Consanguinity

The Browning Series -- Part 9A, the Life and Tragic Death of Charles Otho Browning pt 3

2011-08-21T18:58:00.012-05:00

With this post I continue what I call "The Browning Series." Samuel and Margaret Browning had thirteen children between them and after Margaret's death, Samuel chose a widow named Sarah Ann (Bell) Gaddis for his second wife. The two of them had two more children together. My plan has been to feature each one of the fifteen children in a separate post and finally tie the family together with a discussion of their parents.

This post is the third of three about Charles Otho Browning, the second child of Asbury Taylor Browning (son of Samuel and Margaret) and Minerva Corderman.

When last we left the family of Charles Otho and Laura Belle (Tritt) Browning, they and their three children Frank, Tena, and Charles, were living in Marion in Marion County, Kansas. Charles had been born there in January of 1887.

(Events I speak of from now on are culled from newspaper reports at the time and I've done my best to piece a story together from them.)

Fast forward a bit with me now to the 3rd of February in 1889. Charles and his family were living east of East St. Louis -- probably in St. Clair County, Illinois -- at a farm owned by Robert M. Quigley, Charles's employer. Quigley, mentioned in the previous post, was a prominent railroad contractor in the area and owner of a stock commission firm. Charles was employed by Quigley & Co. as a stockman.

The morning of the 3rd Charles, carrying as much as $300 in his pocket, was in Springfield, Missouri. He was scheduled to take a load of mules to Vinita in the Indian Territory (now OK) where the mules were to be employed upon the extension of the Missouri Pacific railroad from Coffeyville, Kansas, south. The mules had been loaded in a railroad car attached to Switch Engine #4 of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad, which left for the stockyards west of the city. Engine #4 followed another train, backed up the switch, and then ran the car to the stockyards, where it was left for the mules to be put to feed. After the mules were taken care of Charles climbed onto the step in front of the engine as it started back, heading west towards the depot.

There were laws in Springfield at the time limiting engines to a top speed of 10 miles an hour while within the city limits but eyewitnesses that day say that Engine #4 passed the Einsenmeyer Mills at a speed estimated closer to 15-20 miles per hour. The Eisenmeyer Milling Company was near National St., about 10-12 city blocks east of N. Campbell and N. Main. Just as the engine reached the frog of the switch west of Campbell street, apparently the signal to stop was given to the engineer, Ed McLean. (If anyone is curious about what a 'frog' is, take a look at the picture below.) McLean failed to catch the signal and in between Campbell and Main the engine struck a frog and jumped the tracks. It hurled about thirty feet before coming down and tearing her way along the ties and into the embankment on the side of the road.

I won't take the space here to describe the horrible scene of the accident or what happened to all the men on the train; I'll leave that to you to read the account that I've posted above as well as go to this site and read #16-18 and #20 and read what I judge to be the most interesting and detailed account of the accident by far. Three men were killed outright and five others badly wounded, Charles among them. Charles was thrown under the engine. Both his legs were severed above the knee and the upper half of his right ear was cut off.

After the accident physicians gathered and a rescue mission began. One report states that "...Boonville Street from the square to Commercial Street was a perfect stream of moving humanity." Physicians were called and wounded men were carried off to their homes or various physician's offices for medical care. The dead were taken to August Lohmeyer's, an undertaking establishment on Commercial Street, where they were laid out on cots and covered. The railroad superintendent, Col. D.H. Nichols, made sure that the Frisco Railroad took care of the welfare of the wounded and placed two of their physicians in attendence.

Reports vary about where Charles was carried. One source says he was carried to the offices over Crank's Drugstore (a distance of about a mile from the scene of the accident, on the northeast corner of Kimbrough Avenue and Cherry Street.) Another report states that he was carried to the office of Dr. Barnes, though the location of Dr. Barnes' office is not mentioned and was most likely the office over Crank's Drugstore. In the chaos, one of Charles' legs was apparently carried away with the dead to Lohmeyer's, the undertakers. Charles' injuries were grievous and little hope was held that he would survive. In the time between the accident and his death, Charles was said to have raved deliriously about his family and about Sweetwater, a city in Buffalo County, Nebraska. His ravings about Sweetwater caused many reporters to erroneously report that he was native to that place.

Charles lived the night but faded quickly and died the following morning in Dr. Barnes' office. It doesn't appear that Laura was able to get to Springfield to be near her husband. W.D. Broughton, a fellow employee who had traveled with Charles on the trip until parting with him at Dixon, MO, telegraphed their boss R. M. Quigley about the accident. Quigley came from St. Louis as fast as he could. Quigley was interviewed by the Springfield Weekly Republican and stated that Laura and her children were destitute and living on his farm outside of East St. Louis in Illinois. Quigley also said that the $300 that Charles had on him at the time of the accident had disappeared by the time Quigley had claimed the body. Quigley took Charles back to St. Louis with him and arranged for it to be interred.

Meanwhile, Justice of the Peace Charles H. Evans (the acting Coroner at the time) had called an inquest the same afternoon as the accident. The inquest was convened to determine the cause of the accident and its resulting deaths. The jury consisted of the following men: J. M. Adams, Horace Smith, J. B. Carson, D. M. Coleman, Charles Denney and W. P. Stewart. They began the inquest the day of the accident but came together again the day following at the City Hall building on Boonville street. They interviewed at least fourteen different witnesses and other railroad employees, viewed the dead and dying, and visited the accident site to get an idea of how the accident happened. Afterwards they rendered their decision.

My cousins located a copy of the Coroner's Report (it is in PDF and I cannot post it here so I include a transcription of it here.) It is a bit difficult to read but it reads as follows:

"We the undersigned Jurors empannelled and sworn in the 3rd day of February 1889 at the Township of Campbell in the county of Greene in the state of Missouri, by C. H. Evans, a Justice of the Peace in and for said Township of Campbell, acting as coronor, to diligently enquire and ( ? ? ) make how and by whom Charles Mason, Wm Miller, George Lowry, C.O. Browning and Ed McLean whose bodies were found at the yards of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad in the 3rd day of February 1889, came to their deaths, having viewed the bodies and heard the evidence do find that the deceased came to their deaths by being crushed and wounded by the wreck of Switch Engine No. 4 of the St. Louis and San Francisco Rail road in charge of Ed McLean, Engineer, and which wreck the Jury do find caused the deaths of the persons whose dead bodies were found as aforesaid and that the said wreck was caused by the carelessness of the engineer Ed McLean running at too high a rate of speed.

--------Given under our hands this 4th day of February 1889------
W.P. Stewart
H. G. Smith
James M Adams
Chas Denney
J. B. Carson
D. M. Coleman

attest
C. H. Evans, JP
--Acting Coroner--

In all, six men died. Those who died at the scene of the accident were George Lowry (brakeman), William Miller, and Charles Nason (both switchman.) The day after the accident Ed. McLean, the engineer (and the man the inquest held responsible) died of his injuries. Charles also died that same morning. Finally, Frank Crawford (day yard master) died three days after Charles did from gangrene that had set into his wounds.

In the aftermath of the accident, funerals were held and slowly life got back to normal. Quigley took Charles' body back with him to St. Louis and took out a burial permit for him in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on 7 Feb 1889. Quigley then purchased a plot in the St. Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Lemay in St. Louis County, Missouri. The section of the cemetery that he is buried in is a single grave section and it has very few headstones, so the grave is probably unmarked.

References:

Wikipedia, "Railroad Switch". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_switch#Frog_.28common_crossing.29

"A Grist Mill Guide For Missouri," Daviess County Historical Society, http://www.daviesscountyhistoricalsociety.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=62

ArcGIS Map of Historic Sites in Springfield MO: http://gismaps.springfieldmo.gov/historicsites/

The Browning Series -- Part 9A, the Life and Tragic Death of Charles Otho Browning pt 2

2011-08-04T17:14:00.007-05:00

This post is the second of three about Charles Otho Browning, the second child of Asbury Taylor Browning and Minerva Corderman.

My cousins recently found the photo I have posted here. It's unidentified, but it is of a man they feel almost certain is their g-g-grandfather, Charles. The photo was found amongst their g-grandmother Tena's (Charles' daughter's) things. The man in the photo looks to be about 30 or so. He has a nicely groomed beard, and his clothes (sack coat, wool vest, white shirt, collar in) and hairstyle (nicely oiled and parted) place him comfortably in the mid to late 1880's range. If you'll look at this picture, and then take a look at one of the smaller pictures in my blog's background (of a similar man wearing similar clothes) I think you'll be able to see how much the two men resemble each other. If our identification is correct, these two men (both named Charles) would be 1st cousins, once removed.

My cousins informed me that they'd taken this photo to a local conference sponsored by Family History Expos this past weekend and showed it to a photo historian who dated it between 1885-1890, most likely around 1887 (+/- a year or so) when the particular kind of cabinet card stock was used the most.

I thought the historian's date analysis was pretty accurate; however, I wanted some independent authentication so I turned to the photographer's mark on the photo. The one on this picture reads Hutchings Bros. Railroad Photo. Car.

Preliminary research on the photographer seems to indicate that the Hutchings Railroad Photo Car was a railroad car designed to be a traveling studio. Robert O. Brown's 2002 book, "Collector's Guide to 19th Century U.S. Traveling Photographers" (published by Brown-Spath & Associates, 2002. 339 pages, ISBN # 1-929955-13-8) states that Hutchings likely worked from 1884-1889, headquartered in Kansas but travelling up and down the railroads into NE. The railroad cars that were used resembled the one seen here, below. I found a few other pictures of families bearing this photographer's mark and most of those labeled were taken in the 1886-87 range and originate from Kearney, a town in in Buffalo Co., NE.

Now to compare what we know of Charles with the photo. Charles Browning was born in 1856, so a picture taken in 1886 or so would find him in his early 30's and at the right age to be the man in the photo. Charles was living in the Shelton area in Buffalo Co., NE c1884 and in Marion Co., KS, in 1887, both areas that Hutchings was known to operate in. It is also known that Charles worked for a man named R. M. Quigley in the months leading up to his death (early 1889), a man who in later years formed his own track-laying company (Quigley-Keough Track Laying Co.) and his own construction company (R.M. Quigley Construction Co., out of St. Louis.) In what capacity Charles worked for him, I don't know, but that he did is certain.

I really think this is a picture of Charles Browning. It's nice to get to see him and have in mind what he looks like, as we read the events leading up to his tragic death.

Next time, the railroad accident that claimed his life.

---

Image of railroad car taken from:
http://www.railroadheritage.org/SPT--FullRecord.php?ResourceId=1052

Reference: "The Book of St. Louisians: A biographical dictionary of leading living men of the city of St. Louis and vicinity by J.W. Leonard, pg. 596.

The Browning Series -- Part 9A, the Life and Tragic Death of Charles Otho Browning pt 1

2011-07-25T14:33:00.006-05:00

Browning V. State of Ohio, Pt. 2 - William Meets His Fate

2011-07-10T15:54:00.014-05:00

When we last left poor William Browning he'd went to court and stood alongside Samuel Browning (my ancestor, whom I believe to be his older brother.) Both young men agreed to a security of $200, funds that would be taken from them in the event that William attempted to leave the county and/or refused to report for trial. William didn't abscond but did his duty and reported to the court during its March term in 1821. At that time the court reporter entered the charge against him (larceny, in which he was accused of stealing 16 pounds (two bushels) of cornmeal from one James Tarbet) and ordered that he stand trial. Subpoenas for witnesses were drawn up and given to Sherriff Reazin Arnold to serve. William B. Beebe was the prosecuting attorney in the case for the State; the attorney that William hired for his defense is unknown (although as we shall see, perhaps William did not hire an attorney and instead represented himself. Let's see if you think that's what he did...)

(Oh, before I forget...Disberry Johnson. Recall him, he was a witness in the case? He was the J.P. who married William and Hannah Barr.)

I wish I had more about the trial itself. I wish I had interviews, witness testimony, or William's own testimony. I don't. Unlike my Samuel's daughter Julia's case in 1837 (which you'll find on my sidebar if you're interested), I don't have any documentation featuring the actual content of William's trial. So while I'll have to make do without all the 'juicy bits,' so to speak, I do have a document about this case and its aftermath that didn't exist in Samuel and Julia's trial. This document provides a choice piece of evidence about William and I'll just have to be satisfied with that!

The next document I have about the case is - unfortunately - its conclusion. The court clerk duly noted the proceedings in the Harrison County (OH) Common Pleas Journal (Bk. B, p. 110.) The State of Ohio's (and by proxy, James Tarbet's) lawyer, Walter B. Beebe, came to court and the jury members impanelled for the case were listed as Samuel Beatty, Robert Givin, John Cramlet, Israel R. Kirkpatrick, Henry Carver, John Jamison, Thomas Caldwell, James Patton, William Ross, Peter Thomas, James Evans, and Barak Dickerson. The only juror's name I recognized was the last, Baruch Dickerson. Baruch served as a Captain in the War of 1812. My Samuel Browning served under his command as a private in the war. The transcription of the court clerk's entry is below:

State of Ohio vs William Browning
Indictment for Larceny

This day came Walter B. Beebe Esq Prosecuting Attorney for the state of Ohio in Harrison County and the said William Browning in his own proper person who being ordained and called upon to plead to said Indictment says he is not Guilty of Larceny in manner & form as he stands Charged in Said Indictment and of this he puts himself upon the County for trial and the said Walter Beebe in behalf of the state doth so likewise whereupon a Jury of the County being Called Came, to wit, Samuel Beatty, Robert Givin, John Cramlet, Israel R. Kirkpatrick, Henry Carver, John Jamison (Sr?), Thomas Caldwell, James Patton, William Ross, Peter Thomas, James Evans, and Barak Dickerson all good and lawful men who after being duly empannelled tried Sworn and affirmed to by the aforesaid (??) Between the state of Ohio and the said William Browning the prisoner at the Bar and after hearing the evidence adduced and the arguments of Council as well on part of the State as William Browning, do say upon their respective oaths and affirmations that the said William Browning is Guilty of Larceny in Manner and form as he stands Charged in said Indictment and that they assess the value of the property so stolen at one Dollar and seventy five cents, Whereupon it is considered by the Court that the said William Browning pay a fine of Ten Dollars and Costs of Prosecution and that execution I here therefore (?), and it is further Considered and ordained by the Court that the said William Browning be imprisoned in the Jail of said County Fifteen days.

As you can see, William didn't have an attorney (or at least, one isn't listed.) The court clerk stated that William appeared in 'his own proper person' and pled Not Guilty for himself. None of the witness subpoenas I have state any lawyer's name, either, like they did in Samuel's daughter Julia's case sixteen years later. I may be reading more into the court documentation than is meant, but it seems to me he represented himself during the proceedings. Perhaps he simply didn't have the funds to obtain a lawyer. If so, I think it might indicate why he took the cornmeal to begin with. After all, in September of 1819 William was likely only about 19 years old with a wife and a child (or with one on the way.) Who knows if he was a good farmer or a lazy or inept one. Who knows if he'd had a rash of bad luck and his own harvest was slim. I'm not condoning his actions -- if indeed he did take the cornmeal -- but if he did, he chose to steal food. All I'm saying is that there's probably a reason for that.

William was also called a prisoner at the Bar. Did this mean he had already been in jail pending trial? Sure sounds like it but I don't believe that was the case. If William had been imprisoned he and Samuel would not have needed to place bail. Bouvier's Law Dictionary states the following about prisoners (as of 1856): "Prisoners in civil cases, are persons arrested on original or mesne process, and these may generally be discharged on bail."

Let's explore the legalese first. What is mesne process? Bouvier says that it is "any process issued between original and final process; that is, between the original writ and the execution," or "a writ or proceedings in an action to summon or bring the defendant into court, or compel him to appear or put in bail, and then to hear and answer the plaintiff's claim." Therefore, mesne process in William's case had begun with the document stating William and Samuel has appeared in court to provide bail and had been completed when the court had stated the accusations against William in his presence. It's unfortunate that I don't have the entire case file or else we might know for sure whether William had spent time in jail prior to his actual trial, but with the evidence I see here -- the securing of bond to prevent him from running -- I would hazard an educated guess that he was not.

Anyway, the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to pay a fine of $10 plus any court costs and to spend a total of fifteen days in jail. Then another writ was drawn up, a writ of Fieri Facias. This writ is a judgement for debt and damages and was served to the sherriff of Jefferson County, Ohio, one county west of Harrison. This small clue gives William's whereabouts in the days following the trial.

This writ is an interesting document. The writ, once served, bound the sherriff to obtain the money due the state from the goods and chattels of the convicted and present them to the judges of the said court on a day named in the writ. According to Bouvier's there were many rules the sherriff had to follow in executing this writ:

1) The sheriff could not break the outer door of a house for the purpose of executing a fieri facias, nor could he break a window. He could enter the defendant's house if it was open, and, being once lawfully entered, he could break open an inner door or chest to seize the goods even without any request to open them.

2) Although the sheriff was authorized to enter the house of the party to search for goods he was not allowed to enter that of a stranger for that purpose, without being guilty of a trespass, unless the defendant's goods were actually in the house.

3) The sheriff was allowed to break the outer door of a barn or of a store disconnected with the dwelling-house, and forming no part of the curtilage. 16 Johns. R. 287. The fi. fa.

4) The writ may be executed at any time before, and on the return day, but not on Sunday, where it is forbidden by statute.

Here is the transcription of the writ in William's trial:

(front cover of Writ of FIERI FACIAS)

Fi da et fev facias Ca Sa. To July Term 1821 STATE of Ohio vs. William Browning Indictment for Larceny
Fine ---------------$10.00
Costs ----------------$16.26
fifa Ca Sa& -------- $ .35
_______________ $26.61

Add the jail fees before sentence.......

C.P. 121 Calculate Interest from March 23, 1821 W.B.Beebe Atty for State

(in different handwriting) Rec'd this writ March 29th, 1821

(upside down) May 26th 1821 Made in full, Rezin Arnold, Sherriff --

(body of the Writ of FIERI FACIAS)

State of Ohio Harrison County The State of Ohio to the Sherriff of Jefferson County in said State

Greeting -------------------- We Command you that of the Goods and Chattels Lands & tenements and body of William Browning within your County you cause to be levied the Sum of Ten Dollars being a fine, and the Sum of Sixteen Dollars & twenty two cents Costs of Prosecution together with Interest thereon the Costs of this writ and all legal accruing costs, which the State of Ohio lately in our Court of Common pleas for said of Harrison County to wit at the March Term thereof A.D. 1821 by the Consideration and Judgments of our said Court recovered against the said William Browning in a certain action of Indictment for Larceny --. Whereof the said Wlliam Browning is convict as appears of Record in our said Court and have you that Money on the body of the said William Browning before our said Court at the next Term to be holden at Cadiz in said Harrison County on the thirtieth day of July next to render unto the said State of Ohio for the fine and Costs aforesaid, and have you then there this writ. Witness the honourable Benjamin Tappan President of our said Court at Cadiz this twenty ninth day of March Anno Domini ---- 1821.

William Tingley Clerk

As you can see, the writ was received on 29 March 1821 (received by whom, I'm not sure, for it doesn't say; my assumption is that it was received by the Jefferson County sherriff.) However the writ was served and executed, there is a upside-down notation on the front cover of the writ by Rezin Arnold, the sherriff of Harrison County, that it was "Made In Full" on 26 May 1821.

What happened to William and Hannah after the trial? I really don't know. There are a few William Browning's enumerated in close counties in 1830 (one in Tuscarawas County living close by James Markee, who was Margaret (Markee) Browning's brother) and another in Coshocton County, Ohio, but I can't be certain that either of these are William and Hannah. If I had to guess which one he'd likely be I would guess the Tuscarawas County one, but that's just a guess. So in conclusion, other than the fact that William was in Jefferson County, Ohio, in March-May 1821, I don't know what became of him and Hannah.

It sure was an interesting trial, though!

Browning v. State of Ohio: Meet William!

2011-07-03T19:04:00.019-05:00

Long time readers of my blog are familiar with a court case my ancestor Samuel Browning and his daughter Julia were both involved with in 1837. The links to the case (Browning v. Beck) are on my sidebar so I won’t go into the case here. What I intend to explore today is another court case, one involving a man named William Browning that I located at the same time as the one involving Samuel. Both cases were found in the files of the Harrison County (OH) Genealogical Society.

The recent morsel of information I received from another researcher about Hannah Barr’s father (Patrick Barr from Ireland) and the location of a consent slip for her marriage to William stirred up memories about this other court case. I’d intended to further explore this case just after the Browning v. Beck one but you know what they say about intentions! Who knows, perhaps I wasn’t meant to explore it until after I received this tidbit. You’ll see why soon.

Before we begin, let me say I’m certain the case file I have isn’t a complete one. As I’ve said before, many of the cases that the Harrison County Genealogical Society have in their files were rescued from the dumpsters behind the Harrison County courthouse some years ago. There are at least two documents missing from this particular case that I know of – a witness subpoena and interviews with the victim and the accused. Unless these documents are filed under the name of the plaintiff in the case, they’re likely gone. Although I’m sad because an interview with the defendant in this case would have been lovely, I’m thrilled to have what I have.

I’m afraid I don’t know much about William Browning, the major player in this case. If I did, perhaps my Samuel wouldn’t be as much of a mystery!

William first shows up in Harrison County, OH on 28 February 1818, the day he marries Hannah Barr, the daughter of Patrick Barr of Ireland. The permission slip I mentioned in my last post states that William was the son of John Browning. John signed the slip giving his consent for William to marry Hannah on 6 November 1817.

William next shows up in the 1820 census within two households of Samuel and two households of John. His age in this census is in a range between 16-26 and he has a son below the age of 10. Strangely, he has another male between 16-26 living with him and a female aged 26-45. I am given to understand that the age of consent was 21, so even if both William and his bride were 21 at the time of their marriage that still puts them a little younger than the 26 listed here. I’m not sure if the census is in error, or I am. I’m open to either possibility. At any rate, this range would place William’s birth from 1794-1804. I’m inclined to lean more towards a tighter range of 1798-1801.

He appears again in Dohrman Township in neighboring Tuscarawas Co., OH on the 1830 census – at least I “think” it’s him. Here he is age 20-29, as is his wife, and the couple have three children, two boys (one 5-9, one 0-4) and a girl 0-4. This census would place his birth more in the 1800-1801 range, which I find more likely given his consent to marry form in late 1817. This William is 15 houses down from James and Rhoda (Johnston) Markee. James Markee is Samuel Browning’s brother-in-law. James’ wife Rhoda is almost certainly the daughter of Disberry Johnston, a man who lived in Harrison County and will become important as we explore the upcoming case.

I don’t find a William Browning on the 1840 census and on the 1850, the only William I find was William M. Browning, b. 1810 in Montgomery Co., MD and who married Eliza Johnson (b. 1810 Ireland, the daughter of Irish immigrants) in neighboring Jefferson Co., OH in 1832. This family later moved to Henry Co., IA. I can’t say for sure that this William is not the William of the case (after all, in 1819-1821 a young boy of 9-11 can sure steal things and his age is never given) but other clues in the case itself make me rule him out with almost a certainty.

So where did William and Hannah go? I don’t know. I have one small clue that this case provided, but other than that I’ve never been able to find out what happened to them.

Now on to the case itself.

The case began on 12 December 1820. On this day, William Browning and Samuel Browning made an appearance before the Harrison Co., OH Court of Common Pleas. The boys came to answer a charge of larceny levied against William and agreed to a bail of $200 to ensure that William would not skip town and appear before the next term of court to stand trial. You can see the document to the upper left and a transcription below:

State of Ohio

Harrison County

On the 12th day of December A.D. 1820 personally appeared before me the Subscriber one of the Associate Judges of the Court of Common Pleas for said County William Browning and Samuel Browning and Severally Acknowledged themselves indebted to the State of Ohio in the Sum of two hundred Dollars to be levied on their Goods & Chattels lands and Teniments if Default be made in the Condition following,

The Condition of this Recognizance is such that if the above bound William Browning shall appear at the next term of the Court of Common Pleas of said County to be holden at Cadiz on the 19th day of March next on the first day of the Term and then & there answer to what at that time shall be objected against him on a Charge of Larceny and abide the order of the Court thereon and not depart without leave then this Recognizance to be void & of none effect otherwise to remain in full force and virtue in law --

Taken and acknowledged before me at Cadiz the day and year above writen.

Alexr. Henderson, Assoc. Judge

The next documentation we find on the case is at the March 1821 term of court. William appeared before the court as he was requested to do. I have not included a picture of the list of witnesses (I've covered that here in the transcription) but the document itself is here. Following is a transcription of the proceedings:

State of Ohio vs. Wm. Browning

Indictment for Larceny

Witnesses

James Tarbot

Patrick Barr

Disberry Johnston

A True Bill

(?) McMillan

Plea Not Guilty

Recorded

State of Ohio

Harrison County

At A Court of Common Pleas begun & held at Cadiz in & for said Harrison County on the nineteenth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred & twenty one The grand Jurors of the State of Ohio summoned to enquire for the body of law Harrison County upon their respective oaths & affirmations do precent & find that William Browning late of the township of Cadiz in said Harrison County on the twenty day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred & nineteen at the township aforesaid in the county aforesaid with force & arms one bag made of cloth with two Bushels of corn meal therein contained of the value of two dollars of the goods & chattles of one James Tarbott then & there being found claimant did steal take & carry away contrary to the statute in such case made & provided & against the peace & dignity of the state of Ohio.

Walter B Beebe atty for State in Harrison County

So it’s pretty black and white. William was accused of larceny by James Tarbott/Tarbet. A very cursory search on Ancestry says that James was born c1784 in York Co., PA, and married Margaret ‘Peggy’ McCullough in 1807 in Belmont Co., OH. James was living as late as 1850.

According to the accusation above, on 20 September 1819 William had filled a cloth bag with two bushels (about 16 pounds) of James Tarbet’s cornmeal. While it might seem like a silly thing to get all bent out of shape about nowadays – after all, we can head to the local supermarket and pick up a few pounds of cornmeal for a few dollars – it wasn’t at all funny or silly back then. Think for a minute about how many hours of labor went into that cornmeal. Planting it, tending it, harvesting it, and taking it to the mill to be ground? Months and months of labor in total. It’s not a wonder these things weren’t taken lightly.

It also makes me wonder about the circumstances of the theft. Did William even do it? He said he didn't, but if he did, why? Was he lazy, was he drunk, was it on a dare, did he dislike the man he stole from? Or was he simply hungry? It's not something that ever gets explained from the documents I have. If I had William's testimony, perhaps I'd have some idea.

But aren’t the witnesses interesting? Patrick Barr! Disberry Johnston! So let’s get to the witnesses, shall we?

I don’t have all the witnesses that were subpoenaed for this case. I don’t have the subpoena for Patrick Barr or for James Tarbet, but I do have Disberry’s. I’m sure even more witnesses were called but unless there is a file for James Tarbet in the Harrison County Genealogical Society and the files happen to be filed there instead, we’ll likely never find them. I know that more witnesses were called even without the other case files because I have another one, one that wasn’t listed on this witness bill. Elizabeth Barr!

Now it’s been recently proven that Patrick Barr is Hannah (Barr) Browning’s father. The man who sent us the consent slip had been looking for Patrick Barr for 14 years and was equally desirious of learning the name of Hannah’s mother. Well…..I believe I’ve just found it for him. I believe that this Elizabeth Barr is Patrick’s wife and Hannah’s mother. Seeing them both listed as witnesses in this trial -- and at least in Elizabeth's case, "on part of William Browning" helps further cement my belief that they are Hannah’s parents and that this William Browning, is, indeed, the William that married Hannah Barr.

Disberry Johnston, if you'll recall, was mentioned before as the almost certain father of Rhoda (Johnston) Nevitt Markee. Rhoda was not only the wife of James Markee (the brother of Margaret, wife of Samuel Browning) but she was also the mother of Jane Nevitt, the wife of Margaret and Samuel's son, James Browning. That Disberry was a witness in the trial is yet another connection between the families of my Samuel Browning and the William in this case.

One other thing, though. I hope you all noticed that the man who stepped up with William to provide bail was Samuel Browning? Tell me true, now, genealogist to genealogist….would you all be inclined to a presumption that if Samuel Browning stood up for William, and William is John Browning’s son, that these two boys, close in age (Samuel would've been about 24, William likely 20-22) and having no other male Browning in the immediate area that could be their father, would you also come to a hesitant conclusion that Samuel could also be John’s son?

My gut says yes, and I see it as another small bit of circumstantial evidence. Believe me, I’ve been doing the happy dance around here lately.

More about the trial to come!

Part O - The Browning Progenitor Question

2011-06-29T22:21:00.006-05:00

Before I get into the meat of this post, I've decided to use this space as Space X for my Browning Series, a space to feature ALL the posts I make that reference or relate in any way to a John Browning, found in Harrison Co., OH in the 1820 and 1830 censuses.

It's my belief that this John is my Samuel Browning's father. I've believed this for over a decade and my cousin Pat went to her grave believing it as well. I've wanted to prove it forever. Perhaps -- someday -- I will.

1) John, the Possible Progenitor
2) My Endless Browning Cycle

Now on with it.

A genealogist friend (and possible cousin if we can ever prove it!) of mine sent me a snippet today, something that came to her on her birthday out of the past. It was so exciting that I had to post it here before I called it a night.

She posted a query on GenForum back in June 2001 about William Browning and Hannah Barr, who married 28 February 1818 in Harrison Co., OH. She posted the question initially because her ancestress, Hannah Browning, married Thomas Drake in the same county in 1837 and she was exploring the possibility that William and Hannah might be her Hannah's parents.

Nothing ever came of the post until today.

A man who had returned yesterday from doing some research at the Harrison County, OH Genealogical Society replied. He was researching the Barr family and came across that marriage license between William Browning and Hannah Barr. He found more than that, though. He said Hannah was the daughter of Patrick Barr of Ireland.

More importantly to me -- he also found the couple's consent to marry slip from Cadiz, OH, signed 6 November 1817. Apparently it was William, not Hannah, that needed this consent (or if she did, the consent form for Hannah wasn't included in the information the man wrote my friend/cousin about.) He said that the consent form listed William's father as John Browning!

John!

Up until now I have had only one small glimpse of that name (other than the previously mentioned census reports) and that was on another consent to marry slip from Harrison County. This slip was for a daughter named Margit. The slip is faded beyond reading more than a few words and I've placed it here so you can see what I mean. This is a copy from the original and it was copied prior to the great dump of records Harrison County performed some years back. John's signature is clear, though.

I've often assumed that William Browning, b. c1800, and my Samuel, b. c1796, were brothers. If this is true (and assuming they did not have two different fathers) then John is also my Samuel's father. This might be the beginning of the link I'm looking for!!

I am eagerly awaiting the results of communication between the man who posted the consent form and my genealogist friend/possible cousin. I hope he made a copy of the consent slip but if he didn't, it will be something I'll send off for.

Updates

2011-06-24T10:27:00.001-05:00

Here's a GREAT web site for county boundaries!

I'll be posting more soon. I've been so busy lately.

My Kingdom For A Good Genealogy Flowchart Program

2011-06-12T22:34:00.003-05:00

I've been occupied lately with some new and exciting developments. A few years ago my father took a yDNA test for me and I tucked the results away and didn't disperse them like I should have. Luckily a cousin found me and our mutual excitement convinced me to input them into a Brown Genealogy Society page that I had been invited to but had never pursued. This page also includes Browning information and I'm happy to say it's matched me with a couple of others.

It's a long story but suffice to say I've made a couple of matches in the 7-15 generation category. Although these matches (like me) have one common roadblock, Maryland in the time period 1770's-1790's, that's okay. At least I'm not alone now, and at least it's given me somewhere to focus other than at the tip of my nose! I've missed my cousin Pat since her death in 2009 and I will miss her forever, but I believe I've found another researcher whose enthusiasm and determination remind me of hers. I've really enjoyed that lately.

I've discovered more about my Samuel. I found out he served in two different companies in the War of1812! I've found a land record that somehow I've skipped over all these years, that gives the names of both the companies. I've written to the National Archives and sent for the land case file, hoping beyond hope that a word or two will point me toward Samuel's missing relatives. I'll be sharing all this when I get the chance to pull my head out of my research long enough to take a breath and write.

I'm writing tonight because I've discovered that I'm need of guidance. I have enough clues now to (perhaps) begin to narrow down the possibilites that exist for my Samuel's parentage. I have at least three disparate families that belong to this list of possibilities. I want to be able to have some sort of software program, preferably a FREE one, that can act very much like those whiteboards you see detectives use on TV. You know the ones.....where they draw out a timeline, and list factoids under each person, and there are spaces for additional info, and you can see maps and pictures and other tidbits? I thought about using a regular old genealogy database but really, it doesn't lend itself to this. You have to click through so many connecting people to get to the one you want, for the most part it depends on familial ties that I don't have yet, and you can't see everything in the three dimensions I need. I need to stick clues to each one with virtual thumbtacks. I need to see the big picture here.

Suggestions, anyone?

Rachel's Picture Found! Now Let's Date It!

2011-05-28T20:14:00.008-05:00

I'm excited to report that this week I made contact with a McConnell family researcher through Find-A-Grave. He let me in on a few corrections to the family of John C. and Rachel (Browning) McConnell and we began talking more and more about the family and their children. While he was descended from John and his first wife Jane Boals/Boles, he knew an awful lot about John's second family because he'd been interested in genealogy from a young age and managed to talk to many of the 'old ones' before they passed on.

In the course of our converstions I mentioned that I had a picture of John C. McConnell given to me by a few surviving relations. He was curious about the photo, saying he had a few photos himself (a set of four consisting of a man and wife and two boys) that he'd always been suspicious were McConnell's but who weren't identified on the backs as such. He'd run into another McConnell descendant who'd owned the same set but his weren't identified either. I sent him the picture of John I had as a comparison, hoping that there would be a match. His next email was an excited YES! (truthfully, there were a lot of hallelulahs and praise Jesuses too!)

I was just as thrilled as he was, because as I said, he had a set! He had John......and RACHEL!

I haven't seen pictures of too many of Samuel and Margaret's children. I only have two: Ezra C. and John Wesley Francis. I also have pictures of the two girls, Laura and Mary, that Samuel had with his second wife Sarah (Bell) Gaddis Browning. Out of fifteen, I only have four. Rachel's picture makes it five. It's a very thrilling addition to the fold.

Once I received the photos I wanted to analyze them to establish a date range. John C. McConnell died in 1873 so that gave me a topmost range to work with.

First, the things that you can't see. This photo has been cropped; I know this because the sender told me. No worries, though, because I also have the photos of John C. and the two boys. The photos of the boys haven't been cropped and the sender told me that the pictures of Rachel and John are framed exactly like those of the boys. The boy's photos are all on thin paper stock and all have two golden double lines encircling them. The sender says there are no photographer's stamps or studio names on them at all.

The pattern on Rachel's dress is quite striking and she is wearing a matching cape. Her sleeves bell outwards between her elbows and shoulders but become less so at the wrist. Are they leg'o'mutton sleeves? I can't tell because of the way the cape covers her shoulders but I don't think they are. They seem more bishop style, tighter near the wrist with some sort of trimming near the cuff. I think I see just the barest hint of a small row of buttons down the front of her bodice -- perhaps a double row, hidden by the cape? -- and I'm questioning whether her skirt isn't of a split style, with some sort of pleated panel in the front and the pattern to each side. She has a simple but delicately scalloped wide white collar with a brooch or cameo in its center. Her hair is center parted and smoothed neatly behind her ears into a bun.

The boys are both wearing shawl collar vests that are higher up on their necks than the one John is wearing. The boy on the left, who I judge to be the elder by a few years, is holding a work or mechanic's hat. I can't tell whether John is wearing a bow tie or some sort of cravat tucked into his vest because of the length of his beard but both boys are wearing small bows tucked underneath their collars. Both boys have sack coats on -- the eldest's of tweed or patterned wool, the other's dark -- and the seams of each are falling off their natural shoulder. John's coat seems longer than the boys' coats but that might just be a trick of the edge of the photo. John sports a single button on one side. His is more fitted to his shoulders and it appears that part of his coat collar is made or trimmed in velvet. All three are wearing their hair parted to the side. The boys seem to have oiled their hair and pushed it up off their heads but John has a full length chin beard. His hair is thin and a little full at the sides.

Looking at the pictures as a whole, I would say that they were taken by the same photographer on the same day. All four appear to be seated on a simple wooden chair; the tip of it can be seen in Rachel's photo and its seat in the elder boy's. The background is the same in all the pictures, though in the pictures of John and the boys a white strip (perhaps a baseboard?) can be seen to their bottom right. I believe the fullness of Rachel's skirt is blocking the view of that strip in her photo.

It will help at this point to have some information about the McConnell family. Rachel was born in 1825 and John in 1807. Their eldest, Theodore, was born in January 1850 and their second son, John W., was born in December of 1853. I believe that Theo is the elder boy holding the hat. Does he look about 15-16 to you? He does to me. I think the other boy looks about 12-13. The elder boy has the look of Rachel in his nose and the set of his mouth while the younger has more the look of his father.

Now to the dating. It's important that we look at these pictures as a unit as well as individually where that's concerned. Rachel's wide white collar, the double row buttons, and the bishop style sleeves all point to a date of the early 1860's. The dress styles of both the boys and John look to be near the same dates but I think, given the style of ties the boys are sporting, might be more toward the middle of the decade. I would be content to think that Rachel, being a woman in or nearing her 40's, might wear styles a couple of years out of fashion. All in all, I would say this set of photos dates about 1865 or 1866.

But the real kicker is something I questioned about her photo the moment I saw it. Most of the dresses I've seen on women in this date range have skirts that are full and consistently patterned. Rachel's dress has a pleated middle section. Now it could be that she's simply a heavy-set woman, but is it possible that she's pregnant?

Rachel had children born in 1850, 1851, 1853, 1855, 1859, 1860, 1862, and 1864. She was also possibly pregnant one other time (either in 1857 or around 1866 -- but the child in this case was either stillborn or died as an infant (I say this because in the 1900 census Rachel stated she was the mother of nine children and I can only account for eight.) If she IS pregnant in this photo, it might date the image to around 1865 and it would match the ages of her sons Theo and John W. If this image is older (say, 1870-ish) it would still match the ages of her sons (though their identification as Theo and John would certainly be in question) but Rachel would not be pregnant, just heavy.

So what say you all? Is this c1865-6, or closer to 1870?

Pt 7, cont (pt 2) -- the children of James Hoy and Margaret Browning

2011-05-21T22:41:00.011-05:00

If you haven't been keeping up with this group of postings on James and Margaret (Browning) Hoy, catch up by reading the first post and the second post. This time, as promised, we'll be asking (and answering) some other questions to establish the identities of the children of James Hoy and Margaret Browning. I'll keep it simple here, and save their deeper stories for future posts.

According to the census records between 1850-1870 James Hoy and Margaret Browning had a total of nine children (Sarah, James, Susan, Emma, Edward, Jane, Victor, William and Zara.) The couple's bible records place the number at seven but leave off a last child, which if added would bring the total up to eight. There's an inconsistency here that needs to be examined in greater detail. So let's look at each child in detail.

(I've tried to list the children in their best guess birth order, excepting Sarah Ellen and James Franklin. The bible lists them as Sarah born 1851 and James born 1852 and as the rest of the bible listing appears correct for birth order, why not this? The state censuses can support both; the only one that makes any distinction is the 1860, where James is listed as older than Sarah. Further evidence also supporting James as eldest? -- Sarah was reported born in IL on the 1860 while James was listed born in OH. I don't have death certificates for either one. Lacking any firsthand evidence, I'll use the bible list even though my own belief is that James was older. I tend to use the bible birthdates for James and Sarah but switch their order.)

Sarah Ellen:

Sarah is shown in the family bible born 19 April 1851 and in the 1860 census at 7 years old, placing her birth closer to 1852-3. Other than the 1855 and 1865 censuses that show a female roughly her age in the Hoy household, there are two more censuses that she might be in, the 1870 and 1880 Crawford County censuses. In the 1870 census a Sarah HOY is listed with two other known children (William and Zera) in the poorhouse of William Beers in Hutsonville. This is by no means a certainty, though, because the Sarah listed here is 25! The drastic leap in age from the 1860 to the 1870 census is not believeable to me unless there was a transcription error somewhere. But where? The 1860 census would make more sense if one flipped the dates of birth for Sarah and her brother James F. but even if you don't do that, the age leap from 7 in 1860 to 25 in 1870 is just too great, not to mention the fact that her parents James and Margaret didn't even marry until 1850.

While the presence of both of the youngest sons of James and Margaret in the same poorhouse make a strong case for this unknown Sarah's relationship to them in some way, the age difference is pronounced and I have no idea exactly who this Sarah Hoy was. I've looked at all other possible Sarah Hoy connections (as in, did James have a brother who married a Sarah? Did James's brother John have a daughter named Sarah? etc.) and there are no other options for women with this name and in this age grouping. Now poorhouse records would have been wonderful and might've cleared everything up (and after 1874 poorhouses were required to keep them!) but I had my cousin Pat look into it and it doesn't appear that the poorhouse keepers in Crawford County maintained them (or if they did, the courthouse no longer has them) prior to the law of 1874 or even after. Bleh. Anyway, this unknown Sarah E. was located in 1880 living at another poorhouse run by James Boyd in Martin Twn. and this time says she is 38, born in Ohio, and both her parents were born in Illinois. The Sarah in 1880 was listed in the DDD schedule as a consumptive.

Could the census taker have made a mistake and she was really 15 instead of 25? Sure, it's definitely possible, and it might not even be the census taker's error. It could simply be a bad translation of his handwriting by the recopier. Did you know that the "original" census pages we see are actually copies? It's true. From 1790-1940, field census takers went door to door writing down the information in pencil. Then someone else transcribed the information in ink for the final version that was sent to Washington. A second copy was sent to each state. So were mistakes made, even with some basic issues like age and gender? You bet your booty!

But was this done in this case? I don't know. The Sarah E. in 1870 is 25, the Sarah E. in 1880 is 38. Unless the mis-transciption was two-fold and it was really supposed to be 15, and 28, then perhaps not. Ah, to be able to look at the Crawford County poorhouse records....*sigh* As it stands, I've had no luck finding any other record giving me clues to her whereabouts after the 1880 census.

James Franklin:

James, b. 19 Apr 1852 according to the bible but whose census records seem to place him closer to 1851, is almost a complete mystery to me. According to descendants of Edward J. Hoy (James F. Hoy's younger brother) James, approximately 15-18 yrs of age upon his father's death, took on responsibility for some of the younger children and moved to Cumberland County, Illinois. If this is true it occurred after the 1870 census but I have no way of verifying this information.

The bible record states he married a "Milly F." in 1870 but I'm not sure how much stock I put in this particular notation. If this bit of information is accurate, and they married in Cumberland Co., IL (where at least three of the Hoy children ended up by 1875-ish) then any record of it burned in the Cumberland County courthouse fire of 1885. I feel it more likely that when Ruhama (Cliff) Harris wrote the bible entry (in 1925) she blended the two James Hoy's, father and son, in her memory. Recall that after Margaret (Browning) Hoy's death, James Hoy married Amelia Funk. Milly is a very common nickname for Amelia. Therefore Milly and James as a 'couple' could easily have lodged itself in Ruhama's mind and she placed the Milly as the wife of the son and not of the father. A marriage license I have adds some credence to this argument. A "Mrs. Milly Hoy" married Alfred Marsden in Crawford Co., IL in November 1876. At that time Milly was 33 years old, making her birthdate 1843. It's possible she married James Franklin Hoy first in 1870 but he would have only been about 19 years old to her 26. It's possible but unlikely. I believe that this is James Hoy the elder's widow, Amelia Funk Hoy, instead. Amelia Funk Hoy was born in 1843.

I have another small clue to the actual identity of James F.'s, wife, taken from the recollections of Mildred Mae (Stepp) Maglothin, Edward Jasper Hoy's granddaughter. Mildred remembers her mother and stepmother (who were sisters) talking about their uncles. Mildred's recollections were that James married a woman named Caroline or Emmaline, moved to Colorado, and died in Boulder. I've never been able to verify this, I haven't found him on any other census, and I don't know anything else about him.

Susan:

Susan was not mentioned in the bible record at all. She was mentioned in the 1860 census (where she is suddenly 9 years old and born in OH, placing her birth c1851 as well) but she's never been located anywhere else. She wasn't represented in the 1855 census or the 1865 so, if she was missed in that one, perhaps she died between 1880-1865. I don't know. I leave her name here because she was listed in the 1860 and for that reason alone. Perhaps someday I'll find some other clue.

Emma Alice:

The bible says Emma was born in January of 1854. Ruhama (Cliff) Harris was Emma's daughter and I believe this birthdate is an accurate date.

So how do we know that Emma was James and Margaret (Browning) Hoy's daughter, especially since she wasn't named on the 1860 census with them? We use other records, of course! In 1870 Emma was living in Washington township in Harrison County, OH, with John and Rachel (Browning) McConnell. Her relationship to the family is not given but surely there's some weight to the fact that Emma is found in that household, far away from Illinois? Rachel McConnell is inarguably one of Samuel and Margaret (Markee) Browning's children (and hence Margaret Browning's sister), a fact that is stated in Julia Ann Browning's witness testimony in her case against James Beck (see my sidebar, Browning V. Beck Pt. 1 for documentation.) Recall that later, Julia Ann married John Hoy! So while Emma's relationship in this regard is not definitive, it's certainly circumstantial.

But there's more. While I have no idea how long Emma stayed in Ohio, she was back in Illinois by 1879. She married Zeno Cliff, the son of Benjamin Cliff and Lydia Calvert, on 3 July 1879 in Effingham County, Illinois. According to her marriage certificate Emma, age 26, was born in Crawford County, Illinois, and was the daughter of James Hoy and Margaret Browning. This document, and her 1925 Los Angeles Co., CA death certificate (that lists her father as James Hoye but mother is blank) is also strong evidence that Emma was James and Margaret's daughter.

Emma and Zeno moved to Canon City in Fremont County, Colorado around 1890 or so. Zeno died in Canon City on 30 January 1912 and after his death, Emma moved along with her children to California and spent the remainder of her days there. She died on 17 September 1925 in Huntingdon Park in Los Angeles County, California.

Edward Jasper:

Edward is inferred on the 1855 and 1865 censuses and listed on the 1860 census outright as well as being listed in the Cliff family bible. I think that's pretty good evidence that he is James and Margaret's son. In the 1870 census he is 15 and is found enumerated with the family of Dr. Nathaniel Steele. The only connection I've found between Dr. Steele and Edward or his family is some records bunched in the probate and estate filings of Samuel J. Browning (Edward's uncle) who died in September of 1862. Dr. Steele was the physician that treated Samuel during his final illness as well as the illnesses of his wife Sarah and their infant son. It is unknown how long Edward stayed with the doctor, but it is not unreasonable to assume he lived there until his eighteenth year.

Some time between then and 1880 Edward moved to Cumberland County, where he married Harriet Rawlings on the 1st of January 1880. Harriet was the daughter of John Dennis Rawlings and Mary Feltner. Her father had been a 1st Lt. with Co. A of the 5th IL Cavalry out of Cumberland County. He had been in the same company and had fought side by side with Edward Hoy’s uncle Asbury Taylor Browning. Edward and Harriet settled in Greenup in Cumberland County. In March 1889 Edward signed some paperwork for Luthera (Gray) Reynolds, the widow of Samuel Reynolds. He attested to his knowledge that she was the person she claimed to be for the widow’s pension application she filed for her husband Samuel’s Civil War service.

Edward and Harriet lived in Cumberland County until Edward's death. The date of his death is not certain, for no death certificate or gravesite has been located, but a newspaper article written by his daughter Martha Elizabeth (born 27 Nov 1898 in Greenup, Cumberland Co., IL) states that her father Edward died when she was 11 months old. This places his death in the fall of 1899. His descendents say he died on Halloween.

I haven't found anything more about him in the actual records. Most of what I know about Edward comes from his descendants.

Jane:

Jane is another of the Hoy children whose identity is in question. The bible record mentions a Mary Jane born in 1857. The 1860 census shows a 3-yr old Jane, so those two records certainly seem to coincide. In 1870 a Mary Hoy, age 13, is found living in the household of Thomas and Mary Corbin in Palestine, Crawford Co. IL. This also seems to match our Mary....or Jane.

The only other record other than the census I've been able to find that matches this girl in any way, shape or form, is a marriage license from Crawford County, IL. A Miss Mary Hoy from Palestine married Thomas Briggs on 4 Sept 1878. The license states specifically that she is the daughter of James Hoy and Margaret Browning. Forgetting the age difference (age 19 in Sept 1878 likely puts Mary born 1859, not 1857) her name on the license is clearly Mary F., not Mary J. You can see this most clearly by comparing the capital "F" from the groom's number of marriage to the full name of the bride on the second page of the document.

I've looked and looked and cannot find the source that gave me the middle name Frances. I seem to vaguely remember finding it on a courthouse document in Crawford County but if I did, the source is lost to me and I'm loathe to continue using it in lieu of not being able to refer to it directly. But even given the slight differences in names, it does seem to me that Jane, Mary Jane, and Mary F. are all the same person.

Be that as it may, I've never been able to find Thomas and Mary on any later censuses. I found a widowed Mrs. Mary Briggs living in Montrose in Effingham County, Illinois, in 1924 but whether this is Mary/Jane (Hoy) Briggs, I have no idea.

There is one other bible notation for Mary. It says, "d. 24 Feb ?" I've filed this information away but I certainly haven't placed it with any certainty.

Charles Victor:

This is the "Advickus" of the 1860 census. He was born on 13 December 1859 according to the bible record, a date that was tndependently authenticated by some of his descendents. He isn't found on the 1870 census at all and I couldn't locate him anywhere until he married Nancy Ellen Miller, the daughter of Brice Miller and Rebeckah Trader. His descendents say they married on 6 June 1882 in Cumberland County but I can't verify this due to the loss of the marriage records in the county prior to 1885.

I have much family history about Charles and Nancy and their children and what led up to Charles's death from typhoid fever in Paragould, Greene Co., AR on 31 Mar 1906, but it all comes to me from the mouths of descendents. What research I've done to locate firsthand records has been for naught, since Arkansas did not begin keeping death records until 1914. Nex stop for me is the newspapers. Perhaps I'll find something there!

William:

William's birth is listed on 26 Nov 1860 according to the bible record. He isn't found on the 1860 but he's inferred on the 1865 census. He was also listed in the 1870 Crawford County census in Hutsonville Township, age 8, living in a poorhouse managed by a man named William Beers with Zera Hoy (a known child of James Hoy and Margaret Browning) and Sarah Hoy. His presence there definitely implies his close relationship with the Hoys he's with. Another "William" is also listed in the household of Roland and Elvira Fuson. This William is aged 9. I'm not sure if William got counted twice on the census, if he was actually living with the Fusons and was at the poorhouse visiting at the time of the census there, or if the older William is actually Edward or Charles Victor.

William is yet one more tricky cog in the Hoy wheel. Perhaps the trickiest of all! There wasn't much to go on with him at all. He apparently never married and loved to lie to census takers. Descendents of Edward Jasper Hoy had the best leads on him I was ever able to find when they told me that he ran afoul of the law by bootlegging whiskey to the Indians in Idaho and ended up in Ashton in Fremont County and was buried there. I started poking around and found an incredible story, one I'll have to share soon.

His census records definitely show his dislike of the law and (perhaps) his growing paranoia as the years went by. In 1910 he used his own name and approximate age and stated his correct state of birth and that of his father's. By 1920 he used his brother Jim's name instead, shaved 5 or 6 years off his age and gave a fake place of birth. In 1930 he expounded on the fake birthplaces even more, going so far as to state he was from Kentucky. I guess he didn't want anyone using anything against him.

He had an interesting life and an even more interesting death in 1936. I've got his death certificate but it doesn't help prove that he's James Hoy and Margaret Browning's son. The informant was a neighbor and knew nothing about him whatsoever. The only thing I have to connect this William Hoy with mine is the family stories of descendents. I suppose it has to be enough.

Zara:

Zara is the last child of James and Margaret Hoy (b. c1862) and the only one that doesn't show up in the bible record. He's inferred on the 1865 census and is shown living in the poorhouse with William and Sarah Hoy, but other than that, how are we to know that Zara is James and Margaret's son?

Surprisingly, Zara is the one with the most records connecting him to James and Margaret. Even if that didn't exist, though, there is adequate circumstantial evidence pointing that direction. Just his name is one thing. Margaret Browning had a brother named Zera C. Browning. You don't find Zara's all over the place, you know!

Let's see....oh yes. Zara was married a number of times. The first time he married Lillie Brownfield in St. Marie, in Jasper County, Illinois on 27 Apr 1887. The marriage license lists him as the son of James Hoy and Millie Browning. I imagine Zara, never really knowing his mother Margaret, mixed up her last name with his father's second wife Amelia's. By March 1889 Zara had moved to Cumberland County as he (along with his brother Edward) signed paperwork for Luthera (Gray) Reynolds' widow's pension application.

When Zara married a second time on 3 June 1891 to Emma Ray in Greenup in Cumberland County, he also listed his parents as James Hoy and Margaret Browning. In addition, the man who married them was none other than John D. Rawlings, Edward Jasper Hoy's father-in-law. More circumstantial connections to help Zara's cause, and Edward's.

I'm pretty sure I've located Zara later in life, too, and that if I have he died in 1921, but that will have to wait for a further post! I need to order some documentation to make sure.

Wrapping up, I think it's safe to say that eight is the correct number of children born to James Hoy and Margaret Browning. The only maybe is Susan, a child only represented on one census (the 1860). I haven't removed her from the list of children because of her showing on the 1860. Until I can prove definitively otherwise I feel she should stay but as a general rule I don't think she's a separate individual. "Susan" is the same age, roughly, as Emma, the only child we know belonging to James and Margaret that wasn't shown on the 1860. Could this have been some odd sort of nickname for her? Could the census transcriber have accidentally written down a name from another place? Sure. Mistakes happen. I do know, however, that Emma belongs in this family. I don't know that Susan does.

Small Corrections to the Thomas N. Browning family!

2011-05-15T12:43:00.007-05:00

I am currently out of pocket taking care of my mother, who's recovering from spinal surgery. I haven't had much time to spare to dedicate to genealogy (especially since I've no access to any of my databases and paperwork) but I did manage to find enough down time to locate a few obituaries via the Google News Archive Search.

If you've never used it, head on over there and try it out! There are a lot of newspapers and date ranges to pick from and I was lucky enough to find most issues of the weekly Robinson Constitution (Crawford Co., IL) available from 1877-1919. This newspaper has given me a number of obituaries and brief Browning mentions and I wanted to share a few of these. I've found I needed to do a few small corrections for the Thomas Newton Browning family I mentioned in my last post.

In the 27 December 1899 edition I found the obituary of Thomas Clifford Browning. I was reading through it and was surprised and chagrined to see that Cliff hadn't died where I always believed he had! The obituary stated he had "lung trouble" and had moved to San Antonio, TX to see if the climate would be of benefit to him. Obviously it didn't. His remains were shipped from San Antonio to the Crown Hill cemetery in Indianapolis for the burial on 24 December 1899. I got excited and boogied on over to FamilySearch's Texas Deaths 1890-1976 database hoping to find Cliff's death certificate but I wasn't able to locate it. Bleh!

In my original chronological post I'd mentioned that Cliff died in Indianapolis, IN. That was a guesstimate on my part and I willingly stand up and offer my back for the prerequisite 40 whacks! (In my defense, Cliff had been shown in an 1899 Indianapolis city directory and he'd been buried in Crown Hill in the city, so generally.....well, you know the rest.) Lesson definitely learned.

I also found his sister Leola (Browning) Paramore's obituary in the 17 October 1900 edition. She, too, died of lung trouble....consumption, or tuberculosis as it's called today. She died on 10 October 1900 in Indianapolis (this time the obituary and my records agree!) and was buried in the Crown Hill cemetery in Indianapolis on the 11th.

Add these two to the first of the Browning deaths out of infancy -- Iona Lee, in 1896. Iona's obituary states she died at age 19 after an extended illness...consumption.

I was glad to find these two obituaries but disturbed to notice the trend of deaths in Thomas and Sarah Ann (Huls) Browning's family. Of their seven children (Effy May, Ralph Hansen, Leola, Iona Lee, Thomas Clifford, Roscoe, and Alta Mearl) three of them died of lung troubles. Effy May and Roscoe died as infants. Only Ralph and Alta lived long enough to have children of their own and of those, only Ralph actually did.

Pt 7, cont (pt 1) -- the children of James Hoy and Margaret Browning

2011-05-08T21:25:00.013-05:00

At the conclusion of my last post, James and Margaret (Browning) Hoy had both died by 1870 in Crawford County, Illinois. (At least that's my assumption - it's possible that James Hoy just left his wife and children - but barring any proof to the contrary I'll continue to operate on the presumption that he'd died.)

I mentioned the couple's crazy kids. Let me explain.

Pinning down exactly how many children James Hoy and Margaret Browning had and where they went after their parent’s deaths has been a real challenge for me. One source I have that helps with this family is a transcribed family bible record written in 1925 by Ruhama (Cliff) Harris, the daughter of Emma Alice Hoy. The bible is in the possession of Emma's descendants. A copy of this typed transcription is to the right. While I know that a few things in the bible are inaccurate, confused, or just plain missing (the date of James and Margaret's marriage is off by one year, a fact I checked with the transcriptioner to make sure it wasn't a transcription error) and I can guess that a few other things are, I feel the bible record is for the most part a good starting point and a fair account of Emma's sisters and brothers. I used it, along with the only census of this family with names (the 1860) and the other two censuses without names (the 1855 and 1865 IL census) to try and reconstruct their family.

Follow along with me, for here's where it gets fun. Ha!

According to the bible records, James and Margaret had a total of seven children: Sarah Ellen, James Franklin, Emma Alice, Edward J., Mary Jane, Charley, and William. But is this true?

Well, the 1855 IL census (taken in October) shows the couple with two boys under ten and two girls under ten. At the time of this census, these children from the bible record would fit:
22 May 1851 Sarah Ellen Hoy (age 4.5 yrs)
19 Apr 1852 James Franklin Hoy (age 3.5 yrs)
3 Jan 1854 Emma Alice Hoy (age 18 months)
1 Apr 1855 Edward Jasper Hoy (age 6 mos)

So far so good, right?

Fast forward five years later, to July of 1860. Here we find the couple living with their children, a family that has expanded to six children. But we see some new names here and a lot of jumping around in ages. Emma is missing completely. Sarah has suddenly lost two years and James has gained two years. Who is Susan and how did she suddenly become nine years old? Edward's age coincides just fine. We've added two more children, a girl named Jane and a son named "Advickus." The bible record calls this child Charley, which will make a lot more sense when we learn later that his full name was Charles Victor:
22 Jan 1857 Mary Jane Hoy (aged 3 yrs)
13 Dec 1859 Charley (aged 1 yr)

Before we take to analyzing the data, let's go on to the 1865 census, also taken in July. This is the last census we have to look at the James and Margaret (Browning) Hoy family as a whole. In this census, there are a total of ten people in the household. Subtracting the two adults, that meant eight children -- four males and two females 10 and younger, and one male and one female over ten and under twenty. From this census, we can attach the listed children from the bible like so:

over ten-under 20
22 May 1851 Sarah Ellen Hoy (age 14 yrs)
19 Apr 1852 James Franklin Hoy (age 13 yrs)

10 and under
3 Jan 1854 Emma Alice Hoy (age 11 yrs) -- doesn't quite fit
1 Apr 1855 Edward Jasper Hoy (age 10 yrs)
22 Jan 1857 Mary Jane Hoy (age 8 yrs)
13 Dec 1859 Charles Victor Hoy (age 5 yrs)
26 Nov 1860 William D. Hoy (age 4 yrs)
c1863 (Zara Hoy, aged appr. 2 yrs)

Ah, but we have one more census to look at -- the 1870. This census was taken after the deaths of both James and Margaret (Browning) Hoy. This is the point where I wish that I could find some sort of guardianship records. Their children were apparently scattered to the four winds and it has been extremely difficult to find all of them. I've only found a few:

Mary HOY, aged 13, b. IL, living w/Thomas and Martha (Botts) Corbin in Palestine, Crawford Co., IL (personal est. valued at $300)
Edward HOY, aged 15, b. IL, living w/Dr. Nathaniel and Hannah (Kitchell) Steele in Palestine, Crawford Co., IL
Emma A. HOY, aged 15, b. IL, living w/John & Rachel (Browning) McConnell in Washington Twn., Harrison Co., OH
William HOY, aged 9 b. IL, living w/Roland & Elvira (Allison) Fuson in Honey Creek Twn., Crawford Co., IL

I've found one more, I think:
Sarah E. HOY, age 25 b. IL, William HOY age 8 b. IL, and Zarah HOY age 6 b. IL, all listed as paupers and living in the poorhouse that William Beers ran in Hutsonville, Crawford Co., IL

I haven't been able to locate James, Susan, or Charles in the 1870 at all.

To wrap up today's post, the bible record seems to fit quite well with most of the census records. There are a few exceptions to this -- a) Emma's age is just so slightly off in the 1865, b) Susan Hoy (mentioned in the 1860) doesn't appear at all in the 1865, and c) the number of children listed in the bible is off by one because Zara isn't mentioned at all. All that aside, though, the bible record does seem to fit well overall and it makes me feel comfortable with it as a decent recollection of the Hoy family.

The 1870 census brings up a few more questions. Why is Sarah Ellen suddenly so old? Why is William Hoy listed twice? Where are Charles, and James, and Susan? Who are the people the kids are living with? How can we be sure that Zara Hoy is even James and Margaret's child?

For this, the census isn't enough. We need more proof, more records. And next time we'll start asking some other questions.

The Browning Series -- Part Seven, or Margaret Browning and James Hoy

2011-05-05T22:41:00.009-05:00

Samuel and Margaret Browning had thirteen children together and some of them are harder to find than others. I've spoken before about John Wesley Browning, perhaps the most elusive of the bunch, but today I feature the family of another of the Browning children: Margaret.

Margaret, Samuel and Margaret (Markee) Browning's seventh child, was born in Harrison County, Ohio around 1826. Margaret certainly met her husband James by the time she was 15 or 16; her older sister Julia had married James's older brother John Hoy in 1843. It took another seven years before James and Margaret finally decided to get married in Harrison County on 10 July 1850. Their marriage license is to the right.

(A quick note about John and James Hoy. The boys were from a family of eight children of Edward Hoy and his wife Elizabeth. The family immigrated to the United States from Elm in Cambridgeshire, England. On 17 August 1837 the Hoys (Edward and wife Elizabeth, William and wife Sarah, and sons John, James, Thomas, Solomon, Joel, Joseph and Benjamin) landed in the New York harbor after setting sail on the Ship Superior from Liverpool.)

Two months after their marriage in September of 1850 the young couple were living with John and Julia (Browning) Hoy and their three children, William, Samuel and Josephine, in Mill Township in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. John and James were laborers, living next door to a farmer named John Taggart whose farm was valued at $6000. I wonder if they were working on his farm? It's also interesting to note that neither Hoy could read or write.

By 1854 James and Margaret had moved to Crawford County, Illinois; their daughter Emma was born in Crawford County in April of that year. It isn't surprising that they chose to move there. Much of Margaret's family had already moved to the area -- Margaret's uncle James Markee and his sons (Margaret's cousins) had moved in the late 1840's, and Margaret's parents Samuel and Margaret (Markee) Browning had arrived in 1851 or early 1852. I've often thought that James and Margaret probably traveled to Crawford County with John and Julia Hoy.

Leaving aside their children for the moment (because there's enough confusion there to leave for another entire post!) let's explore what became of James and Margaret themselves.

Margaret was found on the 1860 Crawford County, Illinois census with her husband James and their family but by the time of the 1865 Illinois state census (taken in July) things had changed. Although this census doesn't list names, it does list age brackets; the age bracket of the elder female household member in 1865 (20-under 30) differs from that of Margaret's, which in 1865 would be the 30 - under 40.

I was tempted to think that they'd just made an error but I started poking around and found the following marriage in Vol. B., pg 169 in Crawford County, Illinois:

HOY, JAMES to FUNK, AMELIA E, 13 Nov 1864.

Amelia was the daughter of William M. Funk and Matilda Seaney. She was born around 1843 and fit perfectly into the 20-under 30 age bracket in the 1865 census. Hmmm......

I now had a pretty good idea that Margaret had died between 1860 and 1865. I wanted to narrow it down a little more so I first looked around at all the cemeteries in the area with no luck. Then I found that James Hoy had registered for the draft in Palestine, Crawford County, Illinois, in July of 1863. I hoped that it would list whether he was married or not (many of the registers do list this) but unfortunately, this one didn't. Rats! Well, I had one way to narrow her death down....the birth of her last son, Zera (who we will explore in further detail in my next post about this family) in either 1862 or 1863. So between 1862 and November 1864 is as as close as I've been able to come and it may just have to suffice.

As far as I can tell James and Amelia had no children of their own. I don't find James anywhere in the 1870 census. At the time of this census all of James and Margaret's children were parceled out amongst relatives and friends, and a few even lived in the Crawford County Poorhouse. Amelia was living with her brother Augustus C. Funk in Palestine. All this tells me that James Hoy had died between November 1864 and the June 1870 census. I have hopes that there are guardianship papers, perhaps a will....probate files.....anything. I've made cursory looks and have come up with nothing but I intend to look in more depth the next time I'm at the Crawford County courthouse.

Next time, their crazy kids!

The Browning Series Part 1c(2), or Thomas N. Browning's Move To CA

2011-04-27T23:04:00.011-05:00

(For other posts on Thomas and Sarah Ann (Huls) Browning, look at my sidebar. They're listed in the Browning Series, Part 1c!)

I've often wondered why Thomas and Sarah went on to move to CA from Indianapolis, Marion Co., IN, in the early years of the 1900's when both of them were in their 60's. My hypothesis has been for some time that it was primarily to follow their son Ralph and his family. But why Ralph? A chronology of the events of their lives in the years between 1893 and 1917 can explain why by giving a much better picture than a few words do. It's all pretty tragic really.

11 Apr 1893 - Thomas and Sarah are living in Robinson, Crawford Co IL -- Sarah's mother Amanda Martha (O'Kennedy/O'Kenneday) Huls dies in their home.

Fall 1894 -- Thomas and Sarah attend the GAR annual meeting in Oblong, Crawford Co., IL, and witness what I will call "The Eaton Affair." (For more about this affair, please scroll down to the end of the entry!)

Spring 1895 -- Thomas is embroiled in the aftermath of the Eaton Affair's trial and his reputation in the GAR is shaky.

9 Nov 1896 -- Thomas and Sarah's daughter Iona Lee dies of tuberculosis in Robinson and is buried in the Robinson Old Cemetery there.

1897 -- Thomas and Sarah's son Thomas Clifford resides at 82 E. Vermont St., Indianapolis, Marion Co., IN. His occupation is listed as "bookkeeper Govt B and L Institute."

Dec 1897 -- Thomas and Sarah's daughter Leola marries Herschel Paramore in Marion Co., IN.

1899 -- Thomas and Sarah living at 444 1/2 Massachusetts Ave., Marion Co., IL. Daughter Alta Mearl and sons Thomas Clifford and Ralph Herbert are living with them. Ralph was a clerk for Parry Mfg Co. and Clifford was a messenger for the Governor of State. Thomas N. was an insurance agent and an Adjutant of Encampment #80 of the Union Veteran Legion. (The Union Veteran Legion was an organization of Union veterans of the Civil War founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1884. Its membership was open only to those who had served in the Union forces for at least two years and those who had been wounded.)

Dec 1899 -- Thomas and Sarah's son Thomas Clifford dies in San Antonio, Bexar Co., TX (where he had moved a couple months previously for his health) of tuberculosis and is buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery.

27 Jun 1900 -- Thomas and Sarah's son Ralph H. marries Josephine Schwartz in Indianapolis, Marion Co., IN.

10 Oct 1900 -- Thomas and Sarah's daughter Leola dies of tuberculosis in Indianapolis, Marion Co., IN and is buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery.

1901 -- Thomas (an insurance agent) and Sarah reside at 317 Magnolia bldg in Indianapolis. Son Ralph H., a clerk, resides at 2047 Alvord St.

17 Apr 1901 -- Thomas and Sarah's first grandchild, Russell N. Browning, is born in Marion Co., IN.

8 Dec 1901 -- Thomas and Sarah's daughter-in-law Josephine dies in Indianapolis, Marion Co., IN, and is buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery there.

1902 -- Thomas (an insurance agent) and Sarah reside at 222 Eden Pl. in Indianapolis, Marion Co., IN. Ralph, a clerk, lives at 2047 Alvord St.

1904 -- Thomas (an insurance agent) and Sarah reside at 38 Eastern Ave., Indianapolis. Son Ralph, a travel agent for Parry Mnfg Co., also resides at the same address.

1906 -- Thomas (an elevator operator) and Sarah reside at 234 E. St Joseph., Indianapolis. Son Ralph H., a clerk, resides at the same address.

1 April 1906 -- Thomas and Sarah's son Ralph H. marries Lida C. King (or perhaps CARTER) in Marion Co., IN. (Lida was 28 at the time of this marriage. One of the surnames us her maiden name, the other a possible first marriage.)

1908 -- Thomas N. Browning (and daughter Mearl Browning) shown as registered Republican voters in San Diego Co., CA. Both show residence at 3437 A Street.

Apr 1910 -- Thomas and Sarah live on 3340 Wilcox St in Indianapolis, Marion Co., IN.

23 Apr 1910 -- Ralph, wife Lida and son Russell reside at 1356 6th St. in San Diego Co., CA, where Ralph is an agent in the US Forestry Bureau. (http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/first_century/sec2.htm)

12 Apr 1912 -- Sarah Ann (Huls) Browning dies and is buried at the Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego, San Diego Co., CA.

c1916 -- Thomas, now a widower, and his daughter Alta Mearl move to 4125 Stockton Ave. in San Diego, CA.

13 Jan 1917 -- Thomas Newton Browning dies and is buried at the Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego, San Diego Co., CA.

--

To summarize:

In 1896 Thomas and Sarah lost one daughter. They then moved from Robinson, Crawford Co., IL to Marion Co., IN between the years 1897-1899. In 1899 they lost one son, in 1900 they lost another daughter and in 1901, a daughter-in-law. Of their seven children, two died as infants and another three before the age of 30. By 1901 only two of their children were still alive. Of these two, their only surviving son (and father of their only grandchild at the time) decided to move to CA. Is it any surprise that they followed him?

--

And now the "Eaton Affair":

In the course of my correspondence with Sharon (Bailey) Brown (T.N. Browning's g-g-granddaughter) I have come across a typed copy of a speech that Thomas Newton Browning wrote and gave to the officers and members of Henry Longenecker Post 171 of the G.A.R. at a regular meeting of the order on or about 27 May 1895. (As an aside, Thomas assisted with the formation of Oblong in April 1883; he was one of the JP's assigned by County Judge Jacob C. Olwin to canvas the returns of the vote to form the village of Oblong.) At the time of this 1895 speech Thomas was noted as the Commander of the post.

The speech is in response to an event that occurred at the annual reunion of the Crawford County Veteran Association in Oblong in the fall of 1894. Thomas and his wife Sarah Ann (Huls) Browning were witnesses to the event and had apparently testified to the same during a trial. The members of his order were very against him and the speech was in his defense about his version of the event that he had testified to at trial.

Culled from the speech, this is what is known:

A fight occurred between three old soldier police and another man by the name of Dave Eaton. The result of this altercation was that one of the old soldiers was killed (last name McDonald) and another slightly wounded (perhaps by the last name of Mock?), both shot by Eaton. Eaton had first been attacked by clubs before attempting to shoot.

Checking In, part Deux

2011-03-16T11:05:00.001-05:00

Still housecleaning. What a mess I had. I'm more than halfway there and with any luck I'll be back in the saddle in a month or two. Whoo hoo! I can't wait.

Checking in.....

2011-02-12T11:23:00.001-06:00

I am alive (for those to whom it matters, ha!) Still housecleaning. Goodness, I'm embarrassed at how long I've let it go!

I'll be back when I can!

Small update....

2011-01-11T19:52:00.003-06:00

I hope to start blogging again soon. There are two reasons why I haven't been lately.

Firstly, there's life. My daughter just signed up to be a United States Marine. I'm so proud of her I could bust! She's got guts and determination and goals, something her poor mom never did have at the age of 17. I've been spending a lot of time with her before she ships to boot camp in the summer. I want to enjoy the times I have with the teen she is before I meet the young woman who will come back to me after her graduation. No matter where she goes from here, she'll have learned some mighty important lessons about life.

Oh -- I've met another first cousin of mine, a son my mom's brother had. His mother put him up for adoption after my uncle left her to resume his tours of 'Nam in the 1960's. He's a really great guy and I look forward to getting to know him. I'm so happy to know yet another close relative. Life is great about that -- letting good come out of bad.

Secondly, I've been doing some housecleaning, genealogicially-speaking. It means putting my blog on the back burner for the moment. Why, you ask? Because when I'm cleaning up my folder of "To-Do Genealogy Files" (which includes dozens of death certificates, old pictures, deeds, wills, and you-name-its) the last thing in the world I need to do is get distracted. I'm like the dogs in the movie "Up." You know the ones....

SQUIRREL!

Now where was I again?

Well, you see what I mean. So until I get my to-do's all done, I'll be letting my little bloggy slide.

My Grandmother's Life, Pt. 6 - The Winter Years

2010-12-19T21:01:00.003-06:00

(See HERE for previous posts in this series...)

After Aunt Martha's death in 1955 it was just my father and my grandparents. My dad finished high school and then decided to enlist in the army in 1960. He was stationed in Germany for 3 years and after he got out he moved to Chicago, where he met and married my mother in 1964. I was born a few years later and my brother a few years after that. We lived in Chicago until the mid-70's, when we moved to Robinson and lived there for four years before finally moving to north central Texas.

For my grandparents life went on at the old home place. The home place had originally been a three-room house with an outhouse but grandma and grandpa had slowly added on to it as their family had grown. I have a datebook that grandma kept from 1954-1960 (and sporadically after that) and it states that they added an addition to the living room in 1951 and finished the upstairs (expanding it from one room to two) in 1953. My grandmother also wanted indoor plumbing and my mom says that grandpa balked about that for years but finally grandma got her way, winning the battle of the outhouse in the early 70's. By the time I ran around the house playing, in the mid-70's, there was a small bathroom right off the kitchen and the outhouse was all boarded up.

That was the way grandma was, though. She didn't say much for the most part, and pretty much let my grandfather run things, but when she did want something or had just had enough of something, she usually got her way. Grandpa knew very well to relent the few times that grandma pitched a fit or put her foot down. They worked well together that way.

By the 80's, though, my grandparents were both in their 80's. My mom and dad and my brother and I had moved to north central Texas, my grandmother's siblings had all died and my grandfather's only living brother was also living in north central Texas. Getting through the Illinois winters was growing more difficult for my grandparents and grandma was tired of being away from her son. Grandma wanted to move to Texas. Grandpa? Well, he had his roots in Illinois soil and he didn't want to leave.

Of course you can guess what happened. They went to Texas!

They had a huge sale before they left Robinson and sold a lot of the old things that were in the house. I didn't realize how much history they'd sold until many years thereafter and even now, thinking about it, it makes me sigh in resignation. I was too young to know what all that would someday mean to me and grandma would say not to cry over spilled milk. I just hope that whoever bought all that old stuff appreciates it like I would if it were mine. Anyway, grandma told me once that a few years after they moved to Texas, grandpa told grandma that he wanted to go on back home. Grandma said she told him, "Virgil, you are welcome to go back to Robinson whenever you want, but you'll have to go on alone."

Grandpa stayed.

It was a good thing they did. Grandpa got sick from leukemia in late 1988 and died in December 1989. I tell that story in the first installment of this series, HERE.

I have so many other memories of my grandmother during those years she lived with my dad after my grandfather's death. Smiling with her at her 100th birthday party, surrounded by her family, and asking her how it felt to be 100 and laughing at her answer: "The same as it felt to be 99."

I also remember that grandma would watch every time my mom came home from the store, looking to see if they'd bought her a refill on her favorite Brach's butterscotch candies. She had a bell that sat by her chair in her room that she would ring if she needed anything. I remember her laugh and her tiny, hoarse sounding voice that was music to my ears. I loved the way her eyes would sparkle when I'd come into her room and visit.

I especially remember her when I was pregnant with my own daughter in the early 90's. She would pat my belly and tell me to take care of myself and I knew that she was hiding the worry she felt and reliving those times with my Aunt Martha in her head. My dad was doing the same. My parents brought my grandma up with them when I went into labor and he, my mom, and my mother in law sat outside the entire 12 hours smoking up a storm in their nervousness. Goodness, the three of them probably created an entire ozone layer on their own!

It was wonderful to lay my daughter in my grandmother's arms. I treasure the picture above. I treasure the fact that my grandma not only lived long enough to forge a relationship with me but also lived long enough so that my own daughter will always be able to remember her "great-nah-nee." I miss her every day and I will go to my own grave missing her.

She had a very long and wonderful life. I am so very privileged to have called her Grandma.

My Grandmother's Life, Pt. 5 - Joy And Tragedy

2010-11-27T20:15:00.007-06:00

For previous posts in this series:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

We are up to the part of the story where my grandparents and their young daughter Martha Ann were a happy little family in Robinson, Crawford Co., IL, in the late 30's. The Depression years were over and though times were hard, they weren't as hard as those that had come before. My grandparents owned a house and a good amount of land and had a wonderful little girl to raise. Life was hard but simple and times seemed pretty good for them then.

Then, when my Aunt Martha was about four years old, in late August 1938, tragedy struck their little family. I've written about it all here but I'll briefly recap it again. My grandma and her family were eating dinner with her mother and father, Robert Elbert and Louisa Adaline (Eagleton) Garrard, at their house in Robinson. After dinner grandpa Robert went on outside to the outhouse and on his way back was struck by a runaway car that had rolled over the lawn. Grandma told me many years later that her father, aged 85 at the time, had suffered internal injuries and that it took him a few hours before he passed away.

A few years later, in late 1940, my grandmother and grandfather were surprised when my grandma realized she was pregnant. It had been nearly seven years since she'd had their daughter Martha Ann with no pregnancies in between and I imagine Grandma had just figured Martha was it for them. She was 40, after all! Life, however, has a funny way of giving you what you need -- even when you don't realize that you will at the time.

Grandma told me about my father's birth many times. She said she was frightened when she learned she was pregnant and had nightmares about not being able to carry to term or of dying during the birth. She said these fears were difficult to deal with when she begun to feel sickly midway through her pregnancy. Her doctor told her she'd become anemic. Who knows if she was truly anemic, if she had what we now call toxemia, or perhaps she even had gestational diabetes. Whatever it was, grandma said she felt weak and miserable for most of her pregnancy. I can only imagine how she dreaded giving birth.

These fears were magnified about eight months in when she caught the flu. She was already weak enough and the flu put the so-called icing on the cake. She was bedsick and weak and soon to deliver. A neighbor lady, Kay Badgley, came to my grandma's rescue. She stayed with grandma and took care of her while she was sick and was there to help grandma through giving birth. Grandma told me that Kay saved her life by both assisting in my father's delivery and making sure that grandma herself did not succumb to either the flu or to any complications of childbirth. My grandmother was so grateful to the woman that saved her life that she acknowledged her by giving her son -- my father -- the name Kay as his middle name.

I hear Dad hated it with a passion when he was a teenager. Hah!

My father was born in the spring of 1941 just as World War II broke out overseas. Later on that year my grandparents woke up one morning, a morning that was also my grandfather's 40th birthday, and heard horrible news on the radio. Pearl Harbor had been attacked. World War II had started for us.

The war years were full ones for my grandma and her family. Work was hard to come by. I remember grandma saying that grandpa worked for the WPA for a time but I am not sure now of the dates. When grandpa got a job in Sidney (in Shelby County, Ohio) working in a machine factory where they made tools for the war the family moved to Sidney and lived there for about three years (c1942-1945.) I recently discovered that Grandma's brother Ralph Garrard had also moved to Sidney, something that grandma never told me. I wonder whether Ralph had moved there first and secured my grandfather a position, or was it the other way around? I don't know. Nevertheless, when grandma's mother Louisa died in a old folk's facility in Alton IL in 1944, grandma and her brother were in Sidney.

Grandma and grandpa and their two children moved back to Robinson and settled once more in the old home place. The next ten years saw them raise their children and see Martha get married to her sweetheart Oral in June of 1953. By the beginning of 1955 my dad was attending his first year of high school and his sister Martha was pregnant with her first child.

Things couldn't have been sweeter for grandma and grandpa, but then tragedy struck again. Martha gave birth to her son in August of 1955 but began to have complications almost immediately. Grandma told me that the doctors let her lay there instead of attending her. She was slowly hemorraging; she developed an infection that caused puerperal fever and she hemorraged to death three days after her son was born. She was 20 years old.

Martha's death devastated my grandparents. I never got the chance to ask my grandfather about it because he'd passed away before I began my genealogical quest in earnest, but I know how deeply Martha's death affected my grandmother. The journal entries and notes that I have from her during this time period reveal that. I've often looked at the picture to the left (which I believe was taken just around the time of Martha Ann's death) and studied the tired, drawn looks that both my grandparents are wearing. They look like all the joy in them had been sucked away. As a mother myself to a daughter very close to Martha's age, I cannot imagine. Well, take that back. I can imagine, and even that makes my stomach clench and my throat tighten up. I'd rather not imagine, much less experience.

Even now, though I never actually knew my Aunt Martha Ann, I feel as if I have because she's always been a part of my life. Grandma's cedar chest holds mementos of her life. Martha's high school diploma, a pair of glasses she wore, pictures and a compact mirror she kept in her purse, pieces of her writings, old report cards....the list goes on. I have seen Martha's image so many times and heard her spoken of so often that her living self feels ingrained in my sense-memory, as if I've been face to face with her in the real world. Does that sound strange? It doesn't feel like it, if it matters. My conversations with my grandmother were never without her and I suppose that helped implant her in my head. Besides, Martha Ann's son -- my cousin -- is an absolutely fantastic man and my favorite cousin in the whole wide world. Grandma told me once that his jolly attitude about life reminded her constantly of Martha, so not only do I have her face to look at and my grandmother's memories to bring her to life, but I have a reflection of who she was in her son. My aunt died a decade before I was born, but I had her around anyway.

One last thought before I close for today. I mentioned earlier that life tends to take care of you and give you what you need even when you don't realize that it is. My grandmother wasn't trying, wanting or expecting a second child -- but she got one anyway. I have often wondered if my dad came along because life knew that my grandmother would need that extra child, and not just in the wake of her daughter's death. My dad took care of his parents during their winter years and my grandmother lived with them in the last years of her life. Of course I'm glad they had him because neither I nor my own daughter would exist without it! But if they hadn't had him and Martha had died? They would have truly been all alone. I'm glad it didn't end up that way.

Next time I'll wrap it all up.

My Grandmother's Life, Pt. 4 -- Marriage and Her First Child

2010-09-26T20:34:00.008-05:00

Grandpa and Grandma were married by the Rev. Elmer Smith on Wednesday, the 3rd of January 1934, in Knox County (Vincennes), Indiana. Grandma told me that her best friend Gwendolyn Norton and her brother Ralph were the witnesses. They all climbed into a car and puttered over to Vincennes. I once asked grandma if it was snowing that day and she said that it had been earlier in the day and so it took the four of them a while to make it there.

Grandpa didn't have much money but he did get Grandma a simple tiny silver band. I have this band in my possession now and it is indeed a tiny thing -- my pudgy German fingers certainly can't wear it! -- and nearly worn through with age. I can't wear it because although my grandmother and I are just about the same size (she was about 4'10" and I am only 5'0") I inherited my mother's German body type more than my grandma's delicate French bone structure. Oh, I see my grandmother when I look at my arms, and my mother says that I walk like she did, but for the most part I've taken on the thicker and rounder barrel look of the German woman, hah! Anyway, I love feeling grandma's wedding band in my fingers. It's such a delicate piece. I can't look at it, ever, without picturing it in its proper place on grandma's hand.

Grandma and grandpa settled on the "old home place" once they married. This land had been inherited by my grandfather and his brothers Roy and Emerson from their aunt Missouri when she passed away in 1931. The land was originally 40 acres (the SE 1/4 of S2, T6N, R2W) and has been in my family since 7 Nov 1831, when my 4th-g-grandfather John Nichols purchased the land from Wilson Lagow. John's son Joseph purchased another 220 acres but bought and sold and by the 1930's the land had whittled down to 120 acres that Joseph deeded to his daughter Missouri Ann. Upon her death Missouri's land was split three ways. Grandma told me she encouraged Grandpa to buy the land instead of letting his brothers sell it away so he went ahead and bought it.

My aunt Martha Ann was born at the house on 16 October 1934. When I was first gathering all my genealogy data I remember writing down Aunt Martha's date of birth and doing some quick calculating. I then glanced over at grandma and pointed out to her that there was barely nine months between Martha Ann's birth and the date of their marriage, all the while giving her a rather knowing grin. She snorted with amusement and said, rather indignantly, "I had nine days of grace!" That sure did make me laugh!

So grandma and grandpa had their daughter Martha Ann within the first year of their marriage and boy, was she ever the apple of their eye. Since they'd waited until their 30's to get married childbirth wasn't something that grandma had planned to do a lot of. I remember her saying once that Martha's birth was a difficult one and that she'd almost died. The experience, she said, had the effect of making her very wary of having more children.

I have a few pictures of the family at that time and I've posted a few here. The first (to the left, above) was taken about 1938 and shows my grandpa proudly holding his little girl. I love this picture of my grandfather, I think he's a very handsome man. There's something William Holden-ish about him in this picture!

The second picture was taken about 1940 and shows the whole family. I think it's safe to say that grandma was pregnant again in this shot but it's fun to speculate whether she even knew it. She sure does look happy though!

True to her word, grandma did not seek to have any more children after Martha was born and she didn't get pregnant for years thereafter. I never asked her if she was intentionally careful, if she just got lucky, or if moving into her late 30's had anything to do with it. Having had a brush with death myself during an operation (and a difficult birth with my own daughter) I can certainly relate to my grandma's fears and hesitations. Giving birth wasn't a walk in the park for anyone at that time and apparently grandma wasn't really built for it. She was lucky to have survived Martha's birth (and especially my father's, but that story will come later.)

Of course grandma did get pregnant again with my father at the age of 40. This pregnancy was one of those so-called 'change of life' babies. It was ironic that this happened to her because my grandma's mother was 40 when she gave birth to my grandma. Like mother, like daughter? My aunt Martha was six when my grandmother learned that she was pregnant with my father and almost seven when he was born.

His birth and their life after that next time!

My Grandmother's Life, Pt. 3 -- In Letters

2010-09-05T14:28:00.023-05:00

My grandmother and grandfather met in 1927. I've spoken in earlier blog posts about their courtship and I repeat the significant paragraph of that here for the sake of continuity:

"My grandparents weren't common for the times. Instead of marrying early as so many others did, they were an 'older' couple; they didn't begin dating until 1927 (when Grandma was 26) and didn't marry until 1934. The Depression began in 1929 and my grandfather was the sole means of support for his grandma (Eliza Ursula (Nichols) Swan) and great auntie (Ursula's sister, Missouri Ann Nichols, who never married.) Times were tough all over. Grandma and grandpa decided to "wait it out." Wait it out they did, though by 1933 grandpa's idea of waiting was apparently much different than grandma's! Grandma told me she said to grandpa one evening, "Virgil, I reckon if I let you, you'll wait forever, and I don't aim to wait much longer. I'm not a young woman and if we don't get on and get married, I'll have to be moving along." They got married a few months later!"

The details of their courtship are largely gone with grandma now. I asked her a couple of things about her and grandpa but the one thing I never did ask was precisely how they met. I wish I had. Maybe they didn't 'meet' so much as just knew each other since both were from the same small rural community. I guess I'll never know now, unless my father does. What I can put together, though, is a snippet of the timeline for the progression of their courtship. I have a set of letters that grandma saved, letters that grandpa wrote to her during the years before they finally married in January of 1934. These letters definitely show how their relationship progressed.

The first letter was written by my grandfather Virgil Joseph Browning in July of 1928. Grandpa wrote it to grandma because she and her friends Hope and Elmer Rich had decided to go 'south.' Grandma told me of this trip a few times over the course of her talks with me and luckily during my recent searches I found a four-page 'trip diary' that she'd written during the trip on notebook paper. She and her friends traveled to Asher, Oklahoma from Robinson, IL -- a trip of about 700 miles. They left on 28 Jun 1928 and returned on 14 July 1928 and each leg of the trip took them almost three days by car each way. The car? - a 1926 Model T Tudor!

Grandpa wrote grandma the following letter:

Robinson, Ill 7/28 My Dear Beulah, I recieved your letter Thursday eve. Say Miss you are having a fine time I bet. Oh it is hot here to day too hot to go in the sun very near. I went to a party last night at Russelville had a pretty good time to Lots of girls ha ha Well how are you kid don't let the Indians get you, no danger what? I went to Gordon last Sund. night in stead of to your church. Frank told me you people had gone south Sat. night. I hope this letter gets ther before you leave Asher I think it will. We had some Ice cream yesterday here at home it sure was good cant you taste it, Banana flaver too. Well I hope you have a good time while there and good luck on the road back. I must close and go to work so I can go to town to night. Hoping to see you soon, write if you can. Your Friend Virgil

I find this first letter interesting. Grandpa meant enough to her at the time for her to save the letter but there isn't much in its tone to suggest how far their relationship had progressed from simply liking each other to going steady. I don't know how long they'd been seeing each other at this time....6 months? 8 months? But it was long enough for him to write her a letter and send it all the way to Oklahoma!

The second set of letters I have was written on the 27th and the 29th of September 1929. Grandpa was taking a trip down to Tulsa. He wrote from Joplin MO on the 27th and from Shawnee OK on the 29th. Grandpa mentions his uncle in the letter of the 29th and he is referring to Finley Duncan, who was married to Ida May Browning. Ida was my great-grandfather Frederick Leone Browning's sister. The Duncans lived in Tulsa from 1920-1930, at least.

Joplin Mo Friday 27 Dearest Beulah I will write you a few lines and tell you the trip I just got through fixing a tire had a tack in it fixed one yesterd cut on glass say there is some hills in around Rolla kid I wish you had been along I am writing from a camp haven't started yet on my way bout 150 miles to go yet There sure is some real places to hunt and fish down here I saw 3 squirrel just about 5 minutes ago I hope I don't have any more trouble. dear dont get sick or hurt and dont cry much for me, ha ha. I know you won't though well sweet heart I spec I better close and go on well be yourself and keep sweet for I love you. Virgil I will write you from Tulsa or where ever I am at.

---

Sept 29, 1929 Dearst Beulah Well dear girl I will write you a little letter. I am at Shawnee, Okla now it is time to go to bed but I am a night hawk you know Well I never had any more trouble but the two flat tires. I got in the city of Tulsa the night after I wrote you and to Roy Sat evening. did you thing I had forgot to write. Well how are you all by now I am kind of lonesome tonight for you dear but you are 700 miles away. We will start home this week some time it may be Sunday night or later or before I get home. I went to the show with my uncle in Tulsa a good show It was good. The folks are kiding me about my red head girl ha ha. Well red head you are my girl let them kid me I don't care sweetheart do you Well kid don't get lonesome. I don't like this red dirt ore this country very well part of it is prect good the rest is worse. Well sweet girl I must close I ges and go to bed I am sort of tired out. Look for me when you see me girl of mine I am lonsome for you. XXoo XXoo Virgil I may drop you a card on the way

It had now been about a year and a half since the two of them had begun dating. It was likely quite serious by this time and you can definitely tell this by the tone in grandpa's letters. He tells her in the first one that he loves her -- the first time he's said that in any of the letters so far.

I also love how he mentions that my grandmother was a redhead! I know that her uncle Finn Eagleton was a redhead, and my dad was, and my brother and I am, and now my own daughter. I never saw my grandmother with red hair because there aren't any existing color photos of her with it (though the one taken in 1927 at the top of this post is the closest I've seen, I can imagine a burnished copper or auburn!) and she was in her 70s before I can even remember her. By that time her hair was the most gorgeous fine-spun silver. I can only hope my hair goes the same way!

A month before the writing of this next letter, in May of 1930, my grandparents posed for a picture on the steps of a local house. You can see it to the left.

June of 1930 is the next letter that I have. Grandpa had been carted away by a few friends of his to Russellville to shuck corn and apparently hadn't had time to let grandma know. He made sure to send her a letter! The tone of this one is warm and loving and his pet names and loving thoughts for her are clear.

Vincennes or Russelville. June 23/30 Dear Sweetheart. Well are you peived at me for coming away so long or not I left on short notice {Paul?}and Roy Cohourn the man I have been shooking wheat for came after me. I told the folks to let you know did they I am going to stay till sat I ges Roy's brother wants me to shok for him to when I get through here I'll get throu tomorrow I ges. say it has been lonesome here for me I wanted to come home sat night but could not did not have any way I wanted to see you little woman the worst kind. was you lone some for me I bet you was. well if you see any of my people tell them when I think I will be there. It has been awful hot the last todays has it not. say dearest girl have you had your wenine [weinie] roast yet. I bet I will lose out on it say it is warm enough to get that new bathing suit wet isn't it the water is fine for it tried it the other day did not get any bathing suit wet either. ha ha. I went to Vincennes sat night with the folks here sure a big crows there. well do not cry or fret or sigh for you know I will be home some of these days to see you and hold your dear sweet self in my arms dear girl I love you. by Virgil

We are now smack dab in Depression times. I asked grandma many times about this era of her life and she would always tell me a story or two about it. I don't remember all of them -- to my deep chagrin -- but I do remember that grandma told me once that she remembered a fellow coming up her parent's driveway one evening around 1930 begging for the opportunity to do any labor there was to do for nothing more than a good meal. She said she went inside and fixed the man a supper of fried potatoes and eggs (the only thing she really had readily available) and that he did some work around the farm in return.

Grandma often said that although times were hard for she and her family she also felt lucky that in her rural farming community it didn't make as much of an impact upon her as it did in more urban areas. She still raised crops and canned and pickled and fed herself. It was harder to make money and to buy commodities. She made do and stretched foodstuffs, clothing and household products as far as she could. This sort of stretching made an impact on her for her entire life, though I don't think it was just a result of the Great Depression and more because she had been taught thrift since she was old enough to walk. I would smile to myself in my 20s when I saw her carefully wash and wipe aluminum foil clean and fold it up and tuck it into a paper bag reserved for the purpose. She'd do the same to plastic bags. Nothing was disposable to her the first time around. I smile thinking about that now but for a different reason than I did back then. Then it was because I marveled at what I thought was a time waster -- why do that when you could just throw them away and buy more, it's what they were made for! Now I smile because it reminds me of my own naivety and because I reflect on how wasteful I am myself.

At the time of the letters so far (1927-1930) my grandfather and his younger brother Emerson were living with and taking care of their grandmother Ursula and their Auntie Zura (Missouri.) Emerson was a carpenter and fixed things around town and grandpa worked hard to provide for them. He went wherever he could find work, which sometimes meant he'd hitch a ride with some friends and go shuck corn or bring in other crops as needed. He was a mechanic and a farmer his whole life. In 1930 he was 28 years old.

In February 1931 his grandmother Ursula died and that left him responsible for only his aunt Missouri. Now at some point between June of 1930 and the date of the next letter in December of 1932 my grandfather had finally proposed to my grandmother:

Brocton Ill Dec 7/32 Dearest Wife to be. I will drop you a few lines to let you know how I am I am all ok it Rained a big rain last night thunder and lightning a regular summer storm. we did not work yesterday or to day. We will in the morning. will be home sat night Frank said he thought so. We won't get done by then though well sweet I will see you then and get to take my sweet girl in my arms and look deep in your sweet eyes for you know that is the most wonderful thing, to know you are my one and only I love you kid and am proud of you. Well Frank is going to town so I will go and mail this By By dear Pal I'll see you. Virgil

This letter is postmarked Brocton, which is a small town in Edgar County, IL. It looks like grandpa was there doing some work with a man named Frank. I don't know who this man is. He might be a relative but if so I haven't narrowed it down yet.

Anyway, grandma told me that she was frustrated at grandpa for not marrying her sooner and said that he told her that he didn't want to marry her yet because it was too difficult for him to try to support her as well as his aged grandmother and auntie. By 1932, though, his grandmother had passed away and half of his excuse for not marrying had been laid aside. Grandma said she didn't really see the difficulty in having her around the house and said she would have been happy to help him provide and care for his aunt but that's not how things seemed to be working out. Grandpa, she said, was the sort of man to put things off as long as he could and that she would have to prod him at certain points during their many years together. I don't have any doubts about the truth of this statement! My grandpa was a man slow to do much anything and just went about life at his own pace for sure.

The last letter I have in my collection is dated June 1933 and addressed to her on S. Irving St., Chicago, IL. I did a doubletake at that for a while, trying to figure out why grandma would have been in Chicago (was she living there?) and then finally remembered! Grandma had mentioned a few times that she'd travelled to Chicago to visit the World's Fair and when I started doing some research I realized she'd attended the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, the one they called A Century of Progress International Exposition. I guess this letter was one grandpa sent her in reply to a letter she'd sent him upon her arrival in the Windy City. The World's Fair was an incredible thing for its time and I bet my grandma saw many wondrous things.

June/8/33 Robinson Ill. Dear Beulah. I received your letter and was surprised some. I'll say, I tould you I might not come wed nite soo I didn't and was going Thru. but the letter beat me to it. Well I hope you have a good time and see lots of sites while you are there. I have been plowing and planting corn when I could it is been so hot you could not hardly keep the horses going. Mr. Collins [william Collins, next door neighbor] killed one of his horses today some body said, got it to hot. Well I am tired to night honey so I ges I will close this scribble. Well have a good time and don't get hurt or run over cause you know I want to see you again. I would have liked to went along but I was broke. well by by I will see you Wed night maby. as ever yours lots of love and kisses xoox Virgil P.S. I love you

Three months later in September of 1933 grandpa would lose his Auntie Missouri. I suspect that it was about this time that grandma finally let grandpa know that she wasn't going to wait about much longer since she was almost 33 and had been his fiancee for about a year by this point. I know that she was serious -- she told me many times she made it clear she was -- and within a few months grandpa had taken her across the Indiana border to Vincennes on a cold 3rd of January 1934 and made her his bride.

Next time....their married lives and their family.

FYI

2010-08-14T12:40:00.002-05:00

Due to unforeseen technical difficulties (i.e., my computer) my postings will be placed on hold until said difficulties can be resolved.

My Grandmother's Life, Pt 2.

2010-08-09T19:43:00.005-05:00

I continue today with the story -- only the roughest of edges, for how can I ever hope to fully tell the story of a woman who saw over 100 years? -- of what I know of the life of my grandmother, Beulah Ethel (Garrard) Browning.

I was thinking about this all day at work and began to remember things that I'd forgotten, small vignettes my grandma shared over the course of our closest years. She loved that I asked about her life and she loved sharing those memories; her eyes would light up and her normally soft voice would grow stronger. I think it was because she had lived so long. She told me once, in response to a question I had about how long she'd lived, that she sometimes disliked it because she'd had to watch everyone she knew and loved as a girl, a young woman, a friend, a mother and a wife -- die. She had strong faith in God, though, and would tell me she believed that God had His purpose for giving her years and she was not one to question His wisdom. As I said in my last entry, I am so very glad those years were hers and mine.

But back to her story and some of the things I remembered.

I own her cedar chest. The chest was given to her in 1932 by her then-beau and later husband, my grandfather Virgil Joseph Browning. In it she kept mementos of her life and I scurried back to open it and look through some of those while telling her story. I believe the things in that chest all meant enough to her to keep them and I will try to tell the stories of as many of those items as I can. Here are some of them.

This picture is of a tea set that Mrs. Mary Hoke presented to my grandmother as a Christmas present in 1909. This tea set is so delicate and tiny! Each little cup is the size of my thumb. I remember grandma saying she adored that set and played with it often, being very mindful to wrap each item carefully when she was finished playing with it. Until today, when I went to take this picture, I had never seen it unwrapped myself. The entire set has always been stored in a wooden matchbox holder and wrapped in tissue. Accompanying the set is a small handwritten note detailing when she received it and by whom. When I unwrapped if for this picture I found, however, that one little saucer is missing. That's too bad! Otherwise it's a beautiful little set and I can see my grandma playing with it and valuing it for its delicacy.

So grandma's school years came and went. When she was 16, in 1917, her older brother Raymond Orlond Garrard went off to France to serve in World War I. The picture here was taken that year and shows her in a gorgeous white dress. I think she looks young and fresh and splendid, don't you? She wrote Raymond letters and wrote other servicemen as well. I used those letters to trace one of the serviceman she wrote and I managed to get those letters back to his descendants! I've told grandma's story about those times before here on my blog and if you're interested (including seeing a picture of her wearing her brother's uniform!) you can go here and also here.

Another interesting item is a tiny Methodist Episcopal Hymnal. Copyrighted 1850 Cincinnati and published by Swormstedt & Power, Corner of Main and Eighth-Sts, R.P. Thompson, Printer," the front page of this book (in my grandmother's handwriting) says "Presented to Beulah Garrard by Auntie Allison, aged about 89 years this Sept 29, 1920, been in her possession for at least 65 years." This book also has, in another person's handwriting, the name "Mary Jane Willson." I found a Mary Allison, aged 90 in the 1920 census, living in Crawford County. I'm pretty sure she's the "Auntie Allison" that my grandmother received the hymnal from. More research necessary!

By the time she was 22 in 1923 she and her best girlfriend Gwendolyn Norton (who later married a Hackett) decided they needed to go to Olney in Richland County, Illinois, and work at a shoe factory. They boarded with the parents of a Mr. Eska Russell while working there because, grandma said, it wasn't proper for two young women to be on their own! In the picture here she is holding her hat and looks for all the world like a girl home to visit from making her own way. She worked there for a year or so, boarding with two separate families -- the Russells, parents of Eska Russell, and the Routsons -- before coming home sometime in the fall of 1925. I know this because another item in the chest was a unique cup that my grandmother called a moustache cup. She gave it to her father Robert as a christmas present in 1925. She couldn't find one to buy so she obtained it from Mrs. Routson, according to the notes I took.

Between 1924-1926 my grandmother was seeing a boy named Cecil Buchanan. I have quite a few letters from him to her and whenever she mentioned his name she said it in a way that told me that he was a special boy to her at the time. But somewhere in there they broke up and my grandmother met another boy, one named Virgil.

Next time....her life after meeting my grandfather.

My Grandmother's Life, Pt. 1

2010-08-08T19:37:00.014-05:00

Today is a celebration of a life.

My grandmother, Beulah Ethel (Garrard) Browning, died 8 years ago yesterday. If she were living she would be almost 110 years old.

My thoughts today have been all about her and I wanted to spend this day with her, in thought and spirit if not in body, so I've spent the day scanning in photos of her from the vast collection of old photos she bequeathed me upon her death. During the scanning I was struck by the thought that she was literally growing up in front of my eyes even though she did that growing up 100 years ago.

I don't know if I've ever shared how I got started in genealogy. In 1988/early 1989 my grandfather Virgil Joseph Browning was diagnosed with leukemia and my father quit his job and moved to the small town my grandparents were living in (the same town, it so happens, that I was also living in.) At that time I was in my early 20's and had just begun to date the man who was to become my (now ex-) husband. I was in college and had a social life and a job and things to do and the last thing in the world I wanted was to spend time with my grandparents, who were both in their late 80's. In my youthful naivety that sixty year difference was a vast chasm.

My grandpa passed away in December 1989. My dad stayed on for a few months to make sure his mother was all right and went back home (a city an hour away.) His mother -- my grandma Beulah -- had just turned 89 and would now live alone in a little apartment. My parents made it clear that I was responsible for checking on her daily because I only lived a short drive away. I balked at this but I had always been a dutiful daughter so I did as I was told, though I admit I scheduled our visits early in the morning so I could spend as little time as possible there before I could claim I had things to do. Thinking upon this selfishness from my current perspective, I am ashamed. I never once thought how my grandmother felt, being alone in that small apartment she'd shared without the man who had been with her for nearly 60 years. The loneliness she must have endured I can only imagine, but she never shared any of it with me when I visited. Instead she would fix me breakfast -- one fried egg, a piece of toast, a cup of coffee with cream. We would sit at the small two-seat dinette in her tiny kitchen.

I'd watch her putter around making the meal and I would be casting my eyes around the room into the small closet in the corner. I would always see an interesting metal cooler with a Coca-Cola emblem and my natural curiosity would kick in. She'd serve the meal and we'd stare at each other and search for things to talk about. I think that search (and my questions about the contents of the metal cooler -- family pictures) was what spurred my grandmother into telling me stories of her parents, her grandparents, the people she'd known, the places she'd seen. Her life. And because she told those stories and shared her life, she showed me that she wasn't just some old lady on the periphery of my life. She was real, and interesting, and she had lived. We were family. It didn't take long before I didn't come to visit her and sit there thinking about how fast I could politely leave. I came because I enjoyed her and my time with her.

She was 89 then. She lived until she was 101 and only the last six months of her life were not quality ones. At her 100th birthday party she was laughing and enjoying herself. A stroke soon thereafter took her away from us and it was downhill from there. She died today, eight years ago.

I cannot express how lucky I feel that I was able to have my grandmother for those years. If those years were given to her in part so that she and I could have the chance to become as close as we did then I can only be humbled in gratitude for them. I wouldn't be the genealogist I am today without her. I wouldn't be the woman I am today without her.

I have regrets concerning her. Of course I do. I regret that I didn't ask her to write her life story for me when she was living with my parents and had the time to do it. She told me many stories but I didn't write all of them down and my memory is good but not nearly as sharp as hers was. I don't think I can celebrate her life and what she meant and means to me still if I don't get those stories down. Her stories -- all the stories I know -- are coming up.

We begin at the beginning. My grandmother, Beulah Ethel Garrard, was born on 9 December 1900 in Robinson Twn. in Crawford County, Illinois, the 6th and youngest child born to Robert Elbert Garrard (1853-1938) and Louisa Adaline Eagleton (1860-1944.) When grandma was born her dad put her in a shoebox in the bottom drawer of a bureau and moved it closer to the fire so the reflection of the heat would keep her warm. She was only two and a half pounds at birth and he could cradle her in the palm of his hand. They didn't expect she'd even live.

Grandma was the youngest and according to her stories, she was rather spoiled and unruly, always wanting her way. All her older siblings said she was that way, anyway, she'd say with a crackling laugh. She was a special favorite of her oldest brother Ralph, who was nine years older than she was. The picture above left -- the one where she's looking mighty unhappy -- was taken one day after school around 1910 (I suspect soon after the picture that follows of she and her schoolmates was taken, since her dresses look very similar and she looks about the same age.) Her older brother Ralph had informed her that she was to come over and get her picture taken and she was distinctly unwilling to do what she'd been told. She said she remembered standing there and pouting while Ralph held her tight around her waist.

Grandma's rememberences of her family were many. She said her sister Julia -- the oldest, born in 1887 - told her once that their mother Louisa had given birth to a stillborn baby of unknown sex about the year 1895. This baby had been as tiny as grandma had but had not lived and Grandpa Robert had went outside and fashioned a box of wood to bury the poor body. It was buried in the backyard or out in the woods and that was that. Julia also told grandma about their little brother Eldridge Garrison Garrard. Eldridge had been born in 1888 with a cleft palate. At the age of two he hit his head on the fireplace and died about two days later in January of 1890. Grandma said her mother Louisa said the family buried him in the Haskins Cemetery but there is no stone for him. Grandma took me out there one day in 1995 and led me to where he was buried. I could find it if I was standing there but I can't describe it to you here.

Her father, Robert, was never a milk drinking man. Grandma said the why of it was never explained to her until she was a young woman. Apparently in November of 1864 the cows that he and his family raised got into milkweed and the entire family unknowingly drank of the poisoned milk. Everyone became ill but Robert's father, William Garrard, was the only one to die. Robert remembered how it felt to be so sick and the idea of milk never set well with him again. Grandma said as long as he lived he never had another glass of milk.

Grandma's mother, Louisa, was raised up in a Christian faith (one that for the life of me I cannot remember) but when a young woman of 18 Louisa took up housekeeping work in the house of a local Quaker family (another whose name I cannot recall) and soon began to practice the faith. Grandma was fond of telling me that her mother was a Quaker.

The earliest couple of pictures I have of my grandmother Beulah are either her school pictures or pictures that were taken after school. She told me what school she went to but it is one of those names that I didn't write down and it has escaped my memory. The pictures I have don't list the school's name either. When she began school, she would walk in good weather and ride a horse in bad weather. I remember her telling me that she was only able to attend school until the 8th grade, which was about 1915 or so. The picture to the right (click to expand) was taken around 1910 and is likely one of the earliest pictures I have of her.

Grandma told me once that she remembers seeing and hearing her first plane when she was a teenager. She said she saw it go overhead when she was out watching some boys play a rough and tumble field baseball game.

I have another picture of her that is associated with her school years and it was this picture that I've featured at the head of my blog entry. That one was taken the last year she was attending school by a friend of hers as she walked down the road home, her round metal lunchpail swinging in her hand. It was fall 1915 and she was 14, almost 15. That picture -- the look in her eyes, the angularity but softness to her face, her small lips -- reminds me so much of my own daughter. Genetics are amazing. I can picture it in my head now, her friend stopping and calling her name...."Beulah!"....and when she stopped, she got her picture taken against the slowly setting Illinois sun. Isn't my grandma beautiful?

My grandmother's stories are many and this week will be hers. Tomorrow, her years after school.

At Long Last!

2010-08-01T15:48:00.010-05:00

I'm back from a lovely vacation with a few good genealogical finds in hand. I'd have had more if I hadn't come down sick with a migrane on the day I was scheduled to go courthousing/cemetery hunting in IL with my cousins. I did manage to drag my butt over to the courthouse but I could barely concentrate and only got the bare minimum of what I wanted. Hm, I guess this means that I have to go back again. Oh, darn. Hah!

Of those I managed to get, the best by far was a copy of the original marriage license of Samuel J. Browning and Sarah Anne from the Tuscarawas County OH Genealogical Society for a grand total of $.60. I'd been theorizing for years whether she was a Dickinson or a Dickerson. When the Genealogical Society handed it over to me I read it and just started laughing with that laugh of frustration that I am sure all good genealogists know. It was pretty clearly "Dickerson" to me. I didn't see a dot over that "i" no matter how I looked or wanted it to magically appear. Even with this evidence, though, I am still comfortable with the idea that Dickinson was Sarah's surname. After I learned of the fact that George Dickinson included George W. Browning and Effie May Browning, the children of Samuel and Sarah, as heirs of his estate in 1876 in Crawford County I began to feel strongly that this was the most solid of evidence for their relationship. Dickerson and Dickinson sound very alike and a mistake could have been made in the license by the clerk being that both surnames were present in the county at the time. At any rate, take a look at the difference between the original copy I had of the license here and the new one to the left. The difference is pretty substantial. I'd love comments on whether or not any of you all also think I'm right in basing my opinion about Sarah's surname on the will more than the marriage license.

When we finally arrived in Crawford County and I managed to get to the courthouse there (no more hands-on looks at the death and birth records in Crawford County, much to my chagrin -- more on that later though!) I only got two documents -- the death certificate of Richard Jennings (proving that he was indeed the son of William Jennings and Jane Nevitt and making my day! -- more on that great find later too!) and a bit of a dig through the will of George W. Dickinson. I should have copied the entire thing but I was feeling so horrid that it was all I could do to stand there and copy the four pages I did get. The four pages were the guardianship records of John W. and Ella May Browning, children of George W. Browning, deceased.

These four pages, dated 1892, contain an affidavit from Amanda (Raney) Browning Short, who lived in Mt. Vernon, Jefferson Co., IL. Included in the pages was a guardianship paper from Jefferson County showing Amanda was the children's guardian and that she claimed $48 from the estate as the guardian of John and Ella, two of the minor heirs. These papers, more than anything else, tell me the following: John and Ella were George's children, and as George was Samuel and Sarah Anne's son, they were also Sarah Anne's grandchildren. This also tells me -- most importantly -- that Sarah was George Dickinson's daughter and a Dickinson instead of a Dickerson. It also helps that she named two of her children (George and Effie) after her parents.

I love when things come together. More to follow!

Tombstone Tuesday -- Random Thoughts

2010-07-13T13:24:00.014-05:00

It's Tombstone Tuesday so this Tuesday I'll feature the stone of my 3rd-g-grandmother, Jane (Nevitt) Browning Jennings, who is buried in the Kirk Cemetery in Crawford County, Illinois. I'll explain why later on in this post.

I'm preparing to embark this week on another long road trip/vacation with my parents and my daughter. We did one of these in 2008 and we're doing it again now although we've added in another destination. First we'll drive up to Coshocton Co., OH to visit my brother and sister-in-law for a few days. The last time we went straight from there to Crawford Co., IL for another few days of R&R with some cousins but this time we'll detour towards Chicago and the little town of Peotone in Will Co., IL before going on to Crawford County. My daughter is excited about this because she's wanted to see Chicago for a while now. She was there once but doesn't remember it -- she was two.

I'm looking forward to it for many reasons, not the least of which is because I'll get the chance to drive from Coshocton County to neighboring Tuscarawas County and stop by the Genealogical Society there. I was there on my last trip but I didn't get the chance to do what I will be able to do this time around. Even though I'm pretty sure now that Samuel J. Browning married Sarah Ann DICKINSON and not Dickerson (having Sarah's father's will name Samuel Browning's children sort of makes the case) I'm having the Society open up their vault of original records so I can make a copy of their original license. The photocopy that I do have from the Tuscarawas County courthouse is horrid, I want a better one, and I'm in the area. It's a no-brainer!

I went poking about in my grandmother's cedar chest the night before last and ended up not getting to bed until after midnight. I opened it up because I'd found some notes I'd thought I'd lost that I'd made about items in the chest years ago. I remember that afternoon. I think it was about 2000. I sat down with grandma and had her tell me where she'd acquired some of her treasures and whether she could tell me any stories about them. Unfortunately I didn't get as many as I should have but I'm grateful for those I have. While in there I found something fantastic! It's a travel diary of sorts written by my grandmother in 1928 on a few sheets of looseleaf paper. It's something she wrote when she traveled to Oklahoma from Illinois in a Model T. I can't wait to transcribe it and get it scanned!

I'm also nearly vibrating with excitement about finding a possible picture of Jane (Nevitt) Browning Jennings, my third great-grandmother! Jane was born in 1819 and married her step-cousin James Browning (Jane's mother Rhoda's second husband was James Browning's mother Margaret Markee's brother -- got that?) in 1839. After James died in 1852 she married William Jennings, an older man from England. They had one son, Richard, born in 1861.

Here's where it gets interesting. I located a Find-A-Grave memorial for Richard and his wife, Mary 'May' (Lackey) Jennings. I read through Richard's memorial and it mentioned an entirely different set of parents for him -- Cyrenus Jennings and an unknown woman.

I contacted the holder of the memorial. She and I have been corresponding the last couple of days, comparing notes, trading stories, looking at proofs. She's known descendants of May's family members and has stories passed down as well as owning this picture I mentioned, and Richard's violin. I'm pretty sure that Richard is William and Jane's son -- for starters I have he and Mary's marriage license and it states his parents were William and Jane. As Cyrenus Jennings was born around 1845 and Richard in 1861 that would mean Cy would only be about 15 or 16 years old at Richard's birth! Possible but unlikely, especially given that his mother would likely be even younger. However, more speculation is useless without proof. I'm hoping we'll get more of it when I get to Robinson and spend the day in the courthouse and pouring over old obituaries in the Robinson Public Library.

If the picture she has (take a look at it here) is indeed Richard's parents, perhaps it's a picture of William Jennings and Jane (Nevitt) Browning instead of Cyrenus Jennings and his wife! So my next question is, of course, what year was this picture taken? It appears the man might be in his late 70s or early 80's and the woman might be in her late 60's or early 70's. I don't know when William died but he was born around 1803. Jane was born in 1819 and died in 1894. The handwriting is May's and says it's "Dick's parents." However, when was that written? Did May know William at all? And what about Jane? Jane died a year before May and Richard were married.

So okay, the photographer then. The photographer is Isaac W. Mitchell. I looked him up in the census and found that he was a house carpenter in 1880, living next door to a Bussard (who, while not a photographer, was likely a relative of the Bussards that were.) However by 1900 Isaac is in Oblong and is listed as a "Cooper and Photographer." By 1910, however, Isaac is listed again as only a house carpenter. Hm. Is it safe to infer that this picture was definitely taken after 1880 but before 1910? Argh! So many questions. More research is needed!

I've been thinking a lot about my great-great-grandfather Joseph Browning lately (Jane's son and possibly Richard's half-brother.) I was curious about what happened to the boy that accidentally killed him.

Miles Hughes, the son of James Hughes, was 18 in June of 1916 when he accidentally struck Joseph on his bike in downtown Palestine, Illinois. Joseph turned to avoid a puddle and caught the front bumper of Miles' car. All the witnesses said it was an accident and noted that Miles was going quite slow and that he couldn't have avoided it. There's a line in the paper about the accident that says, "It was one of those deplorable accidents which often occur and in which neither party is to blame." Living in today's world, that's remarkable isn't it? These days that boy would be charged with vehicular manslaughter or something like that and probably served with a civil lawuit as well. Honestly, it was just an accident. Sometimes that is all it is. In this regard, times really were simpler then.

Miles Fife Hughes, son of James Hughes and Mattie Fife, was born c1898. James and Mattie were married on 5 Aug 1891 in Crawford County. I know that Miles was living on Main Street in LaMotte Township in Crawford County in 1920 with his mother, who was widowed by that time. In 1930 he was still living with his mother on 410 Main St. in Palestine. I don't find any record that Miles ever married. I believe Mattie died in Dec 1935 (the online death record says 1925 but I think that's in error) and Miles himself died in Danville Twn. in Vermillion County, Illinois, on 31 Aug 1940. He was only 42 years old.

I wonder what Miles felt like going through life knowing he'd accidentally killed an old man? I know that it would haunt me even if there hadn't been any way for me to prevent it from happening. Well, if it helps, Miles, wherever you are.....it wasn't your fault.

More On Asbury Taylor and Minerva (Corderman) Browning

2010-07-12T13:02:00.016-05:00

I've been contacted by/have contacted a few new cousins this past week. Coincidentally, all of them are connected to the same Browning and even more coincidentally, it was the Browning I wrote about most recently -- Asbury Taylor Browning, the ninth child of Samuel and Margaret! Taylor died of smallpox in the Civil War but he had three children (Charles Otho, Sarah Viola, and Emma Ellsworth) who lived to have descendents. I'm currently corresponding with a descendant of Taylor's son, Charles. I've been contacted by a descendant of Emma Ellsworth but I've sent two emails so far and I haven't heard back from her. I sent yet another email to a man who I believe is descended from Sarah Viola. If I'm lucky I'll hear back from everyone soon.

Speaking of Asbury Taylor, I've also been thrilled to discover that a historian named Rhonda M. Kohl has been researching the Regiment that Taylor belonged to in the war, the 5th Illinois Cavalry. She's written the following scholarly articles about the regiment:

Kohl, Rhonda M. "'This Godforsaken Town': Death and Disease at Helena, Arkansas, 1862-63." Civil War History, 50, no. 2 (June 2004): 109-144.

Kohl, Rhonda M. "The Hard Lessons of War: The Fifth Illinois Cavalry at Helena, Arkansas." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 99, no. 3-4 (fall-winter, 2006-07): 185-210.

Unfortunately I don't belong to the IL State Historical Society so I haven't been able to read either of these. I sent an email to Ms.Kohl inquiring about Taylor and where he might possibly have been buried if he'd died in a hospital in Helena. Ms. Kohl kindly and quickly sent a response and gave me a few suggestions. She said many soldiers were buried on hills overlooking Helena, each was given their own grave and honored with crosses listing their name and unit. She said there was embalming at the time and Taylor's body may have been shipped back to IL (though if it was, I haven't found a gravesite for him.) She also suggested that I may want to contact the Phillips County Historical Society. I hope to follow up on some of her leads. Ms. Kohl is also in the final stages of submitting a book about the Regiment to her publisher. I'll be sure to obtain a copy when it's released.

Since this post is all about Asbury Taylor's family I thought I'd post a few photos of his children's tombstones as well as speak about another interesting document that Taylor's widow filed after his death. First things first, though!

The picture to the left is the tombstone of Sarah Viola Browning, Taylor and Minerva's fourth child. Sarah is buried at the Seaney Cemetery in Montgomery Township in Crawford County, Illinois. She sure was an interesting lady. She married four times and might have buried all four of them! She was born on 2 Aug 1859 in Prairie city (now Toledo) in Cumberland County, Illinois. She married Alfred Newton Criss around 1877, probably in Sullivan Co., IN. I don't know what happened to Alfred but Sarah married Daniel H. Ripple on 11 Jul 1886 in Crawford County, Illinois. She and Daniel settled in Crawford County and something happened to Daniel as well for Sarah married William J. Purcell on 2 Apr 1896, also in Crawford County. William and Sarah lived in Honey Creek Township. William died in Feb 1905 and Sarah married Abraham Walters on 24 Nov 1910. Sarah and Abraham lived in Oblong township for many years before Abraham died in 1924.

Sarah was living in Robinson on North Madison St in 1930 with her grandson Harold/Herald Reynolds and she remained in Crawford County until her death on 18 Nov 1942. Now I don't know who Harold's mother is. He says that both his parents were born in Indiana. As I'm quite sure I don't know exactly how many children Sarah had, much less their names (since I'm missing that precious 1890 census!) then Harold's most likely my best link to another daughter of Sarah's who married a Reynolds. I'll be looking Harold up on my upcoming trip to Robinson. Hopefully his marriage to Laura c1929 is in the Crawford County courthouse and he'll give his parent's names!

The next picture is the tombstone of John Abram Pirtle and his wife, Emma Ellsworth Browning. I won't post that one here because the picture was posted by Nynaeve on Find-A-Grave and I would much rather just link straight to her picture. Emma was born on 29 Sept 1862 in Prairie City in Cumberland County. She was only six months old when her father died and likely grew up feeling that Matthew Starbuck (her mother's second husband) was her father. Her mother died in 1873 when she was only 11 years old. I don't know what became of her from that time until 1880 but that year she was in Fox Township in Jasper County, Illinois as a 17-yr old hired domestic in the household of George Barnett. George was Emma's brother Charles and his wife Laura Belle Tritt's next door neighbor. I feel Emma was likely living with Charles and Laura but the census caught her at work.

Living two households down from Emma was a family headed by a man named John Kellar, aged 28, who was married with a 7-month old daughter. John was born in Illinois but both his parents were born in France. John Kellar becomes interesting because Emma had a daughter, Elsie May, in Sullivan County, Indiana on 1 March 1882. When Elsie married James Skidmore in Sullivan County in 1899 she listed her father's last name as Keller and his first initial as either an "L", a "J" or an "S." As Emma didn't marry John Abram Pirtle until 29 May 1884, she was unmarried at the time of Elsie's birth. Could this John Keller have been Elsie's father? Did Emma get pregnant and move to Sullivan County to give birth? Her older sister Sarah was in Sullivan county at the time. It's certainly a possibility. At any rate, John and Emma lived in and around the Oaktown, Knox Co. IN and Carlisle, Sullivan Co., IN area all their lives. They were buried in the Carlisle Odd Fellows Cemetery in Carlisle in Sullivan County.

Rewind a bit again with me as we come back to Asbury and Minerva, Sarah and Emma's parents. After Taylor's death in 1863 Minerva married Matthew James Starbuck and the couple and their children moved to Greenup Township in Cumberland County. You can see Matthew and Minerva's marriage license to the right. What's nice about this document was that it's a copy of the original document that Minerva had provided to prove her marriage to Matthew in her pursuit of guardianship of her children with Taylor. I'm thrilled to have it because Cumberland County's courthouse burned in 1885 and the original document is now lost. But yay, I have a copy of it right here!

Speaking of the pursuit of guardianship -- I'd always found it a bit odd that Minerva needed to pursue a guardianship for her OWN children! All the pension documents she filed in 1863-1867 never mention that she had given guardianship of her children to anyone else; as a matter of fact that state unequivocably that she had not. So why did she file? I turned once again to Bouvier's Law Dictionary and found my answer.

Minerva, as the children's mother, could be considered a 'Guardian By Nuture' but by the late 1850's that distinction was rapidly becoming obsolete. She of course had care of her children, but upon her marriage to Matthew she needed to have the rights to maintain and manage her children's estates as well as their persons; i.e., become their Testamentary Guardian. Now I'm only making an inference here, but it seems that if she'd allowed Matthew to become her children's legal guardian instead of herself, she would've been unable to continue to draw her children's minor's pensions from Asbury's estate. So Minerva filed for guardianship of her children with Asbury on 25 February 1868 under her married name, Minerva Starbuck, and her petition was granted on 29 June 1868.

I also initially found how they worded the guardianship papers odd as well. Take a look at the document over there on the left. Each of the children (Charles, Sarah and Emma) were listed as being "__ years on the __ day of ___", that day being one day before their birthday. For example, Charles was born the 6th of April -- he is listed as being seven years old on the 5th. It was strange to begin with but it's not as odd to me now with a second and third read-through. It makes sense, really. The day mentioned is the last full day each child was legally considered a minor and therefore also the last full day Minerva would hold guardianship over them.

Minerva died in May of 1873. If Matthew filed for any guardianship papers over Emma and Sarah -- who were still minors and still eligible for Asbury's pension payments -- after Minerva's death, those papers were lost in the 1885 Cumberland County courthouse fire.

How To Reconstruct a Family pt. 2 -- Play Detective!

2010-07-02T15:01:00.004-05:00

And now for the second installment. I ended the first on a question: What to do next?

Well, I'd researched Amanda as much as I could from 1870-1930 and felt I had a pretty good idea of her life and movements. It was back to the census, armed with a little more knowledge. I decided to pick it up in 1900, the first census that was available after the 1880 when Amanda had been living in Jefferson Co., IL with her children with George Browning, John W. and Ella May.

I searched John W. first since he carried the Browning surname. With a name like John it was still going to be tough so I figured I'd first narrow it to John W. and rule those out first, it'd be easier. I searched with the parameters of his name, his possible birthday (c1874 +/- 1 yr) and birthplace (IL). A few hits came up and I just started going down the list, picking the few that seemed closest to Jefferson Co. first. One was in Franklin County and another in Edgar County but I ruled them both out pretty quickly by comparing birth places and other family living close. Another was in White County and looked promising but his mother was listed as born in Indiana. I kept him in my mind and moved on to the first one on the list that wasn't in Illinois -- John W. and Lydia A. Browning, who lived in St. James, Mississippi Co., MO.

I looked on the map and saw that Mississippi Co. bordered Alexander Co., IL and was separated from it by the Mississippi river. It was only a few counties away from Jefferson County. Hm. John W. was b. Sept 1874 in IL, both his parents had been born in IL, he and Lydia had been married four years, Lydia was born in Aug 1876 in KY, and the couple had two sons, William B. b. Oct 1896 and Jesse R. b. Nov 1899, both born in MO.

This sounded interesting! But I knew that I needed more information to rule the family in or out. I noticed that William was born in 1896 and would've had to register for the WW1 draft if he'd lived that long. I went to Ancestry, searched the WW1 Draft Registration database for a William B. born 1896 in MO (using exact search on the birthdate) and got a hit for William Bennet Browning. I got really excited reading through it! Dated 5 Jun 1918, it stated that he was born 5 Oct 1896 in East Prairie, Mississippi Co. MO. His father was born in Mt. Vernon, IL and the relative he listed was Lydia Browning who was living in Medina, Madison Co., TN.

Mount Vernon! That's in Jefferson County! That told me that the John W. Browning who'd been in the 1900 census was William's father AND it told me he'd been born in Jefferson Co., IL. The date AND the place matched the John W., son of George Browning and Amanda Raney! Whooo! I had a gut feeling that this was the right family so I began to do a bit more in-depth research on them.

I returned to the census records from 1910-1930 and reconstructed the family's movements:

3 May 1910 Wolf Island, Mississippi Co MO, ED 104, Sh 1A, image 1, HH 2, line 7
McDADE, J.B. age 46 c1865, m. 4 yrs, b. TN, fb IRE, mb, TN
McDADE, S. C. age 45 c1866, m. 4 yrs., b. MO, fb AL, mb TN
BROWNING, Liddy (sister) age 32 c1878, widowed 3 ch, 3 liv, b. KY, fb IRE, mb TN
BROWNING, Bennett (son) age 13 c1897, b. MO, fb IL, mb, KY
BROWNING, Roy age 11 c1899
BROWNING, Lee age 2 c1908
POLESTON?, D.N.(or G. N?), father in law, age 76, wid, b. AL, pb AL

1920 Wolf Island, Mississippi Co, MO; ED 116, Sh 8A, HH 143, line 6, Image 1105
BROWNING, Lydia age 44 b. KY, fb KY, mb TN
BROWNING, Bennie age 23 b.MO fb IL, mb KY
BROWNING, Ray age 19 b.MO fb IL, mb KY clerking at store
BROWNING, Lee age 18 b.MO fb IL, mb KY

Ah, the 1910 census shows Lydia living with her brother J.B. McDade so I used that last name and did a search in both available Missouri marriages databases on Ancestry. The first (Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002) wasn't at all helpful but the second (Missouri Marriages, 1851-1900) was! I located her marriage to John:

John W Browning m. Lydia A. McDade in Mississippi Co., MO on 16 Oct 1895

I went to go perform one last census search. I remembered that Lydia had mentioned her parents had come from Tennessee and I noticed that she and her son William were there in 1918 when he registered for the draft. I thought I needed to go look for McDade families in the state. I found the right family in the 1880 Madison Co TN census in the 16th Dist. Liddie A., aged 2, was living with her sisters and brothers: Margaret age 21, John L. age 19, William age 18, Jesse aged 15, Susan age 12, and Bennett J. age 7. Bennett and Liddie were born in KY and the rest were born in TN. I felt it very likely that this was the correct family. Liddie had named two of her sons Jesse and William Bennett.

I now had quite of bit of information on the family. John W. and Lydia A. McDade had married in 1895 and lived in Mississippi Co., MO from Oct 1895 until June 1900. They had three sons (William Bennett, Jessie Ray/Roy, and Lee) from 1896-1902 and somewhere between 1902-1910 John W. died and Lydia moved in with her brother and sister-in-law. Lydia and her son William were apparently living in Madison Co., TN in 1918 but they were back in Mississippi Co., MO by 1920. I couldn't seem to find Lydia or her sons William or Jesse in 1930 but I did find Lee. He was married and still living in Mississippi Co.

So what next? I'd pretty much covered marriages and the census. Ah, ha! The next link in the earthly chain.....death records!

I went to Family Search Beta and did a search in the Missouri Deaths and Burials, 1867-1976 collection for John with no results. Since John's death was early and likely not recorded, I then decided to try all Browning names. Only 11 appeared, none of whom matched.

All right, hm.....well, William had mentioned Tennessee. I decided to try the family names in the Tennessee Deaths and Burials, 1874-1955 collection. I tried Lydia first and got a hit! Lydia died in Medina, Gibson Co., TN, on 28 Nov 1942 at age 66. She was born in 1876 and was listed as married. Her spouse's name was John Wylie Browning. Her parents were listed as Bennett Mcdaid and Susie Davidson.

I tried William with no results, then tried Jesse and got another hit. Jesse Ray Browning died on 5 Feb 1922 and was buried on 6 Feb 1922. He died in Medina, Madison County, Tennessee at age 21. He was born 28 Nov 1900 in MO and was single. His father's Name was Wiley Browning, born IL, and his mother's name was Liddia Mcdade, born in KY.

These two records told me John's middle name -- Wiley -- and the death dates of his wife and son. I turned to the SS Death Index at Rootsweb and found William Bennett Browning. He'd died on 17 Nov 1966 in Humboldt in Gibson County, Tennessee. I took a quick trip back to the USGenWeb site for Tennessee counties and a search in Gibson County for his name in the cemetery listings gave me the following: William B. Browning, d. 17 Nov 1966, married Mealie M., b. 28 Oct 1908- 3 Feb 1998. Both were buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Humboldt, Gibson Co., TN. Lastly, I hopped over to Find-A-Grave to look for William's headstone and got lucky again! Some kind soul had taken a picture of William's stone.

Now for a synopsis.

Do I know for sure yet that the John Wylie Browning who married Lydia McDade is the son of George Browning and Amanda Ann Raney? Nope. The circumstantial evidence is pretty good though. I'd have to locate a few different sorts of documents for solid proof. Amanda's will, if she had one, might mention him or his children. And what of John's own death records? If he died c1904-1910 there might be some sort of death record (though it's doubtful it lists parents) but one never knows. He might've had a will that mentioned his parentage. Perhaps there is a funeral record? It appears that writing to Mississippi Co., MO to get what record there are is my next step to solid proof.

Sometimes, though, circumstantial evidence is all you'll have to go on. Build as strong a case as you can for it if that's what you're using. Pay attention to the smallest of hints, such as where a draft registration was processed. Think about the families that cohabited or collaterally touched yours to find leads. Trace each person back to the earliest census you can find them in for clues like who their relatives were because those people, and their movements, might impact your relatives. While I know I'm stating the obvious for most of us genealogists, for the beginners......well, it's just the stuff like this that you miss.

The moral of this story -- think outside the box!

How To Reconstruct a Family pt. 1 -- Playing Detective!

2010-07-01T16:01:00.006-05:00

I'm super excited today to have located another branch of my Browning family. This wasn't due to a cousin's random contact but was instead something I painstakingly reconstructed by using all the resources available to me and knowing the family you're working on intimately. All I can say is thank goodness for the Internet!

First, some short background. Samuel J. Browning and his wife, Sarah Ann, have been featured on my blog already. Sam and Sarah had three children -- Effie Emmaline, George and Samuel -- before Sarah died. Samuel then remarried and when he did he married a woman named Julia Ann Dickinson. Was this woman Sarah's cousin? I didn't know. Sarah Ann was a bit of a mystery to me because I could never definitively prove her surname. Dickerson? Dickinson? There were cases for both but eventually the preponderance of evidence placed her as a Dickinson. Go here to read the whys and hows and then come on back!

Back? Now on with the show.

In my earlier post I mentioned a man named George W. Dickinson. I'd theorized that G.W. was perhaps a brother or cousin to the children's mother, Sarah, which was only one of the many reasons I'd initially pegged her as a Dickinson. G.W. became Effie Emmaline (b. 1851) and George (b. c1854) Browning's guardian after the death of their father Samuel in 1862. Their little brother Sam had died a month after his father.

I found Effie Emmaline Browning easily. She'd married John T. Fulling in Crawford County and lived there until her death. George, however....well, I had George in the 1870 census but lost him in the 1880. He was missing until just the other day.

I'd looked at the will of G.W. Dickinson before and it had given me no clues. My ah-ha moment on this came not with G.W. (who d. 1908) but with HIS father, George Dickinson (d. 1876)! The senior George's probate records mentioned two things of significance:

1) heirs were George W. Dickinson, James Dickinson, David Dickinson, Samantha Stiles, Elizabeth Storms, Emaline Browning & minor children of George Browning, Dec'd.

2) one of the signed Receipts is from Manda Short, guardian, who signed for John W. Browning and Ella May Browning, children of George W. Browning (dec'd), Mount Vernon, Jefferson Co, IL.

This told me that as of March 1876, George Browning, the son of Samuel and Sarah, had married a woman named Manda, had two children (John W. and Ella May) and had died. Manda had gone on to marry a man with the last name of Short and the family were living in Mount Vernon! YAY!

I went to the IL Marriage database, where I located the following marriages:
BROWNING, GEORGE W. m. RANEY, AMANDA S 1873-12-18 003/ JEFFERSON
SHORT, ALFRED m. BROWNING, AMANDA 1878-01-24 006/0113 JEFFERSON

Ahhhh....so Manda was Amanda S. Raney!

Next stop, the 1880 census. I'd tried it before, of course but then I'd been looking for George Browning. I didn't realize he'd died and his widow had remarried by then. Oh, he'd had children but I didn't know that or their names either! But now, armed with the knowledge of the surname Short, I found them in Mount Vernon very easily. Amanda was listed as Ann. She was 22, Alfred was 52. They were living with his three youngest from his first marriage, their 10 month old daughter Tampy, and John W. (age 5) and Ella May (age 4) are listed as his stepchildren.

There was no 1890 census so I moved on to the 1900. By then I knew that if both her Browning children had lived it was likely they were both married so I figured first things first, I'd try to follow Amanda for as long as I could and perhaps one or both her children had stuck close by. I found Amanda and Alfred in 1900 still living in Mount Vernon with their children (I made notes of the names of her Short children as well.) I moved on to the 1910 with no luck and thought that Alfred had likely died, leaving Amanda a widow. Perhaps she moved in with one of her children? I looked for all the Shorts with no luck. On to the 1920. I found her in Boone in Boone Co., IA, living with her son Alfred Short. I looked in the 1930 and couldn't find her then either. I did notice, however, that there was no sign of John or Ella. Rats.

So what next? Ah yes, the Jefferson Co., IL USGenweb page! I wanted to see when Alfred had died. I started pouring through the cemetery pages and found that Alfred Short had died in 1904 in the county and was buried in the Atkinson Cemetery. I got really lucky because attached to the notation of his stone was his obituary too! Alfred's obituary said the couple had seven children but the 1900 census said that Amanda had been the mother of 11. So since she'd two with George Browning, that meant she'd had not seven but nine with Alfred Short -- Alfred, Ernest, Homer, Eugene, Ada (could she be the Tampy listed in the 1880 census or are they two separate girls?) Minnie, and two or possibly three others who died before 1904.

It might seem silly to research a family (in this case, the Shorts) that didn't really have anything to do with my Brownings. But it's not silly at all! They were intimately entwined in life and the good researcher doesn't overlook these sorts of things. Besides, in my forays into the census I'd learned quite a bit about Amanda.

She was Amanda Ann (not S. -- likely a mistranscription) Raney, born in IL in Sept 1858. I went back to the 1870 census and found her (Ann, aged 12) living with her parents George Warren Raney and Mary Holaway in Montgomery Twn. in Crawford County. She'd married George three years later in Dec 1873 in Jefferson County. Goodness, she was barely 15, can you imagine? I can't. Anyway, she gave birth to eleven children, had married a man 30 years her senior when she was 20 years old, and by the age of 46 she'd buried two husbands. She didn't marry again after her second husband Alfred died. She lived until at least 1910 and was in Iowa at that time. You know, Amanda sure strikes me as a tough lady!

But what about her Browning kids? I poked around again in the IL Marriage database to look for John or Ella but to no avail. Hmm.....what to do next...

That comes in the second installment!

The Browning Series -- Part Ten, or Susannah Browning and Isaac Fordyce Crago

2010-06-25T11:17:00.009-05:00

The Browning Series -- Part Nine, or Asbury Taylor Browning and Minerva Corderman

2010-06-10T15:23:00.006-05:00

With this post I continue what I call "The Browning Series." Samuel and Margaret Browning had thirteen children between them and after Margaret's death, Samuel chose a widow named Sarah Ann (Bell) Gaddis for his second wife. The two of them had two more children together. My plan has been to feature each one of the fifteen children in a separate post and finally tie the family together with a discussion of their parents.

This post is about Asbury Taylor Browning, the ninth child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee. Asbury was born around the year 1831 in Harrison County, Ohio. Asbury lived with his family until at least the age of sixteen. I've never been able to locate him on the 1850 census.

There is some evidence to suggest that in his youth he may have visited relatives in Licking County, Ohio. Asbury's wife, Minerva Corderman, stated in her Civil War widow’s pension application that she “always knew him since he was a small boy.” As a child, Minerva had lived in Licking County. There were Browning families in Licking County as well (one of the Licking county Brownings, Van Browning, later also moved to Crawford County IL) so there is some circumstantial evidence to argue that these Brownings may have been some relation to Asbury’s father, Samuel.

Taylor, as he was commonly known, moved to Crawford County with the rest of his family around the year 1851. He married Minerva Corderman in Robinson on 23 May 1852. Minerva was the daughter of David Corderman and Sarah Viola Barron and was born in 1837 in Ohio. For more information on the Corderman family, please go here to get the scoop. That was the research that my cousin Pat (descendant of John Wesley Browning and Matilda Corderman, who were Taylor's brother and Minerva's sister) worked on.

Taylor and Minerva lived in Crawford County after they were first married and Minerva gave birth there to Olen Barron Browning on 21 Sept 1853. On 6 Apr 1856, when their second child (son Charles Otho) was born, Minerva’s sister Matilda (who married Taylor’s brother John Wesley Francis Browning) was their assistant midwife. Five months later, in September 1856, their son Olen died. The little boy was buried next to his paternal grandmother Margaret (Markee) Browning in the Wilkin Cemetery in Licking Township, Crawford County. The couple's third child, Manerva, was born in November of 1858.

Sometime between the time of Olen’s death in 1856 and the birth of their fourth child, Sarah Viola, on 2 August 1859, Taylor and Minerva moved from Crawford County to Cumberland County, Illinois. They originally settled in Prairie City. Prairie City was a small community that was located in Sumpter Township and was later renamed Toledo. By 1 March 1860 (when their daughter Manerva died) however, the couple were living in the town of Pleasantville in present-day Woodbury Township. Pleasantville was a small community annexed to the west of the town of Jewett and today no longer exists in the county. The road that presently goes south out of Jewett was the dividing line between Jewett and Pleasantville. Taylor and Minerva lived there next door to Minerva’s parents and may have moved to the township to be closer to the Corderman family. Taylor made his living as a carpenter.

In mid-April of 1861 the Civil War began. At the end of May the first Union casualty, Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, became a martyr to the cause when he was killed by the owner of an inn after tearing down a Confederate flag it was flying. The slogan “Remember Ellsworth” was popular in the North throughout the war and his death roused many a Northern man to enlist.

Likely Taylor was one of these men. He enrolled in the service of the Union and became a private in Company A, 5th Regt. Illinois Cavalry Volunteers. He enlisted in Prairie City, Illinois on 31 August 1861. Taylor is described in the company’s Muster And Descriptive Rolls as 5’10” with blue eyes, sandy hair, and a sandy complexion.

Taylor was stationed in Camp Butler IL until Feb 1862 and must have had at least one furlough back to visit Minerva as their fifth and last child, Emma Ellsworth, was born on 29 Sept 1862. The attending physician at Emma’s birth was Dr. John W. Lee. I feel fairly certain Taylor was honoring Elmer Ellsworth's memory and his strong feelings about the war by giving his daughter Emma the middle name of Ellsworth.

Taylor’s regiment served at the beginning of the war in and around Helena in Phillips County, Arkansas, and it was there that he came down with smallpox. His records state that he became ill on the 1st of April and died – accounts differ – on either the 19th or 20th of April, 1863. While both the company’s descriptive rolls and the adjutant general’s report state his death occurred on the 20th, his sergeant stated that it had occurred on the 19th. To me it seems most likely that Taylor had died on the 19th and his death went unreported until the following day. His burial location is unknown.

I don't know whether the entire family had moved from Pleasantville back into the Prairie City area at the time of Taylor’s enlistment in mid-1861, but certainly by the latter half of 1863 Minerva and her children had become residents. Minerva pursued a widow’s and a minor’s pension and claimed at the time of her pursuit that she was a resident of Prairie City. She received both pensions and was paid $14 a month until her last child, Emma, had reached the age of sixteen.

By July of 1865 Minerva and her children moved again and lived next door to her sister Matilda in Sumpter Township. I don't know how long Minerva remained near her sister but she remained in the county for the next couple of years before she married Matthew James Starbuck, the son of William Starbuck and Mary S. Hester, on 26 December 1867. Matthew was born on 11 April 1830 in Stokes County, NC and had served in Taylor’s company, Company A, 5th Regt. Illinois Cavalry Volunteers. He was first married to Jane Fulp, the daughter of Franklin Fulp, around the year 1848. Before Jane’s death in Cumberland County on 11 August 1866 the couple had nine children.

After their marriage Minerva, Matthew and the children moved to Greenup Township in Cumberland County. She filed for guardianship of her children with Asbury on 25 February 1868 under her married name, Minerva Starbuck, and her petition was granted on 29 June 1868. Minerva and Matthew may have one child that died around the year 1869 but they definitely had at least one known child, a son, David Clinton Starbuck, on 23 Sept 1871.

Minerva died in Cumberland County, Illinois on 7 May 1873. She may have been a victim of the national influenza outbreaks of the years 1873-1875. Her burial location is unknown. After her death Matthew and David moved to Benton Co., AR. Matthew died 18 May 1902 and was buried in the Gamble Cemetery in Centerton, Benton Co AR.

--

For more about Asbury & Minerva's family:

1) Sarah Viola Browning and Emma Ellsworth Browning, their daughters

2) Charles Otho Browning, their only surviving son

Family Reuniting

2010-05-19T19:20:00.004-05:00

In my last entry I mentioned that I thought I'd try to hunt down my uncle's daughter, my first cousin. I went to the first place anyone goes now for these sorts of things -- Facebook -- and typed her name in. The first hit was in the same city and state my uncle lived in so I sent her a message and hoped for the best.

She messaged me back the same day and said I'd given her chills. That she was indeed my uncle's daughter and has been wanting to find and get to know members of her father's family for years now. We spoke on the phone this afternoon briefly and plan to speak more in the coming days.

She seems like a very nice young woman and I look forward to getting to know her better. She told me she hoped to find peace with her dad -- whom she'd had a difficult relationship with -- by establishing ties with the other side of her lineage. I'm totally on board with this. If I could look in my uncle's eyes now I would tell him something from his daughter and his niece. The cycle he lived through ends with him. We will choose to take a different path.

New Links To Old Memories

2010-05-13T10:13:00.004-05:00

It's amazing how genealogy and the internet can help in reuniting people. Reuniting? I'm using the term here but that's not really accurate. How is it reuniting when you've never met? It makes no sense but somehow that's exactly what it is.

I found a message in my email box yesterday from a man who graduated high school the same year (1959) that my uncle Frank (my mom's brother) would have if he'd finished. He'd heard through another classmate that my uncle had recently passed away and had been conducting an online search for his obituary when he ran across the name in my blog. The name he'd actually found was that of my grandfather, Franklin Depperman, Sr., but hey, it all worked out!

Anyway, he included a picture of his 8th birthday party and pointed out my uncle at the picnic table. Even if he hadn't pointed him out I think I would have been able to guess which one -- he looks so much like my grandfather and his brother when they were young! He told me that he remembered my mom and when I called her and asked her, she remembered his name as well. He has some pictures of my mom that I don't have so he'll be sending them along in the coming weeks as well. He also pointed me toward his blog, which has some great pictures of the little town that they all grew up in. I read through it in detail and really enjoyed it. I hope he continues with the memories. It makes that time period come alive for me.

I should mention my uncle now, the one that brought us all together. He passed away on the first of May. I knew that he had -- my mother called me and let me know -- but I was out of town then and didn't get a chance to write about it and then it slipped my mind until receiving the email yesterday. You see, I never met my uncle (that's not technically true -- he saw me when I was 6 months old -- but I don't remember of course.) There are many reasons for that but they are much too complex and personal to go into here. At any rate, the last time my mother saw him was at their father's funeral and she told me at that time that he was not in good shape. He seemed to be suffering from either Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia.

I don't know much about his life as our families weren't close. I learned more about his early years from his obituary -- and from the man who emailed me yesterday -- than even my mother has been able to tell me. His obituary mentioned a daughter, though, and I learned her name. Perhaps she'd be interested in getting to know me. We're first cousins, after all. I believe that I will attempt to locate her. I left a message on the guest book and hopefully she will see it.

There are other things that I do know that this obituary left out. Before I write about them, though, I'll need to go through some things that my mother gave me and try to flesh out his life a bit. I will be doing that soon.

As it stands, life is amazing, isn't it? How grand that a man I never knew found my blog and has been able to tell me things I never knew about an uncle that I never knew. So while I have never met either of the men in this story, it was like a reunion of sorts anyway. Reuniting the two men themselves, through me. Happy endings.

More on Christian...

2010-04-21T09:33:00.006-05:00

In further correspondence with Mike Merritt I've learned a bit more about the slave woman, Christian. She was originally owned by Joseph Nichols of Campbell Co VA, the father of Nancy (Nichols) Magann. He gifted her to Nancy and her husband Pleasant in a deed dated 16 October 1813 in Bedford Co., VA. I don't have the entire transcription but I do have the following:

"...a negro girl named Christian about fifteen years of age with her increase and after my said Daughter Nancy Magann's death then the said Negro girl Christian to descend with her Issue to my said Daughter Nancy Magann's six children above named and equally divided among them..."

So Christian was born c1798.

It also appears that Pleasant Magann died in early 1821. A document dated 19 Feb 1821 between Lewis Magann of the County of Bedford and a few other men whose names are difficult to read (it appears to be John Board Jr, Brooker Preston and Samuel Agnor???) mentions Christian again. The document appears to be disposing of Pleasant Magann's property and possessions. Pleasant's son Lewis Magann received the majority of it. The mention of Christian is right at the end of all that. Lewis sold everything, as well as Christian, to the new owners.

If this is correct then Joseph Nichols' wish for Christiann (then about 23 years old) and her increase to stay within the Magann family was carried out, but only barely. Joseph Nichols' will stated he wanted Christian and her children to be inherited by Nancy's six children equally. Lewis inherited Christian at least. However, Joseph's will did NOT state that Lewis had to keep them! He certainly didn't hang on to her long but disposed of her rather rapidly, adding insult to injury by splitting up the family she had (if she had any children at all by that time) as he did so.

I am wondering if the rest of Joseph's last wishes were carried out. Christian and her increase were supposed to be all kept by the Maganns. If Christian had any children did the other Magann family members keep them? I just don't know right now.

I am curious, however....Joseph was intent on having Christian stay in the family. She was 15 at the time of his death and had no children but he provided for such eventualities by giving her a special mention in his will and, it seems, special directives for her AND her children. As mentioned in WDYTYA and in many other places, does this seem to suggest that Joseph Nichols or one of his sons was Christian's father? If that's the case, then if this Joseph ends up being the grandfather of my Joseph Nichols (and therefore my 5th g-grandfather) -- then I have African American cousins. I sure would like to find out what happened to all of them!

So in the course of a week or two I've went from discovering that most likely I have ancestors that owned slaves (if this Joseph is, indeed, my John's father), to learning that these owners might very well have left African-American descendants that I have blood ties to. The discovery is both disturbing and thrilling all in one breath. I feel sad at the very human tragedies that unfolded, and indignant at them, while also resigned to the fact that human history has been and, even though we know better, will still be full of such things. The cruelties that human beings are capable of committing upon each other is simply astounding, isn't it? Yet through all those sad and mad feelings, the fact that I might have new cousins? Well, I can never be unhappy about that.

The Census Rainbow

2010-04-15T13:14:00.006-05:00

As the census machine chugs to a stop this year -- and all of us in the genealogical community celebrate turning ours in and looking forward to the release of the 1940 census in April of 2012 -- I learned something this week that gave me pause. Our beloved census, already fraught with accidental inaccuracies or those borne of untrusting ancestors, has also been guilty of recording intentional ones.

I don't mean intentional ones from our ancestors. We all know that this happened. We might curse our paranoid great-grandfather and end up taking another route to find the information he didn't feel like the government should know.

No, I mean intentional changes that the Bureau chose to do itself, like altering the sex of its citizens.

Yes, this has happened. It happened in 1990.

No doubt some of you are asking questions like, What? Why? How?

According to the Urban Institute : "Prior to 2000, there was no designation that enabled same-sex couples to accurately describe their relationship, and when a same-sex partner checked off the designation of "husband or wife," the Census Bureau altered the gender of one of the two people, assuming they had accidentally misidentified their gender."

In the 2000 census these standards changed slightly. That census allowed for an "unmarried partners" category, whereas two people of the same sex could categorize themselves without fear of arbitrary gender reassignment by the Bureau. However, if two people of the same sex described themselves in a spousal relationship, the Bureau recategorized them as same-sex unmarried partners. At the time, it was illegal for two people of the same sex to be married.

This census year, for the first time, the number of same-sex couples who self-identify as married — license or no license — will be tabulated. Thank goodness the Bureau won't go around reassigning genders again! Gah!

But this self-identification presents its own set of problems. On the one hand, this glimpse into the lives of people and their thoughts about their relationships gives us genealogists valuable pieces of life stories. That's wonderful. But then there's the other side of me that's perhaps just a stickler. That side prefers my census data to be lawfully accurate and able to point me in concrete directions. That side of me sees in the census that a couple was married and goes scurrying to find the records that prove it to be true.

If I was a researcher 70-odd years from now doing work in the 2010 census and had a gay couple in my tree that I was trying to trace and they indicated they were married, I would likely start looking for that license. I doubt I'd be alone. I anticipate there will be many such hiccups in research when these censuses finally come up for public release. It will be the responsibility of genealogists researching those censuses to learn the laws that were in effect and adjust their research accordingly. A smart genealogist does that already, anyway.

What I can't help but wonder is this: with the advent of the computer, the censuses primarily processed through it are likely the ones most vulnerable to digital altering. The random reassignment of sex is just one glaring example of how such a broad-based change could be applied to an entire nation's tabulation. While the censuses taken before 1980 or so and not originally processed via computer likely have the data relatively intact as it was written -- how can we be sure? As they are digitally processed, will they, too, be changed?

And lastly, when you run across that random 'mistake' of gender in your early censuses -- especially between the two primary adults in the household -- perhaps this might give you cause to stop and pause a moment. And wonder.

Things are never cut and dried. Even then.

Civil War: It Was 145 Years Ago Today, And A Sobering Discovery

2010-04-09T08:00:00.009-05:00

Today marks the 145th anniverary of the end of the Civil War. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865.

Most of us have ancestors or brothers of our ancestors that were involved in the Civil War in some way or another. I certainly do. Without access to my TMG database I can't recall all of them, but off the top of my head I can think of a few: David Eagleton and Joseph Browning, two of my direct grandfathers. Asbury Taylor Browning, Samuel D. Hoy, William Hoy, and Thomas N. Browning are some other relatives of mine that were involved. All these men fought for the Union.

I've spent so much time on so few lines -- 10 years dedicated to just one family -- that a lot of the rest of my ancestral lines are poorly researched and recorded. I've tried on occasion, and been interested in particular branches for short periods of time, but I always come back to my Brownings. It's definitely lack of research that made me believe that my ancestry was both firmly Union and firmly anti-slavery.

Well, I was wrong.

Until yesterday I'd never found any solid proof that any of my ancestors were slave owners. Then, in some correspondence with Mike Merritt, who found me via this blog! -- and who is a descendant of Thomas Merritt (father of Susanna Merritt, who married my John Nichols c1804 in Bedford Co., VA) he sent me the following notation in the deed records of either Amherst, Bedford, or Campbell Co., VA (I will find out which very soon):

10/16/1813 - Children of Pleasant Magann and Nancy Nichols. Nancy’s 6 children are mentioned in a 10/16/1813 deed giving Nancy a slave by her father Joseph Nichols. Lewis Merritt was a witness. – source??

This deed reference clearly indicates that Joseph Nichols -- whom we believe to be the father of John Nichols and the grandfather of my Joseph Nichols -- gifting a slave to his daughter Nancy and her husband. I am going to find that deed reference and when I do, I'll get the entire deed and see if the slave's name is mentioned. If it is, I'll put it here in my blog and do my small part in giving more names to those who had none.

In the meantime, remember those who fought in the Civil War today. My own thoughts today are now not only of the ancestors that I have that fought in this war, but of the new ancestry I've found and contemplating how I feel about finding out that I, too, have slave owners in my ancestry. I know that I shouldn't feel surprised at all -- goodness, as genealogists we should know better than anyone how vast the networks of ancestry really are! -- but when you find it, it hits home. You tease your teenagers about their inability to think past the "this'll never happen to me" idea.....and you find, after all, that you can do it too.

More Updates: The "Mystery Photo"

2010-04-05T14:24:00.004-05:00

I am ashamed.

Back in mid-November, Brett Payne of Photo-Sleuth and I had an interesting correspondence going about a mystery ferrotype in my possession (see my original blog post about the photo here.) He gave me a detailed analyzation of his thoughts about the photo and I never did get around to publishing them before my life took a few turns and I didn't blog for a while.

(The photo is this one here and it would probably be a good idea to click the link and say "Open In A New Tab" so you can switch back and forth to see the photo as you read the analysis.)

I certainly hope he can forgive me for allowing all the time he spent on my photo to go to waste until now! I publish his comments in full now, here, in some small recompense:

"It is clear that the tintype has undergone extensive retouching, not just in respect of the backdrop, but almost every other part of the tintype has received some attention. The clothing is perhaps where it is most obvious, with bows, ties, buttons and watch chains being embellished with blue-green and whitish tints. The edges, lines and folds of the subjects' clothing also appear to have been enhanced in many cases, and some of their faces and hair have received attention, in particular the eyebrows of the left two standing in the back row.

This group of eight, presumably all members of a single family, appear to be seated and standing outside on the grass, directly in front of a wooden fence. The tops of the palings of this fence have received some considerable attention from the photographic retoucher, although it's not immediately apparent why this was done.

Behind the fence is more grass - and perhaps some bare earth - and then, visible only on the right-hand side of the tintype, is the wall of a building constructed from horizontal wooden boards. I presume you would refer to this in the US as a clapboard structure. Although it's clearly a fairly large building, we don't know how large because the edges are not visible. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think that the vertical white stripes or poles have been a retoucher's addition, although it seems likely that they were a reinforcement of something pre-existing. Why else would one paint in a couple of poles seemingly sprouting from the heads of two of the subjects?

The left hand side of the background is much more difficult. After looking at the detailed scan I have little doubt that "church and steeple" have been painted onto a white background on the photo. Why this would have been done, I don't know, but I think that the white background has also been painted in by the photographer. At the base of this white expanse, partly obscured by the picket fence, is what appear to be the lower boards of another building, the one which has been painted out. There are some areas of the white in which I've almost persuaded myself that I can see more of these horizontal boards showing through.

The texture of the surface does vary somewhat, suggesting slightly different textures of painted and non-painted areas. However, the cracking or crazing which you can see tends to extend throughout the photo, right across the apparent boundaries of painted and non-painted areas. These cracks are, I believe, in the varnish which was used to protect the emulsion and have not been significantly influenced by the layers underneath. Note that the colours would have been painted directly onto the collodion surface after it had dried, and later covered by the clear varnish.

You're quite right about tintypes being reverse images, and this brings me to another feature of your photograph. The men's jackets and waistcoats all appear to button left-over-right, i.e. with the buttons on the right-hand flap, which is correct - women's clothing from the 1850s onwards mostly had buttons on the left, and buttoned right-over-left. So ... why are the buttons in this photo accurately portrayed if the tintype was a reversed image? I think it has to do, once again, with the "artistic" embellishments. The photographer retouched the tintype to make it look what he thought of as realistic, and this included correcting the cut of the clothing! I have an interesting example of this in an ambrotype, which I discussed in a previous Photo-Sleuth article here. In that case, the photographer gave the woman an "extra" gold wedding ring, although if you look carefully you can also see the original on the opposite hand.

This is an interesting photograph to research. It was clearly not taken in a studio, and probably not by someone with a high degree of either technical or artistic skill. The arrangement of the presumed family group, although in a fairly classic pose, does not show the refinements which would be characteristic of an accomplished studio artist. The balance of the subjects in the frame is almost there, but not quite. Nor has the photographer managed to set his subjects at ease. They are all facing directly towards the camera with pretty wooden expressions, and do not seem very comfortable.

If I had to guess, I would say that it was by an itinerant or travelling photographer. In the 1890s, traveing photographers still used the tintype process because of the simple methods involved, the small amount of equipment needed, and the relatively low cost of production. It was hard to compete with permanent studios in the production of albumen prints, cartes de visite and cabinet cards, which required far more development and printing facilities, and, of course, used glass negatives which were heavy and cumbersome.

The painting in of what might have been intended as a church and steeple may have been an attempt by the photographer to introduce some sophistication into what was otherwise a rather bleak scene. Whether his clients were happy with the result I suppose we can only surmise, but it is worthy of note that it did survive for well over a century.

He did say he wanted to hear my thought about his analyzation.

I think he's right about the fact that it was an itinerant photographer. I'm very glad to see that his assessment agrees with my own original assessment of c1892. I'm also pleased that I caught at least some of the retouching that was done to the photo. I'd mentioned that I thought the image was reversed but I certainly didn't catch the switched coats!

You know, I can't think of a single thing he said that I don't agree with. Some of that springs from the fact that I don't know half as much about the technical details of photos of this time period to argue, and some from my pleasure and gratitude and the amount of his own time he gave to my little old photo. I don't have words.

When last we corresponded he'd expressed interest in doing a write-up of my photo on his own blog. I would be more than happy for him to do so should he ever be so inclined.

Thank you Brett, from the bottom of my heart.

The Browning Series -- Part Four, or Samuel J. Browning and his Two Dickerson/Dickinson Wives

2010-04-01T23:55:00.005-05:00

With this post I continue what I call "The Browning Series." Samuel and Margaret Browning had thirteen children between them and after Margaret's death, Samuel chose to take a widow named Sarah Ann (Bell) Gaddis as his second wife. The two of them had two more children together. My plan has been to feature each one of the fifteen children in a separate post and finally tie the family together with a discussion of their parents.

This post is about Samuel J. Browning, the fourth child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee. Samuel was born around the year 1821 in Harrison County, Ohio. I first find Samuel, aged 15, involved in a court case in Harrison County. The case is filed in the Harrison County Common Pleas Journal Bk. D. pp. 14-15, in the June Term 1836. Apparently Samuel had performed some sort of Trespass against a man named William Creagh. This is an actual bodily trespass and not the Trespass on the Case that Samuel's father had filed against the man accused of "debauching" his daughter Julia, Samuel's older sister. This case had a number of jurors (Robert Givins, John McKinney, Thomas Day, Joseph D. Smith, John Blair, John Green, Jacob Barger, Joseph Thompson, George Foster, Benjamin Hudson, Joseph Bernhardt, and John H. Beatty) and the panel found for the Plaintiff (Creagh) in the amount of six cents.

After this, Samuel's life gets even more interesting. I sometimes wonder if he didn't do all of what follows just so I could pull my hair out!

Samuel was first married to a woman named Sarah Ann on 4 October 1849 in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Sarah Ann was born c1831 in Ohio. I say just "Sarah Ann" because ascertaining her actual surname has been an interesting pursuit.

For years I'd referred (and believed) in a typed reference to Samuel and Sarah’s marriage license, which refers to her as a Dickerson. However, a few years ago I received the original marriage license and found it so faded that the writing was virtually invisible. It could have been Dickerson, or it could have been Dickinson. I was sure I'd solve the mystery when I got the chance to go to Tuscarawas County last summer but my visit only deepened the mystery and frustration because the courthouse had the same record that they'd sent me, the horrible copy. The lady there said I could go hunt the original down at the Historical Society but though I tried, it was closed the day I was there. The next time I was in Ohio I visited again on a day it was open only to learn that the man with the key to the vault wasn't in. Grrr! Well, I'll be going again this summer and you can bet I'll be better prepared!

Anyway, though the copy of the license is atrocious -- as you can see by looking at the document here -- what I think I can make out says; “State of Ohio, Tuscarawas County – I certify that I have this day solemnized the marriage of Samuel Browning and Sarah Ann Dick—on Witness my hand this day the –(rest illegible)"

So I turned my hand to researching the options. Both Dickerson and Dickinson families were living in Tuscarawas County where Samuel and Sarah married. Some members of both families had daughters old enough to be Sarah and as names were not included in the 1840 census it cannot be determined where Sarah should be placed. Furthermore, it is quite possible that the two surnames were used interchangeably on old records, or misspelled, and this creates a further problem when attempting to discern relation. Therefore, without positive proof, I had to turn to circumstantial evidence.

It should be noted that the first confirmed connection between either of the families and the Browning family was during the War of 1812. Samuel Browning, Samuel J.’s father, served in the war with a man named Baruch Dickerson. However, this was a full thirty years before the marriage of Samuel and Sarah and does not prove anything other than the fact that a member of each family was acquainted with the other. But there are a few more coincidences. The Dickerson surname is also mentioned in connection with a typed copy of a Tuscarawas County marriage between a woman named Julia Dickerson and a John Christy in 1842. This marriage becomes significant when it is established that Samuel J. Browning and Sarah Ann raised a little boy named John W. Christy. John was born around 1843 and lived with Samuel and Sarah from at least 1850 until the time of Samuel’s death in Crawford County, Illinois in 1862. It is apparent that although no official adoption or guardianship papers have been located, John was adopted by Samuel and Sarah and was raised alongside their own children. The existence of John in Samuel and Sarah’s household, coupled with the marriage between Julia Ann Dickerson and John Christy, certainly suggests that the surname Dickerson was common to both women and that Sarah's raising of John Christy might have been because Julia Ann was her sister.

However, it is equally possible that the two Dickerson marriages were misread, or mistyped, and were actually Dickinson marriages. There is also strong circumstantial evidence – perhaps stronger than that of the Dickerson surname -- to suggest that Sarah was a daughter of George Dickinson and his wife Effa Emmaline. George and Effa lived in Perry Township in Tuscarawas County, Ohio in 1840. They had a number of daughters, a few old enough to fit Sarah’s birthdate of around the year 1831. They were also the parents of a man named George W. Dickinson who later moved to Crawford County, Illinois and who eventually became guardian of Samuel and Sarah Ann’s children. Furthermore, Samuel and Sarah Ann named their firstborn child Effie Emmaline, which was the name of George Dickinson’s wife and who may have also been Sarah Ann’s mother. Their second child, George Browning, was also seemingly named after a Dickinson. Lastly, when Fred Fulling, grandson of Samuel and Sarah Ann, registered the funeral of his mother Effie (Browning) Fulling, he stated that his grandmother’s maiden name had been Dickinson.

Looking at all the above evidence, it seems reasonable to assume that most likely Saran Ann’s surname was Dickinson. The children that Samuel and Sarah Ann had were their adopted son John W. Christy and their known children Effie Emmaline, George, and Samuel III.

Samuel J., Sarah Ann and their family moved to Crawford County, Illinois some time after September of 1850 but before August of 1851. Despite the fact that the deed record of Crawford County doesn't place Samuel J. and Sarah Ann in the county until Samuel purchased land from Augustus French on 15 January 1856, other documentary evidence places them there years before then. One of the bills in Samuel’s probate records that was paid out of his estate at his death is a medical bill totaling $6.55. This bill lists visits and medicine the doctor provided to Samuel, his wife, and his child over a period spanning two years from 12 August 1851 to 30 March 1852. These visits were from a Crawford County doctor. This evidence reveals that the couple came to the county along with the rest of Samuel J.’s brothers and sisters, and not at some period thereafter.

Land records in Crawford County are sparse for Samuel J. Browning. The first, dated 15 January 1856, was the E ½ of Section 20, Twn 6N, Range 11W, totaling 70 acres, purchased from Augustus French. The second, dated 6 March 1857 for a parcel of land totaling 40 acres, being the SW ¼ of the SE ¼ of Section 20, Twn. 6N, Range 11W, was purchased from William Stuart. The same probate inventory records mentioned above, however, prove that Samuel owned more land than these deeds disclose. According to his real estate inventory, Samuel (at the time of his death in September of 1862) also owned the S ¼ of the SE ¼ of Section 20, Twn 6N, Range 11W, totaling 40 acres, purchased from Samuel Stuart. The inventory states that Samuel held this land by warranty deed.

In the 1855 state census in Crawford County, taken in October, Samuel J. and Sarah Ann are shown with John W. Christy and their two children Effie Emmaline and George. By July of 1860, however, Samuel is enumerated without Sarah Ann, with his three children -- Emmaline, George, and 3-yr old Sam -- and John W. Christy. Sarah Ann had therefore most likely died in Crawford County some time between the birth of her last child in 1857 but before July of 1860. A more exact date or the location of her burial remains unknown.

After Sarah Ann’s death Samuel J. married again....and the plot thickens. He married a woman named Julia Ann Dickinson on 15 November 1860 in Crawford County, Illinois. Julia’s parentage remains unknown but it seems most likely that she was a sister or cousin of Sarah Ann, Samuel J. Browning’s first wife. The couple had no known children.

Sometime in the summer of 1862, Samuel and one of his children – all indications suggest his youngest son Sam -- became ill. According to Samuel’s probate records, a bill made out to Dr. Nathaniel Steele indicates that the doctor saw Samuel J. three times in late July 1862, and in the last week of September 1862 made a total of eight trips to Samuel’s house to administer medicine. Samuel did not recover from this illness and died in Crawford County on 27 September 1862. His burial location is unknown but as his estate shows a charge of $6 dated 3 October 1862 from Thomas Corbin for making Samuel’s coffin, it seems certain he was buried in Crawford County.

Guardianship of Samuel’s children (Julia’s stepchildren) was given temporarily to Ethelbert Callahan from the time of their father’s death in late 1862 until the March 1863 term of the Crawford County court. Then guardianship was granted permanently to George W. Dickinson. George, referred to previously, was most likely Sarah Ann’s brother and some relation to Julia Ann Dickinson. He would therefore have been one of the primary choices to take in Sarah’s children.

Samuel’s estate records reveal a great deal of information. Isaac D. Mail was appointed administrator of Samuel J.’s estate and the estate sale was conducted on 23 October 1862. Claims against the estate were taken by Mr. Mail in Robinson outside the Crawford County courthouse on 19 January and 21 January 1863. Some of these claims were promissory notes and it was plain that Samuel could not write; he made his mark on the notes in lieu of a signature. One of these claims shines a light of mystery on a neighbor; the John Wilson family.

In 1860, a Julia Wilson, aged 35 and born in Ohio, was living next door to Samuel. With her were two daughters, Maria L. and Ellen. One of Samuel’s promissory notes reveals his promise, in six years’ time, to pay one hundred dollars in money, one bed, and one cow each to Maria L. and to Minerva Ellen Wilson. The promise was made in March of 1861 for value received. Samuel died before this promise could be fulfilled and his estate settled with the estate of John Wilson, the girls’ father. The question of what relation, if any, Samuel shared with the Wilson family is currently unknown. I have a few wonderings, though. Was the Julia who married Samuel in Nov 1860 actually Julia Wilson, wife of John? If so, why would she revert to her (possible) maiden name to marry Samuel? I know, it doesn't seem likely. It's more likely that the two families were neighbors and Samuel owned John's estate for some work. But still...in writing this post my memory has been jogged and I think I have more information about this family now. I just can't remember where I put it......gah! If I find it I'll certainly post an update.

On 8 March 1864, nearly two years after Samuel’s death, his widow Julia Ann filed a quitclaim deed in Crawford County between herself and Alexander MacHatton. The deed involved two separate parcels of land, one of which – the east half of the southeast quarter of Section Twenty, Township Six North, Range Eleven West – was part of the listed property in Samuel’s estate papers. Nothing further about Julia Ann Browning has been found excepting two marriages for a “Julia Browning” in Crawford County – one to George Jones in 1866 and another to John Shanks in 1872. Whether either of these women is Julia Ann, the widow of Samuel J. Browning, is as yet unknown.

Hippo Birdie Two Ewes

2010-03-30T14:58:00.002-05:00

The title of today's post is a phonetic silliness that was exchanged between my daughter and I today on this, her 17th birthday. I usually celebrate ancestors on this blog. Today, I celebrate my only descendant.

Here's to you, my lovely young lady. I am so very, very proud to be your mom.

Slave Names Revealed -- The Will of James Camp of Spartanburg Co., SC (1817)

2010-03-27T17:57:00.006-05:00

For my first post in months, I wanted to contribute to the CoAAG. I haven’t been able to post but I’ve been reading and I have to say, the groundswell of effort made in the genealogical community for this cause has thrilled and pleased me. If I was any whiter I’d be clear so I can’t walk in the shoes of those treated differently because of the color of their skin, but I have ancestors that were persecuted and murdered for their religious beliefs. So maybe, just maybe -- even if I can’t share their experiences precisely -- I can at least commiserate with some aspects. I do know that I can share the pride that comes with knowing that my forebears persevered in the face of overwhelming odds.

I feel strongly that the names of any enslaved persons we can locate should be put out there and shared with everyone. They may not have had last names then, but their descendants do now. They deserve – like everyone does – to know where they came from.

I have not located any of my own ancestors that owned slaves. Now that’s not to say I don’t have any, just that if I do I haven’t come across any in my nearly two decades of research. My ex-husband’s lines are another matter. Most of his lines are primarily from the southern states so there’s likely a number of them. Sadly I never spent the time on his lines that I have on my own so this is the only one that I’ve found , but I post it here now.

This is the will of my daughter's 6th g-grandfather, James Camp, of Spartanburg Co, SC. James was born around 1765 in Culpepper Co., VA and married Sarah Jennings around 1797 (perhaps in Nottaway Co., VA.) James and Sarah moved to Spartanburg Co., SC and apparently had a large plantation. James died in early 1817. His will was written in January of 1817 and was recorded the 15th day of May, 1817.

I know precious little about this family. James and Sarah's daughter Narcissus (b. 1800) -- my daughter's 5th g-grandmother -- married Thomas Desix Brian around 1820. Thomas and Narcissus had a son named Alfred Aaron Brian, who fought in the Civil War and was featured earlier in my blog here.

I hope someone finds this information helpful. Here’s to giving enslaved persons their names back.

-- Patti

WILL OF JAMES CAMP

In the Name of God Amen I James Camp of Spartanburgh Destrict being of sound mind memory and understanding for which I thank Almighty God and calling to mind the uncertainty of human life and desirious of desposing of such worldly estate as it has been pleased God to bless me with do make and ordain this to be my last will and testament in manner and form following viz. It is my will and desire that my my Just debts and funeral expenses be first paid.

Item 1st I give and bequeath unto my Sone Alphred a Negroe Boy named Carter when he arives to the age of twenty one years

Item 2d I give until my daughter Narsosissy a Negroe girl named Riah on her marriage day allso a good beast worth sixty dollars and a saddle

Item 3d I give unto my Sone George one Negroe Patrum when he arives to the age of twenty one years old One Negroe boy Name Jack

Item 4th I give my Sone Langly when he arrives at the age of twenty one years old one Negroe boy named Lewis

Item 5th I give to my daughter Harriet on her marriage day or arrives at lawful age one Negroe girl named Arrabell

Item 6th I give unto my two youngest sons James and William five hundred dollars each or one Negroe boy each Equil to the above Negroe boys which I give to my other sons when they arrive at the age of twenty one years old.

Item 7th I give to my beloved wife Sarah Camp the Balance of my Negroes, Viz) One fellow named Farmer, three wenches Dice, Jane and Claracy allso one small Negroe girl named Filler (Phyllis?) allso the whole of the Stock of every kind allso my dwelling house & plantation whereon I now live allso my mill and plantation adjoining to it over the river allso all my house hold and ketchen furniture Black smith tools and plantation utensels and stills it is to be further understood that she is to raise school Clothe the children Clear of Bord and when they come of age or marry she is to give them one horse Saddle and bridle each to be worth Eighty dollars all except Narsosissy allso one feather bed and furniture each and one cow and calf each.

Item 8th it is further my will that my loveing wife sell my land in Virginia and lay out the money in young negroes for the use of my children and allso my plantation on Buck Creek known by the name of West Harrisses place

Item 9th I will that the whole of my property left my wife during her life at her death by equelly devided amongst my children

Item 10th I will that all my land not mentioned bee Equilly devided amongst my children

Item 11th I Nominate my loving wife & James Young Executors to this my last will and testament here unto revoking and renouncein all other wills here to fore made by me in witness where of I have here unto set my hand

Seal the 28th day of January 1817

James Camp (seal)

Alexander Copeland

George McWilliams

William Copeland

Recorded 15th day of May 1817

Wm. Lancaster O.S.D.

My Blog-O-Versary

2010-03-16T15:40:00.003-05:00

I missed my blog's anniversary -- it was 11 February 2009. My little blog is a year old. Wow.

I promise I won't ignore you too much longer, Blog!

A Brief Message

2010-02-27T15:24:00.000-06:00

My apologies to everyone for my long break from posting. Some recent life changes have made me put aside my research for these past months. I'm not back yet, but I'm hoping I will be soon.

In the meantime, good luck to everyone in the new year. May your ancestors not long hide from you.

Happy Birthday(s) To My Grandparents

2009-12-07T18:58:00.004-06:00

Today is December 7th and though this day is more popularly known as Pearl Harbor Day, it holds a more personal significance to me. Today was my grandfather's birthday. Virgil Joseph Browning died in 1989 but if he was still alive he'd be 108 today. Two days from now, on December 9th, it will be my grandmother's birthday. The two always celebrated their special days together since they were so close (only 363 days apart, not counting leap years!) so today I will also remember my grandmother. Beulah Ethel (Garrard) Browning died in 2002 but if she were alive today she would be 109.

Happy birthday(s), grandma and grampa. I miss you both every day.

The Browning Series -- Part Eight, or Sarah Ann Browning

2009-12-04T08:01:00.005-06:00

Kreativ Blogger Award

2009-11-28T10:44:00.003-06:00

Tonia over at Tonia's Roots gifted me with a Kreativ Blogger award (awww thanks, Tonia!) The rules say that I must reveal seven things about myself, then pass the award on to seven other blogs. Hm. In the past few weeks I've seen a pile of my favorite bloggers get the award already so in lieu of naming any others I'll just give a huge shout-out to the genealogical blogger community at large. I think we ALL deserve credit for getting our stories out here and if you're reading this and haven't done it already, reach around and pat yourself on the back. Our ancestors would be proud.

Seven Things You May Not Know About Me, But Are About To!

1. I was born in IL but I was conceived in TX.....so I guess that makes me an honorary Lone Star stater?

2. I'm (at least) a 4th-generation redhead and I've proudly continued the tradition, passing the gene on to my daughter.

3. Other than genealogy, I really enjoy role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons (the pen and paper type) and online, Neverwinter Nights. Yeah, I was a nerd girl Dungeon Master!

4. I'm a huge Monkees fan. In the 80's I hung out on Davy's tour bus and ate breakfast with Peter and his family.

5. I write poetry. Not necessarily GOOD poetry, but poetry.

6. On a related note (get it, related?) the rumor in my family was that we were related to Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. If we are, I haven't found it yet.

7. I'm an incredible klutz. Once I broke my toe, and when it was almost healed I broke it again. I was too ashamed to go back to the doctor so I took a few shots of whiskey and set it myself. It's only slightly crooked (I did a decent job) but I can sure feel for our ancestors!

--

Well there ya go! This was fun!

Tombstone Tuesday - A.A. & Martha (McDowell) Brian

2009-11-24T16:22:00.009-06:00

I'm ashamed to admit it but this is the first time on my blog that I've featured a member of my daughter's father's family, i.e., someone not related to me. When we were married I did quite a bit of research on his family and it's about time that I featured some of it. Besides, my daughter IS related to them. So.....bad me! Bad me!

These are the headstones of my daughter's 3rd-g-grandparents, Martha 'Mattie' Texas McDowell, and her husband Alfred Aaron (or Aaron Alfred) Brian. The couple are buried in the Gorman Cemetery in Gorman in Eastland Co., TX.

Mattie was born on 27 Dec 1847 in Spartanburg Co., SC. She was the daughter of Mjr. Calvin McDowell (1816-1878) and Mary C. Ballenger (1822-1912). A.A. and Mattie had nine known children.

A.A. was born c1840 in Inman, Spartanburg Co., SC, and was the son of Thomas Desix Brian (1796-1871) and Narcissus Camp (1798-?). He enlisted in the Civil War in Charleston on 13 Apr 1861 and served as a Pvt. and then as a 1st Sgt in Company K of the 5th Reg. SC Infantry Volunteers. He was wounded in VA during the war and was in attendance during Lee's surrender at Appomattax courthouse. After the war he taught school for a while.

The Brian family moved all over and it's been hard for me to keep track of them. In 1880 they were living in Campobello in Spartanburg Co., SC. They may have spent a short time in Pulaski Co., AR before finally settling in TX around 1888. The family spent some time in Hunt County and lived in Knox County in 1910-1912, where A.A. applied for and received a Confederate pension.

At some point before Mattie's death on 10 Jun 1921 the couple had moved to Gorman in Eastland County, where Mattie was buried. Afterwards A.A. may have moved to Lorenzo in Crosby Co., TX (perhaps to live with one of his sons or daughters) before he was admitted to The Confederate Home in Austin on 7 Sep 1927. He sent a typed letter to his daughter-in-law Mary Irene (Blount) Brian from the home on 7 Dec 1931 and signed it himself. He stated then that he was suffering a bit from his kidneys but was getting around well. He died there on 17 Aug 1932 and was buried beside his wife Mattie.

The Browning Series -- Part Two, or Elias Browning and Elizabeth Crago

2009-11-14T14:10:00.015-06:00

With this post I continue what I call "The Browning Series." Samuel and Margaret Browning had thirteen children between them and after Margaret's death, Samuel chose to take a widow named Sarah Ann (Bell) Gaddis as his second wife. The two of them had two more children together. I plan to feature each one of the fifteen children in a separate post and finally tie the family together with a discussion of their parents.

This post features Elias Browning, Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee's second child, and his wife Elizabeth Crago, the daughter of James Crago and Sarah Jennings Fordyce. Elias was born in June of 1818 in Cadiz Township, Harrison County, Ohio. Elias married Elizabeth on 2 September 1847. The document you see to the left is a marriage license issued to the couple in Harrison County on 23 August 1847. Elias and Elizabeth got married in neighboring Tuscarawas County and the minister who married them, G. McBride, returned the license and addressed it to the Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in Harrison County.

Elizabeth was born on 29 November 1822 in Pennsylvania. Her father James was the son of Thomas Crago and Priscilla Thurman and was born on 25 December 1798 in Greene County, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Sarah Jennings Fordyce, was born on 19 March 1799 in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth’s parents had moved to Harrison County by 1835 and to Defiance County, Ohio by 1850. Elizabeth was a sister of Susannah Crago (the wife of Absalom Browning) and Isaac Fordyce Crago (the husband of Susannah Browning.)

(For more information on the family and ancestors/descendants of James Crago, refer to the Crago Connections website maintained by Brian Smith. The Crago family is of interest to me because three of James' children -- Isaac F., Elizabeth and Susannah -- married into the Browning family.)

Elias and Elizabeth’s children (Samuel Franklin, James M., Wesley Asbury, and Isaac Crago, born between 1848-1853) give the state of Ohio as their place of birth throughout their lives. This evidence indicates that although Elias and Elizabeth can't be found on the census of Ohio in 1850 they were indeed living somewhere in the state. As most of Elizabeth’s family, as well as Elias’s brother Absalom (who had also married into the Crago family) had moved to Defiance County, Ohio around the time that Elias and Elizabeth were married, Elias and Elizabeth may also have chosen to move to the county as well and may have been en route when the census was taken.

Elias and Elizabeth came to Crawford County, Illinois sometime after the birth of their twins, Wesley and Isaac, in the last part of the year 1853. Their presence in the county is not documented by land sale records or by any court records excepting the presence of Elias Browning’s tombstone in the Browning family plot in Wesley Chapel Cemetery in Crawford County. Elias died on 16 June of either 1855 or 1856. His tombstone is cracked across the last digit of his year of death (see right) and only the first three digits, “185,” are clearly visible. The years 1855 or 1856 are the most likely dates, given the shape of the numerals upon the stone.

There's some amount of evidence to support the earlier date of 1855. Elias and his family aren't enumerated in the 1855 Illinois state census of Crawford County that was taken in October of that year, nor are they enumerated in any of the surrounding counties. A widowed Elizabeth is also not found on the state census in October of 1855 in Crawford County or any surrounding counties. But on 7 October 1856 Elizabeth is found in Defiance County, Ohio, when she marries William Pollock. If Elias had died in June of 1856, Elizabeth's remarriage so far away leaves her a span of only four months in which to travel from Illinois to Ohio, meet another man, and marry. If Elias had died in 1855 instead, that short span increases to a more reasonable frame of time. So what evidence I have available to me suggests that Elias died in June of 1855 at the age of 37 years. As an epidemic of yellow fever was spreading throughout the country in 1855 it may also be probable that Elias was one of its victims.

When I first began my research into this family I met a man named Brian Hoffer. Brian was looking for his ancestor, Elias Browning, but Brian was living in northern Indiana and his Browning ancestors had for generations. I just couldn't see why any of my Illinois Brownings would have ended up there. I am shamed to admit that I didn't consider his case in any reasonable fashion for some time, to my naive, newly-minted genealogist's chagrin! Eventually things began to come together, puzzle pieces fit -- names, dates, etc -- and once Brian and I really began comparing notes I was able to put a few more pieces together and figure out why the sons of Elias Browning ended up in northern Indiana from southern Illinois.

It began after Elias died. Elizabeth packed up shop and moved to Defiance County, Ohio. When did she do this? Why? How? These were questions that didn't make much sense to me until I began to look at the Illinois state censuses and pay more attention to the family Elizabeth had left behind in Ohio. Elizabeth and her sons aren't found on the 1855 state census of Crawford County and that seems to indicate she took her four boys and moved back to Defiance County almost immediately following Elias’s death. But why? I think Elizabeth chose to accompany her younger brother Isaac F. Crago back east to Ohio. I don't know if Isaac ever actually lived in Crawford County or if he came to Illinois solely to visit Elizabeth and/or claim a bride, but in November of 1854 Isaac married Susannah Browning, Elizabeth's sister in law. Isaac F. and Susannah aren't enumerated on the Illinois 1855 state census either so it appears the couple made the trip back east between the date of their marriage and the taking of the state census to join Isaac and Elizabeth’s Crago relatives in Defiance County. As this time frame is the same in which Elizabeth experienced the death of her husband and perhaps felt lonely in Illinois so far removed from her family, it's very probable she and her boys joined Isaac and Susannah on their way back to Ohio.

According to a story passed down through the family of Wesley Asbury Browning (one of Elias and Elizabeth’s four sons and Brian's ancestor) Elizabeth and her boys were on a ship when Elizabeth passed out. The captain of the boat believed at first that she was dead, but she soon came around. This ship could have been a ferry traveling the Wabash River, which delineates some of the southern boundary between the states of Illinois and Indiana, and winds its way up into northern Indiana. This story is difficult to place chronologically and may have been a memory of part of the journey back to Ohio from Illinois.

Whenever the exact time of the move, Elizabeth’s presence in Defiance County, Ohio by the middle of 1856 is unquestionable. She and William Pollock were married in the county on 7 October 1856. According to Samuel E. Alvord’s History of Noble County, Indiana, William Pollock was born around the year 1804 in Pennsylvania and had first been married to Mary Barker around the year 1828 in Ohio. The couple had lived in Richland County, Ohio for some time before coming to Cromwell in Noble County, Indiana around the year 1848. William and Mary were the parents of nine children (Thomas, Elsie, Elizabeth, Simon, John, Eli, Margaret, Lousetta, and Louisa) before Mary’s death on 1 November 1855.

After Elizabeth and William married they settled in Cromwell, a community in Sparta Township in Noble County. Their choice may have been influenced by many factors; some of William’s children by his first marriage were living in Noble County and in neighboring Steuben and Elkhart Counties. Members of Elizabeth’s family had also chosen to settle in Steuben County. Two of Elizabeth’s sisters, Sarah Ann and her husband Andrew Sewell, and Susannah and her husband Absalom Browning, had also moved to Steuben County by 1860.

William and Elizabeth were still living in Sparta Township in 1863 when Elizabeth's second son, James M. Browning, died on 10 December of that year. The boy was buried in the Valley Cemetery in the township. By 1870 the couple had had moved to Jefferson Township in Elkhart County and had four children of their own, William N., Lincoln Richmond, Nancy Jane, and Morton Pollock.

The family lived in Elkhart County the rest of their lives. The picture on the left was supposedly taken around 1899 and is supposed to show Elizabeth with Elizabeth's son Samuel F. and his wife, Minnie Brumbaugh, along with another unidentified man (perhaps another of Elizabeth's sons.) I have my doubts about whether this photo is actually c1899, though....something about the clothes and background seem to suggest a later date.

William died on 1 December 1891 and Elizabeth died on 12 January 1900. They are both buried in the Sugar Grove Cemetery near Dunlap in Concord Township, Elkhart County, Indiana.

Pt 5 - Wallace William Plymell

2009-11-09T18:38:00.004-06:00

We continue my series of posts about the families whose names are in my Hair Book with Wallace William Plymell and his family.

The two women who "authored" the entries in the Hair Book (Eliza Ursula (Nichols) Swan and her daughter Estella Jane (Swan) Browning) were both descendants of the Plymell family. Eliza's mother Delinda was a Plymell and many of the main players in the Hair Book (Mary Plymell, Adaline Plymell, James Fuller Plymell and Wallace W. Plymell) were Delinda's siblings and Eliza Ursula's uncles and aunts. It's therefore fitting to continue this series with a discussion of Delinda's brother, Wallace William Plymell and his wives and children.

Wallace William Plymell was the first son of James Plymell and Jane Twiley. He was born on 14 Feb 1819 in Deer Creek Twn., Madison Co., OH.

I don't know much about Wallace. He married twice, both times in Crawford County, Illinois -- the first time on 3 Jun 1840 to Margaret J. Grimes (who died c1851 after giving him two daughters, Margaret b. 1841 and Selina b.1843) and second on 18 Sep 1852 to Sophia Jane Cox. Wallace and Sophia had four children of their own -- Cordova D. (b. 1853) , Lyman S. (b. 1855), William Wallace (b. 1860) and Charles Melvin (b. 1861) -- and Wallace also adopted Sophia's son John Catlett Sheppard.

The family lived in Olney in Richland County, IL, for a while before heading to Belleplaine, KS around 1873. Wallace operated a stage line near Plymell, KS.

Eight years later, in 1881, Wallace sent a short note on a postcard back home to Illinois. This slightly ripped and worn postcard in my possession is the only tangible connection I have to Wallace William Plymell. The postcard doesn't have Wallace's name on it and a large portion of the postcard is difficult to read but the references that I can make out point to Wallace as the author.

The front of the card is postmarked "Belleplaine, Kansas, May 30, 1881." It is addressed to Joseph Nichols in Robinson, Crawford County, IL. Joseph was Wallace's brother in law; he was Delinda Jane Plymell's husband and Eliza Ursula's father. The postcard reads:

...ay 29th 1881 ...ear Brother and sister ...as Been along time ...we have heard from ...we are having a nice [a..?] ...looks well of all kinds ...d harvest will soon be ... us we are a[gony?] to have a good [March] crop if nothing happens th[ere?] Kansas looks fine now we have plenty of Rain this spring we live in Belleplaine now the Boys lives on the farm or Charley does Wm is in the Territory hauling for the goverm... ent I am not well am [ ? ] I feel quite w... ...tt times I have got ...questions I hope a ...ect soon to go dow... ...hope you are all we... ...me alive w... ...it this you....

The writer mentions two boys, Charley and William. Wallace was the only person who would have referred to Delinda and Joseph as "brother and sister" with boys named Charley and William old enough to be on their own in 1881. Wallace and Delinda's brother James Fuller Plymell did have a son named William old enough but he didn't have a son named Charles; besides, he lived in Paradise, Texas instead of in Belleplaine, Kansas. The writer also mentions that "William is in the Territory" -- Wallace's son William was living in Choctaw, OK, which was then considered Oklahoma Territory. By the process of elimination, therefore, this postcard must have been written by Wallace.

Wallace's wife Sophia died in 1890 and Wallace married a third time, on 8 Oct 1892, to Susan C. McCarty in Crawford County, IL.

Since Wallace lived in Belleplaine, I wonder if he traveled to IL to visit family and to court Susan? The McCarty name comes up a couple of times concerning the Plymell family. There is a reference made to a "Miss Susan McCarty" in a letter written to Eliza Ursula (Nichols) Swan in Dec 1886 by John Vane, Wallace Plymell's brother in law (he was married to Adaline Plymell, Wallace's sister.) Vane says, "We send our best respects to Miss Susan McCarty - tell her to write to us." Susan was obviously well known to the Plymell family. She may have been a spinster until her marriage to Wallace late in her life -- she was in her early 50's when they married. And oh yes, there were two other McCarty's listed in the Hair Book (Mary J. and Mary A.) I wonder if they were any relation to Susan?

Wallace and Susan moved back to Belleplaine but they didn't live together long before Wallace's death on 10 Mar 1895. Wallace was buried in Belleplaine. Susan was back in Crawford County by 1910, where she died on 27 Sep 1922 in Robinson. Her death certificate is in the Crawford County courthouse.

((Many thanks go to Ken Groves for using his research as the base of this post.))

Naturalization Certificate - August Papstein

2009-11-05T16:32:00.007-06:00

Well, I scurried to my local FHC last night to pick up the film containing my 3rd-g-grandfather August Karl Papstein's naturalization certificate that were the focus of this post last week. I was excited when I got there and eagerly rolled the film to the right page. And AhHA! There it was!

I now have a date for his naturalization -- 9 Apr 1894. The wording in the document states, "....has resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for at least five years last past, and at least one year last past within the state of Illinois..."

My great-grandmother, August's daughter Minna Anna Louise Papstein Depperman, was born in Janicow, Kreiß Dramburg, Hinterpommern, Prussia (now Poland) in July 1888. She wrote a short autobiography on notebook paper before her death in 1985 and stated that she had come over with her family in March of 1889. Since April 1894 is consistent with the five year waiting period that the law required, this naturalization certificate's date is also consistent with Minna's statement. August sure didn't wait around to begin the process of becoming a citizen of this county. Finding the two dates match fairly well sure makes me happy!

I don't know who David Christian and James J. McMahon (the two witnesses) were. They may have been friends or relatives or might have simply been employed as witnesses by the court.

I did a little poking around and found that David Christian was living in Kankakee in Kankakee County, IL in 1900 with his wife Cora, son David P. and mother-in-law Sylvia Palmer. David was listed as a traveling shoe salesman. James J. McMahon was listed as "James J. McMann" in the 1900 census. James, his wife Anna, and their children Mary, William, Agnece and Sharlot were living in Peotone in Will County, IL, the same village where August also lived. His occupation at the time was "work in elevator."

The certificate didn't tell me anything else I didn't already know. But that's okay. I have it now, and it's one more piece of August's life.

Treasure Chest Thursday - "The Mystery Photo" Updates

2009-10-29T16:43:00.008-05:00

I took a magnet to the back of the mystery photo (see previous post) and it stuck so there's no further doubt -- it's a ferrotype. I feel very satisfied dating it to c1892.

Brett Payne of Photo Sleuth commented on my previous post about the photo. He says, "If you examine the photograph's surface with a lens or microscope you may be able to detect differences in the behavior of the painted and photographic media, such as the degree of cracking/crazing, which could help you decide one way or another."

I don't have a microscope to place the picture under for study but I do have a magnifying glass. I wasn't able to see all that much with it but I didn't see any differences in the degree of cracking from the background to the foreground. It's pretty uniform until you get to an area just above the "steeple." From there, and stretching to the top of the photo, there is a much tighter crackling pattern. I believe that is simply wear -- that area has some of the top coating worn off and it shows its age there more than anywhere else on the plate.

Brett also mentions that full-plate tintypes are much rarer than their smaller counterparts. I was very interested in that since I have two of these full plate tintypes -- the 6.5 x 9 one I featured yesterday and another that measures 6.5 x 8.5 and is a picture of my 4th-g-grandfather Joseph Nichols. I've spotlighted that picture on this blog before and you can find it right here if you're curious (and make sure to click on the picture and you'll get a closer view!) Joseph's picture is eerie in its "realness" -- it is sharp and clear and the detailing is fantastic. It's like he's standing in the room beside me.

Neither of these tintypes have cases, unfortunately. I've placed both in archival sleeves and handle them as little as possible, always with gloves!

Not So Wordless Wednesday - A Mystery Photo

2009-10-28T18:07:00.012-05:00

This photograph in my collection is one of the few that doesn't have a positive identification attached to it. Most of my old photos do -- thanks to my wonderful grandmother Beulah (Garrard) Browning! -- so this one has always been a curiosity to me.

It is a 6.5 x 9 sheet and is either an ambrotype or a tintype -- I'm ashamed to say I'm not sure which. You can't see it in the reproduction to the right but when you hold it to the light the people nearly disappear. That makes me think ambrotype. However, in the bottom right corner you can clearly see a bit of metal where the image is peeling away. It also sounds like a tin sheet, if you know what I mean? So perhaps tintype is more accurate. Anyway, it's also been enhanced by the photographer. Some color has been added (most notably on kerchiefs and ties) and there are brush strokes accentuating the lines of the jackets worn by the boys and the older man. And as for the background? The house behind the fence looks like some sort of clapboard structure; one can see each thin board atop the other. However, the other side of the background is stranger. It appears to be the chimney of a house or perhaps a squared off church steeple in the distance but it seems almost completely drawn and colored up. I'm not sure the photographer didn't just sketch that in!

It's important that I date this photo because it would help me eliminate a few suggestions my grandma made when she and I were looking at it. Grandma told me she thought this photo might be the family of one of the sons of her grandfather William Garrard (1822-1864.) She thought this could be the family of her uncle James A. Garrard (1851-1910) or the family of her uncle William Bauer Garrard aka William Garrett (1859 - ?). She wasn't sure and I can understand why. My grandmother wasn't born until 1900 and she had only dim recollections of her uncle Jim since she was only 10 when he died. She never met her uncle Bill at all, who'd changed his name and split for Oklahoma before she was born.

I could try to date the photo by analyzing the hairstyles shown. If I did that I would look at the girls with their tight curls bunched up on top of their heads, their mother with a stricter and older sort of style, and date it roughly mid- to late 1880's.

I could look at the clothing, too. The girl behind her mother has a dress on with vertical puffs at her shoulder seams, a brooch, a neck collar and tight sleeves on her arms. That also puts me in the late 1880's. The mother again seems to be wearing an earlier style since her dress has a long row of buttons down the bodice. The oldest boy has on a longer coat over a vest and a striped necktie. The middle boy has on short trousers, a short coat and high stockings. His youngest brother wears the "dress" typical of a young one. And the father? His longer sack coat suggests a decade or so out of fashion just like his wife.

I felt comfortable with my analyzation but it helped that there was also something else I could use to help me independently assess the time period. Apparently this photo had been stored in an album or attached to some sort of keepsake holder with glue. When it was attached and/or removed, it had been laid down upon a newspaper. When it was removed the newspaper ripped and portions of it were left attached to the back!

Click on the picture above if you'd like to see the snippets of words that were left when the newspaper ripped but I can summarize it here. It looked to me like a review of "noteworthy features" in something called "....ort Stories" that was issued monthly. You can see a word here and there and it's obvious that some story titles are being listed. I could see the following:

"...'The Spirits'..."
"...ale from the Spanish..."
"...ecquer; "Qauarantine Is.."
"...an island, by Walter..."
"..ghbors," an amusing..."
"John Habberton"
"Randolph Churchill"

So I started out by looking up the only name that was clear -- John Habberton. I could have used Randolph Churchill but his more-famous name would have been difficult to narrow down to a specific time frame. I did a Google search and four pages in, Bingo!

Google Books lists this compilation (for photo credit follow the link) entitled "Short stories: a magazine of select fiction, Volume 10" By Alfred Ludlow White. Published in May of 1892, it included stories such as "Next-Door Neighbors" by John Habberton, "Quarantine Island" by Walter Besant and "The Spirit's Mountain" by Gustavo Adolpho Becquer, among others like Bret Harte and George Eliot.

What a great way to find out about a picture. My dating system wasn't off by too much!

This helps eliminate one of the families I listed above, though. According to the information I currently have available, James A. Garrard married Nora Belle Tohill in 1891. They had eight children between the years 1892-1907, six sons and two daughters. One daughter was born in 1892 and the other 1907. James died in 1910 when his youngest was only 3. Therefore I don't believe the picture I have is of this family because the girls in the photo are too old to have a living father.

And what of my grandma's Uncle Bill? Now that's harder. Bill got into some trouble with the law and ran off to Oklahoma, changing his name from Garrard to Garrett. I met some of his descendants about a decade ago but I stupidly didn't gather all the information I should have from them when I had them there (or if I did it's buried in some box/file/etc and I have no idea where it is.) I could kick myself for that. I hadn't thought of Bill in years and I got up just a moment ago to look in my files and lo and behold, there is a picture! It must've been given to me all those years ago, goodness me!

Bill and his wife Sarah Box had a total of nine children, five girls and four boys. I don't have dates for any of them. I don't know when Bill died (he was born in 1859) or when his wife Sarah did. All I have are two grainy photographs. But you know, compare them yourself. The triangular nose, the half circle squint of the eyebrows from the forehead. This might be the right guy after all....

Tombstone Tuesday - Martha Browning (1868)

2009-10-27T08:23:00.006-05:00

This little tombstone belongs to Martha M. Browning. She was the first child of Edward Alfred Browning and his second wife Mary Elizabeth Gibbons. She lived her short little life in Spring Point Township in Cumberland County, Illinois. She was born sometime in early 1868 and died on 1 July 1868, exactly 99 years before I was born. Her parents Edward Alfred Browning and Mary Elizabeth Gibbons aren't even buried next to her -- both are buried in the nearby Faunce Cemetary in Cumberland County.

Martha is buried in the Needham Cemetery in Spring Point Twn., near Montrose in Cumberland Co., IL. As you can see, her tombstone is now partially absorbed by a tree that took root in the area of her stone. I took the picture from above but the tree was so hopelessly enmeshed around her stone that it was very difficult to read anything at all. I was able to see a few words, like her name, and I tried to take the picture so that they would be seen. For the most part, though, the inscription was pulled from old cemetary records.

The cemetery she's buried in is also the final resting place of her father's first wife and their child, as well as Martha's brother and sister. The Needham Cemetery is in a state of disrepair -- at least it was when I was there in 2001 -- and it was sad to see all the stones leaning or toppled or otherwise defaced. Martha's was one of the few that would have been fairly readable.....if it weren't for the tree. If I lived there this cemetery would be the first one I'd work on.

Every time I look at this I feel sad. Someday Martha's stone will be engulfed by the tree and no one will know this little girl existed.

Wordless Wednesday - William Browning vs. The State of Ohio (1821)

2009-10-21T21:48:00.004-05:00

Is the William Browning at the center of this Harrison County, Ohio 1821 larceny case a relative (a younger brother, perhaps?) of my ancestor Samuel Browning?

Stay tuned as I delve into this case.

The "Bleh Effect"

2009-10-14T18:25:00.007-05:00

Ask any genealogist about some of their great discoveries and eyes light up, smiles widen, and voices pitch higher and faster and are tinged with excitement. Whether you call them genea-gasms or serendipity or just plain old luck, everyone has those Ah HA! moments. It's what we live for.

It's what I expected to indulge in when I went to the Family History Center to pick up a film that had naturalization records for my 2nd g-grandfather, August Papstein. I'd ordered the index weeks ago because I'd found him listed in the Kankakee County IL court records in 1892 even though he lived his entire life in the this country in Peotone in Will County, IL. It wasn't a complete surprise, though, since Peotone is in the southern part of Will County and the trip to Kankakee was probably easier than the trip to Joliet.

I was so excited when I got there. Got the film, plopped it in the machine, started scrolling. I realized it was at the back of the roll so it took me five minutes of constant scrooooooolling to get there. I got to the index of Vol. E and started looking for his name, and Ah HA! There he was!

And then the roll stopped.

Yes, indeed. Whoever filmed the roll filmed half the index of Vol E on one roll and the rest of it on the next one.

So I sat there, experiencing the evil opposite twin of the genea-gasm that I call the Bleh Effect, or the blehs for short. It's when you just know you're about to see something great and then you have to either a) wait for it or b) admit that you thought wrong. I certainly got a case of the blehs last night.

The FHC ladies felt sympathy for me and ordered the next roll for me without charging me for it. But still. Two more weeks! Argggggh! It's at times like this that I remember how great it was to be a kid and if you threw yourself down on the floor in a tantrum you didn't look like you'd gone utterly mad. You know, I think if more of us adults just tossed ourselves down and kicked and screamed and yelled we might be a lot less stressed. Hah!

In the scheme of things this isn't a big deal. I'll see it in a few weeks. I'm a big girl and I have learned the virtue of patience (I think...how long will that take?) But I'd had my mouth all set for an Ah HA! and got a bleh instead.

Madness Monday, and The Browning Series -- Part Eleven, or John Wesley Francis Browning and Matilda Corderman

2009-10-12T17:56:00.009-05:00

This post is a three-for-the-price-of-one post. Why? Well, it manages to blend one of my Monday Madness problems with my continuing series on my Browning family as well as directly relating to my previous post about a photo comparison. It concerns John Wesley Browning, the eleventh child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee.

John Wes is a Monday Madness problem for me because after 1864, he just.....vanishes. Did he leave Illinois? Go serve in the War? Did he die? I'd love to know but even if I did manage it somehow it would be a bittersweet victory because my cousin Pat -- who's descended from him -- is no longer here to enjoy the knowledge.

Here's what I do know.

John was born around the year 1835 in Moorefield Township in Harrison County, Ohio. He came to Crawford County, Illinois with his parents and siblings when he was about 12 years old. John almost always used his middle name (Wesley) with one exception; upon his marriage to Matilda Corderman in 1856 he placed the name Francis on his marriage certificate. Matilda was born around 1834 in Ohio and was the daughter of David Corderman and Sarah Viola Barron. She was also the older sister of Minerva Corderman, who had married John Wesley’s brother Asbury Taylor Browning in 1852.

Evidence shows that the Corderman family and the Browning family knew each other for some years (and in two states) prior to the intermarriages between them. Matilda’s sister Minerva claimed in her widow's pension papers in May 1863 that she had known her husband Asbury Taylor Browning "from a young boy." (As Taylor was a young boy in Harrison County, Ohio and Matilda and Minerva grew up in Licking County, Ohio this little clue is important -- other Brownings lived in Licking County and I'm very interested in where that leads me research-wise.) Anyway, it seems evident that Matilda got to know Taylor’s younger brother better as a result of her sister’s marriage. Matilda was likely already engaged to John Wes when she was listed as the assistant midwife at the birth of Charles Otho Browning, Taylor and Minerva’s son, on 6 April 1856 because she and John married the next month on 23 May 1856 in Crawford County.

After their marriage the couple may have lived briefly in Crawford County before they moved to Pleasantville in present-day Woodbury Township in Cumberland County, Illinois. The couple is found with their daughter Alice on the census there in July of 1860. Pleasantville was a small community annexed to the west of the town of Jewett and today no longer exists in the county. (The road that presently goes south out of Jewett was the dividing line between Jewett and Pleasantville.) John Wesley and Matilda lived next door to Matilda’s parents and very near to John’s brother Asbury Taylor. At that time, John listed himself as a laborer. By September the couple had moved to Pleasant Grove Township in Coles County, Illinois and are found enumerated on the census in that township. Wesley’s occupation at that time was listed as engineer. It's possible that the family moved to Coles County because John had found a job as an engineer in either Charleston or Mattoon, both well-populated cities at the time.

The next documented evidence found for John Wes and Matilda is October 1864, when Wes filed a patent application in Mattoon, Coles County, Illinois stating that he was a resident of Mattoon. The patent was numbered #44594, was dated 11 October 1864, and was for a “new and improved device for transmitting motion." An engineer I know took a look at the patent drawings and said that John was technically adept and his ideas were good ones (though of course perpetual motion machines have folly written all over them!)

This patent is the last record that John Wesley Francis Browning leaves behind. By July of 1865 his wife Matilda and the couple’s two daughters were living alone in Sumpter Township in Cumberland County. They were enumerated beside Matilda’s sister Minerva, who'd become a widow a few years before. It's uncertain whether John Wesley left his family for reasons unknown, joined the war effort, or simply died. If he did die, I've never been able to locate where he was buried.

Pat told me that stories passed down through her family expressed the belief that he may have served “in the Grey.” This is interesting for it suggests that John Wesley may have been a southern sympathizer and might have fallen in with the Copperhead movement that was prevalent in Mattoon during the Civil War years. He might have joined the Confederate cause -- it's certainly possible -- but despite my research into southern war records I haven't uncovered anything to substantiate Pat's family tale. Lacking hard evidence to the contrary, it's tempting to assume that John Wes died sometime between October of 1864 and July of 1865. This assumption, however, is by no means proven.

In March of 1867 Matilda went before the county clerk of Cumberland County as a witness to help her sister Minerva gain a minor’s pension for the children of her marriage to Taylor Browning. Matilda testified to her attendance at the birth of her nephew Charles Otho Browning and claimed that she was a resident of Prairie City. Three years later, in July of 1870, Matilda was still living in Prairie City with her daughters Alice J. (b. 1857) and Sarah Viola 'Kate' Browning (b. Mar 1863) a few doors down from her parents. She was listed as a seamstress.

After July of 1870 there is no further record of Matilda either. She isn't found on the 1880 census but this might be because she was remarried before that date. Sadly, a courthouse fire in 1885 caused the loss of all Cumberland County records filed before that date so I may never know if Matilda remarried. I can't even hunt her down through her daughters -- if Alice married in Cumberland County her marriage, too, is lost, and then of course there's no 1890 census.....

And what of Kate? By 1880 Kate -- Pat's g-grandmother -- had become pregnant out of wedlock and stories in Pat's family relate that Kate and Matilda never got along again after that. The pregnancy drove a wedge between Kate and her mother and before she gave birth Kate took her father's picture and his patent papers and ran away to Terre Haute in Vigo Co., IN. I wonder, though -- if Kate took his papers that mean John didn't take them. Surely if he left the family for some reason other than death, he'd have taken his papers?

I just don't know what happened to John Wes. I don't know whether Matilda remarried or died. I don't know what happened to their daughter Alice. John Wes and his family drives me mad. I do have the patent papers and I do have the one photo that Pat gave me (the positively identified photo from the previous post) though it is not a good copy. Pat was given the other unidentified photo (the black and white one, not the sepia toned one) from another cousin who believed that it was John and I think she was right. The collar that he is wearing reminds me of a war uniform, perhaps? If so, maybe the story about John Wes going into the service isn't just a family rumor. Anyway, I'm working on obtaining good, high-resolution scans of both photos and when I do I'll unashamedly take Brett up on his offer of digital overlay.

Not So Wordless Wednesday - Is This The Same Man?

2009-10-07T21:12:00.004-05:00

For the past few years I've made a judgment call on some photographs in my collection. I believe that they are of the same man but with a few years difference between them. Here is the photo:

The man on the right is known to be John Wesley Francis Browning. The picture is c1864.

The man on the left? I believe that he, too, is John Wesley Francis Browning but a few years earlier, perhaps as early as 1860-1861? Take a look at the eyes....the left eye of both men is slightly larger than the right. Same widow's peak. Same deep inset under the center of the bottom lip. Same distance between the eyes and between the eyebrows. The tip of the nose dips down a bit more on the man in the right photo. Ears appear to look about the same.

I would welcome anyone else's opinion!

A Genealogical Truism

2009-10-07T09:49:00.002-05:00

Paraphrased from The Slovak Yankee's post, "The Great Genealogical Divide," found HERE. He is making a comparison between those genealogists who take pride in performing their own research from those who fill in the blanks and/or merely copy what is already out there:

"....I'm struck by how this fits into Charles P. Pierce's construct from his new book: Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. The Three Great Premises are (1) Any theory is valid if it moves units; (2) Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough; and (3) Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is measured by how fervently they believe it. You can adapt this to genealogy easily enough. The Three Great Genealogical Premises: (1) any theory is valid if it appears in print (no matter where or when); (2) anything can be true if it's on enough web sites or on ancestry.com; and (3) fact is that which enough people believe (and doesn't remove some good ancestry they want or covet.)"

Can I get an Amen!

Pt 4 - James and Margaret Plymell

2009-10-05T18:56:00.006-05:00

We continue my series of posts about the families whose names are in my Hair Book with the Plymell family.

The two women who "authored" the entries in the Hair Book (Eliza Ursula (Nichols) Swan and her daughter Estella Jane (Swan) Browning) were both descendants of the Plymell family. Eliza's mother Delinda was a Plymell and many of the main players in the Hair Book (Mary Plymell, Adaline Plymell, James Fuller Plymell and Wallace W. Plymell) were Delinda's siblings and Eliza Ursula's uncles and aunts. It's therefore fitting to continue this series with a discussion of their parents, James Plymell and his wife Margaret.

In the early 19th century many missionaries established missions in the Upper Sandusky area of Ohio. In 1810 that area was part of Delaware County, Ohio but now comprises modern-day Wyandot, Delaware and Marion counties. My Plymell family lived in this part of the country at the time. James Plymell was born in 1793 in Botetourt County, Virginia and was the son of John Plimell and Jane Twiley. James moved to OH with his parents and eventually settled in the Madison Co/Delaware Co region of the state.

Around 1815 or so he married Margaret, maiden name unknown. Margaret was born c 1795. In my family the story always went that Margaret was "half-Iroquois." Discussions with other descendants of James and Margaret's son James Fuller Plymell have made connections to the Wyandot nation, a tribe that belongs within the Iroquoian Family of North American Indians. They are the descendants of the Tionnontates or Tobacco Nation of the Huron Confederacy. James Fuller's family always contended that they were Wyandot. More research is needed to find out if Margaret, wife of James Plymell, was a Wyandot but unfortunately many of the records that would be helpful (like a marriage license) don't appear to exist any longer. A search in Marion, Madison and Wyandot counties came up negative and if they were married in Delaware County (as is suspected) we are truly out of luck. A fire destroyed all records of marriages prior to 1835 in Delaware Co OH.

Before I go any further I want to thank a few people for their valuable research on the Plymell family. I would feel remiss if I didn't thank Ken Groves (grovesk@iapdatacom.net). He's compiled an enormous amount of information on the Plymell family with the assistance of the following: Mae Berting (Ombgran@aol.com), Rick Cansler (Cantrk48@aol.com), Diane Kasparek (jlk@rockisland.com), Tracy Towry (atticantq@bendbroadband.com), Marilynn Wood (marilynn.wood@gmail.com) Charles Plymell (CVEditions@nycap.rr.com) and his four surviving sisters Norma, Mary, Dorothy, and Genoa. I owe them all a great debt.

James and Margaret had the following known children:

1) Mary Plymell (b. 13 May 1817, m. Thomas Emery 17 October 1838, see HER E)
2) Wallace William Plymell (b. 14 Feb 1819)
3) Delinda Jane Plymell (b. 21 Jul 1822, m. Joseph Nichols 24 Dec 1844, see HERE)
4) Adeline Plymell (b. 1827, m. John Vane 2 Nov 1848, see HERE)
5) James Fuller Plymell (b. 1832)
6) Anna Castle Plymell (b. c1833)
7) Olive Ann Plymell (b. 11 Jul 1834, d. 2 Feb 1858)

Margaret died in Marion Co., OH on 10 Apr 1837 and James followed shortly thereafter on 29 Oct 1837. Their deaths left their children orphans.

As much as I've been able to piece together, at least one of the Plymell children left for Crawford Co., IL, between 1838 and 1840. Wallace W. was found living in Crawford County in 1840 and in 1850 he is found with his two daughters from his first marriage and his sister Anna. The other children had likely followed by 1844 as Delinda was married to Joseph Nichols in the county in December of that year. By the 1850 census Mary Plymell, her husband Thomas Emery, and Mary's sister Olive Ann had also settled there. Delinda's brother James Fuller Plymell was living with Delinda and her husband Joseph Nichols.

Next time, the families of the Plymell boys, Wallace William and James Fuller. Oh, and there are letters too....!

Another Famous Name in My Browning Trial?

2009-09-29T22:48:00.005-05:00

A sharp-eyed reader (Cathy at Detour Through History) commented today on a small tidbit of information I'd included concerning my account of the trials of my Samuel Browning (and Julia Ann Browning his daughter) versus James Beck. I am ever so glad she did because I certainly missed it completely.

The list of jurors convened for Samuel's trial against James Beck included one Emanuel Custer. Cathy wondered whether this Emanuel Custer could possibly be the Emanuel Henry Custer (1806 - 1892) who was the father of George Armstrong Custer!

Well, I can't be absolutely certain of course, but it is definitely a possibility. Emanuel Custer was married twice, both times in Harrison County. His second wife was Maria Ward Kirkpatrick, who became George's mother. The couple married in New Rumley in Harrison County, OH in 1836. George was born in New Rumley on 5 Dec 1839.

My Sam's trial was 1837. New Rumley is only a township away from Cadiz, the county seat and location of the trial. It is completely possible that Emanuel, aged 31 at the time, was called to sit as a juror. If so, that makes two brushes (the first being Sam's lawyer Edwin M. Stanton) with the famous for my little old Sam!

Thanks for bringing this interesting bit of (possible) historical connection to my attention, Cathy!