Benjamin Sly: His Story Emerges

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

Sennett, NY. www.googlemaps.com

It has been over 2 1/2 years since my last post. Sadly, life sometimes gets in the way researching and writing.

When we last left off, I had found the first few details about Benjamin Sly, my 3rd great-grandfather. I knew he was born around 1820 in Onondaga County, NY. I knew he had been blind since at least 1845. He and Mary L. Avery had married sometime before 1855, but had started living apart soon after 1860. He worked as a chair matter. I had found him in the 1860 US Federal Census, and in the 1855 and 1865 NY State Census records, as well.

I wanted to know more. Of course I did! None of the above records explained why he had vanished from his daughter Jennie's life. If it was true that Jennie's mother died when Jennie was young, then why was Ben not more present in her life? Had he died early, as well?

I did another search on www.ancestry.com - this time for Benjamin Sly, born in 1820, +/- 5 years, with a residence in Cayuga County, NY.

The first result is the one I already had - the only record I had found with Benjamin, Mary and Jennie all living together. The second one was new, and made my heart do a sad flip.

Search results for Benjamin Sly on www.ancestry.com

I clicked on it immediately. Inmates. Poorhouses.

Ancestry.com. New York, Census of Inmates in Almshouses and Poorhouses, 1830-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. 

My 3rd great-grandfather, Benjamin Sly, was admitted as an inmate in a poorhouse in 1896. By then, his daughter Jennie was not only married with a beautiful and talented daughter, but had also moved from rural Ohio to Chattanooga, Tennessee. There, she and her husband had built a beautiful house outside of Chattanooga on Lookout Mountain, all while Jennie's dad was in a poorhouse. How do these things happen? My heart was breaking. Here is the image of the admittance card:

Ancestry.com. New York, Census of Inmates in Almshouses and Poorhouses, 1830-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

I admit, it took me a few days to fully absorb this information. I was upset about Benjamin's fate. Perhaps it hit me especially hard because my relationship with my own father is so bad that I may not be able to help him as he ages, much less even know that he needs help to begin with. I had to remind myself that I didn't know the whole story about Benjamin and Jennie. Maybe Benjamin didn't want his daughter's help, or maybe she had her own reasons for staying out of his life.

The only good thing about being admitted to the poorhouse was the plethora of interesting facts it generated:

Benjamin, a white male, was admitted to the Cayuga County, NY poorhouse on August 12, 1896, at the age of 76.
Marital status: widower
Born in Pompey, Onondaga County, New York
Father's birthplace: left blank
Mother's birthplace: Pompey, Onondaga County, New York
Education: Common school
Habits: good
Habits of father: intemperate
Habits of mother: good
Occupation: Farmer
Occupation of Father: Farmer
All grandparents, father, brothers, sisters: self-supporting
Mother: pauper
How many children living: 1, self-supporting
Cause of Dependence: Blind
What kind of labor able to perform: none
How long has this person been receiving aid: 19 years
Have the parents been aided: they have
Has the person been in a poorhouse or other charitable institution before: No
Probable destiny: will remain

A few things jumped out at me:

• Ben was a widower in 1896. Did this mean that Mary had already died, as the family story went? Or did this refer to another wife?
• I could now add the city of Pompey to his birthplace in Onondaga County, NY.
• I didn't have a name for his mother or father, but I did have a birthplace for her.
• His father was an alcoholic, and his mother was a pauper.
• For relatives, the letters "DO" had been written next to brothers and again next to sisters, to indicate "ditto" for self-supporting. The spaces had not just been left blank. Could I thus assume that Benjamin had brothers and sisters?
• Benjamin had 1 living child.
• Benjamin likely remained in the poorhouse until he died.

None of this information gave me a good feeling about Benjamin's life. He had been blind for at least 30 years, was widowed, living in a poorhouse and no longer able to perform any labor. His mother had ended up a pauper, as well, and his father had been an alcoholic. The one marriage I knew of did not seem to end well. He was likely estranged from his daughter. I felt sad for him. And stunned at this stark contrast with Jennie's lifestyle. Did Jennie know that her father was in a poorhouse?

I turned back to my search results on Ancestry, and found another record for the poorhouse:

Ancestry.com. New York, Census of Inmates in Almshouses and Poorhouses, 1830-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

There was no new information here, other than an updated record number.

I wondered how long Benjamin lived in this poorhouse before presumably dying there. He was 76 years old when he was admitted. I checked New York State death indexes on www.familysearch.org and www.ancestry.com for 1896 through 1920 and came up with nothing. Benjamin was not listed.

My attention turned to the poorhouse itself. What was life like in such an institution at the turn of the century? It couldn't have been good, I assumed. Did this poorhouse have a cemetery? Was Benjamin buried there? Who had records for this institution? I did a Google search for "Sennett NY poorhouse" and was rewarded with 2 very promising results:

Google search for "Sennett NY Poorhouse" 19.06.2019

I clicked on the first result and what I read brought tears to my eyes. The website www.poorhousestory.com has information about poorhouses across the entire US. The page dedicated to the Cayuga County poorhouse included a transcription of a report from 1857 on the state of the house, written almost 40 years before Benjamin was admitted. From the report:

"The house contains about 30 rooms, wards and cells, almost all of which are small, confined and destitute of all means of ventilation . . . About 100 is the average number of inmates . . . From its age and original faulty construction, the main structure is now utterly unfit for the purpose for which it is used. At all seasons of the year it is impossible to properly ventilate the rooms and to a person in health the sensation produced on entering them is nauseous and sickening. The ill and the maimed, the filthy and the diseased are crowded in the same rooms, and in many cases lie on the floor together, wrapped in wretched blankets, more like beasts than human beings. As many as ten is the usual number so placed together in one room . . . The house is a disgrace to the county and in no way fit for the reception of paupers."[1]

 I did not find any evidence to suggest that the poorhouse was renovated or replaced in the following years, so I thought it was likely that Benjamin lived in conditions like this, or worse, as an old, blind man. The report also described the lack of adequate heating and the appalling personal hygiene of the residents. I first read this report 4 years ago, but it still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. What a horrible way to spend the last years of one's life.

I moved on to the second search result. This was a report about the Sennett poorhouse cemetery written by Christine J Spengler. It is very detailed and includes many pictures. After researching and observing the cemetery and surrounding area, Ms. Spengler reported that,

"I could find no names...only numbers . . . [T]here is a huge gap in the number of recorded, and marked, burials. Indeed, one thing that was interesting about this clearing was that it was lumpy. It had 4-6' mounds and depressions in a somewhat regular pattern throughout this clearing . . . I am sure that the actual burial ground is much bigger than what is currently kept mowed and cleared."[2]

Numbered graves in Sennett, NY Poorhouse Cemetery.  Copyright 2007 - Christine J. Spengler. Used with permission.

"Lumpy" area surrounding the official cemetery. Copyright 2007 - Christine J. Spengler. Used with permission.

An online, but likely incomplete, roster of burials (https://www.cayugagenealogy.org/cem/cem197.htm) did not list Benjamin Sly as one of the inmates interred in the cemetery. After reading about the large, lumpy area surrounding the official cemetery, I suspected that Benjamin was in an unmarked grave. I had little hope of ever locating his actual burial spot. Day and night, my thoughts kept returning to my ancestor who had likely lived his last days in appalling conditions and was buried in an unmarked grave.

I still didn't have a death date for Benjamin, nor a confirmed location. It was time to contact the local Sennett town historian, Tom Gray, who responded within a day with exciting information:

"We have the death record for Benjamin Sly, however most records of people who died in County Home are very incomplete.  The following information was in the records:

• Name                   Benjamin Sly

• Age                      82

• Date of Death      July 24, 1902

• Occupation          None listed

• Birthplace            NYS

• Parents                 No names listed

• Cause of Death    Old Age

• Doctor                 Chas. Stever

• Burial                  Port Byron

Records of old county home which closed last May (Cayuga County Nursing Home) were destroyed years ago in a fire.   Gook luck with your search" (personal communication, May 5, 2016).

So there it was. My 3rd great-grandfather, Benjamin Sly, died almost 6 years after being admitted to the Cayuga County, NY poorhouse in Sennett. I was so sad for him and the suffering he must have endured while there. At the same time, I felt a small measure of comfort: Benjamin was not buried in the poorhouse cemetery. He was buried in his home town of Port Byron (Mentz), 8 miles northwest of Sennett. It was time to dig deep into Port Byron/Mentz, New York history. I knew just where to start.

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[1]Crannell, Linda. “Cayuga: NY Poorhouse History by County.” The Poorhouse Story. 2000 - 2014, www.poorhousestory.com/CAYUGA.htm.

[2] Spengler, Christine J. A Report With Some Photo Images From County House Cemetery Town Of Sennett – Cayuga County New York. 2007, www.cayugagenealogy.org/cem/cem197a/index.htm.