Current Nims Family Association News

WELCOME TO OUR WEB SITE. An Internet presence is always changing and evolving. NFA was fortunate to begin our web existence several years back with one page established by Historian Susan Oathout. Later, past president Bill Nims took the initiative to develop several pages on his AOL member site, primarily publicizing our newsletters and reunion news. In March of 2001, NFA's Board of Directors voted to establish a website with our own domain registration to introduce the association and its achievements to association members and new web visitors. A major portion of the funding for this website came from the
K. Godfrey Nims Memorial Fund, used to help defray costs of special projects such as this one. It is our hope this site will enable us to share what family genealogical information we have, to attract new members to join the work of our association, and to receive additional contributions of family data from visitors to this site. NFA welcomes your comments and suggestions about our association's work and this website at www.nimsfamily.com.

“I think my dad likes genealogy for the stories. As for me, I just don't like to leave a puzzle unsolved. I’m a scientist by training, so I’m constantly making connections between facts or ideas, making inferences, noting discrepancies, etc. That’s how I ended up running down the information in this article. My dad sent me his most recent version of my mom’s family tree, and since I had some free time I combed through it for red flags. When I noticed that Godfrey didn’t have a known birth date or birthplace, I asked about it. The rest followed.”

A New Theory on the Origins of Godfrey Nims:

Consider Connecticut, Belgium, and the Netherlands

Gary T. Olsen, 17 August 2010

I remember drawing a pie chart when I was younger: I was half German, a quarter Norwegian, an eighth Dutch, one twenty-fourth Scottish, one twenty-fourth Irish, and one twenty-fourth Welsh, with a dash of French from the ancestor who gave my grandmother her maiden name.

Since then, my dad has become a genealogy enthusiast and has investigated many branches of my family tree. It turns out there’s a lot less German than we had first thought, a lot more English, and a lot that’s just plain unknown. And that dash of French? That’s unknown too, because no one truly knows where Godfrey Nims was born.

Recently my dad sent me some stories about Godfrey Nims, the “young lad” who appeared out of nowhere only to get in trouble with the law — together with two local boys and an American Indian — for burglarizing a home in Northampton, Massachusetts. According to the 1667 court record, Godfrey was the confessed “ringleader in their vilainys,” and the thefts were motivated by “the intention to run away to the ffrench.”

“Huguenots and Walloons were really one and the same; Walloon was the name given to Huguenots (French Calvinists) living in southern Belgium. Periodically persecuted in Catholic France and in Holland (then partly ruled by Spain), they sought refuge outside of Europe in the New World. Toward this end, 30 families of Walloons were persuaded by the newly-formed Dutch West India Company to colonize New Netherland.”

“In early March of 1623, about 30 families, mostly Walloons, sailed on a 260-ton vessel skippered by Cornelius Jacobs Mey… These first Belgian passengers, and those who arrived afterward during the Dutch administration, settled at Manhattan, Albany, Long Island, Staten Island, along the Connecticut and Delaware rivers; in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, in the Hudson Valley, at Esopus, Wallkill, Kingston, Hurly, New Paltz and along the banks of the Wallonsac River.”

Knowing that Godfrey might have been a Walloon settler (or one of their American-born children, given the timing), my thoughts then returned to the misdeeds of 1667. Godfrey wasn’t a local, so the only reasonable conclusion is that the two Northampton boys were more recent additions to a journey already underway, and Northampton was a stop along Godfrey’s route to the French.

And that’s the second piece to the puzzle, again facilitated by a map: to get to New France (whether in modern-day Vermont or Quebec), the best route would have been to follow the Connecticut River upstream. For Northampton to have been along the way, Godfrey is likely to have begun his journey closer to the sea.

And now the two parts of the story fuse beautifully, because Ms. Gormley did say that Walloons had settled along the Connecticut River in 1623, didn’t she? In fact, she went on to say that “Two families and six men were sent to settle on the Connecticut River. They built a small fort, which became ‘Fort Good Hope.’ It is on the site of the present city of Hartford, Conn.” This is about forty-five miles downstream of Northampton. Might the Hartford area have been Godfrey’s home?

The 1630s saw a tremendous influx of English settlers from Massachusetts into the region, such that in 1650 the Director-General of New Netherland ceded all of modern-day Connecticut to the English. That agreement was never ratified because the First Anglo–Dutch War broke out in 1652, but by 1654 the European maritime conflict was over and the Dutch finally abandoned their Connecticut fort. This would have happened roughly when Godfrey was born. (A “young lad” in 1667, his birth was likely between 1651 and 1657.) Were his parents Walloon holdouts, maintaining a farmstead in the face of rising English dominance?

In 1664, English forces seized New Netherland (renamed New York), thus removing all Dutch control from the region. The Second Anglo–Dutch War began in the following year and lasted into 1667, the time when Godfrey Nims must have begun his travels.

Yes, perhaps Godfrey was a runaway, wanting to escape the Protestantism of his parents and make his way to the then sparsely-populated (and more Catholic) New France in the north; or… perhaps he was orphaned, and, wary of the ever-increasing presence of the English, wanted to return to a place with the French culture that had been shared by his late parents.

We won’t know until someone tracks down the fate of his mother and father, but I suspect that the information might be found south of Northampton along the Connecticut River, perhaps in Hartford.

Maybe my new hypotheses will enable an industrious member of the Nims Family Association to unearth the real answers once and for all. And then I’ll know if that dash of French in my pie chart should actually be Belgian, or Dutch.

CURRENT NIMS FAMILY ASSOCIATION NEWS

Perhaps the following content should not be thought of as ‘current’, except for the fact it has come through email contacts developed recently from the NFA website. Let us meet some of our ‘cousins’ as we learn about many who are contributing data for the extended Nims Family archives.

First is Janet Bortt from Indiana, who has developed extensive information about Mary Almira Nims and husband Lyman O. Gunn. Mary Almira descends from Godrey Nims through John- John, Jr.-Reuben-Jonathan-and her father, William Nims and wife Phila Gunn. Lyman O. Gunn’s parents were Asahel Gunn and Caroline Stone. Among other ‘finds’, Janet located the gravesite for Asahel and Caroline in Durant Cemetery, Cabot, Washington, Vermont.

Mary Almira was born in 1836 in Heath, Franklin, Massachusetts. Her death came on March 5, 1923 in Greenfield, MA. Lyman Gunn was born in December of 1834, Montague, Franklin, Massachusetts, and died in Montague on Dec. 14, 1912. Mary Almira Nims and Lyman O. Gunn had three children: Carrie May Gunn, who died Feb. 26, 1867 after just a few months of life. Carrie is also buried in the Durant Cemetery, Cabot, Vermont. Lyman and Mary Almira then adopted two children: Effie Ann Loveland Gunn, born July 18, 1867 in Erving, Franklin, Massachusetts; died July 23, 1950 in Puyallup, Pierce, Washington. The second adoption was George Loveland Gunn, born about 1872. Birth mother for Effie and George Effie was Celia Marie Fisher, their father, William Cephas Loveland. On January 2, 1889, Effie married Henry Calvin Hood. Their children were Mary Aileen Hood, Dore Gunn Hood, Calvin Henry Hood, Doris Celia Hood, and Lyman Gunn Hood.

Lyman was educated in district schools and remained at home on his father's farm until he reached 21 years of age when he went to Auburn, KS. He engaged in the making of brooms, manufacturing the first broom ever made by machinery in that state. After 2 years in KS he returned East spending some time in VT, partly in the employ of Fairbanks Scale Co., as a carpenter.

In 1862 he enlisted 23 Oct 1862 at Brattleboro,VT in Company G of the 16th VT Regiment for 9 months service in the Civil War as a Private. The descriptive book states that Lyman was 5' 10 1/4'' tall with a light complexion, blue eyes and light hair. After taking part in the Battle of Gettysburg he was confined to the hospital from the effects of exposure and forced marches. He was discharged 10 Aug 1863 at Brattleboro,VT.

After returning to Vermont, he farmed for 4 years. He sold that farm and purchased another at Montague, MA where he farmed for 10 years. He finally settled on a farm in Erving, MA in 1879, consisting of 170 acres of well-improved land used for dairying and general farming.

Lyman was a Republican and served in the offices of Assessor, Overseer of the Poor, and Selectman for 2 years and also was a School Board member. He was Trustee of the Franklin Fair Association for some years and became a Mason on 1863 in St. Johnsbury, VT, being a member of the Blue Lodge there. Lyman also was a member of General Sedgewick Post #17, Grand Army of the Republic. He attended the Congregational Church of which Mrs. Gunn was a member.

The reason Janet has such an interest in Mary Almira Nims and Lyman O. Gunn is that the girl they adopted, Effie Loveland Gunn, is her grandmother, and Doris Celia Hood is her mother. Janet knows there is so much more she could learn about the great-grandparents. There are two handwritten diaries by Lyman Gunn, published in 1891 and 1892 at Millers Falls, Massachusetts, which Janet discovered after searches on the Internet. Diary entries in pencil occur for about 260 days. However, the diaries are currently held by a seller of books and manuscripts in Canada, offered for sale for several hundred dollars, and negotiations have not been successful in lowering the price at all. Two other diaries are listed with an American seller, with notations about service in Virginia and Maryland in 1963+, but the price of those volumes is also out of range as of this date—frustrating for sure, as there are only 3 living descendants, through adoption, from Lyman and Mary Almira Gunn: Janet, a sister, and a cousin in Hawaii. Janet’s thorough research has even led to the obituary of Mrs. Celia Marie Fisher, who married William Loveland of Wendall Massachusetts. (Celia and William Loveland were the birth parents for Effie and George Loveland, as noted above.) Pictures accompanying this section have been provided by Janet, who has also done extensive research on the Godfrey Nims and daughter Abigail stories. Nice work!

Another recent email contact is from Dina McCrum. She first wrote seeking information about early ancestors, Godfrey, John, Thomas and daughter Rachel Nims. NFA responded, providing whatever was in our data base on these early names. Rachel married Dr. Daniel Wells sometime around 1774. This couple had 8 children: Joel, Rinnah, Ansenath, Ira, Daniel, Mary/Polly, Rachel, and Elihu. Joel Wells married Mary Edwards in 1797; they had 10 children, including James Levi Wells. James later married Sophia Voris on August 20, 1825. They had 12 children, of which Rev. Charles Wesley Wells is ancestor of Dina. Charles gained a level of fame with the publication in 1902 of A Frontier Life, (BEING A DESCRIPTION OF MY EXPERIENCE ON THE FRONTIER THE FIRST FORTY-TWO YEARS OF MY LIFE WITH SKETCHES AND INCIDENTS OF HOMES IN THE WEST; HUNTING BUFFALO AND OTHER GAME; TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS, AND MY EARLY WORK IN THE MINISTRY.)
Continuing, Charles married Amelia Potts on January 1, 1867. They had one child together, Amy Ida Wells, born March 13, 1868. Amelia died December 21, 1869, and Charles later married Mary Stacy, with whom he had several more children. Amy Ida Wells married James Thomas Hughes in 1888. They had 4 children, including Dwight Earl Hughes. Amy died in 1930, with James passing in 1920. Dwight Earl Hughes married Alice Marie Eddy in June of 1925. Among their three children was Robert Earl Hughes, born Dec. 15, 1930. Dina adds, “My dad, Robert Hughes, married my mom, Suzanne Marie Schloo on November 1, 1958.” She closes, “It’s been both heart-breaking and awe-inspiring reading about the tenacity of these people…”

Dwight Earl, Leonard, Amy Hughes (center), Arthur and Jesse Hughes.
Amy was daughter of Charles Wesley Wells and Amelia Potts.
All descended from Rachel Nims.

Other contacts over the last few months:
Patty Furrer wrote about receiving a box of over 100 photos from Flora Nims (Godfrey-Ebenezer-Moses-Elisha-Rufus-Loyal-Orson Deloss-Franklin Loyal-Flora, born in 1907.) Some were beautiful portraits of relatives, but without identification other than engraved studio names and towns on them. Patty seeks ideas on how she might obtain further identifications. And for all of us—remember to identify all photos. People will not know the identities 50 years later if left unmarked.

Kimber Langton-Nims wrote, “I’d like to purchase some sketches listed on your website. Do you have any photos of the sketches you could post in an email or on the website?” In addition to responding to Kimber, we welcomed her suggestion and have now added some photos on the website to illustrate the items.

Lorraine Ricardo, born in Canada as an Abigail descendant, but now living in Australia with husband Luis, wrote asking for help with her family tree. Director Lise Rochette responded with several suggestions for Lorraine to consider in her quest for further family information.

Ray and Norma Nims are looking for any others who may descend from Ray’s grandfather, Herbert Adonijah Nims and Adelaide Burch-Nims family. Ray’s father was Arthur Raymond Nims, born in 1884 in Lehigh, IA. The line of descent is Godfrey-John-Daniel-Asa-Elihu-Elihu-Herbert-Arthur-Raymond. Any help from our readers out there?

Revisit this page periodically to learn more about what is happening with the Nims Family Association.