Treasure Chest Thursday: Saul and Hoda Wilson on the Voter List, 1918

I've been trying to locate my great grandfather Saul Wilson's naturalization records for some time. His son Joseph Wilson, born in the Russian Empire, identified his citizenship as derivative (i.e., coming via his father's naturalization). [1] I have been unable to find Saul, however, in any extant naturalization index in any court in New York City. I have also gone through all the index cards microfilmed by the Family History Library for Columbia County, New York. The City of Hudson, where the family lived at least from 1898 to 1904 is in Columbia County.

The census records I have gathered for both the U.S. Federal Census (1900, 1920) and the New York State Census (1905, 1915) indicate that Saul was naturalized. [2] I suspect that Saul was naturalized before 1906 (therefore, the naturalization papers would likely be in a local court/archive rather than at the National Archives).

However, I have also contacted US Citizenship and Immigration Services genealogy program and asked them to look for any records on my grandfather Joseph Wilson's derivative citizenship. They had none.

So, I have been checking Voter Lists. [3] Before 1957, New York State voters had to register to vote annually. Voter lists will identify individuals, their addresses and party affiliations. Books of voter lists are organized by Assembly District within each New York City Borough. Google Books has the 1918 List of Enrolled Voters book for the Bronx. [4] I found my great grandparents in Assembly District 7.

They are listed as Saul and Hattie Wilson at 2086 Vyse ave - where they'd lived since at least 1917 and where they continued to live for the rest of their lives.

Seeing them in this book still does not tell me where and when Saul was naturalized, but it does tell me that they were, indeed, citizens. [5] With this information I will be able to contact the Bronx Board of Elections to see if they still have voter registration forms from that year or earlier. The registration forms may tell me the court in which and when they naturalized.

At first, it was surprising to see my great grandmother Hoda's name on the list. After all, women did not gain suffrage in the United States until 1920. In fact, however, women in the State of New York gained the right to vote in 1917. So, it appears, "Hattie" wasted no time getting to the voting booth.

Notes:
1. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 May 2008), manifest, Olympia, New York (10 February 1956) to New York, arriving 27 February 1956, List 20, passenger number 5, Joseph Wilson; citing National Archives Microfilm Serial T715, Microfilm Roll 8691.
2. On the 1910 U.S. Federal Census population schedule, the citizenship info for the family was left blank.
3. For a nice summary of NYC voter records see the JewishGen InfoFile:
http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/nycvote.txt
4. Board of Elections of the City of New York, List of Enrolled Voters, 1918, Borough of the Bronx. Google Books (http://books.google.com/books : accessed 17 October 2013). Google Books also has 1919 and 1922 NYC Voter Lists.
5. Prior to 1922, women gained or lost citizenship based upon the status of their husbands. So, Hoda and their minor children (Nina, Joe and Ben) would have gained citizenship based upon Saul's naturalization. Their youngest child, Esther, was born in the United States and, therefore, born a citizen.

My Genealogy Journey to Hudson, NY, Part 2

My first entree into the world of Hudson's past was the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. This was way early in my genealogy career (early 2008, before I'd splurged on Ancestry) and I was using Heritage Quest (thank you, Maricopa County Public Library!) at home on my computer. The names were all kerfloo-ey, the birth months were all probably wrong, but the ages and relationships were right. 

1900 U.S. Census, Hudson, New York [1]

"Cyrus" should have been Saul.
"Annie" should have been Hoda or Hattie.
"Nina" was correct.
"Daniel" should have been Joseph.
"Benjamin" was correct.
"Ester" was correct.

Hudson map from 1898 City Directory

It definitely was my Wilson family and it was, in fact, one of the first documents I ever found on my Wilson line. While I have found no 1900 Hudson city directories online (and neglected to look for one when I was in the Hudson Area Library), I did get Esther's birth register record [2] in Hudson. I'd already found the family in 1898 (60 Chapel St.), 1899 (19 Diamond St.) and in 1901 - 1904 Hudson city directories.[3]

From 1899 Hudson City Directory

19 Columbia Street (Sept. 2012)

254 Columbia Street (Sept 2012), on the corner with 3rd St.

After I'd noted the 1900 Census address (254 Diamond Street), I queried in Google Maps to find the current location. There was no 254 Diamond Street in Hudson. This encouraged further Googling on Diamond Street and Hudson. It was clear that, at some point, Diamond Street had been renamed Columbia Street. 

I contacted Hudson City Historian, Patricia Fenoff, and asked if she could confirm the name change, determine whether the house numbers had remained the same and find out whether there was any building in the location of 254. She confirmed the change, affirmed that the numbers were likely the same and that 254 was an empty lot. 

I visited the lots on Diamond Street a couple of weeks ago (photos, above). 254 is on the northwest corner of Columbia and 3rd Street. The building that today stands at 19 Diamond Street (above, right) is a few lots east of Front Street and was built during the time of urban renewal 20 or 30 years ago.

My Internet searching indicated that Diamond Street and Hudson had some notoriety about which I'd been previously uninformed. I haven't seen the street name change (which occurred in 1926 [4]) linked directly to the notorious history of Hudson's Red Light District, but my relatives apparently lived across the street. At the turn of the 20th Century, the 300 block of Diamond Street, between 3rd and 4th Streets, was the center of the activities and had been so for more than 50 years. It remained an active prostitution area until 1950 when the powers that were in the State of New York decided to end the entrenched and protected illicit activities in Hudson.[5] 

I have a notion that all the activities in the area, especially on weekends and after paydays, shocked my great grandmother Hoda, newly arrived from a small shtetl in the Russian Empire. But, of course, it may just have made her stronger.
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Notes
1. 1900 U.S. Census, Columbia County, New York, population schedule, Hudson, Enumeration District 19, sheet 8A, dwelling 126, Family 172, Cyrus Wilson; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 August 2008).
2. Register of Births in the City of Hudson, Columbia County, New York. Esther Wilson, Register Number 3612, date of birth 10 November 1898, Register in the City Clerk's Office, Hudson, New York.
3. Hudson City, Claverack and Stottville Directory for 1898 (Hudson, NY: JH Lant
Co., Inc., 1898), 156, entry for Wilson, Saul; Directory for 1899, 156, entry for Wilson, Saul; FHL Film 2,156,840.
4. Hall, Bruce Edward, Diamond Street, Hudson, New York: The Story of the Little Town with the Big Red Light District, Chapter 5: "The Block," Hudson: Black Dome Press Corp., 2005.
5. ibid: Chapter 7.

My Genealogy Journey to Hudson, NY, Part 1

Hudson-Athens, NY Lighthouse began operating in 1874

Seeing is believing and I’m so glad to have recently seen Hudson, Columbia County, New York. I recall hearing my grandfather, Joe Wilson, talk about growing up in Hudson, NY after his Wilensky family emigrated from the Russian Empire (today Belarus) in 1897. But, as with so many other items of family history interest, I do not recall asking any follow-up questions that would have put flesh on the bones of the story. 

During the last few years I’ve collected much genealogical information about Joe Wilson’s family life in Hudson and read a couple of books about the city.[1] But some things just must be personally experienced. I wanted to visit all the places my family lived in Hudson. The time was right for a genealogy journey.

Hudson is an interesting work in progress: at once a warning against the destruction of the past and an appreciation of efforts to preserve what’s left. There are many old buildings abandoned, many falling into ruin, but also many that are undergoing stabilization and restoration. Many buildings on the main street, Warren, sport small brass plates identifying the architectural style and date of the building. Some go back to the late 1700s and are still (or once again) in use as homes and  businesses. (For a wonderful blog on Hudson and it's historic preservation, see The Gossips of Rivertown.)

Hudson, NY (from Google.com)

The city was also, for me, a reminder of the long and interesting history of communities along the Hudson River. The city has had a roller coaster economic history. It can lay claim as the first planned community. It was chartered in 1785 by “the Proprietors,” Quaker merchants from New England. They visualized a prosperous port and whaling community serving the needs of the interior United States. They laid out streets and parks and planned their full-service community.

Whaling, however, did not last long. After the War of 1812 and the opening of the Erie Canal, Hudson lost its cachet as a port of entry. By the mid Nineteenth Century other types of industry (including knitting mills) sustained the community and a vibrant red-light district fed its (and surrounding communities’) appetites. The city flourished in the 1870s, but by the late 1890s when the Wilson family made its home in Hudson, the community was not at its economic best.

Saul Wilson (nee Selig Wilenski) had arrived in New York Harbor on the Polaria on 23 November 1891.[2] I am still seeking his whereabouts for the five and one half years before his family joined him in 1 June 1897.[3] By 1898, the entire family was living in Hudson.[4] 

I arrived in Hudson with several family history issues I wanted to address, if not answer:   

1. I'd documented seven places where the family had lived while in Hudson. What did those places look like? Were the buildings still there?
2. Both my grandfather Joe and his younger brother Ben worked for years in the sweater industry in New York City. Did they get their background in the knitting industry during their stay in Hudson? Could I locate any knitting mill records?
3. Might I find additional local newspaper records mentioning family members?
4. Were there any school or synagogue records that might shed light on the family in Hudson?
5. What would have drawn the Wilsons to Hudson? 

In this and the next several posts I will relate my success or lack thereof in on-site research in Hudson, NY.

First up is the the house at 60 Chapel. My earliest evidence of the Wilsons in Hudson comes from the 1898 Hudson city directory.[5]

Chapel Street was in one of those areas of Hudson that was “renewed” in the 1970s. In fact, the housing development obliterated Chapel and several other streets that once defined the area.

Chapel Street on 1898 map provided in Hudson City Directory [6]

Former location of Chapel Street. Columbia St. was once Diamond St. (Base layer from Google.com)

Today there is no Chapel Street in Hudson. The circle shows where it used to be. There is nothing in the area to help us understand that specific locale in 1898.

Next, on to Diamond Street!
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Notes

1. Hall, Bruce Edward, Diamond Street, Hudson, New York: The Story of the Little Town with the Big Red Light District, Hensonville, NY: Black Dome Press Corp., 2005; Fone, Byrne, Historic Hudson: An Architectural Portrait, Hensonville, NY: Black Dome Press Corp., 2005.

2. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 20 October 2008), manifest, Polaria, Stettin, Germany to New York, arriving 23 November 1891, passenger 196, Selig Wilenski, citing National Archives Microfilm Serial M237.

3. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 7 September 2009), manifest, Pisa, Hamburg to New York, arriving 1 June 1897, list 7, Hode, Nachame, Josef and Benjamin Wilensky, citing National Archives Microfilm Serial M237.

4. J.H. Lant 1898 Hudson City, Claverack and Stottville Directory, (Hudson, NY: JH Lant, 1898), page 154 , FHL microfilm 2,156,840.
5. ibid
6. ibid

Cream Puff Daze

Hoda Epstein Wilson, ca 1866-1930

None of us now living had ever heard this story from any of our Wilson family.  It was first published in The Sun (New York, New York). Hoda Epstein Wilensky had been through a great deal.  On 19 May 1897, more than six years after her husband Zelig (Saul) had left for the United States, she accompanied her three children from their home town of Kazan (today Kozyany, Belarus) to Hamburg. From there they embarked on the Pisa and landed at Ellis Island on 1 June 1897. By the time my great grandmother Hoda Wilson moved to New York City in about 1906, she'd already lived in Hudson, NY and Albany. 

She must have been one formidable woman.  For some reason, I do not associate tenement life with cream puffs, literally or figuratively.  But, one does not live on bread alone. Frank Carrigan definitely got more than he'd bargain for.

DAZES THIEF WITH CREAM PUFF; TRAPS HIM ON ROOF

Intruder Leaps Eight Foot Gap on Housetops Fleeing From Woman

When Mrs. Hoda Wilson, who lives on the third floor of the apartment house at 10 West 116^th street, put on her hat and coat late yesterday afternoon and went to the corner delicatessen store she forgot to lock her apartment door.

A few minutes later Solomon Wilson, her husband, came home and found both doors leading to the apartment locked.  He returned to the sidewalk just as Mrs. Wilson was coming in with a bag of cream puffs.

“That’s strange!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilson and they rushed up stairs to investigate.  As Mr. Wilson began kicking on the kitchen door it suddenly flew open and a young man rushed out.

“Thief!” cried Mrs. Wilson as she struck the young man squarely across the face with the bag of cream puffs.  The intruder swallowed hard a few times, then began to descend the stairs four at a time.  He came out in a court back of the building, grabbed a fire escape ladder and climbed to the roof of 8 West 116^th street, while Mr. and Mrs. Wilson startled the neighbors by shouting “Stop thief!”

From the roof of No. 8 the young man made an eight foot leap to the roof of the adjoining building at No. 6.  There he was trapped for he could not climb back and could not go on to the next building, there being none.

It was at this juncture that the desk sergeant at the Lenox avenue police station heard over the telephone that a burglar has been trapped on a roof in his precinct.  Detectives Barnett and Curtayne were dispatched to the scene and captured the young man while he was still licking cream puffs off his chops.

At the station he said he was Frank Carrigan, 20 years old, of 247 West 144^th street, and then the police discovered that he was wanted in Rochester, N.Y. on a charge of having robbed his uncle, Joseph Carrigan, 228 Fremont street, that city, of $150 in cash and some diamonds.  Carrigan was locked up on a charge of burglary.

Later he confessed that he had robbed a house somewhere in West 146^th street a week ago.  He couldn’t remember the exact address, but guessed he could point the house out.  When the money from that last robbery had gone he planned yesterday’s unfortunate burglary. #

The Sun (New York, NY), Sunday, 5 January 1913, page [unknown], column 2; digital images, Old Fulton, New York Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com: accessed 2 January 2012).