The Ancestors and Descendants of William Henry Venable - wallace

215 Pages·2007·1.02 MB·English

by  Wallace Venable

The
Ancestors and Descendants
of
William Henry Venable
By
Henrietta Brady Brown
Cincinnati, Ohio
1954

For the
CHILDREN
GRANDCHILDREN
GREAT GRANDCHILDREN
and
GREAT-GREAT GRANDCHILDREN
of
WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE
and
MARY ANN PALMER VATER VENABLE
Foreword
Apparently one does not get interested in ancestors until well on the way to
ancestor status oneself. I vividly remember as a little girl how annoyed I was when my
Uncle Russell Venable (then compiling Genealogical Notes) would point out physical
or temperamental characteristics in me and say "That's Great Aunt Soandso!" or "Now
you look like Great Uncle Whatshisname!" I resented it deeply at the time: I wanted me
to be me! I know now I never had a chance. The modern theory of environment is fine,
but one never quite escapes from one's ancestors.
In this book I have attempted to gather together Venable history, facts and
legends, biographies and dates, customs and traditions. I am aware that the collection
is incomplete. Probably such an attempt is never complete. Each of us has
associations and recollections shared by no one else, each remembers a person, a
place, or an event differently.
The children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grand-
children of William Henry Venable and Mary Ann Palmer Vater Venable share a
common heritage. My purpose has been to add to the knowledge of that heritage, to
tell of the lives and activities of our forebears, and to make the present generation of
Venables known to each other and to their descendants.
HBB
Acknowledgments
No genealogical and reminiscent collection such as I have attempted in this
volume could possibly be accomplished without the assistance of relatives. I have,
however inadequately, thanked many of them personally or by letter, but I should like
to acknowledge again my many indebtednesses.
In writing of William Henry Venable's early years, I have quoted extensively,
both directly and indirectly, from my Grandfather Venable's A Buckeye Boyhood. His
poems, in the several editions, have been of immense help in establishing personal
and family associations, as well as more prosaic dates and places.
My mother, Harriet Venable Brady, wrote a series of articles which only thinly
disguised Venable and Brady family lives, ideals, customs, and traditions, and I have
borrowed heavily from these articles. Harriet mounted for many years in an album
family photographs taken as far back as the 1860's. These have identified persons,
places, and dates in relation to each other. Remembered conversations with my
mother have made distant relatives people rather than just names.
Without the cooperation of my Venable uncles I should have been stopped
before I started.
To Mayo Venable my debt is particularly great. A visit to him in March 1954,
when he told me snatches of Venable history, and allowed me to bring back to
Cincinnati the Venable-Tuckerman History he had written for his children and
grandchildren, was the inspiration and the genesis of an undertaking which, like
Topsy, jes' growed. I should have floundered hopelessly without the guidance of his
narrative, nor would this volume be complete without Mayo's own memoir.
Bryant Venable in Cincinnati was the only uncle whom I could consult face to
face. In addition to allowing me to use the memoir he had written for his children, as
well as to consult Venable material, including the old blank book containing William
Henry Venable's nonsense verse and Christmas poems for his children, he has
patiently straightened me out on all sorts of questions from "What is a monkey
bucket?" to "Was the Robert Bulla who married Consuelo the same Robert Bulla who
married Eva?"
Emerson Venable sent me a most complete synopsis of his own life and
furnished much valuable and otherwise unavailable information on the later life and
literary work of William Henry Venable, including a complete list of his published
works. His accurate and detailed biography of Mary Venable and newspaper clippings
concerning her, filled out my inadequate knowledge of her early life and her musical
career. By way of lagniappe, Emerson presented me with a copy of the beautiful 1912
edition of June on the Miami.
Russell Venable's big, worn ledger of Genealogical Notes collected by him in
1911-1912, which he presented to his nephew Emerson Venable and which
Emerson has lent to me, is the basis for practically all of the information on the
Venable - Baird and Palmer - Vater families. It contains also memoranda by William
Henry Venable, letters to him from his sisters and others, reminiscences of Mary
Vater Venable of her parents, and sketches of and by other Vater or Venable
connections. Russell's reluctant modesty on his own life and military career has made
it necessary for me to piece together information from various sources and my own
recollections. I fear there are errors and omissions.
My cousins, understandably, are too busy living their lives to bother writing
about them at length. However, I have heard from all of them, directly or indirectly.
My particular thanks are due Emerson Venable of Pittsburgh. Without his previous
research the chapters on the early Venables would have been inaccurate and very
brief indeed. Donald MacDonald of New York has been most kind in sending me
valuable information on the Vater-Crall-MacDonald families.
A number of people other than relatives have been generous in assisting me in
the gathering of material. I must thank Miss Marie Dickoré of Cincinnati, Mrs.
William Mason Phillips and Mrs. Edward French Herrick of Lebanon, Miss Perle
Maria Riley of Ridgeville, Mr. and Mrs. Owen Gross and Miss Edith Williams of
Carlisle, and Mrs. Elizabeth Baird Irwin of Portland, Oregon. Miss Margaret Miller of
Cincinnati read the manuscript. Her critical judgment has been invaluable.
Finally, I must thank my husband Allen Brown. He has accompanied me on
trips seeking Venable data, listened critically and patiently as I read and re-read the
manuscript, corrected proof with me, and his interest has encouraged me in my self-
imposed task. He has had to live for eight months with not just one Venable
descendant but with the whole lot of them!
HBB
Table of Contents
The Venables of Normandy and England 1
The Venables in America 5
The Venable - Wallis Family 7
The Venable - Borradail Family 9
The Venable - Crossham Family 11
The Venable - Baird Family 16
The Vater - Palmer Family 31
The Venable - Vater Family 51
Mary Venable 84
The Venable - Brady Family 86
The Venable - Tuckerman Family 122
The Venable - Spellmire Family 144
The Venable - Cameron Family 177
The Venable - Tuckerman Family 185
The Venable - Moore Family 193
Various Venabilia 203
The Venable Line of Descent 207

I
The Ancestors And Descendants Of
William Henry Venable
The Venable (S) Of Normandy And England
The origin of the family of Venables (the final "s" was dropped by most of those
who emigrated to America from England) is shrouded in the mists of the past, and
what information remains to this generation is doubtless a combination of fact and
fancy. The Venables family probably originated in Brittany (Normandy), for the first
Venables of whom there is record is Gilbert Venables, supposed to have come to
England with the Norman William the Conqueror in 1066, and to have been by him
created Lord and Baron of Kinderton sometime prior to 1086. William Mayo Venable
of Pittsburgh notes that families with the name Venables still live in Normandy. He
notes also that some have said the family originated in Wales, and that the name is
of Welsh origin. Emerson Venable of Pittsburgh states that this does not conflict with
the theory of their coming from Normandy with the Conqueror, since "the Celtic
people of Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany opposed and hated the Anglo-Saxon
inhabitants of England. Many of their chiefs, deposed by the Anglo-Saxons, would be
sympathizers with the Duke of Normandy. Some probably were exiles in Brittany.
Commerce and travel between Wales and Cornwall in England, and Brittany in
France, had taken place for centuries. The Penns considered themselves a Welsh
family."
The device on the shield of the Gilbert Venables family was a horse-man
spearing a wild boar. The Venable motto is VENABULUM VINCIT — The Spearman
Conquers. The literal translation of the Latin noun venabulum is hunting spear. A
family legend relates that the reason for the name and motto is that a soldier in the
army of the Conqueror, while on a hunting expedition with his leader, saved
William's life by hurling a spear at a wild boar just about to attack William. The story
is picturesque but unsubstantiated.
General Robert Venables
The first Venables who can be historically documented is Robert Venables,
born in England about 1612, and said to be the eighteenth in direct descent from
Gilbert Venables, Lord and Baron of Kinderton. In his Genealogical Notes compiled
in 1911-1912, Russell Vernon Venable has transcribed from the Chetham Society
Publications, Manchester 1872, Volume 83, Some account of General Robert
Venables, etc., by Lee P. Townshend, Esquire, with Pedigree of General Robert
Venables, a copy of which pedigree follows:
1. Gilbert Venables, Lord and Baron of Kinderton, temps William the
Conqueror.
2. ---- Venables, son of Gilbert Venables, Baron of Kinderton.
3. Hugh Venables, son of the above.
4. Hugh Venables, son of Gilbert Venables, Baron of Kinderton.
5. William Venables, Baron of Kinderton.
6. Sir Roger Venables, Baron of Kinderton.
7. Sir William Venables, married Margery, daughter of Thomas Dutton, 1254.
8. Sir Hugh Venables, married Agnes, daughter of Randal Vernon.
9. Hugh Venables, married Katherine, daughter of Richard Langton.
10.Richard Venables, third son of Hugh Venables, married daughter and
heiress of Hamon Fytton, Lord of Bollin; had issue.
11.John Venables, married Katherine, daughter and heir to Robert Morley,
and relict of William Stanley, of Stretton.
12.Thomas Venables purchased land and manor of Antrobus.
13.Robert Venables, married Elizabeth, daughter of P. Warburton of Arley.
14.Piers Venables, married Isabell, daughter of Thomas Legh of West Hall.
15.Robert Venables, married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Coldenstock of
Whitley.
16.George Venables of Crewe, third son of Robert Venables of Antrobus,
married Jane, daughter of Thickness, a younger son of Thickness of
Butterly.
17.Robert Venables of Crewe married -----, daughter of Richard Symcock,
County Salop, and had issue, Thomas.
18.Robert Venables re-purchased the lordship and manor of Antrobus and
Wincham, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Rudyard of
Rudyard County, Staffordshire, and had issue : Thomas, who married
Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Lee of Darnhill; Robert; John; Peter; and
Frances, who married Thomas Lee of Darnhill.
Robert Venables, of Antrobus and Wincham, was the eighteenth in direct
descent from Gilbert Venables, Lord and Baron of Kinderton in the time of William
the Conqueror. General Robert Venables married first, Elizabeth, daughter of
Thomas Rudyard of Rudyard County, by whom he had the above issue, and second,
Elizabeth, widow of Thomas Lee of Darnhill, and daughter of Samuel Aldersly.
General Robert Venables died in 1687, having settled his estates on his
grandson, Robert Lee, second son of Thomas Lee of Darnhill and the General's
daughter Frances Venables Lee.
Thomas Lee, son of General Venables' second wife Elizabeth and her husband
Thomas Lee of Darnhill, married Frances, General Venables' daughter by his first
wife Elizabeth Rudyard. Thomas Venables, son of General Venables and his first wife
Elizabeth Rudyard, married Elizabeth Lee, eldest daughter of General Venables'
second wife Elizabeth Lee and her husband Thomas Lee of Darnhill.
Once one gets into these genealogical investigations, all sorts of interesting side
issues turn up, as for instance the inter-relationship of the Venables - Legh (later
spelled Lee) families, concerning which Emerson Venable writes :
"Agnes de Legh married first, Richard de Lymme, second, William de Hawardyn, and