SARAH MELVINA (BELLAMY) BENTLEY (1895-1936) great-grandmother & LOUELLA (CORP) BENTLEY (1868-1956) 2nd great-grandmother

Ancestral Women 31-Day Challenge - Day 30

Getting a rewrite 10 April 2025

Sarah's (also known as Satie) brothers had left home to work as soon as they could, and so did Sarah. At age nineteen, she was living at 52 Catherine Street in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga, New York, working as a milliner. George Jesse Bentley was a delivery clerk who lived less than two miles away. Did they meet when he made a delivery? Or perhaps at church? The two young people married on 30 May 1914 in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga, New York, and lived with his parents. When Jesse’s father died a year after the wedding, his mother, Louella, moved to Stillwater, New York, and Jesse and Sarah probably lived with or near her as their second son, Wesley, was born there.

Louella remarried on 3 November 1917 to William Brown and almost immediately moved to Longmeadow, Hampden, Massachusetts. Jesse and Sarah had to find a place to live, and they rented a home in Saratoga Springs where their next two children were born. Jesse worked for the railroad as a car cleaner. In 1922, Jesse and Sarah moved to Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts, and in 1924, they were living at 85 Merrimac Street across the street from Louella. Jesse and Sarah’s last child was born while they were living there, and they named him William Brown Bentley after Louella’s husband.

Life wasn’t easy for Jesse and Sarah. Jesse worked various jobs and at one point worked for the Salvation Army selling the “War Cry” magazine, and their oldest child, George Richard, would go to Saint James Avenue “where the rich people lived,” and take orders for the pies Sarah would bake from the local fruit the children would pick. The family would get wooden crates from the factory where Louella’s husband worked, and they would chop them up to use in the wood-burning stove that they used to cook and heat the home. But Merrimac Avenue was a good place to live. Once, Sarah was ill, the snow was two to three feet deep, and the doctor could not get down their street. Jesse, William Brown, and the neighbors all went out and cleared the way for the doctor.

When Louella’s second husband passed away in 1928, Jessie and Sarah moved with their five children from 85 Merrimac Street into Louella’s 90 Merrimac Street home and stayed with her for about six years before moving into their own home.

Sarah did not get to enjoy her new home for very long. She passed away on 17 December 1936 in Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. With her death, her husband and her two youngest and unmarried children once again moved in with his mother. Sarah had probably expected to get married, set up house, and raise her children near her family in New York. Instead, she spent most of her married life living with or near her mother-in-law and moving to Massachusetts.

But perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. When William Brown collapsed at work and was dying, Sarah’s brother-in-law Edward, who was six years older than Sarah’s oldest child, stayed with her children while she stayed with Louella and helped care for William. Maybe Sarah cared for Edward between 1915 and 1917 while the widowed Louella worked as a nurse.

These two women may have been each other’s support as they raised their families and cared for their homes. Jesse and Sarah obviously admired Louella’s husband enough to name their last son after him. (From the Story of Orson Bellamy of Saratoga, New York, and Some of his Descendants - Part 2)

HENRIETTA H. (WASHBURN) BELLAMY (1868-1926) 2nd great-grandmother

Cyrus Washburn died before seeing his youngest child, Henrietta (also known as Etta) marry Edward Orson Bellamy. His estate was divided between his nine children, but Etta got a little bit of money by selling her share of the land he’d left. Unlike her mother-in-law, Sarah (Fowler) Bellamy, Etta does not appear to have invested the money herself or set it aside for her children. Probably because Edward Orson was a good man and they had a good marriage. (See the Story of Orson Bellamy of Saratoga, New York, and Some of his Descendants.)

After Etta’s marriage to Edward in South Glens Falls, Moreau, Saratoga, New York, they moved to Argyle, Washington, New York, where he worked as a miller and where their first child, Earl D., was born on 4 September 1892. Their second child, Leon D., was born on 19 May 1893 in Wilton, probably on the family farm Edward’s mother sold him in 1895 and which Edward had operated until moving in with his grandson, Edward (née Bootier) Bellamy, around 1947.

Edward and Etta went on to have four more children in Wilton – Satie born 13 January 1895, Orson E. born 5 October 1896, Julia born 7 February 1899, and Ruth born 5 January 1901. Ruth married William Bootier on 27 June 1917 in Stillwater, Saratoga, New York, but the marriage did not last. In 1920, Edward and Etta were caring for their grandson Edward W. Bootier on the family farm while Ruth was lodging with the Hazard family in Saratoga Springs and working as a waitress.

All of Etta’s children lived to adulthood, and Edward Bootier changed his name to Bellamy and continued to be raised by his grandfather after Etta’s death in 1926.

Etta and Edward Bellamy photo colorized at MyHeritage.

MARY ANN (HUNTER) WASHBURN (1825-1892) 3rd great-grandmother

Mary Ann was a woman of some means. She died with $2,671.24 in goods, chattels, and credits. After paying for funeral expenses, debts, and administration fees, there was $1,544.44 to be divided among her eight living children.

She had outlived her husband, Cyrus Washburn, by about four years. He had been a wealthy farmer and also the owner of a sawmill in Saratoga County, New York. Cyrus died without leaving a will. As he was responsible for his wife’s support, she was entitled to dower (the use of one-third of his real estate during her lifetime or until she remarried). She could not inherit unless she was named in her husband’s will.

So that $2,671.24 was Mary Ann’s money, which she probably earned from the one-third of her husband’s real estate or possibly inherited from her family. After her death, the real estate that was Mary Ann’s dower would have been divided equally among the children as part of their father’s estate.

Saw Mill, Cuttelossa Valley, Pennsylvania between 1870 and 1880.

SARAH M (FOWLER) BELLAMY (1849-1895) 3rd great-grandmother

George Fowler was about 42 years old and her mother, Charlotte Marshall, was about 37 when Sarah was born. This was the second marriage for George and when Charlotte died, he and his children moved in with his first wife’s mother, Relief (Metcalf) Brownson and her daughter Therina Dean.

Therina Dean was later identified as the aunt of Orson Bellamy who married Sarah around 1869, and both she and George Fowler were living with Sarah and Orson in 1875. New York allowed women to own property and to conduct business as early as 1848, and Sarah was recorded as living in Malta in 1883 when she paid $950 for fifty acres of land in Wilton. Where did she get the money? Did she inherit it from her mother or maternal grandfather? Did her father give it to her?

Her father died in 1892 and about the same time, Sarah left her husband. Shortly before her death in 1895, she sold the property in Wilton to her first-born son. It appears she was setting her affairs in order and transferring her assets to her children. Orson left the farm and took up carpentry. After Sarah’s death, he remarried and outlived another wife. By 1929, Orson was living in the Almshouse in Schenectady.

For more about the family see The Story of Orson Bellamy of Saratoga, New York, and Some of his Descendants Part One.

“Schenectady County Almshouse: Front View, Administration, Men,” about 1900, photo imaged at Harvard Art Museums (https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/3.2002.1129.2 : accessed 30 December 2022), Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Social Museum Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

CHARLOTTE CYRENA (DEAN) CORP (1827-1901) 3rd Great-Grandmother

Charlotte married George Wesley Corp sometime in 1849 or 1850. The newlyweds were living on the farm in Greenfield, Saratoga, New York in 1850 where Charlotte had been born. Charlotte’s brother, Elijah Dean, and her sister Esther Dean, were living with them.

George Corp did okay on with the farm. It wasn’t the richest farm in the neighborhood, but it also wasn’t the poorest. They lived there until 1888, when they moved to a farm in Milton, Saratoga, New York.

And Charlotte must have gotten some money from the sale of her father’s farm. In 1876 “Cyrena Corp, wife of George W. Corp of the Town of Greenfield, County of Saratoga, and State of New York…” paid Elizabeth B. W. Westcott $435 for a lot of land “on the Easterly Hill of Bryan Street, in the village of Saratoga Springs, known as lot no. Eighty eight…” In 1882, Cyrena Corp and George W. Corp, her husband, sold their only son Wesley Corp, the same property for “Nine hundred dollars to her duly paid…made subject to a certain mortgage now on said premises held by Elizabeth B. W. Westcott on which is now unpaid three hundred, and seventy five dollars…which mortgage is assumed by second party as a part of the consideration of this instrument…conveyed in the quiet, and peaceable possession of the said party of the second part his heirs, and assigns she will forever warrant, and defend…”

What became of the money? Perhaps it was divided among the children at their mother’s passing in 1901 or perhaps Charlotte used it to buy the farm in Milton.

Charlotte was known as “ever a kind, affectionate and devoted wife and mother…She had been a life long member of the Baptist church and was a consistent and devoted christian.” Her son Wesley was suffering from mental illness, by 1900 he had to be institutionalized and was unable to attend his mother’s funeral in 1901. See Sometimes of Good and Sound Memory and Understanding and Sometimes Not

State Hospital, Utica, New York

EUNICE MARIA (STEADMAN) BENTLEY (1826-1881) 3rd great grandmother

Eunice was the daughter of a farmer. Both she and her parents had been born in Saratoga County, New York, and around 1850, she married a man named Jesse Bentley, who was also a farmer born in Saratago County. The newlyweds moved in with Jesse’s father, Charles Bentley, and their son Isaac was born in 1851.

But farming wasn’t for Jesse, and he turned his hand to being a hackman in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga, New York, and his son Isaac joined him in the business. Eunice probably appreciated living in Saratoga Springs. It had gas light.

Saratoga Springs was a resort town. Wealthy people would come to visit the springs, and many would stay in the luxury hotels such as the Grand Union, the Saratoga Arms, and the Adelphi. Eunice probably felt the excitement when, in 1879, Thomas Edison unveiled his incandescent light bulb at the Grand Union Hotel.

But while the hotels had indoor plumbing, it probably hadn’t reached Benedict Street before Eunice’s death.

In 1881, Eunice suffered a stroke while doing her baking. There was nothing the doctor could do, and she passed away two hours later.