Surprising Connections

I recently acquired all of my mother's files on her genealogy research, including reams of printouts of email exchanges from the 1990's with fellow Wandell researchers from various genealogy message boards. One of these researchers (cousins), contacted her last week and discovered her memory decline. I connected with him by phone and explained about her issues, and also shared my DescendDance blog with him. It inspired me to spend a couple of afternoons sorting through all of Mom's files and purging duplicate or useless papers. It is now reduced to a manageable pile. Some of the cousins with whom she corresponded sent her some invaluable copies of original documents that I did not have. I am looking forward to incorporating them into my research.

On another note, my sister and her husband (Holly and Clayton Bernick) were going through the last of his mother's storage boxes of memorabilia. They found a piano recital program that listed his mother's name (Jane Ramsey), and surprise! It also listed the names of our beloved Aunt Teeny (Miriam Lukhard) and cousin Peggy (then Page, now Baldacci)! Jane was about 14, and Teeny and Peggy were around 10 years old in 1946. When I told Teeny about it today, she told me that Gramp used to take her and Peggy to piano lessons in his truck every week and they hated it. But they loved the piano teacher, a little old Dutch man named A. J. Pennartz. He was the organist at the church where the recitals were held. Teeny and Peggy quit lessons as soon as they were allowed, but Jane continued with the same teacher until college and corresponded with him long after her lessons were through.

The times dispatch. September 15, 1912, Page 10

Fort Lee, New Jersey

My Aunt Teeny gave me a framed picture that had been sent to her mother years ago.  It was a sepia-toned picture of an old Episcopal church. Under the picture it said, "Episcopal Church Parker Avenue, Fort Lee, N. J."  She supposed it was the Abbott family's church and wondered if it would help me with my research. 

[Bonnie Abbott Bryant and May Abbott Cowan, half sisters of George Wright Abbott: George Wright Abbott > Jacqueline D. Abbott > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin]

I first had to find out the name of the church.  I did a search on Google maps of Episcopal churches in Fort Lee, and there was only one that possibly fit our family's location in the city.  But this church was on Palisades Avenue, and it was much larger.  Hmmm.  I zoomed in and looked around a little in street view and discovered that there was a Parker Avenue that ran parallel to Palisades behind the church.  A closer inspection found that the larger part of the building facing Palisades has been added onto the original smaller building facing Parker.  Bingo!  It was called the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Then, on a whim, I lifted up the corner of the picture and to my surprise found that it was a postcard!  There was writing on it too... it was a message sent to my great great Aunt Rebecca "Bonnie" Abbott Bryant from her sister May in 1917.  Rebecca's grandson Matt is one of my newfound cousins on Ancestry, so I wrote to him about the postcard.  Very cool.  He told me that it was May's grandson, Ray Eggers, Jr., who compiled most of the Abbott family genealogy back in the days when it took a lot of years of traveling to get information.  Coincidentally, I am in possession of all of Mr. Eggers' correspondence with my Aunt Miriam.

I've been wondering how the Bryants and Abbotts met each other.  The Abbott family were well known piano makers in Fort Lee.  Charles Bryant from Virginia became a piano dealer in Fort Lee.  Rebecca Abbott married Charles' brother William Bryant.  Charles' sister Ida - my great grandmother - married Rebecca's half brother George Abbott.  Did they meet through the piano business or did they meet in that little church on Parker Avenue?  Who met who first? (Later I learned that William Bryant had taken the new railroad to NJ from Southampton, Va. to find work, and met Bonnie Abbott, a coworker in a hat factory in Fort Lee. That was probably the first Bryant-Abbott connection). 

I bought a book from Amazon called Music in New Jersey, 1655 - 1860.  I was hoping it would answer these questions, but it included only a couple of pages about the Abbott Piano Factory.  Still, very interesting. Post Script: I gifted the book to Matt and Natalka Weismantel.

Abbott & Sons Piano Factory, Fort Lee, NJ

Here are some bits and pieces of information about the Abbott Family Piano Company in New Jersey sent to me by Matthew Weismantel, great great grandson of Whitfield Barrie Abbott (which makes him my 3rd cousin):

Bryants and Abbots
My (Matthew's) Grandmother was Margaret Weismantel nee' BRYANT whose mother was Rebecca Godfrey Curtis Bryant nee' Abbott (daughter of Whitfield Barry ABBOTT & Gertude CLAYTON) and whose father was William Thomas BRYANT (son of Eley BRYANT and Margaret COBB). The Abbotts started in America John C. ABBOTT (1809-1898) who manufactured pianos both in NYC and Fort Lee, NJ.

• Born in London in about 1815, John Abbott immigrated to New York with his brothers James, Nathaniel, Abiel, and William to manufacture pianos. John Abbott first apprenticed with the firm of R & W Nunns. He opened his first shop in 1835, at only twenty years of age, at 66 Walker Street in New York City. His pianos were exhibited at The American Institute Fair in both 1835 and 1836, and they were awarded medals at both exhibitions. Abbott quickly gained popularity and a stellar reputation for his instruments. It seems that John Abbott went into general business and left the piano industry before 1850. His brothers James Abbott and William Abbott continued building action parts for pianos in New Jersey under the name of Abbott & Sons.

• In Spillane’s History of the American Piano-Forte, published in 1890: “John Abbott, a graduate from the shop of R&W Nunns, began business at 66 Walker Street, NY in 1832, and became very successful immediately from the standpoint of making reputable instruments. In 1835 John Abbott took the gold medal at the Mechanic’s Institute for a piano-forte which won special mention. In 1836 he moved to 267 Bowery. Mr. Abbott exhibited a grand piano in this year which won the second premium at the Mechanic’s Institute. This clever piano make is yet living and is a member of a family whose connections with the trade has been of long standing. James Abbott of Abbott and Sons, is a brother and was connected with him in 1833 when he began business on Walker St., and is the youngest of the Abbott Family of piano makers.”

• ABBOTT. London-born makers in New York, NYand Fort Lee, NJ. John Abbott (b. London, 1815-d. after 1890) apprenticed with R&W Nunns in New York; in 1832 he opened a workshop at 66 Walker Street (Spillane). Spillane reported that John Abbott won a gold medal for one of his pianos at the American Mechanics’ Institute Fair in 1835, and the following year he won a silver medal for a horizontal, not square, grand piano. In 1836 his address was 267 Bowery. Abbott apparently opened the firm of Abbott & Sons in Fort Lee, NJ, possibly as early as 1836; although the date is uncertain, he is known to have been working in New Jersey by 1839. http://antiquepianoshop.com/online-museum/abbott/

• John had three brothers, all of whom were active as piano makers, Nathaniel B. Abbott was listed as a maker during the 1840's, but later he turned to other occupations; he became first a policeman, then a carpenter. James Abbott (b London, 1825) worked with his brother John in 1833 on Walker Street in New York and in the firm of Abbott & Sons about 1839 in Fort Lee. James lived at a hotel owned by John in Hackensack, NJ; he was active in the business until 1860, according to Kaufman. William Abbott (b. London, 1816-d 1889) also worked with John in Fort Lee in 1850. Abiel, another brother, operated during that year a piano dealership in NY; he lived in Jersey City. Spillane state that all four of the Abbott brothers were trained at R & W Nunns.

• It is my (Sylvia Abbott) impression that the Abbott family was a large one and branched out to perhaps many other states. I have no records of this. My ancestor, James, had a small piano making business in Edgewater, bought property in Fort Lee in 1850 where piano actions were made in his home. In 1872 Abbott Piano Factory opened off Lemoine Ave. In 1953 the building was sold and has since been torn down to make way for the new Port Authority Building on South Marginal Rd.

• According to Margaret Weismantel, John C. Abbott died pushing Bonnie Cowen up a flight of stairs in a baby carriage. Now that I have dates for his death in Dec 1898 and Bonnie Cowen's birth in August 1895 this certainly plausible.

Charles Bryant, a "dapper fellow"
On another note, from Matthew Weismantel: "My aunt has been asking me if I have any information about a Mariah BRYANT who she remembers owning a boarding house in Ocean Grove, NJ. The only Mariah I have come across was in your photo on-line with Charles Bryant.

l to r:  Mariah, Ida Rene Abbott, Addie Fletcher, and Charles Bryant.
Possibly taken on the occasion of Charles and Mariah's wedding? This photo had to have been taken around 1910, which is after their mother Margaret died on a train... after "the rift." 

My aunt later remembered that there was a Charles Bryant who was married to a Mariah and owned a piano store on Broad Street in Newark, NJ -- strange since it was the Abbotts who owned a piano factory.