Missionary to New Zealand?

That’s what he told the family!



My great great grandfather, the music Professor Caleb Rand Bill came from Nova Scotia to New England with his wife. They had their nine children in succession from New Brunswick, Maine, Boston and then Salem as he moved from place to place teaching music. According to the Bill Family Genealogy, he had three brothers. One died while studying away at Acadia College, and the other two went on a mission to New Zealand. This made sense to me, since their father was the Nova Scotia Baptist preacher Reverend Ingraham Ebenezer Bill.

I didn’t question the compiled genealogy, at least not for a while…

Later, when using the NEHGS online vital records database, I decided to find out just how uncommon the “Bill” name was as a surname in Massachusetts. I typed in the name and I was surprised to find several Bills I didn’t know about. I found the death record of one of the brothers, Edward Manning Bill, who had gone on a mission to Australia. He died in Boston in 1904, of “hemiplegia”, contributory cause “exposure, life in Australia!”

The two brothers were Edward Manning Bill and Ingraham Ebenezer Bill, Jr. I knew that I. E. Jr. had gone on to become a minister, in his father’s footsteps. According to the Bill Genealogy he lived as a missionary for a while in New Zealand. In the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, there was a marriage in a newspaper entitled “Christian Visitor” July 1, 1869, listing a marriage on May 22nd, between I. E. Bill of Regent’s Park College, London, to Eleanor, the second daughter of George Pike, of Sutton, Kent, England. In the 1880 US Federal Census of Caribou, Maine (on the border with Canada) it lists Ingram Bill, age 44, minister, wife Ellen, and several children. I also found a “Ministerial Register” at Ancestry.com listing him as a Baptist Minister in Chicago in the 1892, 1893, and 1895 editions. So Junior’s story works out OK. What about his brother?

Two brothers: Edward Manning Bill and Ingraham Ebenezer Bill, Jr. were listed on an 1852 shipping list on board the ship “Chebucto” which arrived at Port Phillip, Melbourne, Australia on 9 October 1852. According to this list at the Victoria State Library, it was ““Another instance of the wide-spreading attractiveness of our gold-fields shows itself in the arrival of this vessel from Halifax, Nova Scotia bringing with it a large number of passengers all anxious to turn gold diggers. Nothing of importance occurred on the passage.”

Aha! Two young brothers left Nova Scotia, telling the relatives they were bound for a mission. Both arrived in Australia during the gold rush. One went on to New Zealand, like the good minister’s son he was brought up to be. What happened to the other?

Last year I found the answer when a woman in Australia sent me an email. Her message starts out with the line “Thank goodness for computers and for Google!” and it went on to describe her search for clues to the identity of “Edward Manning Bill!” She was tracing a young girl named Harriet Young Cox, who was adopted by Edward Manning Bill in the late 1800s. The daughter was a singer in London, and the United States, listed on the cast of musical productions found on line. Father and adopted daughter were on the 1901 Census in London, where Edward was listed as a widower.

With these clues, we were able to find passenger lists of the father and daughter leaving Australia, traveling to London and the United States. Harriet married and lived in Washington State. There was a wife, Charlotte Grace, which made me laugh because my ancestor, the music professor Caleb Rand Bill named one of his daughters Charlotte Grace. Another mystery solved. I received a transcript of the marriage record. Such nice people in Australia!

Sadly, the wife Charlotte Grace was left behind in Australia, where she died in an insane asylum. As the details flowed out of Australia over the internet to me, the story became very sad. I sent her the details of Harriet’s life in Washington, and she found a photograph of Edward and Charlotte, but also the record for the asylum. Charlotte died on 21 September 1894, only a few weeks after Edward and Harriet arrived in London on 25 August 1894 . Did they abandon her to die in the asylum? Was she ill before they left?

Soon I had an answer from the Australian Public Records Office Website. This surprised me because I had a family member die at the Danvers, Massachusetts State Hospital in the 1910’s and I can’t get the records without a court order. However, here is the short version of what happened after she was admitted in 1893, suffering delusions:

2/6/94 Fractured hip at (?) and sent to hospital
30/6/94 Progressing favourably
7/9/94 Has a good deal of edema of (?) and side of abdomen also suffering from cystitis
18/9/94 Took to bed finally with (?) patches on hands and scratches on lower left leg - bedsores on ankle
21/9/94 Died at about 10.50pm with cause of death Disease of the heart and dropsy of the lungs.

At the time she was admitted Edward Manning Bill was a school teacher at Diamond Creek, a long way from the Beechworth Insane Asylum in Australia. From what I can tell, with bedsores and other signs of neglect, family was not nearby to monitor her care. In fact, it seems they abandoned her to go to Europe for young Harriet’s musical career?

The photo above is the primary school at Diamond Creek, where Edward Manning Bill was the head teacher from 1870 to 1892. Edward Bill is the man with the white cockatoo, and the woman next to him is Charlotte, his wife. Charlotte taught handcrafts. Diamond Creek is near where Australia experienced its gold rush of 1852. At the time the ship “Chebucto” landed in Australia in 1852 Edward was 21 years old, and his brother Ingraham was only 16!

Thank you to Helen Swaine, of Frankston, Victoria, Australia for helping me to solve this mystery, and for providing the primary source material out of Australia (marriage records, asylum case records, and the photograph!)
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For more information:

I previously blogged about the Bill family on 15 September 2009 in the posting “Tracing Your Minister Ancestors”. Please see this post for the Bill lineage http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/09/tracing-your-minister-ancestors.html.

History of the Bill Family, edited by Ledyard Bill, New York,1867. Updated by Harry Bill, of Billtown, Cornwallis, Nova Scotia

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
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The Mystery of Jonathan Batchelder, Chichester, New Hampshire

The Mystery of Jonathan Batchelder, Chichester, New Hampshire


The Batchelder name is liberally sprinkled over New Hampshire. There are eight Batchelder/Bachellor families listed in the white pages for the Londonderry area. There are Batchelder Roads in towns from Hampton, to Strafford, to Raymond, to Nashua. The first Batchelder immigrant to the New World was the Reverend Stephen Batchelder, born in 1561, who was a founder of Hampton, New Hampshire.

There is a huge red genealogy book labeled “Batchelder Batcheller” available on the shelves of many libraries in the Granite State, as well as in genealogy libraries across the United States. It was written by Frederick Clifton Pierce in 1898, and has had many additions and updates.

It was in this old book that I found my ancestor Jonathan Batchelder, a farmer in Chichester, New Hampshire. Unfortunately, his profile in this book is very scanty. His wife is listed as “Nancy” with no maiden name. He was born “about 1800 in Hampton.” It states that he died in “C. age 46.” I took this to mean Chichester, but it could also be nearby Concord. Why did Jonathan receive such short shrift in a tome full of lengthy and wordy biographies on all the Batchelders descended from Rev. Stephen?

I searched the New Hampshire Vital Records in the files at Concord. I searched the internet and the shelves of the New England Genealogical Society in Boston. I posted queries on genealogical bulletin boards and websites for several years, and didn’t hear anything. Nearly ten years later, I received an interesting email from someone in Seattle.

The Washington State resident who had contacted me had bought a box of old books, and included in them was the account book of Jonathan Batchelder of Chichester, begun in 1831 and ending in the mid 1840s. Stuck inside were the adoption papers of his daughter Paulina, orphaned in 1847.

The finder of this book mailed it me at no charge, and he was just happy to send it to a descendant. I searched the book, but found no clues. The contents listed events such as “rocks and lumber” hauled, necessities bought at the general store, labor hired out for pennies. It was clearly the account of someone who was barely surviving, scraping out a living in rocky Chichester.

At this point I decided to think like a detective. If someone died in 1847, where would it be recorded? I decided to search the old New Hampshire newspapers of the time. What turned up was a very sad story.

New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, March 11, 1847, page 4
Guardian's Sale
"By virtue of a license from the Judge of Probate for the county of Merrimack, the subscriber as guardian of Jonathan Batchelder, of Chichester, in said county, who has been decreed an insane person, will sell at public auction on Wednesday, the 24th day of March next, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, all the right and interest the said Batchelder has in the homestead place on which he the said Batchelder has heretofore resided, containing about fifty five acres of first rate land, on which there is a good lot of timber and wood; the house large and two stories, and recently painted; the barn and shed not old. Said farm is within about two miles of Pittsfield Village, and on the main road from Pittsfield to Concord and Manchester, on which road Stages pass and repass every day. Also, about fifteen acres of pasture and wood land, lying about one half of a mile from said farm, adjoining and of David Brown and others. Terms of payment liberal. Sale on the premises.
D. M. Carpenter, Guardian”

Apparently Jonathan died soon after this notice was published. The Concord State Hospital for the Insane was new in 1847, and it will take a court order to gain permission to look at the records to see what Jonathan’s fate was. The new movement of providing care for the insane in the early 1800’s was considered humane and kind at the time, but would probably give us 21th century citizens goose pimples.

Nancy’s story took a while to untangle.  I dound that her maiden name was Thompson, possibly the daughter of Jonathan Thompson of Gilmanton, New Hampshire, a carpenter, listed on her death record.  She died 14 November 1884 in Sutton, New Hampshire, as the widow of an unknown man named Palmer. I don't know when she remarried or if she had more children. Her daughter Paulina married David C. Watson and removed to Sutton, New Hampshire, too, where she had two sons. 

I still treasure Jonathan’s old account book. It reflects the life of many unrecorded, and barely recorded, citizens of the Granite State.

UPDATED 8 JUNE 2026 

• Gen. 1. The Reverend Stephen Batchelder, b. abt 1561 in Wherwell, Hampshire, England and died about 31 Oct 1656 at "Robert Barber's home" in London, England, married to Ann Bate about 1586 in England. She was born about 1565 and died about 1623 in England. The Reverend Stephen Batchelder was married four times, going to Holland in 1608 with the Separatists, and on June 5, 1632 he arrived in New England aboard the ship "William and Frances" with some of his grandchildren. After living in Lynn, Yarmouth, Newbury and Hampston he returned to England.

• Gen. 2. Nathaniel Batchelder b. abt. 1590 in England d. abt. 1630 in the Netherlands m. to Hester Mercer of Belgium. Nathaniel was a merchant, and as far as we can tell he never came to America, but lived with the separatists in Holland (some of whom became the Pilgrims).

• Gen. 3. Nathaniel Batchelder b. abt 163o in England and d. 17 Jan 1709/10 in Hampton, married to Deborah Smith on 10 Dec 1656. She was born about 1645 at Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard and died 8 Mar 1675/6 at Hampton, daughter of John Smith and Deborah Parkhurst. Nathaniel was a farmer, selectman and constable.

• Gen. 4. Stephen Batchelder, born 19 July 1701 in North Hampton, NH, and died 6 March 1748/9 in North Hampton, married on 1 August 1721 in Hampton, NH to Jane Lamprey. Nine children. 

• Gen. 5. Nathaniel Batchelder born 9 June 1732 in North Hampton, NH, and died at the Battle of Bennington in Vermont along with his son Stephen.  He was married to Mary Longfellow. Nine children born in Deerfield. 

• Gen. 6. Nathaniel Batchelder, born about 1763 in Deerfield, NH, and died 20 August 1809 in Loudon, NH, married in April 1789 in Loudon to Mary Perkins, daughter of Stephen Perkins and Comfort Chesley. Seven children born in Deerfield, Loudon, and Chichester. 

• Gen. 7. Jonathan Batchelder b. about 1800 at Hampton, NH and died before 4 Nov 1847 in Concord or Chichester, NH m. to Nancy Unknown b. about 1804 in Pittsfield, NH and died after 1847. Farmer residing in Chichester.

• Gen. 8. George E. Batchelder b. 13 Aug. 1822 in Chichester, New Hampshire d. 3 Apr 1848 in Chichester m. to Abigail M. Locke on 7 Sept. 1845 in South Boston, Massachusetts. She was born 10 Sept 1825 in South Boston, daughter of Richard Locke and Margaret Welsh, and she died on 15 Jan 1888 in Chichester, New Hampshire. Farmer residing in Chichester.

• Gen. 9. George E. Batchelder b. 8 Oct 1848 in Chichester, New Hampshire and d. 28 Jul 1914 in Cambridge, Massachusetts m. to Mary Katharine Emerson on 28 Oct 1869 in Chichester, NH. She was born on 25 DEec 1847 in South Boston, d. 23 Apr 1932 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, daughter of George Emerson and Mary Esther Younger. Mechanic and farmer in Chichester, worked as a porter in the railroads and in real estate in South Boston.

• Gen 10. Carrie Maude Batchelder b. 22 Sep 1872 in Chichester, NH and d. 21 Jan 1963 at the Sea View Convaescent and Nursing Home in Rowley, Massachusetts, m. to Joseph Elmer Allen on 1 Nov. 1892 in Essex, Massachusetts. He was born on 24 Sept 1870 in Essex, died 12 Mar 1932 at the Masonic Home in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, son of Joseph Gilman Allen and Sarah Burnham Mears. Joseph worked as a steam fitter with his brother's business in Boston and removed back to Essex to be a meat cutter and salesman for Gould's butcher shop in Essex. Carrie and Joseph were my great grandparents.

See this blog post for some updates on the Batchelder genealogy:

https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/09/surname-saturday-new-batchelder-lineage.html  

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To cite link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "The Mystery of Jonathan Batchelder, Chichester, New Hampshire", Nutfield Genealogy, posted August 20, 2009, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/08/mystery-of-jonathan-batchelder.html: accessed [access date]).