HomeMy WebLinkAboutUpdike, Nelson RNelson R. Updike
Nelson R. Updike/Updyke was the son of Reuben and Alche (Rappleye) Updike. He was born
about 1821 either in Ulysses or Enfield. His parents are buried in the Old Log Meeting House
Cemetery at the intersection of Perry City and Podunk Roads in Ulysses.
In 1850, Nelson was married to Mary Jane Harvey and was operating a farm in Enfield. They
had 3 children: Everett Clayton (9), Frances M. (6), and Jane Ann (3).
By the 1860 Census in June, Nelson had given up farming and had purchased the Union House
Hotel in Trumansburg, Ulysses, Tompkins County and became its Proprietor. His family had
increased by the addition of son Clarence W. (9). In the ads he ran in the Trumansburg
newspaper, he noted that “horses and carriages were kept constantly on hand for the
accommodation of the public.”
Apparently, his efforts at operating a hotel were unsuccessful as by February 1862 a Sheriff’s
Sale was ordered to sell “all goods, chattels, land and tenements” owned by Nelson Updike.
The Sale kept being postponed until August 1862. By the middle of January 1863, the local
newspaper reported that Rodney Marsh of Freeville, Tompkins county had taken over
operation of the Union House.
Two months later in March 1863, it was officially announced that Nelson R. Updike had just
been sentenced to two years and one month in the Auburn State Prison for the crime of
bigamy. (No public record had been made of this situation prior to the sentencing
announcement.)
In June 1865 when New York State conducted its Census, Nelson (45) was out of prison and
living in Elmira with his second wife Maggie (25). He was again operating a Hotel. Later that
year a daughter Inza would be born.
By 1867 when his second daughter with Maggie was born (Hattie), Nelson and his family had
moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania where his occupation was listed in 1870 and 1880 as a
Teamster.
In 1880, while living at 252 E Third St., Williamsport (now a parking lot), daughter Inza (14) was
recorded as being crippled but able to attend school along with her sister Hattie.
Other than son Everett who died in Iowa in 1917, no public record of Nelson, his two wives, or
their children have been located by over 70 researchers beyond 1880 when Nelson was 59
years old.