THE SEARCH GOES ON

I’ve written before about my 3x great grandfather, John Cutter
West, who I refer to as The Elusive John C. and gave a
brief rundown of some of the problems in trying to find any
record of him here in Massachusetts. In many ways it's like
working on one huge genealogy jigsaw puzzle. I'm still
working at it.

John supposedly was born in Plymouth, Ma. 8 Oct 1802, yet
none of us who’ve researched that have been able to find
any records in the town of Plymouth. So perhaps it was
meant as Plymouth County? There are at present 28 towns
or cities in it, but there were fewer back at the time of
John’s birth since some of the present towns split off from
others. For example, I live in Abington. The neighboring
towns of Rockland and Whitman split off in the late 19th
century. The town of Norwell once was part of Scituate
and the towns of Marion, Mattapoisset and a section of
Eastham were originally part of the town of Rochester.


About 15 or 20 years ago in the pre computer days I did some
driving around to some of the various towns in hopes of turning
something up. I began in Plymouth and then moved to towns
that bordered it, then expanded the search to towns where my
other ancestors had been born. My Packard ancestors were from
Bridgewater and most recently North Bridgewater (which is now
the city of Brockton). The Barrows family came from Plympton
and Carver as did the Dunhams and Bensons. and the Griffiths
(Griffiths) were from the town of Rochester.



I didn’t have much luck with the search. I then tried searching
some of the older local cemeteries but without knowing the names
of John’s parents it was a longshot which didn’t yield any answers.
Neither did several trips to the NEGHS, but to be honest I had no
idea what records I should be searching so I plan to return there
soon better prepared.


Vacation ended and I put the search aside for the moment, telling
myself that I’d go back to it another time.


That time came last year when I started surfing the internet.
Searching for John Cutter West certainly was easier but was just
as frustrating as doing it the old fashioned way. Apparently
there is an adult movie star who has the same name. But online
access to fresh material (to me) gave me a few new ideas on
where to look.


On the 1850 Census for Township Letter B(later Upton), Oxford
County, Me. there are three West families, one being John C.
West’s family, the other two being of an Eli West and another man
named John West. On the 1860 Census, Eli West’s family is gone
but there is now also a Cyrus West and his family listed. Could
there be any connection between thses families and mine? So far
I’ve found none although it seems that the second John West
moved to Errol N.H. where members of my family later lived.



I’ve googled on the name “John Cutter” on the theory that maybe
John C. was named after his grandfather but with no success. I
also googled names of various West siblings and here I thought I
found something. One of John Cutter’s granddaughters was
named Diantha West. I found a Dianthe West, daughter of a John
West and his wife Relief Kingman and with an older brother named
John. The major problem here is that a search on WorldConnect
indicated the family was from the town of Randolph in Norfolk
County, not Plymouth, and the date of birth for Dianthe’s brother
John was the wrong month and year (2 Sep 1801) for him to be
John Cutter West.


Last night I gave another try on Eli West on WorldConnect and
found several entries for that name listing place of birth as being
Rochester, Ma. Looking further I found that his family was also
known as “Wast” or “Waste”, and that he was descended from
Francis Wast(or West) and his wife Susannah Soule. There were
members of the Soule family in Oxford county as well. So could
John Cutter West have been a member of this family and born as
John Cutter Wast?



I’ll keep looking. Hope springs eternal.


After all, if the Red Sox could finally win the World Series twice,
then someday the mystery of John Cutter West will be solved.