Arts & Culture
Henry Fonda: From Omaha to Hollywood and the U.S. Navy
Henry Fonda’s path from a Nebraska print-shop family to the American stage and screen also included a deliberate interruption for active naval service during World War II.
Curated family history
Stories
Narrative family history: wars and migrations, enterprise and innovation, origins, public life, and cultural episodes drawn from the genealogy archive but shaped as stories rather than duplicate person profiles.
53stories
Arts & Culture
Hollywood Looks Back to the Mohawk Valley
Henry and Jane Fonda · 1939–1986. A historical vignette from chapter 10 of The Fonda Family in America.
Arts & Culture
Jane Fonda: A Fonda Family Life in American Culture
Film, activism, fitness, and public life made Jane Fonda one of the most visible modern members of the family, with a career extending far beyond genealogy.
Arts & Culture
John Arthur Fonda: The Artist Behind Baltimore’s John Fonda Gallery
John Arthur Fonda was an artist, ceramicist, teacher, curator, and advocate for other artists whose influence is still visible in Baltimore’s John Fonda Gallery.
Civil War
The Dispatch Before Gettysburg
Frederick, Maryland · June–July 1863. A historical vignette from chapter 6 of The Fonda Family in America.
Civil War
The Sergeant-Major Who Gave the Warning
Virginia and New York · May–July 1864. A historical vignette from chapter 6 of The Fonda Family in America.
Early America
A Distillery Beside the Brewery
Greenen Bos (Greenbush) · 19 October 1651. A historical vignette from chapter 1 of The Fonda Family in America.
Early America
Hester Goes to Court
Beverwijck · 1658. A historical vignette from chapter 2 of The Fonda Family in America.
Early America
Hester Jans: Holding a Family Together in New Netherland
Hester Douw Jans crossed the Atlantic with Jellis and their children, survived his early death in Beverwyck, and helped carry the family into its first American generation.
Early America
John Isaac Fondey: Merchant, Patriot and an Albany Family Portrait
A merchant and Revolutionary-era Albany figure whose family is preserved not only in records but in an important early American portrait.
Early America
The Carpenter and the Unfinished House
Wiltwyck · c. 1662–1663. A historical vignette from chapter 2 of The Fonda Family in America.
Early America
The Journeyman Smith and His Bride
Amsterdam and Diemen · 1641. A historical vignette from chapter 1 of The Fonda Family in America.
Enterprise & Innovation
A Tobacco Box on Pearl Street
George Farrell Fonda · Boulder, Colorado, 1874. A historical vignette from chapter 7 of The Fonda Family in America.
Enterprise & Innovation
Albert Fonda and the Fonda Farm
The Fonda Farm story connects a long-running family property with changing agriculture, rural enterprise, and community life in the Mohawk Valley.
Enterprise & Innovation
Albert Granville Fonda: Inventing Safer Automobiles
Albert Granville Fonda combined mechanical engineering, aerospace work, invention, accident reconstruction, and automotive-safety consulting across a long technical career.
Enterprise & Innovation
Douglass Cadwallader Fonda: Athlete, Executive and Train-Wreck Survivor
A college athlete and business executive whose life included an extraordinary 1923 elevated-train accident in Brooklyn—and the rescue work that followed.
Enterprise & Innovation
Douw Henry Fonda: Railroads, Banking and the Albany Drug Trade
Douw Henry Fonda moved through railroading and banking before becoming one of Albany’s best-known druggists and president of the D. H. Fonda Drug Company.
Enterprise & Innovation
Eighty Acres and a Law Book
Anthony Phillip Fonda · Missouri, c. 1900–1903. A historical vignette from chapter 8 of The Fonda Family in America.
Enterprise & Innovation
Ferdinand Wiggins Fonda: An Early American Oilman
Ferdinand Wiggins Fonda moved from Saratoga commerce into the early American oil business during the decades when petroleum was becoming a major industry.
Enterprise & Innovation
Gorton Rosa Fonda: A Scientist at General Electric
Gorton Rosa Fonda spent nearly forty years in General Electric research, contributing to vacuum science, phosphors, luminescence, and wartime display technology.
Enterprise & Innovation
Henry Adam Fonda: Building America's Railroads
Engineer, railroad builder, Civil War veteran, banker, and civic leader Henry Adam Fonda followed the expanding transportation network westward.
Enterprise & Innovation
William Beecher Fonda: An Industrialist in St. Albans
William Beecher Fonda helped shape industrial St. Albans through lumber, lime, banking, utilities, transportation, manufacturing, and civic development.
Enterprise & Innovation
William Henry Fonda: Soldier, Innkeeper and Railroad Man
Civil War service was only one chapter in a varied nineteenth-century working life that included hospitality and railroad employment in Michigan.
Family History
The Fonda Family in America
A broad historical overview of the Fonda family in America, from Dutch New Netherland roots through Albany, the Mohawk Valley, westward expansion, and the continuing family record.
Migration & Settlement
George Farrell Fonda: West to Boulder with Twenty Cents
A young Fonda headed west with almost nothing and built a new life in Colorado, a compact story of nineteenth-century migration and persistence.
Migration & Settlement
John Henry Fonda: Trader and Frontier Figure at Prairie du Chien
A westward-moving Fonda whose life connected New York roots with frontier trade, agency work, and military service at Prairie du Chien.
Migration & Settlement
The Mail Bag to Fort Dearborn
Great Lakes country · Winter 1827. A historical vignette from chapter 5 of The Fonda Family in America.
Migration & Settlement
The Town That Might Have Been Port Fonda
Missouri River · 1838. A historical vignette from chapter 5 of The Fonda Family in America.
Migration & Settlement
Twenty-Three Days to Michigan
The Cornelius C. Fonda household · Spring 1838. A historical vignette from chapter 7 of The Fonda Family in America.
Migration & Settlement
Voyage to America
A reconstruction of the 1651 voyage that brought Jellis Douw Fonda, Hester Douw Jans, and their children from the Netherlands to New Netherland.
Origins & Genealogy
Who Were Jelle’s Parents?
Eagum, Friesland · An unresolved family question. A historical vignette from chapter 1 of The Fonda Family in America.
Origins & Identity
Fonda Name Origins
What the surviving Dutch records, surname evidence, and modern genealogy can—and cannot—tell us about where the Fonda name came from.
Public Life
A Calling Beyond One Town
Donald Albert Fonda Jr. · Ordained 1966. A historical vignette from chapter 10 of The Fonda Family in America.
Public Life
Alexander Patterson Fonda: Railroads, Politics and Early New Jersey
Alexander Patterson Fonda’s long nineteenth-century life linked New York commerce, transportation, politics, civic organizations, and the development of Paterson, New Jersey.
Public Life
An Advertising Man in Village Government
Douw Henry Fonda · New York, early twentieth century. A historical vignette from chapter 8 of The Fonda Family in America.
Public Life
Stephen Adam Fonda: Soldier, Sheriff and the Last Hanging
Stephen Adam Fonda combined Civil War service, farming, politics, and the office of Montgomery County sheriff during a memorable chapter of local law-enforcement history.
Revolutionary Era
Adam & John Fonda: Prisoners in the Raids of 1780
The 1780 Mohawk Valley raids that killed Douw Fonda, destroyed the family homestead, and carried his sons Adam and John into captivity in Canada.
Revolutionary Era
Douw Fonda: Patriot, Landowner and Namesake of Fonda, New York
The life of Douw Jellis Fonda, the prosperous Mohawk Valley settler killed in the 1780 raid and remembered in the name of Fonda, New York.
Revolutionary Era
Jellis Jacob Fonda and Schenectady's ‘Greens’
Jellis Jacob Fonda served among Schenectady patriots during the Revolution, including the local militia tradition remembered as the “Greens.”
Revolutionary Era
John Peter Fonda and the Revolutionary-Era Settlement of Brunswick
An early Brunswick settler whose land, family, and militia service connect the Fonda story to the development of Rensselaer County.
Revolutionary Era
Lt. Col. Adam Douw Fonda: Soldier, Judge and Patriot
Adam Douw Fonda combined Revolutionary service with a long public career in the Mohawk Valley, linking the wartime generation to the civic life that followed.
Revolutionary Era
Major Jellis Douw Fonda: Merchant, Soldier and Mohawk Valley Leader
Merchant, militia officer, public official, and western Mohawk Valley leader, Jellis Douw Fonda stood at the center of a turbulent eighteenth-century frontier.
Revolutionary Era
The Music in the Burning House
Major Jelles Fonda’s home · Caughnawaga, 1780. A historical vignette from chapter 4 of The Fonda Family in America.
Revolutionary Era
The Sheriff, the Scythe, and the Hoe
John Douw Fonda (1741–1813) · Mohawk District · 1775. A historical vignette from chapter 3 of The Fonda Family in America.
War & Service
A Civil War Surgeon and Patent-Medicine Doctor: David Bartholomew Fonda
A physician whose career ranged from Civil War medical service to nineteenth-century medicine, public speaking, and proprietary remedies.
War & Service
Albert Dow Fonda: From the Fonda Farm to Marine Aviation
Albert Dow Fonda grew up on the historic Fonda Farm, studied at Cornell, entered Marine aviation during World War I, and returned to a long life in agriculture and local education.
War & Service
Captured in the Battle of the Bulge: James Roberts Fonda
James Roberts Fonda entered World War II as a field-artillery officer and came home after capture during the Battle of the Bulge and months as a German prisoner of war.
War & Service
Donald Justin Fonda: Two Combat Tours in Korea
Donald Justin Fonda went from Mayfield, New York, into frontline Army service in Korea, returned for another tour, and later served again in Vietnam.
War & Service
George Thompson Fonda: From Vicksburg to the West Point Light
George Thompson Fonda carried Civil War engineering experience west to Seattle, where he became a pioneer resident and keeper of the West Point Light for nearly a quarter-century.
War & Service
John Giles Fonda: From Cavalry to Vicksburg
A military career spanning the Mexican War era and the Civil War, including command responsibilities and service around Vicksburg.
War & Service
Telegraphing the Civil War: Ten Eyck Hilton Fonda
A Union military telegrapher who carried urgent wartime messages, later moving west with the railroad and settling in Omaha.
World Wars
A New Language at Sea
Gilbert Cadwallader Fonda · United States Navy · 1940s. A historical vignette from chapter 9 of The Fonda Family in America.
World Wars
The Battery Commander Who Did Not Come Home at Christmas
James Roberts Fonda · Ardennes · December 1944. A historical vignette from chapter 9 of The Fonda Family in America.
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