Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Favorite Ancestors: Zachariah Rhodes

Holden Rhodes' son Zachariah became a mariner. He moved from Rhode Island to Baltimore, Maryland. There he married Harriet Cunningham, also from a seafaring family. They had one child, a daughter, Ann Bathia.

Zachariah's story had been related in a brief genealogy of the family composed by Isaac Prall [my gggf's brother]. Isaac wrote that Zachariah was lost at sea aboard the "Polix & Castor." No year was given.

This time it would take a trip to Boston's NEHGS library to discover the truth to Zachariah's fate.
I had already learned that Zachariah had been lost at sea in 1815, with his brother Perry.

According to The Holden Family in America, Zachariah was captain of the schooner "Hannah" which left the port of Baltimore bound for Puerto Rico on 14 August 1815 and "was never again heard from." Brother Perry Rhodes was the first mate.

Isaac Prall undoubtedly confused the name of Zachariah's schooner with that of a ship sailed by Uncle Ralph Porter, who had married Bathia Cunningham, Harriet's sister.

Curiously enough, the Holden Genealogy cited the same source as other books that gave bits and pieces of Zachariah's story. That source, The Life and Times of Samuel Gorton, had the least amount of detail on the fate of Captain Rhodes!

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