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Continued: AN INVENTOR'S CLAIM--THE VERDICT:
I've finally found proof that inventor Palmer H Crary is the grandson of the famous and wealthy owner of the Black Ball line of steam tugs in New York City. Regarding P H Crary's claim that he was the last living descendant of steamboat inventor Robert Fulton, here is the verdict. Palmer Hartell Crary was the great-great-great grandson of Peter Crary and Dorothy Copp, who were the great grandparents of Edward Charles Crary. Edward Crary was inventor Robert Fulton's son-in-law. So he is not technically a descendant of Robert Fulton; he has the same ancestors as Edward Charles Crary, Fulton's son-in-law; he is Cornelia Fulton Crary's husband's second cousin twice removed! To a non-genealogist who loves boats, wants to be a famous inventor, is proud of his heritage and wants something to boast about, that is good enough for government work, but for my computer program, there is "no relation". I feel that PH Crary was not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. His invention was a fantasmic air-powered boat named "the Robert Fulton of Miami" and his grandfather's family was maybe the only part of the Fulton descendancy that carried on the steamboating tradition. So apart from being "not genealogy", I think his statement was made in all innocence and then exaggerated by the press. Also, it seems he was an only child and had only one child himself. His daughter Mercy apparently did not marry. Robert Fulton started out as a portrait painter but his genius couldn't be contained; because of his charismatic personality and social abilities he became in demand as an engineer and designer of the first commercially successful steam boat, the first practical submarine (for the French Emperor Napoleon), etc. Fulton was very wealthy but it's true that most of his descendants surnamed Fulton or Crary either could not reproduce or didn't want to. His daughter Cornelia Fulton Crary, wife of Edward Charles Crary, had some children who kept the line going. Whether P H Crary was really the last, I have yet to determine, except that outside of the surnames Crary and Fulton I'm sure there have to be surviving lines. END OF VERDICT
P Hartell Crary sometimes went by the name Hartell, sometimes Palmer H, sometimes H Palmer Crary. The "Hartell" comes from his uncle, his father's brother-in-law John Hartell, a German craftsman who worked in a piano factory in New York City. There are two versions of the Florida Death Index at ancestry.com. For Palmer Hartell Crary, death date Sep 1961, Pinellas Co, FL is given in a transcribed index. Age 84. More likely to be correct is the typescript original image from Florida. For "Palmer H Crary" the death date is 1952, Pinellas Co, FL. Vol. 1358, Page 1432. BUT LATER when I found his grave, the death date is actually 3 Sep 1961. LATER STILL: Turns out the 1952 is his 2nd marriage to Mercy C. There are a lot of people named Palmer Crary and the strategy was to enter as much as I could find about all of them until the connection showed itself. The reason they should be related is that the name itself, "Palmer Crary", is based on a connection by marriage--Lucretia Palmer married Peter Crary in Connecticut in 1771. So most people named Palmer Crary after that are going to be descended from this marriage. The property he sold in Jefferson Valley in 1912 is probably related to his parents' home in Yorktown (?Yorktown Heights on today's map?). Jefferson Valley and Yorktown Heights are in the same place or very close. He was a minor character in local society wherever he lived and kept a home in New York City when he lived elsewhere. He was a real estate entrepreneur and resident in Hiahleah, Florida when it was first built. There is an "E. P. Crary" living in Dieringer, Pierce Co, Washington in 1920 who might be him. This is 5 miles from a big harbor where he is likely to be found. His wife's name is Grace and they're from New York, both their ages are right, and he isn't to be found anywhere else. He is listed as Palmer E Crary in the 1952 St Petersburg, Florida city directory. His father's name was Edmund.
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