Ford Weeast and Helen Davis Family (1895 – 1991)

In this blog, I will introduce you to the Ford Weeast and Helen Davis family; my grandparents. Ford is the only son of Morgan H Weeast.

Lineage: Thomas Weast -> Morgan H Weast -> Morgan Weeast -> Ford Weeast

Ford had one daughter with his first wife, Ethel Carrell, before her early death one year later. He then went on to have six other children with his second wife, Helen Davis. They all lived in Florence, New Jersey.

To supplement the other standard sources of information, I was able to copy the Roebling Employment Records for most people mentioned below from microfilm found in the Burlington County Library. This proved to be invaluable when talking about the Weeast family during World War II.

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Morgan H Weeast and Elizabeth Johnson Family (1869-1957)

In the last blog, I introduced Morgan and Lydia Weast. In this blog, I will detail out information about one of their three sons, Morgan H Weeast. Morgan would be my great-grandfather.

Lineage: Thomas Weast -> Morgan Weast -> Morgan H Weeast

What is fortunate for this family is the numerous photos I have collected and are linked to this blog. Although there are no photos of the children when younger, there are photos as adults.

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The Morgan Weast and Lydia Pettit Family (1818 – 1904)

In “The Early Weast” blog, I introduced the Thomas and Mercy Weast family. In this, and the next two blogs I will introduce my family line from Morgan Weast to Morgan Weast Jr to Ford Weeast (my grandfather).

Lineage: Thomas Weast -> Morgan Weast (my great-great-grandfather)

Thomas Weast had four sons, one of which was Morgan Weast. Morgan worked at Hanover Furnace with his brothers and father. He married Lydia Pettit probably around 1845-1846 when he was 26 and she was 19. No marriage record has been found. In all, they had 10 children.

The first instance of this family’s name changing from Weast to Weeast is recorded in the 1870 Census. When I blog later about the families of the sons I will use the Weeast name.

Approximately half of the 200+ Weast / Weeast I have identified are descendants of Morgan and Lydia Weast. The other half are descendants of Henry Weast. There is a smaller number who are descendants of Daniel and Levi Weast.

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Brief History of New Jersey

You gain a better appreciation of the families that will be introduced in future blogs if you have historical context along with family events as they are told. This brief introduction to the early history of New Jersey begins and ends before Thomas Weast is born around  1790.

At the end of this blog, you will notice that Trenton and Princeton briefly served as the capital of the United States in the 1780’s. Next week’s blog will cover the eight capitals that are not well known before Washington, DC.

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