I found the death certificate for Vandine, indexed as Vanctun though the informant was Mrs. Vending Martz. It named Simon as his father but there is some ambiguity as to whether his mother was Mary Thomas or Mary Showers, it can be read either way.

I lean to Showers as the better interpretation as the last part looks to me more like “wers” than “mas” and with a little imagination, I can see that the “T” might have been an “S”, though not fully formed.

Josiah’s death certificate did not identify the name of his mother.

Richard J Martz has determined that both the Thomas and Showers family names were present in the the right place at the right time.

There is also a memorial for Mary Ann on find-a-grave. Her birth year is listed as 1815, her death as May 1880 and there is this comment:

“Source: 1880 Fed. Census mortality schedule. Indicates she was age 60 at time of death.”

It is correct that she died in May 1880 at age 60 — per the Mortality Census. The question is where does the 1815 come from? And is there any evidence she was buried at Pomfret Manor? I suspect she is not there.

Richard J Martz, a descendant of Simon, points out that during the early 1830‘s, the only other Martz besides Jonathan in Northumberland Borough was Simon who was taxed there as a single man. In 1834, Jonathan had been taxed as John Porter’s tenant, in 1835 Simon was the tenant.

From Census, Jonathan seemed only to have one son who was under age 5 in 1810, 10-15 in 1820 and perhaps the one misreported as 15-19 in 1830.

I have considered he may have been the son of Jonathan’s brother Peter since Peter was listed in the 1830 Census in Sunbury and then Simon was listed in Sunbury in 1840, but tick marks do not support that conclusion. They better support the idea that he was Jonathan’s son, which is what Richard Martz believes.

Simon is designated P1a1.

Simon was in the 1840 Census in Sunbury and also there in 1850 as Wiman Martz, age 47, with Mary 34, Mercy 12, Vandine 5 and Gideanna (?) 2.

In 1860, he was still in Sunbury and now Josiah 7 and Catherine 1 have joined the family.

1870. Still in Sunbury. Rebecca Henry age 5 has joined the household.

1880. Still in Sunbury. His wife, variously named Mary, Mary A and Mary Ann has apparently died. Rebecca Henry is said to be Simon’s granddaughter.

Richard J Martz gives a sad biography for Simon. “At one point he owned valuable property in Sunbury but was gradually forced to sell off his holdings. In 1884, a newspaper article said that Simon, who had been a borough charge for some time, had left to live with a daughter in Buffalo in the hopes of finding employment. But county tax records show that by 1886 he had returned to the poor house in Sunbury and was there until at least 1888.”

There is a memorial for Simon on find-a-grave which alleges he was buried in Pomfret Manor Cemetery in Sunbury, with dates 1806-1890. There is absolutely no evidence that there is any truth to this. Some of Simon’s descendants are buried in that cemetery and that seems to be the basis of the apparent misconception that Simon must be there too.

But Richard J Martz has looked quite closely at this possibility and also tried hard to find where in fact Simon was buried. He concludes that it is highly unlikely Simon is in Pomfret Manor (no record of it where there should be one). For a long time, though, we had no better dates for Simon than 1806-1890 until Richard found a death notice in a Sunbury newspaper giving his date of death hand age at death.