About this site · What's new · Updated 3 November 2026

What's New on the Bodwell Family Site

Thirteen new stories, a rebuilt chapter on Henry's origins, and more than a hundred old family photographs back in the tree

The past few weeks have been the busiest in the site's history. The stories have grown from a couple of dozen pages to thirty-six, now arranged in eight sections, and each one links to the next so they can be read straight through like a book. The family tree has gained more than a hundred photographs that had been sitting on the old bodwellfamily.org pages, now attached to the people they show. And the long search for where Henry Bodwell came from has turned up new evidence on both sides of the Atlantic.

This page lists what has changed, so that anyone who visited before can go straight to what they haven't yet read.

New stories October–November 2026

About this site

• Thanks to a Family of GenealogistsNew With thanks to everyone, across four centuries, who wrote our story down, kept it safe, and pieced it back together The people behind the research, from the earliest family historians to the cousins who are still at it. A good place to start.

Henry and Bethia in New England

• Bethia, Henry's WifeNew A daughter of Newbury, thirteen children, and a life on the edge of the frontier Bethia Emery is as much the founder of the American family as Henry, and until now she had no page of her own.
• The Last Will of HenryNew An old man's mark, and what he left behind Read from the original will in Essex County probate file no. 2754, which also shows that his daughter was Ruth Huse, not Ruth Stone.

Bodwells in American history

• Over There: Bodwells in the Great WarNew A grandfather's dog tags, a decorated Canadian colonel, and the cousins who went to France
• Wings and Wounds: Bodwells in the Second World WarNew A father in a flying suit, a navigator generals asked for, a bomber crew hidden by the Danes, and a young writer who never came home The first pages on the twentieth-century wars, which until now the site barely touched.

A Family's Life in America New section

• Full Cradles, Small GravesNew Big families, early deaths, and how close our ancestors lived to loss
• Axe, Ox and PlowNew What farming was like for Henry Bodwell, and for the Bodwells who carried the plow west
• Steam, Sparks and Shoe LeatherNew Railroads, mills, electric light and the Bodwells who worked them, 1865–1914
• Radios, Reels and Hard TimesNew Radio, the movies, oil, and how the family got through the Depression, 1919–1939 This section looks at everyday life rather than single people: how the family lived, worked and grieved. Bodwells on the Move has moved here too.

Interesting family members

• The Sanbornton BodwellsNew A parson, a schoolmistress, a professor and an architect from one New Hampshire hill town Rev. Abraham Bodwell, minister at Sanbornton for 46 years; his daughter Sarah Jane, who taught the young Mary Baker Eddy; and the architect Albert E. Bodwell, who first wrote down the family's Welsh tradition.
• Lewis Bodwell, Free-State PreacherNew A New Haven boy in Bleeding Kansas: a church built by hand, John Brown's last escape, and a close call with Quantrill
• Ebenezer Vining Bodwell, MPNew From an Upper Canada farm to the first Parliament of Canada, the Welland Canal, the railway to the Pacific and the young city of Vancouver
• The Jukebox InventorNew A forgotten inventor, the first drop changer, and the dawn of the jukebox

Rewritten and expanded

• Henry, a Mystery to be SolvedRevised What the records prove about the first American Bodwell, what they don't, and how we might find out who he really was This one page replaces the older "Two Henrys" and "Three Henrys," which had drifted apart and no longer agreed. New in this version:
  • Henry's earliest known record is now 5 August 1675, when Newbury pressed him for service in King Philip's War.
  • He gave his age as 24, twice, in 1678: in a court deposition and on the oath of allegiance list. Both fit the London baptism of 17 January 1653/4.
  • A first lead on who he worked for in Newbury: the merchant Thomas Woodbridge.
  • A plain list of what is proven, what is probable and what is still open, and a research plan for settling the rest.
• All storiesRevised The stories page, reorganised Thirty-six stories in eight sections, running roughly from Wales to the twentieth century. Every story now has Previous and Next links, so you can read the whole collection in order.

Photographs back in the tree Added 25 October 2026

The first bodwellfamily.org was a set of hand-built pages, and many of its photographs never made it into the family tree when the site moved to its present home. They have now been matched to the people they show and attached to their records: 114 photographs, with 185 links to people. Look for them on each person's page in the tree. Some highlights:

• Rev. Abraham Bodwell (1777–1863) of Sanbornton, and his son Rev. Joseph Conner Bodwell
• Rev. Lewis Bodwell (1827–1892), with his wife and his Topeka church
• Gov. Joseph R. Bodwell: an engraving, his house in Hallowell, his memorial booklet and two photographs of the Bodwell Granite Company
• Celsius Putnam Bodwell (1854–1941), Texas Ranger
• Civil War portraits of Augustus Bodwell and others, and the gravestone of William Levi Bodwell at Norwalk
• Portraits and landscapes by the painter Arthur Van Zile Bodwell (1890–1940)
• The Old Elm house in Lawrence, and Bodvel Hall and the Bodvel stone at Llannor in Wales
• Dozens of family groups from Maine, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Ontario and beyond, many from the early 1900s

On the workbench

Stories and searches under way, which should appear here next:

• The Crossing. How Henry got from London to Newbury, once the emigrant and indenture records have been searched.
• The Methuen generations, 1745–1815. Henry's sons, Captain Henry and the homestead, Joshua Bodwell in the founding party at Marietta, Ohio, in 1788, and the Bodwells of the War of 1812.
• Celsius Putnam Bodwell, Texas Ranger, and the 1878 hunt for Sam Bass.
• The Bodwell Family Mysteries, updated with what has been solved, and a new puzzle: how Clarence Leroy Baker became a Bodwell.

For three hundred years the family's history was handed down in a few old books and a lot of stories. Now much of it is written down in one place, with the evidence beside it. If something here is wrong, or you know more, the next update could be yours.

This page lists additions to bodwellfamily.org from October to November 2026. Stories are listed in the order they appear on the All stories page. Photographs were matched from the old bodwellfamily.org pages to the family tree export of 25 October 2026. Corrections and new finds are welcome: charlie@bodwellfamily.org.