#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 16 Air: John McMullan, Vanished into Thin Air

For many years, the only information I had about my 4X-great-grandfather, John McMullan, was a few lines in Across the Years in Prince George's County, the 1947 genealogical Bible penned by the redoubtable Effie Gwynn Bowie, my 2X-great-aunt. According to Aunt Effie, Susan McMullan Keene (my 3X-great-grandmother), was "the daughter of John McMullan (son of Hugh McMullan) of Greensboro, Caroline County, Maryland, and his wife Sarah Tubman, of Richard Tubman IV and Sarah Keene, of Benjamin Keene Sr. "  Aunt Effie was a dogged researcher and I have to assume that she pried that information out of her mother, Marie Louise Keene, and other Keene relatives.

She went on to name Susan's brother, John McMullan and his wife Mary Newton (of Cornwall, England), who lived in Baltimore and had a family burial vault at Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore. 

The only other clue to the McMullans was a large portrait of a handsome woman (affectionately dubbed "Big Mama" by the family) that had hung in my grandfather Frank Scrivener's home as long as I could remember; it had come to him from his mother's home.  According to my uncle, there was at one time a matching portrait of a gentleman, but there was no room for it in my grandparents' house, and my uncle did not know what became of it.  After my grandparents' deaths, the portrait moved to my parents' dining room since they had the only house large enough to accommodate it.  I discovered after some questioning of my grandparents, that portrait was actually Mary Newton McMullan, who died in Baltimore in 1886 and was buried in that Greenmount vault, along with her husband, children, and a few McMullan in-laws. (The matching portrait was probably her husband John.  I do wish I knew what happened to that one.)

In any case, I determined a few years ago to make an effort to discover more about my great-grandfather McMullan.

I started at Greenmount since I knew some of the family were buried there, hoping that perhaps John Sr. had come to Baltimore with his son and was buried with him.  His son Richard (USN) and daughter Ann were there in Greenmount along with John Jr. and his family, but John Sr. was not.

I also scoured 19th-century newspapers from Baltimore.  I found an announcement for John Jr.'s wedding, advertisements for his furniture business, and obituaries for John and his wife and several of their children, but nothing about John Sr.

I decided then to go back to his origins on the Eastern Shore.  I did have some success there when I came across the original Catholic records for St. Joseph Mission in Talbot County.  They showed that John McMullan and Susan Tubman were baptismal sponsors for Susanna Craighton in 1806, probably a niece of Susan, since her sister Sarah married Thomas Creighton. Later, the records showed John and Susan's marriage on 16 May 1808 in Dorchester County, where the Tubman family lived.

I also found John in the probate records of Caroline County as an administrator of the estate of Dennis McMullan in 1806 and inheriting a business from Dennis's estate in 1807. The deposition states that John McMullan taught school near Nine Bridges and that he was  Dennis McMullan's only relation. I infer from this that John's father Hugh McMullan was either dead or was not in America at all.  Dennis may have been an uncle.  I haven't been able to find anything else about him.

In 1814, John entered into some land transactions with his brother-in-law, Richard Tubman (possibly relating to the estate of his father-in-law, Lt. Richard Tubman, who died in 1813.  John sold his property in Caroline County and bought property in Queen Anne's County.  In 1820, John McMullan and his family are in the census in Queen Anne's County: a man aged 26 to 44 (born between 1776 and 1794),  2 boys under the age of 10, a girl under 10 and a girl between 10 and 15. (No clue where his wife was.)

The Church records show a burial for Mrs. McMullan of Kent Island in 1822, and I have assumed that this was Susan Tubman McMullan although I can't be absolutely certain.  No record of a burial for Mr. McMullan.

I also tried researching the Tubman side of this equation, since the Tubmans are a very well-known Eastern Shore family.  Susan Tubman was the daughter of Lt. Richard Tubman (Revolutionary War)  and Ann (Nancy) Travers. (As it turned out, Aunt Effie was a generation off in her genealogy.) Richard and Nancy had children: Sarah, Nancy, Richard, Ann, Susan, John, Charles, and Robert Francis.

The Tubmans married often into the Keene family.  Lt. Richard's mother was Sarah Keene.   His second wife was Polly Keene.  His son, Captain Charles married Emily Keene; his son Dr. Robert Francis married Mary Gaither Keene. And of course, his granddaughter Susan Tubman McMullan married Benjamin Gaither Keene.

There is a large cemetery in Dorchester County where Richard and many others in the family are buried.  I had hopes that I might find Susan or John buried there, but no luck.  My cousin Dan Phelan, also a McMullan descendant,  got permission to photograph the cemetery, and no McMullans.

Dan did turn up one other clue about John, however, a clipping from the Easton MD paper with a story about John McMullan in New York, of all places. He apparently went there in 1828 to claim a runaway slave. The story identifies him as owning property in Queen Anne's County MD. The pastor of St. Peter's Church in New York vouched for his identity, saying he had known him for a number of years.  So John must have visited New York fairly often.

And that is the end of the trail, so far.  I believe that John McMullan was dead by 1835.  Aunt Effie says that his daughter Susan was married that year at Medicine Hill in Talbot County, the home of her guardian, Robert Francis Tubman (also her uncle).  I think he wouldn't have been named her guardian if her parents were still living.

So, to summarize, here's what I know about great-grandfather McMullan:

John McMullan was born probably in Caroline County MD about 1785.  His father Hugh (? but I take Aunt Effie's word on this) was likely from Ireland. I haven't found any trace of him.  John was a school teacher who then inherited a mercantile business from his relative Dennis McMullan.  He married Susan Tubman (both of them Catholics) in Dorchester County MD in 1808, and after the death of his father-in-law, Richard Tubman in 1813, purchased or inherited property in Queen Anne's County, sold his property in Caroline County and moved to Queen Anne's.

John and Susan McMullan had children (and possibly others):
Richard Henry McMullan 1813
Susan Tubman McMullan 1817
John McMullan Jr. 1819
Anna M. McMullan 1820

John McMullan travelled and/or had business in New York by 1828. After that, as far as I can tell, he vanishes into thin air, but is probably dead by 1835.

You would think that a well-to-do land owner would have some kind of probate record, but I haven't found one.  Maybe it's in New York. I haven't given up hope.  Some day I might come across a record that will mention him or his death or at least give me another clue. That is what makes genealogy so much fun to me--there are always more little mysteries to solve.