Black Sheep Sunday - The Murder of William Hoy

I wrote about William Hoy a few weeks ago and completely forgot that I should have included him on a Black Sheep Sunday!  So do click here and read his story!

The Browning Series Pt. 7g, or The Elusive William D. 'Jim' Hoy

A couple posts ago I shared the life story of Samuel Browning Hoy, the second child of John Hoy and Julia Ann Browning.  Today I"m going to feature Samuel's "double cousin" William D. Hoy.  William and Samuel were double cousins because William's father James was John Hoy's younger brother and his mother Margaret was Julia Ann Browning's younger sister.

There are always people in your family tree that stump you and William is one of these.  I was lucky to find him, actually -- without the help of some cousins (descendants of William's older brother Edward Jasper Hoy) I don't know that I would have found him!  He was a traveling man, that's for sure, and a lot of what he did to make a living was on the other side of the law.

I wrote briefly about William in this earlier post, and in this one, when I discussed his parents James Hoy and Margaret Browning.  At that time I teased him a bit by saying he was a bootlegger and died an interesting death.  Now's the time to reveal all!

William was born on 26 Nov 1860 in Palestine in Crawford County, Illinois.  He was one of the youngest of James and Margaret's brood.  His father James was a farmer and no doubt the family lived on a farm in the vicinity for some years prior to the Civil War and afterward.  They were still living in Palestine in July of 1863 when James was one of many men listed from the Palestine Princt as a Class 2 draftee.  James stated he was 44 at the time.  I've never found any proof that James was called to serve. 

I don't know much about the draft lists and it would benefit me to learn more.  I know the difference between Class 1 (men between the ages of twenty and thirty-five years and unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five) and Class 2 (pretty much everyone else) and that men who were mentally or physically impaired, the only son of a widow, the son of infirm parents, or a widower with dependent children were exempt from the draft.  But if they were exempt did that mean they weren't written down on the lists at all?  I ask because James Hoy was listed.

I am not sure when things went south for William and his family but I can narrow it down to a window of a few years.  William's mother Margaret died at some point between the birth of his younger brother Zera (likely early 1862) and October of 1864, when his father married Amelia Funk.  Since I have no death record, burial record or tombstone to refer to concerning Margaret's death, this is where the Drafts list comes in.  Right now my window for Margaret's death is 1862-1864.  If the rule was "if a widower with children, do not list on draft records" and James is listed, then it would stand to reason that James was not yet a widower in July 1863. His name on this list would narrow the window of Margaret's death a bit, to between July 1863 and October of 1864.

William probably barely remembered his mother, if at all.  He had better opportunity to remember his stepmother but even her time with them was short-lived.  She was with the Hoy family for at least one year but less than five; by 1870 she was living with her brother Augustus Funk.  By all appearances James Hoy had died between 1865-1870 and his children were scattered out all over Crawford County.  What I find sad is that by the age of 10, William had lost both his parents.

In 1870 there is a bit of a question about where William was living.  He appears to be listed twice in this census: once in Hutsonville Township in a poorhouse run by a man named William Beers with his younger brother Zera and a woman named Sarah Hoy (perhaps his eldest sister?) and second in the household of Roland and Elvira (Ellison) Fuson in Honey Creek Township. Guardianship records for any of the Hoy children would be fantastic but so far I've come up with nothing. 

William’s whereabouts from 1870 until 1910 are sketchy. He never married or had children (but that might be up for argument?) and was by all accounts a traveling man. He has been particularly hard to trace after 1870 because throughout his life he gave either misleading or false information to the census takers.  He was at least migrating northwards because the next time I find him for certain (in 1910) he had settled in the village of Ashton in Fremont County, Idaho. He was boarding with Charles Nordvall, a divorced man from Sweden who'd come to the US in 1871.  Nordvall was the proprietor of a livery and William was listed as a carpenter.  

During this time (1902-1910) William made friends with a man named Benjamin Alvin Matthews and according to all the sources I have, this friendship was a long term one.  It was also to end in tragedy.

Benjamin Alvin Matthews was born in July 1858 near Scipio in Millard Co., Utah and was the son of James Matthews and Mary Ann Johnson of England.  In 1900 Alvin and his wife Mary McArthur and their children (including a son named Wallace) were living in Scipio. Around 1902 or so Alvin and his family moved to the Green Timber district in Fremont County, Idaho.  By 1910 Alvin had become a widower (his wife Mary died in 1904) and had moved to the Green Timber precinct.  By 1920 he had moved again, living in dwelling number 105 in the Warm River precinct.

In dwelling number 156 was a man named "James" Hoy. "James" (now listed as a Snake River trapper) stated that he was 55 years old, had been born in Iowa, and that he didn't know where either of his parents had been born except that they were from the "U.S."  That this man is William is almost certain.  He'd just decided, I suspect, to use his brother's name.  I also have some reason to suspect he'd been using it for a while.

Anyway, by 1930, William had moved to another part of Fremont County, in the Green Timber Precinct near Ashton.  He made a homestead about a mile or so from his friend Alvin Matthew’s ranch.  This time, he stated his name as William D. Hoy and that he had been born in Kentucky.  He also stated that his father had been born in Scotland and his mother in Ireland.  He again claimed he was a river trapper.

 I know some of you are wondering how on earth I figured out that James Hoy and William D. Hoy were the same person. Well, I don't know that I would have if I hadn't had a helpful bunch of newspaper reports to assist me!  They're all posted here.  Take a look at all of them.

 These sources also indicate that William entered into some sort of business partnership with Alvin Matthews. I don't know for certain but my best guess is the manufacture and distribution of  whiskey, for sometime in1935 William was held in the Fremont County jail in St. Anthony on charges of selling whiskey to the enrollees in the Porcupine Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp near his homestead.  Charges were not pressed and William was released.

One Sunday, on 29 March 1936, Alvin Matthews ventured up to William’s cabin east of Ashton for a visit but did not return.  The next morning Matthew’s son Wallace went up to the cabin to find his father and found that Matthews had shot William six times, killing him.  The two men had argued sometime during the course of the day or into the evening.  The coroner determined that William had most likely died sometime on Sunday afternoon or evening. The remains of a still and a quantity of whiskey were found at the scene and Matthews was highly intoxicated.  Matthews was placed under arrest on Monday morning and held in the Fremont County Jail.  During his stay he acted strangely and spoke of suicide.  Three days later, on Thursday, 2 April 1936, Matthews was found dead in his jail cell.  The coroner’s jury ruled his death a suicide. You can read more about it in the article to the right.

William was buried in the Riverview Cemetery in St. Anthony near the Snake River in Fremont County, Idaho in an unmarked grave.  Benjamin Alvin Matthews was buried at the Pineview Cemetery in Ashton and you can see a picture of his tombstone here, taken by John Warnke and posted on Find-A-Grave in 2006.

Obviously the deed that Benjamin Alvin Matthews did weighed upon him heavily.  Who knows what happened up in that cabin; if the men were drinking and got angry, whether they argued about past slights or if they weren't seeing eye to eye on any of the business dealings they had with each other.  Maybe one too many insults were flung around along with the alcohol and the guns.  Whatever happened, once he sobered up Alvin could not live with the thing that he'd done, which was kill his best friend.  As I read all these articles and absorb what happened in the aftermath of the shooting and subsequent suicide, I don't find anything in my heart other than sadness. A lot was lost that day, a lot more than just William's life.  Alvin's children and grandchildren lost their loved one as well.

A few more final thoughts and theories about the elusive William D. 'Jim' Hoy.  In my last post I asked that Jodi Blackhawk contact me if she would.  I did so because she left me a note about a possible connection.  I will speak more about that connection now and you'll see why I hope she will contact me. 

I said earlier that I didn't have any record of William's whereabouts from 1870-1910.  That's 40 years!  A man can marry and have grown children in that span.  Maybe this is something that William did. From members of his brother Edward's descendents I learned that William ran afoul of the law by bootlegging whiskey to the Indians in Idaho.  Though he ended up in Ashton in Fremont County and died there at the hand of his friend, some of his life in the interim might make more sense if he, is, indeed, the Jim Hoy that Jodi mentions in her comment on this post.

According to her elders, Jodi's 2nd-great-grandmother Yeehavitz, a Shoshoni born on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in 1868, married a James/Jim Hoy and had two children with him. (Fort Hall, a mere 110 miles from Ashton, was a stop on both the Oregon and California Trails and exists in present-day Bannock and Bingham Counties.)  Jim left Yeehavitz to look for work but was gone so long that she remarried, to a Joseph Blackhawk.  Jim Hoy apparently came back years later and Joseph told him never to return or risk losing his life.  Jim never did come back and Yeehavitz's son by Jim, Henry, was Jodi's great-grandfather.

Could the Jim Hoy who left Fort Hall be the same man as William D. Hoy, who used Jim as his nickname in Fremont Co., ID?  It's certainly possible.

JodiBlackHawk, Get In Touch with Me!

It was my intent to feature William D. Hoy (the son of James Hoy and Margaret Browning) on my blog today but I think I will continue to write his story and post a plea instead.  Back in February a person named JodiblackHawk left a comment for me and I am hopeful that she will get in touch with me. 

She may have some information for me, and I may have some information for her.  She speaks of a Jim/James Hoy and I'm wrapped up in William, and I know it's too early to say for certain -- but we may very well be talking about the same person.

Jodi, if you're reading this, please contact me at the email address on my sidebar under my picture!

The Browning Series Part 3b, or Samuel Browning Hoy, the Young Soldier

Today I will share what I know about Samuel Browning Hoy, one of the sons of Julia Ann Browning and her husband, John Hoy. I hope you'll remember the Browning vs. Beck trial that I featured on my blog last year, but if you don't, take a look at the sidebar on the right. I promise you that you won't be bored reading the full case but just in case, here's a short summary: It was 1837. Julia was sixteen and had given birth to a son named Washington out of wedlock. She and her father accused James Beck and sued him for Bastardy, child support, and Trespass On The Case. It's a long case, with a famous lawyer (Edwin McMasters Stanton, later to become President Buchanan's Attorney General and President Lincoln's Secretary of War), likely a famous juror (Emanuel Custer, the father of General George!) and some fascinating insights into how differently trials were conducted then than they are now. It's a fascinating case and you should go read it now. Go, go, go!

Back now? Good! Okay, so some years after the trial (in 1843) Julia married John Hoy and their story was one I told here. This post is about their second child, Samuel Browning Hoy. Of all John and Julia's children, I know the most about him.

Samuel was born on the seventh day of July in 1848 in Harrison County, Ohio. He was living with his parents and his older brother William (b. c1846) and younger sister Josephine (b. Aug 1850) in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, in the 1850 census. Samuel's half-brother, Washington (the result of Julia's liaison with James Beck, b. Mar 1837) wasn't living with his mother and half-siblings; he was living with Julia's parents Samuel and Margaret (Markee) Browning.

Sometime between 1851-1855 the Hoys joined most of the rest of the Browning family relations and moved on to Crawford County, Illinois. The 1855 IL state census makes it appear that John Hoy had died, because Julia and her sons Samuel and William (by this time both Washington and Josephine were also dead) were again living with Julia's parents, Samuel and Margaret (Markee) Browning.

By 1860 Samuel's mother Julia had married again to James E. 'Melton' Legg and was living with him, his five children, and her nephew Elias Browning. You'd think she'd have her boys with her but that wasn't the case -- both William Hoy and Samuel Hoy, aged only 15 and 13 at the time, were once again living with their grandfather Samuel Browning and his second wife Sarah Ann (Bell) Gaddis Browning in Crawford County. (Samuel's first wife, and Samuel Browning Hoy's grandmother, Margaret, had died in 1856.)

The following year Samuel B. Hoy (perhaps along with his older brother William M.J.) moved with his grandfather and step-grandmother to Windsor in Shelby County, Illinois.  I'm not sure about William M.J.  If he did also move to Shelby County he'd returned to Crawford County before February of 1865, when he mustered into service in Company H of the 152nd Illinois Infantry out of he town of Palestine.  I'll mention William again in a moment.  Back to Samuel B.

When the Civil War started Samuel was thirteen and much too young to sign up immediately. He waited until 1864 (when he was 16) before he traveled to Mattoon, a city in Coles County about 15 miles northeast of Windsor. On 21 March 1864 he signed his volunteer enlistment papers, claiming that he was eighteen years old. He was assigned to the 54th Illinois Infantry, Union forces, and was told to muster in on the 30th. But on 28 March 1864, the veterans of the 54th Illinois Infantry were on furlough and had been ordered to reassemble in Mattoon. According to the Adjutant General’s Report, “an organized gang of Copperheads led by Sheriff O’Hair attacked some men of the Regiment at Charleston, killing Major Shubal York, Surgeon, and four privates, and wounding Colonel G. M. Mitchell. One hour later the Regiment arrived from Mattoon and occupied the town, capturing some of the most prominent traitors.” Copperheads were also known as Peace Democrats and were a group of anti-abolitionist Midwesterners.

Two days later, on 30 March 1864, Samuel mustered into Company F. His muster papers say he had sandy hair and gray eyes and was 5' 10".  That's pretty tall for a boy his age!  Anyway, his regiment was immediately on the march and the young Samuel could not keep up. During the march Samuel began growing lame in his left foot. The company moved to Duvall’s Bluff and Clarendon and fought General Shelby, and in time Samuel’s lame foot degenerated into a running sore with small bones working their way out of the upper front part of the foot. The foot prevented him from marching and he had to be hauled in an ambulance part of the way back to Duvall’s Bluff. He was given light duty for the remainder of his service. His regiment was then assigned to guard a section of the Memphis and Little Rock railroad. Many of his regiment were captured during a battle near the railroad, but Samuel’s company was spared.

I said I'd mention Samuel B.'s older brother, William M.J.  As I said earlier, William had also joined the war, mustering into service out of Palestine in Crawford County, IL, in February of 1865.  According to the muster and descriptive rolls of Company H, William was 6’0” with dark hair, dark eyes and a dark complexion.  His regiment was assigned to duty as a railroad guard for the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad until July of 1865.  A month before that, on 2 June 1865, William died of an unknown disease (most likely smallpox) in Tullahoma, Tennessee.  I haven't ever been able to locate his burial.

On 20 August 1865, two months before he mustered out, Samuel was hospitalized for chronic diarrhea in the General Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was released for duty on 28 August 1865. Samuel mustered out on 15 October 1865 and was discharged at Camp Butler on 26 October 1865.

Sometime after his discharge Samuel went to a party at the home of Cornelius Stephenson of Robinson. According to Charles F. Huls and Sarah Ann (Huls) Browning, the spouses of Samuel’s first cousins Margaret Ann Browning and Thomas Nevitt Browning (children of James Browning), Samuel did not dance because of his lame foot but walked with a cane. Samuel was employed by Martin B. Woodworth between 1866 and 1870 as a day laborer. Martin also employed Effie Emmaline Browning (Samuel’s first cousin and the daughter of Samuel J. Browning) as a domestic servant. Samuel worked for Martin out in the fields but Martin claimed Samuel would “frequently give out on account of his lame foot.”

Samuel married Emily Ellen McCarter, the daughter of Samuel G. McCarter and Polly Ann Cannon, on 11 September 1875 in Crawford County. Emily was born on 5 July 1851 in Crawford County. Samuel and Emily Ellen settled in Montgomery Township in Crawford County and had four children (John, Charley, Lillie and Oscar.) In the mid-1880’s Samuel pursued a soldier’s pension, which was granted, and Samuel and Emily spent the remainder of their married lives in Heathsville and Flat Rock in Montgomery Township.

Emily died on 2 February 1930 in Flat Rock and was buried on 4 February 1930. After Emily’s death, Samuel went to live with his son John William Hoy. John, who never married, took care of Samuel for the remainder of his life.

Here's where it gets interesting. When he took Samuel in to take care of him John William applied for an increase in pension for Samuel and during the filing, documents were prepared that seemed to support Samuel’s original statements to his recruiting officer that he had been eighteen years of age at the time of his enlistment. I have copies of Samuel's original soldier's pension files and one of the documents within is a copy of his enlistment papers. This document, signed in March of 1864, specifically states that Samuel was eighteen (which would place his birth in 1845-6.) These documents, along with Samuel’s typed state death certificate and the typed county clerk’s copy of his death certificate, give his year of birth as 1845.

However, I also have his original death certificate. It is handwritten. Take a look at the listed date of birth. Don't you think there is clearly a numeral "8" underneath that numeral “5”? I do.

While it is possible that Samuel had been born in 1845 there is stronger evidence to make a case for the 1848 date. In the 1850 census Samuel was two years of age; in the 1860 census he was thirteen. On the birth certificate of his second child, Charles (born in March 1879) he stated he was thirty years of age. At the birth of his third child, Amy Lillian (born in March 1881) he claimed he was thirty-two years old. As these birth certificates were prepared at the time of the event and not years afterward (as his pension documents were) only one conclusion can safely be drawn: I think that Samuel or his relatives desired to protect his youthful decision to claim lawful age at the time of enlistment (not to mention making sure that the government couldn't demand his pension money back for lying on his enlistment papers!) In reality, Samuel was not yet sixteen years old when he entered into service in the Civil War.

Samuel died on 3 April 1931 in Flat Rock in Crawford County and was buried on 5 April 1931. Both he and Emily are buried in the Robinson New Cemetery in Robinson Township in Crawford County, Illinois.

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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.

Browning v. Beck Pt 9 - What A Web We Weave

I've learned much more about the Brownings than I could have hoped to learn by taking the time to research and analyze the Browning v. Beck cases brought up by Samuel and Julia Ann.

Far and away, the most important aspect of both cases are the statements made by Samuel and Julia Ann. To my knowledge, Samuel Browning never left a will. I've looked for his will in Crawford County and the surrounding counties (Shelby County was the county he and his second wife were residing in at the time of his death and the county his youngest daughter's daughter said he died in) with no luck. Since I've been able to find no will I considered he might have died intestate, so of course I've also looked into probate records. Nothing. In birth he seems to have hatched and in death he seems to have simply faded away. It's frustrating...

The legal statement he made for this case then, is very important to me. Considering my lack of any other written documentation, this statement is the best proof I have that Samuel was Julia Ann's father. I have implied sources like census records and the statement "dau of S&M Browning" on Julia Ann's tombstone, but this document states their relationship clearly.

Julia's statement, taken side by side with Samuel's, demonstrates another important familial link. Julia states that she was with her sister Rachel. One could infer from this -- and I do -- that Rachel is also Samuel's daughter. Couple this with Rachel's appearance on census records with Samuel and Margaret and I have a fairly good circumstantial case for saying that Rachel is also a daughter of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee.

There are other relationships that these two statements help to bolster by contributing that extra layer of circumstance. Rachel's son John Wesley McConnell is found in the 1870 census of Noble County, Indiana as a farmhand in the household of Isaac F. and Susannah Crago. Susannah's maiden name was Browning and this couple had been married in Crawford County, Illinois, where the Brownings had moved in the early 1850's. To all appearances, the fact that one of Rachel's sons was living in Isaac and Susannah's household certainly shores up the idea that Susannah (Browning) Crago was another of Samuel and Margaret's daughters.

Additionally, a young girl named Emma Hoy spent some time in Harrison County in 1870, visiting (or living for a time) with Rachel's family. Emma was the daughter of James Hoy and Margaret Browning. James and Margaret were found in the 1850 census of Tuscarawas Co., OH, living with Julia Ann and her husband, James Hoy's brother John Hoy. To find James and Margaret Hoy's daughter Emma staying with Rachel and her family is another circumstance that lends credence to the idea that Margaret, wife of James Hoy, is yet another of Samuel and Margaret's daughters.

I'm sure there are more hidden gems to this case that I have yet to discover. It's funny how one seemingly small thread of information can transform into a long and winding one weaving many different aspects of a family together. Finding these threads is one of the deepest sorts of pleasures of genealogy.

Tombstone Tuesday - Samuel Browning Hoy and Emily Ellen McCarter

These are the tombstones of Samuel Browning Hoy and his wife, Emily Ellen McCarter.

Samuel was the son of John Hoy and Julia Ann Browning. He was born on 7 July 1848 in Harrison County, Ohio and died on 4 April 1931 in Flat Rock in Montgomery Township in Crawford County, Illinois.

Emily was the daughter of Samuel G. McCarter and Polly Ann Cannon. She was born on 5 July 1851 in Crawford County, Illinois and died on 2 Feb 1920 in Flat Rock. She and her husband are buried in the Robinson New Cemetery in Robinson, Crawford County, Illinois.

Samuel and Emily married in Crawford County on 11 Sept 1875.

More to come on Samuel -- he was an interesting man. In the meantime, his mother's case continues below......

The Browning Series -- Part Three, or Julia Ann Browning and John Hoy

Before I examine the Browning vs. Beck case in any more detail, I should take the time to first introduce one of its major players -- Julia Ann Browning, the third child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee. This post, then, will be part of "The Browning Series," even though technically she's their third child and should wait for her time in the spotlight after her elder brother Elias. But ah well, the case I found in Ohio begs to be told.

(In case you're not aware, The Browning Series is the story of the thirteen children Samuel and Margaret Browning had between them and after Margaret's death, the two Samuel had with his second wife, a widow named Sarah Ann (Bell) Gaddis. 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.)

Julia Ann Browning was born on 21 January 1820 in Cadiz Township in Harrison County, Ohio. By the time she was ten her family had moved to Moorefield Township, which is where they stayed until at least 1840 and where they were living at the time of her case against James Beck, the father of her illegitimate son, Washington. I won't go into any more details of this case right now, but will instead skip to the year 1843, when she marries for the first time.

Her choice for a husband was a man named John Hoy. I pause here for a moment to share a bit of what I know on the Hoy family. The Hoys became rather an important fixture in the lives of Samuel and Margaret. Two of their daughters -- Julia and Margaret -- married into the Hoy family. John's parents, Edward Hoy and his wife Elizabeth and their family (sons William, John, James, Thomas, Solomon, Joel, Joseph and Benjamin) immigrated to the United States from Elm, Cambridgeshire, England. On 17 August 1837 the Hoys landed in the New York harbor after setting sail on the Ship Superior from Liverpool.

John and Julia married on 21 May 1843 in Harrison County, Ohio. It took me a while to locate their marriage license because there was a mistake in the recording of it on the books. The Justice that married them -- John M. Brown -- made the error himself as he recorded it. He was so used to writing his own name that when he went to write their names he stopped halfway through Julia's, recording it as "Julia Ann Brown" instead of Browning. Only the body of the license shows that she was actually a Browning.

The couple lived in Harrison County for a few years but moved to Mill Township in Tuscarawas County by 1850, where they were living with Julia's younger sister Margaret, who'd recently married John's younger brother James. By that time they had three children -- William, Samuel and Josephine. I find it interesting that her son Washington is not living with her but is instead living with his grandparents. This seems to have been the case throughout his life. Actually, it seems to have been something Julia did a lot of.

I say this because sometime between 1851 and 1860 John and Julia moved to Crawford County, Illinois with the rest of the Brownings. It appears by all evidence that John Hoy had died by 1855, though, because he isn't found in the October 1855 Illinois state census and it appears Julia may have been one of the females aged aged 30 to 40 in Samuel Browning’s household in the state census that year. I've concluded from the rather scanty evidence that John Hoy had probably died by 1855. I haven't ever been able to locate his grave.

By 1860, Julia's married again -- she married James E. ‘Melton’ Legg, the son of Edward Legg and Anna White, in Crawford County on 7 June 1860. Though Julia and James Melton are enumerated with his five children from his previous marriage to Sarah Mills and with Julia’s nephew Elias Browning, her own surviving children from her marriage to John Hoy aren't with her! Instead, her two sons William and Samuel Hoy (her daughter Josephine had died) were shown in the household of her father and mother, Samuel and Margaret.

I can't help but wonder if she just chose a string of men who didn't want her brats in their houses, or if she made the choice to leave her children with her parents. Perhaps her parents thought she was flighty and irresponsible. Perhaps she was headstrong and stubborn and it was just easier for her to let them raise themselves. Or perhaps none of this is true and the censuses just caught them all during days where her kids were simply visiting. I don't know. I do know that Washington's tombstone doesn't say "Son of." It says, "Grandson of." That sounds to me like Samuel and Margaret did most of his raising.

Julia died in Crawford County on 28 October 1869. She's buried near the Browning family plot in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery in Montgomery Township in Crawford County, Illinois.

Coming up next, the case that probably shaped Julia's life more than she liked.....

(Not At All) Wordless Wednesday -- Browning vs. Beck (1837)

The trial I've mentioned in a couple of recent postings (see the post below about my first trip to OH!) will be my focus this evening. This trial was recorded in two parts of the October AD 1837 term of the Harrison County OH Common Pleas court -- on Saturday, October 28th (Vol. D, pg. 131) and Monday, October 30th (Vol. D, pg. 132.) . It was officially called "Samuel Browning vs. James Beck" on page 131.

This case was originally located by a researcher I'd hired years ago.

A transcription of the case (which is at left) follows:

OCTOBER TERM AD 1837
Saturday, October 28th, AD 1837

SAMUEL BROWNING vs. JAMES BECK:

CASE: This day came the parties by their counsel, and being at issue the following jury was called and came to wit; Zadoc Bliss, James D. Anderson, George Baker, Silvanus Lamb, Elzy Chansy, Peter Barger, Samuel Boland, Alexander Beall, John Layport, Robert Guinea, Ephraim Johnson, William Barrett, who were duly impannelled, tried, sworn and affirmed to try the aforesaid issue between the said Samuel Browning Plaintiff and James Beck Defendant, and after hearing the evidence adduced and arguments of counsel, as well on part of the plaintiff as the defendant do on their respective oaths & affirmations, say that the said James Beck is guilty in manner & form as the said Samuel Browning above in his declarations hath complained against him, and that they assess the damages the plaintiff hath sustained by reason of the promises at the sum of one hundred dollars.

The court adjourned until 8 o'clock on Monday morning.

At this point in the case, the only reason given for the assessment of $100 against James Beck is "damages" of unknown origin and the details of his guilt are not explained. It appears that this issue was brought up before the 28th, though -- something I intend to look up in the Common Pleas Journal again on my next trip to see if it was!

A page later, on 132, we find the Court re-adjourning. Now the case is entitled "State of Ohio on complaint of Samuel (Samuel is crossed out) Julia Ann Browning vs. James Beck."

Julia? In October of 1837, Samuel's daughter Julia was a single girl, 17 years old. She was Samuel and Margaret's firstborn daughter and was not married until 1843, a full six years after the date of the trial. Why would she be involved? I read the first words of the case and everything suddenly made sense.

OCTOBER TERM AD 1837
Monday morning, 8 o'clock, October 30th, AD 1837
Court met pursuant to adjournment present the same judges as on Saturday the 28th of October instant.

STATE OF OHIO on complaint of (SAMUEL) JULIA ANN BROWNING , vs. JAMES BECK:
BASTARDY: This day came the parties by their attorneys, and the motion for a new trial in this case having been submitted to the court, and the court being duly advised in the premises, do overrule said motion. And the court do thereupon adjudge the said James Beck the Defendant to be the reputed Father of said bastard child and do order that the said James Beck stand charged with the maintenance thereof as follows to wit: that he pay to the clerk of this court for the time being for the use of the mother of said child or other person having the care or maintenance thereof the sum of fifty-four dollars. And also that he pay weekly into the hands of the clerk of this court for the time being for the use aforesaid the sum of seventy-five cents for the period of five years from the expiration of the term of this court, provided the said weekly payments shall cease in case of the death of the said child, and it is further considered and ordered by the court that the said James Beck pay the costs of this prosecution. And that the said James Beck give Bonds to the Clerk of this court with security to be by him approved conditioned for the performance of the aforesaid orders, and that he stand committed to the Jail of the County until such security be given.
The Defendant by his counsel thereupon gave notice of his intention to appeal to the Supreme Court.

A child support case! Ah ha!!!! A tumbler clicked into place and the identity of a mystery grandson named Washington living with Samuel and Margaret in the 1850 census of Harrison County was finally solved. I'd first thought he was another child of Samuel and Margaret's, possibly a twin brother of Ezra C. 'Zera' Browning. Later -- when I found Washington's gravestone with the inscription, "Grandson of S&M Browning" -- I wondered which child of Samuel and Margaret was his parent. At first I assumed (yes, I know, silly me!) that Wash was a son of one of the elder sons of Samuel and Margaret because his last name was Browning! I calculated Wash's age and looked at all the marriage dates of the boys but found nothing that would match or make any sense as to why Wash was with Samuel and Margaret and not his parents. I recall considering Julia briefly but without any seriousness.

I learned my lesson when this case was located.

I have been told that in the 1830's, the state of Ohio encouraged mothers of illegitimate children to come forth and prosecute the fathers of their children. Apparently the state provided some form of support for these children but if -- and only if -- the fathers could not be found and made to support their offspring themselves. I do not know how accurate this information is, but it certainly makes the reason for this prosecution a little bit clearer.

I began to do some research on the defendant in the case, James Beck -- the man accused and found guilty of being Washington's father (though how they determined this back then I have no idea!) James had to pay an upfront fee of $54 plus a sum to the court of $.75 a week for support for either five years or until Washington died. He also had to pay court costs. Added up, this amounts to well over $154 for the trial and for the judgement! That was a lot of money in 1837.

Note the last sentence: "The Defendant by his counsel thereupon gave notice of his intention to appeal to the Supreme Court." It is this sentence which interests me so much and is a focus of my further research during my upcoming trip. I'd like to know if James pursued it.

I located a James Beck living four doors down from Samuel and Margaret in Moorefield Township in Harrison County in 1830. This James had one male under 5, one male 20-29, one male 70-79, one female 15-19 and one female 20-29. I'm not sure if this is the correct James Beck family and of course we can't determine from this list whether or not this is a 20-something James with a wife, son, father and sister or sister-in-law living with him or not. No James Beck is found in 1840.

Washington's mother Julia was an...interesting....woman in her own right. She was obviously sneaking off as a teenager and whatever the circumstances were, she became pregnant while still unmarried. She either gave Washington to her parents or they required her to leave him with them (though to date, no adoption/guardianship papers have been found) for in 1850 when Washington is enumerated with Samuel and Margaret, Julia is in neighboring Tuscarawas County living with her husband John Hoy, their two children Samuel and William, and is pregnant with her fourth child, Josephine. Julia and John were rooming with Julia's sister Margaret and her husband, John's younger brother James Hoy.

By 1855, Julia had moved to Crawford County, Illinois. She was living with her parents and her husband John is nowhere to be found. Her sons Samuel and William Hoy are with her, but her daughter Josephine and husband John were dead. By 1860 Julia had married again in Crawford County to James E. Melton Legg and they are living with Melton's four children, but Julia's two older sons William and Samuel Hoy are once again living with their grandparents.

In 1869, Julia dies. She is buried in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery in Montgomery Township, Crawford County, Illinois. Her tombstone is to the left. She rests next to her parents, siblings, and one other; her illegitimate son, Washington.

The subject of the case -- Washington -- was born on 24 March 1837. Julia was 16. Washington lived with his grandparents his whole life as far as I have been able to ascertain.

Washington moved to Crawford County, Illinois with Samuel and Margaret and died on 4 June 1854 at the age of 18, less than a month before his aunt Sarah Ann Browning. Sarah died on 1 July 1854. There was an outbreak of yellow fever between the years of 1852-1854 in Crawford County. Perhaps Washington and his aunt Sarah were two of its victims.