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Abraham H., Catherine(?), Elizabeth, Mary C., Ann Matilda, Geo.H=(?), Marg.,
Jacob H
There is also a line descending from Geor. H and someone whose name seems indecipherable to me. The tree doesn't make sense unless this Elizabeth Houseman had children named Houseman, too and not O'Rorke. Don't know.
The names on the line emmanating from Geo. H. are equally indecipherable, but it looks like something Virginia = Grove M. Wright.
I know this is all pretty sketchy, but maybe it will help someone.
Marguerite
Click on the link below to read an on-line story about "Pretty Polly" (Housman) Bodine. Andrew is also mentioned. I wouldn't take all the genealogical info given in this story as accurate. A lot of it is, though. It seems to be a very well-researched article about the murder that Polly was accused of committing. If you have time, it is a very interesting story.
From: angela d'aiuto [adaiutoa at yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003
Subject: Bodine family- Mary Polly Bodine Houseman
The Bodine family is buried at the Dutch Reformed Church, 54 Port Richmond Ave, Staten Island, NY 10302 - Mary Polly Bodine Houseman actually, and the church is currently applying to National Registry status. Also the home and office of her unsuccessful prosecutor of Lot C. Clark has been nominated for landmarking, but is endangered of being demolished by a local Baptist Church.
The cemetary also has Dutch records and the Messerau family is buried there as well.
I enjoyed your website,
Angela D'Aiuto- Community Development Coordinator
Northfield Community LDC
From Ronny Bodine:
AAndrew Bodine was bapt. 5 April 1801 at the Moravian Church, Richmond County. Mary 'Polly' (Housman) Bodine was the daughter of Abraham P. and Mary Housman, per Abraham's will of 11 Nov 1857 (proved 6 Dec 1859, Richmond Co. Wills I: 357). Letters of administration on his estate were granted to his brother-in-law, Abraham Housman. Joshua Mersereau, Jr., was appointed guardian of Andrew's two children, Alfred Bodine, about 18 years, and Elizabeth Ann, about 15 years (Richmond Co. Letters of Testamentary 3: 37).
Mary 'Polly' Bodine was arrested on 1 Jan 1844 for the murders of her sister-in-law, Emeline Van Pelt Housman and Emeline's 20-month old daughter, Ann Eliza. Emeline and her daughter were found beaten to death and burned in their home on Staten Island. She was first tried beginning on 23 June 1844, but the trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial was held before a Manhattan jury in March 1845. P. T. Barnum installed a wax figure of Polly in his museum, nearby, calling Polly "The Witch of Staten Island" and showing her hacking her two victims to death. After three weeks the jury found Polly guilty, but the State Supreme Court invalidated the verdict in May 1845 and ordered a new trial. The third trial was held in April 1846 in Newburgh, Orange County and found Polly Bodine innocent. After two and one-half years in jail Polly was set free. She returned home to Staten Island where she set up housekeeping with her two children, supporting her family as a nurse. At her funeral only her two children were in attendance. See Edmonds' "Reports on Selected Cases," 1866, p. 36-95.
"The Police Gazette" of 1845 covered the entire murder case. Of particular interest was the following account of the family: "Polly Bodine, at the time of the murder of her sister-in-law, was in the middle thirties. At the age of fifteen she married one Andrew Bodine, by whom she had two children, Eliza Ann, age fifteen, and Albert, slightly older. The couple separated after about five years due to misconduct on the part of the wife, and Bodine "became blunted in every moral sense and fell in with a woman much of the same stamp as himself, named Simpson, whom he married, despite the existing bonds with Polly." For this unlawful marriage Bodine, one year before the Houseman murder, was sentenced to the State Prison for two years. In the meanwhile, Polly, after some traveling about, fell in with a man named Waite, an apothecary with a store at 252 Canal Street, New York, and during this liaison, placed her son, Albert as a clerk in the Waite store."
Although still married to Mary, Andrew Bodine married Jane Simpson on 27 Oct 1842 at the home of the rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond County. It was for this bigamous marriage that Andrew Bodine was sentenced to two years in the State Prison, where he died.
From New York Surrogate Court documents there is a petition for reimbursement against the state of Andrew Bodine. It seems Andrew died on March 29, 1844 in prison serving time for bigamy. "Said Andrew Bodine left him surviving, Mary Bodine, his widow, who resides in said County of Richmond, Albert Bodine aged about eighteen years, Eliza Ann Bodine aged about sixteen, his children and only heirs at law, that said children and heirs at law both reside in the County of Richmond aforesaid."
Obituary, New York Herald (New York City) of Friday, 29 July 1892.
In a small, white, vine covered cottage at No. 28 Lafayette street, Port Richmond, S. I. on Tuesday died a woman who was one of the most famous characters in the history of Staten Island. She was Mrs. Polly Bodine, who was accused of murdering Mrs. G. E. Housman and the latter's eighteen-month-old child, Ann Eliza, on Christmas morning, 1843. She was tried in three courts on the charge. The first trial ended in a disagreement of the jury. On the second trial she was found guilty, but this decision was reversed by a Newburg court and she was released from jail in Port Richmond, where she had been held since the murder. The crime was committed in Graniteville, a few miles from Port Richmond, and after Mrs. Bodine's release she went to live in the cottage at Port Richmond with her son Alfred and daughter Alice, remaining there in seculsion for nearly fifty years. She died on Tuesday, after a ten years' illness, a helpless paralytic. She was eighty-two years old, and her last words, it is said, referred to the crime. Mrs. Bodine had lived apart from the villagers, and when she died they remained away from the funeral. The hearse was followed by only one carriage, in which were her son and daughter. Services were held in the Baptist Chapel on the Butcherville road, near Graniteville, and the interment was in the Graniteville Cemetery.
***End of info from Ronny.
From Charlotte Hix's article on Captain Jacob Housman in NYG&B Record, April 2009:
File #471, Richmond County Administrations 3:37, 8 August 1844, abstracted in Fast, "Administrations" (note 26), 83. The probate states that Andrew died about 29 March 1844; the administrator was his "brother-in-law Abraham Housman." His widow, Mary, maiden name Housman, and two children were named: Albert Bodine about 18 years and Eliza Ann about 16 years. Joshua Mersereau, Jr., was appointed guardian of the children.
William Alfred [sic] Housman Bodine, son of Andrew Bodine and Polly Housman his wife, was born 8 August 1826 and baptized 4 October 1827 at the home of his grandfather, James Bodine (Records of the United Brethren Congregation (Commonly Called Moravian), Staten Island, N.Y., RECORD 38[1907]:257); the daughter’s baptism has not been found. They are named in their father’s probate (note above); William A. and Eliza Ann (Mary Bodine household, 1870 U.S. Census, Northfield, Richmond County, New York, page 263, #834/811 [NARA M593, roll 1086]); and Albert and Ann E. (Mary Bodine household, 1880 U.S. Census, 5th Election District, Northfield, Richmond County, New York, ED 306, page 26B [NARA T9, roll 923]).
Polly Housman Bodine has not been found in the 1850 or 1860 census. In 1870 and 1880 Mary Bodine was in Northfield, Staten Island. In 1870 she was 55; William A. Bodine, 40, seaman, and Eliza A. Bodine, 30, were with her. In 1880 she was 71; son Albert, 50, captain of schooner, and daughter Ann E., 48, were living with her. When she died 27 July 1892, it is said only her two children were in attendance, and she was buried in an unmarked grave.
In 1850 Eliza Ann Bodine, 22, was living with her grandparents in Northfield (Abraham Housman household, 1850 U.S. Census, Northfield, Richmond County, New York, page 152 [stamped, verso], #703/811 [NARA M432, roll 587]).