Esther Cable Crispin

Status: looking for family

It is with the story of this woman that we finally arrive at the end of our long family saga, which began with Catherine Peterson Dalbow. Catherine’s photo, along with 10 other photos, were found all together at the DC Big Flea - one of the midatlantic’s premier flea markets. I love buying old photos there, because they’re usually fairly priced (not marked up something insane like $7 per CDV). And so, when a collector finds themselves in such conditions, they find themselves leaving with an entire family.

Which is what I did. I picked up all the photos I found that had names on the back and seemed easily researchable, but what I found when I got home was that many of the photos either shared the same surname and/or had ‘CWC Album’ written on the back, indicating they had all come from the same family album. This album, I later found, had belonged to Charles Wesley Cable.

Everyone could be linked back to Charles Wesley Cable somehow - I invite you to consult the family tree at the bottom of this page.

For that reason, I knew this woman was also related to Charles - if not by the fact that the surname ‘Cable’ is literally written on the back of her photo.

But she turned out to be a much more difficult research case than I had imagined.

First of all, you may notice that her name at the top of this page is ‘Esther’, while the name written on the back of her photo is ‘Hester’. This proved to be the first roadblock in finding any information on her. I decided to use ‘Esther’ as the title of her blog post because it would seem that Esther was her legal name and the name used on all genealogical documents such as censuses and vital records. Perhaps the family called her Hester, but we will call her Esther.

The second, and biggest difficulty, was figuring out how she fit into the family. The label on the back of the photo would insinuate that she perhaps was born a Cable and married a Crispin. Judging by the age she appears in her photo, I assumed she might have been the sister of Jacob Cable.

Indeed, we do find a Hester Cable living with Jacob Cable in the 1870 census. Hester is 30, while Jacob is 45 and Jacob’s children are 22 and 19. Obviously Hester is too young to be the childrens’ mother (plus, I knew through research that Jacob’s wife’s name was Sarah Avis). So, I was assuming that perhaps, after Sarah died, Hester moved in with her brother to help him with the house.

This theory, that Hester/Esther was Jacob’s sister, seemed to be further confirmed by the fact that an 1880 newspaper article announces the marriage of an Esther Cable and a Josiah Crispin. Undoubtedly, this had to be the same woman.

So, mystery solved, eh?

Well, not really. Because I couldn’t find any evidence of Hester or Esther Cable existing before the 1870 census, when she lives with Jacob. She doesn’t show up anywhere in any census within the tight-knit community of Upper Penns Neck, New Jersey, nor could I find an actual marriage record of her marrying Josiah Crispin. The newspaper article could have been sufficient evidence, but I had a sneaking suspicion that something was off. Josiah was married twice, first to a woman named Elizabeth with whom he had his children, and then to a woman named Esther Davis. There is evidence that there were two Josiah Crispins living in the same area, so I had assumed this Josiah and Esther Davis were the other Crispin family…

Until I found an 1866 marriage record for Jacob Cable naming his new bride as Esther Davis.

Suddenly, the timeline flowed together.

In 1866, Jacob Cable married Esther Davis after his first wife, Sarah Avis, had died. Jacob and Esther lived together in the 1870 census. Meanwhile, Josiah and Elizabeth Crispin were married with children, until Elizabeth suddenly died in 1877. Josiah Crispin then remarried Esther Davis Cable in 1880, explaining why the newspaper article would name Esther as a Cable, while her marriage record would use her maiden name, Davis. This means that Jacob Cable must have died before 1880, leaving Esther to be a widow. This matches with what I had found about Jacob - while no death notice or FindAGrave profile could be found for him, a newspaper article did say he died around the age of 60 after tragically falling down a flight of stairs on his boat.

Josiah Crispin died in 1894, which explains why Esther Crispin is found alone in the 1900 and 1910 censuses, working as a housekeeper in Camden.

So, who was Esther Davis, before her marriage to Jacob Cable? Well, she is found in an 1850 census, at 13, in Mannington Township, New Jersey, living with the Taylor family. This family seem to have a lot of people living with them on their farm - who don’t share the Taylor surname - working as laborers. Perhaps young Esther worked as a housekeeper for them while attending school (which, the census indicates, she did).

But where was Esther’s family? I couldn’t find her in the 1860 census, before she married Jacob, nor could I find any reference to which family she might have been born into. If you have any information, please comment below!

Esther died in February of 1914. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey.

Another fun little tidbit before we officially end this family saga - after revisiting Esther and Jacob’s photos, I found they were both taken at the same photography studio: Steinman - 504 South Second St in Philadelphia - albeit probably at different times, because the photographer’s logo differs between the two CDVs. Love little details like that!