Angus Chute, born October 28, 1836; married Nancy Hawley, 1855, had three sons who all died, wife too, at Key West, Fla., of yellow fever in 1865. He married 2nd, Emily Anna Wells, July 1, 1871, Lynn, Mass. Mr, Chute was a carpenter, and after living in Cambridge, East Boston and other places, returned to Florida, and located (1890) in Ocala."
Source: A Genealogy and History of the Chute Family in America: With Some Account of the Family in Great Britain and Ireland, with an Account of Forty Allied Families Gathered from the Most Authentic Sources, William Edward Chute. Salem, Massachusetts, 1894. Page 139.
In the 1900 and 1910 census, Angus's parents are listed as being born in Wales. As this was true of neither of his parents, it is more likely that Emily Ann Wells Chute was answering the questions for him, and inadvertently gave information on her own parents, rather than his. His year of immigration to the United States was also given as both 1889 (1910 census) and 1843 (1900 census). As he is already listed in the Cambridge, Massachusetts city directory as living and working as a carpenter in 1875, the 1843 date is far more likely.
"Born June 14, 1841; married Mary White, 1860, who died August, 1866, aged twenty-three. He married 2nd, Fanny A., daughter of Deacon William H. Goudey (Stephen, James), Mar 28, 1868, and lived in and around Boston for twenty years; moved to Lynn in 1891."
Source: Chute, William Edward. A Genealogy and History of the Chute Family in America: With Some Account of the Family in Great Britain and Ireland, with an Account of Forty Allied Families Gathered from the Most Authentic Sources. Salem, Massachusetts, 1894. Page 139.
"Son Thomas, was recorded as the son of a "Melvin Chute, from Chute's Cove, Nova Scotia to Newburyport, Massachusetts ... he may have had a son, Thomas, born about 1863, who drifted away from the family of David Melvin Chute and his second wife, Fanny Goudey."
"Anna L. Chute, b. Sept. 23, 1869; m. Herbert W. Cox, Apr. 5 1886; have three daughters; live in Lynn."
Source: A Genealogy and History of the Chute Family in America: With Some Account of the Family in Great Britain and Ireland, with an Account of Forty Allied Families Gathered from the Most Authentic Sources. William Edward Chute, Salem, Massachusetts, 1894, p. 139
I am fairly certain that the Lynn, Massachusetts family found in the 1900 United States Census is the right family. However, there are two discrepancies: the marriage date and "years married" information provided to the Census taker did not match William Chute's records. The other discrepancy is Ann/Anne/Anna/Annie's middle initial, which also does not match Chute records. Mildred having been born in 1894 explains why WEC found three daughters while the Census recorded four. More research needs to be done to certify the records for this family.
"Died at age 6."
Source: Chute, George Maynard, Jr. Chute Family in America in the 20th Century. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan & London, 1967
Cemetery records say he died at age 7, which would have made his estimated birth year 1904 to 1905, as he died in March of 1911.
Born in Byfield, May 16, 1809; married Sarah Maria Winslow Chandler7 (Peleg6, Peleg5, Philip4, Joseph3, Joseph2, Edmund1 and Rebecca Phillips, of Duxbury, 1633); Peleg6 married Esther Parsons5 (Col. Isaac4, Dea. Isaac3, Ebenezer2, Jeffrey1 of Gloucester, Mass.), Peleg5 married Sarah Winslow5 (Barnabas4, Gilbert3, Capt. Nahaniel2, Kenelm1, 1590-1672, married Eleanor Newton, 1598-1681, widow of John Adams, over about 1630); of Bangor, Me., April 25, 1836. Mr. Chute fitted for college at Dummer Academy in his native parish, graduated at Bowdoin, Me., 1832; Theological Seminary at Andover 1835; ordained a minister in the Congregational church at Oxford, Me., 1836; held pastorates in Pownal to 1842; Lynnfield, Mass., 1851, to 1857; Ware four years following, including, intervals of teaching in Warren Academy, Woburn, 1841 to 1848; the academy at Milton, and the Dummer Academy near his native home. After 1861, he was in the government service in the Boston Custom House, and in the United States Treasury, Boston, retiring with the reputation of a skillful and valuable officer. Since the war he lived a retired life at Sharon, Mass; where he died happy in the Lord Jesus, Dec. 18, 1887. His wife, born in 1805, still lives."
Source: Chute, William Edward. A Genealogy and History of the Chute Family in America: With Some Account of the Family in Great Britain and Ireland, with an Account of Forty Allied Families Gathered from the Most Authentic Sources. Salem, Massachusetts, 1894. Pages 140-141.
"Richard Henry, born in Woburn, Mass., Mar. 14, 1843; enlisted into Co. C, 35th Mass. Inf., Aug. 7, 1862; promoted to 2nd Lieut. of Co. F, 59th Mass., Dec. 4, 1863; 1st Lieut., Feb. 14, 1864; and Captain June 23. He was taken prisoner at North Anna, Va., May 24, 1864; paroled Dec. 10, and discharged for disability Mar.1, 1865. Then he went to St. Louis, Mo., and was clerk for Lamb & Quinlan, two or three years, but engaged in the lumber business early in 1869. In 1872 he located at Louisianna, Mo., and in 1875, settled in Eau Claire, Wis. He married Nov. 6, 1867, in Georgetown, Mass., Susan Rebecca, daughter of Humphrey and Susan R. (Horner) Nelson."
Source: Chute, William Edward. A Genealogy and History of the Chute Family in America: With Some Account of the Family in Great Britain and Ireland, with an Account of Forty Allied Families Gathered from the Most Authentic Sources. Salem, Massachusetts, 1894. Page 180.
"Richard H. Chute, an honored veteran of the Civil war and one of the substantial business men of Minneapolis, has devoted his life to the lumber industry, and his operations in this field have been rewarded by a gratifying measure of success. He was born at Woburn, Massachusetts, March 14, 1843, a son of the Rev. Ariel P. and Sarah M. W. (Chandler) Chute, the former a native of Byfield, that state, and the latter of New Gloucester, Maine. The father was widely known throughout New England as a minister of the Congregational church. His death occurred in Massachusetts in 1887. He was a son of Richard Chute, who devoted his attention to manufacturing interests and died at St. Louis, Missouri, while on a business trip to that city.
Richard H. Chute obtained a public school education and in August, 1862, when nineteen years of age, he enlisted for service in the Civil war, becoming a member of Company C, Thirty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He was later transferred to the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Veterans, with which he served until the close of the war, and was repeatedly promoted, being mustered out with the rank of captain. He fought in many of the most notable engagements of the war and participated in the battles of South Mountain, Antietam and Predericksburg. He was sent with his command to Kentucky and also took part in the siege of Vicksburg, returning to Virginia to be with Grant during his campaign in the Wilderness. At North Anna river he was taken prisoner and for eight and a half months was confined in Libby prison and at Macon and Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina.
After the restoration of peace Mr. Chute went to St. Louis, Missouri, where he was connected with the lumber trade from 1865 until 1872, and in the latter year removed to Louisiana, that state, where he had charge of a lumberyard for three years. In 1875 he was sent by the owners of the business to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and about 1887 was made manager of their mills. Six years later he became associated with the Mississippi & Rum River Boom Company, which he has since represented in a managerial capacity, and he also became secretary and treasurer of the St. Paul Boom Company, which ceased operations in 1914. He is treasurer and active manager of the Mississippi & Rum River Boom Company, which handles the logs on their way to the mills, and likewise serves as vice president of the Northland Pine Company, both of which profit by his executive ability and broad practical experience. For thirty years he has been connected with the lumber industry in this city and there is no phase of the business with which he is not thoroughly familiar.
On the 6th of November, 1867, Mr. Chute was married to Miss Susan R. Nelson of Georgetown, Massachusetts, and to their union were born five children, three of whom survive, namely: Arthur L., a surgeon of Boston, Massachusetts; Robert W., a teller in the Federal Reserve National Bank; and Rebecca. Mr. Chute is a republican in his political views, standing for principle and good government rather than for the blind following of party leaders, and loyally supporting those measures and movements which are projected for the advancement and upbuilding of his city. He attends the Lowry Hill Congregational church and is connected with the Grand Army of the Republic, having membership with Eagle Post of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Throughout his career he has been a persistent, resolute and energetic worker and notwithstanding the privations, hardships and suffering which he endured while in military service, he is still an active factor in the world's work, although seventy-nine years of age. His has been an upright, honorable and useful life, guided by high ideals and characterized by the successful accomplishment of valuable results."
Source: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; Chicago-Minneapolis, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); RICHARD HENRY CHUTE - Vol II, pg 786-787.
Notes on 1880 Census: This census lists a daughter, Margaret, listed as being 3 months old in 1880. Daughter Rebecca, born in 1879, is not listed. I suspect that they may be the same individual, even though Rebecca, born in August of 1879, would not have been 3 months old in 1880; she would have been 5 months old in January of 1880, and this record does not state when the census was taken in 1880. In any event, Margaret may have been Rebecca's middle name; she is recorded as a separate daughter in this record until definitive proof that they are the same person is found.
"Born in Byfield, April 11, 1814; married Ann M., daughter of Isaac Perry, Esq. of Orland, Me., Sept. 30, 1836, and was a merchant and captain of militia in Newburyport, Mass. But he lived in Maine over thirty years, between 1826 and 1859. Had a Golden Wedding in 1886, and died July 9, 1890; she died Jan. 1, 1888, aged seventy-one."
Source: Chute, William Edward. A Genealogy and History of the Chute Family in America: With Some Account of the Family in Great Britain and Ireland, with an Account of Forty Allied Families Gathered from the Most Authentic Sources. Salem, Massachusetts, 1894. Pages 141-142.
1 male, 30-40 (Andrew) 1 female (20-30) (Ann Maria Perry Chute) |
There were three little Chute boys brought to Newburyport, Mass. in 1820 after the death of their father, Dick; Ariel, who was eleven years old, Andrew, six and Ben, four. Their mother, Dorothy, planned to keep a boarding-house for girls in order to support her family. Her plan proved successful and she not only took care of herself and her children but was able to give two of her boys a college education. That is another story. This one is to be about Andrew, father of my father, Edward. The reports on Andrew seem to agree that he was a quiet man, gentle, unassuming, a man not given to telling stories or jokes, a man who talked little and never about himself. It would be interesting to know whether he was born that way. Was he a quiet, soft-spoken, rather silent boy or did the circumstances of his life and the pressure of hard times cause him to draw into himself and remain aloof? His younger brother, Ben, who in his last years made his home with Andrew, once said, "Now, I am a talkative man, always was, always will be. But Andrew is quite different. The chances are that if Andrew went down street and saw the angels of God ascending and descending on a ladder he would come home and never say a word about it."
I remember seeing my grandfather Andrew, whenever, as a very little girl I visited my grandparent's home in Newburyport. Though I was nearly nine years old when Grandfather died in 1890, I have but few memories of him. He used to sit almost all day by the kitchen window in a chair called the "Captain's" chair, for he was quite crippled with rheumatism. He would smile at us as we children played around him but seldom spoke. It was from Uncle Ben that we learned about Andrew's Life. Ben loved children and we adored him for he played with us and told us stories by the hour. Many of these stories were tales of his own boyhood and of Andrew's for they had been inseparable companions.
As small boys, Andy and Ben went to public school. They lived at the boarding-house, ran errands and helped their mother after school and on Saturdays. In those days Newburyport must have been an exciting place for youngsters. There was much traffic on the Merrimac river with boats going upriver to Haverhill, Lawrence and Lowell or down to the sea. There was the constant coming and going of fishing schooners bound for the Banks. Coastwise vessels stopped to trade or load freight for Boston or other seaports, and larger vessels going to distant ports were loaded or unloaded at Newburyport's many wharfs. The shipyards which were later to build the clipper ships were busy places, and the boys must have watched many a ship being built and launched as they played around the wharves or rowed their small boat on the river. Most boys in those days dreamed of going to sea, and many did go if only to try it out by taking a three month's cruise as cabin boy.
Andrew always loved the sea. Perhaps he might have chosen it as his profession had not something happened when he was twelve years old that changed his whole life. One day a letter came to Dorothy from the Buck family of Bucksport, Maine. They offered to take one of her boys in the customary way, i.e. he would be bound out to them for a ten year period. They agreed to take good care of him, feed, clothe, give him an ordinary schooling and teach him a trade. As Mr. Buck was owner and manager of a general store this meant that the boy would be taught all phases of merchandizing, starting from the ground up, including selling, shipping and accounting. He would live in Mr. Buck's home and be treated as a son.
Dorothy could not consider sending Ariel. He was too old, seventeen, and besides he was well started toward college being already in Dummer Academy and entered at Bowdoin for the next year. Benny was too young. Twelve was the proper age and Andrew was just that age. Why did she consider sending him, depriving him of a chance of a college education, giving up her dream of making him a teacher or minister? Perhaps she felt that the expenses of Ariel were so heavy that she couldn't undertake the education of all three sons. Perhaps she thought that Andrew needed a man's hand in his bringing up. Perhaps Andrew, being a boy, wanted very much the adventure of going to Maine, of working in a store. It is reported of Andrew that he had a very good mind, even better than had his two brothers, so it was not a question of his lack of ability. We just don't know why, we only know that the papers were signed binding out Andrew to Mr. Buck for ten years.
Andrew undertook the trip to Bucksport alone, going all the way by boat. Like Newburyport, Bucksport was on a navigable river, the Penobscott, and there was much traffic with ships coming and going from that good harbor. But Andrew, after getting established in his new home, found no time to play around the wharves as he had done in Newburyport. All his time except during school hours was spent at the store. He was fascinated by the large stock, everything from fishhooks to potatoes. People from the region round about all came to trade at Buck's store. Andrew was so bright and quick that he soon made a place for himself and seems to have been happy in his new life.
In those days one of the diversions for young people was Singing School. After the fun of singing together, there was the possibility of seeing a girl home, a good way to get acquainted. At Singing School Andrew met Ann Perry and her sister Hannah, daughters of Squire Perry one of the prominent citizens of the neighboring town of Orland. The Squire had married twice. He had three boys by his first wife. After her death he married Hannah Wood and had six more children. Of these, Ann was the oldest. It must have been fun for Andrew to go to that home, where seven boys and two girls made things lively. At any rate he did go there often, and soon fell in love with Ann. She was sixteen and he nineteen when this happened.
Remember, Ann must have been a very pretty girl. She was a beautiful old lady; I remember her delicate, regular features, her deepset eyes, soft brown eyes and her fluffy silver-white hair. She also had a lovely soprano voice. With her two brothers, and sister Hannah, the Perry quartette was so well liked that they were asked to sing at funerals, weddings, concerts and all sorts of community affairs.
Ann and Andrew were married in September 1836, when Ann was nineteen and Andrew twenty-two. I presume they had to wait until Andrew's ten years with Mr. Buck were completed. At twenty-two he was his own man, and thereafter was paid a regular salary at the store, making marriage possible.
Many young couples in Maine at this time began married life living with their parents. Houses were large, lumber and labor cheap, families were big and one or two persons more made very little difference. So the bride and groom went to live at the Perry homestead in Orland.
Ann and Andrew lived in Maine for twenty years. The records are very meager. We know that seven children were born to them. One, Kimball, died in infancy, but the other six, Charles, Martha, Elizabeth, George, Sarah, James and Edward lived to grow up. We know that Andrew lived in Orland until 1845, for there George was born at that time. Andrew took his place in community affairs. He joined the militia and rose to the rank of Lieutenant. In 1849 he was promoted to adjutant and honorably discharged in 1853 at his own request. The family was living in Castine when Edward the youngest was born in November l853, and when he was but three months old they drove with him in midwinter by horse and sleigh to Ellsworth where the family lived for six more years. In l859 they decided to move to Newburyport Mass., Andrew's childhood home. The oldest son Charles had gone to sea some years previous to the family's departure from Maine and was sailing in a square-rigged vessel to far eastern ports. George having finished high school had taken a place in Dutton's general store in Ellsworth. He was sixteen and earning his own way, so remained behind. But the two girls, Elisabeth and Sarah, 18 and 14, and the two little boys, Jim, 9, and Edward, 6, accompanied their parents.
The family first lived on Green Street, then Fruit, and finally High St., near the Belleville church where they were living when as small children my brother (Charles) and I used to visit them. Andrew worked as chief accountant in Coleman's lumber yard and later in life had other positions. He was a natural gardener, had what is called a green thumb. Every inch of his yard was cultivated. He was famous for his flowers as well as his vegetables. I used to admire his sweet peas which he planted in late fall instead of in spring as did other people. His were early and hardy and especially fragrant. His tomatoes were huge and sweet. It was his joy to grow and supply such good things for his family and the neighbors.
But the first decade of life in Newburyport, from 1860 to l870 must have been a trying time for Ann and Andrew. It was the civil war period when feelings ran high, people were fearful of the future and anxious about the present. Prices were high and things not easily obtainable. Newburyport, being the home of William Lloyd Garrison, was strong for the Union and strong for the abolition of slavery. In Andrew's family, the war, when it came was called the War of the Rebellion, implying that the seceding states were rebels against their own country. Slavery was a wicked thing to Andrew, a blot on his beloved land that must be eradicated at any cost. Abraham Lincoln was revered and loved. So feelings ran high in the community. Group after group of volunteers, with flags flying and bands playing, marched away to save the Union.
Andrew was too old to go and George, just 18, though he tried to enlist, was rejected as too young. After the war had dragged on for three years he got his chance and enlisted in CO. K of the 59th Mass. Volunteers, and marched away to the south. Then began an anxious period for the family at home. There was no easy communication in those days. Andrew went down to the City Hall every morning to look at the list of wounded and dead posted daily on the Court House door. He heard by letter occasionally from George and knew that he was in the thick of the action, in the Battle of the Wilderness, also at Spotsylvania. Later, in the Battle of North Anna River, he was severely wounded. He was more than a year in one hospital after another before he was discharged. These two years of anxiety were hard on Ann and Andrew, but a happy event occurred in 1863. Martha Elizabeth, now 22, became engaged to William Peters of a well-known and distinguished family in Maine. So it seemed that this marriage should be a happy thing for "Lizzie", though it was hard to let her go. She was a lovely person, charming and beautiful. In after years the highest compliment that could be given to any of us was, "She looks like Lizzie". She was also a talented musician, gave voice lessons, and herself took lessons from a famous teacher in Boston. All in all Lizzie had a unique place in the family and they would all miss her.
The marriage took place in September, and Lizzie went away to Ellsworth, Maine, but not for long. In only five years she died of child bed fever, leaving three little boys, John, 4, Charles, 2, and William Chute, 9 days old. This sad event greatly changed the life of Ann and Andrew. Added to their grief was the anxiety of what was to become of the children. The Peters relatives offered to take John and Charles and it seemed to Ann that it was her duty to take the baby William. So Willie became a part of the family thereafter and grew up as another son. It was a great care and responsibility for Ann. She herself was not in good health and the finances of the family at this time were not in good shape. However Sarah, by this time through school and herself teaching was young and full of life. She practically adopted little Willie, caring for him except during school hours. Edward, still in high school, did much to help his over-burdened mother also. James was on the high seas having shipped on a long voyage to the orient and would not be home for two years.
Just at the end of this decade came another blow. Charles, who was now first Mate on the John Bryant, a square-rigger in trade with the Orient, contracted a fever on the way home. He was taken ashore in the longboat at Queenstown, Ireland, but died before reaching shore. He was buried in Ireland. He had married an English girl but had no children. Now Ann and Andrew had lost their two oldest.
When James came from his long voyage he was no longer interested in a life on the sea, but was caught up in tales of the far west so decided to go out and join his cousin Dick in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Dick was a lumber merchant, so James often took rafts of lumber down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Later he drove cattle from Texas to Kansas, always on the lookout for Indians. He seemed to have become a real westerner and likely to remain there.
George married in 1872 Clara Wood of Bluehill, Maine. He settled in Chelsea, Mass. near Boston and engaged in the hardware business. Edward, after finishing high school, worked in the Newburyport Post Office, but in 1877 he took up his studies again at Andover Seminary in order to become a minister. In 1880 he married my mother, Julia Hawes Cleaveland. Sarah continued her teaching and little Willie grew up as her special care and joy.
So the years passed. Ann's sister, Hannah, joined the family especially to help care for Willie, though in her mid-seventies. She became invalided and spent most of her time in bed. Uncle Ben, Andrew's younger brother, also came to live with the family. These elderly relatives were the first of five such who spent their last years at Andrew's home. There was no such thing as old age security and no help for the aged, except to live with a kind relative.
Andrew had retired in the late 1870s, being too crippled to carry on any longer. Sarah was now the mainstay of the family, and her small salary supported them all. To increase her earnings she took on the teaching of English to foreigners at evening school.
In 1886 occurred Ann and Andrew's golden wedding, a great event in those days. Ann, though bedridden enjoyed it all. I remember the excitement, the callers, the presents when as a child of five I went to this festive occasion. Ann died in 1888 and Andrew in 1890. At this latter date there were four children living and eleven grandchildren, with one more to come.
So this is the story of silent Andrew. He did not amass a fortune or become famous for any great deed. He did not go to war to fight for his country as he would have liked to do. He did not teach or preach or write a book, he just lived simply and quietly. He worked hard, loved his wife and raised seven children, all of whom became good honest citizens and an influence for good to those around them. There are many unsung heroes such as he. His children have now all passed on and there are but two or three of his grandchildren who remember him, but because I do remember him a little and have been told a little more I've written this story about my Chute grandparents so that later descendants may know about these two ancestors and honor them.
"Charles R., b. Aug. 1, 1837; m. Mary Robinson, Aug. 8, 1874, was mate of the ship Quickstep; d. at Queenstown, Ireland, Sep, 1870".
Source: Chute, William Edward. A Genealogy and History of the Chute Family in America: With Some Account of the Family in Great Britain and Ireland, with an Account of Forty Allied Families Gathered from the Most Authentic Sources. Salem, Massachusetts, 1894. Page 141
Handwritten notation in pencil, in margin of book, written by George M. Chute, Jr.: "Per 1/6/71 letter from Phyllis Johnson, Arlington: had son Robert William."
"Charles R Chute was a first mate on the John Bryant, a square rigger in trade to the Orient, when he contracted a fever on the way home. He was taken ashore by long boat at Queenstown, Ireland, but died before reaching shore. He was buried in Ireland. Charles had married Mary Robinson, an English girl, in 1864, but they had no children.
Source: "Silent Andrew" by Helen Chute Lightner.