According to newspaper accounts, Rufus D. Stephens was a murdering bigamist in Herkimer County, New York. He may be the same Rufus D. Stevens for whom I am looking in 1850.
Date: Wednesday, July 10, 1805 Paper: Mirror of the Times, and General Advertiser (Wilmington, DE) -obtained on Genealogybank.com
The Rufus D. Stevens I am interested in lived in St. Clair County, Michigan in 1850. The family living next door to Rufus D. Stevens was that of Benjamin and Margaret (Stephens) Butler.The proximity of the Butlers to a household headed by a man with Margaret’s maiden name as his last name makes me think there could be a connection.
Benjamin Butler and Aaron Stevens were born in New York State in this enumeration. Margaret and several of the older Butler children were born in Canada.
1850 Census St. Clair County, Michigan, Port Huron Township, p. 201.
I still need to do some work, but there is a reasonable chance I have the same Rufus in both records. The Rufus from the census would have been old enough to have been the one in the 1805 article. Stay tuned.
The newspaper account was obtained on Genealogybank.
The 1850 census was obtained on Ancestry.com.
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