Charles Newton Cone

My Grandfather, Charles Newton Cone, was born in Worthington, Nobles County, Minnesota 06 Dec 1898. He was raised in the small farming community of Mapleton, Utah. His parents Frederick Naaman and Helen Newton Cone; grandparents Charles Shepard and Mary Clarke Newton; and even great-grandfather John Champion Clarke went to Utah as part of a Presbyterian Mission to lead Mormons back to their church before 1900.

Charles Newton Cone Circa 1899

Mapleton was a village of about 600 people with impressive views of Maple Mountain (now called Spanish Fork Peak) and Ether Peak. The population was predominantly Mormon and my Grandfather recounted that there was some exclusion of his family by the LDS community.  Not surprising given the family's mission.

1900 Census
Mapleton Precinct Sup. District 273, Enum District 157
20 June 1900
from www.ancestry.com


Careful examination shows the families of John Newton, his father Charles Newton including father-in-law John Champion Clarke,  and Frederick Cone his brother-in-law. All heads of household occupations have been given as farmer.

Working to establish the connections....

Sorry, I have been neglecting this blog as I travel and research. I'm still hoping to untangle some of the relationships among Cones and prove some of the connections that William Whitney Cone was unable to make in his "Some Account of the Cone Family in America: Principally of the Descendants of Daniel Cone." This book is available at www.books.google.com.

Among the relationships he was unable to prove are the descendants of Elijah Cone and his wife Elizabeth Stuart. William Whitney Cone states they, "undoubtedly lived at Millington, Conn., as seven of their children were bapt. in the Cong. Ch. in that place." He reported that by family tradition, "Elijah lived at Millington, in the town of East Haddam, and left there in the year 1795 to find a location for a home in the eastern part of New York State. That he bought land in Otsego county, N. Y., and while on his return, in attempting to cross (the) Hudson river on the ice, was drowned."

My 4th great-grandfather Ira Cone was one of Elijah's sons and he can be found in the 1800 census of Otego in Otsego County New York with his presumed brother Elijah.

Ira Cone married Lydia Hayes about 1795. She is said to have been born in New London, CT 02 Feb 1771 and died in Laurens, Otsego, New York, 22 Dec 1842. No researcher has been able to discover her parentage. William Whitney Cone has Ira and Lydia settling in Laurens in 1796 which would match the family story of Elijah's death.

Hopefully, other descendants of Daniel Cone will be able to supply the missing bricks in this wall.

Turnips anyone?

The map above is from the Haddam Historical Society http://www.haddamhistory.org/history_haddam.htm
It shows on the left the plot of Daniel Cone "4A" along the banks of the Connecticut River. Four plots above his is listed Gaurand Spencer, his father-in-law.

Daniel was probably a farmer and one of the crops grown in Haddam was turnips. In A Digest of Early Connecticut Probate Records, found through the New England Historical and Genealogical Society's website http://www.americanancestors.org/home.html
I found the following;
Smith, Thomas, Haddam, died 2nd November 1674 Invt L46- Taken by Wm Clarke, Symon Smith, James X Wells. Will dated 22 September 1674.
I, Thomas Smith, of Haddam do make this my last Will & Testament: I give... my turnips equally betwist James Welles, Daniel Cone, Joseph Stennard and John Bailey. I give what Timothy Spence oweth me to Daniel Cone.
Vol. 1, Page 234.

I wonder if these heritage seeds have come down through one or more branches of the Cone Family.

Ada Grace Colby Werst Branchflower and Frederick Naaman Cone

People often ask how I became interested in Family History and Genealogy. I can point to two family members who sparked my interest. During my growing up summer, my family always spent part of the time in Oregon. We divided the time between my paternal grandparent's (Charles Newton Cone and Hazel Bynum Allen) home in Portland and my maternal grandparent's (Ada Grace Colby and her second husband Kenneth M. Branchflower pictured above) home "Pine Lawn Farm" outside of Newberg.

The hot lazy afternoons on the farm provided mandatory nap time for my younger siblings and I was allowed to read or talk to my grandmother. She gave me old family albums to peruse and told stories of her mother and father and growing up on the farm in Kansas. She also showed me the family Bible and her grandfather's (Van Epps Hugunin) discharge papers from the Civil War and explained that his Grandfather had served in the Revolutionary War. The stories made these ancestors come alive for me and sparked a life-long love of history.

One the more formal Genealogy side.... in the 1960's my paternal grandfather Charles Newton Cone brought on a visit to my family's home in Willingboro, New Jersey a copy of the Cone Family Tree as researched by his older brother William Laurence Cone. There were losts of jokes about how the first Cone in America had been a 'horse thief' , a Scotsman who had escaped the English in Massachusetts and fled to Connecticut. My grandfather talked about his father Frederick Naaman Cone (pictured above) who had researched the family ties and proven descent from Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower and joined the Mayflower Society. Charles Cone was a chemist and not much interested in genealogy but I studied the Cone Genealogy carefully and became facinated by our connections with past.

I wanted to know who the people were, not just their name and dates of birth, marriage and death. We all know how the Pilgrims came to the new world for religious freedom but why did the others come? How did they get here? What were their professions? Where were they from? The Cone side was mostly English but Grandmother Cone had some Welsh ancestry and on my maternal side the Wersts were Germans and and the Hugunins were French Hugenots. Those were the questions that interested me then and still do. I'm still working to answer these questions.