The Fonda Blog

This is a duplicate of the listing on the fonda.org website.

written by admin \\ tags: Achievements, America, Biographies, Education, Executive, Executives, Fonda Family, Fulton Co., History, Medical, Merchants, New York, Notables

Landmarks with the Fonda Name

Towns Fonda, New York, USA – East central N.Y., on Mohawk River, and the Barge Canal, and 10 mi/16 km W of Amsterdam; Formerly a freight transfer point on the N.Y. Central RR. Mfg. of aluminum prods., apparel, and textiles. Inc. 1850. Name origin – named after Douw Jellis Fonda (1700-1780) in 1850. (Note: A nearby town was once called Fonda’s Bush, but is now Broadalbin, Fulton Co., New York). Fonda Speedway is a 1/2 mile dirt oval, located at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Fonda, NY. Racing at Fonda Speedway started in 1927; 6 events were held from 1927 to 1938. Racing began in earnest in the late 40s. A 1/8th mile drag strip was added in 1957, and was apparently used through 1968. Shirley Muldowney’s drag racing career started on this strip in 1958. [Google Map] Dirt Race Track - Fonda, NY Train Depot - Fonda, Iowa (1894) Fonda, Iowa, USA – North central Iowa, on Cedar Creek, and 14 mi/23 km SW of Pocahontas. Name origin – “Marvin was the name first given to the station and express office, and Cedarville was the name accorded to the post office in Cedar township, located on the banks of Cedar Creek. By the time Cedar township was formed, the town and post office were called Marvin. Marvin was the name picked by the man who donated the land, ordered the plat, and designated that this new little town be named after his friend. The use of the names Marvin and Manson caused confusion to those sorting mail on the trains, and it was suggested that the name be changed. In 1874, AO Garlock and George Fairburn took the post office directory and selected a new name that was not common in Iowa. The name Fonda only appeared once in the directory, the name of a town in western New York state.” [American Towns] [Google Map] Fonda, Vermont, USA – probably named after William Beecher Fonda (1846-) whose family settled in the St. Albans, Franklin County, Vermont area in the 1870’s. [Vermont Gazetteer] [Google Map] Could have been... Port Fonda Fonde, Kentucky, USA – Bell County, SE KY., in the Cumberland Mts. at Tenn. state line, 10 mi/16 km W of Middlesboro. [Google Map] Fonda, North Dakota, USA – Rolette County [Google Map] [North Dakota News] Fonda, Wyoming, USA – Goshen County [Google Map] Port Fonda, Missouri, USA – proposed name for what is now Kansas City (see Abraham Fonda) [Google Map] Fonda’s Bush, Montgomery Co., NY, USA (now Broadalbin, Fulton Co.) – Three Rivers – Trappers of New York: “Fonda’s Bush, a place in the Johnstown settlements, so called after Major Jelles Fonda, who took a patent for the lands. The place is situated about ten miles north of each from the village of Johnstown, and the same distance west of north from Amsterdam. Fonda’s Bush signifies the same as if it were called Fonda’s Woods, a dense forest covering the soil at that early period-bush being the usual term for woods on the frontiers of New York.”; Spafford’s 1824 Gazetteer of the State of New York – Profile of Montgomery County: “The principal Village is on the W. line of this Town, in a quarter called Fonda’s Bush, where is the Broadalbin Post-Office, 10 miles from Johnstown. It is situated on both sides of Fonda’s Creek, on the main road from Johnstown to Glen’s Falls, and contains 1 church, 27 dwellings, 14 mechanics’ shops, 4 stores, 2 tanneries, 1 paper mill, a school-house, 2 taverns, and an ashery. This has always been called Fonda’s Bush, but by a late act of incorporation, its cognomen is changed, as a lawyer would say, to Rawsonsville, though the people still adhere to the old name, and probably always will.” [Google Map] Oklahoma Ghost Town Fonda, Oklahoma, USA (Place – now a ghost town; Dewey County; 36ºN 98ºW; Zip Code none; Elev. 1630 ft.) Many, many years ago and approximately 8 miles or so east of Seiling, Oklahoma there was a small community called Fonda, Oklahoma. At that time Fonda consisted of a General store, Blacksmith shop, Post Office and several residences. The store was run by the Tyree family. Near Fonda, Oklahoma and the Canadian River there was a school called Diamond. It was a typical elementary school of the era. A one room, one teacher teaching grades one through nine. There was a barn for the students riding horses, a windmill for drinking water and two out houses. There was no electricity and light came from kerosene lamps. In cold weather heat was provided by a large wood stove in the rear of the room. In 1928 there were about twenty students the majority of which were Indian. Today the original site of Fonda is only an open wheat field. see [Dewey County History] [TopoZone Map] Top Roads Fonda Road - Waterford, NY Fonda Street (renamed Water St. in 1799), Schenectady, NY 12302 – [Google Map] [Schenectady History] Fonda Road, Rockville Center, NY 11570 – [Google Map] Fonda Road, Cohoes, NY 12047 – [Google Map] Fonda Road, Waterford, NY 12188 – [Google Map] Fonda Ave, Oneonta, NY 13820 – [Google Map] Fonda Ave, Battle Creek, MI 49014 – [Google Map] [Battle Creek History] Fonda Road, Firth, NE 68358 – [Google Map] Fonda Street, Paradis, LA 70080 – [Google Map] Fonda Road , Santa Fe, NM 87505 – [Google Map] Fonda Way, Los Angeles, CA 90031 – [Google Map] Fonda Street, La Habra, CA 90631 – [Google Map] Fonda Road, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3S 3X3 – [Google Map] Fonda Way S.E., Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2A 2K2 – [Google Map] Water Fonda’s Island – a small island in the Mohawk river within the town of Schenectady – containing five morgens (ten acres) – lying to the north of the Hoek – in 1736, Philip Livingston of Albany sold it to Jellis Fonda by whose will made Sept. 8, 1737, it was divided among his three sons, Pieter, Abraham and Jacob. The island is now part of the [Isle of the Oneidas], see [Bouwlands Map 1664] [Schenectady Map 1690] Fonda Reservoir – Randall, Montgomery Co., NY – 6.4 Acre Lake – [U.S. Geological Survey] [TopoZone Map] Fonda Lake - Brighton, Michigan Fonda’s Creek – History of Broadalbin: It (Broadalbin) is abundantly watered by numerous creeks and small streams flowing in all directions throughout the town, chief among which is Kennyetto Creek – often, incorrectly, called Fly creek, Fonda’s creek, and sometimes Little Sacondaga. [Google Map] Fonda Lake (now Lake Kora) – Wakely Mountain, Hamilton Co., NY – Most of the Blue Ridge Wilderness Area was at one time owned or controlled by William West Durant, an Adirondack developer active from the mid-1870s through 1904. Former Durant lands include Townships 6, 19, 33 and 34 in the Totten and Crossfield Purchase. 1898 – Durant sells Lake Tuscarora (aka Sumner Lake or Fonda Lake), now Lake Kora, and the surrounding estate to Lieutenant Governor Timothy L. Woodruff, who constructed Kamp Kill Kare. – [Hamilton Co. Reservoirs] [Google Map] Fonda Lake – Brighton Twp., Livingston Co., MI – named for Lewis B. Fonda family which settled in Brighton, Michigan in 1832 from Wynantskill, Rensselaer Co., NY – [Google Map]also Fonda Island & Briggs Lake Joint Water Authority, 11510 Grand River Road, Brighton, MI 48116and Fonda Place Office Center, 10321 Grand River Road, Brighton, MI – [Google Map] Top Buildings Fonda Reformed Church - Fonda, New York Fonda Reformed Church – 19-21 Broadway, Fonda, New York 12068 – The Reformed Dutch Church of Caughnawaga was organized about the year 1758, but the first church edifice was not erected until 1763, when with financial aid from Sir William Johnson, who was entirely non-sectarian in his benefactions, a stone building was erected, along the line of what is now the main street of Fonda, but in this eastern, or Caughnawaga district of the village. The village of Fonda proper, was not built till after 1830. The town Caughnawaga took its name from the old Indian village which had stood there. Fonda was named for Douw Fonda, one of the first settlers of the town, and a Revolutionary patriot. The first pastor of the Caughnawaga church was Rev. Thomas Romeyn, who served the charge 22 years. He was succeeded by Rev. Abraham Van Horne, who was pastor 38 years and preached in both Dutch and English, as Dutch was then giving place to English, in the valley. With his pastorate, the use of Dutch ceased at Caughnawaga. [Church History] [Google Map] Henry Fonda Theatre Hollywood, CA Henry Fonda Theatre – 6126 Hollywood Blvd. – Los Angeles, CA 90028 – A trip down Hollywood Boulevard going east to west first brings you to the Henry Fonda Theatre. Famous for the actor of the same name, the Fonda Theatre is home to many local plays. Originally called the Hollywood Music Box, the newly refurbished theatre has staged many Broadway productions such as Driving Ms. Daisy and concert acts including Adam Ant and Tori Amos. Opened as the Music Box, this theater went through several owners and corresponding name changes. Before being renamed as the Henry Fonda Theater, it became the Fox (not the Fox at Hollywood and Wilcox, which was the old Iris Theatre) and then the Pix Theater. When the theater was still known as the Pix, it had a really nice neon marquee. The Pix was the movie house that premiered “Jaws” on Hollywood Boulevard in 1975. A year later they showed “Rocky”. Not a very large theater but it showed many blockbuster’s in the 70’s before becoming a live venue. [Cinema Treasures] [Google Map] Henry Fonda Theatre Stage Schools & Parks Elizabeth Fonde Elementary School Mobile, AL Elizabeth Fonde Elementary School – school named after Elizabeth Fonde [Rootsweb] (1873-1947) who was born in Mobile, AL, educated at Barton Academy in Mobile. From 1918 to 1924 she served as a member of the Mobile County Board of School Commissioners and in 1926 became President of the Alabama Conference of Social Work. She is buried at Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile. – [Google Map] [SchoolTree] [Arkema] Note: Elizabeth Fonde and Corinne Fonde (Fonde Park, below) were cousins. Fonde Park – On Saturday, November 4, 2006, Houston Parks and Recreation Department rededicated southeast Houston’s Fonde Park. Located at 5500 Carrollton and accessible from 2500 Hansford, at its opposite end, the 12.7-acre park was acquired by the city in 1950. The park’s name honors Miss Corinne Fonde [Rootsweb] (1883-1950), a long-time administrator of the Recreation Department and the first deputy director when the Parks Department and the Recreation Department were combined into one city department. Fonde Park - Houston, TX Top Fonde Community Center - Houston, TX The Fonde Community Center, just off Buffalo Bayou near downtown and the Victorian homes of the Sixth Ward, is also named for Miss Fonde. This not-so-ordinary city Parks Department neighborhood recreational facility has well-maintained basketball courts for pickup games where many NBA stars come to play.Throughout the year, the center features a variety of free activities and classes – tai chi classes are popular, and the weight room is always occupied. – [Google Map] [Google Map]

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

written by admin \\ tags: Buildings, Geographic, Landmarks, Parks, Roads & Railroads, Towns, Water

Greetings to fellow Fonda Family members who are exploring their lineage… and to others who are doing genealogy research, or are just browsing for information. The Fonda Family in America has a rich heritage and there are many fascinating stories of perseverance, integrity and achievement… a truly great American legacy which is still unfolding. I hope you will find this report useful and that this database continues to grow.

There are currently over 4000 Fondas in the Main Family Line (6000 including spouses) over a 400-year time span. There are another 1500 Fondas identified, but not yet placed (Strays, for the lack of a better term).  As of 2005, there are approximately 900 households world-wide with Fonda surnames listed… about 500 in America, 200 in Italy, followed distantly by France, Slovenia and Canada.  The majority of the American line is descendant from Jellis Douw Fonda (1614-1659) who migrated from Holland to American in about 1650.  The link back to Italy is still uncertain.

This project is limited to just the Fonda surname (and its spelling variants), which includes only those born with the Fonda surname and their spouses. This means that wive’s parents and daughter’s children are not included. There are separate sections broken out for Allied Early Families (nearly 400 ancestors of pre-1800 marriages) and Other European Immigrants (over 600 Fonda immigrants not in the main family line). There are also about 70 Black Fondas in the Strays section, with some links back to their likely slave owners prior to the Civil War. There is good evidence of at least four family lines of former slaves who retained the Fonda family name.

Recent additions include:
– many new immigration and ship passenger records
– expanded entries from global listings, except Italy and Slovenia
– all available court, land and probate records
– all available Canadian Phone & Address listings
– all available info from classmates.com
– correspondence with dozens of distant cousins

Future work will concentrate on:
– more research into historical newspapers
– more research into Italian/Slovenian roots and current branches
– more research into current Rest-of-World branches
– include available info from linkedin.com and other social networking sites
– seeking gravestone photos and pre-1950 family photos

I have enjoyed putting this project together, and I was gratified to find so much information… thanks to some excellent previous work, collaboration with other researchers, some great library resources and the ever-expanding Internet mass of information. Please feel free to send me an e-mail with comments or questions… this is a living document and is never totally complete.

I am currently working on more recent generations based on public records and feedback from our many Fonda cousins who have found the website or database. The Rootsweb on-line database does not display people born after 1930, but the GNO, GED and PDF files linked above all have everything included. Although this is all public information, please respect other people’s privacy. The message boards on Genealogy.com and Ancestry.com are good places to make inquiries. The latest update of the database files are posted at www.fonda.org and worldconnect.rootsweb.com. Please send any inquiries or comments to webmaster(at)fonda.org.

Regards,
Albert (Mark) Fonda

written by admin \\ tags: America, Civil War, Fonda Family, Holland, Italy, News, Surnames

written by admin \\ tags: Achievements, America, Biographies, Compendiums, General, History, Holland, New York, Patriot, Portrait, References, Settlers

Genoa, Italy

Extract from “Early American Families“, Rev. W.A. Williams; Philadelphia, PA; 1916:
“The Rensselaer-Bowier Papers say that Douw Fonda was a Frisian, and Tacitus says that the Frisians dwelt along the coast of the North sea. They were converted to Christianity before A.D. 800. The family of Fonda was originally from the Republic of Genoa, Italy. The Marquis de Fonda was one of the leaders of a revolution in Genoa, having for its object the overturning of the aristocratic government, and putting the election of the Doge and Senate, into the hands of the people at large. The Doge (=duke) was the duke, or chief magistrate. Our ancestor was an early republican, and must have lived there, between 1339, when the first Doge was elected, and 1528 when the Dogate ceased. Baron de Fonda was unsuccessful in his attempt, and fled from the country, taking refuge in Amsterdam, Holland, whence his descendant, Jellis Douwese Fonda, emigrated to America in 1642 (1650), and had grants of land from the Dutch government, settling in or near the present city of Albany, N. Y.”

“There is a perhaps less credible tradition also, that the Fondas were Huguenots. and fled from France to Holland after the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s night, Aug. 25, 1572. There is another tradition that they fled from Spain on account of persecution or followed the Duke of Alva to Holland. It is also said that they belonged to the royal house of Spain, fled to Italy, because of religious persecution, and came later to Holland. Possibly they fled from Italy to France, and from France to Holland. The form of the family name is Latin and therefore similar in French, Italian, and Spanish, indicating the Latin origin of the family, probably In Italy. The Fondas were Dutch Reformed Protestants when they emigrated to America, and must have been among the first converts of the Reformation. Their descendants are widely scattered throughout the Union, though many are still living near the old home in Eastern N.Y.”

“The family name is taken from a deep valley in the Apennines, about 12 mi. from the city of Genoa, called Fonda, a name which means bottom, deep, foundation, etc. It is said that, in the early part of the last century, the estate was still in the possession of a branch of the family, the Count de Fonda, and there are many of the name, in the various parts of the Genoese territories.” Some of the family may have known Columbus in Genoa.”

Note: the above is disputed in “Old Dutch Families: Fonda Family” (De Halve Maen Quarterly, 1945):
“The Fondas were important in up-state New York during the Colonial period and in the early development of the State. Presumably the family is of Frisian origin and one genealogist has outlined European background for the Fondas giving them a really illustrious descent. However, these stories apparently come from tradition rather than substance.”

Trieste, Italy

Today, most native Fonda families live in Trieste, Italy and nearby Piran, Slovenia.  There is a wonderful website by Robert Fonda regarding Slovenian Fonda Genealogy which provides a rich family history within that area.  This tends to support the above statement about the Genoa connection being less credible.

quoting Robert Fonda:
“Although there is no written evidence to prove that surname FONDA really came into existence in Piran, there is some statistic research which more than obviously shows that. Here I will mention three: the first was done by means of a telephone book and internet (Labo.net) for the year 2002; the second was done by the historian Darja Mihelič, Ph.D. in the book “Piran, mesto in ljudje pred sto leti” (Piran, the town and the people a hundred years ago) and deals with the years between 1889 and 1892; the third one represents the number of families FONDA in the area of Italy in 1945.”

“The research of the FONDA families today shows that it is quite centrally dispersed from the area of Piran (according to the migration of population in Piran after WW2) with the emphasized direction to the Italian speaking territory the “Italian line” – Piran belonged to Italy till WW2, most of the time to the Venetian republic. It is interesting that some other old Piran surnames of the Roman origin show the same way of dispersion. As the surname FONDA is only one branch that developed from the family tree of FUNDANI’s, I was interested to to know which surname nowadays would correspond to the main branch of the genealogy.”

“By means of the the same help I found an even more frequent surname FONDI which shows exactly the same dispersion as expected. With this one namely the Rome and its vicinity is emphasized as the main centre (the town FONDI is only a hundred kilometres to the south). This surname has two somewhat smaller and less important centres with denser population in the vicinity of Florence and Milan. Beside these two surnames I also found another: FONDACARO, which probably belongs to the same family tree, the dispersion of which in the area of Italy today is different. I broadened this statistical research based on the FONDA families in phone books to the whole of Europe. The results showed the existence of the “French-Spanish line” which frequently appears in the eastern Pyrenne (Pyrennees Orientales), the “American line” in the USA and the “Slovene line” with two centres, the first in Lokev (the Slovenian Karst), and the second in Latkova vas (the Savinja valley) and its surroundings. Later on I will focus on the branch from Lokev in detail as it is the one my family derives from.”

“The historian Darja Mihelič researched the weddings in Piran from 1 January 1889 till 31 December 1892 and within this period gathered enough data according to which one can make a valid statistical pattern. The results showed that surname FONDA was statistically most frequently mentioned in the wedding certificates (2,7% ).This surname was also most frequent in connection with the house numbers – it appears in 25 addresses (the processed data was one third of all the houses in Piran). Following the data from 1945 there lived in Piran as many as 67 FONDA families which means that it was the second just after the surname Ruzzier (70 families). In this time it was estimated that in Trieste there lived 40 and in other parts of Italy another 60 to 70 FONDA families. After the cancellation of the “Zone B” in 1954, most of the Piran families emigrated to Trieste. There are now more than 20% of all FONDA families living in Trieste.”

written by admin \\ tags: America, Arts, Fonda Family, Government, History, Holland, Italy, New York, References, Surnames