I think my 2nd great grandfather was a bigamist

[Lisa in California]

…I talked to my half 2nd cousin the other night and found that her grandfather (son of Henry and Rosa) lost his wife when he had 3 young children.  So he hired a nanny.  And four years later, he and nanny married about a month before their first child was born.

I swear I’m not making this up, even though it sounds like a good soap opera plot….

Welcome to RootsChat, by the way. 

I would imagine a lot of us have some odd stories to tell. I won’t get into (the probably boring) details but an ancestor ended up having 20 children with two wives. The first wife died right after giving birth and I suppose her husband couldn’t raise 12 children on his own so he married a young lady within a year of his wife’s death.  The lady was supposedly at one time a (girl?)friend of his eldest son. 

[dragonfly13]

Lisa in California, shellyesq, Stanwix England and amondg - thank you so much for your thoughts and experience shared. I just cannot push Henry E Brown’s family line past his father with any certainty at this point in time.  So..no way to discover another Henry who is a cousin.  Maybe someday?

[dragonfly13]

Hello, all.  I have returned to stir the proverbial pot.  I have done quite a bit more digging.
Henry E Brown - the same Henry who died in 1901 is buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Neapolis, Lucas County, Ohio.  And so is my 2nd great grandmother, Louise Hettinger who died in 1928.  Their graves don’t show up when I search Find A Grave.  But I know that they are there, thanks to the Northwestern Ohio Geneological Society - Cemetery Project Committee.

They produced the document “Mount Pleasant and Oak Hill Cemeteries Tombstone Transcriptions” , held in the digital collections of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library.  And Henry E and Louise are on the transcriptions list.

What interests me is that Henry’s two brothers George and John plus their two wives (one a sister to Henry’s other wife Rosa and the other one a first cousin once removed from Rosa) are also buried in the same cemetery.  Hmmmmm.

Last but not least, I found the death record for the man who died in 1901.  He was listed as a patient at the Toledo State Hospital, formerly known as the Toledo Asylum for the Insane.  Could this have been some poor man who had no relatives to claim him?

I also figured out the two places where he kept the two families were only 28 miles apart.  He lived with Rosa Disher in Providence Township, Lucas County, Ohio from marriage in 1973 until sometime between 1890 and 1900 when he moved Rosa and their children to Van Wert, Ohio. And sometime during that same ten years, he moved Louise and their children from Milbury, Wood County, Ohio into Providence Township - the same place that he moved Rosa away from!

And I HAVE looked for a cousin also named Henry.  It seems more and more likely to me that he was a bigamist who faked a death in 1901 but lived until 1927 with his first and legal wife.

[Rosinish]

List/Index of names can be seen here but there's no reference regarding dates, relationships or anything else needed to work out who is who etc. i.e. what proof do you have of their relationships?

https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p16007coll33/id/150205/rec/18

Have you found obits or any other info. tying the above to each other?

Not sure how one could have 'faked a death' 

Annie

[shellyesq]

Faking a death when a death record and a burial was involved seems far-fetched to me.  Do you think he got whoever reported deaths at a state hospital to falsely claim he was there and died and the cemetery went along with the fakery?  Or he just randomly happened to know that a guy with his same name and age was in a state hospital and had died, so pretending that was him would get him out of his awkward bigamy situation? 

Find a Grave only has listings that volunteers add, so someone not being on there doesn't mean much. 

[dragonfly13]

No obit, but I do have the death record for each.  Here I was thinking I was so clever at finding that list of tombstone transcriptions.  Pretty obscure to my beginner family historian’s way of thinking.

Maybe my brain is more fertile at thinking like a criminal’s than the average bear’s but here goes: 

A man who wanted to decisively sever his connection to a woman who believed that she was married to him could have:
Told the truth - I don’t think Henry would even consider this one.
Just disappeared and left her to wonder.
Faked his death with help of a buddy, or maybe a brother

How do you fake a death?  Find someone who just died with no relative to claim him.  Slip some cash to a low paid doctor working at the insane asylum.  I mean, who got harmed?  The poor dead guy got buried for free, right?  Have your buddy break news of the death to the wife.  Tell her that the body/face are really disturbing to view.  Wouldn’t she want to remember Henry as he was in life?  This body would produce such a shock to her womanly sensibilities…etc. 

I already think Louise was gullible and too trusting.  Henry got her pregnant when she was only 15.
As far as definitive proof of all this - how would I get it?  If I’m missing some obvious way to actually prove this, would you point me in the right direction?  I’m not trying to be argumentative here. I’m truly puzzled.  What additional proof would I need to find?

I just think that Henry’s story gets curiouser and curiouser.  Every time I uncover something it gets more like a soap opera.  He died in an insane asylum??!!

[dragonfly13]

To answer shellyesq, I don’t think that it would necessarily be that complicated to do.  A reasonably intelligent person would be able to guess that a doctor working for the state was not well paid.  If I am correct about Henry E, he was prosperous enough to support two families.  But maybe was tiring of it.  Find a doctor who was bribable.  If caught, the doc could always explain that he must have gotten distracted and put a mistaken entry into the death ledger while working late into the night.  The body didn’t have to be the same age or name as Henry.  The death ledger entry DID. 

A smooth talking “relative” of the patient who made all cemetery and funeral home arrangements and paid for everything up front would have smoothed the way.

Crime has been happening for hundreds of years.  It could have happened in my family.  I have been pushed into some of this thinking by the records as they stand.  Can anyone explain how Henry’s brothers and their wives (both related to his first and only legal wife Rosa) are this cemetery with him and Louisa?  I believe that she outlived those brothers and their wives.

[shellyesq]

I just think that Henry’s story gets curiouser and curiouser.  Every time I uncover something it gets more like a soap opera.  He died in an insane asylum??!!

It wasn't that uncommon for people in those days to be put in an insane asylum due to something like dementia or Alzheimer's disease. 

Lots of people in the same area wound up in the same cemetery.  Sometimes family members offered an available plot that they owned when it was needed.  It doesn't necessarily mean anything.

I think you are reaching with all of this. 

[Rosinish]

You should write a book, it'd be a best seller 

"No obit, but I do have the death record for each.  Here I was thinking I was so clever at finding that list of tombstone transcriptions.  Pretty obscure to my beginner family historian’s way of thinking."

Do you have marriage certs, birth certs. etc. to piece everything together?

There's an awful lot of important info. missing in your story here for us to try & make sense of things & your wild imagination is taking up being able to try & work out the truth.

Henry E Brown...The info. provided doesn't tell us anything about him apart from what you think.

It would be an idea to list all known facts on Henry, including all info. on all Baptisms, BMDs connected to him i.e. names, dates, places, sponsors, witnesses, occupation, in a timeline & give us the chance to see what's actually occurred over time rather than being drawn into. a fabricated story 

Annie