DON CARLOS WILMOT’S grandfather, also Don Carlos Wilmot, lived on Archibald’s (a relative) place. There is a hill named after him called “Don Carlos Wilmot Mountain” better known today as “Wilmot Mountain” in Thetford, Va. He was a 49er in the California Gold rush, having gone off to adventure with his cousins. “
He married Lucina A. Graham and lived in the house in which he was born in 1826,” {Gazeteer).
Don Carlos, the son of Joseph & Mary (Freeman) Wilmot, saved enough money to build his house in East Thetford, Vermont in which more than three generations of Wilmots were born. He always lived on the ‘Timothy Willmot’ farm. (From FindAGrave website added by Roscoe Wilmot in 2009)
A LITTLE EXPLORATION OF NAMES
DON CARLOS
So where did the name “Don Carlos come from…Hmmm”
1) DON CARLOS, Prince of Spain by John Otway (1676)
“…Elizabeth Barry was the mistress of JOHN WILMOT, Earl of Rochester, the poet to whom OTWAY dedicated “Don Carlos”, a heroic tragedy, his first success.”
2) A story I heard in Vermont is that there was a particularly bad year when the only sheep that survived had been gifts of DON CARLOS of SPAIN. Many children were thus named in his honor. Vermont records of the time reveal at least seven Don Carloses born between 1789 and 1823: Barrett (1789 Norwich), Mather (1800 Jericho), Hatch (1800 Brookfield), Hunt (1801 Norwich), Wilmot (1811 Thetford), Hawley (1811 Cambridge), Luce (1823 Stowe). None of these have a known relationship to DON CARLOS WILMOT. If we take the locations, they appear to be in two clusters: Norwich(A), Thetford (B) and Jericho (C); AND Jericho (D), Stowe(E), and Cambridge(F) .
One reads in the Vermont Visitor of 1845, that Don Carlos (infante Carlos 1788-1855) abdicated his thrown in honor of his son. This would mean the first Don Carlos was born about roughly the same time so could not have been named after the Infante, but could have been named after his father, Carlos IV, who ruled until 1808.
Introduction of the Merino probably occurred in 1793. In 1801, a Merino sheep called the “Don Carlos” was bred along the Hudson. Apparently, one William Jarvis of Vermont, US consul to Portugal in 1809/1810 shipped more than 4000 merino sheep to the US and a mania for Merino sheep began to develop (Livestock production and marketing-Google Books).
So, this sheep connection cannot explain everything. It could be that Hunt, Wilmot, Hawley and Luce are actually named after the 1801 sheep came to the US (thus popularizing the junior Don Carlos. But the naming of Barrett before 1793, when the first Merino sheep cam to the US does not fit.
ARABELLA KINGSBURY
“Kingsbury” is a family name that followed on the Moor side. Kingsbury Moor (see http://adupree.com/wp/g/getperson.php?personID=I818&tree=adupree ), Arabella’s great aunt (uncle?), is the first I have found to fit the name. But I have found little about his life to show why the name would merit repeating. Arabella’s cousin William Kingsbury Moor (see http://adupree.com/wp/g/getperson.php?personID=I397424&tree=adupree ) is another to hold the name.
JOSEPHINE MONTAGUE
???
HERBERT G
No known Herberts in family. G could stand for Graham?
HAVILAND GEORGE
There are Havilands in Danville. Charlotte, for example, married there Joel Sanborn and named her daughter Charlotte Haviland Sanborne. Is there a link to this family of Wilmots?
CHARLES SOUTHWICK
In 1855 (census) a certain Kimball T Howe (b 1828 NH s of Nathaniel & Rachel Coburn) and his wife Levinia/Valina (b 1836 MA)were living in Middlesex county, Massachusetts. Living with them was 18-year old CHARLES SOUTHWICK a bootmaker from Connecticut. Since Don Carlos and Lucy certainly worked in Lowell, Massachusetts, is it possible that this is the namesake of CHARLES SOUTHWICK WILMOT?
It is intriguing that there Kimbell Howe also has a daughter JOSEPHINE (1856) and a son HERBERT (b 1867) and a Lucinda (b 1854). Kimball was a greenhorn crew member about the Triton a whaler bound for the pacific in 1849. What is, if there is any, the relationship to Don Carlos Wilmot and Lucy Graham?