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Susan Higginbotham · 02-12-2016, 05:22 PM

This is the marriage certificate and return of marriage for Sarah Antoinette "Nettie" Slater and her second husband, Jacob M. Long, whose full name I believe has not been known up until now. The couple were married on December 5, 1867, a little over a year after Sarah was divorced from Rowan Slater. Her sister, Josephine, with whom Sarah would spend her last years, was one of the witnesses.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Jacob Long was a member of Pennsylvania Governor Johnson's staff (from which he somehow acquired the nickname of "Colonel" Long). Later, he laid the water works for Pottsville, PA, and before the war moved to New York City, where he served for many years as the superintendent of the Harlem Gas Light Company. Long was also a city alderman associated with the Tammany Hall political machine. A widower with a number of children, he was twice the age of his new bride (indeed, some of his own children were close to Sarah's age, which may have made for an awkward situation).

As far as I know, the marriage was childless. It may not have lasted, though I can't be certain of that; Sarah is not listed with Jacob in the 1870 and 1880 censuses, and his death certificate shows him as a widower. Jacob died of apoplexy at his Harlem home on April 16, 1889, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, where his first wife is also buried.

Gene C · 02-12-2016, 05:55 PM

Nettie's middle initial looks like a G ?
Isn't Sarah's middle name Antoinette.
And why use Nettie for her first name (short for Antoinette ?), if her given name is Sarah?

Susan Higginbotham · 02-12-2016, 06:07 PM

(02-12-2016 05:55 PM)Gene C Wrote: Nettie's middle initial looks like a G ?
Isn't Sarah's middle name Antoinette.
And why use Nettie for her first name (short for Antoinette ?), if her given name is Sarah?

I believe the "G" is for Gilbert, her maiden name. She seems to have preferred "Nettie" as a younger woman and "Sarah" as an older one. In the days before Social Security cards I think people in general were looser about the use of their given names on official documents.

L Verge · 02-12-2016, 06:33 PM

What is a Return of Marriage?

Susan Higginbotham · 02-12-2016, 07:12 PM

(02-12-2016 06:33 PM)L Verge Wrote: What is a Return of Marriage?

I think it's just the data that the State of New York wants for its records.

Gene C · 02-12-2016, 10:28 PM

Thanks Susan, that makes more sense to me now.

SSlater · 02-13-2016, 01:16 AM

Congratulations Susan, that was a "super" find. Now that I know... it shows up in the "NY, NY Marriage Index 1866 - 1937." How did you find this ? I'm guessing, but I think she married him to get rid of the "Slater" name. It appears that she never lived with him - that would remove the possibilities of Parent/Child conflicts. I don't believe a word of the "Divorce " papers. That also was get rid of the name, caper. When she married Spencer, she ignores her Hitch with Rowan and says she was married only once -to Long. (Do you want a copy of that License?)( I didn't find a record of Divorces in NY.)
Seeing Josephine in NY is news to me. Mama was there (A. R. Gilbert), so was Eugene. Unfortunately, the "City Directories" show only the "Wage Earner" and sometimes the spouse - but never the children. Is there anything else to find?

Susan Higginbotham · 02-13-2016, 09:23 AM

(02-13-2016 01:16 AM)SSlater Wrote: Congratulations Susan, that was a "super" find. Now that I know... it shows up in the "NY, NY Marriage Index 1866 - 1937." How did you find this ? I'm guessing, but I think she married him to get rid of the "Slater" name. It appears that she never lived with him - that would remove the possibilities of Parent/Child conflicts. I don't believe a word of the "Divorce " papers. That also was get rid of the name, caper. When she married Spencer, she ignores her Hitch with Rowan and says she was married only once -to Long. (Do you want a copy of that License?)( I didn't find a record of Divorces in NY.)
Seeing Josephine in NY is news to me. Mama was there (A. R. Gilbert), so was Eugene. Unfortunately, the "City Directories" show only the "Wage Earner" and sometimes the spouse - but never the children. Is there anything else to find?

Thanks! Family Search has her mis-indexed as "Nellie" Slater. I stumbled upon that one evening and my antennae went up.

Maybe it's just because it's Valentine's Day weekend, but I'm more inclined to think the Long marriage was entered into in good faith by both parties. The marriage was listed in at least one newspaper, and I just don't see Jacob Long saddling himself with a wife he didn't intend to live with. He was a relatively recent widower (his first wife died in 1864), and I think he probably wanted a companion. And his political opponents would no doubt have had some rude comments to make as to why he hadn't let his wife move in with him. As for Sarah, I think if all she wanted to do was to change her name, she would have been better off finding some obscure man who was getting ready to head out West, or someone like that, and then claim to be widowed after he left town. As it was, Long could offer her a comfortable home (probably with excellent gas lighting!) which was probably also an attraction.

SSlater · 02-13-2016, 12:36 PM

omg
This you won't believe. Look what I found in the SWENSON FAMILY TREE

SARAH (NELLIE) SLATER born Jun 1848 died 2 MAY 1925
MY EXACT BIRTHDAY

SHE MARRIED JOHN F STANTON also died 2 MAY 1925
[/b I NEED A STIFF DRINK ! I can't believe that coincidence.

Susan Higginbotham · 03-01-2016, 01:04 PM

I looked at the 1872 marriage certificate for Sarah's younger sister Laura today. Sarah (who was calling herself Antoinette Long at the time) was one of the witnesses. The signature of the other witness is faint, but it appears to be that of Jacob M. Long, Sarah's second husband. So it appears that the couple was together despite Sarah's omission from Jacob's household in the 1870 census. (Maybe Sarah just didn't like being counted.)

I can't agree with the statement in the latest Courier that Jacob Long married Sarah for her nursing abilities. Long was only in his 40's when he married Sarah and was active as an alderman and at his job as superintendent of the Harlem Gas Light company throughout this period (except when he lost his office in a Tammany Hall shakeup at one point), and I don't see any indication that he needed a nurse. Even if he had, he had grown or almost-grown children living with him, as well as female servants, so there wouldn't have been anything disreputable about his hiring a live-in nurse as opposed to marrying her. I think he married Sarah for the usual reasons a man marries an attractive young woman.

I also checked the New York Index to Matrimonial Actions and couldn't find any indication of a divorce or separation between Sarah and Jacob. She lists herself as a widow on her marriage certificate to William W. Spencer (incidentally, the witnesses were George and Margaret Derr; the latter later served as Sarah's executrix).

A couple of useless but fun facts: Jacob's son Charles was the superintendent of the Statue of Liberty until his death in 1904. And for those of you who are fans of science fiction/fantasy/horror, the writer Frank Belknap Long is a descendant of Jacob.

SSlater · 03-30-2016, 04:52 PM

I have struggled with how I should write this Comment. It needs to be said - but how?
I am quite pleased with the recent identification of Jacob M. Long as Sarah Slater's husband, however, the use of the information is being used improperly. (It might be illegal.)
Jacob M. Long never, ever, married "Sarah A. Spencer", and to add that name to his Obit, is totally wrong.
A Marriage Certificate showing that combination of names DOES NOT EXIST. A Marriage Certificate is a Legal Document that has many legal ramifications - it establishes "heritage", debt responsibility, etc., and more. No such document exists joining Jacob Long and Sarah Spencer. Jacob Long married Nettie G. Slater. No other combination of names can identify this marriage,
(THESE ARE MY THOUGHTS.) I think that these two had an arrangement between themselves, to keep Sarah out of a trial for participation in the Assassination of Lincoln. - and it worked.
It is very odd that Jacob never showed Sarah's name with his, in any Census, or City Directory. He showed his first wife, he showed all his children, he showed their spouses, and the resulting children. He even showed all his cooks and servants, but not Sarah. That is no coincidence, there was a plan of some sort, that we don't recognize.
The information included in his "Find a Grave" piece also avoided showing her name. (usually the case when there is no wife.), that is, until now., and someone did it wrong. Long never married Spencer.
(When they added Long to Sarah's name, why didn't they add Rowan, too. That would have been correct),
By making these changes, someone is changing history. The original records are shown exactly as they were created by immediate participants, or immediate survivors, because that they intended. I would bet that they knew little, or nothing, about Sarah's clandestine activities. (or excluded them on purpose.) It appears that Sarah and Jacob had an agreement, that they never revealed. Sarah needed a place to hide, and Jacob gave her a new name. Jacob was an Alderman, second in power to only the Mayor. He was a Justice of the Peace, he could "do no Wrong". He made the arrangements, got paid and they went their separate ways.
PS. When Sarah married Spencer, she made no mention of Rowan. She swore that she had been only once, to Long, When she applied for a Marriage License for Spencer. Where does that fit?

Gene C · 03-30-2016, 08:21 PM

If Sarah (Antoinette/Nettie) was divorced from Rowan Slater, why not just drop that last name when she got divorced and go back to her maiden name of Gilbert? Why keep using the Slater name until 1867 if she is trying to hide her identity?

Why use Nettie instead of Antoinette or Sarah on a legal document? She uses Antoinette (instead of Nettie) five years later when signing as a witness.
She reverts back to using Sarah Antoinette in 1913.
And John, your post #9 has me a bit confused. Are you indicating she married a fourth time to John F Stanton?
Something just doesn't add up to me

Susan Higginbotham · (This post was last modified: 03-30-2016 10:05 PM by Susan Higginbotham.)

Sarah is listed as "Sarah A. Spencer" on Find-A-Grave because that is the name she was buried under, meaning that the entries for her husbands will link to that name, not to her maiden name or to her previous married names. Linking Jacob M. Long to "Sarah A. Spencer" doesn't imply that she was using the name "Spencer" at the time of her marriage to Long. It simply reflects her name at the time of her death.

Some Find-A-Grave contributors who create entries will give a woman's maiden name and add some genealogical information, but whoever made the entry for Sarah probably didn't have any of this information. Other contributors on Find-A-Grave can suggest changes and additions to an entry, but it's up to the person who made the entry to approve them.

Rowan Slater isn't linked to Sarah on Find-A-Grave simply because he doesn't have an entry on Find-A-Grave, which requires a known place of burial.

If Sarah wanted to marry a second time just to hide, why wait until December 1867? And why make her marriage public? Her name had been in the papers for the conspiracy trial, again in the papers for her divorce in 1866, again in the papers for John Surratt's trial earlier in 1867, and once again in the papers (as Nettie Slater) when she married Long. If she remarried simply in order to lose the "Slater" name and to evade trial, it would have behooved her to do so immediately after her divorce instead of waiting until after John Surratt's trial.

Incidentally, there's an 1874 lawsuit in New York involving a married woman, Sarah A. Long, who incurred expenses when setting up a house of her own. Whether this is the same Sarah I can't say without seeing the actual court filings, but it is certainly consistent with the possibility of Sarah marrying Jacob and later separating from him.

https://books.google.com/books?id=FVMtAQ...an&f=false

(03-30-2016 08:21 PM)Gene C Wrote: If Sarah (Antoinette/Nettie) was divorced from Rowan Slater, why not just drop that last name when she got divorced and go back to her maiden name of Gilbert?

That's exactly what Nora Fitzpatrick Whelan's stepdaughter did after her divorce--reverted informally to her maiden name, although occasionally a mention of her under her married name crops up.

SSlater · 03-30-2016, 10:39 PM

(03-30-2016 08:21 PM)Gene C Wrote: If Sarah (Antoinette/Nettie) was divorced from Rowan Slater, why not just drop that last name when she got divorced and go back to her maiden name of Gilbert? Why keep using the Slater name until 1867 if she is trying to hide her identity?

Why use Nettie instead of Antoinette or Sarah on a legal document? She uses Antoinette (instead of Nettie) five years later when signing as a witness.
She reverts back to using Sarah Antoinette in 1913.
And John, your post #9 has me a bit confused. Are you indicating she married a fourth time to John F Stanton?
Something just doesn't add up to me

Gene C, First: kill that Slater/Stanton marriage Post. I was amused by the string of coincidences: my search subject, my name exactly, my birthday exactly, etc. It wowed me!
The rest of your post emphasizes the confusion that we are all experiencing. We have enough of that without creating false records, that never happened.
In 1867 Sarah was not freed by any Amnesty Proclamation, yet - she was subject to arrest. She had to find ways to "hide in plain sight." I'm suggesting that she made a pact with a crooked Alderman, who helped her hide for a few more years. I don't think that she ever lived with him. I have a 1880 newspaper clipping that describes Sarah and her sister visiting friends, again with no mention of a husband. I am trying to share all the items that I have, hoping someone will have more news to add to the scrap that I provide. This suggests that Sarah began living with her sister, as early as 1880, in New York City. By 1898 +/- she and her sister moved to Poughkeepsie, where another brother was living. Eventually, we will have a DAILEY record of her travels.

Gene C · (This post was last modified: 03-31-2016 03:40 PM by Gene C.)

Thanks John & Susan.
I am amazed by what you both have uncovered, and the twists and turns in the records (and sometimes misleading info that can detour your efforts). It seems to be a tedious and methodical search that I don't have the knowledge and patience for. I have a great respect for you both in your research efforts (as well as for several others on this forum), I know you run into many roadblocks, dead ends and frustrating situations. Hope to get the pleasure of meeting you both one day.

So in honor of all you who are good at genealogy, digging through old public and private records, this song about a confusing family situation is dedicated to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYlJH81dSiw