Who Was Alexander Jameson's Second Wife?

It has been said that Alexander Jameson remarried after the death (1803) of his first wife, Janet Brown. It is not exactly known who this second wife may have been, although E.O. Jameson identifies her as a "Mrs. Parks."[1] Nothing is really known about this "Mrs. Parks" apart from E.O.J.'s writing that she died after Alexander.[1]

One possibility as to who this Mrs. Parks might have been, could be Elizabeth (Curtis) Parks, the wife of a Simeon Parks, of Rutland County, Vermont.

The history of Wells, Rutland County, Vermont, has a Simeon Parks moving to Wells, in 1787. He was born in 1768 and although eight years younger than Alexander but still close enough in age to be friends. Simeon died in 1817, leaving a large family.[2]

Simeon is buried in Wells, along with one of his sons, Harvey and Harvey's wife.[3] However Betsey is not burid there with him

There are a few trees on Ancestry about this family but no one has much information on Simeon's wife, Elizabeth (Betsey) Curtis.[4] There is mostly only info on the children of this couple. One such tree reflects the name of "Parke"[5] but this is not likely correct as the same family is almost always shown as "Parks," in other places, including Simeon's (Vermont) gravestone. The surname is also Parks in the History of Wells.[2] Other genealogy trees show at least two of their children, Nancy and Betsey, cab be found living (and dieing) in nearby Genesee and Wyoming Counties, close to where several of Alexander Jameson's children can be found about that same time.

As it turns out, there are several references to where some of the children of Simeon and Betsy Parks, Simeon Willis, Nancy and others, did migrate to the Genesee County area of New York state, and beyond.[2] Not only that but there are records which show Betsy Parks remained in Vermont,[6] where she remarried a man named Joseph Button, soon after his first wife had died (1821).[2]

So, it seems pretty clear that if Alexander Jameson did remarry and if his second wife was indeed a Mrs. Parks, that this was not that Mrs. Parks.

Research and analysis by: Nan Flickinger