#52 Ancestors 2022 Week 27 Extended Family: Calvert County Cousins

Calvert County MD 1865

 The Scrivener family from whom I am directly descended lived in the southernmost part of Anne Arundel County MD, around the present-day village of Friendship. 

However, in the early 1800's, a branch of the Scriveners began to appear in Calvert County MD, just a few miles from the border with Anne Arundel. 

I don't have definitive evidence that these two branches of the family are connected, but it stands to reason that they are.  So here is what I know about my Calvert County cousins.

The first Scrivener to appear was Francis Scrivener, shown on the 1810 Census in a household with 2 males between 16 and 26, one male under 10, one female between 16 and 26, one female between 26 and 45, and one female under 10.

Although I don't have definitive proof for this, I am assuming that this Francis is the youngest son of my 6X-great grandfather, Francis Scrivener.  In his 1797 will, Francis Sr. charges his son John with the care of his brother, Francis, implying that Francis is a minor or in some way not capable of caring for himself. 

In the 1800 Census, just three years after Francis Sr.'s death, my 5X-great grandfather, John Scrivener, who was about 20 years old at the time and not married, is in a household with a male under 10 and 2 females. I am fairly certain that the young boy is his brother Francis and the two young women are his unmarried sisters, Mary and Sarah. 

So, back to the 1810 Census. Assuming that Francis was between 16 and 26 years old in 1810, he was born between 1784 and 1794.  Given that name and date of birth, he certainly fits the profile for being John Scrivener's youngest sibling. I assume that he is married in 1810 and probably around 20 years old. I also assume that Francis is the father of the two young children in the census and probably married a few years earlier. It is possible, though, that these are step-children from a previous marriage of his wife, who appears to be a little older than Francis. I have not been able to determine the name of Francis's wife, but I am calling her Ellen because that is the name of the only daughter I can attribute to this family. 

This Francis served in the militia in the War of 1812, in the same company as his presumed older brother, John Scrivener, under the leadership of Captain Thomas Simmons. 

By 1820, Francis and Ellen (?) had produced quite a large family.  Francis was between 26 and 45 years of age and had nine males under the age of 10 (!), one male 10 to 16, and one female between 16 and 26. Either Francis was running a boarding school or he had ten sons.  I have not found Francis in the 1830 census, so I assume he has died by then or moved out of the county. 

Unfortunately, of the ten presumed sons of Francis, I can only identify a few, and even then, I'm guessing. 

The son that I'm most sure about is Captain Thomas Scrivener. (I wonder if he could have been named for his father's old commander, Thomas Simmons? This is the first appearance of the name Thomas in the Scrivener line.)  

Thomas Scrivener appears in the 1840 Census of Calvert County with 3 sons and a daughter.  He appears again in 1850, living in the Second District, a farmer and planter. The census gives his age as 40, while a family Bible and other records put his birth about 1805.  In either case he is the right age to be a son of Francis.  In his 1850 household are his wife Ann, and children Thomas, Francis, Charles, Margaret, Ellen and Louisa Jane. It is the son named Francis that convinces me of Thomas's parentage. 

Captain Thomas was a mariner.  He is said to have done the rigging when the statue of George Washington was raised to its pedestal on the Mount Vernon Square monument in 1829.  The city directory for that year shows him living in Baltimore.

Thomas married Ann about 1830 when he was 25 and Ann was about 20 years old.  Their son John Thomas Scrivener was born in 1832, their son Francis in 1834, their son Charles Washington in 1836, followed by four daughters: Margaret 1837, Ellen 1840, Louisa Jane 1844 and Susan 1846. 

According to a family Bible, Thomas's wife Ann died in 1883 at the age of 73.  Thomas died in 1889 at the age of 84.

John Thomas Scrivener married Barbara Jane Rawlings about 1865 and they had a daughter Cora Elizabeth.

Francis Scrivener married Rebecca Wood in 1861 and they had four sons: Francis, George, Wesley and William, and five daughters: Frances, Mollie, Hattie, Ida, and Florence. 

Charles Washington Scrivener married Christina Virginia Kelton about 1875.  They had five sons: Charles Orville, Maurice Kelton, Thomas Carlton, Guy Frederick, and Grover Cleveland Scrivener.

Ellen Scrivener married Richard Trott and they had children: Katie, Emma, William Edward, and Sarah Ellen Trott.

As to other possible sons of Francis and Ellen (?) Scrivener, I have two other possibilities.  One is James Scrivener, born about 1819, who travelled along the National Road from Maryland to Ohio, along with a great many other Calvert Countians. He ended up in Belmont County OH where he married Elizabeth Cox and they had a son John Francis Scrivener, who was a shoemaker.  According to the family in Ohio, James came from Calvert County. Several other Scrivener cousins also ended up in Belmont County. 

The second possible son of Francis is Henry Scrivener, born about 1820.  He is shown in the 1850 Census of Calvert County MD along with his wife Eliza, age 25 and daughter Margaret, age 10.  Henry was a miller, who died sometime after 1880.  Margaret Scrivener married Reverdy Emory King and had 8 children with him before her death in 1886.

I think that Francis's daughter was Ellen Scrivener, born about 1816.  She married Essom Monnett in Calvert County and had at least three children: Elizabeth, Charles, and Barbara Jane Monnett. 

As for the other seven boys in Francis's household, I don't know.  Some of them probably died young, an all too common occurrence.  Others may have moved out of the county where I have not been able to connect them to Francis.

So that is what I know about my Calvert County Scrivener Cousins.  I'm always hopeful another one will turn up unexpectedly.  Unfortunately, Calvert County is one of those places that suffered multiple court house fires, so a great many records that might have revealed more about the family are lost.  But you never know when somebody will find that long-lost family Bible in the attic. Fingers crossed!