From Lena May Kongable Benson:
Henrietta Crocker Kongable was born on 11 October 1862. She had six toes on each foot and six fingers on each hand. The extra fingers were removed when she was a child. Her twin sister Annetta Crocker Wyckoff did not have any extra fingers or toes. Neither did any of Annetta's four daughters or three sons.
We were always told we were related to he giants in the Bible (2 Samuel 21:20 or 1 Chronicles 20:6). This trait was passed down through her children with the exception of the oldest (Lena) and the youngest (Harold). It has also shown up through all subsequent generations but just mostly tiny fingers what can be cut off at birth.
Henrietta had nine children:
- Lena May had no extra fingers or toes
- George Frederick had [extra fingers and toes]
- Edna Blanche fingers
- Winnie Pearl had tiny pea-sized finger with tiny nail, on one of her little fingers. Was removed when a baby.
- Nellie M. had both extra fingers and toes, were taken off.
- Howard Spalding two bean-like fingers, six toes, six fingers on one hand
- Monnie Ruth
- William Crocker six fingers, five toes
- Harold J. had no extra fingers or toes.
John Crocker was aged 63 at the time of the 1860 Census. Four young children are listed in the 1860 Census: Wm. H (6), Clara E (4), James B (3), and Abby A (1).
The 1870 Federal Census for Essex Co, Mass, Ward Five, on 7 July 1870 (Microfilm M-593, Roll 611), Page 17, Line 18, showed Henrietta Crocker, age 7, Female White, cannot read or write, and her sister, age 7, Female White, cannot read or write, twins, living in Dwelling Unit 138, Family 157, with Sarah Crocker, age 42, Female White, born in Nova Scotia, keeping the home. Two other children lived in the home: Dora, age 5, Female White, cannot read or write, and Dennis, age 1, Male White, cannot read or write.
From Lena May Kongable Benson:
When Henrietta and her twin sister Annetta were 7 years old, they were put in an orphan's home in Boston, Massachusetts.
Baldwin Place Home for Little Wanderers
now the New England Home for Little Wanderers
20 Linden Street
Boston MA 02134
Marilyn Sneden, adoption coordinator
617-232-8610 or 617-428-0234
June Leonard (Wed & Thurs)
617-232-8610 or 617-428-0258
[Microfilm records of the New England Home for Little Wanderers in Boston, MA, indicate that the children may have been placed in the Home around 31 Jan 1871. That is the date of the first documents in the Home's microfilm records signed by Sarah Crocker, with information about Anna Dora Crocker and Whitney Crocker. It is also the year that Warren Crocker Bartlett was born to Sarah Crocker and Nicholas W. Bartlett.]
In June, 1872, they were taken to Morning Sun, Iowa for adoption. Henrietta Crocker was adopted by Thomas and Mary Spalding and lived in their home until she married William Frederick Korngaebel on 13 September 1883. It was about this time he began leaving the letters "r" and "e" out of his name, spelling it Kongabel.
After their marriage they went to Delmont, Douglas County, South Dakota and settled on a tree-claim farm, where they built a house and set out trees to pay the U.S. government for title to the land. Staying there four years, they had two children, your grandmother, Lena May, born 19 August 1884, and George Frederick, born 16 June 1886. They then sold the tree farm and moved to a farm near Majors, Buffalo County, Nebraska.
They lived in Nebraska twelve years, where following children were born: Edna Blanch, 2 March 1889; Winnie Pearl, 13 November 1891; Nellie M., 15 December 1893; Howard Spalding; 4 April 1897; and Monnie Ruth, 30 March 1899. They then moved near Olathe, KS, for one year, where son, William Crocker, was born 19 December 1901. When family moved from Nebraska to Kansas, the mother and children, except two, came on a passenger train; the father and two girls, Edna and Winnie, came in freight car with their furniture and livestock. The next year lived near Ottawa, KS, for one year.
Then they moved to a farm near Guthrie, OK, in 1903. It was here your grandmother, Lena May Kongable, lived with her parents and attended Logan County High School. On 25 May 1905, Harold J. was born.
Henrietta lived at the farm home near Guthrie until she moved into Guthrie in 1919. At the time of her death at age 86 she was living near her daughter, Lena May, at 801 E. Vilas.
Henrietta Crocker's story is all too common for the era, a story which also indicates something of the social circumstances of late 19th century America and why there were Orphan Trains placing children out from Eastern cities to farms in the Midwest.
John Crocker, a ship's carpenter, was in his late 50s when he married Sarah Crocker, who was in her early 20s, about 1855/56. They became parents, a child born about every other year, through the birth of John Whitman (Dennis) Crocker on 25 Oct 1868, when John Crocker was about 71 years old and Sarah was one month short of age 36. At least one of the nine children born to them died shortly after birth.
Less than one year after the birth of their last child, John Crocker died on 14 Aug 1869, probably in a work-related event in the shipyard in Salisbury MA, just across the river north of Newburyport. This left Sarah Crocker, probably illiterate and unskilled, as the sole support for her brood of eight children ages 15 to 1. They were living at 19 Oakland St. in Newburyport at the time.
Sarah took in boarders to help pay the bills, one of whom was Nicholas Bartlett, who was a stevedore, or ship laborer. Still, she was unable to make ends meet, so in the spring of 1870 she turned her oldest four children, ages 15 to 12, out on their own. Still she could not manage, and in late 1870 she placed the youngest four children in the Baldwin Place Home for Little Wanderers in Boston. [Click on picture to see larger format. Use your back browser button to return to this page.]
About the same time, she became pregnant by Nicholas Bartlett. Their son, Warren, was born 20 October 1871. He was listed as "Warren Crocker" in an 1880 census, but in later life he took his father's name as Warren Bartlett.
Was her decision to place the four youngest children in the Baldwin Place Home for Little Wanderers in Boston prompted by her pregnancy by Nicholas Bartlett? Was Nicholas Bartlett unwilling to support children of whom he was not the father? Was theirs a consensual union, or was Sarah raped by boarder Nicholas Bartlett? All questions which will likely never be answered, but indicative of the heart-break which Sarah Crocker must have known.
Nine months after Warren was born to Sarah Crocker and Nicholas Bartlett, Henrietta Crocker was "placed out" from an orphan train in Morning Sun, Iowa. Her twin sister, Annette, was also "placed out" in the same area, but the name of the family with whom Annette was placed out is not known.
Sarah Crocker and Nicholas Bartlett and their son Warren lived at 22 Olive St. in Newburyport until they moved to Lynn, MA in 1893. There is no Massachusetts record of a marriage of Sarah Crocker and Nicholas Bartlett.
Henrietta was placed out with the family of Thomas Spalding, a blacksmith in Morning Sun of Scots-Irish ancestry and strong Presbyterian faith. Thomas and Mary Kennedy Spalding, both born in Beaver Co. PA, were parents of seven children. Henrietta was treated as one of their own, and in later life Henrietta's children called Thomas Spalding "Grandfather." Henrietta and the Spalding family remained close throughout life, and at least the next generation of descendants did so as well.
In the United Presbyterian Church of Morning Sun Henrietta met Will Kongable, trained as blacksmith in Perry Co, PA, but working with or for his brother, George, as a farmer. The Kongables were raised in the German Reformed faith, but as there was no congregation of that tradition in Morning Sun, they worshiped with the Scots-Irish Presbyterians.
Henrietta and Will were married 12 September 1883 in the Morning Sun United Presbyterian Church and departed immediately thereafter for a tree claim near Delmont, SD. Over the next twenty years they moved progressively south, working on farms and ranches in Buffalo Co, NE, and Johnson Co, KS, always worshiping every Sunday at a United Presbyterian Church, though this at times required a ten mile sleigh ride across the frozen North Platte River with the children bundled beneath buffalo robes.
In early 1903 the family moved to Guthrie, OK, where Will purchased eighty acres and built a home which is still standing and occupied by a descendant family. Will died tragically in 1908 of typhoid fever. Henrietta raised the seven of her nine children, ages 19 to 3, who remained in the home on her own, through very difficult times.
On 25 July 1949 Henrietta died and was laid to rest beside her husband in the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie. Many of her descendants still live in the Guthrie area.
One genetic peculiarity has marked descendants of Henrietta Crocker Kongable: she was born with six toes on each foot and six fingers on each hand. These extra digits were removed when she was a child. Her twin sister, Annetta Crocker Wyckoff, did not have any extra fingers or toes. Neither did of Annetta's four daughters or three sons, but an occasional descendant of Henrietta is still born with extra tiny nubs on feet or hands. This genetic peculiarity was also passed to descendants of one of Henrietta's older brothers.
Henrietta Crocker Kongable 
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