Parsing the Story of Betsy Andrews
One thing is certain, there is a surprising, and in some cases, tremendous amount of information existing about earlier family members in documents, anecdotes and stories. People barely recognized to us and many long forgotten have appeared in our research: The Hadassah / Polly Wood Thompson family and their grandparents the Hosmers and Woods. Benjamin Wile and his daughters—Anna Wilder among them, and Benjamin’s father the Philadelphia politician Conrad Wile. But in these groups no Betsy Andrews appeared.
By the process of deduction it seemed likely though, that she was a family member, and that the sampler wasn’t just a 18th century gift from the Andrews kid down the road. There was one group that little was known about and that not much information seemed to exist about—-the family of Benjamin F. Wiles first wife, Rebecca Vaughn. Rebecca Vaughn Wile was the mother of mom and Mim’s grandmother, Anna Wile Wilder.
Of her own family, only a small scrap of writing paper with a hand written note faded brown, a lover’s knot of hair inside a black locket, and a photo of her sister Ann seem to survive. In the photo, Ann Vaughn Helfenstein is wearing the locket of hair. The photo belongs to Claire, the locket I have. The hair is that of a younger person, it’s dark brown and woven into a. Perhaps it’s Rebecca’s hair. Perhaps it’s Edwards. Who knows?
The note itself may have been the work of one of Rebecca’s sisters, probably Ann. I think it’s most likely Ann’s work because it mentions Dr. Jacob Helfenstein and his marriage to her. Dr. Helfenstein we knew from family stories as “Uncle Helfenstein”, the strict Dutch Reformed minister who lived in Germantown, and who Grandpa Lew Wilder, his sister Annie and their mother Anna (Wile) Wilder lived with for some time after the death of Lew’s father Frank Wilder in 1866. On the paper is a reference to Edward Vaughn, the father of Ann and Eliza, who, it said, was “High Sheriff of Gloucester County, New Jersey”.
There has been nothing as of this posting that explains where Edward Vaughn came from, but the fact that he was Sheriff of Gloucester County is true—he was elected three times to this post 1, 2, 3, , as well as once to coroner. Hand written election documents from about 1795 to about 1804 exist in the archives of Tufts University in a collection titled “A New Nation Votes”. In his last attempt for election he was slaughtered by his opponent, so either something happened that didn’t sit well with the electorate, or people were mightily sick of Edward, or his opponent, to paraphrase Jenny McMurdo, “…had a great line and winning smile.”
But over time, a few items appeared through research which tie Betsy Andrews to Edward Vaughn, and to her own Andrews family history.
Part III
The Incomplete Story of Betsy Andrews
Under Construction September 19, 2016