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.

The Browning Series -- Part Five, or Absalom 'Abner' Browning and Susannah Crago

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 Absalom 'Abner' Browning, the fifth child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee. Absalom was born around the year 1823 in Harrison County, Ohio.

Absalom married Susannah Crago, the daughter of James Crago and Sarah Jennings Fordyce, on 20 Aug 1848 in Tuscarawas Co., OH.  His elder brother, Elias, had married Susannah's sister Elizabeth eleven months earlier in Harrison Co., OH; no doubt Absalom and Susannah met when Elias and Elizabeth married if not before.

I wish I knew more about Ab and Susannah's early life but I don't. I don't really know that much about them at all in comparison to most of his other Browning siblings.  Of all Samuel and Margaret's children, Absalom's descendents are the ones I know the least about. Half of what I think I know about this family is suspect as well.  I'd love to find any descendants of theirs but once you hear their story you might conclude, like I tentatively have, that there might not be any to find.

I do know that, unlike any of the other Browning family members save Ab's sister Rachel (who married John C. McConnell), Ab and Susannah decided to stay behind when the rest of the family moved to Illinois in the late 1840's/early 1850's. Indeed, Ab chose to remain closer to his wife's Crago family than his own and by early 1849 the couple had moved on to Defiance County., OH, where the Crago family lived.

Absalom wasn't completely cut off from his Browning family, however; his elder brother Elias may have lived in Defiance County for a while with his wife Elizabeth (Susannah Crago's sister) in the mid-1850's and his younger sister Susannah Browning definitely lived there in 1855-1865 with her husband Isaac F. Crago (Susannah Crago's brother.)  Isaac F. had made the trip from Defiance County to Crawford County, IL, in 1853-54 to visit relatives and when he returned in early 1855 he brought Susannah Browning home as his bride.  However, Elias and Elizabeth had moved to Crawford County by late 1853, and Isaac and Susannah moved on to Noble County, Indiana by 1865 and Labette County, Kansas by 1879.

(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.)

Ab and Susannah settled in Washington Township in Defiance County and were living there when Susannah gave birth to their daughter Sarah Margaret on 22 Mar 1849.  In 1850 Absalom was working as a laborer two households away from a Ridenour family (George and Catherine) whose distant cousins, Matilda and Minerva Corderman, would later marry Absalom's younger brothers John Wesley Francis and Asbury Taylor.

Absalom and Susannah lived in Defiance County throughout the Civil War.  Absalom was listed as a farmer in the 1860 census as well as in the draft registration records in Washington township (see above) in June of 1863.  I feature this notation about him because it is one of only three records (other than census) that I have about the man!  Anyway, the couple lived in Defiance County until the spring of 1868, when they moved to Otsego Township in Steuben County, IN.  The first sign of their residency in Indiana was a record of their daughter Sarah Margaret’s marriage there to Lafayette Spangle in July of 1869. 

In 1870, Absalom and Susannah were enumerated in the census in Steuben County with a young girl named Priscilla Sewell.  Priscilla was born on 9 May 1860 in Defiance County and was the daughter of Andrew Sewell and Priscilla Crago, Susannah's sister.  The elder Priscilla had died thirteen days after her daughter was born and Absalom and Susannah took their young niece in to raise.

I've never been able to find out whether Absalom and Susannah had any other children but Sarah Margaret.  I suspect they did given the time period, and that if they did all their other children likely died. Despite this, Ab and Susannah spent much of their time raising children.  I've conducted a search but I've never located any gravestones for Browning children that would match up to the couple.  I've located tombstones, all right, but not too many Browning ones....

As I mentioned before, Ab and Susannah had one daughter, Sarah Margaret.  Sarah Margaret married Lafayette Spangle, the son of Henry Spangle, on 24 Jul 1869.  Lafayette was born around 1844 in Ohio and had served in the Union forces in the Civil War in the 29th Rgt. of the IN Volunteer Infantry.

In 1870 Sarah Margaret and Lafayette were living in Otsego Township in Steuben County.  They had three children in very close succession -  Franklin 'Frankie' in Aug 1870, Sarah Margaret 'Margie' in Aug 1871, and Belle in Nov 1872.  Their marriage was only three years old and they had three beautiful children....and then tragedy struck.  Sarah Margaret died a week after little Belle was born.  She was buried in the Hamilton Cemetery in Otsego Township in Steuben County, Indiana.

What happened to the children directly after the death of their mother isn't known for sure but I can infer a little from a comment in Susannah (Crago) Browning's obituary that states she "raised...three grandchildren...and one niece." This tells me that soon after Sarah Margaret's death the children went to live with their grandparents.  Lafayette was surely reeling from the death of his wife and it wasn't easy for a man to take care of three children under the age of three.  Since Absalom and Sarah were available and already taking care of their young niece Priscilla, taking their grandchildren into their household seemed like the best solution under the circumstances.

But tragedy wasn't ever too far away. Little Belle followed her mother into death in July 1873 and Franklin died in Dec 1877.  This left only Margie in the house by 1880, as her cousin Priscilla had married.  Priscilla didn't live much longer (she died in 1885) and the landscape changed again before 1890 when Margie, the last child of Lafayette and Sarah Margaret, also died. They were all laid to rest in the Hamilton Cemetery next to their mother.   While in 1880 Lafayette was still in Indiana, by 1895 he had no children or family in Indiana to stay behind for and so followed his brother Edmund to Kansas.

Oh....before I forget.  There is one more tombstone in the Hamilton cemetery that rests next to Susannah (Crago) Browning -- that of a little girl named Effie Spangle.  This tombstone is a mystery to me because it doesn't seem to match up, date-wise, to any of the others.  The dates are nearly unreadable now, but the transciptions I have from readings taken years ago seem to suggest that this Effie is another daughter of Lafayette and Sarah Margaret.  I will take the time soon to explain this in more detail.

Anyway, back to the story at hand.
Absalom and Susannah's house, once full of children, was empty again.  I can't imagine how it must have felt to lose your only child and then outlive all your grandchildren as well.  Then, as if there hadn't been enough sadness, the final blow came on 24 May 1890 when at age 59, Susannah (Crago) Browning died and was also buried in the Hamilton Cemetery beside her daughter and her grandchildren.  If you'll take a moment to read her obituary you can feel the sadness running through it.  Absalom - Abner - was well and truly alone.

Speaking of the obituaries of Susannah and Absalom (his is seen to the left), I noticed the usage of the name Abner instead of Absalom.  He was called Absalom when a child on the 1850 census, Absalom on the 1860, 1870 and 1880 censuses, and he was called Absalom on his 1863 war draft registration papers.  Yet here, he is called Abner.  Add this to the list of unknowns I have about him.  Absalom Abner, perhaps?  I don't know.

Absalom lived almost nine more years before he died at his home in Hamilton in Steuben County on 15 Jan 1899.  He doesn't seem to have had anyone around that was related to him; his obituary is short and vague on the details.  Nothing personal is included.  "Aged about 80 years," it says.  "Respected by all who knew him."  "Unassuming." 

Sad, is what it seems to me. 

I don't even know where he is buried.  He isn't beside his wife.  Was he indigent?  Did the locals have to bury him?  Did they just bury him in an unmarked grave?  My only clue is the name of the man who conducted the services (Elder Fred A Thomas) and my hope that Ab was likely Methodist, since most of his other Browning kin were.

He doesn't seem to have left any descendants, does he?  For that reason alone I would like to find him and stand in front of his tombstone if there is one.  I'd like him to know that at least one person remembers his name.

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

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!

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.

(Update (3/30/2012): I have learned that Elizabeth Barr was likely Hannah's sister, not her mother. See more here. Ah well...the search continues.)

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!

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!

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

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.

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

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 Susannah Browning, the tenth child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee. She was born in 1833 in Harrison County, Ohio and lived in the county until she moved to Crawford County, Illinois with the rest of her family around the year 1851.

Prior to the Browning's move to Illinois from Ohio, two of Susannah's older brothers (Elias and Absalom) had married daughters of James Crago and Sarah Jennings Fordyce. The James Crago family had moved into Harrison County in the mid-1830's but had moved on to Defiance County, Ohio by 1850.

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

Absalom and his wife Susannah Crago decided to move to Defiance County, Ohio to join the Crago's. It's less certain what Elias Browning and his wife Elizabeth Crago chose to do but I have some evidence (their sons, born 1848-1853, claim OH as their birthplace) that indicates they chose to remain in Ohio. Though they're not on the 1850 census there, they may have also lived in Defiance County for a while. It's certain that Elias and Elizabeth were in Crawford County by 1855, though; Elias died and is buried there.

A couple of years later, in late 1853 or early 1854, Isaac Fordyce Crago (born 22 Feb 1825 in PA) journeyed to Crawford County from Defiance County. Isaac was Elizabeth and Susannah Crago's brother. Did Isaac travel to Illinois alone or did he come with his sister Elizabeth and her husband Elias Browning? I don't know. It's entirely possible he traveled with them but perhaps he came alone and stayed on to court and to marry Susannah. Whatever the circumstances of his arrival, Isaac and Susannah married in Crawford County on 9 November 1854. Their marriage license is to the left.

By October of 1855 Isaac and Susannah had moved back to Defiance County. I surmise this because Isaac isn't enumerated in the Illinois state census that year and their first child, son James T., was born in Defiance County in 1856. I'm fairly certain I can narrow it down to between June and October, though. I can't prove it but I've got circumstantial evidence that suggests that Isaac and Susannah lived in Crawford County until at least June of 1855. Isaac's sister Elizabeth lost her husband Elias that month. Elizabeth took her sons and moved back to Defiance County, Ohio almost immediately following Elias’s death since she and her four boys aren't found on the IL state census in October either. A single woman traveling with four boys might've been a trial at best, so it's my theory that Isaac and Susannah chose to accompany Elizabeth and her boys back to Defiance County.

Isaac and Susannah lived in Defiance County from about 1855 until around 1865. They jumped around a little during that decade -- perhaps they moved near the Defiance/Williams County line or might have actually lived in Williams County for a brief period. During their time in Defiance County they had three more children born there -- Emma Jane (b. 1857), Luella Clementine (b. 16 July 1859) and Mary Elizabeth Adeline (b. 5 Jul 1864.) Emma Jane's obituary says that she'd lived in Williams County and had moved from there to Noble County at the age of one, but unless the family lived in Defiance County in 1857, moved to both Williams County and Noble County, Indiana in 1858, and then moved back to Defiance County by 1859, this seems rather improbable. If the family did make a move to Williams County at any time it would most likely have been between 1860 and 1870 but besides this one mention of a probable Williams County tie, there's no other evidence I have to support the idea that the family ever lived in the county.

Wherever they lived prior to moving to Indiana, Isaac and Susannah and their children did move to Noble County, Indiana before 1870. They're enumerated in the 1870 census there and their last child, daughter Susannah Olliezona, was born in Noble County in 1871. Isaac and Susannah joined a number of family members in the move to Indiana. Isaac's sister Elizabeth had married William Pollock in Defiance County in October of 1856; by 1860 the Pollocks had moved to Noble County and by 1870 had settled in Elkhart County, Indiana. Susannah’s brother Absalom Browning and his wife (Isaac's sister Susannah) had also moved to Indiana around 1868, settling slightly northeast of the Cragos in neighboring Steuben County. In the 1870 census Isaac and Susannah were living in Sparta Township in Noble County. Living with them that year was their 18-yr. old nephew, John W. McConnell. John was from Harrison County Ohio and was Susannah’s sister Rachel (Browning) McConnell’s son.

Sometime between the years 1878 and 1880 the Crago family moved again, this time to Labette County, Kansas. While their two eldest daughters, Emma Jane and Luella Clementine, had married and decided to stay behind in Noble County, accompanying them to Kansas was their eldest son, James, his first wife Lorinda, and Isaac and Susannah’s two youngest daughters. The two families settled in Fairview Township in Labette County.

Isaac and Susannah lived in Labette County for the remainder of their lives. Their youngest daughter Susannah Olliezona died in the latter part of 1880 and Susannah herself followed shortly thereafter in 1881. Both were buried in the Labette City Cemetery.

These two deaths may have been the basis for Isaac and Susannah’s youngest surviving daughter’s move back to Noble County, where her elder sisters were. The couple’s eldest son James stayed in Labette County and Isaac himself lived alone for some time before he died in 1893. Isaac was buried beside his wife in the Labette City Cemetery in Labette County, Kansas. Isaac and Susannah's tombstones are shown above and to the right.

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

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.

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

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 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 Sarah Ann Browning, the only child of Samuel and Margaret's that died before she was able to marry and have children. She was their eighth child.

Sarah Ann was born on 29 January 1830 in Moorefield Township in Harrison County, Ohio. She was just six years old when her oldest sister Julia became involved with James Beck, the man that Julia and her father Samuel later sued in court for child support and Trespass on the Case. Though almost nothing is known of her early life, she lived in the township of her birth until at least 1840 and perhaps even as late as 1849.

By 1850 Sarah Ann had moved to Washington Township and lived there until she accompanied her parents and most of her other siblings to Crawford County, Illinois around 1851. Only her sister Rachel (who stayed behind in Harrison County with her husband John Coleman McConnell) remained in Ohio. Sarah and her parents settled in Oblong Township in Crawford County on 300 acres of land that her father Samuel had purchased from William and Elizabeth Bowman.

By the time she moved to Crawford County, Sarah Ann was in her early 20's and hadn't married like the rest of her siblings. It's hard to postulate why this is so and my imagination can't help but run wild, thinking up reasons for why she didn't. She may have had a suitor or two that just didn't work out. She may have well been on her way to becoming the "maiden aunt" or "spinster daughter" who took care of elderly parents, the one almost every family seemed to have. Sarah may have been a sickly child or young woman, or been crippled with some disease or deformity that predisposed her to resign herself to a spinsterly life (like another of my aunts did, who most likely had scoliosis because she had a hump from the time she was a young girl). We'll never know, of course, but it's fun to wonder!

Sarah Ann wasn't to be in Crawford County long. She became ill during the summer of 1854 along with at least one of her relatives, her nephew Washington. As yellow fever epidemics were rampant throughout the years 1852 through 1855, Sarah might have had the disease. She died on 1 July 1854 and was buried in the Browning plot in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery in Montgomery Township, Crawford County, Illinois.

Though Sarah's life was a short one she appeared well-remembered in the Browning family. Five of her siblings named one of their daughters Sarah. Whether this was in her honor or not is speculation. I would like to think it was so.