I welcome your comments at the end - tell me what you think.
Searching for the Father of John P. Oviatt
My name is Sandra Mae Oviatt – b. 3 Feb 1947 and am
directly descended from John P. Oviatt
John P. Oviatt
(1792-1851)
. John P. Oviatt (1829-Unknown death)
. Oliver Frances Oviatt (1858-1908)
. Charles Leroy Oviatt (1886-1983)
. LeRoy Ellsworth Oviatt
(1918-1990)
.
Sandra Mae Oviatt (1947)
I have been researching my family history for 30 years and
have yet to get solid documentation showing the father of John P. Oviatt. Any
documentation you can give me would be very much welcomed.
My questions are:
My questions are:
- How are William Oviatt (1752-1816) and John P. Oviatt linked
- How did the middle name Peter become linked to John P. Oviatt
- What documentation do we have to show John P. Oviatt's last name was ever documented as Vetts?
Captain William Oviatt – There are over 80 trees on the ancestry website that lists
Captain William Oviatt as the father of John P. Oviatt with some listing his
middle name as Peter. Seven of the trees are in my DNA results so we do have a
common ancestor. I am not convinced it is William Oviatt. Within the past few years, this has been
taken as fact and an overwhelming number of the trees on Ancestry show William
as his father. Some trees link him to William Oviatt and Sarah Munson and
show his name as John Peter Vetts. Other variations of the Oviatt name show up but I haven't seen Vetts linked to John.
Here is my thinking – John P. Oviatt lists his birthplace
as Connecticut on the 1850 Census and there is adequate proof that this is
correct. William Oviatt was born in
Milford, New Haven, CT and migrated to Vermont sometime prior to 1790. If John
P. was born in Connecticut in 1792 it is unlikely that William can be his father.
A few trees listed the source
for William being the father of John P. as the William Oviatt Bible. Upon
investigation, the bible does not even list John. This connection is questionable based on this source.
See the
transcription of the first page of the bible below that lists the births. Page
2 shows the marriages and page 3 shows the deaths. The name John is not listed
on any of the pages. The surname was spelled OVAITT in the bible, it is not a
misspelling on my part.
Oviatt
Bible
Page 1
Births
William
Ovaitt was born
August
29th 1752
Sarah
Munson was born
March
31st 1756
Timothy
Munson was born
July 12th
1734
Sarah
Bishop was born
June
25th 1735
Marinda
Ovaitt was born
July 2nd
1775
Louisa
Ovaitt was born
Oct 24th
1777
Armida
Ovaitt was born
May 18th
1780
Infant
born April 25th 1782
Alfred
and Almon Ovaitt
Were
born April 29th 1783
William
Ovaitt Jr was born
Feb 19th
1788
Lucy
Ovaitt was born
April
20th 1791
Luana
Ovaitt was born
Sep 19th
1793
Hiram
Ovaitt was born
March
28th 1795
Here is a
snapshot of John P. Oviatt.
He was born in Connecticut around 1792. There is no record that he served in
any military capacity, although there is another John Oviatt of the same age in
another part of Ohio who did serve in the War of 1812. He married a woman named Hannah who was also
born in Connecticut. It is likely they married around 1815 in Connecticut since
their first child was born in December of 1816. I have found 6 children born to
John and Hannah. Data shows their
children being born in Connecticut, but the younger children may have been born
in Massachusetts, perhaps Ohio. Most likely John P. Oviatt was born in
Litchfield County in Connecticut and migrated across the border to Berkshire
County, which is where I discovered him. The histories of various towns
and counties give a wonderful, sometimes-sorrowful depiction of what life was
like in 1800. In 1826 he moved his family to Ohio and settled in Lake County on
Lake Erie. I am uncertain what motivated him to move – there were many people
migrating to Ohio for free land and new hope. He is listed as a Hoe and Fork
maker. His sons and their sons continued the blacksmithing trade (including my
grandfather). On the Lake County Genealogical Society website, I found that he
is buried in the Concord Cemetery, Section 1, Row 8, Stone 17. On the Northside of a 4-sided monument he is listed as J. P. Oviatt, Died, Oct. 31, 1851,
aged 59 years. His wife Hannah is listed on the Westside, wife of, J. P.
Oviatt, died, June 14, 1857, aged 61 years. The Southside of the monument lists
Huldah A. Burr, with Harriet S., Oviatt, wife of J. P. Hodges listed on the
Eastside.
I guess his
legacy and story would be - an ordinary man who did ordinary things and lived
in an extraordinary time. It is my hope that someone in my life will
discover the father of John P. Oviatt.
If you are
interested and not too bored by now, this is how I first uncovered John P.
Oviatt. Within the first year of my research (1990
before the internet), I traced my father’s paternal and maternal lines back to
1850 in Iowa. Based on the information listed by his children I was fortunate to
discover my 3rd great grandfather in 1850 in Ohio – this was John P. Oviatt
(his children were living in his household at that time). Clues from various
sources led me back to Sandisfield, Berkshire County, MA., in which he appeared
in the 1820 United States Federal Census. His surname name was misspelled,
which I found is not uncommon.
Name:
|
John P Overitt
|
Home in 1820 (City, County, State):
|
Sandisfield, Berkshire, Massachusetts
|
Enumeration Date:
|
August 7, 1820
|
Free White Persons - Males - Under 10:
|
1
|
Free White Persons - Males - 16 thru 25:
|
1
|
Free White Persons - Males - 26 thru 44:
|
1
|
Free White Persons - Females - Under 10:
|
2
|
Free White Persons - Females - 16 thru 25:
|
1
|
Number of Persons - Engaged in Manufactures:
|
2
|
Free White Persons - Under 16:
|
3
|
Free White Persons - Over 25:
|
1
|
Total Free White Persons:
|
6
|
Total All Persons - White, Slaves, Colored, Other:
|
6
|
In the 1840 United States Census, he was living in Concord, Lake County, Ohio which is where I first discovered him. He was also in the 1850 United States Census in the same location. This was the first year the names of all household members were listed.
I did not find
John P. Oviatt, or any variation of his first and last name listed in the 1830
census in any state. Researching forward
into his children there was an article in the History of Boone County, Iowa,
F, 627: p 620 that Andrew Oviatt (son of John P.), “Moved with his parents to
No. Ohio in 1826. Blacksmith until the
breaking out of the rebellion; fall of 1855 came to Iowa and owns 303
acres. 2 bros. came with him at the same
time and made the first wagon in Boone county.”
This would mean that John P. Oviatt left the Connecticut area and would
have been on route or a new arrival in Ohio sometime around 1830. Perhaps he was missed because of this, or he
and his family may have been living with a relative or friend and enumerated
with that household for the 1830 census.
During my
research, one bit of information did list his wife as Hannah West of
Winchester, Litchfield, CT. I have been able to source her birth to Judah West
and Mary Todd with online data from the Connecticut Birth Records (Barbour
Collection). The location that John and Hannah moved to in 1820 is 17 miles from
Winchester, Litchfield, CT so it is likely that Hannah West is the Hannah who
married John P Oviatt.
That being the case it is
likely that John P Oviatt was born in Connecticut, most likely Litchfield
County. As mentioned previously, he did report Connecticut as his birthplace in
the 1850 Census. In the 1820's John P Oviatt built a forge on the Farmington River about one
mile and a half below New Boston and manufactured scythes. A sawmill was erected afterward near the same site. It is likely that he and his family
worked and lived near a river in Litchfield.
It is interesting to
note that Berkshire County in Massachusetts is just across the border from
Litchfield County in Connecticut. The Farmington River is in northwest Connecticut
and southwest Massachusetts and historically played an important role in
small-scale manufacturing in towns alongside it.