I had about 40 ancestors who were of the right age. Checked through the potential ones, no joy, then changed the search a bit and snagged one!

My 4th great granduncle(aged 15, btw), joined a NY militia to fight in the 1814 Siege of Plattsburg as it was known. I'd had some suspicions before and there it was. He was promised a rifle, which he kept, and later made a Bounty Claim on a 160 acre farm in Malone NY. In 1878 his widow was weaseled out of an $8/mo. pension as the law was changed after the civil war and her claim was turned down for being past the statute of limitations. Bastards even then.

To my Canadian friends...uh, sorry about that episode, but at least you won. All we got out of the whole mess was a silly song or two.

I never would have looked if it hadn't been for your post. Thanks!

I have ancestors who lived in Malone, NY too.

DeGray and Russell (Roussel)

They came to the US in the mid 1800s from the Montreal area.


Also, some Bushey (Boucher) ancestors who lived in Plattsburg.

Just glancing at the 1860 census index and the number of DeGray and Russel families there, It's almost certain that they knew each other.

His name was Frederick P. Allen(1798-1878). The address listed on in these sets of claims is #10 Elm St., which streetview now shows as a mixed commercial/residential district. The house appears to be gone. Down the street is St. Marks Church. In 1878, the Pastor of St Marks Church wrote an affidavit for them, as did numerous judges, postmasters, and a few old friends from Plattsburg. He and his wife had to have been well-integrated into the community.

Frederick's father, Zenas Allen, moved to Plattsburg in 1810. He opened an inn that had some success, but then he died in 1811. He left a widow and six children. I know the fates of three of those children. Besides Fredrick, there was George P. Allen, who lived in Malone and published one of the first newspapers there, The Northern Spectator. That's another reason I'm pretty sure our ancestors met knew each other well. In 1835, George sold the paper to Frederick, who renamed it The Palladium. I'm not sure how long George lived in Malone, but he ends up dead in the Bronx in 1845. Frederick sold the paper that year, but stayed in the town the rest of his life.

The third brother, Charles Partridge Allen, "removed from Orwell to Mooers, New York, in 1821, an unbroken wilderness, He built the first saw mill and carried on the lumber business for several years." (Ref. Three Centuries in Champlain Valley). This was the Allen I was first most interested in. I see he did his bit for the deforestation of upstate NY. When he died in 1835 it seems to have thrown the whole extended family into a turmoil. They hung on though, the sons ran it for another fifteen years, then closed the mill and began to sell property. I assume this provided the support for their mother in her last years, as she is always named on the title transfer. In 1852, her oldest son and family left a cryptic note in the records of the local Methodist church:"Gone West".

This chain of Allen families came from early E. Bridgewater, MA, and had migrated up through western Vermont(Bennington, Tinmouth, and Orwell among others). Some of the common related names were Cary, Partridge, Brett, Alden, and Pratt. For the later generations is was Baker, Clark, Banker, and Ober. They've been an interesting family to research. Ignoring their 17th century religious nuttery for the moment, they had a habit of being near the scene of many historical events, plus they just couldn't sit still for very long. Luckily, they did just barely enough of note to be recorded somewhere. That, and every time they moved they left behind little pods of Allens.

Now back to the set of files. A longer and more careful reading shows that he didn't get the damned rifle he was promised for fighting 1814.

But he didn't let the matter drop either, and a group of 16 fellow volunteers seemed to keep each other aggravated over the issue. In 1826, they convinced a NY Senator and a Representative to introduce, then Congress to vote, a Joint Resolution of Congress that not only should they get their damned rifles, as promised, but that each one should have an engraved nameplate. It's hard to imagine a story like that didn't make the rounds at the Malone bars and church suppers for decades.

Another curiosity of a different kind. In his 1855 battle with the bureaucracy over his Bounty Claim, it was first denied because they had recorded him as Frederick A. Allen. After another two rounds of affidavits it was cleared up. A peculiar thing I had noticed over the years is that this line of families almost always used their full middle names. It continued well into the 20th century. It seemed pretentious. Now I can see that the tradition began in about 1855.

Addendum:
Sorry, but twenty years of notes and unrelated tidbits are falling into place today. Frederick P. Allen's nephew, Franklin P. Allen, attended the same school as Wilder, worked in his uncles' print shop for three years, then returned to Moors on the death of his father. Years later, he held all sorts of local functional offices -JP, notary, postmaster, and of all things, the appointment of Pension Notary from Washington, D.C., on January 19, 1876. He's the one who took care of the aforementioned saw mill and widow of Charles.

That also means that could be the JP or notary for some of the documents you have for your area relatives. They absolutely had to have known each other. He also had a large family, many of whom stayed in the area.

Enough of them lot. On to Malone. Very interesting town.

The British sacked the village during the War of 1812.
AKA, a bad start.

Malone was a staging point for one arm of the 1866 and 1870 Fenian Raids of Canada, which took place at many points along the U.S.-Canada border. The Fenian Brotherhood (Fenians) attempted to capture Canada as a bargaining tool in the British occupation of Ireland.
That seems to be a story in need of a screenplay.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the book Farmer Boy about her husband Almanzo Wilder's upbringing,
Can I get the Cliff's Notes version?

Possible final stop in the Underground Railroad at The First Congregational Church.
Good, but...

In 1935, Dutch Schultz had his tax evasion trial moved from Manhattan to Malone. After a media-saturated trial before a Malone-area jury, he was acquitted.
Cool, another screenplay.

The 19th Vice President of the United States, William Almon Wheeler, resided here. His mansion is now the site of the Elks Lodge on Elm Street.
Oh boy, history buffs should follow the link. Mentioned in "Profiles in Courage". Honest as he could be, but tragically forged the "Wheeler Compromise", which was the beginning of the end of reconstruction. Unintended consequences on his part, it seems.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_William_Wheeler.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malone_%28village%29,_New_York

That was long for a simple howdy. Much more than I set out to do, but the whole family came together at once. I guess that's what happens sometimes in genealogy; pull a loose thread, you get a whole sweater instead.

fascinating stuff! I had a similar story of some events involving Roussel ancestors but can't remember where I put the folder.

Anyway, you mentioned some E. Bridgewater Allens and that has me wondering if they might be related in any way to Allens in my own background.

This is the story of Sarah Allen, captured at the Deerfield (MA) Massacre and brought to Canada, where she was baptized with a French name and lived as a French Canadian woman for the rest of her life.

http://web.uvic.ca/~lalonde/history/history/battle.html


Her Grandfather, Edward Allen, came to Ipswich from his native Scotland.

Anyway, she married Guillaume Lalonde and their daughter, Marie, married one of my Roussel ancestors (Pierre) so that is how I'm related to the Allens.

Do you know if your E. Bridgewater Allens are related to my Ipswich Allens?

I remember reading about Deerfield and the captives, but never ever thought anyone's story would ever be told. It was one of those things that when you put down the book you think they are/will be lost to history forever. That is one cool story.

I'm familiar with the Ipswich/Northampton/Chicopee/Springfield Allens because of a mistake I made years ago. I thought the the Hampden Co. Allens were the most likely ones on the other side of a two generation gap I had between my own records and the published genealogies of Massachusetts. I paid less attention to the Duxbury/Plymouth Allens and I shouldn't have.

This went on for years. Finally, in about 1998, I found an obituary that led me to a long-lost married sister, and more importantly, to the long-lost sister's application to the DAR. It was gold. But they weren't connected to the Allen family I thought they were.

That trail goes back to Samuel Allen of Bridgwater, Somerset, England, b.1596. He arrived in about 1630, became a freeman in 1635 and lived in Braintree. In 1660 he and his oldest son were among the founders of Bridgewater, MA.

Not that long ago the details of his life seemed well-established. The internet has not been kind to him though, and everyday brings more family trees with customized accounts of his life. I don't even look at them anymore. To know much more about him, or anything farther back, I'll have to rely on work published in journals.

The accounts of his descendants were written in the 19th century and have been left unbothered. Almost all of them stayed near Bridgewater during the colonial period. I don't see any crossover with the ones in Hampden Co, but there is some migration to R.I. and Connecticut. There were several Sarah Allens, but they are all well-buried there. In the last part of the 18th century, the ones who bolted from Bridgewater leapfrogged the settlements elsewhere in Massachusetts and went straight into Vermont.

If it hadn't been for the end of the New Hampshire Claims border war with New York I don't think they would have gone. Another influence might have been Ethan (General not furniture) Allen, who was likely a second cousin or so of the ones who left. Word would have traveled through the grapevine about opportunities there.

On the off chance, I just checked for any event in Ipswich in my database, and I have a pair:
John Clark(b. 1639, Ipswich, Massachusetts, d. 1718, Norwich, Connecticut) m. 1672, Ipswich, to Mary Burnham(b. 1652, Ipswich, Massachusetts, d. 1723, Ipswich, Massachusetts)

I don't know much about them(someday maybe), but three and four generations later part of the family ended up in the same VT to upstate NY migration.

this for a long time!

I've been at it off and on since about 2007 and only have some bare bones stories.

anyway, I found a photo that shows a small group of young people sitting on a car in Malone. On the side is the advertisement for Malone Hardware.

My cousin who sent this to me wasn't sure if the Russells actually owned the store, but I'm thinking probably not because they appear to have all been farmers.

My great Aunt Lucy DeGray (her parents are Emma nee Russell and David Nelson DeGray) is the one with eyeglasses sitting on the hood of the truck/car.

Nobody knows who the others are. Maybe you have photos that match up with the faces?

but the car is a probably a 1920 Ford Model T touring car. Since it has the hardware store signage, it might have been the model where the area behind the front seats was replaced by a flatbed. Still, there are six of them there, so maybe not. Ford kept the lanterns to go with headlights until about 1925. I might be a slightly later model. The split windscreen is folded down in your photo.

This is one example of that model. I've probably given myself away, so I might as well admit that I was once the pesky kid who "helped" (bugged) the old neighbor guy who was restoring a 1912 Oldsmobile.



The clothing matches the early 1920's as well. The white dresses the two women are wearing is a slightly older style, so they may be a few years older.

She kept the photo so it must have meant something to her. Siblings? Visiting cousins on a summer outing? Classmates? They look a bit old for that, but then my father had a graduating high school classmate who could vote. They won the state baseball championship that year.

And the occasion, it might just be a summer reunion, but it might also be the day after a wedding. And that made me think of something. If a non-Malone cousin had the photo, maybe someone just borrowed the car for a day or two for a visit. And since it's an informal photo, who took it, and who kept it? That is one interesting puzzle you have there. Don't ever give up on it.

This made me think that maybe the forum needs a "problem child" puzzle of the month, something solvable that we could all collaborate on. Another month, another puzzle, then take turns. It's not like we would ever run out of puzzles.

I guess I have been at this for a while, but very much off and on. Maybe 20 or 30 years, depending upon how you count. At first I though it could be a gift for kids, but they don't care. It's for people who don't like being disconnected from the past.

I just happened to have a thought before closing that The Malone Farmer or another local paper would probably have had a society column where travel and/or a visit like this would be noted with a line of two. That might solve it. But then of course, that means rolling through five years worth of non-snowy month microfilm. And it might not have been newsworthy, even for Malone. On second thought, that doesn't sound like such a good plan 'B'.