Leah Adelaine Stillwell

Life

References for this account: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Where they lived

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The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 2 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• [WHICH NEW BRUNSWICK CEMETERY?] Her burial is recorded as New Brunswick, 1 February 1889, with no cemetery named. Her mother Cornelia is documented at Elmwood Cemetery, North Brunswick, Section E, Lot 33, and the natural reading is that the family lot holds her too. It is not proved. Find a Grave has no memorial for her, and holds no Mayer at all in that cemetery. The interment card for Section E, Lot 33 would settle it in one request to the cemetery office.
• Dates, places, occupations and relationships imported from the 1 August 2026 Geni export require verification against original records.
• [THREE GENERATIONS IN ONE GROUND] The women of this family were buried within a mile of each other over eighteen years, at the Brunswicks in Middlesex County: Leah Adelaine Stillwell at New Brunswick in February 1889, brought back from Manhattan where she died; her sister Alice at New Brunswick in January 1906, brought back from Manhattan too; and their mother Cornelia at Elmwood Cemetery, North Brunswick, in July 1907. Two daughters came home from New York to be buried and their mother followed eighteen months after the second. Whether all three are in Elmwood is not established — the two daughters' records say only 'New Brunswick' — and if they are, it is one plot holding three generations of this line.
• Her birth, her parents and her death are all unrecorded. The New Jersey marriage index of 1875 gives no ages and no parents, so the marriage return itself, or a census of the Essex County household, is the next step.
• [CONFLICT] Her age. The 1850 census makes her 4, so born about 1846; her death record in 1889 makes her 36, so born about 1853. Seven years, and the two cannot both be right. The census is the earlier and the more nearly contemporary with the birth, and is preferred here — but a death age is given by whoever was in the room, and 1853 would still leave her the youngest child in 1850, unborn. Her birth or baptism record would end it. A Geni chart independently gives 1846, agreeing with the census against the death record. That is a tree and not a record, but it is a second voice for 1846 and the reading is kept.
• What she died of, and why at 42. The certificate carries a cause the index does not.
• This is a New Netherland Dutch family, and the surnames say so on their own. Brokaw is the anglicised Bourgeois of a Huguenot family long settled among the Dutch of Somerset County; Stryker is Strycker; and the names standing around this household in the records — Polhemus, Vroom, Van Dyck, Van Deventer, Ditmars — are all New Netherland families. The marriage of Cornelia's parents in 1792 was in a Dutch Reformed church. Franklin Township in Somerset County was one of the densest Dutch settlements in New Jersey. That is worth stating plainly, because it is the only non-British, non-Irish, non-Italian, non-German strand anywhere in this side of the family, and it is easy to miss behind a name as English-looking as Stilwell.
• Independently corroborated. An autosomal DNA test taken by a living descendant returns a small Dutch component — which is what this line, and only this line, predicts. Henry and Cornelia sit far enough back that their contribution should be a few per cent, and that is what the test shows. It confirms nothing about any individual here; it confirms that a Dutch strand of about the right size exists where the paper says it should.
• Where this family sits among the American Stillwells is not established. The standard published genealogy traces most of them from Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell, who settled at Gravesend on Long Island in the seventeenth century, and follows that line into Hunterdon, Sussex and Monmouth counties. Our people are in Somerset County — Bedminster and Franklin Township — and the 1931 volumes were read in full and do not contain them. So this branch either descends from Nicholas by a path the book does not trace, or it does not descend from him at all. The book cited on Jeremiah's memorial, The History of Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell, is a different work and is not online; it is the obvious next place to look.
• [NEGATIVE, CONTROLLED — AND NOW ACROSS ALL FIVE BOROUGHS] The previous session searched the Manhattan birth index for 1889 and found no Harry Mayer among 39 Mayer births. On 21 August 2026 the same question was put to the New York City birth index for all five boroughs, 1888–1890. There is no Harry Mayer born anywhere in New York City in those three years. What exists is one Henry Mayer (Manhattan, 5 June 1888), six Harry Meyers, fourteen Henry Meyers, and one Harry A. Mayers (Kings, 2 February 1889) — which is three days after Leah Adelaine Stillwell died and so cannot be her son. The childbirth reading of her death is neither advanced nor disproved. Control: a given-name wildcard returns zero from this index even where it holds matches, so every run here used exact given names. Finding 150.
• [THE CHILDBIRTH READING CANNOT BE SETTLED FROM FREE SOURCES] Her son Harry's tree-supplied birth of January 1889 sits three weeks before her death, and if it were right it would answer what she died of. Harry is now absent from New York City's vital records at both ends — no birth 1888-1890 (finding 150) and no death in 1889-1890 (finding 159), both controlled. The tree places his birth in New Jersey, whose free indexes do not begin until 1901. What is left is her own death certificate, Manhattan 3335 of 1889, which is not digitised and must be ordered. Finding 159.

References

1. [1] Michael Mayer and L. Adeline Stillwell marriage, Essex County, New Jersey, 9 June 1875Back to citation 1
2. [2] Henry Stilwell household, 1850 census, Franklin Township, Somerset County, New JerseyBack to citation 2
3. [3] Death of Leah A. Mayer, Manhattan, 30 January 1889Back to citation 3
4. [4] Stillwell genealogy (1931), volumes 2 and 3 — searched, and this family is not in themBack to citation 4
5. [5] Geni relationship chart: Gina D. Leahey and Monica Potter, fifth cousins once removed (created 3 March 2025)Back to citation 5
6. [6] Find a Grave memorial 295247056 — Cornelia Stryker Brokaw Stilwell, Elmwood Cemetery, Section E, Lot 33Back to citation 6
7. [7] New York City Birth Index, all five boroughs 1888–1890 — controlled search for Harry Mayer, 21 August 2026Back to citation 7
8. [8] NYC death index 1889-1890 — controlled search for Harry Mayer, 21 August 2026Back to citation 8
9. [9] New York City Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records — coverage measured for Manhattan, 13 August 2026Back to citation 9

See also

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