John Deming, who was probably born about 1615 in Shaford, Essex County, England, and his wife Honor Treat, are generally considered to be the founders of the Deming families in America. Most Deming researchers believe that he came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1629-1633 with an older sister, Elizabeth (Deming) Foote, her husband Nathaniel Foote, several of their children and a brother Thomas Deming. Some believe that they were the children of a John Deming who remained in England. Others trace their ancestry to France. Sources do not agree that Elizabeth Deming was a sister of John Deming, so the exact relationship is not fully understood. If they are brother and sister then she and their parents are ancestors in both my mother's Deming line and my father's Braley line.
John, Thomas, Elizabeth and her family, first settled in Watertown, Massachusetts, near Boston, but soon moved south and west to the banks of the Connecticut River where they all helped found the community of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Thomas established the first shipyard in Wethersfield, 1648. One of the first ships of the colony, the Tryall, was built there. Thomas soon left Wethersfield and took his ship building business to Farmington, Connecticut, and then to Southampton on Long Island, and finally to Easthampton, New York. He and his descendants usually spell their name Dimond, Diamon, Diament and Dyament, rarely Deming. Elizabeth was raising her children there until her husband died in 1644, she soon remarried Thomas Welles who would be Colonial Governor in 1655 and 1658. John Deming may have been married earlier and had a son, John, by an unknown spouse, but about 1637-8 he married Honor Treat in Wethersfield. Their first child was Jonathan Deming, born about 1639. Honor's younger brother would be Deputy Governor, 1668-83, and Governor of the Colony, 1683-98.
Elizabeth (Deming) Foote and Nathaniel Foote's daughter, Elizabeth Foote, married Josiah Churchill about 1638. Two of their children tangle my Deming and Braley lines. Their daughter, Hannah Churchill, born 1644, married Samuel Royce, and one of their descendants would be Eliza Ann Royce, wife of Carlton Braley, my second great-grandfather on my father's side. Their son, Joseph Churchill, born 1649, married Mary --?-- (I think Catlin) and their daughter, Dinah Churchill, is one of my mother's ancestors. (See below.)
Jonathan Deming first married Sarah Graves, daughter of Deacon George and Sarah Graves, and they would have four children. She died during the birth of her daughter Comfort, June 5, 1668. About five years later, Jonathan Deming married secondly Elizabeth Gilbert, and they would have eight children. Their youngest son would be Jacob Deming, born in 1689, and he is my ancestor.
MY DEMING LINE
Jacob Deming was a large landholder in Wethersfield, Farmington, and nearby towns. Land records indicate that he had property in Rocky Hill and Newington. He lived in Berlin and New Britain, and his first wife is probably buried in New Britain. His first wife was Dinah Churchill, daughter of Joseph Churchill, and if Elizabeth Deming and John Deming were brother and sister, Dinah Churchill and Jacob Deming were 2nd cousins, once removed. Dinah was a great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Deming. Therefore, descendants of Jacob and Dinah would be descendants of both Elizabeth Deming and John Deming. Dinah and Jacob Deming would have six children. Their youngest son, Moses Deming, born in 1720, is a fifth great-grandfather of mine. After Dinah's death in 1752, Jacob married Abigail (Rich) Jerome who was the widow of Timothy Jerome, but they would have no more children.
Moses Deming married Sarah Chloe Norton in 1746 and all of their children were born by 1769. His eldest son Seth served in the Revolutionary War as Lieutenant and later as Captain in the 5th Regiment Light Horse Cavalry. Apparently none of Moses' other sons served in the War. However, Moses Deming, at 56+ years, also served in the War as a “Member of the Committee and Collector of the Enlistment Tax.” He is a Revolutionary War Patriot for the Daughters of the American Revolution and several descendants have been admitted on his service. In 1791 the committee for exchanging highways ordered “Mr. Moses Deming to open the highway leading from sd Deming's to Seth North's, and that sd Deming be allowed a year to open and fence sd highway.” When Moses Deming was ordered to open this road nothing was said about bridges. Teams forded the river and foot passengers crossed on logs or waded as they chose. Lardner Deming, Moses and Sarah's ninth child was born in 1765 and he is my ancestor.
Lardner Deming lived his entire life in Berlin, Hartford County, Connecticut. He was primarily a farmer of his father's land and on land deeded to him by his father. In 1804 Lardner Deming was appointed Collector of the State Tax, an office of great responsibility. He first married Mary Dunham in 1787, and they had eight children, their first being, my ancestor, William Riley Deming. In 1815 Mary died and the following year, Lardner married Sarah Griswold, the widow of a Mr. Williams. Lardner and Sarah would have three more children.
William Riley Deming was a “country trader” at Berlin, Connecticut, and later a farmer in that community. He married Eunice Strong Fenn in 1808, probably in Berlin and they started their family. They would have thirteen children, several died as infants. In 1831, after their last child was born, they moved some of the family to Rome, Ohio, where they stayed until 1838 then relocated to Naperville, Illinois.
George Deming
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William R. Deming's son, George Deming who was born 1812, did not go with the family to Ohio in 1831. When he was 13 (1825), George left Berlin, Connecticut, to live with a man named Steele, for whom he worked at various occupations for three years. At 16 he became an apprentice in the brass foundry business with the firm of Shipman & Co. (prob. Southington, Connecticut) where he served for five years. He worked as a journeyman for about two months and took a vacation to Ohio to visit his parents (1833). After a short stay in Ohio he returned to Southington, Connecticut, where he worked at his trade for a time.
Cornelia Rachel (Gregory)
Deming
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On May 6, 1834 George Deming and Cornelia Rachel Gregory were married in Southington, Connecticut. For a few years after their marriage, George and Cornelia lived in Southington, their first child and only son, was born there. In the fall of 1837, George, Cornelia, and the infant George Walter, joined George's parents in Rome, Ohio, staying for the winter. The following summer they moved on to DuPage County, Illinois with George's parents and family. There, George and family settled on unsurveyed land that would become Naperville, and staked out a farm. When the area was surveyed, he found that he only had 103 acres, the rest being reserved for school purposes. He purchased for $400 a claim to 200 acres which had a small log cabin. His farm did well and he built an “elegant residence” to replace the log cabin. The next four children of George and Cornelia would be born in the Naperville area. In 1843 George’s father returned to New Lyme, Ohio where he died in 1851. George stayed in Naperville until 1854 when he took his family to Fulton Township, Muscatine County, Iowa, where he farmed 233 acres.
George Walter Deming was about 18 years old when he came to Fulton Township, he probably lived and worked on his father's farm, until his father's death in 1890. December 29, 1859, George Walter Deming married Caroline Heinley, the daughter of Peter and Katherine Heinley, who farmed nearby. Caroline was 18 years old. On December 29, 1960, their daughter, Carrie Cornelia Deming, was born and five days later, on Jan 3, 1861 Caroline (Heinley) Deming died, she was 19 years old. She was buried in Durant Cemetery, a few miles north of the Deming farm. (Note: Durant, is in Cedar County, Iowa, but the Durant Cemetery is south of the town in Muscatine County.)
In September of 1862, George W. Deming married Laura Minerva Cole, one of two daughters of James W. Cole1 and his wife, Harriet Safronica (Hitchcock) Cole. James W. Cole died intestate March 24, 1852 in Jefferson County and his estate was probated there. Gordon Mallett, his brother-in-law, was appointed guardian of his two minor daughters. By the 1856 Iowa State census Gordon Mallett had died, and Harriet S. Cole, and probably both daughters (Note: Only Laura is in the census.) were living with her brother, Jared B. Hitchcock and his family in Davenport, Scott County. Later in 1856 Harriet S. Cole died in Moline, Illinois, during a visit with another brother, Rev. Allen B. Hitchcock.
When their mother died the two sisters, Emily S. Cole, 15, and Laura M. Cole, 13, became orphans. By 1860 Emily Cole was living with her Uncle George B. Hitchcock's family in Cass County in western Iowa (Read about her life here.); and Laura Cole was living next door to her Uncle Jared B. Hitchcock and his family in Wilton Township, Muscatine County, Iowa, just west of Fulton Township. At her marriage to George W. Deming, Laura became the step-mother of Carrie Cornelia Deming, and would raise four sons of her own, Charles, Arthur, William and Walter. And, she would bury her grandmother Sarah S. Hitchcock (1866), her son Artie (1878), her father-in-law George Deming (1890) and her Uncle Charles R. Hitchcock (1890) all in Durant Cemetery. She and George Walter Deming moved their family from Fulton Township to West Liberty shortly after the death of George Deming and the sale of his farm. They lived on a farm two miles northwest of West Liberty. On January 7, 1892, Laura Minerva (Cole) Deming died in West Liberty - she was not yet 50 years old.
George W. Deming & Family about 1890
William Henry Deming - 14; Walter Cole Deming - 4
Charles Strong Deming - 22; Laura Minerva (Cole) Deming - 47; George W. Deming - 54.
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In 1892, Charles Strong Deming, married Lura E. Frizell, daughter of John G. and Alice (Finley) Frizell, who lived on a farm near the Deming farm in Fulton Township. Charles and Lura would have three children in West Liberty, then about 1903, moved to Kansas where another child was born. Arthur (Artie) Deming had died when he was five years old when a hay fork fell on him from a barn. There is no record of Walter C. Deming ever marrying, he died March 2, 1952 in Sacramento, California.
After Laura's death, George married a third time to the widow of Clark Hitchcock, who was Caroline "Carrie" Hannah (Rogers) Hitchcock, daughter of Elizabeth Maria (Hitchcock) Rogers and Edmund Horton Rogers, and a first cousin of Laura Cole. She often went by the name Carrie R. Hitchcock. (Note: Her previous husband descended from a different Hitchcock line than her mother.) She brought some of the children of her previous marriage to live with her and George in West Liberty. Caroline apparently became ill and was in the hospital in Iowa City in early 1896. On March 4, 1896 George W. shot himself in the right temple, causing instant death. His son Will (19) came into the house from chores and he and Mary Hitchcock heard the explosion but thought it was the stove. A short time later Will went to to call his father to breakfast and made the shocking discovery. Mary Hitchcock, who was about 11-12 years old, was the daughter of Caroline R. Hitchcock and Clark Hitchcock, and step-daughter of George W. Deming.
In March 1893 the family of Charles and Elizabeth (Flanders) Robinson had moved from Grundy County, Illinois, to West Liberty, Muscatine County, Iowa with six children; Frank C. (19), Millicent "Millie" Elizabeth (18), Alice Ruth (16), Cora Alfaretta (14), Clarence "Mike" C. (10) and Fred "Ted" (8). They rented the farm of John Miller that was west of town and was adjacent to the George W. Deming farm. During this time is probably when Millie met William Henry Deming, whom she would marry in 1899. Shortly after the death of George W. Deming, Charles Robinson sold his stock and farming equipment and moved his family into town. In 1897 he finally sold his farm in Grundy County, Illinois, and bought a farm in Iowa Township of Cedar County, Iowa, a few miles north and east of West Liberty. William Deming and Millicent Elizabeth Robinson were married March 8, 1899 at her father's home in Cedar County.
William Henry Deming &
Millicent Elizabeth Robinson,
their wedding day, March 8, 1899.
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William Deming and Millicent apparently lived for a while after their marriage on William's farm near West Liberty, where their first two children, Kenneth and Laura Grace were born. Early in 1903, William's brothers Charles and Walter left West Liberty to try farming in Kansas. Walter soon returned to Iowa, but Charles remained in Kansas. William and Millicent may have followed Charles to Kansas, because my mother's obituary indicates that she was born 1906 in Kansas. I now know that is incorrect because, I obtained a copy of her 1963 application for a Social Security account number and there she indicates that she was born in Knox City, Knox County, Missouri.2 That actually makes more sense because, William H. Deming is said to be living in La Belle, Missouri, in the obituary for Charles Robinson written in 1908. La Belle is in Lewis County only a few miles east of Knox City. The family apparently moved again to Centralia, Boone County, Missouri, by 1910 when a photo was taken of their home. Their last child, Ralph William was born in 1909, probably in Centralia, Missouri.
After 1910, they moved back to the West Liberty area and resided in the Downey community, just north of West Liberty in Cedar County, until 1920 when they moved to a farm east of Iowa City. William soon gave up farming and soon moved into town. By 1924, when Ralph died in a hit-and-run sledding incident3, William and Millie Deming lived at 112 S. Dodge, Iowa City, Iowa. In Iowa City, William worked as a store keeper in the chemistry building at the University of Iowa until his retirement in July 1948.
Kenneth A. Deming was William and Millie's first child, and in 1924, he married Florence Lucile Mackey who was born in Downey, Cedar County, and whom he knew as a child. They lived in Iowa City and had one daughter, Wanda Deming, who married David Gaylord. David and Wanda have three daughters and a son. Laura Grace Deming married John Daniel Taylor and lived in Ames, Story County where John Taylor was a dentist. They had one son, Gerald Keith, and adopted a daughter Mary Louise.
William and Millie's 2nd daughter, Hazel Leona Deming, married Alson Emmons Braley, in Iowa City in 1931. He received MD from the State University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 31 May 1931. I was their first child and was born December 11, 1936, in Iowa City. My father served his internship and residency at SUI, and was a prominent Ophthalmologist in Detroit, Michigan, New York City and New Jersey. My sister, Janet, was born in Detroit in 1939, and our brother William in 1941. Our father served as an MD in the Navy during World War II, and was discharged with the rank of Lt. Commander. In 1950 he returned to Iowa City, as Head of Ophthalmology Department at University Hospitals there 1950-1967. After 1967, he was in private practice in Iowa City until his retirement in 1976. He made major contributions to development of corneal transplant surgery and the creation of the national Eye Bank Network. Both he and Hazel died in 1993, and are buried in Memory Gardens, Iowa City.
Millicent Elizabeth (Robinson) Deming died January 1945, and July 10 1946, against his children's wishes, William married Mrs. Elizabeth Shaver in Sioux City, Iowa. She was a widow, whom I only knew as Elizabeth.4 Elizabeth died in 1955 and soon after that William Deming began to develop a dementia that was thought to be Alzheimer's Disease and his behavior became very difficult for his children to accept. The problems became worse, and about 1957 he was placed in a nursing home in Kalona, Washington County, Iowa, where he died in 1962.
Alson Deming Braley
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- James W. Cole was a descendant of Barent Jacobsen Cool who was an early Dutch setter of New Amsterdam, the Colony of New Netherland, in 1633 when he was about 23 years old. Barent was a sailor, apparently working for the Dutch East India Company.
- In addition, I have found notes left by my father also indicating that she was born in Knox City, Missouri.
- Ralph William Deming was killed in a December 30, 1924, hit and run incident on College Street in Iowa City when he was 15. College Street had been closed to make sledding hill. The Iowa City Press-Citizen ran several stories about this incident and the subsequent events. The funeral was at his parents' home, the eulogy given by his Scoutmaster, Col. Morton Claire Mumma, he was buried on Friday, January 2, 1925.
There were several stories about the search for the driver of the car, and the passenger who was apparently in the car at the time of the incident. Two men were taken into custody and were charged with manslaughter. However, there were identification problems with the car and the men had testimony that they were elsewhere at the time. They were found not guilty in March 1925. As far as I could tell, the police were unable to find any other probable drivers of the car.
- I now know that she was Elizabeth (Miller) Shaver, because I found the report of their marriage in the Iowa City Press-Citizen of July 17, 1946. They were married at the home of her son John M. Shaver in Sioux City. She was born in Illinois and by 1910 was married to Theodore Shaver and they were living in Barnard, Missouri. They had a son John M. born about 1912 in Iowa. Theodore Shaver died in 1915 and was buried in Sioux Co., Iowa. By 1920 Elizabeth was living in Johnson Co. with her mother Mary A. Miller and other members of her family. By 1946 she apparently had family members living in Johnson, Sioux and Woodbury Counties. After she died in 1955 she was buried next to her first husband in Ireton, Sioux Co., Iowa.
