|
a.
|
Note: Peter Henry Clay Stitcher, son of John the cabinetmaker, was born in Baltimore on January 18, 1833. A Certificate of Death, issued by the Health Department, City of Baltimore, Ward 12, shows his date of death as, December 2, 1888, nine months after the Great Blizzard of "88. C.H.Blizzard, Undertaker, of 1136 Penn Avenue, buried Peter Henry in his own plot, on December 5. He died at his home at 1109 or 109 Etting, three hours after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage and paralysis. His wife, Maryellen Cassell, born December 14, 1835, had died on July 10, 1888. At the time of his death, Peter Henry was a realtor, but, at various times in his life, he was a tobacconist, and a cabinetmaker. He left behind: Peter Henry Clay, Jr., William, Harry, George Washington and Clara. A family history buff, Clara initiated research on Stitchers, in the 1940's. Confused, she gathered information on the family of Peter Stichter, a teenage Militia volunteer, from Reading, Pa. He participated in the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown. Two other children preceded Peter Henry in death: Mary Ellen and John Wesley. Buried in Peter Henry's Western Cemetery plot are: John Wesley, son, Mary Ellen, dtr., Maryellen, wife, Delia, wife of Harry, William R., son, Milton P. (Possible son of William), and Lillian Mae, dtr. of Harry and Delia. The location of burial for Harry and Peter Henry, Jr., is unknown.
JOHN ROY, PETER HENRY CLAY and THE LACQUER BOX
Around 1858, Ellen Stitcher received a beautiful Japanese box, with twelve smaller boxes inside it. It was from a sailor in the U.S. Navy, John Roy, a homeless boy whom Peter Henry had met, in 1853, hanging around the Liberty Fire Engine Company, at Fayette, Liberty and Park Streets, Baltimore. Peter Henry took him home to Ellen Jane, and there he stayed, until he grew old enough to enlist at Norfolk. NARA records show him enlisting on June 24, 1857, for three years. He was 21, 5 ft-six, blue eyes, light hair and fair complexion. He was of Scottish extraction, according to Henry A. Anthony, husband of Mary Ann Stitcher Anthony, eldest daughter of Ellen. Henry so attested by signature, December 25, 1898, in Baltimore. Becaue Mary's sisters had squabbled over ownership of the boxes, Henry bought it from the Estate of Mrs. Stitcher, for ten dollars.
Henry added that some of the boxes were missing and their whereabouts had been lost. When Mary Ann Stitcher Anthony died, the lacquer box went to her daughter, Ellen Anthony, who was born in 1849. In 1875, Ellen Anthony married George Washington Walker. The box was donated to the Maryland Historical Society, in the year 2000, by Edith V. Walker, granddaughter of Ellen Anthony Walker.
|
