia by 1664 (perhaps as early as 1649), and Susanna was born in Virginia in 1643.  At this time, it is not definitely known from whom Cornelius Dabney is descended.  Many claims have been made that Theodore D’Aubigne was his father, and that that Theodore was a descendant of  the French Huguenot Théodore-Agrippa d’Aubigné (1552–1630), who was a poet, soldier, propagandist and chronicler.  Whether or not Theodore D’Aubigne is actually the father of Cornelius Dabney is unproven, and it appears unlikely to be the case.  There are more plausible theories that the Dabneys of Virginia were descended from Dabneys who had resided in England for centuries and were not French Huguenots at all.  Even under the Huguenot scenario, there seems to be agreement that the Virginia Dabneys migrated from England (or Wales), where they had lived for some years as refugees.

According to some family traditions, Cornelius Dabney’s second wife, Susanna, is considered to have been of the family of Chief Totopotomoi and Cockacoeske.  This is plausible and supported indirectly by a persistent family tradition among the Dabneys of Indian descent.  If it is true, Susanna was most likely a granddaughter of Chief Totopotomoi and Queen Cockacoeske (perhaps by an English father), or possibly even a daughter, making Totpotmoi and Cockacoeske my direct ancestors (either 10th or 11th grandparents).  I have included an article on these Indian leaders under “Notable Kin”, even though the relationship has not been proved and probably never will be.

Descendants of Cornelius Dabney include Patrick Henry (the orator and Governor of Virginia), Dabney Carr (brother-in-law of President Thomas Jefferson), Lady Nancy Astor (first woman to sit in the British House of Commons), Zacchary Taylor (President of the United States) and his daughter Sarah Knox Taylor, the first wife of President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy.  Cornelius Dabney is the 3rd great grandfather of Zachary Taylor, as is another of my ancestors, Richard Lee, making President Taylor my 4th cousin 6x removed on his mother’s side (through Dabney) and my 3rd cousin 8x removed on his father’s side (through Lee).

I haven’t worked on this line for over a year, but I decided to post what I have so far.  More will be added later on the Dabney line up to the point at which it connects to the Waller and Carr family lines. (21)

Lucas Mason-Brown, a mathematics major at Brown University who played a key role in cracking the mysterious shorthand code of Roger Williams

Here’s an interesting story involving my paternal 10th great grandfather, Roger Williams (1603-1683):  In 1817, Brown University acquired a mysterious book, which is now part of the John Carter Collection of the Brown library.  The 234-page book is subtitled An Essay Concerning the Reconciling of Differences among Christians.  The book’s author was unknown, and it had no title page.  The most curious aspect of the book, however, was that almost every square inch of white space was covered in a cryptic scrawl made up of strange characters dashed off in one or two strokes.  For librarians, the only clue to the origins of the handwriting came from an accompanying note, barely legible itself, which said in part: The margin is filled with Short Hand Characters, Dates, Names of places &c. &c. by Roger Williams or it appears to be his hand Writing…brot me from Widow Tweedy by Nicholas Brown Jr. (dated 11 Nov 1817).  But how could historians be sure?  And, more importantly, what did it say?  All attempts to decipher the writing failed.  The book was largely forgotten, and the mystery remained an unsolved puzzle for nearly 200 years.

Recently the secret code was cracked by undergraduate researchers at Brown University, and the hero of the project was Lucas Mason-Brown, a 21-year old senior, who will graduate next month.  In some ways he was an unlikely candidate for the role.  He is a math fanatic who attended Belmont (Massachusetts) High School and plans to pursue theoretical math professionally.  But something about the shorthand begged for his attention.  “I was sort of instantly captivated,” he said.  As mathematics major, Mason-Brown had no pretensions to being an expert in 17th century manuscripts or theology.  By his own admission, he knew absolutely nothing about Roger Williams.  However, he succeeded through a mix of statistical analysis and historical research to reveal the meaning of the ciphered text.  Earlier suspicions were confirmed as the analysis revealed some of last writings of Roger Williams which were previously unknown.  Historians call the now-readable writings the most significant addition to Williams scholarship in a generation or more.

Read more about these discoveries here. (29)

I really liked this… Posted by my sister, Amy, on her Facebook page:

  (34)

Gov. Thomas Hutchinson (portrait by Edward Truman, 1741)

Thomas Hutchinson (1711-1780) was a businessman, historian and a prominent Loyalist politician of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the years before the American Revolution. A successful merchant and politician, Hutchinson was active at high levels of the Massachusetts government for many years, serving as lieutenant governor and then governor from 1758 to 1774. He was a politically polarizing figure who, despite initial opposition to Parliamentary tax laws directed at the colonies, came to be identified by John Adams and Samuel Adams as a proponent of hated British taxes. He was blamed by Lord North (the British Prime Minister at the time) for being a significant contributor to the tensions that led the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.

Hutchinson’s Boston mansion was ransacked in 1765 during protests against the Stamp Act, damaging his collection of materials on early Massachusetts history. As acting governor in 1770 he exposed himself to mob attack in the aftermath of the Boston massacre, after which he ordered the removal of troops from Boston to Castle William. Letters of his calling for abridgment of colonial rights were published in 1773, further intensifying dislike of him in the colony. He was replaced as governor in May 1774 by General Thomas Gage and went into exile in England, where he advised the government on how to deal with the Americans.

Hutchinson had a deep interest in colonial history, collecting a large number of historical documents. He wrote a three volume History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, whose last volume, published posthumously, covered his own period in office. Historian Bernard Bailyn wrote of Hutchinson, “If there was one person in America whose actions might have altered the outcome [of the protests and disputes preceding the American Revolutionary War], it was he.”  Scholars use Hutchinson’s career to represent the tragic fate of the many Loyalists marginalized by their attachment to an outmoded imperial structure at a time when the modern nation-state was emerging. Paralyzed by his conservative ideology and his dual loyalties to America and Britain, Hutchinson exemplifies the Loyalist-as-loser. He sacrificed his love for Massachusetts to his uncritical loyalty to a distant land, where he spent his last years in unhappy exile. (37)

Spalding-Whitman Historical Marker on the Oregon Trail, South Pass, Wyoming

I have added a page for Eliza Hart Spalding.  She and her traveling companion, Narcissa Whitman, were the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains.  Eliza is my 3rd cousin 7x removed through Stephen Hart (1603-1683), who arrived in Massachusetts in 1631-32 from England and later settled in Connecticut.  She changed the history of the West by blazing the trail for women to migrate by land over the Rocky Mountains and helping form the first white settlement in Idaho.  Eliza Hart was born in 1807 to Levi Hart and Martha Hart (her parents were 3rd cousins 1x removed) in Kensington, Connecticut.  Eliza and her husband, Henry H. Spalding (1807–1851) were prominent Presbyterian missionaries and educators working primarily with the Nez Perce in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.  The Spaldings and their fellow missionaries were among the earliest Americans to travel across the western plains, through the Rocky Mountains and into the lands of the Pacific Northwest to their religious missions in what would become the states of Idaho and Washington.  Their missionary party of five, including Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa and William H. Gray, joined with a group of fur traders to create the first wagon train along the Oregon Trail. (94)