A "Character": Martha Davis

This is the second of two posts I am writing about fifth great-grandparents on the Whipple branch of the family. Martha Davis Reed appears to have been a "character" in every sense of the word.

How is Martha is related to the Brown family? My great-grandmother, Lizzie Whipple Brown, was the granddaughter of Jonathan Whipple and Lucinda Kentner. Lucinda’s parents were John George Kentner (son of George Kentner) and Clarinda Reed. Clarinda was the daughter of William Reed and Martha Davis. Thus Martha Davis Reed is my fifth great-grandmother.

Martha Davis may have been born around 1750 and was married to William Reed. The first record I have of their family is the US census for 1790, which shows that William Reed was living in Charlotte Township, Vermont, on the east side of Lake Champlain. He was living with his wife, two sons and three daughters. Two of the daughters were Clarinda (born in about 1780) and Lucinda (born in about 1782). In about 1800 Reed and his family moved from Vermont to the area of Canada north of the New York State border and south of the St. Lawrence River.

The following material comes from The History of Huntingdon and the Seigniories of Chateaugay and Beauharnois from Their First Settlement to the Year 1838, by Robert Sellar, published in Huntingdon, Quebec, by The Canadian Gleaner in 1888. Sellar was the editor of a local newspaper, The Gleaner. He obtained his information on early residents of the Huntingdon area primarily by means of interviews.

Robert Sellar

According to Sellar, William Reed first settled on the Chateauguay River across from Ste. Martine, Quebec. From there he moved farther west on the river to North Georgetown. But when he learned that he would have to pay rent to live there, “in 1807 he moved up to the first concession of Hinchinbrook and settled on the Burnbrae farm (lot 25). His departure was regretted by the settlers of the Chateaugay settlement on account of losing the society of his wife [Martha, our fifth great-grandmother], who was a clever and very eccentric woman, and who spent a good deal of her time in visiting, being welcome at every house, for she supplied the place of a newspaper and had an inexhaustible flow of caustic and humorous small talk, which she varied by songs. Her visits she generally made on the back of a bull, whose horns were ornamented with ribbons, and with which she even made trips to Montreal. She was, despite her birth, a loyal British subject. It is related of her that she fearlessly visited relatives in Vermont during the war [of 1812], and on returning found no canoe wherewith to cross the Richelieu to the Canadian side. Presently the British sentry saw something white waving on the opposite shore, and taking it to be a flag of truce reported, when the guard turned out, and a canoe was sent off, to find Mother Reed standing alone, and chuckling at the success of her ruse.”

Chateauguay River near Ste. Martine, Quebec

Sellar continues, quoting the testimony of an early settler named James Wright: “When I was a boy, she came in late one evening, when we were all in bed, and told my father she had made a song on the war. He asked to hear it, when she replied he would have to get up. He retorted he could listen as well in bed. We boys, who had risen on hearing her, sat beside her at the glowing chimney-nook, and she began, snapping her toothless jaws, to bawl out her ballad, of which I do not remember a word, but it amused us highly. On a subsequent visit, my father hailed her as Mother Reed, when she sharply responded that was no longer her name; she was Mrs. Turner. Turner was a shiftless, drunken Englishman and she was, when she married him, of the mature age of 72!”

From 1825 census, Hinchinbrook, Quebec

In the Canadian census of 1825, a James Turner is listed as living with his wife in Hinchinbrook, Quebec. He is listed as being over sixty years of age. Martha may well have been his wife at that time. The name that follows Turner’s on the census list is John Kentney (probably John George Kentner, married to Clarinda Reed; they are our fourth great-grandparents). John Dennis (the son-in-law of John George Kentner, married to his daughter Sarah) is living next to John. The name of James McLetchy (should be McClatchie) is a little farther down the list. James was a Scotsman who married Lucinda Reed, Martha’s daughter and Clarinda’s sister).