Monday Is for Mothers: Elizabeth Brown (About 1794 - 1857)

Last week I posted about my third great grandfather Porter Worden so I felt this week was a good time to take a look at his ancestry starting with his mother Elizabeth, the daughter of Jeremiah Brown.*

Although there are several accounts claiming Cayuga County, New York, as her birthplace both the 1850 federal census and 1855 New York State census list Elizabeth's home state as Massachusetts. The Browns were living in Cayuga County by the 1800 U.S. Census and her husband-to-be Lyman Worden's family moved there about seven years later. Both families appear in the 1810 U.S. Census.

[Map Of The Northern Part of the State Of New York. Compiled from actual Survey By Amos Lay 1812. Entered ... 16th day of July 1812 by Amos Lay ... New-York. Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.]

[Detail of above map--Cayuga County is outlined in pink.]

[Year: 1810; Census Place:Cayuga, New York; Ancestry.com. 1810 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Third Census of the United States, 1810.

(NARA microfilm publication M252, 71 rolls). Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29.

National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

[Year: 1810; Census Place:Cayuga, New York; Ancestry.com. 1810 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Third Census of the United States, 1810.

(NARA microfilm publication M252, 71 rolls). Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29.

National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

We haven't found a marriage record for Elizabeth and Lyman but their first child Porter was born on May 12, 1811. By 1820 the family was living in neighboring Oswego County where Elizabeth and her husband would live the rest of their lives.

In the 1850 U.S. Census we have the first official record naming Elizabeth. She and Lyman are living with their son Joseph and next door to Porter and Hannah and their growing family.**

[Year: 1850; Census Place: Oswego, Oswego, New York. Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29;

National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

In the New York State census five years later we have a last glimpse of Elizabeth.

["New York State Census, 1855," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-8BP2-BM?cc=1937366&wc=M6GQ-C6D%3A237408001%2C237541501 : 22 May 2014), Oswego > image 9 of 28; count clerk offices, New York.]

Elizabeth Brown Worden died on September 19, 1857, and is buried in the Rural Cemetery in Oswego. Lyman would join her there in 1883.


*In the Records of the First Baptist Church in Cheshire (formerly New Providence) whose presiding Elder was Peter Worden there is this entry:

Unfortunately Brown is a very common surname and we can't be sure this Jeremiah Brown is Elizabeth's father but it points to a possible previous connection between the Browns and the Wordens in Massachusetts.

**This is the only time in census records that my great great grandfather Willet Orlando Worden is called by that name. 

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