Tom Custer and Lulie Burgess

[BrokenSword]

I’ll be damned if I know what to make of the following. If anything. Maybe just coincidental or maybe not.

In any case it’s a notch above interesting. It qualifies as eyebrow lifting. One of those things that can chew away at ones sanity and frustrate to the point of causing a nervous tic. So being the generous person that I am, I had to share with all of you.

A little background:

1. Nicolas Custer was born in 1706 in Germantown, Philadelphia, PA. He married Susannah Hoppins.
Child: Emanuel Custer -
2. Emanuel Custer was born in 1754 in Germantown, Philadelphia, PA. He married Mary Fadley.
Child: John Custer
3. John Custer was born in 1782 in Cresaptown, Allegany Co, Maryland. He married Catherine Vallentine.
Child: Emanuel Henry Custer
4. Emanuel Henry Custer was born in 1806 in Cresaptown, Allegany Co, Maryland. He first married Matilda Viers (no children). He next married Mary Ward in New Rumley, Harrison Co, Ohio. Mary was previously married to a Kirkpatrick and had a daughter Lydia who took the Custer name. Lydia married David Reed and they had a son Harry Armstrong Reed.
Child: Thomas Ward Custer
5. Thomas Ward Custer was engaged to marry Lucia G. ‘Lulie’ Burgess of Jersey City, New Jersey. Lulie died in 1875 before their marriage.

What I stumbled across was the following little legal document.

“… At the request of Emanuel Custer this day was recorded 16th day February of 1803. State of Maryland
this indenture made the 25th day of September 1802 between Ephriam Burgess of Allegany Co., and State of Maryland, of one part and Emanuel Custer of the county and State aforesaid of the other.”

That’s all there was. No further information. The names and places are, of course, what struck me. So little is found concerning Tom’s fiancée, much less her family that I am stumped. Dead end. I am NOT going to Maryland and dig through the state archives. MUCH LESS will I chase down some Burgess family tree.

Maryland sits (more or less) between Ohio and New Jersey. Jersey City is roughly in the Philadelphia area. The Custer’s obviously moved west and the Burgesses MAYBE moved northeast? Back too the Philadelphia area the family had come from? I wonder if this was Lulie’s family. Tom and Lulie - childhood sweethearts maybe - somehow? People in those days travelled more and moved around more than we think of them as having done. Many families were also interconnected in some way and remained so for several generations.

Was there some greater connection between Tom’s and Lulie’s families? As I said to begin with - maybe just coincidence. But its one of those nagging little details.

It goes without saying that this is all Elisabeth’s fault. That great well of all things Custer was dry on the subject of Lulie and I was left on my own to explore.

Have to go now. My left eye is twitching and I think I’m beginning to hear voices.

M-M-M-Michael

[BrokenSword]

P.S. to the Tom and Lulie post-

To make it REALLY creepy. The indenture was entered into on Feb. 16, 1803. Lulie died on Feb. 16, 1875.

Have a great day... I'm crawling back under the covers.

M

[Tricia]

Well--

Speaking as the Charter Member of the Tupperware Gossip Society, I find your research quite interesting as I have always wanted to know how Tom got to meet Lula. I'd find it a bit of a stretch that he'd have met her during one of his visits to New York--as he seemed to take sexual advantage of that situation; getting Armstrong's left-overs. Until now--and until I find anything to negate it--I have always believed that his heart was given to Libbie (never received in return) and in Lula, he might have found a similar kind of good girl.

As I was told over and over again in grad school, it'll make a great term paper project!

Trish

[elisabeth]

That's fascinating. I'd wondered how he could have met her, too ... but if the two families were somehow connected, it makes much more sense. As you say, people did a lot more travelling -- and visiting -- than we tend to imagine, so it'd be perfectly possible for there to have been a standing invitation along the lines of "any time you're passing this way, do pop in and see us" on the part of both families. People thought nothing of quite hefty detours to see old friends; maybe Tom, and possibly GAC too, was in the habit of stopping off in Jersey City when en route to or from New York.

Those "new" Custer letters reinforce the amount of travelling people took in their stride. If you work out the Custer-Libbie-Keogh intinerary in early 1871, it wears you out just thinking about it. Custer's already been to New York, Washington, Detroit, and Monroe before going back to Leavenworth for the New Year; he then drops Libbie off in Topeka in January on his journey back to New York; Keogh apparently collects Libbie from Topeka in late February and escorts her to Canandaigua, NY (with or without going via NYC, it's hard to tell); he goes back to NYC; he then trots up to Auburn for a day before joining Libbie in Canandaigua in early March; Libbie's back in Topeka a couple of weeks later while Custer's still in NYC, so presumably Keogh's escorted her back there and gone on to Leavenworth; and by the end of March, Keogh's in Bagdad, Kentucky with his company. The three of them are shuttling around at a rate that would leave most of us gasping with exhaustion. So Tom making an occasional side-trip to Jersey City doesn't seem at all unlikely.

One snippet re Lulie, from Frost's General Custer's Libbie, p. 182: Lulie's address was 405 Grove Street, Jersey City. Just in case it helps at all!

[BrokenSword]

I lied. I couldn't resist - or was driven to check a little further.

I located a number of Ephraim Burgesses - one that kept reoccurring may be my man. What little I found (skimmed the surface only- no time today) was that at one point another Ephraim Burgess, a generation or two earlier, married a Sarah Bacon. No details were given by that source or what their source was. I have found no connections beyond the names. A word of caution - too many people swallow whole anything that others have posted as family history and genealogy. Very, very few bother to track down primary sources and verify what they ‘find’. I shouldn’t post any of this until I know something for certain, but it is too good not to share and scratch our chins over.

Could the ever spreading and influential tentacles of dear Libbie have been at play in this?

Michael

[elisabeth]

That's a very tempting idea ...!

I've been Googling to much less effect than you, but have at least found that TWC was already engaged to Lulie as early as 1872; in that year, from her home, he applied for an extension of leave, and seems to have spent several months there. It would be interesting to know what he did on that leave. Was Lulie the main attraction, one wonders -- or was it quite handy for Tom to enjoy free lodgings within a stone's throw of Manhattan? He was almost as impecunious, and quite as tight-fisted, as his big brother, so it must surely have been a factor ...

[harpskiddie]

Brokensword:

I will be very disappointed in you, if you are doing all of this simply to say: "Look, it's the Jersey Lulie!!"

Gordie,
Old Roy Bean loved his English flame - Lily Langtry was her name.......................................

[Tricia]

Elisabeth--

I wonder if Lulie had already fallen a bit ill in 1872 and needed Tom's steady (not!) presence? However, I would tend to think that while TWC might have taken full advantage of the housing provided by the Burgess gang, he found sexual pleasures in NYC from ladies of less stellar rectitiudes of good-girlness. I'd look at it similarly to GAC being with Fanny Fifield whilst courting Libbie; one good for sex, the other good for marriage. The typical prostitute vs. tender virgin situation ...

You're quite right about the travels; I believe GAC had another crazy year in late 1875, I think. I believe he, TWC, and Cooke visited NYC and various other and sundry places. Certainly the railroads helped accomplish that--I understand that for all the stops they made to grab a bagged lunch and tea and the ever-necessary relief stops as well as stopping for steamy waters, they actually traveled much faster than they do today with some various dangerous consequences while moving through a city or town.

Gordie--I love the story of ol' Lily Langtry!

Trish

[Diane Merkel]

Darn you all! ;D

I started fooling around on Ancestry.com, which is always a mistake when I have 13 other things I should be doing.

With so little info about Ephriam Burgess and his daughter, nothing has turned up yet. (Is it Ephriam or Ephraim? I ask because the latter is more common but I often spell it the first way because of our good friend here, just as I now always spell Elisabeth with an "s" and have to double-check it when I write to other Elizabeths!)

There is quite a bit on the Custer family tree BUT -- users beware -- a lot of the "hints" they offer with additional generations are very wrong. I can only guess that there are people adjusting their family trees in order to tie into GAC.

[BrokenSword]

Diane said: "I can only guess that there are people adjusting their family trees in order to tie into GAC."

There are people adjusting their family trees to tie into MANY people. Strangely they all have an 'Indian Princess' in there somewhere too.

I spent some time on the Burgess and Bacon family names again this evening and came up snake-eyes. The info is too distant in time and scant in detail and I am too unfamiliar with the families to really search it out, unless I am willing to spend a tremendous amount of time on it. I cannot do that - sorry to say. I did learn that there are thousands of Burgesses and Bacons in New England and the mid-Atlantic states in that time frame. Even so, the odds against a Custer-Burgess-Bacon connection between our particular players are tremendous. But you never know. I’m not altogether ready to give up on it entirely.

Diane-
I found all the spellings to be Ephraim, save one - Ephraigm. Those were all among the Maryland Burgesses. Spelling was a creative endeavor back then.

As far as the sexual escapades of the Custers, Cooke and others - I feel sure that lots of legends about them have grown in that area too. The only people that 'make love' all the time are the liars. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Say no more.

M

[Diane Merkel]

I'll probably spend a bit more time on it because you have me curious.

I guess guys were wink-winking, nudge-nudging even before there were locker rooms!

[BrokenSword]

Good Diane.
I hate stirring it up and then leaving it so quickly, but this has the smell of a major research project. Very time consuming and one that may go nowhere at that. A Ford B, so to speak.

M