Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 45 (part 4)

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her series on Mayflower descendants, with her fourth special tribute to fallen heroes to commemorate Memorial Day. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

This is a photo of the cenotaph placed at Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, erected by the Pilgrim John Howland Society in 1958, memorializing the children of Mayflower passengers John and Elizabeth (Tilley) Howland.

Today I continue my series “Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who,” with a special tribute to fallen heroes to commemorate Memorial Day.

“We the living will always be indebted to such a noble dead, and we must pay our debt by preserving those things for which they fought and died, our liberties, our homes, and our nation of liberty.”

–Leland C. Bickford of Nantucket

Much of my research and material for this article came via GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives and Nantucket Historical Association (NHA).

WWII Fallen Heroes

To recap: My last story covered two brothers, Sidney Fulton Henderson (1921-1944) and Robert Adams Henderson (1925-1942), of Nantucket, Massachusetts, descendants of Mayflower passenger George Soule. (See links at the end of this article.)

In addition, I introduced Lt. Harrison “Harry” Ault Gorman of the United States Army Air Forces. He was killed in action while serving as a P-40 fighter pilot. Harrison was in transit from Australia to Java when his transport vessel (USS Edsall DD-219) was attacked by Japanese forces and sunk in the Indian Ocean.

Lt. Harrison is a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley.

Harrison A. Gorman’s Lineage:

• John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley
• Desire Howland and John Gorham
• Shubael Gorham and Puella Hussey
• Lydia Gorham and Joseph Worth
• Abigail Worth and George Bunker
• Lydia Bunker and Shubael Folger
• Simeon Folger and Phebe Wyer
• Sarah Folger and David Wood
• Charlotte C. Wood and Charles Chase Alley
• Charles Wyer Alley and Annie E. Platt
• Meta Ann Alley and Charles William deVarennes
• Geneve Eleanor DeVarennes and Harrison Charles Gorman
• Harrison “Harry” Ault Gorman

Many of Lt. Gorman’s ancestors are listed on the two early monuments dedicated to Nantucket’s founders. Here is a photo of the monument to the male lines.

Here is a photo of the monument to the female lines.

This Boston Herald newspaper clip mentions two of the fallen heroes in this story: Lt. Harrison Gorman and Lt. Robert Henderson.

This article reports:

However, the service roll [for Nantucket] bears three golden stars, opposite the names of Harry Gorman, Mason Stevens, and Robert Henderson, with a promise of more fatal stars to come before the Stars and Stripes is safe. To “avenge” his dead son, Patrolman William Henderson was given leave of absence to join the Coast Guard.

Officer Henderson would lose another son, Sidney, to the war. Below is a photo of Mr. Henderson with his fellow officers at the Policeman’s Ball, Sconset Casino, Massachusetts, in 1930. In this photo we see (left to right): Chief Lawrence Mooney, Everett Lamb, William Henderson, Wendell Howes, and Richard Barrett.

Civil War Fallen Hero

Among Lt. Gorman’s relatives to fall in battle was his great uncle Leander F. Alley (1833-1862), son of Obed and Susan (Chase) Alley (1791-1875), daughter of Captain Reuben and Judith (Gardner) Chase. The genealogical ties through many marriages also place these two fallen heroes as cousins.

One unfortunate distinction for Union soldier Lt. Leander Alley is that he was the first man from Nantucket killed in the Civil War.

Below is a photo of Lt. Leander’s mother, who married Samuel Mitchell (1785-1866) after the death of Leander’s father Obed Alley.

Lt. Alley had traveled the world on a whaleship, and joined the Union army in response to George Nelson Macy’s call for volunteers.

He fell at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862. His body was returned to Nantucket at Christmastime; schools and businesses were closed for the first military funeral on Nantucket.

This article reports:

The body of Lieut. Leander F. Alley of Nantucket, Company I, 20th Mass. Regiment, who was killed at Fredericksburg, arrived in Boston Tuesday, and was forwarded to Nantucket yesterday, being in [the] charge of Private Josiah F. Murphey, who was wounded at the same time.

A little tidbit on Lt. Alley is furnished in the letters of Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General Henry Livermore Abbott (1842-1864), son of Josiah Gardner and Caroline (Livermore) Abbott. He served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 20th Mass. with Lt. Alley and was killed in action in the Battle of the Wilderness.

In one letter, Abbott refers to Lt. Alley as “a regular old salt and used to be first mate [on] a whaler and is usually a gruff old fellow who isn’t given to flattery.”

To his mother he confided that Lt. Alley, who was “for years first mate on a Nantucket whaler, [is] a regular old American sailor who despises everything like poppery.”

Abbott was devastated by Alley’s death at the Battle of Fredericksburg, telling his father that he had “felt the same pang” he experienced on learning of his beloved brother (Edward Gardner Abbott) Ned’s death at Cedar Mountain in August.

(Richard Miller, “Brahmins Under Fire: Peer Courage and the Harvard Regiment,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Volume 30, No. 1, Winter 2002.)

Lt. Alley married Mary Elizabeth Winslow (1836-1919), daughter of Shubael and Ann (Baker) Winslow and a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow.

Here is their wedding announcement published in the newspaper.

This notice reports:

In Nantucket Sept. 29, by Rev. J. E. Swallow, Mr. Leander F. Alley and Miss Mary E., daughter of Mr. Shubael M. Winslow.

The couple had one daughter, Emma France Alley (1860-1916), who married Charles Franklin Hartford (1855-1919), son of Charles Franklin Hartford Sr. and Hannah Bourne (Ellis) Hartford, and left descendants.

One was a daughter, Susan Victoria Hartford (1889-1921), who married Herbert Parsons Patterson (1887-1979), son of John Nelson and Mary Esther (Briant) Patterson, and left descendants.

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Note on the header image: “Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor,” by William Halsall, 1882. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Related Articles:

• Photo Album: Howland and Gorham Descendants (part 1)
• Photo Album: Howland and Gorham Descendants (part 2)
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who Part 31 (part 2)
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 45 (part 1)
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 45 (part 2)
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 45 (part 3)