Heirlooms: Betsey's Inkwell

While cataloging heirlooms for my current project, I came across this piece that I have had since about 1978 or so:

I believe this is an inkwell.  It is glass & silver and engraved "Betsey."  It came out of the Jones house in Hankinson, North Dakota.

I had forgotten that it was engraved and I had never tried to determine who "Betsey" was.  So I decided to figure it out.

I went looking through my data on the Jones family searching for an Elizabeth or Betsey.  While I did not find a Jones that fit, I did find a Stilwell ancestor named Betsey.  And I am confident this inkwell was hers.

Betsey Dennis was born in Stonington, New London, Connecticut on 25 May 1785.  She married Hamilton White on 11 December 1803 in Stonington.   The 1850 census shows them in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Hamilton was 76 and Betsey 56.   The 1860 census shows them in Decatur, Van Buren, Michigan.  They were shown as 85 and 75 and living with Samuel White and his wife, Sarah.

Hamilton White died in 1862.  Betsey is found on the 1870 census in Metomen, Wisconsin, living with her daughter, Mary K. (White) Stilwell and Mary's husband, Lonson Stilwell.  Betsey is 85. 

Betsey died in Metomen on 30 April 1875.  She and her husband, Hamilton, are buried in Reeds Corner Bethel Cemetery, Ripon, Wisconsin.

So it makes sense that the inkwell passed to Betsey's daughter, Mary K. (White) Stilwell, since Betsey was living with her daughter when she died.

Mary K. (I've never seen any documentation as to her middle name) was born 1 May 1824 in New York and married Lonson Stilwell 29 September 1842 in New York.  They moved to Metomen, Wisconsin in May of 1846.  Here is an overview of their family.

Mary's husband, Lonson, died in 1887.  By 1895, she was living with her daughter, Mary Elva (Stilwell) Jones in her daughter's home in Hankinson, North Dakota.  Mary K. died 20 April 1901 at the Jones home in Hankinson.  She was also buried in Reeds Corner Bethel Cemetery in Ripon, Wisconsin.

The inkwell then seems to have passed to Betsey's granddaughter, Mary Elva (Stilwell) Jones.  And it was still in the Jones home when the household was broken up by the heirs after Harold Jones' death in 1978.

Betsey (Dennis) White would be my grandchildrens' 5 times great-grandmother.  It is wonderful and amazing to be able to pass this precious little bottle on to one of them.