This website contains the ancestors of my daughter, Alexandra Catlin Vaut, and related families. It represents nearly 60 years of research, but still contains errors, omissions and unsupported information. My principal purpose in posting this family tree is to provide some research guidance to others with an interest in some of the people I have identified. As the product of many decades of collecting information, my research reflects considerable change (improvement) over time to better document facts and assumptions and to cite reputable sources. In more recent work, I have been particularly diligent. In my older research I often did a very poor job of documentation and sometimes accepted bad information without any substantiation. I now try to consistently note where I have made speculative assumptions about various relationships and facts, but I know that I have still not been entirely consistent in this, so don't trust unsubstantiated information. I continue working on this genealogy and make regular changes to the data and additions to the tree.

October 19, 2026: For several months I have been working on a 3rd edition of Such Lives as These. This has resulted in teh correctrion of a multitude errors and some new research on most of the families involed. Here is a synopsis of the 3rd edition:

Such Lives as These…

A Chronicle of the Armstrong, Hart, Howard, McLean, and Trimmer Families in Pennsylvania, New York and Westward, ca 1751 – ca 1855

Third Edition, 2026

Gregory A. Vaut

The Book in Brief

In the 1770s, five families lived within a few miles of one another on the Pennsylvania frontier in Fermanagh Township, in the Juniata Valley. They were the Armstrongs, the Harts, the Howards, the McLeans, and the Trimmers. They farmed small, hard-won tracts and married into one another’s households. Their men also served side by side in the Cumberland County militia through the Revolution. In the mid-1790s nearly all of them packed up together and went north to the newly opened Genesee Country of central New York. There they settled side by side once again on the western shore of Seneca Lake. A generation later their children and grandchildren scattered west, to Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, and beyond, and the old bonds dissolved.

Such Lives as These follows these families across a century and three frontiers. It is a rigorously documented genealogy, built on tax lists, land warrants, militia rolls, pension files, deeds, wills, court records, and censuses. It is also a social and economic history of how ordinary people lived, fought, moved, and started over in early America. The title comes from a 1915 obituary of a Howard family pioneer: “Such lives as these form the richest part of the heritage of our present American life.”

Audience and Market

Descendants of the Armstrong, Hart, Howard, McLean, Trimmer, and McAllister families. Their lines now run through Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, and California.
Genealogists working on Scotch-Irish and German families of the Pennsylvania frontier, or on Revolutionary War militia ancestors from Cumberland County.
Historical and genealogical societies and libraries in Juniata, Mifflin, Snyder, and Cumberland Counties, Pennsylvania; Ontario and Yates Counties, New York; and northwestern Ohio and southern Michigan.
Readers of early American social history, frontier settlement, and westward migration.
Readers interested in presidential genealogy, through the Trimmer–Nixon line.

Overview

The book follows five intermarried families and a sixth figure, Hugh McAllister, whose farm lay in what became McAlisterville. McAllister fought beside the families’ men and lived among them in Pennsylvania.

Alexander Armstrong, Sr. was a Scotch-Irish settler of the 1750s and the patriarch of the group. His daughters married into the Hart and McLean families, and his sister married Thomas Howard.
Epenetus Hart, Sr. was “an Englishman” by local tradition. He was a pioneer of the 1750s and a militia lieutenant, and later an early settler of Geneva, New York.
Thomas Howard arrived about 1776. He married Elizabeth Armstrong and later led his family to the Maumee Valley of Ohio.
John S. McLean was born in County Antrim in 1748. He was a cooper and a Continental soldier who served from Long Island to Valley Forge.
Anthony (II) and Paul Trimmer were New Jersey-born grandsons of German immigrants. Through Paul the family line descends to President Richard M. Nixon.

Five things bound these families together: intermarriage, neighboring homesteads, a shared need for defense on an exposed frontier, the common life of small-scale farmers, and repeated service in the same militia companies. The book documents each of these and then follows their consequences. The families made a concerted migration to New York in the 1790s. A generation later their descendants dispersed westward, each family going its own way.

The author pursues two questions throughout. What were the daily lives of these families like, especially in the pre-Revolutionary decades when they met, settled together, and intermarried? And how did their shared Revolutionary War experience help hold them together for decades afterward, through their joint migration and resettlement in the Finger Lakes? The answers reach well beyond the families themselves. They explain how the Pennsylvania interior and western New York were opened to settlement, and how the next great push west unfolded after the Erie Canal opened.

Structure and Contents

The first four chapters tell the shared story of all five families in chronological order. Chapters 5 through 9 each take up one family in depth, following the same five-part pattern: Pennsylvania, Revolutionary War service, New York, the next generations, and the move westward. Readers can follow the collective story or trace a single line.

Chapter 1. Origins of the Five Families and Settlement in Central Pennsylvania

The families arrived in Fermanagh Township in two waves. The Armstrong brothers, Hart, and McAllister came between about 1751 and 1760, as the 1754 “New Purchase” opened the Juniata country amid the dangers of the French and Indian War. Howard, McLean, and the Trimmers followed about 1776. Their origins were Scotch-Irish, English, Irish, and German.

Proximity is proved from the records themselves. In the 1790 census the Hart, Armstrong, and McLean households are listed on consecutive lines. A 1787 road petition runs “across Lost Creek at Epenetus Hart’s house; passing Hugh McAlister’s house.” By marriage, each of the five male heads became a brother-in-law or son-in-law of the others.

Drawing on the county tax lists of 1778–1789, the chapter reconstructs the families’ farm economy: holdings of 50 to 328 acres, a team of two horses, a few cows, and a flax patch. Hart ran a still, McLean worked as a cooper, and the younger Alexander Armstrong was a wagonmaker. The chapter places these farms in the wider market economy centered on Carlisle. It ends with a puzzle. In 1787–88, four of the families jointly warranted land in Beaver Dam Township, perhaps with money from the militia loan certificates they had just received.

Chapter 2. The Revolutionary War

This chapter sets the families’ service against three decades of violence on the frontier, between settlers and Native peoples, from the 1750s to 1780. It covers the refusal of Pennsylvania’s Quaker-led Assembly to fund defense, the rise of volunteer “Associators,” and the 1780 Fermanagh compact signed by fifty-seven settlers to raise men “for granting some assistance to our frontiers.”

Using muster rolls and payrolls, the chapter identifies twelve records in which two or more of the families’ men served in the same company. It traces Hugh McAllister’s rise from sergeant to company commander. The 1832 pension applications of John S. McLean and George Armstrong, each supported by the other’s affidavit, supply first-person narratives of the war. The chapter also tests a long-standing local tradition that veterans of the 1779 Sullivan Expedition drew Pennsylvania families to the Finger Lakes. It concludes that none of these men took part in the expedition.

Chapter 3. The Five Families in New York

Between 1793 and 1796 about fifty-five members of the families, some twenty-seven of them children under ten, moved north to the Phelps and Gorham Purchase in Ontario County. The chapter weighs the pressures pushing them north and the attractions drawing them: the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic, the new Williamson Road, and the land agent Charles Williamson’s advertising campaign in the Carlisle Gazette. It also reconstructs the probable routes, by bateau up the Susquehanna or overland with the livestock.

Epenetus Hart bought land at Geneva in 1794, and an early town meeting of Seneca was held at his house. Henry Plum’s 1798 survey map, preserved by the Yates County Historian, shows the Armstrong, Hart, and McLean lots adjoining one another near Hopeton. A new reconciled transcription of the 1799–1804 tax rolls shows the families assessed together year after year. Their township changed name from Jerusalem to Vernon to Benton around them, but they did not move.

Chapter 4. The Five Families Move Westward

From about 1804 to 1855 the book traces nine migrations out of the Benton area. They went to western Pennsylvania, to the Maumee Valley and Lake Erie shore of Ohio, to Washtenaw County, Michigan, to Fountain County, Indiana, and to the Missouri River in Franklin County, Missouri. The chapter sets these moves against the opening of the Erie Canal, steam navigation on the Great Lakes, and the explosive growth of the Old Northwest. A grandson’s vivid 1888 account of the Howards’ 1821 voyage from Buffalo to Fort Meigs anchors the chapter. Unlike the joint move to New York, this second migration scattered the families in different directions, and no further contact among them is known.

Chapter 5. The Family of Alexander Armstrong, Sr.

The Armstrongs were the hardest family to research. The surname was common among Pennsylvania’s Scotch-Irish, and Alexanders, Georges, and Jameses abound in the records. Two family wills, Robert Armstrong’s of 1783 and George Armstrong’s of 1791, become the key to reconstructing the sibling group and its children. Using them, the author sets aside a 1770 will that others had attached to this family and corrects published misidentifications of Sarah (Armstrong) McLean’s father.

George Armstrong’s pension narrative takes him to Philadelphia, Trenton, Princeton, and the Crooked Billet. In 1840, at eighty-three, he was still named in the census as a Revolutionary pensioner. In the 1830s twenty-nine Armstrongs went west to Sandusky County, Ohio, and Washtenaw County, Michigan. There Alexander Jr., a wagonmaker in 1782, was still farming at eighty-seven. One granddaughter’s family joined the Mormon exodus, captaining “a company of 50 wagons” to Salt Lake in 1851 and settling at Fillmore, Utah.

Chapter 6. The Family of Epenetus Hart, Sr.

This is the book’s longest family chapter and the author’s own line. It assembles forty-nine dated records of Epenetus Hart’s thirty-seven years along the Juniata. They show his rise from private to lieutenant, a distillery, sheriff’s sales for debt, and a notice for a strayed horse, the last trace of him in Pennsylvania. In New York he was a Geneva town officer and a debtor. Charles Williamson pursued him in the Court of Chancery, and the bill filed after his death names his heirs. That bill places a married daughter and a son “gone to Georgia” and puts a young son under a court-appointed guardian.

His son Armstrong Hart was a Geneva hatter. He left his four daughters in New York and remade his life on the Missouri River, running a ferry, serving as justice of the peace, and holding enslaved people. Epenetus’s son-in-law, the Penn Yan lawyer William B. Shattuck, married three times, the third time to his late second wife’s niece. Two Shattuck daughters became physicians in Chicago in 1878. The chapter also revises the author’s earlier conclusions about the “two Susan Harts.”

Chapter 7. The Family of Thomas Howard

Thomas Howard was tied by marriage to all four of the other families. The chapter follows him from the Fermanagh militia and tax rolls to Seneca town offices, and then on a three-wave migration of twenty-six family members to the Maumee River valley of northwestern Ohio. There, in 1823, his sons cut an eight-mile road through the wilderness to the Grand Rapids of the Maumee. His son William later built a keelboat on Seneca Lake, took it through the Erie Canal, and had it towed across Lake Erie.

The chapter is frank about uncertainty. There are at least ten militia records for men named Thomas Howard. A New York pension was paid in that name until 1830, five years after he died. His wife’s parentage remains open. Among the descendants is Sydney Howard Nelson. Her husband deserted her for Texas, and her son went there “supposedly to track down his father” and settled in San Antonio.

Chapter 8. The Family of John S. McLean

John S. McLean was born in County Antrim and survived “a tedious voyage of three months and 13 days” to Philadelphia. His 1832 pension narrative carries him through Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, Brandywine, and Germantown to his discharge at Valley Forge. The chapter weighs his 1841 obituary against two later county histories. It accepts what the records support, including perhaps the story of waking on a winter battlefield with his hair frozen to the ground. It rejects claims the records do not support.

In 1796 the family’s goods went up the Susquehanna by bateau while the stock went overland. John and Sarah then lived more than forty years in Benton and died within a month of each other in 1841. Their descendants went three ways: to Indiana, to Erie County, Pennsylvania, and to Tioga County, Pennsylvania. The chapter closes with an unresolved puzzle of three James McLeans, two burials, and a family Bible with a death date crossed out.

Chapter 9. The Families of Paul and Anthony (II) Trimmer

The Trimmer brothers were New Jersey-born grandsons of German immigrants. Anthony married Thomas Howard’s sister in 1777, and in 1792 he named a son Epenetus Hart Trimmer after his old comrade in arms. The chapter separates three pairs of Pauls and Anthonys in the records. It sets aside a published identification of Anthony in the 1790 York County census and settles disputed dates from wills, probate files, and church registers.

Paul’s line moved on to Washington County, Pennsylvania, and spread into southern Ohio. His granddaughter Margaret Ann Trimmer married George Nixon III, a Union soldier buried in the Gettysburg National Cemetery. They were the great-grandparents of President Richard M. Nixon. Anthony’s descendants remained mostly in Yates County, while others went on to Allegany County, New York, to Washtenaw County, Michigan, and to Ashtabula County, Ohio.

Appendices

Appendix A: Descendant Charts. Indented descendant charts for the Armstrong (six generations), Hart (five), Howard (seven), McAllister (three), McLean (five), and Trimmer (six) families, cross-referenced where the families intermarry.
Appendix B: Issues for Future Research. About three dozen open questions, set out family by family and across families. Each gives what the book says, what has already been searched, and a specific next step: a named repository or record series. It is a working agenda for the next researcher, and it highlights the largest untouched sources, such as Thomas Howard’s pension file and the founding generation’s probate records.
Appendix C: The Ontario County Tax Assessment Rolls, 1799–1804. A single reconciled transcription of the Seneca, Jerusalem, and Vernon rolls. It replaces six separately made versions that did not agree. Supporting tables cover town jurisdictions, disputed entries and how each was resolved, and which rolls survive.

What Is New in the Third Edition

The third edition builds on the 2016 first edition, the 2021 second edition, and the author’s 2020 monograph Pioneers and Patriots. It incorporates research done since 2021, especially on the pre-Revolutionary years in Fermanagh Township. It also adds new detail on the families’ lives and corrects many errors in the earlier editions. Notable changes include:

Expanded treatment of frontier life and the farm economy of the Juniata Valley, 1750s–1790s.
A new, single reconciled transcription of the 1799–1804 Ontario County tax rolls (Appendix C), replacing the separate and conflicting versions in earlier chapters.
A new research agenda (Appendix B) of documented open questions, each with its next step.
Revised conclusions on several identity problems, including the two Susan Harts. Corrected dates and the removal of entries that the evidence no longer supports.

What Sets This Book Apart

Evidence on the page. The author writes against “dogmatic” family trees that assert relationships without proof. Every fact is cited. Conflicting records are set side by side, and hypotheses are labeled as hypotheses. Unresolved questions are stated openly rather than smoothed over.
Genealogy as history. An economist and historian by training, the author sets each family event in its geographic, economic, and social context. The book covers land purchases from Native nations, militia law, the Quaker Assembly, land speculation in the Genesee Country, and the canal and steamboat era.
A collective biography. Most family histories follow a single surname. This one follows five intermarried families together, which shows how neighborhood, kinship, and shared military service shaped decisions to migrate.
Reconstructed households. Every census before 1850 named only the head of household. Census figures pair each enumeration with the author’s best identification of each member, marking as unidentified anyone without a clear candidate.
Rich primary sources. These include pension narratives, wills, Chancery Court pleadings, road petitions, survey maps, newspaper notices, a family Bible, a pioneer’s Mormon-trail journal, and first-person migration accounts.

About the Author

Gregory A. Vaut is an economist and historian who lives in Vermont. He is a direct descendant of both Alexander Armstrong, Sr. and Epenetus Hart, Sr. His research into these families began in the 1990s with a search for the origins of his third-great-grandfather, Armstrong Hart, and an unusual given name, Epenetus, that led back to the Cumberland County militia. He is the author of the first (2016) and second (2021) editions of Such Lives as These and of Pioneers and Patriots, a study of the families’ Revolutionary War experience. He maintains the genealogy website www.acvancestors.com, which publishes his research data and images of most of the documents cited in the book.

October 10, 2026: After reviewing the NY probate records for Susan (MNU) HART, I believe that she died in Ontario Co., NY, and not in Summit Co., NY.

October 9, 2026: I have made a major change in my HART lineage. I now believe that the "Susan Ann HART" who d. in Summit Co., OH was the Susan (MNU) HART who was the widow of Jonathan HART. I no longer believe that she was dau. of Armstrong and Susan (RIGGS) HART. I now accept that the dau. of Armstrong and Susan (RIGGS) HART name Susan Ann HART was the woman who married Henry G. Koon. My logic is explained in the notes to the two women: Susan Ann (MNU) HART (1783-1851) and Susan Ann (HART) KOON (1812-1894).

August 7, 2026: After beginning work on "Pioneers and Patriots," I decided that the information I was finding on the pre-revolutionary war experiences of the five families provided enough new material that I decided to incorporate that information into a third edition of Such Lives as These rather than publishing a new paper. That work is progressing. it has resulted in a number of small corrections and additions to my genealogical database as well. Today is the first upload of this new information and corrections, deletions and additions.

July 16, 2026: I have begun work on the second paper based on my research for my Five Families Such Lives as These project (ARMSTRONG, HART, HOWARD, MCLEAN AND TRIMMER in 1750-1790 Fermanagh Twp., PA) - See link on header above. I abandoned this new paper in 2020, but have now returned to it with renewed gusto. This second paper, "Pioneers and Patriots", focuses in on the experiences in 1750-1790 which bound the families together. As I discover new information, I will be updating the individuals' files here.

May 26, 2026: My database Exceeds 106,000 individuals. I have continued updates with new direct ancestors from the inter-married families of BAIRSTOW, BEARMAN, DENISON, LUM/LOMBE, PLATT, SELL, STRICKLAND/STRICKLIN, and WOOD, mostly of Hertfordshire and Yorkshire, UK and early MA/CT/NY (Long Island).

April 30, 2026: 1600-1800 family lines - clean up, tying up some loose ends, a few line extensions.

March 30, 2026: Clean-up work on all lines.

March 17, 2026: New Updates on the SUSONG family of VA and Greene Co., TN, including the story of Barbara SUSONG who fought for three years in the Continental Army during the Revolution.

March 8, 2026: I have been working the ROSE and GREGG/GRAGG family lines of Greene Co., TN, Augusta Co., VA, and elsewhere.

February 21, 2026: I continue to work on ARNOLD family and related families.

February 15, 2026: This update includes material additions to the INGLES and related families of VA.

February 4, 2026: I have worked a lot on the MARSHALL line added to the BICKERS family.

January 11, 2026: More on the ARNOLD family of VA and Greeneville, TN (amont other places).

January 6, 2026: New information on my UNDERWOOD AND MOSELEY/MOSELY family connections in Virginia.

January 4, 2026: Some new information on my ARNOLD family of Virginia and various relations, including HUDSON, WILLIS, and SLAUGHTER, among others.

December 20, 2025: I am posting new information on the FRISBY family of Maryland.

Note: If you see anything wrong or questionable in my data, PLEASE contact me and let me know about it - particularly if you have and are willing to share evidence to supplement, correct, contradict or disprove what I have written here. I am happy to share my work with those who are serious about their own research and am always willing to correct my errors.

Feel free to contact me via email (gregvaut "at" gmail "dot" com) if you have a question or comment regarding this research.

The scond edition (expanded, with major revisions) of my book Such Lives As These is available for download without charge at Academia.edu. (For more information on what the book contains click on Such Lives As These at the top of this page.)

BEWARE

Beware of information that is supported only by references to Ancestry Family Trees and that is not confirmed with other evidence. I sometimes include such information to guide my own research, but you shouldn't trust these sources unless you can confirm them and their sources yourself.

Please cite all sources of information, including this website.

Recommended citation: Vaut, Gregory, Ancestors of Alexandra Catlin Vaut, http://www.acvancestors.com : accessed (insert date), (insert name or item of interest).

[Based on Mills, Elizabeth Shown, Evidence Explained. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2015, p. 657.]