Or, two journeys in futility, watching tantalizing clues turn to ash in your hands.
After traumatic events, I’m always obsessed with “what happened after?” How do you go on and repair/renew your life?
This is actually what propelled me into rekindling my teenage obsession with the Revolution, because I wanted to know what happened to the Massacre soldiers after the trial, and the information was… shockingly absent. Thankfully, I eventually found this article by Don Hagist, which gave me some closure.
Occasionally, though, I like to peruse genealogical records. Most of these names are pretty common, but “Edward Montgomery’s wife “Isabella” was slightly more rare. I mean, it was still very common but at least it’s not Mary. And since we know he was born around 1735, from County Antrim, and their children’s names were William, Mary, and Esther, maybe I could find something. Probably not, but worth a try.
Here’s the April 29, 1828 edition of the Belfast Newsletter:
To be clear, Belfast is in County Antrim, where Montgomery was originally from. To be 87 in 1828, Isabella would have to be born around 1741, making her 29 in 1770.
There is a probate record indicating this woman’s will was settled in 1829, and the person handling her estate is William Montgomery, of Ballygawley.
There is no obituary matching this Edward Montgomery, but there is there is an 1824 probate record of an Edward Montgomery of Belfast:
Is this them? Did the Montgomery family return to Antrim after Edward’s discharge? Did he live a long life until 89, and Isabella until 87?
Alas, we’ll never know for certain!
Because in 1922, a fire destroyed most of the will contents, except the index recording that these documents once existed. It was hard to suppress an audible scream reading this:
So, for now, the fate of the Montgomery family remains a mystery. While this is certainly a possibility, if it is them it is impossible to prove barring other records.
Second concerns the two soldiers who went on the Burgoyne’s doomed Saratoga mission, John Carroll and William McCauley. I found nothing on Carroll, but while researching two completely different soldiers (Robert and John Sloss, British soldiers captured after the battle of Bemis Heights), I found a list compiling all Loyalists and British prisoners taken in New York from about 1775 to 1778. The Slosses, naturally, were present, as was a “William McAuley.”
Finding out where this man was taken would obviously be very, very useful. Except in 1911, about two-thirds of such documents burned in a fire at the New York State Capitol.
I could find no records of a William McCauley born in New York or surrounding states between 1720 and 1755 (a little too young anyway, but I wanted to be thorough). But this prisoner could have been a completely different William McCauley in the British army, or have been born elsewhere and moved to America, only to take up with Loyalists.
Unless hidden documents are discovered, unfortunately, I think that’s it for these tantalizing leads.
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