Name:                     Melissa B. (or R.) BROADHURST1,2,3,4,5,6   Click here for photo from Guin2

Sex:                         Female

Father:                    Joseph BROADHURST (1818 - )

Mother:                  Nancy GORHAM ( -1854 )

 

Individual Facts

Birth                       2 Jan 1846                                              Niles, Berrien Co., MI7,8,9,10

Baptism                  5 Jul 1869 (age 23)                                Wheeler's Grove, Pottawattamie Co., IA11

Death                     28 Jan 1915 (age 69)                             Fruto, Glenn Co., CA12

Burial                      1915                                                        Tulocay Cemetery, Napa, CA13,12

                                                 photo of Napa grave site        photo of grave stone

Marriages/Children

1. Andrew Jackson ANDERSON

Marriage                23 Jun 1866 (age 20)                             Napa, Napa Co., CA14 

                                                                                                (Napa Co. Marriage Index, Book A, p. 173)

 

Notes (Individual)

NAME:  Melissa's middle name remains a mystery at present. All documents found on her after her marriage gives her middle initial as "B."  This includes references in historical books, her newspaper death notice, cemetery records and the engraving of their gravestone.  However an inspection of her photograph as reproduced in Prof. Guinn's book (linked above) also gives her signature.  Here it appears that she signed her name with the middle initial of "R."  It is presently conjectured that after her marriage, she often referred to using her maiden name as her middle name.  Her name in later years also has appeared as "Melissa Broadhurst Anderson."  We have yet to discover what the "R" might stand for.

Birth: [The Slooper book gives her birth date as 2 Jan 1844; the Pottawattamie book as well as RLDS baptismal records have her birth date as 2 Jan 1846; she is listed as age 24 in the 1870 census and 34 in the 1880 census; so it would appear that the birth year given in the Slooper book is in error.].

Baptism: [RLDS Church]

Burial: [Initially it was believed that she was buried first in Glenn Co. where she died and then her body moved at a later date to be buried next to her husband at the Napa Tulocay Cemetery.  However her Glenn Co. death notice indicates that her body was sent to Napa.  Records at the Napa cemetery indicate that her body was "moved" 18 Dec 1917 to be re-buried next to her husband in block 92, lot 6. She therefore must have been buried first in a different part of this Napa cemetery.]

  .

.

General: J.H. Rosdail in his Slooper book states on p. 428 that "... he [Andrew] married Melissa B. Broadhurst, second of four belonging to Joseph and Nancy Gorham Broadhurst.1 Melissa was born in Niles, Michigan, and had come to California with her parents by way of the Isthmus of Panama in 1856. She lived at Napa Redwoods before her marriage.  In 1867 she and Andrew and Serena went back to Iowa and lived on the land Jacob had kept in Pottawattamie County." [footnote on this page: "1For the year 1856 Joseph's wife is given as Caroline Wright Broadhurst, so there may have been a second marriage. History of the State of California, pp. 1469-70."]  Guinn's Calif. history book states that, "... he [Andrew] met and married Miss Melissa B. Broadhurst, who was born in Michigan in 1844 ... She came to California with her parents, Joseph and Caroline (Wright) Broadhurst, in 1856, by way of the Isthmus of Panama."

 

    This apparent confusion about Melissa's mother was cleared up in Dec. 2003 with e-mail correspondence with Lytchia Foster of Texas who is researching the Boardhurst family.  Lytchia reports that Melissa's parents, Joseph and Nancy had 4 children while living in Michigan, Melissa being the second born.   Nancy died in 1854 in Michigan where she was buried in Berrien Co..  Joseph married the second time to  Caroline Wright in 1856 while still in Michigan. After this family moved to California, Joseph and Caroline had five children of their own.  Therefore, Nancy was Melissa's mother; Caroline was her step-mother.  Caroline died in 1876 and was buried in dry creek cemetery Napa, California.  Lytchia also indicated that the Broadhurst family eventually settled in the Cottonwood area of Shasta Co. to the north of Napa Co.

 

    Melissa was baptized into the RLDS Church on 5 Jul 1869 at Wheeler's Grove, Pottawattamie, Co., IA, by S. Longbottom. (RLDS Archives, Wheeler's Grove Branch Record #172.)

"... her father Joseph Broadhurst, born in Ohio in May, 1818, lives in California; her mother, Nancy (Gorham) Broadhurst, born in Indiana June 10, 1826, died March 9, 1854.

.

    Melissa's death notice appears in The Willows Review, Willows, Glenn County, CA, Friday, February 5, 1915, page 3, column 2, and reads as follows:  

"Mrs. Milissa (sic) B. Anderson, aged wife of A. J. Anderson, a stock raiser who resides a mile West of Fruto, died last Thursday morning.  She was a native of Michigan, aged 69 years.  The remains were shipped to Napa for burial."

Notes (Family #1)

Marriage: [Married by Justice G. W. Towle.  Marriage information found in list of 1866 marriages contracted in Napa Co. in the Napa Daily Evening Reporter, 4 Jan 1867, p. 2, col. 2.  History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, has the marriage date of 24 Jun 1866.]

 .

Sources

1.  Rosdail, J. Hart.  The Sloopers; Their Ancestry and Posterity; The Story of the People on the Norwegian Mayflower, The Sloop, "Restoration.".  Broadview, IL: Norwegian Slooper Society of America, 1961.  pp. 428, 473.

2.  History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa.  Chicago: O.L. Baskin & Co., Historical Publishers, 1883.  p. 153.

3.  Guinn, J. M., Prof..  History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento Valley, California. An Historical Story of the State's Marvelous Growth from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time.  Chicago: Chapman Publishing Co., 1906.  p.1470.

4.  1885 Iowa State Census.  Carson Township, Pottawattamie Co.

5.  1880 US Census.  Grove Township, Pottawattamie Co., IA.

6.  1870 US Census.  Grove Township, Pottawattamie Co., IA.

7.  Rosdail, J. Hart.  The Sloopers; Their Ancestry and Posterity; The Story of the People on the Norwegian Mayflower, The Sloop, "Restoration.".  Broadview, IL: Norwegian Slooper Society of America, 1961.  p. 428.

8.  History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa.  Chicago: O.L. Baskin & Co., Historical Publishers, 1883.  p. 473.

9.  1870 US Census.  Grove Township, Pottawattamie Co., IA.

10.  1880 US Census.

11.  Archive Records furnished by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints under cover letters of 6 and 20 Oct 1999. (Contact person: Barbara J. Bernauer, Assistant Archivist).  Independence, MO: RLDS Church, 1999.  Wheeler's Grove Branch Record Book (#172).

12.  Records of the Tulocay Cemetery (founded 1859), 411 Coombsville Road, P.O. Box 7, Napa, CA 94558.  Phone (707) 252-4727.

13.  Rosdail, J. Hart.  The Sloopers; Their Ancestry and Posterity; The Story of the People on the Norwegian Mayflower, The Sloop, "Restoration.".  Broadview, IL: Norwegian Slooper Society of America, 1961.  p. 429.

14.  History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa.  Chicago: O.L. Baskin & Co., Historical Publishers, 1883.  p. 153.

 

Prepared by:

O. Keith Wheeler

Mad River, CA 95552

(707) 574-6595

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