Mysteries to be solved

The Life and Death of Seth Harris Bohart
Seth Harris Bohart (1896 - 1951) ===Left Chilliwack in 1931 after his mother's death. Remained estranged from the family, returning briefly after his father's death in 1951. Died in Sandpoint, Idaho just weeks after the death of his father. Did his heart give out while he was packing out an elk? Did the wounds he received around the time of his father's funeral contribute to his death?=== Details:

Used the alias "Harris Hill" to cross the border in 1930. Gives his occupation as "bridge carpenter".

His obituary reads

''S. G. "Blackie" Bohart, 55, died Nov. 13 at his home, 1001 north Ella. His death was unexpected.''

''Funeral services will be held at 3:00 o'clock this afternoon (Thursday) in the Moon chapel with the Rev. Frank Lowther officiating. Interment will take place in Wenatchee.''

''Mr. Bohart was born Nov, 12, 1896, at Flathead, Mont. He was a logger by trade and came to Bonner County 12 years ago. His only survivor is a brother, R. H. Bohart, of Wenatchee.''

Sandpoint News Bulletin Nov. 15, 1951 Page 1 Column 2



Who Was Nancy Clegg?
By: Maura Bohart Wade

No one quite knows for certain what Peter Bohart's wife's name was or where she came from. I am no exception. But while I'm not sure who our ancestor was, I do know where the confusion came from. According to a Clegg researcher I spoke to (Mary Zollman), there were at least three Nancy Cleggs, all related, all living in Indiana, and all born between 1805 and 1809.

Who Were the Three Nancys?

Richard Clegg (b. 1776) and Mary B. Simpson had two daughters named Nancy - Mary Nancy Clegg and Nancy Clegg. We don't know Nancy's middle name, but it could have been Elizabeth. I guess this only because other documents show Peter married to someone named Nancy Elizabeth.

The third Nancy is Nancy Agnes Clegg (b. 1807), who was cousins with the first two Nancys. Nancy Agnes was the daughter of Nancy Agnes Biggs and James Clegg (b. 1771).

All three girls had the same Clegg grandparents: Thomas Clegg (b. 1748) and Mary.

The question then becomes, which Nancy Clegg was our ancestor?

Evidence that Nancy Elizabeth Clegg was our ancestor: 
 * At ancestry.com, there is a marriage record for Peter L. Bohart marrying Nancy Elizabeth Clegg.
 * There used to be a will online (though I can't find it anymore). In the will, Peter Bohart left everything to his beloved wife, Nancy Elizabeth.
 * The 1860 U.S. Census lists Thomas Clegg, born about 1840, living with Peter and Nancy Bohart. Thomas Clegg was a nephew of Nancy (Elizabeth???) Clegg and her sister, Mary Nancy Clegg. He was also related to Nancy Agnes, but he was a more distant relation: first cousin once removed. So was Thomas living with his Aunt Nancy or his cousin Nancy?
 * Peter and Nancy's eldest daughter was named Mary Biggs Bohart. Where did they get the middle name "Biggs"? No one knows. However, Nancy Elizabeth's mother was Mary B. Simpson. The "B" might have stood for "Biggs".

Evidence that Nancy Elizabeth was not our ancestor:
 * Other than the marriage record, there are no other records of a Nancy Elizabeth Clegg (no census records or anything like that).
 * There is no year for the marriage.
 * The marriage info doesn't come from an official source. Ancestry.com says, "These records, which include information on over 500 years of marriages, were extracted from family group sheets, electronic databases, biographies, wills, and other sources. Compiled over thirty-four years by professional genealogist Bill Yates, these marriage records are unique because they were taken from a wide array of sources and stand to provide a great deal of information about entire families." Who knows what Yates's source was.

Evidence that Mary Nancy Clegg was our ancestor:


 * The 1860 U.S. Census lists Thomas Clegg, born about 1840, living with Peter and Nancy Bohart. Thomas Clegg was a nephew of Mary Nancy Clegg and her sister, Nancy (Elizabeth??) Clegg. Thomas was also related to Nancy Agnes, but he was a more distant relation: first cousin once removed.


 * Peter and Nancy's eldest daughter was named Mary Biggs Bohart. Where did they get the middle name "Biggs"? No one knows. However, Mary Nancy's mother was Mary B. Simpson. The "B" might have stood for "Biggs".

Evidence that Mary Nancy Clegg was not our ancestor:


 * The following web sites say that Mary Nancy Clegg was married to Andrew Hunter (1802-1836), not Peter Bohart:
 * http://genealogy.kathihill.com/Person/family_group/213127
 * http://genealogy.kathihill.com/Person/descendancy/89280

Evidence that Nancy Agnes Clegg was our ancestor: Evidence that Nancy Agnes Clegg was not our ancestor: I'll let you draw your own conclusions from there. If anyone knows any other evidence, please post a comment.
 * An 1850 Clark County, Indiana Census lists Peter Bohart and his children living with "Agnes Bohart", who is 44 years old (b. about 1806). On the form, there is no one named Nancy in the household. The Census can be found at http://www.us-census.org/pub-ftp/in/clark/1850/indx-b.txt or at ancestry.com
 * Peter Bohart and Nancy Bohart's eldest daughter is named Mary Biggs Bohart (b. 1826). Why did they name the child Biggs? Interestingly, Nancy Agnes Clegg's mother was Nancy Agnes Biggs.
 * According to a Web site about Lexington Presbyterian Church in Indiana (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~inscott/LexingtonPresbyterian.html), someone named James Clegg was attending the same church as Peter Bohart. Nancy Agnes's father's name was James Clegg. Were father-in-law and son-in-law going to church together?
 * According to the same web site, Alexander and Hannah Clegg were attending the same church. These are the names of Nancy Agnes's brother and sister-in-law. So it seems that Peter Bohart attended the same church as Nancy Agnes's family.
 * Note: If you look at the Lexington Presbyterian article, you will also notice that Nancy Clegg is joining the church in that article, but this is not Peter's wife, because by 1843, they would have been married for 18 years and her name would be Nancy Bohart, not Nancy Clegg.
 * Web sites list Nancy Agnes Clegg (b. Nov. 6, 1807) as the wife of Robert Watt and have specific children for her, which do not have similar names to Peter Bohart's children.
 * The 1850 census lists Agnes Watt living with Robert Watt and their children in Virginia. This supports the info in people’s trees, that Nancy Agnes married Robert Watt.
 * According to ancestry.com, the 1850 Census says that Agnes Bohart was born in Tennessee, and according to http://www.us-census.org/pub-ftp/in/clark/1850/indx-b.txt Agnes Bohart was born in Pennsylvania. Nancy was supposedly born in Virginia or Ohio.
 * It is possible that "Agnes Bohart" was really "Agnes Watson" or "Agnes Jones" or some other Agnes. The Census taker might have written down "Agnes", but forgot to get her last name, then later written "Bohart", just assuming she had the same last name as the rest of the family. Of course, this does not explain why there was no "Nancy Bohart" on the form. But maybe Agnes was a housekeeper or nanny and Nancy was away for some reason.

One final thing to add. How do we know her name was Nancy Clegg at all? Well here are some sources to back that up:
 * A book called "Industrial Chicago", published in 1894, calls her Nancy Clegg and says that she was born in Ohio in 1808 and died in Missouri at age 73 (about 1881). This book can be read at http://www.archive.org/stream/industrialchicag04good/industrialchicag04good_djvu.txt
 * Her grave at Prairie Home Cemetery in Graham, Nodaway County, Missouri, USA, lists the following: "Nancy, wife of P. Bohart, died 23 Feb 1878, age 72 y. 8 m. 10 d."
 * Peter and Nancy's second son was named Richard Clegg Bohart, obviously named after a Clegg parent
 * The 1860 and 1870 censuses list "Nancy Bohart" born about 1806, living with Peter Bohart and/or his children. According to these records, Nancy was born in Virginia. However, Virginia was much bigger in those days, so it could have been modern West Virginia. Virginia may have included parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania as well, I don't know.
 * Numerous family members have passed down family trees calling her Nancy Clegg

When did the Boharts arrive in America?
By: Maura Bohart Wade

I can't find any records of ships carrying a Philip Bohart (A1), so we have to rely on other sources to determine the date of their arrival. Here is some info concerning the date of their arrival.

Industrial Chicago Excerpt

There is a book at: http://www.archive.org/stream/industrialchicag04good/industrialchicag04good_djvu.txt

The book is called "Industrial Chicago" The Goodspeed Publishing Company Copyright 1894 by W. B. CONKEY COMPANY

This book says that Peter Bohart (A11) was born in 1800. We know from other sources that the exact date was May 10, 1800. The book also says that Peter Bohart (A11) came to America when he was 6 years old. If this is correct, this places their immigration between May 10, 1806 and May 9, 1807, because that is when Peter would have been 6 years old.

1810 Census

Philip Bohart (A1) was living in Jefferson County, Virginia by 1810, because the 1810 Census lists the following information, according to ancestry.com:

Name: Philip Bohart

County: Jefferson

State: Virginia

Free White Males Under 10: 1

Free White Males 10 to 15: 1

Free White Males 26 to 44: 1

Free White Females Under 10: 2

Free White Females 26 to 44: 1

Numbers of Slaves: 1

Number of Household Members Under 16: 4

Number of Household Members Over 25: 2

Number of Household Members: 7

According to David Bohart, Jefferson, Virginia was right across the river from Fredericktown, MD, where Philip Bohart (A1) died, so this does appear to be our ancestor, and he appears to have owned a slave.

Considering that the Boharts appear in the 1810 census, their immigration MUST have been before 1810. Since Philip (A1) already owned land and a slave by 1810, they had probably been in the country at least a few years. However, the Boharts do not appear in the 1800 census, so their immigration was probably between 1800 and 1810.

Powel Bohart

Ancestry.com's earliest Bohart records are of a Powel Bohart, who lived in Gloucester County from 1778 to 1786. However, there is no reason to think he is directly related to our line of Boharts.

Philip Bohart & Martha Russell

Some sources state that Philip Bohart (the son of A17, husband of Martha Russell) immigrated when he was 8 years old and that he was born in 1810, so this would place their immigration in 1818. But if this is correct, there must have been more than one wave of Bohart immigrants, because we know at least Philip (A1) was here by 1810.

Elizabeth Bohart

I do not know the source, but someone on ancestry.com wrote that Elizabeth Bohart died during the voyage in 1806.

Summer or Winter?

I don't know a lot about immigration, but to me a summer voyage would seem more logical than a winter voyage, for obvious, weather-related reasons.

1806

Taken collectively, I believe the evidence indicates that they most likely immigrated between May 1806 and September 1806, though any time between February 1806 and August 1807 is possible. Now what ships arrived during those months? And do any of them have a record of anyone named Bohart?

Please add info

If anyone else has info pertaining to their arrival date, please add it!