APPROXIMATE BUCKNUM BRANCH GENEALOGY

NEW ENGLAND BUCKNUMS

As the popular genealogical websites will show, several Bucknum clans migrated from Europe, primarily England & Scotland, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the mid-17th century around 1650. About a dozen or so of these Bucknums, descended after a few generations from the early immigrant clans, emerged as soldiers in the Continental Army in the American Revolution in the period from 1776-1789 in the founding of the United States of America. The exact lineage to these patriots from modern Bucknums is unknown as the records are no longer extant. What is known with reference to the Bucknums who emerged out of Trenton, NJ in the mid 1830's, that are of concern in this genealogical record, is that a couple of brothers, named Robert Bucknum and John Bucknum, Sr., left the Boston, MA area around 1800 to sell their wares as tinsmiths, moving South & West, first to Berlin, CT. In Berlin, CT in the early years of the 19th century we know that John, Sr. married a woman named Amelia and had 2 sons by her, one named John Bucknum, Jr. in 1811, and the other named Hamlet Bucknum in 1813. Robert Bucknum was similarly married in Berlin, CT to an Elizabeth and had a son named David Bucknum in the early 19th century. David Bucknum was the cousin to John, Jr. and Hamlet Bucknum.

For some reason not known, the Bucknum clan established in Berlin, CT, studied more tinsmithery there, including working with a tinsmithery association located in nearby Meriden, and indoctrinating Hamlet Bucknum into the trade at an early age. Then the clan abruptly split up in 1819, with Robert & Elizabeth Bucknum and their son David removing to the then new town of Plainville, CT (and living for a while in Central NY State), while John, Sr. & Amelia Bucknum and their sons John Bucknum, Jr. and Hamlet Bucknum migrated the long way to Philadelphia, PA. It is therefore true, that these Bucknums had traversed the full way from Boston to Philadelphia that quite possibly was the original intent of some of their people. It was in Philadelphia, we know, that John, Sr., as enterprising as ever, established a tinsmithery business in central Philadelphia and raised his 2 sons up through early adulthood by about 1829, with his wife Amelia by his side. Hamlet thus became a tradesman in the tinsmithery business, while John, Jr. became a house & sign painter. As far as the Connecticut Bucknum line established by Robert Bucknum, we see that Robert Bucknum briefly migrated to Central NY State (Utica area) in about 1820 and his family returned to Plainville, CT where he died in 1829 and is the first person buried in the original Plainville Cemetery. David Bucknum, the son of Robert & Elizabeth Bucknum, married a Sarah Crane and the couple had a son David Bucknum, Jr., and a daughter Eliza Bucknum, in the mid-19th century. Eliza married Matthew Arnold and became pregnant and died in childbirth. Her son Everette was raised by the elder Sarah Crane to adulthood. It appears that David Bucknum, Jr. fought and died in the Civil War. Everette, the last of the original Bucknum line in Connecticut, married J. Francoise Ferre in about 1900, a Frenchwoman who subsequently died in 1903 of an enlarged heart caused possibly by complications of pregnancy. With his entire family gone, Everette sold the Bucknum farm that had been established in Burlington, CT, in about 1904, and moved on to North Coventry, CT near Storrs and remarried to another woman (J.E. Tobias) and died peacefully in about 1934, aged 70, with no children. Thus Everette Bucknum had left no Bucknum ancestors in Connecticut.

PHILADELPHIA BUCKNUMS

In 1829, John, Sr. became widowed after his first wife Amelia died at a young age. He soon, apparently, remarried in 1832 to an Alice Napheys out of New Jersey and brought her to Norristown in West Philadelphia to establish a new life for himself. Within about ten years John Bucknum, Jr. and Hamlet Bucknum, of Philadelphia, both married. John Bucknum, Jr. married Frances Brittain, while Hamlet Bucknum married Theodossia Brittain. Evidently the sisters were twins, and both of the couples migrated over to Trenton, NJ from Philadelphia, PA in about 1838 and both Bucknum couples were indeed fruitful and prosperous. It is important to point out that some of this Bucknum Family history is documented by the Trenton Historical Society (www.trentonhistory.org). Thus two parallel Bucknum Families emerged in Trenton in the mid-19th century. John, Jr. worked as a house & sign painter, and also worked at the Federal Court in Trenton as a so-called Crier of the Court; while Hamlet Bucknum worked as a sheet iron worker and also ran a tinsmithery repairing stoves and ranges. John, Sr. and Alice Napheys Bucknum went on to establish another, separate and third Bucknum line by having a son, who they named Cornelius Napheys Bucknum, in about the mid-1830's. Cornelius Napheys Bucknum, who was of Philadelphia, is the half brother of John, Jr. and Hamlet Bucknum in Trenton. He went on to have several children, among them a son named Charles Levering Bucknum who lived to marry, and who in turn had several children including a son named Albert Levering Bucknum. Some descendents from this line are extant Bucknums living in the Philadelphia-Delaware area as of this writing in 2013, including a Dorothy Bucknum-Brown of Wilmington.

TRENTON BUCKNUMS

Among the offspring of John, Jr. & Frances Bucknum, they had several female children to take care of, in the course of his long life in Trenton (John, Jr. lived from 1811-1892). Some of these offspring of John, Jr. & Frances Bucknum married off to different families in Trenton and are not traced here. Hamlet Bucknum is the great great grandfather of the few extant, Trenton-derived Bucknums (Barbara, Thomas, Mary Ann, Patricia, Robert and Richard, children of Robert Elwood and Rita Bucknum; Jo Ann & Douglas, children of Joseph W. and Bette Bucknum; and David, Mary, Michael, Paul, Susan & John, children of Walter F. & Barbara A. Bucknum). These extant Bucknums are now living in various places in the USA today, principally on the East Coast from Virginia to New Jersey. These people and their offspring can be readily traced from the popular genealogy search engines, and public records available today. Hamlet & Theodossia Bucknum thus had several children, some of whom died at early ages. One of their progeny, Joseph Elwood Bucknum, born in Trenton, NJ in about 1853, was the great grandfather of the few extant Trenton-derived Bucknums. He lived only until 1898, a span of only 48 years, while his father Hamlet Bucknum had lived (1813-1877), a period of 64 years, and John Bucknum, Jr. lived even longer at 81 years. Joseph Elwood Bucknum had 3 children, named Roselle, William Hamlet and Joseph Elwood, Jr. William H. died in the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. And then unfortunately in the 1930's the family ran into hard times in the Depression era by generously extending credit at their family store, only to be taken by their customers for serious losses. However, despite this setback, Roselle Bucknum, the great Aunt of the author, who was for years a teacher in Trenton, later became an important proponent of the then developing Women's Rights Movement. She helped to establish the first office of Women's Rights in New Jersey, for which she was lauded by name on the U.S. Senate floor by Senator Frank Lautenberg as recently as around 2000.

Joseph Elwood Bucknum, Jr. was born in Trenton, NJ (or perhaps Brooklyn Borough, NY) in 1882 and lived to see his grandchildren be born and appreciate his kindness. He died in 1973 at age 89 years. The man was very, very tough as he lost all his fingers on his right hand in a mill accident at Vulcanized Rubber in Morrisville, PA (across the river from Trenton, NJ) when he was just 16 years old. It has been said in family lore that he had to walk to the hospital to have his crushed fingers amputated. Joseph E. Bucknum married Alice Ryan and became a devoted Catholic in the 20th century, after a long line of Protestant Bucknums came before him. Joseph E. Bucknum and Alice Ryan had 1 daughter Alice E. Bucknum, and 3 sons Robert E. Bucknum, Joseph W. Bucknum and Walter F. Bucknum. As indicated above, Robert E. Bucknum (died 2008) married Rita B. (died 1987) and had 6 children, and Joseph W. Bucknum (died 2002) married Bette Brelesford (died 2011) and had 2 children. Alice Ryan (died 2004) never married, & Walter F. Bucknum (died 2006) married Barbara A. Dockter and had 6 children. From these couples, there were 14 Bucknum offspring (named above) of the mid-20th century, and about 25 children have been produced thus far in the succeeding generation. There are currently several male Bucknums that could potentially continue the family line among these people derived from the Trenton, NJ area.

Again, as any of the popular genealogical websites will show, indeed there are dozens of other Bucknum lineages related in various degrees to the Trenton, NJ lineage that are extant all over the USA, in particular in California and Oregon and Washington State. These lineages consist of perhaps dozens of people probably originally derived from the Bucknum clans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early period of our country. Even given the extremely small population of Bucknums in the World today, some Census estimates put this number at less than 150 people, it would seem nearly impossible to construct a Master Family Tree over all the Bucknums extant, given the unreliability or non-existence of the historical record in this connection. The approximation given in this short narrative summary is but a clarification of a single branch of the Bucknum tree that extended from Boston to Connecticut to Philadelphia and then to Trenton, and which now has blossomed to include Trenton-derived Bucknums, and their distant Bucknum cousins, all over the U.S.A..