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Falling head over heels and overboard

By Jonathan Monfiletto

If only the medium had been around at the time, then William Henry Stewart and Ann Elizabeth Ragg might have sold their story to a film company and had a movie made about their life and love. If not a serious romantic drama, then perhaps a Hallmark movie – the kind where boy meets girl, girl falls overboard, boy jumps in and rescues her, and the two live happily ever after, far away from the sea.

So goes the believe-it-or-not tale of falling – literally – head over heels in love for Captain Stewart and his first wife. It’s a tale that remains connected to a piece of Keuka Lake shore property called home by two of Yates County’s prominent families, and it’s a love so strong Captain Stewart left his life at sea for a life on the land.

Stewart was born on May 9, 1780 in Inverness, Scotland, and at an early age he was apprenticed aboard a man-of-war to study navigation. He quickly moved up the ranks from second mate to first mate and from second lieutenant to first lieutenant, and at a still-young age he became captain of the sailing vessel Antelope. He navigated around the world, making voyages to China, the East Indies, and many of the ports of Europe and South America. For several years, he was the captain of a packet service between Liverpool and New York City.

It was on one of these trips that Stewart was given a task by George Ragg, a wealthy merchant of New York who had come from England and left a daughter behind there. Ragg commissioned Stewart to bring his daughter, Ann Elizabeth, to America for him. She had apparently just finished her education in England and was returning to her parents’ home in New York. During the journey, a violent storm arose and passengers were kept belowdecks for safety.

According to a 1941 article in The Chronicle-Express, Miss Ragg had come up on deck for whatever reason when a sailor called that a wave was coming. The lady was about to be washed overboard when Captain Stewart caught her in his arms and saved her. According to a Stewart family history (possibly written by Stafford C. Cleveland as a precursor to his 1873 history of Yates County), however, Miss Ragg was indeed washed overboard by the wave dashing across the deck. Captain Stewart risked his life by plunging into the water and saving her from the sea.

Whichever version is more accurate, they agree Ann Elizabeth showed William Henry her gratitude by rewarding him with her undying love and devotion. During shore leave upon reaching New York, she invited the captain to visit her home and meet her parents, and their romance blossomed. The captain – and his display of bravery and courage – seems to have impressed the Raggs, and William Henry and Ann Elizabeth married on March 20, 1817 at her parents’ home.

It may have been a whirlwind marriage, as the family history indicates the Stewarts married upon reaching New York and moved to Yates County just two weeks after getting married. They settled on a farm on the west side of the east branch of Keuka Lake, about 3.5 miles south of Penn Yan in the town of Jerusalem. Captain Stewart’s father-in-law may have given the newlyweds the farm along with an annual income to meet their needs beyond the output of the farm. Mr. Ragg was wealthy certainly, but his gift might also have been an inducement for his son-in-law to quit his seafaring lifestyle and settle down permanently on the land.

Stewart later purchased 31 more acres so the farm property extended to the lake. However vibrant the Stewarts’ love, it was relatively brief. Ann Elizabeth died on May 29, 1835, leaving behind her husband and seven children. Stewart subsequently married Emma J. Merritt, daughter of John and sister of LaFayette, of the Jerusalem Merritt family. Stewart and his second wife had six more children, and they lived on the homestead until his death on July 18, 1852.

The legacy of the Stewart family still echoes on this Keuka Lake property, but the home standing there now is not the one this family lived in. That home was built by LaFayette Merritt in the Italianate style during the 1870s in a period of prosperity following the Civil War when that style was popular among homes. Merritt acquired the property when his sister remarried to James T. Davis after Stewart’s death. The Merritt family had moved to Yates County from Duchess County in 1825, when LaFayette was less than a year old, and settled on a large tract of land in Jerusalem the family converted into a substantial farm.

During LaFayette’s child on his family homestead, he gained “a relish for farming, and consequently became skillful in handling soils, stock, fruit trees and vines,” according to Lewis Aldrich’s 1892 “History of Yates County, “and not only made a good living but accumulated a comfortable property.” This included working part of the family farm in his adulthood, perhaps before or even after he married Hannah Bennet at age 34. With “an eye to beauty as well as profit,” he “surrounded and decorated his home with many attractive features.”

The grounds of the Stewart-turned-Merritt property once contained six large spruce trees and a couple of clumps of spring flowers, which may have been LaFayette’s influence. As well as building the home that still stands there on West Lake Road, he continued to improve upon and beautify the property the Stewart family had developed. “He had a lively taste for the beautiful and orderly, and impressed his ideas and feelings upon his farm, vineyards, and residence,” Aldrich states. After his death on April 22, 1891, his wife and one son remained living on the homestead.

Merritt wasn’t known only for his farming savvy, however, but also for his good character. “As a boy he was bright, industrious, temperate, and trustworthy,” according to Aldrich, “and grew to be a man of integrity, sound judgment and excellent habits.” He joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Penn Yan, which stood against slavery and for temperance, and took every chance to speak up for the causes he believed in. He was an early supporter of Keuka College when it was first proposed, and he devoted both his time and money to make it successful.

Merritt’s biography in Aldrich’s book reads like a eulogy, perhaps because his death occurred just a year before the book was published and was likely fresh on the minds of the people who knew him. Aldrich notes Merritt was “instinctively honest, honorable and kind, and frowned upon all injustice, oppression, and coarseness in speech, or conduct. … His word was as good as his bond and his honor above reproach.” It was said he delighted in anything that benefited the people around him and felt pain from anything that harmed them, until the day he died.