Gathering Roots

Thomas PAUL was raised by a single mother after his father died young – a young Scotch woman who brought her children across the Atlantic on her own, seeking a better life for them. There he met and married a widowed single mother – a woman descended from a long line of New World settlers who had endured the death of her first child and husband and was left to raise a toddler alone. The women in our history often go overlooked, they are lost in the records more easily and often we don’t have their complete narrative. But what we have found is that these women were the strength and stay of their families – the PAULs would never have made it to America without the strength of their single mother, and the young widowed TYLER mother found love and married again, leaving behind countless descendants.

Thomas PAUL was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1837. His parents were Henry and Helen (BEITH) PAUL. Henry and Helen came from the eastern part of Scotland – Henry from Kirkliston near Edinburgh, and Helen from Leslie, Fife, near St. Andrews. Kirkliston is now a designated conservation area, the village dating back to the 13^th Century. The town was the location of the first Scottish Parliament in 1235, and the site for a 1543 peacemaking negotiation between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Prince Edward of England.[1]

Besides Thomas, the young couple also had Henry (b. 1831), David (b. 1832), Catherine (b. 1834), James (b. 1840), Archibald (b. 1842), Euphemia (b. 1845) and Helen (b. 1849). Thomas’ father, Henry PAUL, worked as a farm laborer in Glasgow in the 1840s.[2]

Sometime around 1850, when Thomas was 12 years old, his father died at age 43, leaving the family penniless. In the 1851 Scotland census, Thomas’ mother reported herself, age 42, as a pauper and head of the family of seven kids.[3] They were living in Cobourg Place, or Coburg Street, in the Gorbals area of Glasgow. These were tenements, built “quickly and cheaply in the 1840s, providing housing for Glasgow’s burgeoning population of industrial workers. Conditions were appalling; overcrowding was standard and sewage and water facilities inadequate. The tenements housed about 40,000 people with up to eight family members sharing a single room, 30 residents sharing a toilet and 40 sharing a tap.”[4]

Henry Paul, the eldest son, immigrated to America first, arriving in New York on the ship Harmonia in November of 1851. He listed his occupation as threadmaker.[5] In late 1852, the rest of the family had saved enough for passage to America, likely with help from Henry, and travelled together to New York City from Glasgow, arriving on the ship Mary Morris on December 6, 1852.[6]

The family arrived in winter of 1852 and immediately made their way to Rensselaer County, settling just outside of Albany. Within the year, eldest sons Henry and David died – they are buried together in Oakwood Cemetery, Troy.[7]

In 1855, Helen PAUL and her children Catherine, Thomas, James, Archibald, Eupehmia and Ellen, were all living in a brick home in Watervliet village in the city of Albany. Helen was not working, but Catherine and Thomas (now 19 and 17) had become apprentices and were likely responsible for the care and feeding of the family. Watervliet – now considered part of the city of Albany – was a thriving community in the 1800s. The Watervliet Arsenal, the sole manufacturing facility for large caliber cannon, founded during the War of 1812, is here. The Erie Canal from Buffalo to Albany ran directly through Watervliet and the town had the weigh station and canal boat operator pay station located in its heart.[8] This collection of boat crews and manufacturing made this area famous for gambling, saloons, and prostitution – the neighborhood was once called the “Barbary Coast of the East” and had a reputation for over 100 fights a day.[9] Helen would move her family to the village of Cohoes, just up the river, before 1860. Cohoes is called “Spindle City” because it was the center of textile manufacturing in the 19^th century.[10] Catherine took work at the local Harmony Mill, which employed most of the locals, and provided housing as well for as many as 6,000.[11]

By 1860, the eldest PAUL brothers had moved away and were now living in Greenbush, Rensselaer County, New York. Thomas PAUL worked as a machinist and lived in a hotel with several other machinists, engineers, and other workers.[12] James was also boarding in Greenbush and working as a machinist like his brother.

Not far from where Thomas was boarding and working lived a young widow and mother of one named Delia TYLER MORRIS. Delia was born in Greenbush in 1837, the eldest daughter of John Woodbury and Phoebe (THURSTON) TYLER. Delia had one brother, William Porter (b. 1840), and two sisters, Jennie (b. 1850) and Lucy (she died before the age of 10, likely before 1850).

Delia’s father, John Woodbury TYLER, was born in New Hampshire to parents who both descended from pre-American settlers. The TYLER family can be traced to Essex, Andover, Massachusetts in the 1600s – one of the TYLER ancestors, Phoebe CHANDLER, was the first to make accusations of witchcraft in the area in the late 1600s. John Woodbury TYLER’s paternal great grandmother descended from Humphrey BRADSTREET, who sailed with his family from Ipswich, Suffolk to the Massachusetts Bay Colony on the ship Elizabeth in spring of 1634.[13]

Delia’s first husband was Jacob MORRIS, a carpenter from Schenectady, NY. When they married, she was a teenager of about 16, and Jacob was around 24. Within a year they welcomed a son, Jacob W., and were living in a frame house with another young couple in Greenbush. Sadly, Jacob would die at one year old. In 1857, the couple welcomed another son they named Porter Tyler MORRIS. In late 1858, Jacob MORRIS died. Delia and baby Porter returned home to live with her family. She took work as a tailoress and they lived in the home of her parents and siblings, along with her paternal uncle William Porter. Delia’s father, John Woodbury, worked for the Boston and Albany railroad first as a laborer, then as a freight conductor. Delia’s brother, William, also worked for the railroad as an engineer, and her uncle was a laborer and fisherman.[14]

We cannot know how Delia and Thomas met, but we do know that in 1860 they lived less than a mile apart (6 pages separate them on the census). It is likely they knew each other in passing, or from mutual friends. Perhaps she mended his clothes. Perhaps he worked with someone in her family or knew them socially. However they met, in 1862 Delia and Thomas PAUL were married. The couple moved to a frame house in Greenbush and began a family of their own. In addition to raising Delia’s child, Porter MORRIS, from her first marriage, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Ada May, in 1864.[15] They had two sons in the next four years, Harry (b. 1866) and Thomas Jr. (b. 1868).

By the census of 1870, the family of 6 is living in a home next door to Delia’s mother and father, and her paternal uncle. Thomas is working steadily as a machinist.[16] Two more daughters are born: Delia Tyler (b. 1874) and Blanche (b. 1875) and a son, Thurston Tyler (b. 1879). The family made their home at 151 Third Avenue in Greenbush.

Thomas’ mother, Helen PAUL, and his sister Catherine lived together in Cohoes until Helen’s death in 1876. Helen was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Rensselaer County alongside her eldest sons Henry and David. Catherine never married and when she died in 1904, she too was buried in the family plot.[17] Thomas’ brothers and sisters all married and raised families in the Albany area.

In April of 1880, John Woodbury TYLER, Delia’s father, was killed in Pittsfield, Massachusetts while working on the railroad. The caboose he was standing in was struck by a backing freight train, causing him to fall and fracture his head. He was 73 years old.[18] Delia’s mother would die in 1910 at the home of Delia’s sister, Jennie. Although Delia and her brother William were still alive, the newspaper reported that Phoebe had only one surviving daughter, Jennie TYLER OSTRANDER. We cannot know if this was a clerical error, or the result of a rift in the family.

Porter MORRIS, Delia’s eldest son, continued to live with his mother and stepfather. In the late 1870s he courted the teenage daughter of a local farmer, Isabella Scarf. Eventually, this courtship led to marriage and Isabella bore a son in 1878, named John Steward MORRIS. Sadly, by 1880, Porter MORRIS was living back with his mother and stepfather, Isabella was living as a houseworker and boarder in Albany, and the baby was living with his maternal grandparents. In 1881, Isabella, still not yet 20, filed for divorce alleging that Porter had “gone back upon his marriage vows and become intimate with another woman.”[19] Porter was divorced from Isabella and although his son remained in Greenbush until his death in 1933, there is no evidence he, nor any PAUL relatives, ever had a relationship with John Steward MORRIS. After the divorce, Porter MORRIS, Delia’s eldest son, disappears from record.

The PAUL family – Thomas, Delia and their children – lived in the home on Third Avenue in Rensselaer throughout the remainder of the century. Between 1890 and 1910 all their children married and moved to homes of their own, except for Delia; she would remain unmarried and live with her parents for the duration of their lives.

Ada May married Daniel SACK and had six children. Sadly, her son Daniel Thurston SACK died in 1917 after enlisting in the National Guard during WWI – he was struck by a passing train while on patrol in Fort Henry. The eldest PAUL sons – Harry and Thomas Jr. – each married in the 1880s and had children. Blanche PAUL married but had no children.

Thurston Tyler PAUL, the youngest son, married a local girl named Edna Clarissa EVANS. Edna was the granddaughter of Welsh immigrants who had arrived in the early half of the 19^th Century and had been settled in upstate New York ever since. In 1900 Edna and her family lived at 36 2^nd Avenue, less than half a mile from the PAUL family.[20] It is most likely that Thurston and Edna (who were only 2 years apart in age) knew each other from school and being close in age likely spent time together outside of school as well.

In June of 1904, Thurston and Edna were married at the home of her parents, who were now living at 5 Akin Avenue, Rensselaer. One year later they welcomed their first child, a daughter they named Edna Clarissa PAUL. The couple would have two more daughters – Ruth Louise (b. 1909) and Eleanor Tyler (b. 1912) – but sadly Eleanor would die at 3 months old. They then had three sons – Thurston Tyler Jr. (b. 1914), Jay Evans (b. 1915) and Donald Thomas (b. 1919).[21]

On October 1, 1918, at the height of the Influenza Pandemic, Delia (TYLER) PAUL died at the age of 81. Seven months later, in May of 1919, Thomas PAUL followed her in death. They are buried side-by-side in the Greenbush Cemetery in East Greenbush, NY.[22] Their daughter, Delia, and Thomas’ brother Archibald and his family are also buried nearby.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkliston

[2] 1841 Scotland Census; Parish: Glasgow St Mungo; ED: 1A; Page: 9; Line: 1230; Year: 1841

[3] 1851 Scotland Census; Civil Parish: Glasgow St Mungo; County: Lanarkshire; Address: Cobourg Place; ED: 35; Page: 1; Line: 5; Year: 1851

[4] https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/children-play-in-a-yard-in-coburg-street-in-the-gorbals-news-photo/2667551

[5] https://immigrantships.net/v3/1800v3/harmonia18511107.html

[6] New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957; Year: 1852; Arrival: New York, United States; Microfilm serial: M237; Microfilm roll: M237_122; Line: 33; List number: 1608.

[7]
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/192634554/david-paul

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watervliet,_New_York#cite_note-Canal-10

[9] Lionel D. Wyld (1962). Low Bridge!: Folklore and the Erie Canal. Syracuse University Press. p. 71. ISBN 9780815601371. Retrieved March 19, 2024.

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohoes,_New_York

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_Mills

[12] 1860 U.S. Federal Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Greenbush, Rensselaer, New York; Roll: M653_848; Page: 63

[13] https://historicipswich.net/2021/07/24/arrival-of-the-english/

[14] Year: 1860; Census Place: Greenbush, Rensselaer, New York; Roll: M653_848; Page: 57; Family History Library Film: 803848

[15] New York, State Census, 1865; District: 01; County: Rensselaer; Page: 69; Line: 32.

[16] Year: 1870; Census Place: Greenbush, Rensselaer, New York; Roll: M593_1082; Page: 624A; Family History Library Film: 552581

[17]
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/192634656/ellen-paul

[18] Springfield weekly Republican. [volume] (Springfield, Mass.) 1851-1946, April 23, 1880, Page 8, Image 8

[19] Fultonhistory.com – search Porter T. Morris, Albany results

[20] Source Citation: Year: 1900; Census Place: Rensselaer, Rensselaer, New York; Roll: 1151; Page: 12B; Enumeration District: 0052; FHL microfilm: 1241151

[21] Year: 1920; Census Place: Schodack, Rensselaer, New York; Roll: T625_1256; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 43

[22]
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/111941144/thomas-paul