I've put this site together to share the information I have collected regarding the family of John Stranger and Mary Ann (Bennett) Stranger.
A Brief Family History
On
February 27th
1853 in Chudleigh, Devon, England, John Stranger, a 22
year old farmer from Holne, Devon, married Marianne Bennett, age 30 from
Dunsford, Devon.
On the 14th of March, after being married less than three
weeks, they stepped aboard the ship Wisconsin
and set sail for the the Port of New York where they arrived 36 days later on
April 19th.
Ships like the Wisconsin were referred to as a packet ships. They were
small, measuring only about 125 feet in length.
Sails were there only means of power and it generally took a packet about
28 days to cross the Atlantic.
Steam ships were not put into use until the 1860's.
In 1853 there was no immigration authority or Ellis Island.
Our ancestors simply disembarked and pursued their dreams in whatever
manner they saw fit.
A number of Mary's siblings (Bennetts) arrived in the port of New York on the ship "Yorktown" on June 30th of 1855. Among them were her brother James (26), his wife Elizabeth (28), other brothers George (18), and William (16). Although John and Mary Ann Stranger had taken up residence in Michigan prior to 1855, the poem titled "An Emigrants Reminiscence" written by Marianne A.Stranger was published in the New York Dispatch on September 2, 1855. Perhaps they returned to New York to meet the arriving relations and submitted the poem at that time.
John filed for citizenship in 1854 in Hillsdale county, Michigan and by 1859 John and Mary Ann had moved to Three Rivers in St Joseph county Michigan. All three of their children were born (Matilda, Fred, & Albert) were born in Michigan. I am quite certain that James Bennett and his wife Elizabeth also lived nearby in Michigan at that time but have been unable to confirm that. The civil war took the lives of two of Marys four brothers. Her youngest brother William likely perished at Andersonville prison, and another brother, not yet identified, is believed to be buried on Lookout Mountain Georgia (Chicamaugua). By 1870 the Strangers returned to the area of Hillsdale and Jonesville where John was involved with the wholesale and retail sale of meat. They had moved to Detroit by 1877 and then to East Saginaw. Mary spent the summer months in Northern Michigan around Petoskey during the 1880s.
Matilda
Stranger, the daughter of John and Mary Ann, died of typhoid at the age of 27 (1886) in
East Saginaw Michigan. Her youngest brother Albert John worked with his father
in the meat market and later as a printer. Likely due to complications
caused by epilepsy, he became a patient at the Eastern Michigan Asylum in Pontiac
about 1890. Albert died at the institution in
1919.
Fred, the eldest son of
John and Mary Ann, worked for the railroad in Topeka, Kansas in 1880. He married
Emma Empey in 1885 in Saginaw Michigan where their first child (Hazel) was born
about 1888. Fred and his wife Emma had moved to Spokane Falls by 1890 as had the
family of Emma Empey.
Fred and Emma had 7 more children, four of which died
before reaching the age of two. Their son Fred died at nine years of age
in Trail, British Columbia, Canada in the early 1900's, where son Jack was born.
The family had moved back to the United States by 1910 and resided in Coeur d'
Alene Idaho. By 1920 Fred and Emma had moved to Spokane, Washington
where spent the rest of their years.
Freds mother, Mary Ann [Bennett] Stranger also moved to Spokane Falls, Washington from East Saginaw, Michigan in late 1890 and resided there until her death in 1903. The last record of her husband John is 1887 in East Saginaw Michigan and his fate is not yet known.
Hazel, the eldest daughter of Fred and Emma, never married. Jack was married for a brief time but the marriage was at best brief and perhaps may have been annulled. Five of the children had died at an early age leaving Carl as the only sibling of eight to have a family. Carl Harold married emigrant Siri Elenora Anderson in Stevens County Washington on September 30th 1924. Siri, along with brother Johan and sister Victoria (Anderson) Wilson, who at the time resided in Metaline Falls Washington, arrived in the United States from Sweden on October 9,1923 aboard the SS United States. Carl and Siri married in Stevens county Washington in 1924 and had children Carl Robert (Bob), Fred William (Bill), and Mary Lou (Suzie) who were raised in the Kingston area of the silver valley of northern Idaho. Upon the sudden death of their mother Siri in 1946 the extended family of the Andersons, who lived in nearby Washington, provided a great deal of support to the family. Carl Harold remained in the silver valley until his death in 1967. Both Carl and Siri Elenora are buried at the Hunt cemetery in Kingston, Idaho.
