The Mystery of Alexander Petrie

Every so often in genealogy, you come across a line that flummoxes you.  You know an individual exists but can find only scant information about him or her, and often you end up hitting a brick wall.  It's the most frustrating thing about genealogy (yes, even more frustrating than having to pay for access to records that are otherwise free, haha).



Such is the case with Alexander Petrie.  As noted on the Richards genealogy page, he was born about 1828, by all accounts in Scotland.  His parents are unconfirmed, but there are candidates (see below).  He married Elizabeth McDonald on 29 Feb 1852 in Berrien County, Michigan, and they had three children: Isabelle, (James) Alexander and Anna.  Based on family history, I believe he died in a schooner wreck on Lake Michigan (the 1860 census confirms he was a sailor by trade) between 1860 and 1867.  He was last found in the 1860 census and his wife remarried in 1867.

We turn our attention first to his parents.  Assuming that the ages in both the marriage record of 1852 (23) and the 1860 census (33) are correct, that would give us an overlap of 1 March to July or August of 1828.  I realize these are assumptions that may or may not be correct, but they are starting points.  

I had previously searched for birth records of Alexander Petries born in Scotland from 1827-1829 and made a list of possibilities; I looked within that list for one that fit the March-August 1828 range, and found one.  An Alexander Petrie was born 16 Jun 1828 and was baptized 28 Jun 1828 in Nairn, Nairnshire, Scotland to George Petrie and Isobel Dick.  A quick search revealed two other children born to this pair and in the same place: James, born 1825, and Margaret, born 1830.  I also found a record of an Alexander Petrie marrying an Isabelle Mackay on 7 Dec 1849 in Nairn, but no age or parents were given.  I have no way of knowing whether this is the same Alexander Petrie or not.

I then turned to the census, and found James, Alexander, and Margaret Petrie, ages 15, 13, and 9, respectively, in the house of Hector and Isabella MacLean in Nairn in 1841.  I figured their mother had remarried (there was a five year old child, Nathaniel MacLean, in the same household).  I did not find an Alexander Petrie of the same age in the 1851 census.  I suppose it is possible that he had emigrated to the US by then, but I have not found him in the 1850 US census.

He certainly was in the US by 29 Feb 1852, as that was the date that he married Elizabeth McDonald in Berrien County, Michigan.  Interestingly, one of the witnesses is named William Mayhew; an Isabella Mayhew is living with the Petries in the 1860 census as well as with the then-widowed Elizabeth McDonald Petrie Rector in 1880, listed as her mother.  By 1860, the couple had had three children: Isabelle/Belle, (James) Alexander (I've seen it both ways), and Anna.

Marriage record of Alexander Petree and Elizabeth Mayhew McDonald, as they are identified here

It is here where I get stuck.  My mom was told by Alexander Petrie's great-grandson (who certainly would have known his grandmother- Alexander Petrie's daughter- Isabelle Petrie van Vranken) that he died in a schooner wreck on Lake Michigan.  I figure it had to be between 1860, when he last appears in the census, and 1867, when his wife remarries.  The 1860 census confirms that he was a sailor, so this is entirely possible, and I think plausible.

Marriage record of Elizabeth McDonald Petrie and William Rector

So I set out to see if I could discover what shipwreck my third-great-grandfather died on.  After about a week of poring over the Great Lakes Shipwreck File (a fantastic resource, by the way), I had a list of potential wrecks that Alexander Petrie died on.  The criteria was schooner wrecks on Lake Michigan from late 1861 to early 1867.  But I couldn't find crew lists for any of the wrecks, so all I had to go on was theory.

Then I found Maritime History of the Great Lakes- which has a great section of newspaper transcriptions- and searched through that.  I found the J.S. Wallace, built in St. Joseph in 1853 by A. Petrie & Co. for the lumber trade between Buffalo, New York, and St. Joseph.  It capsized in 1869 but was recovered soon after; at this point the captain was J.W. Hall. 

I also found that Alexander Petrie of St. Joseph, Michigan owned the schooner Temperance in 1857; it had been built in St. Joseph by James J. Randall in 1847.  In April of 1857, it was a total loss in a storm at Racine, Wisconsin.

But then I found something even more interesting.  I found newspaper clippings from two Buffalo newspapers saying that on 7 September 1862, an Alexander Petrie, while sleeping, fell overboard off the schooner Sutherland and was drowned about 15 miles off the coast of South Haven.  Now for the wrinkle.  One of the accounts says that this Alexander Petrie was from Chicago.  There are a few explanations I can think of for this: 1) he had gone to Chicago for a while for better job opportunities- he did lose his boat (the Temperance) about five years earlier; 2) this is an error, as the newspaper writing about it was nearly 500 miles away from where it happened; or 3) they were on the return journey from Chicago when it happened.

For now, this seems like the most likely possibility of what happened to my third-great-grandfather.  But I guess we may never fully know.  But that's what's fun about genealogy, right?  Trying to piece together this puzzle and seeing how the pieces fit together.