Eliza Mulholland Larabee: Almost Invisible

Eliza Mulholland is one of the nine children of Samuel Mulholland and Jane Bullock Mulholland. Eliza is one of the "lost" children in the family, as those previously doing genealogy had not been able to link Eliza to Samuel. Her story is not only about what has been learned about Eliza but also a reminder of the caveat against blindly following family trees posted online that have missed evidence of connection or simply have links to the wrong person who may have had the same name.

Like her sister Jane Mulholland Stebbins, Eliza Mulholland's story is a short one, as she married in her early 20s and died at 37. Although she had four children with her husband, William Lorenzo Larabee, her line died out and she has no known living descendants. Because extant online family trees for William have been created primarily by descendants of his later wife, Catherine Carnahan, or William's siblings, most have completely eliminated Eliza from their lists.

Eliza Mulholland was born in Ireland, presumably in County Monaghan where her brother Sam jr. originated. Eliza and her family followed Sam jr to Superior Township, Washtenaw, Michigan when she was about 7 in 1833.

Eliza lived on a farm with her family until her marriage to William about 1849 at the age of 23. William, son of Silas Larabee and Lucy Ring Larabee (often misspelled, sometimes shown as Larrabee or even Lariby), was born in New York, arriving with his family in Superior Township sometime before 1840.

Shortly after their marriage, William and Eliza moved to Clinton County where she had four children before her death about 1861. No documentation for her death has been found so the date is estimated based on other evidence including records kept by Larabee descendants, and her burial place is unknown.

William L. Larabee remarried after Eliza's death. The one online family tree (see below) that correctly identified Eliza as his first wife and mother of his first four children suggested a second and very short marriage to Agnes Ballentine. No other documentation has been found for this marriage to date. Agnes died in 1863, less than two years after that wedding. In the 1864 Michigan census, William is shown as living alone with the children apparently living with other relatives.

William married a third time to Catherine Carnahan about 1865. They had three more children. Catherine had been previously married, but her daughter by that marriage died as a child, perhaps before her marriage to William. Catherine raised Eliza's three surviving children along with her own. The family moved after the marriage to a farm in Williamston Township, Ingham County, Michigan where all the children grew up. William's third marriage lasted until his death in 1887. Catherine died in 1901.

Dying Too Young

Eliza and William had four children during their short marriage who survived long enough to appear in official records, but one, Esther P. Larabee, died in early childhood, appearing in the 1860 census as a one year old but no longer listed by 1870.

Two of Eliza's other children died as young adults, both of consumption (or tuberculosis as it is known today). Jane (Jennie) S. Larabee was living with William and Catherine in 1880, but died single in 1881 just before her 26^th birthday.

William Chauncey Larabee died at 37 of consumption in 1887. He had married Louisa Kent in 1881 when he was 29 and she was 21. Their one son, William Lorenzo (Ren) Larrabee was only 4 when his father died. Louisa moved near her husband's half-brother, Willis Nathan Larrabee, but she also died young in 1898 when Ren was 14. Both William C. and Louisa Larabee are buried in the Summit Cemetery in Williamston where they grew up.

After his mother's death, Ren Larrabee followed his uncle's family to Kansas around the turn of the century, marrying Stella Arnette in 1909. He worked as a store clerk and did some farming. Ren died at 57 in 1941 in Wakeeney, Kansas where he lived throughout his adult life. Their only known child was stillborn in 1909. The Kansas branch of the family used the Larrabee spelling with two Rs, unlike the Michigan group.

Lucy Carolyn Larabee Fuller

Lucy Larabee Fuller
1919 U.S. passport application

Lucy Carolyn Larabee was the only child of William and Eliza who lived to old age. Born in 1857 in Clinton County, she lived to be 71, dying in California in 1928.

Lucy was three when her mother Eliza died, so spent most of her life living with her father William and stepmother Catherine in Williamston, Michigan. She married a local farmer, Alonzo Fuller, when she was only 18 and he was 28. Her sister Jane (Jennie) was a witness at their marriage, less than two years before she died of consumption.

Lucy and Alonzo had four children. Two died single without children: Maud L. Fuller, born in 1880 died at the age of 23 in 1904. Nelson Alonzo Fuller, born in 1884, died at 25 in 1909. Like the children of Eliza earlier, both died of consumption which seemed common in this family. Eliza herself reportedly died of the disease.

Lucy's Children

Lucy's youngest son born in 1885, Edwin Earl Fuller, married in his late 20s to Georgia Moore of Kansas. No marriage record for the couple has been located, but his Larrabee relatives in Kansas may have been part of the lure that drew Edwin from Michigan to the west. By 1918, when he registered for the World War I draft, Edwin and Georgia were living in Sheridan, Placer County California. They lived in Placer County throughout their lives running a fruit farm. His mother Lucy lived with them before her death in 1928, and supposedly was cremated there with her ashes being returned to Michigan for burial near her husband Alonzo. Edwin died in 1952 and Georgia in 1958. They had no known children.

Genevieve Fuller French
from 1916 US passport application

One of the more interesting stories is that of Genevieve (Jennie) May Fuller, born in 1877, the oldest of Lucy's four children. Jennie married later in life at 27 to Clifford Hiram French, an accountant and later vice president of an international importing company who was often in Asia based on passenger lists. His residence was listed as Manila on their marriage license although he had been born in Michigan. Jennie accompanied him on many of his trips and they spent extended periods living overseas. They usually listed a residence in New York or the Washington, DC areas as their U.S. address, but in 1935 did use the address in California of brother Edwin. 

Jennie died in Shanghai, China in 1935 at the age of 58 of high blood pressure and heart disease. She was cremated in China and her ashes were returned to her native Laingsburg to be buried near her mother. They had no known children. 

Clifford remarried within months to a Portuguese woman born in China, Thelma Remedios. They continued the pattern of traveling back and forth between Asia and the U.S. Clifford died in 1947 at the age of 69 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery based on his service as a corporal in the Michigan Infantry from 1899-1901. Thelma died in 1962, with her occupation listed as "secret" on her funeral record. Does leave an open question about what their real jobs might have been!

Finding Eliza Muholland

Linking Eliza Larabee to the Samuel Mulholland sr family are several documents although none are as solid as something like a birth or death record listing Eliza's parents. No records are known to survive from Ireland where she was born, and Eliza died before Michigan required certification of death. No tombstone provides evidence for a date of death, as many individuals dying at this time were buried on their farms rather than in formal cemeteries.

Additional confusion arises from several online family trees on Ancestry.com. Compiled by individuals linked to the side of the Larabee family through William and his third wife, these trees did not follow out the evidence for a different first wife found in the 1860 census. All children are shown as Catherine's in multiple family trees. In some cases, it is clear that one tree was the source for the other trees, duplicating the errors. Only one online tree in Ancestry.com (Nelson/Smith), created by DWHeath has good information. It shows Eliza as the wife of William Lorenzo sr but Eliza's parents are not identified. This tree is also the only one that captures the first marriage of Catherine known from census records before she married William and the probable but undocumented marriage of William and Agnes. A number of dates are undocumented in the Nelson/Smith tree, suggesting a family source rather than official documents. In a very few cases, these dates do not seem correct based on documentary evidence found by me but the tree is highly reliable where it can be checked.

However, what first led me to the Larabee connection was not the online family trees but a census record in 1860 showing a Mary Muholend (one of the many possible misspellings found for Mulholland) discovered when searching for Samuel's youngest daughter, MaryAnn. Mary was about the right age to be the same person and was shown as born in Ireland. The wife named Eliza was also born in Ireland suggesting the two women were related. The 1860 census does not list relationships for a household as was common in later censuses. Further strong evidence comes from the deed registry for Washtenaw County. 

Further evidence came through other birth and death records. Death records for the children of William and Eliza identified the mother's maiden name as Mulholland. William and father Silas could be found living in Superior Township at the time the pair were married. An additional piece of evidence was a daughter of about Eliza's correct age in Sam sr's household in the 1834 Michigan and 1840 US Census records who was unknown after those dates (the early census records only gave gender and age ranges for household members, not names). In 1860 there were not that many Mulhollands living in Michigan, narrowing down other possibilities. Finally, a key piece of evidence came from deed records. Eliza and sister Mary Ann Mulholland were deeded property in Superior Township from Sam. jr in 1838, which William and Eliza Larabee and Mary Ann Mulholland sold in 1853 to William Mulholland, thus clearly connecting Eliza Mulholland to the Larabee family.