Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
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In reply to:
The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
Wade Collier 1/16/01
Hi, Wade. I've just come across your post by a very circuitous route, and thought you might possibly be interested in some further data concerning the family of your Gershom Collier #8.
Sarah (Cowing) Collier (or Colyer, or Collyer), born in Chesterfield or Worthington about 1849, was a daughter ofJob Cowing (1801-1866; buried in high Street Cem., Haydenville) and his second wife Jane (Loomis) Bates (1818-1906; her second marriage also; she is buried in the Mountain Street Cem. in Haydenville). Though widowed by the death of Gershom Collier (he d. 1 Oct 1871, ae. 24; bur. High St. Cem., Hayd.), Sarah was no longer a widow at the time of the Mill River Disaster on May 16, 1874. She had married 2nd, a painter named Livingston S. Bartlett, and lived with him and her 4-year-old daughter Viola Belle Colyer in a small house beside the East Branch of the Mill River about 1/4 mile north of the village of Williamsburg.
Their house was the first one struck by the roughly twenty-five-foot-high wall of water and debris that thundered down on Williamsburg just before eight o'clock that morning, and we can reasonably assume that Sarah Bartlett and Viola Colyer were the first two of 139 people killed by the flood. Their bodies were found far downstream days later. They are buried in the High Street Cemetery with Gershom Collier; their ages are given on the stone that all three share as 25 and 4 years. Williamsburg death records show Viola Belle's birthplace as Gill, Franklin Co., MA.
Livingston Bartlett, who was at work somewhere in the upper part of the village that morning, was untouched by the flood, married again sometime later, and was living in Amherst in 1920.
More Replies:
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
Wade Collier 10/17/04
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
Eric Weber 10/18/04
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
Wade Collier 10/20/04
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
Eric Weber 10/20/04
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line
Eric Weber 10/18/04
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Re: The "Gershoms" - Colliers of MA Line