The Browning Series -- Part 9A, the Death of Charles Otho Browning pt 4 - Corrections

When last I wrote all those months ago, we had been discussing the death of Charles Otho Browning from a train accident in Springfield, MO. At that time I had posted a picture of where I believed was the correct location of the accident site. Since that time my cousin T. did some more research and that research was incredible! -- and intelligent! -- and proved me wrong!

Sooooo wrong! Hah!

So without further ado I will present to you HER interpretation, in HER words, of the site of Charles' accident. She has put together a .kmz file overlay showing the location. In order to use this you should go download Google Earth (which you should have anyway!) and then click on the file. It'll sworl you down into a mashup of the world of today and the world of 1889:

"This is a GoogleEarth map of the train yard in Springfield, MO using Sanborn maps from 1884-1891 to piece together a bigger picture of what the town looked like at the time of the accident. The maps are from different years but its close enough that we can get an idea of what it looked like. You can:

- zoom in close and read the descriptions on the buildings - making assumptions as to the Dr office above which drug store Charles was taken to, even the undertaker is listed on one!

- turn the overlay maps off and look at the street “today” by using the slider bar midway down on the left

- pan around any direction

- grab the little orange man on the right and “drop” him onto the street and walk the streets (of today), so to speak.

I am quite sure this is the correct location (different from the location that shows on the blog) because in the upper left corner is "Anchor Mills" and the stock yards are shown just across the tracks. The articles also mention Campbell & Boonville streets as being full of onlookers. "

For the record, I think my cousin T. is correct. Huge props to her!

As a last aside, I think this is a very creative use of Google Earth and the historical maps that are available to us as genealogists. I hope this gives someone else an idea!

(Late!) Saturday Funtime - The "Sweet 16"

I had fun tonight working up my "Sweet 16" -- the g-g-g-grandparent assignment that Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings had given us over the weekend. As usual, I turn mine in late. I wonder if this means I'm still a member of the "Procrastinator's Club" from my high school Chemistry class?

1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents in pedigree chart order. List their birth and death years and places.
2) Figure out the dominant ethnicity or nationality of each of them.
3) Calculate your ancestral ethnicity or nationality by adding them up for the 16 - 6.25% for each (obviously, this is approximate).
4) If you don't know all 16 of your great-great-grandparents, then do it for the last full generation you have.
5) Write your own blog post, or make a comment on Facebook or in this post.


Here's mine:

1. James Madison Swan, son of James Swan and Jane Taylor: born 8 Dec 1844 in Champaign Co., OH; married 5 Aug 1873 in Crawford Co., IL; died 26 May 1876 in Crawford Co., IL and was buried in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery, Montgomery Twn., Crawford Co., IL. ENGLISH.

2. Eliza Ursula Nichols, daughter of Joseph Nichols and Delinda Jane Plymell: born 6 Jul 1847 in Duncanville, Crawford Co., IL; died 16 Feb 1931 in Robinson, Crawford County, IL and was buried in the New Hebron Cemetery, LaMotte Twn., Crawford Co., IL.

3. Joseph Browning, son of James Browning and Jane Nevitt: born 2 Jun 1842 in Tippecanoe, Harrison Co., OH; married 13 Mar 1866 in Palestine, Crawford Co., IL; died 24 Jun 1916 in Palestine, Crawford Co., IL and was buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery, Palestine, Crawford Co., IL. ENGLISH?

4. Almarena Mathewson, daughter of Daniel Mathewson and Mary Brimberry: born 29 Nov 1846 in Palestine, Crawford Co., IL; died 6 May 1886 in Crawford Co., IL and was buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery, Palestine, Crawford Co., IL. SCOTCH?

5. William A. Garrard, son of William Garrard and Rebecca Dunlap: born 30 Oct 1822 in Hardinville, Crawford Co., IL; married 5 Apr 1849 in Crawford Co., IL; died 25 Nov 1864 in Crawford Co., IL and was buried in the Haskin Cemetery, Honey Creek Twn., Crawford Co., IL. FRENCH.

6. Mariah Elizabeth Haskin, daughter of Robert Cochran Haskin and Martha Elizabeth 'Betsy' White: born 10 Apr 1830 in Crawford Co., IL; died 16 Feb 1868 in Crawford Co., IL and was buried in the Haskin Cemetery, Honey Creek Twn., Crawford Co., IL. ENGLISH.

7. David Newton Eagleton, son of James Eagleton and Margaret J. Montgomery: born 18 Apr 1825 in Edgar Co., IL; married 6 Nov 1851 in Crawford Co., IL; died 28 Dec 1878 in Crawford Co., IL and was buried in the Eaton/Grand Prairie Cemetery, Crawford Co., IL. SCOTCH.

8. Margaret Jane Conrad, daughter of James Conrad and Charity Shook: born 6 May 1834 in Crawford Co., IL; died 8 Oct 1878 in Crawford Co., IL and was buried in the Eaton/Grand Prairie Cemetery, Crawford Co., IL. DUTCH.

9. Herman Depperman: born unknown; married unknown; died bef 1900. buried unknown. GERMAN.

10. Henrietta Sennhausen, daughter of Jacob Sennhausen and Wilhemina Schultz: born 11 May 1840 in Germany; died 13 Feb 1918 in Peotone, Will Co., IL and was buried in the Peotone Cemetery, Peotone, Will Co., IL. GERMAN.

11. August Carl Papstein, son of Friedrich Papstein and Wilhemina Koplen: born 6 Sep 1864 in Neu Lobitz, Kreiß Dramburg, Hinterpommern, Germany; married 17 Oct 1887 in Neu Lobitz, Kreiß Dramburg, Hinterpommern, Germany; died 20 Nov 1946 in Peotone, Will Co., IL and was buried in the Peotone Cemetery, Peotone, Will Co., IL. GERMAN.

12. Anna Marie Louise Koehn, daughter of Johann Koehn and Johanna Vierkow: born 9 Jun 1868 in Neu Lobitz, Kreiß Dramburg, Hinterpommern, Germany; died 26 Apr 1952 in Peotone, Will Co., IL and was buried in the Peotone Cemetery, Peotone, Will Co., IL. GERMAN.

13. Barton Warren Hamilton, son of John Hamilton and Mary Ann Zumwalt: born 20 Mar 1848 in Harrison Co., KY; married 5 Jan 1882 in Latona, Jasper Co., IL; died 10 Mar 1912 in Jasper Co., IL and was buried in the Tate Cemetery near Bogota, Jasper Co., IL. ENGLISH.

14. Clementine Jeannette George, daughter of David George and Martha H. Clark: born 27 Sep 1863 in Richland Co., IL; died 14 Apr 1942 in Peotone, Will Co., IL and was buried in the Onarga Cemetery, Onarga, Iroquois Co., IL.

15. William T. Dow, son of Lorenzo Dow and Susan Baker: born 12 Jan 1871 in Latona, North Muddy Twn., Jasper Co., IL ; married 26 Sep 1889 in Jasper Co., IL; died 28 Nov 1943 in Effingham, Effingham Co., IL and was buried in the Trexler Cemetery, Jasper Co., IL.

16. Clarissa May Newell, daughter of Robert Newell and Mary Armour and adopted daughter of Henry Lesser and Lovie Jane Whitehurst: born 20 Jan 1873 in Latona, North Muddy Twn., Jasper Co., IL; died 12 Oct 1941 in Effingham, Effingham Co., IL and was buried in the Trexler Cemetery, Jasper Co., IL.


So this means I am......

4/16ths English (25%)
4/16ths German (25%)
4/16ths unknown (25%)
2/16ths Scotch (12.5%)
1/16th French (6.25%)
1/16th Dutch (6.25%)


This was so much fun! I now know that I need to do some more research on my mother's side of the family. I'm woefully lopsided; my dad's family has been easier because of the amount of information that was available to me via my grandmother Beulah. Well, shame on me!

Wordless Wednesday - Amanda Jane (Garrard) Hammack

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 1c , or Thomas Newton Browning, the Jack Of All Trades

Thomas Newton Browning, the third son of James Browning and Jane Nevitt (see this post for a further introduction to his parents) was born on 25 Oct 1844 in Harrison County, Ohio. He came to Crawford County, Illinois with his family in 1849 and settled near Bristol Landing, about two miles southeast of Palestine. His father died when Thomas was seven years old, leaving his mother to care for her brood of six (Elias, Joseph, Thomas, Sarah, Mary Jane and Margaret) by herself.

As a result, Thomas never had much schooling. He must've started working as soon as he could lift a hand to help his older brothers Elias and Joseph. No doubt this helped turn him into the man he became. By all accounts Thomas was never the sort to settle for any one thing over any length of time. Throughout his life he was a jack of all trades and seemed to have many irons in the fire. I wonder sometimes if the experiences he had growing up was one of the two major experiences in his life -- his Civil War service being the other -- that taught him not to place all his eggs in one basket, so to speak.

In 1860 he was working as a farm hand. In December of 1861, at the age of 17, Thomas enlisted in the Union Army. According to one account (W. H. Perrin's History Of Crawford and Clark Counties, IL, 1883, pg. 228) he was too young to enlist as a common soldier so he signed up as a drummer boy in Company F of the 62^nd IL and was placed on the staff of musicians until the official band was organized. He mustered in on April 1862 in Jonesboro, Illinois. I don't have his entire service file (as of yet -- another to-do for me!) but all the other sources I have only list him as a private with no mention of any musical service. A picture of him taken during the war is to the right.

On 19 December 1862 Thomas was was one of a detachment of soldiers from the 62^nd camped in the garrison at Holly Springs, Mississippi. He'd been there since the first week of December; his regiment had been attached to the 1st Brigade of the district of Jackson, Tennessee's 16th Army Corps. Holly Springs was a cushy post back then -- it housed Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant and her son and was one of the Union's major route of munitions and supplies for their armies. That bitterly cold night the residents of the town threw a huge Christmas Ball and invited the soldiers. Thomas had just turned 18 and was away from home and the whiskey was flowing -- did he get himself drunk like so many other soldiers did? Maybe he did. Maybe they stayed up late drinking and dancing and went to bed secure in the knowledge that they could sleep late the next morning. He was probably doing just that when a band of Confederates commanded by Major General Earl 'Buck' Van Dorn moved in and captured the town.

I can imagine the fright of being knocked awake by the sound of gunfire. Swords clattering, yelling, and screaming horses and men. Struggling to pull on your boots and find your weapons in a place where you assumed you'd be safe. Maybe half bleary with the drink that hadn't worn off from the night before. The capture of the soldiers at Holly Springs went almost without a fight, it's said, and it's also said that over 1500 Union men signed paroles that day. Thomas was one of them. (To be paroled meant a prisoner of war promised to refrain from trying to escape or to take up arms against his captors.) I imagine he was frightened of what might happen to him if he didn't. Thomas was sent back to Benton Barracks in Missouri and arrived there on 10 January 1863, where he was exchanged. He continued to serve, re-enlisting as a veteran on 28 December 1863. On 30 Mar 1864 he was transferred to the new Consolidated 62^nd and was finally mustered out for good at Little Rock on 6 March 1866.

After the war he returned to Crawford County and married Sarah Ann Huls on 26 Sep 1866. Sarah was the daughter of Joseph Hansen Huls and Amanda Martha O'Kennedy. Thomas was the first of the children of James Browning and Jane Nevitt to marry into the family of Joseph and Amanda Huls -- Thomas's sisters Mary Jane (who married Amos K. Huls a few months later) and Margaret Ann (who married Charles Francis Huls in 1869) would soon follow suit.

Thomas and Sarah (seen below about 1870 or so?) settled five miles northwest of Robinson and thus began his interesting life as a jack of all trades. Thomas tried his hand at farming but the life didn't suit him so in March of 1868 Sarah's older brother Andrew Huls took Thomas on as a co-proprietor of his clothing, boot and shoe business. Perhaps he did so because Sarah was pregnant with the couple's first child, Effy May. Thomas and Andrew called the venture Huls & Browning's Clothing, Boots and Shoes. The venture began drying up soon; perhaps one of the causes was that Thomas found his heart went out of the effort when Effy died at 12 days old in May. By August the partners were attempting to sell their remaining stock. Their partnership lasted until October, when Thomas offered his peddling wagon up for sale. Thomas and Sarah went off to Terre Haute in Vigo County, Indiana, and lived there for four years while he worked at the Terre Haute Iron And Nail Works. Their son Clifford was probably born there in 1871.

By 1874 the family was back in Crawford County, where Thomas was moving up in the world -- he was elected a Justice of the Peace that year. By 1883 he'd begun to sell insurance, representing Home, Phoenix, German-American of New York, Royal, and German of Freeport and Peoria. By 1888 he was an attorney and he and Sarah had four more children, Leola, Iona, Ralph and Alta Mearl. By 1889 he'd added hotelier to his repertoire by purchasing the stock of a local hotel called the Cottage Hotel and taking charge of it.

By 1897 Thomas and Sarah and the children were back in Indiana, settling in Indianapolis. Perhaps they left Crawford County after the sad occasion of their daughter Iona's passing from pulmonary disease in 1896. He was a real estate agent at that time. Another daughter, Leola, died in 1900. Ten years later, in 1910, Thomas was in his 60's and nearing retirement. He had chosen to work as a railroad conductor.

One would think at this stage of the game Thomas and Sarah would have settled into a stationary life. Not so. Sometime between 1910-1912 Thomas and Sarah decided to move to San Diego, California. Their son Ralph was already there by 1910 so I suppose they went to join him. Their daughter Alta Mearl went along. Sarah died in 1912 and Alta Mearl lived with her father until his death in January of 1917.

Sarah and Thomas are buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego, as is their daughter Alta Mearl (who married Hugh Richard Kelzer and died in 1962.) I've been told they don't have stones but plaques. I sure would like to get a photo of all of them, if there are some to take.

Thomas Newton's life must have been full to the brim with new experiences. Living through the war, being a prisoner, and then coming back to make much of himself even though he'd had a rough beginning. One little fact about his life makes me curious, though; in 1868 he joined the Sons of Temperance. Perhaps he swore off the life of liquor because of what happened at Holly Springs? I like to think he did.

Wordless Wednesday -- Margaret Jane (Conrad) Eagleton (1834-1878)

Wow! My first "real" Wordless Wednesday post........and a new blog header to boot!


Photograph:

EAGLETON, Margaret Jane CONRAD (1834-1878), Tintype. Photographed c. 1870 by unknown photographer, unknown place, probably Crawford County, Illinois. Privately held by Patricia Browning, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Arlington, Texas. 2009.

Tombstone Tuesday, or Why I Should Stay Away From Cars

At right is the tombstone of Joseph Browning, my g-g-grandfather. Joseph was one of the sons of James Browning and Jane Nevitt (See "The Browning Series: Pt. 1 - James and Jane" in my sidebar for his parents.) I've written about Joseph before; I wrote about his Civil War heroics in this post. I own his original discharge papers and his original National Guard papers as well as a picture taken of him around 1864 when he was in the war. I have all his pension papers and even the pocket watch he used to carry.

Tonight, though, I've chosen not to speak of his interesting life. I'm sure I'll get around to that at some point since he was such a fascinating man and there's always more to say than I have room to! No, tonight I speak of his equally interesting death and how it eerily parallels another of my ancestor's deaths, the death of Robert Elbert Garrard. My grandparents were Virgil Joseph Browning and Beulah Ethel Garrard. Joseph is my grandfather Virgil's grandfather. Robert was my grandma Beulah's father.

The year was 1916. Joseph was 74 years old and living in Palestine, Illinois with his third wife, Francis "Fanny" (Daugherty) Higgins Seaney Browning. According to family tradition he had decided that afternoon to go pick up some things at the local grocery. Palestine is a tiny town now, so I can only imagine its size then. Joseph hopped on his bicycle and began to pedal into downtown. Now I don't know exactly how many cars there were on the road in 1916, but I can't imagine there were enough to put a body in too much danger in a place my dad calls a 'poke and plumb' town -- poke your head out the window and you're plumb out of town. So what were the odds that on this afternoon, Joseph would climb on his bike and get himself struck down in the street by a passing car?

Apparently pretty good. He did exactly that. A young man of 18 named Miles Hughes ran him over but it doesn't appear to have been the young man's fault. It appears that my aged g-g-grandfather turned himself into the path of the vehicle and was struck, breaking his leg and doing enough internal damage that he died 5 hours later of a cerebral hemorrhage. The article about his death was given to me by a cousin whose great-grandfather had saved it all these years. It is shown to the left; click to read!

Fast forward. The year is now 1938. We move to the town of Robinson, about 10 miles west of Palestine. After a leisurely afternoon meal over at her parent's house, my grandma Beulah begins to help her 78-yr old mother Louisa Adaline (Eagleton) Garrard clean up in preparation for a night of visiting. Her 85-year old father Robert Elbert steps out of the house and crosses his front yard to attend to his business in the outhouse.

He is on his way back when tragedy strikes. Across the street a little girl about five or six years old is sitting in the front seat of her father's car, waiting for her daddy to 'wind up' the car. Back then, grandma said, many cars had a crank that you had to wind to get it to go. Her father was cranking up the car and somehow that little girl pushed or pulled or knocked the car out of whatever the old term for 'park' was. It shot out across the street and over the curb and hit Robert as he was re-crossing his lawn to go back inside. He didn't die instantly but he was as internally damaged as Joseph had been. He lasted a few hours before finally passing away.

Now what are the odds of THAT?

Oh, it gets better. When I was 13 I was riding my bicycle home from school. You see where this is going, don't you......?

Yes, I got hit. A man driving a pickup hit me in the middle of the road. I looked both ways that day -- I remember doing so very well, because that was what I always did on that corner. The police said later that he was going about 45 mph and it was lucky I saw him in time to leap off my bike or I might've met the same fate as my two grandfathers. As it was, I suffered a broken wrist and a broken leg. My bike was mush of course. And oh yes, the guy who hit me? His name was Elvis.....

You can't make this stuff up.

The Browning Series -- Part One, or James Browning and Jane Nevitt

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

My opening salvo is the family of my direct ancestor James Browning, Samuel and Margaret's first born child. James was born on 31 Oct 1815 in Harrison County, OH. I've always suspected that Margaret was pregnant with James before she and Samuel married on 9 Feb 1815 but if not, the poor girl only had a week or so of grace before conceiving!

When James was 14, in 1829, a young girl of 9 named Jane Nevitt became his mother's step-niece. Margaret's brother James Markee had just married Rhoda (Johnson) Nevitt, a widow with two young girls, Mary and Jane. No doubt the two families spent time together and over the years a closeness developed between James and Jane for the couple decided to marry. They were wed on 23 Jun 1839 in neighboring Tuscarawas County, OH by William C. Kennedy, JP. James was 23 and Jane was 19. James had been training to be a cooper before he and Jane married and no doubt his training gave him confidence that he could support a wife and a child. A recording of their marriage license is shown to the left.

Did the couple "have" to get married? Perhaps. Their first born son, Elias, was either born on 18 Apr 1839 or 18 Apr 1840. Lacking a birth certificate, the evidence swings both ways. The date on his tombstone says 1839. The 1850 census, taken in December of that year, lists him as 10 years of age. I can't ever prove it of course, but my own intuition about it all tells me that he was born in 1839 and that's why James and Jane went over to Tuscarawas County to get married. Their families weren't known as well and they could leave the baby behind!

James and Jane lived for a decade in Washington Township near Tippecanoe in Harrison County. The couple had five children there (Elias, Joseph, Thomas N., Sarah Ann and Mary Jane) before becoming the first of the Brownings to move to Crawford County, Illinois. They packed their belongings and arrived there sometime in late 1849 before the birth of their last child, Margaret Ann. They didn't blindly move to a random part of the country -- no, most probably they moved to join Jane’s mother Rhoda and her husband James M. Markee. The elder Markees had made the trip to IL around 1846 to join James’s cousins Samuel, William and John Minard Markee.

James and Jane settled in Montgomery Township in Crawford County and probably wrote home about the land and and its bounty, for they were soon joined by James' parents Samuel and Margaret and nine of their remaining twelve children. Their bliss didn't last long, however; as I mentioned in the last post, an outbreak of yellow fever swept through the country and many people died in those years. It's entirely probable James Browning was one of its victims. He died on 8 August 1852 and was buried in the Browning family plot in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery in Montgomery Township.

After James’s death Jane and her children were left to fend for themselves. Accounts of their life vary. According to their son Thomas Browning’s biographical sketch in Paul Selby’s Crawford County – Biographical, Thomas was “put out among strangers” after his father’s death. It's indicated by their son (and my direct ancestor) Joseph Browning’s obituary, printed in the Palestine Register in 1916, that the family moved to Bristol Landing around the year 1854. Bristol Landing is almost two miles southeast of Palestine IL and is a stretch of land very close to where the Sugar Creek flows into the Wabash River.

The two sons of James and Jane mentioned above, Elias and Joseph, have been featured in my blog before. Remember the civil war mementos my cousin had, here? Elias and Joseph were two parts of that triumvirate that included Jacob Johnson who served together in the Civil War out of a volunteer regiment from Missouri. If you're interested in how their lives meshed in a different way other than that war you should go read that post.

On 21 Jan 1860 Jane married a native of England many years her senior named William Jennings. William and Jane had one son, Richard, in 1861. I found the family in the 1865 IL state census but that's the last time I find Jane anywhere. I can't seem to find her in the 1870 or the 1880 census, which frustrates me to no end! I found her son Richard as a servant in the 1880 census but Jane's nowhere to be found.

The next time I find her is in the Kirk Cemetery in Robinson Township! She died on 3 Feb 1894. I've made a note (one of sooo many in my task list!) to research the local papers to see if I can find her obituary. Perhaps that'll help me add some more color to the last 30 years of her life. Who knows -- maybe I can't find her because she'd married again and moved to Timbuktu? Ahhhhh, supposition! Isn't it lovely?

You can see a list of James and Jane's Browning children on the footer to my blog. I'm sure I'll tell stories about them in future posts, but for now I will supply a small rundown of their marriages. Elias Browning married Sarah Ellen Kent. Joseph Browning -- my direct ancestor -- married Almarena Mathewson. Thomas Newton Browning married Sarah Ann Huls. Sarah Elizabeth married Samuel Selwyn Plummer. Mary Jane married Amos K. Huls, and Margaret Ann married Charles Francis Huls. Five of the six children that James and Jane had took a family photo around 1911 and I have placed a copy of that photo here to the left.

I'll take a moment, though, to list what I know about Richard, Jane's only child with William Jennings. Richard was born 26 Mar 1861 and married Mary Lackey, the daughter of Thomas Lackey and Ann Eliza Boatright, on 26 Nov 1895 in Hardinsville in Crawford County. The couple had no known living children. Richard died on 17 Jun 1938 and Mary died on 3 Jul 1948. They're buried in the Palestine Cemetery in Crawford County.

----

Other posts featuring this family:

• (Not At All) Wordless Wednesday -- Civil War Mementos (feat. Joseph Browning)
• ...Why I Should Stay Away From Cars (feat. Joseph Browning)
• Thomas Newton Browning, Jack of All Trades (feat. T.N. Browning)
  

(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.

Tombstone Tuesday - The McConnells (And My First Trip Back to Their Home)

The tombstone(s) featured for tonight's edition of Tombstone Tuesday really aren't tombstones at all. There aren't any of John Coleman McConnell and his wife Rachel Browning. Their burial location -- in the tiny, mostly-hidden McConnell cemetery right outside of Tippecanoe, Harrison County, OH -- lies directly behind that of their son Theodore McConnell, the stone that is seen in the picture. We know this because Theodore directed that he "be laid at the feet of his sainted mother," and Rachel's will dictated that she be laid beside her husband.

Rachel's husband John Coleman McConnell was the son of Robert MConnell and Prudence Coleman. John was born 1 January 1807 in Belmont Co., OH and died 18 July 1873 in Harrison Co., OH. Rachel was the sixth child of Samuel Browning and Margaret Markee and was born 25 January 1825 in Athens Twn in Harrison County, OH. She died in November of 1902 in Washington Twn. in Harrison County. John and Rachel were married by R. K. Price, JP in the county on 9 April 1848.

I located the McConnell Cemetery and took this picture during my first trip to Harrison County last August. It was one of the two highlights of the trip for me. Of the thirteen children of Samuel and Margaret, one of Rachel's sisters moved to Kansas and a brother to Indiana but Rachel was the only one to choose to stay in Ohio with her husband. The other ten moved to Crawford County, IL, with their parents and cousins.

I imagine sometimes how hard that must've been, to watch your entire family ride away. I know they kept in touch -- one of Rachel's sons went to Kansas to work a summer on his aunt's farm and one of Rachel's Illinois nieces came to stay a while with her and her husband John -- but for the most part, Rachel was alone; bereft of her Browning kindred. She did, however, have nine children and a husband to keep her busy!

The story of finding the cemetery is what I'm here to tell today, though. I'd done the research to ascertain its location before going to OH. My parents and daughter and I drove around the backroads for a few hours and during one go-round I happened to see a farm with a sign that said "McConnell" on it. We got out and knocked on the farm door but no one answered; it looked abandoned. Adjacent to the farmhouse was a ramshackle building made of hand-hewn wooden beams that looked like it might've once been an old home. I walked around to the back and took a picture of the building before heading back to the car.

We drove around another hour up and down the road the cemetery was supposed to be on without any luck. Finally, as we again passed the farm with the building, my father said, "Let's just go up the hill here and stop and ask at the first house we see." It sounded like a plan. We pulled in to the first house on the hill and I got out, knocked on the door, introduced myself and explained that we were looking for the old McConnell cemetery. The lady looked surprised and asked me to tell her who we were looking for. I told her Rachel Browning and her husband John McConnell. The lady just shook her head. "Well, I reckon I know them. John and Rachel were my husband's great-great-grandparents."

Holy cow, I was flabbergasted! Talk about serendipity! She invited us in and she showed me a xeroxed copy of an old picture of John Mcconnell. She said the original was in the hands of another McConnell and it was in an oval frame and couldn't be removed for fear of damaging it. She gave me his name and number as well as the name and number of yet another McConnell researcher. Then she told me her husband was the caretaker of the McConnell cemetery and she'd direct us to its location.

When we got there we saw why we hadn't seen it and would've never seen it if we'd never taken a chance and stopped and asked. The cemetery was tucked way back in the woods and practically invisible from the road. A 'fence' made of blocks ringed its boundaries. My daughter and I climbed the hill. It was too steep for my parents so they rested in the car while I took pictures and sat amongst the leaves for a while. I was thrilled beyond belief to be at the resting place of another of Samuel and Margaret's children.

Counting Rachel I've now stood in front of seven of them (James, Elias, Julia, Rachel, Sarah, Ezra and Edward.) I have pictures of one other (Susannah) and I know where two others (Absalom, Samuel J.) are possibly buried. The resting places of the last three (Margaret, Asbury T. and John Wesley) are currently unknown.

Before I left my cousin's home to go in search of the cemetery she said one more thing to me. She told me to go back down to the McConnell farm and take a look at the old building. I said I had, and she said, "Good. That's where John and Rachel lived. John built it with his own hands." I was so glad I'd taken that picture! The picture above and to the left is the house.

To think.....what if we'd never went and knocked on that door? I wouldn't have found Rachel's resting place. Wouldn't have known I was looking at her home. Wouldn't have been able to see a picture of her husband. And on my next trip next month....I wouldn't have new cousins to meet!

Serendipity.

(Not At All) Wordless Wednesday -- Civil War Mementos

The three items featured in this picture belong to my cousin Linda and are from three men -- all from Crawford County, Illinois -- that served together in the same company in the Civil War: Company H in the 11th Regt of Missouri Infantry.  These three men were boyhood friends and brothers and their lives would become entangled in many other ways other than their shared service.

The first item -- a Civil War era bible -- belonged to Elias Browning, a Corporal in Company H. Elias was my cousin Linda's great-great-grandfather. According to her family tradition, Elias carried this bible with him during his service. The bible was most likely given to him by his sweetheart, Sarah Ellen Kent. Sarah and Elias married in 1866 soon after the war was over.

The second item is a bowtie worn by a man named Jacob Cyrus Johnson, who also served as a Private in Company H. Jacob and Elias had been best friends since boyhood.

The third and last item is the handkerchief that the bible and the bowtie are sitting on. It was worn around the neck of Joseph Browning, Elias Browning's younger brother by two years. Joseph was a Sergeant in Company H.

The three men fought together in the siege of Vicksburg.  According to Jacob Johnson's testimony in his pension records and information in his obituary, Elias and Joseph were on the field when Jacob fell, seriously wounded through the neck which caused paralysis in his left arm.  Elias and Joseph carried Jacob off the field and as they did so Joseph pulled off his handkerchief and held it to Jacob’s neck to staunch the bleeding. This quick thinking helped save Jacob’s life.  Jacob was treated at Overton Hospital in Memphis, TN from 28 May 1862 to 17 Aug 1863.

Family lore says the handkerchief shown in the picture is the one Joseph used to save Jacob. You can't really see it in the picture but it is stained in places, a bit to the right under the bowtie and around the bible but elsewhere as well.

But this battle wasn't the end to the connection between the Browning boys and Jacob Johnson. In 1869 Elias died from complications from the dysentery he'd contracted during his service. He left his wife Sarah with two young children, Thomas Marion and Eliza Jane, to raise on her own. Jacob, meanwhile, had married Harriet Norton in 1869 but their marriage was a short one for Harriet died in 1871. Jacob was then also left with two young children to raise on his own. Jacob went and asked for Sarah's hand and -- best friends with Elias 'til the end -- he married Sarah in 1872 and raised Elias' children as his own. Jacob and Sarah never had any children of their own but they raised their four combined children together -- Thomas M. and Eliza Jane Browning, and Orren and Ida Johnson. They had a long marriage. Jacob died in 1916 and Sarah followed in 1931.

Joseph married Almarena Mathewson in 1866 and they were married until her death in 1886. Joseph married twice more -- to Harriet Berlin and then to Frances Daugherty -- and died in a bicycle accident in 1916. He was run over by a car. Yes, you heard right. 1916.

Joseph was my great-great-grandfather on my paternal side. I find it quite ironic that he was killed by an automobile, as my paternal great-grandfather Robert Elbert Garrard was also struck and killed by a vehicle in 1938. To make matters worse I seem to have "inherited" this quality, though unlike both my ancestors, it didn't result in my death. I was hit by a car on my bicycle when I was a young teen and broke my wrist and my leg. I was lucky, they said. I'd say so!

Joseph and Elias Browning were the sons of James Browning and Jane Nevitt. I'll be blogging about them soon!

Tombstone Tuesday - Joseph and Delinda (Plymell) Nichols

It seems a lot of my time on this blog recently has been taken up with the Plymell family and their relations. I'm not exactly sure why that's been happening since the major focus of my research (as well as the impetus for beginning this blog!) has been my Brownings.

However, I'm a firm believer in the idea that you go where these things lead you and lately they've been pointing me towards Plymells. So be it!

The headstone to the left is the stone marking the final resting place of Joseph Nichols and his wife Delinda Jane Plymell. They are my third great-grandparents. This stone is in the New Hebron Cemetery in Honey Creek Twn., Crawford County, Illinois.

Joseph's already been featured on this blog with a post; you can find it here. Delinda has been mentioned a couple of times before as well -- if the Man With The Fiddle from the post below is indeed George Edward Vane, then he would have been Delinda's nephew.

I have spoken a few places about Delinda's as-yet-unproven Indian heritage. According to descendants of her brother James Fuller Plymell, Fuller's children and family members claimed Indian descent from the Wyandot tribe although they refused to make it "official" by going through the government. I heard something slightly different in my family. In mine, it was that Delinda's mother Margaret was half Iroquois. (I have since learned that the Wyandot tribe is of Iroquoian extraction.)

I remember going over to my grandparent's house when I was young -- the house that Joseph Nichols built with his own hands, though I didn't realize it at the time -- and being fascinated by two large oval-framed pictures hanging on the walls. One was of an old man holding a little boy in a dressing gown. I was sufficiently awed at being told that little boy was my grandfather. It paled in comparison, though, to the other person in the other oval frame, Joseph's wife Delinda. My grandfather would say, "That's my great-grandmother Delinda. She was a Plymell. She was also Indian. Iroquois Indian. Can't you see it in her face, Patti?"

I would stare for a long time looking at her. Something about her bearing fascinated me and even slightly scared and intimidated me. With my peaches and cream complexion and red hair, I simply couldn't believe she was related to me. Her coloring was dark; I pictured ramrod straight black hair pulled back into that bun at the nape of her neck. Though she looked very tired she still held her head up so proudly. Her cheekbones were sky high, and her eyes! Deep set and intense. Her eyes, I imagined in my youthful feverish way, were those of a hidden warrior princess imprisioned in the trappings of a gingham dress.

Yes, grandpa, I can see it! I would always say. It was our ritual. And as I write this post, all I have to do is look up over my computer desk and hanging on my wall, still in its same oval frame, is Delinda's picture. Those intense eyes look down on me still. The picture I've posted above and to my right is a smaller version of the photo in the oval frame and without the artist's inkings added to it.

She does look Indian. Doesn't she? Or is it just my still-youthful, feverish imagination?

Tombstone Tuesday - Sweet Sweet Jane (b. & d. 1859) and Olive (1834 -1858)

Today's stone is actually two. One (the small stone leaning over on the left of this picture) is a small, partially buried stone in the New Hebron Cemetery in Crawford County, Illinois. It is the final resting place of Jane, the first of the three girls born to Joseph Nichols and Delinda Jane Plymell.

Jane was born on 4 May 1859 and died a week later on 11 May 1859. Her stone is covered with the grime of age and it leans backward, as if it is tired. It feels like such a sad little stone to me.

It's not as sad as the stone that rests to Jane's right, though. Jane's aunt Olive Ann Plymell is buried there. Olive's stone sunk into the ground a long time ago and then the top part cracked and snapped off in the center. When I was there last August I managed to dig half of it up but the other half has sunken so deep that it would take more effort and tools than I had available to me at the time.

Luckily Burl Rich in Crawford County had transcribed this cemetery in 2002, seemingly prior to the damage that Olive's stone has undergone. According to this site, it says:

Plymell, Olive Ann
Dau. of J&M
died February 3, 1858
aged 23Y 6M 22D

That puts Olive born about 1834. Olive was Delinda Jane's sister and both were daughters of James Plymell and his wife Margaret. We don't know Margaret's last name or if she even had one -- I'd always been told that Margaret's father was Iroquois. Other Plymell researchers are looking into it but as it stands now, my family's lore appears fairly accurate. Other Plymell branches from James and Margaret have more direct avenues of information and say that she was actually half Wyandot. You can read more about the origins of the Wyandot people at Wikipedia, but basically they were of Iroquoian extraction, a blend of the Huron Confederacy peoples and their Petun (Tobacco People) neighbors. It's a very interesting read!

The James and Margaret Plymell family originally lived in Delaware County, Ohio, and then moved onward into Marion County. Delinda Jane was born in Delaware County in 1822. James and Margaret were buried in Marion County, Ohio. Soon thereafter their children came to Crawford County.

Sweet, sweet Jane. And Olive too.

World War I Letters -- Arthur B. Creswell

As I mentioned in a post early last week (see March 2) I've taken the time to read through the letters my grandmother Beulah received from servicemen in World War I. I was surprised to find that instead of writing to one serviceman, my grandmother had written to two! So, first things first -- in this installment, we explore the first set of letters.

The first set, consisting of three letters, was written by a man named Arthur B. Creswell, a Private in Battery F, 311th Field Artillery of the American Expeditionary Forces. The first is dated 29 Jan 1919 and was sent from Benoite Vaux, France. The second is postdated 31 Mar 1919 and was sent from Pont sur Meuse, France. The third is dated 10 May 1919 and was sent from the port of St. Nazaire, France. He says he is stationed at a camp that looks like it is spelled Camp Guehrie? (If anyone can help me with the name of the camp that'd be great. I've tried to locate a camp with similar name online with no luck so far.)

Arthur was the friend of my grandmother's brother that I mentioned in a previous post. He and my great-uncle Raymond Orlond Garrard (Grandma's brother) were in the same unit and the two of them were two of what came to be known as "Doughboys." The letter of 29 Jan 1919 mentions that the unit had been heading up to Germany with a convoy of horses and mules and that my great-uncle Raymond got sick in Luxembourg and had to go to the hospital. Arthur says that it was his understanding that Raymond had been transferred to another outfit. The next letter (31 March 1919) mentions that Raymond had rejoined the 311th a few days prior. Arthur also says that a week before they'd moved to Pont sur Meuse and are near a city named Comeroy and that in the next week they would be moving back to the place they'd been in January (though he is not more specific about this.) In the last letter (10 May 1919) Arthur says he expects to be called back to the USA any day now and that of all the time he'd spent in France, St. Nazaire was the most beautiful place he'd seen.

Enclosed in the last letter (the one dated in May) was a photo negative. I scanned it and did a negative reversal on it and ended up with the picture you see on the right. The man to the left in the picture is my great-uncle Raymond. I'm not sure, but since the negative was tucked into the envelope, perhaps the man standing next to Raymond is Arthur? Perhaps this picture was taken of the two before they headed off to France in the war. Then again, it might have been taken in France before they headed home. I'll never know.

I discovered a wonderful short book written about the 311th by William Elmer Bachman called "The Delta of the Triple Elevens." You can download it for free here. Bachman says that the 311th left France on 14 May 1919 (Arthur had been right in his guess after all!) on the USS Edward Luckenbach and finally sighted land in the harbor in New York on 27 May at 5 pm in the evening.

There had to be no sweeter sight in the world to those homesick boys than the Statue!

Arthur's draft registration papers are on Ancestry.com. He signed them on 17 Jun 1917. He describes himself as an oil well driller, age 28, tall, with a medium build and black hair and black eyes. Black eyes? He must mean brown, surely?

Anyway, Arthur was born in Palestine, Crawford County, Illinois, on 4 Sept 1888. He was the son of James Wilson (Wilson J.) Creswell and his wife Rilla B., maiden name unknown at this time. After the war Arthur went back home to Crawford County and by the 1920 census he is found living in LaMotte Township, married to a girl named Annie. He sure didn't waste any time, did he? The couple have no children at that time but by 1930 Arthur and Annie have moved to Honey Creek Township and have a 4 year old son named Harold.

I went to the social security death index and found that Arthur had received his last social security benefits in Eddy County, NM. I looked in Find-A-Grave and found both he and his wife Millie Anna buried in the Twin Oaks Memorial Park in Artesia in Eddy County. Annie was born in 1893 and died 31 Jan 1964. Arthur died on 29 May 1970. I've included the pictures of their tombstones and I thank Delma Ingram at Find-A-Grave for posting them. Arthur's is a World War I memorial grave and I like knowing that I have what is written on his tombstone, written in his own hand.

(By the way, Find-A-Grave is a great resource and a fabulous service and I've made it a point to volunteer my time for them before. I need to make an effort to post all my relatives' stones there and I encourage everyone else to do so as well! If Delma hadn't done what she did I might still be wondering where Arthur rested.)

I still don't know Millie Anna's maiden name since I haven't had much luck finding it in the IL State Marriage Index database on the ISA website. I also wonder if Arthur and Annie's son Harold had any children. Now that I know that Arthur and Annie went to New Mexico, I also wonder, when did they move there? Did Harold go with them or was he old enough to have stayed in the Crawford County area? Always questions.

I'd sure like Arthur's letters to go home.

The next installment will be about the second set of letters my grandmother received from a serviceman. This set has presented much more of a challenge to me. My grandmother didn't know this boy.

UPDATE (9 Mar 2009): I have located Harold, Arthur's son. I will be sending his father's letters to him sometime this week. I hope he enjoys them!

(Not At All) Wordless Wednesday -- The Vane Children (c1869)

Wordless Wednesday again! Wordless? Riiiiiiight. Not happening!

The picture to the right is of Cemantha Jane Vane and her younger brother William James, called "Chimie" on the photo (which I believe is a phonetic rendering of the nickname 'Jimmy.') These two are the children of John Vane and Adaline Plymell. John and Adaline were married on 2 Nov 1848 in Crawford County, Illinois, and moved to Arcadia, Crawford Co., KS around 1872. The couple had five known children -- Martin Luther, William Shannon, George Edward, Cemantha Jane, and William James. John died in Arcadia in 1889 and Adaline followed shortly thereafter in 1890.

Adaline Plymell is my 3rd great aunt. Her sister Delinda Jane, who married Joseph Nichols, was my 3rd-g-grandmother.

This photo was taken in Decatur in Macon Co., Illinois. Originally I believed the time frame to be around 1865 because the style of photo (card stock, double bordered) looked familiar to me from others I also have. Sure enough, I have a set of pictures that look exactly like this from my Nichols family -- John Nichols, his wife Delinda Jane (mentioned above), and their daughters Eliza Ursula and Missouri Ann. That set of pictures is dated c1865 according to the writing on the back, which is in Ursula's hand.

There are two sets of handwriting on the back of this photo, however (see the back of the photo below.) One set -- listing the children's names -- is Ursula's. The other set is unknown but I think dates to a slightly later period since the "lives in Arcadia" notation could only have been mentioned after the Vanes moved on to Kansas in 1872.

Cemantha Vane looks about 8-10 years old in this photo so I'm guessing this photo is closer to 1869. I'm saying this because the little boy in the dressing gown in the photo is William James Vane and he wasn't born until late 1868/early 1869.

The back has a listing of a few Curnutts (Cemantha's children I presume, though to my admittedly limited knowledge I only show Oscar as her definite child.) Also listed are Cordova, Charley and Will Plymell. These three are nephews of Adaline and Delinda, sons of their brother Wallace William Plymell.

One of the most interesting things about this photo to me was the photographer. E. A. (Edward A.) Barnwell had a studio called the People's Ambrotype Gallery at 24 North Water Street in Decatur, Illinois. According to this site, it so happened that in May of 1860 Decatur was the location of Abraham Lincoln's endorsement for President at the Republican state convention. Lincoln got his picture taken after his speech on 9 May 1860 and E.A. Barnwell was the photographer!

I'm not sure when E.A. stopped taking photographs and sold his studio to W.C. Pitner, but the above link implies that he sold out around 1863 and moved to Cerro Gordo, IL, just a few miles east of Decatur. Perhaps Pitner continued to use Barnwell's name on the studio -- I'm not sure. Hopefully I can find out.

Tombstone Tuesday - William Finley Eagleton (1862-1902)

For Tombstone Tuesday I thought I'd contribute the following picture and story about my great-great-uncle William Finley Eagleton.

(Thanks for taking the picture and putting it on Find-A-Grave, B.J.!)

William Finley was my grandma Beulah's uncle, her mother Louisa Adaline Eagleton's brother. He moved off to Colorado at an early age and the family never knew what became of him.

It wasn't until a while later that I unearthed a relative of Finley's -- one of his daughter's descendants. She was able to tell me what had happened and provided me with the article that I have included here. You can click on it and read it for the details. It is certainly a sad story but at the same time it is interesting to read how much reporting has changed in the last century. They didn't have any problems reporting about possible suicides nor did they refuse to reveal names to protect the identities of the innocent.

Fin's accident was just that -- an accident. I hope it was quick.

When I found out what had happened to him I told my grandmother. She said she wished that she could be given the chance to explain to her mother where her brother had gone to. He just disappeared and they never did hear from him again.

He certainly hadn't meant it that way.

William Finley Eagleton was born 2 Feb 1862 in Crawford County, Illinois, the son of Pvt. David Newton Eagleton and Margaret Jane Conrad. He married Eva Margaret Goddard on 30 April 1897 in Jamestown, Boulder Co., CO. He died of an accidental gunshot wound on 6 Jan 1902.

My Grandma and Her Letters from World War I

When my grandmother Beulah passed away in 2002 she entrusted me with all the errata of her life. She was born in 1900 so that was a lot of errata! She'd been the one chosen to ferret away all the treasures from her parent's families as well as her husband's because she'd been the only one to care. I spent many days with her sitting in her chair and me on the floor at her feet going through her belongings -- old pictures, letters, bibles -- and asking her who they belonged to. We would laugh and share stories and old memories. Grandma was a tiny woman, barely 4'11", but she had such a big presence! Other than my daughter she's the one person in my life that has meant the most to me. I miss her so fiercely I can still be brought to tears but I blink them back because I know she'd just admonish me in her soft voice. "Now, Patti," she'd say, "it's the way of things. I wanted to go. It was my time."

The generations in her family were long ones. Though I am only in my early 40's, my great-grandparents (my grandma's parents, that is) were born in the 1850s and 1860s. My grandma was 40 when she had my dad and her mother was 40 when she was born. She told me that when she was born in 1900 on a cold December day in Illinois, her dad put her in a shoebox in the bottom drawer of a bureau and moved it closer to the fire so the reflection of the heat would keep her warm. She said that he could hold her in the palm of his hand -- she was only about 2 1/2 lbs when she was born -- and they honestly didn't think she'd even live. She lived, all right! She lived until she was 101, long enough to see my daughter born and even better, long enough so that my daughter will be able to always remember her "great-nahnee."

I have many, if not most, of her things. She bestowed them upon me before her last stroke, the one that sent her permanently into the nursing home from her place in my parent's home. Now that she's gone, I'm the only one who cares. I have the cedar chest she got from my grandfather upon their wedding in 1934. In it rests McGuffey's Readers and old dolls and family bibles and letters and a hair book from the 1860's. I have a metal Coca-Cola cooler she had from the 40s or 50s that now houses many more old photographs. I have two heavy metal fishing tackle boxes that house deeds and letters and metal social security cards and old coins and....well, you get the picture.

The treasures in these boxes are so many that the lists above don't do them justice. They'll be fodder for many a future post, that's for sure! What made me begin this tale, however, was the letters my grandmother kept of her correspondence with a boy serving in the same outfit as her brother did during World War I. I've been thinking for some time now that I'd like to pull them out and transcribe them and then post them here now that it's almost assured that both writer and receiver are gone. After that I'd like to return them to his family members. What if he died later on in the War? What if the letters I own are the only written record of someone precious to someone else and I'm only holding onto them because my grandma did? No, I think they rightly belong in someone else's hands.

I think I'll find them tonight when I return home and see what I can do. Stay tuned!

Who's Number #21?

After reading the Educated Genealogist's post mentioning Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing's question about who is your Ahfentafel number #21, it inspired me to think of mine. Number #21 means your father's mother's father's mother. I am soooo late for this (I blame 13-hr days at work the last week and a half) but it sounded like fun!

My #21 is Mariah Elizabeth Haskin. Mariah was born on 10 April 1830 in Crawford County, IL. She was the daughter of Robert Cochran Haskin and Martha Elizabeth 'Betsy' White.

Mariah married William A. Garrard (the son of William Garrard and Rebecca Dunlap) in Crawford County on 5 April 1849. William A. was born 30 Oct 1822 in Hardinville, Crawford Co., IL.

William and Mariah were the parents of seven children: Thomas H., James A., Robert Elbert (my g-grandfather), Amanda Jane, William B., Mary A. and Dora A.

In November of 1864, tragedy struck the family. The cows they owned that grazed in the fields alongside their farm had eaten some snakeroot and the family drank the milk that they gave. The entire family sickened with the poison but only one person actually succumbed to the sickness; William, Mariah's husband. My grandmother (Robert Elbert's daughter Beulah) told me that from that day to the day of his death, Robert never would touch milk of any kind. I suppose it makes sense when you think about what had happened to him!

William was buried in the Haskin Cemetery in Honey Creek Township in Crawford County. Mariah was alone with seven children to feed -- five older children and a set of infant twins (Mary and Dora were only 15 mos. old at the time of their father's death.) I don't know what she did to make ends meet but assuredly she thought she needed to find a husband. Sure enough she found one -- a man named Jackson Glosser. They married on 25 Sep 1866.

My grandmother Beulah told me that according to her father, none of Mariah's children never liked, must less trusted, Mr. Glosser. Grandma told me about the rumors that swirled around about how Mr. Glosser had a penchant for drinking and had a cantankerous temper. According to Mariah's children, oftentimes Mariah took the brunt of it, but when she didn't, her children by William did.

Whatever the situation was, Mariah became pregnant, for in February of 1868 she gave birth to her second set of twins, a pair of sons. Days after their birth she died. They died before their third birthday and they were buried near her in an unmarked grave in the Haskin Cemetery. Mariah's children erected a stone for her and made sure to mention their father, William, on it. My grandmother said her father -- Mariah's son Robert -- believed that his mother had been killed by Mr. Glosser because he hadn't wanted her to become pregnant and that he had done it by poisoning her.

I have no idea if this is true. It's just rumor and high emotions. Stranger things have happened of course, and there was certainly bias against Mr. Glosser from Mariah's children. We'll never know. I'm just reporting what I was told.

It sure does make for an interesting story though!

Tombstone Tuesday/Genealogy Happy Dance, Pt III

At the end of the last post we were in 2001 and had just discovered the pieces of Margaret's stone. We looked that day without success for her grandson Olen's stone. According to the cemetery plat we had with us, it was supposed to have been placed to the right of Margaret's when you faced her stone. It was missing, and we assumed it had been felled by the same tree that had sheared Margaret's in half. As thrilled as we were about locating Margaret (and for the particulars of that story refer to my last post!) the four of us -- me, my cousin Pat, my other cousin Linda, and her husband Cliff -- were still pretty disappointed. We left the cemetery without anything left of poor Olen but a piece of paper and some memories.

Did I mention that my cousin Linda and her hubby Cliff were intrepid souls? Well they are! They went back to the Wilkin Cemetery a couple of times and continued looking, hoping to find little Olen's stone. They were frustrated until three years later, when in July 2004, Cliff decided to take a chance and utilize a probe to poke around in the ground. He did exactly that and lo and behold, he got a hit!

They very carefully delved into the ground, barely wanting to hope. It took a while but slowly Olen's stone emerged from its earthy prison. It had fallen over flat and was lying about 3-4 inches deep. No lawnmowers had chipped it and no trees had clipped it. The base was evenly broken and the stone had no grooves or fissures. It was in near-pristine condition, like it had been made only yesterday.

Cliff pulled it up and set it at the same time he set Margaret's. Having been there since 1856, you would never believe this little stone (the one to the left) was 152 years old. It's a beautiful piece of work. Though I was thrilled to see it and even more thrilled to have it standing proud beside grandma like the family had meant it to be, there was a part of me that was sad. Being in the ground had kept it whole; protected from the ravages of time and the elements. It's not so lucky any more. Someday its words will be gone forever. But for right now, little Olen sure looks grand!

Olen Barron Browning was the son of Asbury Taylor Browning and Minerva Corderman. He got his middle name from his maternal grandmother Sarah Viola Barron. He was born on 21 Sept 1853 in Crawford County IL and died on 8 Sept 1856 in Crawford County, IL. Olen was Taylor and Minerva's firstborn child.

Genealogy Happy Dance, aka "In Search Of......Margaret, Part II"

I told the first part of the story below and you definitely need to read that first. So go, go go.....

You're back? Okay! So now.....The Rest Of The Story.

Er, sorta.

Anywayyyy.......after finding Margaret's name in the Wilkin cemetery plat, other research tasks spurred by its discovery caught my attention. Realizing that Samuel likely wasn't buried next to Margaret had disappointed me even through my giddiness at finding her on the Wilkin Cemetery plat records. To help ease the disappointment I set about trying to find out who Olen was. It didn't take long to learn that little Olen (1853-1856) was the son of Samuel and Margaret's ninth child Asbury Taylor Browning and his wife Minerva Corderman.

The discovery did inspire me to begin tracing all of Samuel and Margaret's children, one by one, in the hopes that by doing so I would learn more about who Olen had been. This was when I finally learned the benefits of researching one family exclusively. By the time I'd been at it for a while I began to feel like I "knew" each and every one of them like the back of my hand. That familiarity is essential to good work and without it you may miss vital pieces of information that would have no context otherwise. Never let anyone tell you that hunches borne of familiarity aren't valuable tools. Follow them.

Anyway, the time and opportunity for a visit to Crawford County finally came. I flew down to Crawford County in July 2001 with Patricia O'Connor, a cousin that I'd been working with since the late 1990s. She and I had never physically met but we'd formed a solid bond during our researches. I was so excited to finally get to meet her! Her ancestor, John Wesley Browning (b. c1837) was Samuel and Margaret's 11th child while my ancestor, James (b. 1815) was their first.

Pat and I spent nearly a week in Robinson -- the county seat of Crawford County -- and during that week we got together with Cliff and Linda and took a trip out to the Wilkin Cemetery. They led me to Margaret's grave -- what there was of it -- and during the obligatory picture-taking/wandering the cemetery, a man drove up and got out and eventually approached us.

He introduced himself as the cemetery caretaker and when he noticed we were staring at Margaret's grave he pointed to the giant overgrown stump a few rows forward from Margaret's stone. "See that stump?" he said. "You want to know what probably happened to that grave there? About 50 years ago or so that was a huge tree that got hit by a stroke of lightning. Sent it crashing down into the middle of the cemetery and from what I hear, a lot of the stones in its path got busted up pretty good."

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach and everyone else looked like they were feeling the same. We thanked the caretaker and after a few more minutes we decided to take the last pictures and go ahead and go. It was July, the Illinois humidity was brutal, and everyone else was wilting. We all started back to the van to start the air conditioning but I was dragging my feet. I just kept thinking that there was something I was missing.

I turned back and told them to give me five minutes. They gladly cooled down in the van while I went back up to the cemetery, thinking to myself about what would have happened in the aftermath of that damaging lightning strike. Tombstones scattered everywhere, tree limbs all over. I noticed a large number of big branches thrown over the barbed wire fence around the perimeter and it started me wondering if they'd carted the stones towards the perimeter as well. I walked the perimeter and looked through all the underbrush with no results. I had about given up in frustration when something drew me back toward the stump in the middle. I looked at it a moment and then thought, "Well....surely they'd have propped the stones against the stump?"

Except there really wasn't too much of a stump anymore, just the remnants of one. So I bent down and started digging through the undergrowth -- which incidentally I recognized as poison oak! -- with my bare hands. I saw a flash of white and grabbed it, pulling it out into the light. Emblazoned on the face was a single word.

MARGARET,

and below it, faintly:

Wife of S Browning
died January 19

I don't really remember it but I know I let out a yell of triumph because Cliff came running out of the van. He said later he thought I'd been snakebit. I laid it down, shaking, and reached in again to pull out another part of the stone. This one showed a hand pointing to heaven. I laid it next to the part of the stone bearing her name and the two pieces fit like a glove.

I had to sit down then because I was weak, laughing and grinning and shaking like an idiot. It was easily the most exhilarating genealogical experience of my life.

To this day I recall the feeling I had standing in that cemetery and I can't help but wonder if Margaret herself wasn't calling me over to where her stone had fallen. Having been propped against the stump, had it toppled into the hole left as the tree decayed? It was the only logical explanation, of course. But the feeling of serendipity remains.

After a time I felt able to stand and the discoing commenced in earnest. All the cousins there were discoing that day! After we'd calmed a bit we lifted the stones and placed them on top of what was left in the ground. A perfect fit! I stood back and took the picture on the left. Cliff told me then that he was going to repair the stone. It took him a couple of years but he did it. The stone as it appears today is shown on the right.

Of course we still hadn't found Olen's stone. Margaret's stone had been busted into three pieces. At the time it seemed reasonable to assume that Olen's stone, sitting to the right of Margaret's like it had been, had caught the worst of the tree as it fell. I believed we'd never find it.

But that's.......not quite the the Rest Of The Story.

Part III, coming right up!