Richard Paynter circa 1840-1877

This great grandfather is my biggest mystery and challenge.  The first fact I have that I am confident in is his marriage to Ellen Oliver on Nov 16, 1867, in Oregon, Wayne County, Pennsylvania, by the Rev. S. T. Cramp. This information is from a notice in the Honesdale Republic, Nov 27, 1867.  The couple appears in the 1870 living in Berlin Township with 2 children, Andrew and Richard.   The last record I found was a transaction dated June 12, 1874, in which Richard sold tree bark to Coe F. Young.  By the 1880 census, Ellen is listed as a widow with 5 children: Andrew, Richard, Mary Elizabeth, Amelia Anna and Joseph E.

Based on the information in the 1870 census, I believe he was born around 1842 in England.   There are a number of R. Paynters who can be found in the ship records of the era.  My best guess is with the record for a Richard Painter who arrived June 17, 1863 from Liverpool, England and Queenstown, Ireland on the ship Olympus.  He is listed as age 23, born about 1840. Going back into the English census records, I found a boy of the right age in 1851 and 1861, with parents Richard C. and Mary Paynter in Bermondsey, St. Mary Magdalen Parish, Surrey, England.  He is no longer with the family in the 1871 or 1881 census records.  If this is my great-grandfather, he may have had 6 siblings - Mary, Elizabeth, Thomasin, Henry William, John, and Maud.

I have found two other Richard Paynter's of the same approximate age.  The other two were born in 1838, one in Buckland Momachorum, Devonshire, England and the other in Calstock, Cornwall, England. Since the birth year for the Richard in Bermondsey is closer, I am leaning toward him being the right one.


I don't know exactly how or when Richard died, but the family story is that he was bitten by a rabid dog and died 41 days later.  I have been searching through old newspapers for evidence of this, but have not yet found it.  I have found stories of rabies in the area around that time.  I have not found his grave either.

Sometime between1880 and 1900 Ellen remarried John Gummoe.  Her older children were married by then and my grandfather, her youngest son Joseph, is shown living with and working for his sister Mary and her husband in 1900.  John appears to have had a son John from an earlier marriage living with him.  John was also born in England and the records I have found indicate that he had 7 children with his first wife Jane, John being the youngest.  A daughter, Verna also appears, born September 1887.  I am not sure whether she was a child of John and Ellen or the younger John's wife.  Ellen is buried with john Gummoe in the Aldenville Baptist Cemetery, Aldenville, Wayne County, Pa.