Mary Magdaline Mock

Centenarian?

Mary Magdaline was born Nov/Dec 1769(?) in Frederick, Maryland, and died 12 Jun 1872 in Hagerstown, Washington, Maryland.

Mary Magdaline and ____ Gouger married probably about 1796 in Frederick County, Maryland

Mary Magdaline and George B. Fox married 20 Oct 1815 in Washington Co., Maryland

Mary’s married names of Gouger, in 1814, and Fox, in 1825, are from the intestate proceedings of her father Peter Mock. And, indeed, we find a marriage record 20 Oct 1815 of Mary Gowger to George Fox in Washington County, Maryland [Index to Marriage Records, 1799-1860, FHL microfilm 0014643]. Gouger and Gowger are only two of the some half dozen spellings of that surname.

There were two Gougers censused 1820 in Taneytown, Frederick County, Jacob and Peter, both born between 1775 and 1783. However, both of these men had children up until at least 1825, so neither could have been the husband of Mary who remarried in 1815. I have not been able to determine the given name of Mary’s first husband. Parenthetically, Mary’s niece Margaret Mock, of our line, married David Burger Teeter. David’s second cousin, John W. Deeter, married as his second wife Sarah J. Goucher. This marriage took place 13 May 1854, when John was 40 years old, in Darke County, Ohio.

We do know however from the estate papers that Mary’s second husband was George Fox. There were several of that name and of various ages in Frederick and Washington Counties, and sorting among them is difficult. Two, however, are recognizable from the 1830 to 1850 District 10, Frederick County censuses as father and son who lived in Foxville, 12 miles east of Hagerstown, Washington County and 18 miles west of Taneytown. Their wives names are both known [GedForum postings], and so the son, born 1795, can be excluded as being Mary’s second husband.

Another George Fox is a little more difficult to make out. He was censused in District 8 of Frederick County (which I haven’t been able to locate) 1820 through 1840, but not in 1850. He was born 1770 through 1773, and the eldest female in his household seems to have been born 1790 to 1793. However, younger individuals in his household were born starting before 1800, so the family composition is pretty much uncertain, but possibly that of a widower with children and a second, young wife.

The most likely George is the one living in Hagerstown, Washington County. Peter Mock had been in Washington County from the time of its erection in 1776 until the early 1790s, so the family had ties to that town. The most telling evidence, however, is that this George Fox’s wife was indeed named Mary, and her second marriage took place in that town. The two were censused 1830 and 1840 in Hagerstown, with several children who we will try below to identify. George was born 1770/80, and Mary 1780/90, in each of those censuses. In 1850 George and Mary were censused as born 1781/82 and 1780/81, respectively. Also in their household that year were Harriet McDaniel, 14, and May J. Fox, 10. Since May was listed after Harriet, that indicates she was not a daughter of George and Mary.

The later censuses, however, tell a complex but interesting story. Here are three censuses for what is clearly the same household, although the relationships are not crystal clear:

Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland, Census Birth Years

(1770, e.g., means 1769/70)

George Fox had been listed 12 Sep 1849 as a person filing as insolvent [Hagerstown Herald of Freedom, Hagerstown, Maryland]. It’s a little uncertain whether Mary J. of 1870 and 1880 is Mary H. of 1860, although one could certainly assume so. Is John T. Fox born 1859 the same person as John T. Helane born the same year? I think so. Note that in 1880 John is identified as a stepson to George McCarter, indicating either that Mary J. was previously married or at least had a son by someone else. I think we can safely conclude that George the shoemaker was Mary Fox’s son. The designation of George A. Fox as uncle in 1880 presumably means uncle to Mary J., not George McCarter the head of household, but what relation there was between George A. Fox and George the shoemaker is unknown. There were neither Helane nor McCarter families in Washington County in 1860.

Whatever the family relationships, note that Mary Fox aged 22 years between 1860 and 1870! Compare that with her obituaries, apparently confirming the older age first evidenced in 1870:

Mrs. Mary Magdaline Fox, widow of George B. Fox, died 12 Jun 1872 at 102 years and six months (thus born Nov/Dec 1769). She was born and married in Frederick County and had 14 children, 56 grand children and 67 great grandchildren. [The Mail, Hagerstown, Maryland, Friday, June 21, 1872 and The Examiner, Frederick, Maryland, Wednesday, July 3, 1872; republished on midmdroots.freewebspace.com/newspapers].

This is the only record we have of Mary's middle name. Note that Mary’s mother was Maria Magdalene, so Mary was a “Junior”.

If I didn’t want to dispute a centenarian’s claim, I would have to conclude that Mary didn’t want to appear a decade older than her husband, but dropped the 40 year old masquerade after she became a widow sometime in the 1860s. On the other hand, the census record of 1830 indicates that Mary had two daughters after 1820, that is, after her claimed age of 50. This is somewhat far out on the curve. The chart below shows some statistical distributions of the age of a mother at the birth of her first through fourth child, gathered from some 280,000 reasonably well documented birth records. Note that children born after a mother’s age of 50 are almost vanishingly rare.

First Lieutenant George Fox was appointed 17 Sept. 1811 under Capt. Philip Smith, 29th Regiment MM. [Frederick Co., MD, Militia in the War of 1812, by Sallie A. Mallick & F. Edward Wright, 1992, Family Line Publications, Westminster, MD.] Contributed by Marilyn Roth in response to my posted query on GenForum. Mary’s husband-to-be George was about 30 years old at that time, but as mentioned above there were many George Foxes in Frederick and Washington Counties.

Below are five early Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland, censuses for George Fox. I believe from the correspondance of ages and the location that the George born before 1774 is father of the George who had married Mary (Mock) Gouger in 1815, both shown in 1820 as born 1774-1794. There was also another elderly male in the household in 1820. Comparing the 1820 and 1830 censuses, the four females born before 1815 were presumably Gouger daughters of Mary, the last two children those of Mary and George.

By 1830, George and Mary were in their own home, the three eldest daughters of 1820 census now away, presumably married (as Gougers or as Foxes?). There were two more daughters by that time under the age of ten (but no sons). In 1840, two more children had left home, but there was now a male in the household born 1820-25, and two girls under five years of age.

By 1850, when given names first become available, most of the folks had gone from the family. But this census and that of 1860 and later (see above) are very difficult to interpret. Who is the George Fox of 1860 born 1822/23? He fits the age of the male appearing in the 1840 census, but where was he in 1830 and 1850? In 1870 he was shown as born 1821/22, and 1880 as born 1818/19.

I’m going to make the assumption that George and Mary’s son George (the third) was born early in 1820 (before the census that year), and rearrange the Fox records as follows, ignoring male age discrepancies:

This leads to a different set of questions. Where was George in 1850 and, if he was married by 1840, where was his wife? It’s possible to connect these individuals under the assumption that George, born early in 1820, was married, had two daughters (Mary H. and May J.) and was a widower by the time of the 1840 census. Then George and his elder daughter Mary H. were away in 1850, but his younger daughter remained living with her grandparents. Finally George was back by 1860, with daughter Mary and grandson John, to take care of his parents as they were getting into their 80s.

With this interpretation, Mary and George Fox had four children, so she must have had six Gouger children before the four born after, say, 1808 of the 1820 census. That would lead to a marriage about 12 years earlier, i.e. 1796. If Mary was born 1769 that’s no problem, but if 1779, then she married quite early.

I have not entered 14 children into my database, since I have no names for anyone except George, Jr. (or III). In summary, however, the ten Gouger children were born about 1798 through 1814, the four Fox children 1816 through 1822 (all years very approximate), most if not all in Hagerstown, Washington County.

The only known child of George B. and Mary Magdaline (Mock) Fox was George.

i. George, son, b 1820 in Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland. George was probably married at age 17 or 18, had two daugters, and was a widower before mid 1840.

1. Mary H. Fox, born 1838/39 Hagerstown

i. John T. Fox/Helane. We find John in 1900 still in Hagerstown, with a wife and two children:

2. May J. Fox, born 1839/40 Hagerstown