52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Lucena Seriza (Johnson) Finch

    Welcome back to the 52 in 52 series! This week I decided to look more closely at an ancestor that appeared in last week's post on the Thomas and Roxcellana (Smith) Johnson family, their second oldest daughter, Lucena Serezia. Lucena intrigued me deeply because of her apparent odd move from the family home in Vermont to New Jersey and then further to Mobile, Alabama. What prompted her to deviate from the family westward migration to Wisconsin and why did she go to Mobile? Where was she during the Civil War, and where did she eventually go? Furthermore, I had heard a rumor that her son, Edwin W. Finch, had become a renowned Shakespearean actor of the late 19th century; was it true? 

    Lucena Serizia Johnson was born 3 Feb 1811, the second daughter of Thomas Johnson and his wife Roxcellana (Smith) Johnson, in Vernon, Windham County, Vermont. On her birth record, it indicates that her mother may have been living somewhere else in Vermont at the time of her birth, Readsboro although the birth was recorded about 30 miles away in Vernon. It may be that Roxcellana had returned to her family home to deliver her baby. 

    At the time of her birth, Lucena had one older sister, Ferona, and possibly two brothers who are enumerated in the 1810 US Federal Census, although they disappear by 1820, indicating that they may have died in the interim. No death records exist for these two potential siblings, so it may be that this was a recording error on the part of the census taker. Lucena was followed by at least eleven more siblings over the next 15 years. 

    Lucena's father, Thomas, was a farmer, and lived in the same community as his father and his siblings, so very likely the Johnson family was surrounded by close kin, which must have made for a incredibly busy and bustling household. We don't know for sure how successful a farmer Thomas was, but there is one clue that the family may have been fairly successful; in 1837, Lucena is listed as a student at the Greenfield High School For Young Ladies in Greenfield, Massachusetts. 

    Greenfield High School was an academically rigorous school, teaching physics, chemistry, botany, algebra, geometry, history, grammar, rhetoric, French, Latin, along with the usual ladies occupations of music, needlework, and drawing, and advocated plenty of physical activity for the students. The introduction to the school catalogue for 1827 bemoaned the lack of appropriate textbooks and instruction in sciences for women, the existing system being "exactly calculated to form superficial minds." Furthermore, the catalogue continues: "Experimental and practical illustrations are indispensable wherever they can be applied. But, formal and systematic lectures can have little use excepting the the most advanced stages of study, and then merely as directing future inquiry [...] Yet it will remain forever true that without personal exertion there can be absolutely no mental discipline, and little valuable acquisition."

    In short, Greenfield was a rigorous and thorough high school for young women, providing a solid academic education, on the level of most schools for boys and men. The tuition in 1837, when Lucena attended the school, was $200, including room, board, laundry service, and fuel; additional charges were advanced for certain subjects such as music, Latin, French, and drawing. This was not an insignificant sum of money for the time; $200 in 1827 is $6,170 in today's money, the price of a semester at decent state college. This tells us that the Johnson's may have been relatively successful with their farm, but it does invite another question: why? Why was Lucena, alone of all the daughters, sent to the Greenfield High School For Young Ladies, at the age of 26? 

    We actually have some idea about why she might have been sent to school. The book Women's Education in the United States, by Margaret A. Nash provides an excellent reason: Greenfield High School also served as a school for future teachers. Unmarried at 26, and needing an occupation, Lucena was sent to school to become a teacher, in which profession she is later listed. 

    In 1843, Lucena seems to have been living away from home, as she was baptized into the Presbyterian Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is likely that she was teaching at this point, but no record for where has yet been found.

    While Lucena was in New Jersey, the Johnson family in Vermont was getting ready to move. The oldest son, Oren, had moved with his family in about 1846 to Beaver Dam, Dodge County, Wisconsin, and the rest of the family was preparing to follow. Lucena herself filed a land claim in Wisconsin dated to 1848 and apparently paid outright for the land, as she was not listed as having a homestead patent. This is interesting, because it indicates that Lucena was supporting herself, probably as a teacher, and doing well enough that she could afford 80 acres of land on her own. Further, she was the only name listed in the land patent, indicating that she intended to farm it herself, a remarkable feat for a single woman in the late 1840's. Land was one way that an unmarried woman could give herself financial security, and for a single woman on the leading edge of 40 years old in 1846 or 47 when filing for the land patent was probably actually set into motion, that security would have been welcome.

    However, Lucena never arrived to farm the land; instead, she married in 1847, Jared Marcy Finch in Elizabeth, New Jersey, at the age of 36. Jared or Jerrod Finch was six years younger than his wife, and was apparently a merchant of some kind. Their son, Edwin Wilson Finch was born the next year in Pennsylvania. Then a curious thing happened: less than a year after the birth of Edwin, the Finch family made a move to Mobile, Alabama. 

    This seems to have been a frantic, hastened move, because Jared's will was probated in Mobile on 8 Oct 1849, and the US Federal Mortality schedule lists Jared Marcy Finch's death on the 24th of December in Mobile, at the age of 32. What happened here? We might have a clue in the cause of death: consumption.

It's not an unreasonable assumption that the family moved to the warmer climate of Alabama in the hopes of helping Jared recover his health. If so, it was a faint, vain hope, because Jared Marcy Finch died there less than a year after the move. 

    Lucena seems to have been galvanized into action after the death of her husband; she had a toddler son to support after all. The 1850 US Federal Census lists Lucena and Edwin as living in Mobile, and it appears that she had some help in the form of her younger sister, 20 year-old Julia, and her brother, 15 year-old Ira. Although there is no profession listed for Lucena, undoubtedly she was working as a teacher soon after the death of her husband, the profession she had been trained for.

     By 1860, she is listed as a teacher in Mobile, and residing with her are her son Edwin, her brother Ira, who was working as an agent for a cotton shipping firm in Mobile, and her nephew another Ira, son of her older sister Ferona Johnson Younglove. It seems that Ferona and Lucena maintained a close relationship throughout their lives; not only did Ferona send her son to live with Lucena, eventually Lucena moved to Chicago and is buried in the Younglove lot with her sister. 

    However, by 1861, the writing was on the wall for the little family group. Julia had married Dr. William S. Yuille in Mobile in 1857, a Scottish immigrant and scion of a wealthy family who owned a successful commercial bakery in Mobile. Their only child, a son, George Yuille, was born in 1862 in Wisconsin, indicating that Julia at least had left Mobile either before the war or slightly after the war started. In a notice posted in the Mobile Advertiser and Register on 12 Jun 1861, Ira formally removed himself from the company of E. Brown, the cotton company he had been working for, and moved to Wisconsin, where his first child, Edith, was born in 1862. 

Ira Younglove, Lucena's nephew, seems to have left about the same time as his uncle Ira. Ira Johnson and his nephew Ira Younglove were only one year apart in age. 

    The question is did Lucena leave Mobile during the Civil War, or did she stay? There is no evidence either way to suggest what Lucena and Edwin did. Edwin would have been too young to enlist in either military, Union or Confederate, so we don't know where his residence was during the Civil War. There is an Edwin W. Finch listed in the US Army Rolls as a captain in a Pennsylvania regiment, but this seems highly unlikely to be our Edwin based on the enlistment date of 1861, when our Edwin would have only been 11 or 12. 

    Whether the Finch's left or stayed in Mobile, they were definitely there in 1866, when the Mobile business directory lists Lucena as the principal of the junior boys grammar school at the Barton Academy and Edwin as a clerk for John Bright. There is a John Bright listed in the 1866 papers as the official government weigher of cotton, so this might be the man that Edwin was clerking for. Lucena's sister, Julia Yuille seems to have returned to the city after the war, although whether or not her husband, William, ever left the city is unclear. Certainly, he is listed in the 1866 directory, so Julia may have returned at this point.

    Edwin married Julia Neely in Mobile in 1869, and in 1870 Lucena, Edwin, and Julia were living with the Yuille family. On a troubling note, there are two African American servants 63 year-old Helen Finch and 13 year-old Elvira Finch living with the family. Although Lucina nor Edwin are listed as slave owners on the 1850 or 1860 US Slave Schedules, it does raise some questions about whether or not Helen or Elvira had previously been slaves of the Finch family. 

    Lucena remained in Mobile until at least 1882. In the 1870 census Lucena is listed as a servant, which must surely be wrong. In 1880, Lucena and the now widowed Julia were living together in Mobile with Julia's son George Yuille. Lucena is not listed in the city directory for 1880 or 1881, but is listed again in 1882. After that, the next record that we have for Lucena is the 1885 Iowa State Census, listing her as living in Greencastle, Marshall County. Interestingly, she is living with the family of her younger sister, Amanda Johnson Ludlow, specifically, Amanda's son Lucius Ludlow. Her profession was listed as a retired teacher. Part of the Johnson family, Lucena's younger brother Willard Martin and sister Amanda, had migrated from Wisconsin to Iowa with their families earlier, so she was clearly with close family in 1885.

By 1885, Lucena was 74 years old. She kept moving, eventually on to Chicago, where she died 18 Aug 1892, and was buried with the family of her sister Ferona Younglove in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. 

    Edwin Wilson Finch and his wife Julia had three children: Edwin W., Jr., Phillip Neely, and Lucine. He  moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where he worked as a bookkeeper and a clerk until his own death on 18 Apr 1900, in Birmingham. Although he died in Birmingham, oddly his body was taken to Gilman, Marshall County, Iowa for burial. He shares a stone with his cousin Althea Ludlow Butler in Prairie View Cemetery. Julia Neely Finch stayed in Birmingham, and died there in 1926. 

    Finally, there is the rumor that Edwin W. Finch was a Shakespearean actor.  Some slight proof of this comes from the obituary of Edwin's daughter Lucene Finch. Lucene attended the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the dramatic club, and was a renowned actress, writer, and folklorist, writing several volumes of "Negro" folklore she learned from her "mammy," who had been with the family for three generations. Presumably, this was either Helen or Elvira Finch, the servants listed with the family in Mobile in the 1870 census. Given the ages, it would probably have to be Helen Finch who served as her "mammy." 

Lucene died in 1947 in Hartford, Connecticut, and her obituary lists her father Edwin Wilson Finch as an actor as well. 

After an extensive search of newspapers, there is no evidence that Edwin was ever an actor. City directories and census records consistently report his occupation as clerk. He may have performed in amateur theater, but it seems to have been Lucine who made her living on the stage and in the lecture halls. 

    Thank you for reading this latest installment of 52 in 52, and as always, I am happy to receive questions or comments!