Julius Kelsey of Madison and Killingworth

Julius Kelsey was the oldest child born to Lois Griffin and her husband Stephen Kelsey. Julius married Sylvia Hill. Sylvia was the daughter of James Hill and his wife Eleanor Hull. Sylvia's sister Arta married Julius's cousin Leonard Davis. The Kelsey family records are spread out between the church and town records of Killingworth and Madison. For example the Barbour Collection for Killingworth lists the birth of three of Lois and Stephen’s children; Julius, September 8, 1783, Polly, May 30, 1786 and Stephen, January 3, 1789. There is nothing in Barbour for their daughter Cynthia. The Barbour Collection for Killingworth also contains records for the two oldest children of Julius and his wife Sylvia; Polly, November 29, 1803 and John Hill, November 4, 1805. It also contains the marriage record for the marriages of Julius’s son Julius Worthington to the two Redfield sisters, Polly B. Redfield October 25, 1840 and on her death, her sister Mary H. Redfield, on December 28, 1845. Missing are the remaining seven children in Julius’s family. Even though Lois and Stephen are buried in Killingworth they lived the majority of their life in Madison. Both Stephen and his son Julius Kelsey’s wills were filed in Madison. The question now becomes why can’t we find any record of Julius’s other children in either the Killingworth or Madison town records? Any family history search for this part of Connecticut usually starts the genealogical collection compiled by Alvan Talcott which we have referenced any number of times on the Blog. Doctor Talcott, a contemporary of Julius Kelsey, served as a physician to most of the families in Guilford and Madison over a sixty-year period. He collected genealogical data on most of the original families. In his retirement he collated and refined his collection adding to his material from the town records. His original hand written notes are available on microfilm and have been published in a two volume set titled Families of Early Guilford. In the original hand written records you can see were he added a note on a marriage or a death to an existing file. In his collection Doctor Talcott has the following notes on Julius’s family. -----Polly, mar. Thorit Davis. ------John Hill, b 4 November 1805; died August 4, 1878, mar Caroline Hill------James, died 19 September 1877; mar Mary E. Camp------Austin, b 15 January 1810; mar Maria Bristol------ Julius Worthington, b 31 January 1812, died 8 May 1881; mar Polly Redfield------Roxa, b 25 June 1844; mar John Hopson-----Mabel, died 20 June 1844; mar Fredric Chittenden-------Catherine, died August 1859; mar Julius P. Stevens------Cortland, mar Sarah Hoyt.------ My experience with the Talcott material suggests that the absence of dates indicates that there were no town records available for reference. So where were the children born? The first hint in our current search came from a death record for Leonard Davis who was Julius’s first cousin. The death record noted that Leonard Davis (Azubah Griffin’s son) was an “Episcopalian”. We have documented the involvement of our Griffin Clan with the Congregational Societies any number of times on the Blog. It had never occurred to me that some family members might have joined other denominations. While reviewing the Episcopal records in Killingworth we were surprised to find that brothers Stephen and Julius Kelsey had joined along with Leonard Davis and his son Henry. The Episcopal Congregation was formed about 1800. It was made up of two separate congregations one from North Madison, referred to at the time as North Bristol, and Killingworth. Unlike the pastor dominated Congregational Societies the Episcopalian congregation was maintained primarily by lay readers. Leonard Davis played a prominent role in the congregation. Austin Kelsey also served as a” reader”. There were regional traveling ordained pastors who also preached on occasions and on those occasions they performed the Sacraments. One such pastor was the Reverend David Baldwin. The Reverend Baldwin baptized most of Julius’s children. In all likelihood Julius was part of what was referred to in the census records as the North Bristol Society.------ We present those baptismal records here. The record for James Hill dated 27 December 1807 is very hard to make out. The others are fairly distinguishable. We have also included the original record from Alvan Talcott’s notes. -----Julius Kelsey / Lois Griffin / Samuel-Marah / Samuel Griffin.