Betsy A. Stowell was the daughter of Alpheus S. Stowell and Julia Brown. She was born in December of 1832 in Lisle, Broome County, New York.
Betsy married first to Squires S. Barrows, son of Isaac Barrows and Cynthia Squires. The couple was living in Lisle in 1855 with one son, also named Squires. Four more children[1] would follow before 1862 when Squires joined to fight in the Civil War in Company A, 137th New York Infantry[2]. The regiment left from Binghamton on the 27th of September, 1862, and Squires died less than three months later, on the 8th of December, 1862, from Typhoid Fever.
Mr. Barrow’s death, and ultimately the Civil War itself, hereby altered the course of history for our family. Betsy afterwards married to John Clark Harvey[3] between 1870 and 1875, and together they had five children, for a total of ten for Betsy, as stated on the 1900 census.
John died in 1898 and in 1900 Betsy was listed on the census as widowed, living alone in Harford near Royal Shirley, whose daughter would marry her son, Newman Harvey, four years later.
Betsy must have married 3rd to Lorenzo Short (1840-1914) sometime between 1900 and the time of her death, which occurred on the 24th of September, 1906. She was 73. She was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Berkshire (Section D, Plot 48) under the name “Betsy Short”.
References:
[1] Betsy and Squires Barrows children were Alpheus (b. 1853), James (b. 1856), Alida (b. 1858), Lavina (died young), and Olive. Betsy’s obituaries mention two sons, “Altheus Barnum of Killawog (Lisle)” and “James Barnum of Whitney Point”. Since there is no record of Betsy marrying a Barnum, it seems probably that James Barnum is James Barrows and Altheus Barnum is Altheus Barrows. Whether or not the name was Barrows or Barnum has yet to be determined.
[2] United States Civil War Soldiers Index, FamilySearch.org
[3] Ancestors of Florence Julia Brown, and some of their descendants, by Walter LeRoy Brown, 1940, page 24.