By Lucy Anglin and Janice Hamilton (2nd cousins)
One of the biggest challenges in researching our family history was discovering what happened to our four-times-great-grandmother, Pamela Stanley, the wife of Phineas Bagg (c. 1750–1823). Like many women in colonial America, Pamela left very few records behind.
We knew that Phineas and his children moved from Massachusetts to Canada around 1795. But what about Pamela? Did she make the journey with them, or had she already died in the United States?
Pamela’s story is especially interesting because her maiden name, Stanley, was carried on through four generations of our family. Her son, Montreal merchant Stanley Bagg (1788–1853), was followed by his son Stanley Clark Bagg (1820–1873), his grandson Robert Stanley Bagg (1848–1912), and his great-grandson Stanley Bagg Lindsay (1889–1965).
Pamela’s Early Life
We do have a record of Pamela’s birth. She was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1760.¹ She was the fourth of eight children born to Timothy Stanley Jr., originally from Hartford, Connecticut, and his wife, Mary Hopkins, who came from Harwinton, Connecticut.²
Pamela’s father probably ran a small clothier’s business in Litchfield, a village in northern Connecticut. When the American Revolution began, he enlisted in the military. Unfortunately, he was captured by the British and died aboard a prison ship in New York Harbour in 1776.
Pamela’s mother had died around 1770, and her father left no will. Sometime after his death, Pamela appears to have moved to Massachusetts. She would have been about sixteen at the time.
Pamela and Phineas
On March 29, 1780, Pamela Stanley, age 20, and Phineas Bagg, age 30, both of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, announced their intention to marry.³
Phineas was a farmer who lived in the remote Berkshire Hills, about 90 kilometres (60 miles) from Litchfield.
There may have been a family connection that brought Pamela to Pittsfield. Her uncle, Caleb Stanley, lived there for many years and served as the town clerk from 1777 until his death in 1781. Perhaps Pamela went to live with him after her father died.⁴
There was another interesting connection between the two families. Pamela’s brother Frederick and Phineas’s brother Martin served together in the same militia unit in 1777.
Pamela as a Wife and Mother
Life for Pamela as a young wife would have been busy and demanding. Women helped their husbands in the fields, especially during planting and harvest. They also spent countless hours tending their gardens, preparing food, preserving supplies and caring for their families.
Women often formed strong relationships with other women in their communities. They traded or bartered the goods they produced with their neighbours, and charity was an important part of community life. They also tended to be more religious than their husbands.
Pamela was no doubt a loving mother, although motherhood in those days was often described as “a kind of travail, an unavoidable though potentially rewarding labor ordained by God.”⁵
Pamela’s Children
Unfortunately, no records have survived showing the baptisms of Phineas and Pamela’s children. Most published records list only two sons, Stanley and Abner.
However, research by my cousin revealed that the couple actually had four children who survived to adulthood:
- Polly (1785–1856)
- Stanley (1788–1853)
- Abner (c. 1790–1852)
- Sophia (c. 1791–1860)⁶
Phineas’s household appeared in a local Pittsfield census in 1786 and again in the 1790 U.S. federal census. Unfortunately, Phineas was the only member of the family personally identified in those records.
What Happened to Pamela?
This is where the mystery begins.
We still don’t know exactly when Pamela died.
The minister of the First Congregational Church in Pittsfield kept careful records of births and deaths among his parishioners and often even recorded the cause of death. But the early 1790s were especially difficult years for the community.
About 30 people died in Pittsfield in 1792, followed by another 26 in 1793. The following year was even worse: 36 people died in 1794, including 14 adults.⁷
The minister must have been exhausted and overwhelmed by so much illness and grief.
It is possible that Pamela died during this difficult period, leaving her four children without their mother and Phineas to raise them alone. Unfortunately, there is no known record of her grave. Perhaps Phineas could not afford a gravestone, or perhaps a stone once existed but was lost or deteriorated over the years.
A New Life in Canada
Sometime between 1794 and 1797, Phineas found himself deeply in debt. He lost almost all of his farmland, along with his barn and half of his house, to repay his creditors.⁸
If Pamela had already died, Phineas was now a widower with four children to raise. Perhaps this difficult situation helped convince him that it was time for a fresh start.
He eventually moved to Canada, where he became an innkeeper in La Prairie, Quebec. Later, he ran a tavern called the Mile End Tavern near Montreal. His son Stanley eventually married the only daughter of the tavern’s owner.
And so the family’s Canadian story began.
What If Pamela Had Lived?
We often wonder what would have happened if Pamela had not died.
Would Phineas still have left Massachusetts and come to Canada? Would he have brought Pamela and their four children with him?
We sure hope so.
Otherwise, Janice and I wouldn’t be here!
Footnotes
1. Connecticut: Vital Records (The Barbour Collection), 1630-1870 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2011.) From original typescripts, Lucius Barnes Barbour Collection, 1928. https://www.americanancestors.org/DB414/i/13218/203/234906257
2. The children of Timothy Stanley Jr. and Mary Hopkins were:
Timothy, b. 1754, m. Lucy Woodruff
Mary, b. 1756, m. Amasa Castle
Frederick, b. 1758, m. 1. M.S. Bishop; 2. M.K. Grosvenor
Pamela, b. 1760, m. Phineas Bagg
Abigail, b. 1762
Eunice, m 1764
Huldah, b. 1766, m. Levi DeWolf
Rufus, b. 1767, m. Lydia Collins
Source: Israel P. Warren, The Stanley Families of America, as descended from John, Timothy and Thomas Stanley of Hartford, CT. 1636. Timothy Stanley, #74, p. 24, Portland, Maine: B. Thurston & Co, 1887, https://archive.org/details/stanleyfamilieso00byuwarr
3. Early Vital Records of Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden & Hampshire Counties, Mass. to about 1850 (electronic resource) Wheat Ridge, CO: Search and Research Publ Corp. c2000, p. 22 of sheet 99, F94/p6/M37.
4. Warren, Ibid. #81, p. 245.
5. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750, p. 239.
6. Stanley Bagg and his brother Abner were both baptized as adults in Christ Church (Anglican) Montreal in 1831. At that time Stanley gave his date of birth as June 27, 1788. “Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968” [database on-line]. Ancestry.com, (www.ancestry.ca, accessed 2 Oct. 2016), entry for Stanley Bagg, 2 April, 1831; citing Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.
The same source gives Abner’s date of birth as August 5, 1790, however, this date does not make sense in light of his sister Sophia’s calculated birthdate. At his death in 1852, Abner’s age was recorded as 64, which would have meant he was born in 1788, the year brother Stanley was supposed to have been born. When he was married in 1814, Abner gave his age as 25, which would have meant he was born in 1789.
Sophia was probably the youngest of Pamela’s children. Dame Sophia Bagg, veuve (widow) Gabriel Roy died Nov. 12, 1860, and at the time was said to have been 69 years, eight months of age. (“Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968” [database on-line]. Ancestry.com.) Calculating her date of birth from that, she would have been born around February 20, 1791. She is probably buried with her husband in the parish church in Saint-Laurent, Quebec.
According to her date of birth calculated from age, Pamela’s oldest daughter, Polly, was born April 22, 1785. She married farmer William Bush and lived in West Haven, Vermont, a rural area near the southern tip of Lake Champlain. The family later moved to southern Illinois and Polly died there on Jan 9, 1856.
7. Records pf the First Church, Pittsfield, Rollins H. Cooke Collection, Berkshire County, vols 26 and 27, reel #2.
8. Massachusetts Land Records 1620-1986, Berkshire, Deeds, 1792-1813, vol 31-32, images 438- 442. www.familysearch.org, Accessed Sept. 26, 2018.
Genealogy Ensemble 