Success Story

Proving beyond doubt that Mary Harwick was Mary Ann Bass' mother involved proving my assumption that the portrait in the Reese Bible of the bearded Wm W. Bass was Mary Ann's brother.  This was accomplished some weeks ago.  Schoolteacher William Bass was found back in Warren in 1850 living with Henry and Mary Bell plus with another brother, medical student Edgar Charles Bass.  That led to a contemporary biography that I found on the prestigious Dr. Edgar Bass, clearly stating that his parents were Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick.  So I had my proof.  Time to move on...

However, I had come across a fascinating 1878 letter posted on a Bass family tree in Ancestry.com.  The letter was addressed to my William Bass by a relative talking about the family history and the recent death of an "Aunt Mary".  The relationship details were difficult to decipher simply because the writer just didn't explain enough, and the writer's identity was hidden by his/her scrawled signature.  William Bass probably easily understood everything in the letter.  But it was all a mystery to family descendants more than a hundred years later.

I read this letter many times trying to glean any Bass family information.  I figured a couple things out concerning the letter.  It was sent from New York state, near the town of Warren.  The Aunt Mary who died was my Mary Harwick, the mother of William and Edgar Bass.  I sent Ken, the Bass tree owner my comments.  Ken was astounded and we traded a flurry of e-mails.  My info immediately led him to more clues in other family papers in Ken's possession.  He showed me evidence that Mary Harwick, now that he knew his great-great grandmother's name, was the same person as Mary Bell.  For a moment it seemed that we were both up to speed on the data.
  A week later, I was updating my Reese tree with the Bell family information.  I was reading Ken's old letter again and noticed a couple more things. Just details, really.
  Don't think that I sit at my computer all day on a Saturday.  I did manage to get outdoors in the nice weather to weed my flower gardens, mow the lawns, and do a bunch of other errands.  I relaxed in the evening at my desk browsing through cemetery burial listings on genealogical sites for the Warren, New York area.  I found Henry Bell's grave which connected to something else in the letter.  My details were piling up.
  I wrote Ken again summarizing these small items, and asked him to check the original of that old letter.  Could the writer's signature possibly be Harwick?  That got quick a response, and Ken sent me a scan of the original letter.  Yes, we agreed.  Now that we had enough clues, we could see that the scrawled signature said Menzo Harwick.  In a burst of activity we found Menzo's family in the U.S. Census, including Menzo's siblings and his father David, who would be Mary Harwick's brother.  David's 77 year old father Peter, was living with the family in 1850 in Warren, NY.
  Now the old letter is starting to make sense.  The jigsaw pieces are coming together, forming a clearer picture.  Mary Harwick was Menzo's great Aunt who was Lovell Bass' 1st wife.  The Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick in the Reese bible were my friend Ken's great great grandparents.

   BUT WAIT!  There's more!  Old Peter is Mary Harwick's father too.  The names mentioned in the letter, Philip and Hannah Bronner have to be old Peter's parents!  Ken is researching the Harwick family furiously now.  He soon finds more documents proving the Philip in the letter is Philip C. Harwick,  a Revolutionary War soldier,born in Germany in 1742.  Philip Harwick and his 2nd wife Hannah Bronner, are Ken's great-great-great-great grandparents on the Harwick side.
    A huge success for the Reese Bible!

Mary Harwick, Mary Harwick

I have been tracking down Mary Ann Bass Reese's mother.  As mentioned before on the June 25th post on the Bass family; Mary Ann's father, Lovell Bass, is the first entry on the Births page.  He is also the first entry on the Deaths page.  Just below Lovell on the Births page is "Mary Harwick was born Sept 11, 1800".  The strong implication is that this is Mary Ann's mother.  This is proven back in June when I link Mary Ann to the photo of the black bearded man, William W. Bass.  William is her brother still living in Warren, New York with another brother, Dr. Edgar Charles Bass.  Dr. Bass becomes a prominent man in Cazenovia, New York, and a contemporary biography of him states that he is the son of Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick.   I'm pleased to have this 2nd source of Mary Harwick's identity.

On the Deaths page just below Lovell Bass is "Mary Bell Died Nov. 13th 1878".  In 1850, Mary Ann's two brothers as young men are residing with a Henry Bell (Adam Reese's uncle) and his wife Mary.   So I had thought Mary Ann must have been friends with her husband's uncle's wife.  Recently I made e-contact with Ken, a great-great grandson of Lovell Bass.  In sharing our information, my friend Ken tells me his belief that Mary Bell and Mary Harwick are the same person.  No Way!  But he has old family letters saying that Mary Bell is buried in the Bass lot with the two brothers, William and Edgar Bass.  I confirm this is true by finding the burial listings of Evergreen Cemetery, Cazenovia Villiage, Madison County, New York. http://home.comcast.net/~ingallsam/Cemeteries/Cazenovia/CazEvergreen/CazEverE-I.htm  Mary Bell is buried alongside the two brothers, obviously her sons.  One of the Ken's old letters gives the same birth and death dates for Mary Bell as I have for Mary Harwick.    I'm convinced that Mary Bell and Mary Harwick is the same person.  Her 1st husband, Lovell Bass dies in 1833 when Mary is just 33.  Time enough for her to marry Henry Bell, brother of Adam Reese's mother, Elizabeth Bell.  Already the mother of 3 children with Lovell (Mary Ann, William, and Edgar Bass) Mary Harwick becomes a stepmother to the widower Henry Bell's two daughters (Rosalinda and Sarah Bell).

While trying to find out more, I discover in the 1870 census that Rosetta Reese, Mary Ann Bass Reese's daughter is staying with Henry Bell, her paternal great uncle, and his wife Mary Harwick Bass Bell, her maternal grandmother, plus her cousin William Bass in Warren, New York.  Remarkable, really. The Bell, Reese and Bass families are so intertwined in one household.

   This discovery gets my attention. Rosetta Reese, who is still single in 1870,  has returned from Wisconsin to her hometown in Warren, New York, to be a schoolteacher in like her cousin William.  Rosetta is educated and well traveled.  We know that she later goes back out West to be with her parents and get married.  Rosetta would have been in a very good position to know the family genealogy.  As mentioned in the Three Daughters post below, Rosetta appears to be the chronicler of the bible from 1878 until her own death in 1913.   But who takes possession after that?