Mary D Comfort, wife of James W Johnson

Mary and James married in 1856 in Catskill, NY and had a daughter named Minnie in New York City in 1860. None of them were found in the 1860 or the 1870 census. I had stumbled upon a NYC marriage record for Minnie in October 1880 and then, checking the 1880 census, found her with her father (born in Ohio), an assumed sister Fannie (also born in Ohio), a stepmother (born in Mass) and 2 young NY born half siblings.

Focusing in on Fannie Johnston, I could find no record of the family in Ohio nor of her birth there about 1864.  With the 20 year time gap between the 1880 and the 1900 census, I hoped that Fannie had married and that I’d find some additional information about her birthplace. Unexpectedly I discovered an 1890 marriage announcement for Fannie HERENDEEN, daughter of James W Johnston, uniting with Rev Henry Freeman of Troy, NY. That led me to realize that Mary Comfort and James Johnston were not her parents as first assumed.
Fannie’s parents were Elizabeth Boyden and Richard Ward Herenden[1], who married in Massachusetts. They moved to Zanesville, Ohio where Fannie was born in 1863, and returned to Massachusetts where Richard died in 1866. Fannie and her widowed mother were living in Lowell, Mass and somehow James W Johnston came into the picture and married Elizabeth there in 1872.

Elizabeth’s maiden name was also confirmed by the birth records of her younger children in NYC. 

The 1872 Lowell, Mass marriage record for Elizabeth and James provided additional helpful information. James, a merchant residing in New York, was listed as born in Zanesville, Ohio to Irish immigrant parents John and Isabella. Eliza is listed as Herenden, residing in Lowell. It was a second marriage for each.  So…. What happened to Minnie’s mother, Mary Comfort Johnston?

Having obtained evidence that pointed to James and Mary living in NYC after their marriage, I scoured newspapers for some evidence of her or her demise. She seems to have disappeared after the birth of Minnie in 1860 and prior to James’ remarriage in 1872. I finally found a death notice in the New York Herald published on 4 July 1861. Mary had died two days earlier and was buried in Catskill, most likely in the family plot at the Village Cemetery. Her parents Joel and Emeline were still alive and may have taken her infant daughter Minnie into their home immediately.

The interim years are still unknown as to where Minnie and her father were living, but they were together again, in an extended family, in 1880. Finally, the mystery of Mary Comfort has been solved.  Minnie lived to be 92 and is buried with her husband’s family in Connecticut.

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[1] Variously spelled Herendeen or Herenden