Autumn 2014
Leslie Tillett reminds, "The Pennsylvania Dutch (not Dutch at all, but German, the misnomer arising from the spelling and the anglicized pronunciation of 'Deutsch') are famous for their brightly colored and naively charming designs they applied to their objects of daily use--from their drinking glasses to their barns."
Likewise I've seen it written that "fraktur" is a style, not an object like a marriage certificate. A certificate might be designed in the German fraktur style.
Investigating Wikitree which may prove to be a useful tool for us treesearchers!
And not feeling as compelled to write much fiction in A Quilt for Mama since becoming immersed in the top quality Elm Creek Quilts series by Jennifer Chiaverini. I started with The Union Quilters and was both impressed and grateful for the author's ability to bring the controversy of historical argument into the minds and mouths of characters. As I've been cross-stiching a queen-seized family tree quilt top for my family I've lent an ear to the Elm Creek sewing circle but felt my heart stir for the characters as if they are neighbors in some America that still exists despite technology and time for those of us who hold fast to tradition and care to forge a together even in tumult.
Mama (Sherry Candy Lane) emphasizes that Grandma Pearl (Fox) Bohlinger would never concoct story. Grandma Pearl told Mama that our family has "Indian" in it. And, Mama adds, Pearl had Indian hair.
I suppose that's the way legend gets passed on through social history and through family. And be it exactly factual or grown bigger with tall in tale, legend takes hold just as strongly as truth in some cases.
We're using legend as impetus to firm up the facts. We can make inferences based upon evidence but that is not strictly genealogical proof by any means. We are examining lots of legend and facts to try and piece together a plausible case...
Pearl's father was Elias Fox; his father was Henry Fox who married Clarissa Long; that Henry Fox appears on census lists as in the household of John Hudson Fox and Catherine Fox (whom a genealogical society marks as cousins by virtue of the fact that John Hudson Fox's father was Joseph Newton Fox and Catherine's father was that man's brother Peter Fox). Census lists simply do not tell whole story and can introduce confusion. At this time we have no way of knowing for sure, for example, if Henry Fox was the child of John Hudson Fox and Catherine Fox or if these were the people who raised Henry. We had a tidbit of information suggesting John Hudson Fox married someone else first. And we have to compare what records we can round up with all the names and dates on the census lists.
We also find a maybe clue left by family in the list of relations to Joseph Newton Fox in carefully chosen names. Sired by Joseph were girls and boys and interestingly we find John Hudson Fox and James Wilson Fox...perhaps telling the story of one boy being the child of mother Emily (supposed daughter of Chief White Eyes) and the other being the child of mother Jane "Jennie" Wilson.
So we're reading widely about the time period 1776-1850 in history and also about the different cultures in our family tree undertaking. And we are getting back to the tasks of actual correspondence.
That's our update.
We received this lovely photograph from Olin Hartley in Texas. It's a Henry Fox, possibly the Henry Fox in his database which would be the Henry Fox born 4 APRIL 1803 (Greene County) and who died the 20th of October 1881; the Henry Fox who married Susannah Dulaney.
Olin's family includes a first cousin named Edward Allen Hartley (1913-1999) who married Thelma Marie Fox (1915-2001). They lived up Little Shannon Run outside of Mount Morris. Edward and Thelma's sons still own the farm and Olin's in touch with them.
Olin's family includes a first cousin named Edward Allen Hartley (1913-1999) who married Thelma Marie Fox (1915-2001). They lived up Little Shannon Run outside of Mount Morris. Edward and Thelma's sons still own the farm and Olin's in touch with them.
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| Henry Fox |
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| Sherry Candy Lane's Great-Grandfather Henry Fox who married Clarissa Long |
We were muddling through this part of the family tree. First we needed to make sense of this information that Captain John Fox married his cousin Catharine. The information came from the Cornerstone Genealogical Society and it was some hefty clues.
Henry Fox (born about 1832) married Clarissa (nee Long). Henry Fox's parents were...cousins.
"...Henry Fox was a son of Catherine Fox and John 'Captain John' Fox. This family did appear in the 1850 Census for Perry Township. It appears that his parents were cousins. Catharine was the daughter of Peter Fox and Mary Thomas, and 'Captain John' was the son of Joseph Fox and Jane 'Jennie' Wilson" (Correspondence Cornerstone Genealogical Society, 13 JUNE 2011, Yeager to Lane).
So Catharine's parents were Peter Fox and Mary Thomas.
And Capt. John's parents were Joseph Fox and Jane "Jennie" Wilson.
So Catharine and John were NOT siblings, but Catharine's father and John's father WERE brothers.
We found some ancestral file information on FamilySearch which we need to compare more thoroughly to whatever civilized records we can find.
The file information tells us that Captain John was married twice in his eighty-two years of life.
He married Clarissa Jones DYE of Greene County who was also born in the new century year 1800.
But he also married his cousin Catharine Fox, 20 years his senior.
While the ancestral file tells us that he and Catharine had one child:
James FOX born 25 Feb 1836 Greene Co, PA
We seem to find these people with a house full more in the census of 1850.
There they've got...
An 18 year old HENRY (born in 1832, we believe this is OUR Henry who went on to marry Clarissa Long).
Fifteen year old Eti.
James is 14.
Luerettia, twelve.
Maryann is ten.
Malissa only six.
And then there's Mary. She's 22 years old and she's written down as "idiotic."
The 1850 Census does not show us relationship to head of household so we shouldn't assume that the seven young people are the children of JOHN & CATHARINE. But we did receive word from the people at Cornerstone Genealogical Society that HENRY was the child of Captain John and Catharine.
The story fills in with the ancestral file information. While Captain John's father was Joseph Fox, Catharine's was PETER FOX (born 1755 to John Peter and Elsi Tate FOX). Peter married Mary Thomas.
PETER & MARY had seven children: Margaret, Elizabeth, William, Mary, Peter, CATHARINE (born 5 MAY 1801, died 30 APRIL 1858), and Henry (born in April of 1803, NOT our Henry who married Clarissa).
If Catharine was born in MAY of 1801 and Captain John was born in JUNE of 1800, well that makes them almost the same age! So...maybe we're reading the US CENSUS 1850 wrong OR somebody listed her age incorrectly OR this is the wrong Fox home to be thinking of as family unit which is most likely the case.
Have a look...
Clearly you can see that there are two Peter Foxes and you can see a Susannah next door to Henry about the same age...these may be the Henry Fox and Susannah (Dulaney) who married and who produced the children which includes Dennis Fox.
We're in it up to our eyeballs with Fox cousins getting married because that pegs the responsibility for sorting out this thicket on us through two of the three brothers.
That's right. Peter and Joseph had one other brother--Phillip. Phillip was born in 1760. JOSEPH in 1753. And Peter in 1755. According to the "ancestral file" information on familysearch.org and these were the children of JOHN PETER & ELSI (TATE) FOX. And all three boys were born in New Jersey.
That part of New Jersey which was the winter camp site of the Continental Army in 1779 and again in 1779/80. That part of New Jersey was named Morris County on the 15th of March 1739 and then in 1753 Sussex County was created out of Morris County land.
John Peter Fox was born in 1720 in "German Valley" later Morris County, New Jersey. And the file tells us that Elsi Tate was born the same year. Since their first child Phillip was born in 1753 we can figure that John Peter and Elsi (Tate) probably got married around that time or at least probably before 1753. And that these brothers were born in New Jersey shows that this was the generation of Fox that came to Greene County from New Jersey as mentioned in Dennis Fox's biographical sketch in Bates' History.
The ancestral file gives us the names of the parents of John Peter: Johannes Pieter FUCHS (FOX) born around 1679 & Anna Margartha Maria FUCHS (FOX), born prior to 1713. This couple had three children: Elizabeth, born 14 Feb 1713 Fox Hill, Morris, New Jersey; George, born 1700, Palatinate, Germany, DEATH 27 Apr 1751, Hunterdon Co., New Jersey; JOHN PETER, born 4 Mar 1720 German Valley, Morris Co, N.J., DEATH 17 Mar 1783, Sussex, NJ, BURIAL 10 Mar 1783.
The file says Anna Margartha Maria Fox died after 1720 which is the year that JOHN PETER was born.
JOHN PETER died the 17th of MARCH 1783 in then Sussex County, New Jersey. But at least two of his sons, so far as we can see, Joseph and Peter moved to and eventually died in Greene County, Pennsylvania.
"Ancestral files" are "compilations of entries submitted by individuals (not just Latter Day Saint Church members) listing their relatives. Living individuals are shown only if they are LDS members and specifically give permission. Your distant relative may have submitted your mutual relatives to this file" (45, Anderson and Thode).
Anderson and Thode also report that many Germanic given names were Saint's names, but not all.
And..."In a few regions, there may be a pattern of the oldest son being given the father's father's name; the oldest daughter being given the mother's mother's name; the second son being given the mother's father's name; and the second daughter being given the father's mother's name. In other areas, the first baptismal sponsor ("godfather") provides the first given name; the second one, the second given name. Baptismal sponsors were generally, but not necessarily, related to one of the parents. Be aware that possible regional and religious idiosyncrasies may occur" (17 A GENEALOGIST'S GUIDE TO DISCOVERING YOUR GERMANIC ANCESTORS).
Baptisms of the three official religions (Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed) took place within a few days of birth and involved "christenings" while splinter religions re-baptized their members as adults when the choice regarding baptism was morally made by the individual.
During John Peter's lifetime the Revolutionary War took place and it was in his place in Jersey where the Continental Army camped during the brutal winters of 1777 and '79-'80. But it's directly through John Peter's sons, Peter and Joseph, that we take on the brunt of this story in this blogspace.
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
So we need to look at Captain John Fox as married to three different women.
And through a closer reading of a couple different pedigree chart files and some ancestral files we know that...
Clarissa Jones Dye was born abt 1800.
Clarissa Jones Dye was born 2 JAN 1830. And she died on the 26th of April 1887.
Catherine Fox who married Captain John Fox abt 1820 lived from 1801-1858. Catherine Fox was Captain John's first wife. Her proper vital statistic dates seem to be (1 MAR 1801-30 APR 1858) and so she is ascribed as the mother of Captain John's children born between 1800-1860 to be on the safe side. These children of Clarissa married to Captain john included:
John Hudson Fox (9 FEB 1863-1938)
Ulysses S. "Grant" Fox (15 JAN 1864-16 MAR 1949)
Samuel Fox (born 1866
Deford Fox, born 13 MAY 1867
Lindsay Fox, born 7 AUG 1869, died 1948
So to Captain John's second spouse, Clarissa, is the tentative list...
Samuel D. Fox (1861-after 1880)
John Hudson, Jr Fox (9 FEB 1863-1938)
Ulysses S. Grant Fox (15 JAN 1865-16 MAR 1949)
Deford F. Fox (13 MAY 1867 -July 1966)
This IGI information, the list ascribed to Clarissa are the children born to John Hudson Captain Fox (Born 15 JUNE 1800 at Fox Run, near mount Morris, Greene County, PA---Died 22 MAY 1882, Greene County, PA).
The John Fox who is on an ancestral file list of children of Joseph Fox when he was married to "Jennie" jane Wilson (Martin Fox born 1790, Isaac Fox born 1793, Rebecca Fox born 1794, John Fox born 1800, James Wilson Fox born 1803, Charity Fox born 1805, Mary Fox born 1807, Elizabeth born 1809.
And there is a pedigree chart file which gives us further information about Jane "Jennie" Wilson. She was born in 1764 in Tennent Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey and died 1834 in Perry Township, Greene County, PA. Jane's parents were James Wilson (born 5 July 1721 Middlesex County, NJ) and Margaret Perrine (born 1728 Perrinville, Monmouth, New Jersey---Married to James Wilson 3 MAR 1743 in Perth Amboy, Middelsex, New Jersey---Died 24 JAN 1779.
The Jane Wilson who married Joseph Fox, married the Joseph Fox (1753-1847) whose parents were Elsie Tate (1720-1770) and John Peter Fox (4 MAR 1720-10 MAR 1783). This couple came from New Jersey and settled in Greene County, PA.
Then their son John Hudson Captain Fox was born on the 15th of June 1800 at Fox Run, near Mount Morris, Greene County, PA.
His spouse to be...Catharine Fox (born 5 MAR 1801, married Capt. John abt 1820, died 30 APR 1858). Their children:
William Fox (14 SEPT 1821-24 JULY 1911)
Josephus or Jocephas Fox (died 19 FEB 1901)
Lewis Fox (Sept 1829-after 1880)
Henry Fox (4 MAR 1831-12 JAN 1898)
Eli Fox (7 FEB 1834-14 DEC 1913)
James Fox (25 FEB 1836-31 MAR 1928)
Lucretia Fox (28 FEB 1838-29 MAR 1879)
Mary Ann Fox (born abt 1840)
Frank Marion Fox (born abt 1840, died 1911)
We can compare all this information to Census Records and see...
In Perry Township 1850:
Catharine Fox, age 49
John Fox, age 29 ? 49 ?
Eti Fox (probably Eli) age 16
James Fox, age 14
Luerettia Fox, age 12
Mary Ann, age 10
Malissa Fox, age 6
Mary Fox, age 22
And overlay the different types of information.
And we can look forward int he Census Records and see, for example,
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| Grandpa Jesse and Grandma Pearl's Farmstead at West Branch, Michigan |
It was on this farm that "Here Peter Fox planted a little willow spout which he brought with him, and the tree is now twenty-one feet in circumference, by actual measurement. This tree is to remain standing, as Dennis says, a monument to the memory of him who planted it so many years ago" (Bates, 815).
That is the tradition story that so much impressed us when we first began our family tree research and realized why our Grandma Pearl Fox had planted a sprig of willow when she married Jesse Bohlinger and moved to a farm in West Branch, Michigan.
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| Grandma Pearl's Willow in West Branch, Michigan |
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| Grandma Pearl Fox Bohlinger in West Branch, Michigan |
Pearl didn't have children with Jesse Bohlinger. She'd had two children with Glenn Wilson when she lived in West Virginia after she'd grown up with Mammy and Pappy Fox (Ida Mae nee Delaney and Elias Fox the son of Henry and Clarissa Fox).
Henry and Clarissa (nee Long) Fox grew up in Pennsylvania.
Joseph Newton Fox
We have our notes from a November 2012 internet correspondence with Lori in Arizona.
I love this stuff. At that time Lori in Arizona was working on connecting the last two wives of Joseph Newton Fox. She was in communications with a Diane who found herself a G-G-G-G of Joseph Newton Fox...related to Elenor "Elsey" Dobbins.
Lori was trying to look through the multitude of John Fox-es and place the appropriate children with their respective children. They were also in search of those buried at a Fox cemetery in Fox Run.
She also forwarded rootsweb information RE: FOX PAGRE Emily Sac and the Sachems (the Indian Princess).
They'd gotten a hold of family tree and Census records from 1850 and backwards. So we tailored our Fox research more towards 1850-1900 which worked well for us to do because we were working backwards from Elias Fox and his father Henry Fox (1831-1898) over in Miracle Run, West Virginia. You can click the link below to get over to that part of our web cluster.
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Joseph was the eldest of the three FUCHS brothers--Joseph, Peter, and Phillip (born 1753 or 1758, 1755, 1760 respectively) born in "New Jersey."
Joseph Fox's birth and death dates come to us from his Revolutionary War Pension Papers.
JOSEPH married Emily (Sac) about 1778/80. Emily, Sac--The daughter of Chief White Eyes. Chief White Eyes was of the Delaware Lenape, Turtle Clan from New Jersey. Joseph and Emily had the children Elizabeth Betty (born in 1781), an as yet unknown Fox child possibly born in 1783, Mary who came along in 1785, and Martin Peter (born in 1790).
[Unclear in my notes] There was a child born in New Jersey in 1779/80 but died on the 11th of November 1875 in Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania.
JOSEPH married again in 1789 to Miss Jane "Jennie" Wilson in Morgantown, Pennsylvania (per John Walter Fox 1900-1991 from Jocelyn in Ohio). Morgantown, PA is in Carnavon Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
JOSEPH and Jane had children...
Looks like Martin came first on the 2nd of August 1790 in Perry Township.
And Isaac came in 1793.
Rebecca in '94.
Charity (Catharine) was born in 1799
The new millennium--1800--brought JOHN HUDSON FOX.
And in October of 1803 James Wilson Fox joined the family.
Two years later Joseph in 1805.
It was Joseph Newton Fox and Jane "Jennie" Wilson, apparently, who were buried in Fox Run Cemetery on Fox Run about 3 miles NW of Mount Morris. But not before Joseph Newton Fox married for a thrid time...
To Elsey Eboner Dobbins.
"Elsey" became a GGG in this research through her marriage to Joseph Newton and their children:
Lot was born in 1837.
George in 1841.
And Elisha rounded out Joseph Newton's children list in 1848.
Lori in Arizona finds Joseph Fox on the Whiteley Township, Green County US Census 1800. That year the Census didn't list individual names besides the Head of Household, in this case, Joseph Fox. And there are seven people with him. 1 male under ten years old; 1 male 10-16 years old; 1 male 56 and over; 2 females under ten; 1 female 10-16 years old; and 1 female 26-45. This Census snapshot is on Series M32, Roll 40, page 15.
Right next door to Joseph Fox is...
In ten years from 1800 we get another snapshot...(Series M52, Roll 49, page 40) Whiteley Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania.
Lori's research also turned up Joseph Newton Fox on Whiteley Township Tax Lists. In 1820 Joseph Newton Fox owned 200 acres of land, a house, a cabin, one horse, one cow and a dog.
I love this stuff. At that time Lori in Arizona was working on connecting the last two wives of Joseph Newton Fox. She was in communications with a Diane who found herself a G-G-G-G of Joseph Newton Fox...related to Elenor "Elsey" Dobbins.
Lori was trying to look through the multitude of John Fox-es and place the appropriate children with their respective children. They were also in search of those buried at a Fox cemetery in Fox Run.
She also forwarded rootsweb information RE: FOX PAGRE Emily Sac and the Sachems (the Indian Princess).
They'd gotten a hold of family tree and Census records from 1850 and backwards. So we tailored our Fox research more towards 1850-1900 which worked well for us to do because we were working backwards from Elias Fox and his father Henry Fox (1831-1898) over in Miracle Run, West Virginia. You can click the link below to get over to that part of our web cluster.
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Joseph Newton Fox
Joseph was the eldest of the three FUCHS brothers--Joseph, Peter, and Phillip (born 1753 or 1758, 1755, 1760 respectively) born in "New Jersey."
Joseph Fox's birth and death dates come to us from his Revolutionary War Pension Papers.
JOSEPH married Emily (Sac) about 1778/80. Emily, Sac--The daughter of Chief White Eyes. Chief White Eyes was of the Delaware Lenape, Turtle Clan from New Jersey. Joseph and Emily had the children Elizabeth Betty (born in 1781), an as yet unknown Fox child possibly born in 1783, Mary who came along in 1785, and Martin Peter (born in 1790).
[Unclear in my notes] There was a child born in New Jersey in 1779/80 but died on the 11th of November 1875 in Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania.
JOSEPH married again in 1789 to Miss Jane "Jennie" Wilson in Morgantown, Pennsylvania (per John Walter Fox 1900-1991 from Jocelyn in Ohio). Morgantown, PA is in Carnavon Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
JOSEPH and Jane had children...
Looks like Martin came first on the 2nd of August 1790 in Perry Township.
And Isaac came in 1793.
Rebecca in '94.
Charity (Catharine) was born in 1799
The new millennium--1800--brought JOHN HUDSON FOX.
And in October of 1803 James Wilson Fox joined the family.
Two years later Joseph in 1805.
It was Joseph Newton Fox and Jane "Jennie" Wilson, apparently, who were buried in Fox Run Cemetery on Fox Run about 3 miles NW of Mount Morris. But not before Joseph Newton Fox married for a thrid time...
To Elsey Eboner Dobbins.
"Elsey" became a GGG in this research through her marriage to Joseph Newton and their children:
Lot was born in 1837.
George in 1841.
And Elisha rounded out Joseph Newton's children list in 1848.
Lori in Arizona finds Joseph Fox on the Whiteley Township, Green County US Census 1800. That year the Census didn't list individual names besides the Head of Household, in this case, Joseph Fox. And there are seven people with him. 1 male under ten years old; 1 male 10-16 years old; 1 male 56 and over; 2 females under ten; 1 female 10-16 years old; and 1 female 26-45. This Census snapshot is on Series M32, Roll 40, page 15.
Keep in mind that these early Censuses do not tell us kinship or relationship.
(1800 US Census) Peter Fox
2 females under ten
1 female age 10-16
1 female 45 and over
2 males under ten
1 male 10-16
1 male 45 and over
In ten years from 1800 we get another snapshot...(Series M52, Roll 49, page 40) Whiteley Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania.
(1810 US Census) Joseph Fox
2 females under ten
2 females 16-26
1 female 45 and over
1 male 10-16
1 male 45 and over
There is a "Pedigree Reference File" (MM9.2.1/SBR5-4FM) at FamilySearch contributed in May of 2011 which gives us James Fox (25 FEB 1836-31 MAR 1928) born and died in Greene County, PN. This file shows his parents as Joseph and Jane (Wilson) Fox.
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The Joseph Fox, father of James Fox (and possibly ten other children) seems to have been the Joseph "Newton" Fox who married three different women at different times. His wives seem to have included an Emily (the Indian Princess), Jane "Jennie" Wilson, and Eleanor "Elsey" Dobbins.
Some accounts give his birth year as 1753 (June) and his birth in Morris County, New Jersey. This puts him on a list of three brothers--Joseph, Peter, and Phillip (born 1753, 1755, 1760 to the parents John Peter and Elsie Tate.
It is brother Peter, we believe, to be the listed grandparent of Dennis Fox. Those grandparents which removed from New Jersey to Pennsylvania (not all that far in family history). Those grandparents would have been the parents of the Catharine Fox (born +/- 1801) who (possibly for financial reasons) married her cousin--Captain John Fox.
One cousin's father was brother Peter and one cousin's father was brother Joseph.
It is not uncommon to find a) families with multiple properties assigning relatives to dwellings based on phase of life i.e., education, apprenticeship; b) survivors shacking up to sustain; c) different religious denominations in same family/generational changes in religion; d) rampant variations in spelling; e) specific inheritance issues like old world Germanic (Franks) Salic Law (property passed strictly through the male line/property is indivisible/farm name stays with the land/women inherit the farm only if there are no sons/if a man marries a woman to get her farm he takes HER name) influencing more modern rules. In the old world, for instance, Salic Law combined with erbpacht--the right to tenancy of a farm as inheritance--even for "common" people.
But without being able to talk to any of these distant relatives it's practically impossible to understand why they were doing what they were doing. Just as in some cases surnames and given names were passed along to indicate financial/farm/father-son structure, we cannot assume anything only learn as much as possible to better look at the whole picture. Many of the details fall into place once we understand all the factors.
Even while America was modernizing by becoming a population beholden to a central government many of the immigrants internalized the old ways within their family structures.
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The Bates' History entry for John (Dennis and Catharine's brother) tells us the dates of their parents' deaths. Susannah died on Christmas Eve in 1875. And Henry in Oct of 1882.
Sure enough, we find Henry and Susannah on the 1870 Census (Whiteley Township) ages 73 and 67. Living in their dwelling is not more Fox but a farm laborer named William Maddison. A domestic servant (same age, 14) Mary J. Gump. And two Ruses...21 year old Olliver Ruse (farm hand) and Barbary D. Ruse (aged 19) also a domestic servant.
But by 1880 the Census tells us that Susannah has passed. Henry is 75 years old and widowed, he's actually listed as other to head of household Oliver Ruse (who has turned 31) and Oliver's wife Barbra Ruse (age 40). There is another "other" and that is Jestus Billby, eleven years old.
In 1880, Dennis and Betsy are both fifty-three and some of their children are still with them--David (28), Susannah (24), Kinsey (22), James (20), Sarah J. (16), and Marion (13).
But by 1891 Dennis is re-marrying to Minerva Shriver. The dates of death of their previous wife/husband are in the record books for Waynesburg (although Minerva's place of residence at the time they married was Junis Run, Monongalia, West Virginia) BUT these dates are crossed out in the image of the record I looked at online. Date of death of man's former wife: July 23, 1888 [crossed out] and date of death of woman's former husband: Nov 4, 1887 [crossed out]. Fox and Shriver have no blood relationship between them.
And in the 1900 US Census, Dennis and Minerva aren't the only married couple in the household. Dennis' son Kinsie and his wife Sidie B. and their son Forny B. are with Dennis and Minerva. While Dennis reports being married for 52 years, Minerva lists nine years as well as having given birth to ten children (7 still living at that time).
It's through the Clerk at the Orphan's Court that we find the certificates re: Dennis and Minerva's marriage. Must be the way things were structured in the court system at that time. Or maybe their marriage had something to do with adoption/inheritance matters. I haven't sorted out every detail about the legal doings in Pennsylvania and West Virginia yet.
In fact I need to get some clarification on why people show up associated with the Minor Civil Division esp in regards the US Census 1860. We find a thirty-three year old Dennis Fox showing up that way. And interestingly, no less than three instances of a 55 year old Henry Fox showing up that way...Minor Civil Division in Whiteley Township, East Huntingdon Township and Hereford Township.
And there's an immigrant Henry Fox who turns up in Philadelphia via the ship Musconomo. He's about fifty when he arrives in 1852.
The Henry Fox who married Mary and was living at the time of the US Census 1870 was in Hempfield, Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. His Joseph Fox is a 32 year old barn carpenter in 1870. That Henry Fox is listed as being born in abt 1802-1805. But their Post Office is Greenburg, not Kirby like Henry Fox who married Susannah.
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My genealogy day began with a headline from the past screaming at me from a death registry.
ANDERSON WILSON MURDERED, dateline 5 OCT 1876
I didn't have time to investigate the case. Needed to get on with the business of Captain John.
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The Joseph Fox, father of James Fox (and possibly ten other children) seems to have been the Joseph "Newton" Fox who married three different women at different times. His wives seem to have included an Emily (the Indian Princess), Jane "Jennie" Wilson, and Eleanor "Elsey" Dobbins.
Some accounts give his birth year as 1753 (June) and his birth in Morris County, New Jersey. This puts him on a list of three brothers--Joseph, Peter, and Phillip (born 1753, 1755, 1760 to the parents John Peter and Elsie Tate.
It is brother Peter, we believe, to be the listed grandparent of Dennis Fox. Those grandparents which removed from New Jersey to Pennsylvania (not all that far in family history). Those grandparents would have been the parents of the Catharine Fox (born +/- 1801) who (possibly for financial reasons) married her cousin--Captain John Fox.
One cousin's father was brother Peter and one cousin's father was brother Joseph.
It is not uncommon to find a) families with multiple properties assigning relatives to dwellings based on phase of life i.e., education, apprenticeship; b) survivors shacking up to sustain; c) different religious denominations in same family/generational changes in religion; d) rampant variations in spelling; e) specific inheritance issues like old world Germanic (Franks) Salic Law (property passed strictly through the male line/property is indivisible/farm name stays with the land/women inherit the farm only if there are no sons/if a man marries a woman to get her farm he takes HER name) influencing more modern rules. In the old world, for instance, Salic Law combined with erbpacht--the right to tenancy of a farm as inheritance--even for "common" people.
But without being able to talk to any of these distant relatives it's practically impossible to understand why they were doing what they were doing. Just as in some cases surnames and given names were passed along to indicate financial/farm/father-son structure, we cannot assume anything only learn as much as possible to better look at the whole picture. Many of the details fall into place once we understand all the factors.
Even while America was modernizing by becoming a population beholden to a central government many of the immigrants internalized the old ways within their family structures.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Bates' History entry for John (Dennis and Catharine's brother) tells us the dates of their parents' deaths. Susannah died on Christmas Eve in 1875. And Henry in Oct of 1882.
Sure enough, we find Henry and Susannah on the 1870 Census (Whiteley Township) ages 73 and 67. Living in their dwelling is not more Fox but a farm laborer named William Maddison. A domestic servant (same age, 14) Mary J. Gump. And two Ruses...21 year old Olliver Ruse (farm hand) and Barbary D. Ruse (aged 19) also a domestic servant.
But by 1880 the Census tells us that Susannah has passed. Henry is 75 years old and widowed, he's actually listed as other to head of household Oliver Ruse (who has turned 31) and Oliver's wife Barbra Ruse (age 40). There is another "other" and that is Jestus Billby, eleven years old.
In 1880, Dennis and Betsy are both fifty-three and some of their children are still with them--David (28), Susannah (24), Kinsey (22), James (20), Sarah J. (16), and Marion (13).
But by 1891 Dennis is re-marrying to Minerva Shriver. The dates of death of their previous wife/husband are in the record books for Waynesburg (although Minerva's place of residence at the time they married was Junis Run, Monongalia, West Virginia) BUT these dates are crossed out in the image of the record I looked at online. Date of death of man's former wife: July 23, 1888 [crossed out] and date of death of woman's former husband: Nov 4, 1887 [crossed out]. Fox and Shriver have no blood relationship between them.
And in the 1900 US Census, Dennis and Minerva aren't the only married couple in the household. Dennis' son Kinsie and his wife Sidie B. and their son Forny B. are with Dennis and Minerva. While Dennis reports being married for 52 years, Minerva lists nine years as well as having given birth to ten children (7 still living at that time).
It's through the Clerk at the Orphan's Court that we find the certificates re: Dennis and Minerva's marriage. Must be the way things were structured in the court system at that time. Or maybe their marriage had something to do with adoption/inheritance matters. I haven't sorted out every detail about the legal doings in Pennsylvania and West Virginia yet.
In fact I need to get some clarification on why people show up associated with the Minor Civil Division esp in regards the US Census 1860. We find a thirty-three year old Dennis Fox showing up that way. And interestingly, no less than three instances of a 55 year old Henry Fox showing up that way...Minor Civil Division in Whiteley Township, East Huntingdon Township and Hereford Township.
And there's an immigrant Henry Fox who turns up in Philadelphia via the ship Musconomo. He's about fifty when he arrives in 1852.
The Henry Fox who married Mary and was living at the time of the US Census 1870 was in Hempfield, Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. His Joseph Fox is a 32 year old barn carpenter in 1870. That Henry Fox is listed as being born in abt 1802-1805. But their Post Office is Greenburg, not Kirby like Henry Fox who married Susannah.
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My genealogy day began with a headline from the past screaming at me from a death registry.
ANDERSON WILSON MURDERED, dateline 5 OCT 1876
I didn't have time to investigate the case. Needed to get on with the business of Captain John.
So...on the 1876 map of Whiteley Township right on the border with Perry Township there we have Grandma Pearl's childhood iconic Willow tree. By 1876 it is on the property of Dennis Fox, a child of Henry and Susannah (Dulaney) Fox. All of this we know from using Bates' History to compare the facts to Census records.
Since everything about Dennis and John Fox's biographical sketches in Bates' work checks out we can most likely say that our Germanic Foxes were of Dutch heritage.
Going back to the US Census of 1850 we find our immediate family, in part, sticking close together. In the 1850 Greene County landscape Dennis, his brother John, and their father and mother--Henry and Susan are in between the Shultz and Whitlatch families in Whiteley Township.
Denes Fox is 23 years old. He's already married to Elizabeth (Betsey John) who is the same age. With them is a one year old Henry Fox and Meriah Delana (she's twelve and in school). These are dwelling #25, family #25 on the visitation list of the enumerator.
In 26/26 is Henry Fox (age 47) and Susannah Fox who is five years older than Henry. With them are Sarah Fox and Barbary Fox (ages 17 and fifteen respectively).
And then 27/27 gives us John Fox, only twenty, and his wife Dorotha (19). With them are Jackson Rose and Colbern Whitlatch (ages 13, 9). This is not surprising since the Whitlach families are right nearby--Joseph Whitlach Senior is in 28/28 and Junior in 29/29. When we get to 30/30 we've got John family (Betsey's maiden name).
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Since everything about Dennis and John Fox's biographical sketches in Bates' work checks out we can most likely say that our Germanic Foxes were of Dutch heritage.
Going back to the US Census of 1850 we find our immediate family, in part, sticking close together. In the 1850 Greene County landscape Dennis, his brother John, and their father and mother--Henry and Susan are in between the Shultz and Whitlatch families in Whiteley Township.
Denes Fox is 23 years old. He's already married to Elizabeth (Betsey John) who is the same age. With them is a one year old Henry Fox and Meriah Delana (she's twelve and in school). These are dwelling #25, family #25 on the visitation list of the enumerator.
In 26/26 is Henry Fox (age 47) and Susannah Fox who is five years older than Henry. With them are Sarah Fox and Barbary Fox (ages 17 and fifteen respectively).
And then 27/27 gives us John Fox, only twenty, and his wife Dorotha (19). With them are Jackson Rose and Colbern Whitlatch (ages 13, 9). This is not surprising since the Whitlach families are right nearby--Joseph Whitlach Senior is in 28/28 and Junior in 29/29. When we get to 30/30 we've got John family (Betsey's maiden name).
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Over in Perry Township, we have a Census record of interest as well.
We have a household with a Catharine Fox (age 49) and John Fox (age 29).
With them are Henry Fox (18), Eti Fox (16),
James Fox (14), Luerettia Fox (12),
Mary Ann Fox (10),
Malissa Fox (6),
Mary Fox (age 22).
The Catharine Fox with a purported age of 49 would indicate that she was born +/- 1801.
This would put her not in the birth times of Dennis and John Fox, but in the time period of the births of the children ascribed to Mary Thomas and Peter Fox. These births seem to range from 1789-1803.
The biographical sketch of Dennis Fox tells us that Mary Thomas and Peter Fox were Dennis' GRANDparents. And it was this Peter Fox who planted the willow sprout on the farmstead.
It was these GRANDparents who came from New Jersey and established the family in
Greene County, Pennsylvania.
An interesting thing happens when we virtually hop over to some History of New Jersey.
We've been reading History of Sussex and Warren Counties, New Jersey by James P. Snell (Philadelphia" Everts & Peck, 1881).
We went to Sussex County history because we'd heard that a man named John Pieter Fox died there in March of 1783. And because Snell boldly tells of other historians not being as complete as possible in their historic tellings, thereby obscuring a good chunk of history which demonstrates that the Dutch were a formidable root source in the what became valuable area of the upper mid-Atlantic.
It's not uncommon to find retro-history written to support later ownership both in geographic histories and in genealogy.
Sometimes in genealogy whole familyscapes are re-written based on financial details rather than biological information.
And it's not uncommon to find mistakes and erroneous information in family lore, such as someone declaring a family surname was Fox and they were "german" therefore the match of surname is FUCHS.
Perhaps not. If, for example, the "germans" in question were Dutch, the surname might very well have been...____________________. Hard to pronounce to the strictly English-speaking tongue, hard to transliterate, and hard to translate. There are millions of records in the world which have yet to be translated. And this can lead to stumbling blocks and dead ends when it comes to research.
It is difficult and slow-going work to match variations to America's records.
One way to get going on getting closer is to learn all about emigration patterns, church records, geographical areas, and realistic possibilities like trends in employment and family ways regarding farm work and inheritance, marriage and moving around. Then in our historical minds we can glean a more complete picture of these distant past people.
For mama's Quilt purposes we need to first gather and broadly brushstroke and then embroider details.
When we go over to the "ancient valley of the minisink" we find a lot of commotion between all the industry and immigration.
We also see that most of the Thomas people were Welsh. What these had in common with many "germanic" emigres and pushing further westward pioneers and settlers was IRONWORKS.
From the old Mine Road forged through the wilderness still keeping Philadelphia as a log cabin or two at this time, we can travel through the Pahaquarry area. We come across river settlements, fertile soil, and a mixture of clucking and vowel-ing that constitutes the language of the day. The roots of the trees here are taking hold before the Huguenots were scrambling and far-flung because of the Edict of Nantes (1685). And the roots of these trees were accustomed to a more free-flowing sense of travel and establishment than colon-izing per King. This was way before Skull and Lukens' survey tour in 1730 when they raved about the tasty apples on grown trees in already-old orchards. Back before the "upper neighborhood" formed around Port Jervis and the "lower neighborhood" on both sides of the Neversink was becoming thickly settled. Back before the proverbial forks were proverbially flooded (due in part to old world recrutiment and writing back to fetch--following; and in part to famine and being too far down on the food chain from father to inherit the old world farms); back before Penn penned Pennsylvania; back even before Peenpack and tracing the path that followed the Mamakating to the Pahaqualin. Even pre-Esopus being filled up to capacity forcing a furthering to the Delaware Flats.
This company of "miners" from Holland were digging and firing, flattening and forging.
And they were planting and growing fruit so that extended family and "friends"--neighbors to come and passers through--might travel lightly but eat well. Their sense of sustainability was part and parcel with their survival.
This sustainability and collective ability to work and live with each other empowered these people to semblence themselves into enough of a population considered a "voting precinct" by an Act of the Provincial Assembly of New York in October of 1701. By that time the old mining road had been abandoned due to the English King's takeover and conflicting jurisdiction to the locals'. But from 1701 to about 1709 there were a considerable amount of voters who needed to be concerned with "the more regular proceedings in the Election of Representatives"...these were the "inhabitants of Wagachemick (Neversink) and Great and Little Minisink (islands)" and they were assigned to give their votes in the County of Ulster, New York. Another Act passed in the November of 1709 moved their votes to "Orange County," precinct of Minisink.
Snell recommends we read an article by B.A. Westbrook, Esq of Montague called "Old Minisink."
But it's not until we get over to Morris County (Munsell's History) New Jersey in our readings that we come across the Welsh Thomas family deep into ironworks and a family Faesch.
No Fuchs. There is one Fox and he is a Reverend. Reverend Daniel Fox, I believe.
It's taking me a little longer to get to work on the Quilt today. I had to (virtually) stop off at the Lancaster County Poorhouse and collect Juliana Fox and elder John Fox.
In 1870 old John Fox is on the US Census with wife Clarrissa and Gentle Mary (whose forty). And John's in the County Poorhouse. Oh yeah, right in between two younger men, Frederick Shiveman and Martin Dickens. Shiveman's from Bavaria and he can read and write but not vote. And Dickens was born in Ireland and he's a US Citizen who can vote but he can't read or write. John might be translating for all we know. This is the third page of Poorhouse people the enumerator is tackling. And the enumerator had been to the Lancaster County Hospital first. Four and a half pages of various ailments battled through to get population information. The Superintendent and his family start off the list. J.O. Steinheiser is in his fifties and his Lydia keeps the house. Little Ada A Steinheiser is only ten.
Lines 20-40 of the regular US Census 1870 for Lancaster County are listing hospital patients. The next page gives us forty more people. And the next are forty more to boot. There's very little difference between the lists of the Lancaster County Hospital and the Lancaster County Poorhouse. Image 5 gives us sixteen more lines of Hospital. And then we bump into Elain Herr. He's a thirty-six year old "steward." His Anna M is 29 and Thaddeus R. is just two years old. These Herrs take up lines 17, 18, and 19.
Line 20 is a Patricke McGraw, a middle-aged white man. So there's 20 names on this sheet, forty more on the next, and on the third list of forty names we find Juliana. She's sixty. She can't read or write.
It's not until the next page when we come across John. He's number 16 although he's seventy years old.
The names go on for another twenty or so lines until we get to Mary Stoveman. She's only twenty-eight, just about the same age as Martin Dickens.
Then the enumerator is off to the Zimmermans. Isaac, Catharine, and Anna. Isaac's a laborer there in Lancaster.
John Fox is on a big list over in Green County that year too. There's a household in Perry Township that puts him as the head of household with whose named as his wife in the 1880 census of this place. Mary's forty in 1870 and there's a Samuel D. (9), John H. (7), Grant (5), Deford Fox is four years old and little Lindsay is about one year old. And that's just the Fox on the list...there's a bunch of Dyes and a Bogus. Jospeh Dye is 20 and Hope Dye is fifteen. Elizabeth J. and Jasper are 13 & 7. Selden Bogus is seventeen.
And we don't see Selden ten years later in the same place, but we do find Jasper Dye, he's defined as a step-son to old John Fox who is almost eighty in 1880. But we do find a couple Williams (Eliza, 48 and George E. Williams whose a four year old). Gentle Mary is up in her fifties on this list. And Samuel Fox (19) is close in age to Jasper Dye as is John H. Fox (17). But Julius S. Fox is the only fourteen year old because Lindsy Fox is only eleven.
"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal://MM9.1.1/MWFF-G3B: accessed 15 JUNE 2013), John Fox, 1880.
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Eti Fox is sixteen years old. Lives in the household of John Fox whose almost thirty. That household is dwelling # 73 on the enumerator's path, and they're family # 73. On this Census of 1850 for Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania we're looking at the schedule of Free Inhabitants (M432) and we can see that most of the families of free inhabitants had their own dwellings. There are lots of farms with big groups of people and there are laborers who have smaller units of people per dwelling.
Following the Census Taker makes a path through the Township and from this path we can construct a sort of Perry Township (in 1850) directory.
We can access the path by going through a single record on FamilySearch. We picked our Henry Fox's brother Eti Fox because his name is a little more unusual.
"United States Census, 1850," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal://MM9.1.1/M4HJ-H58: accessed 15 JUNE 2013), Eti Fox in entry for John Fox, 1850.
There's Eti, he's about sixteen. In House number 73, Family # 23.
John Fox is twenty-nine and there's a Catharine Fox...she's 49. A Henry Fox who is 18 and only Mary is older at age 22 on the list of young people with John and Catharine. We call her "Gentle Mary" but the enumerator ticked off the column that says Mary's deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict. James is next youngest to Eti on the list, he's fourteen. Luerettia Fox is 12, Mary Ann is ten, and Malissa is six years old. But she's not the kindergarten aged Malissa around here. The enumerator is going to meet some other little girls later on this October day like the little Malissa Fox who hangs around Mary Gump's place to see what's going on. The Malissa's would be sure to point out that Malissa is NOT Matilda. The shoemaker's little girl? That CHRISTINA, she's SEBEN like Sarah DelanA. Sarah goes to school.
So does henry and Eti and James and LuerETTia.
And then the enumerator is off to the Headley farm; one of them. Elias Headley is #74/74. And it's possible that after he makes way for the next stop...wondering which way to go...Elisabeth Headley might have sent someone over to John Fox's place to be sure about this Census taking.
The (70) Causgrangs and (77) William Sunk seem to be not far off. And then there's old Isaac Jackson he's like a hundred at seventy. But he's dwelling #78/family 78). The next family in the next abode is the young couple the Woodruffs...it's William and Elisa. And 80/80 is more Headley. Then Lemley and Abraham Teates and Alexander Henderson (83/83).
But go back, go back...If we were examining these records on microfilm we'd have to slow down the engines before coming to a STOP. Or else we might snap the roll of film.
Eti's Head of House has a valuable property, it's either worth 4000 or 7000, it's hard to tell. Sometimes the Census taker's writing looks slightly different as we follow along on his trail through the page.
We heard from the Cornerstone Genealogical Society that John Fox was "Captain John Fox," but it doesn't say that on the Census list.
#72/72 is Peter Fox. He's a fifty year old laborer with no real estate value. With him is Mary (40 yrs. old), Susanna who is eighteen and Jane who is either 13 or fifteen. In the olden days people called young women who weren't married yet, "maidens" like people did in Europe and in Spain.
There's Causgrang's place, he's...70/70.
But 71/71...that's the OTHER Peter Fox. He's with Sarah. And the three children with them are littles. Catharine is five, Christopher's three and Bassel, he's a boy, he's only one year old if that.
Then it's on to the Coons. James and Rachel and Sophia. Pretty name for a brand new baby newborn. Uh-oh...they get recorded as 70/70 too.
Now we're going east/west/north/south???? The ink blots on the entry for where Benjamin Dulany was born. Might have been VA or it might have been PA. It was twenty-five years before. He's with Sidney and a newborn named Ingraham. He's a boy...in family #69.
George Fox gets listed as 65/65. He's an aging laborer, born in NEW YORK (which was a different shape in 1850 than it was later in time). The Nancy who dwells with him was born in Pennsylvania though, just like the Mary and George in house #65.
Next we come to eight or nine lines of ROSE. Elisha's bunch. They're 66/66.
And at last we get to our GRANDMOTHER MATILDA. She's in dwelling visited number 67 with the long list enumerated as family #67. There's William Fox (age 27), and EliZabeth (23), Jonathon Fox who is three and John Fox who is one like Bassel. AND there's John DELANA, he's eight years older than Metilda who is forty. There's another EliZabeth Delana who is twenty one, Pishna Delana (18), Margaret (17), Thomas is fourteen. The next girl's name is not perfectly clear, it looks like Mesiah, she's 13. When sublings are that close in age they get called "Irish Twins." Sarah DELANA is ELEVEN and William DELANA a nine year old man. John's just 7 years old though so he's not a man yet. Jane-A DelanA is three and Isaac Delana is another one year old.
Sunk's place...that's 77/77.
Woodruff, Headley, Lemley, Teates, and Henderson. Then we've got James King and Mary Gump and Mary Gump and James King. There in #84.
But Mary Gump the third in a row she's 85/85 and sixty-four years old. Lives nearby one of the little Malissa Fox girls in 86/86.
Elizah Fox is a farmer and he's with EliSabeth Fox, she's twenty-three. Martha's seven and Benson is two. Asker Fox is brandy new.
Then David Bare's in 87/87 and Richard and Lydda in 88.
The enumerator goes from 88/88 to 84/84 and then from 84/84 to 40/40. That's George Buffey, farmer at age 25 in 84. And then there's Marion, more Fox in 40/40 with the young in's David (2), William (2) and EliSabeth who is fourteen.
The Census pages are filling up. Busee's in 41/41 and the Evans in 42/42. There's Denley in 43/43 and Magaret Addison is almost eighty in 44/44. There's a George Bare and a James Dunley, a Thomas Griffith in the numbers before another Evens at 88/88.
Phillip Barreck gets 99/99. And Joseph Danley is the hundredth visitation. Hard to believe this all happened on October 19th, 1850. Which may be why the handwriting looks markedly different when the enumerator gets into the twenty/twenty's. More headley and a Whiteland. Daniel Masters and Thomas Wade, he's the farmer at 24/24.
Then we seem to come across a sawmill of one of the Sentees. Might be John (23/23), might be David (22/22) or it might be James (18/18). Presley Wade is a laborer with a family numbered 21. And there's Simon Spitsnagle #20/20. William Clovis comes up on the list just before James Sentee and David Lemley, both farmers.
Then there's Asbury and Rachel LemLA and Jeremiah LEMLA. In 14/14 we find peter Phillips who is a farmer and who lives with a cooper. William's the cooper. And they all live right near David Canada and his clan.
Elizabeth Fuller is in between the two Canadas--David and David.
And Peter Mason is in 10/10.
C. Boydson is listed as a farmer. He's fifty year old but he's #9 today.
John Phillips is after Boydson. And then we get to the Oaks place. Joseph and Abigail are the older couple, and, Joseph Commes and Margaret Oaks the younger. They're all 7/7.
Jean Johnston is the first one on this batch of images of the US Census 1850--Sechedule of Free Inhabitants for Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania. He's dwelling #6/family #6.
The shoemaker? Jean Johnston is a farmer in his twenties. The shoemaker is Ezekel Jenkins and he's in his sixties but he's in dwelling #30 with DorAthe and a younger Ezekel, Charlotte who is twenty-one, a teenge Orlando, Mary and little Christina and a boy named Leroy. They live next to the St. Clair's. Mister St. Clair was born in Virginia and he has a Metilda too.
And in 32/32 is Milly Troy. She can't read or write and she was born in Virginia, but she's with David (18) and Leroy (9) who CAN read and write and were born in Pennsylvania.
Jeremiah Roberts is 33/33 and Levi Anderson is 34/34. It's A.L. Hughes in 35, also born in Virginia. And next to them is the weaver, George Cox. He was born in New York and he's literate but his Nancy is not.
Michaud and Cassina Snider...37/37
John Pyles...38/38
David Right (39/39) and David Amons (40/40)
It's LEWIS Pyles in #41 and Patent Wright in forty-two.
Mary Stonking is 43/43, Joshua Pyles with family 44. Zack Pyles is 45/45. And it's more Headleys in 46. JEREMIAH WRIGHT in 47.
48/48 is Abraham AMENS. Then there's more Lemley; some Grinnage; a John Cowel; and Sarah Stewart and A. Stewart have two different numbers, 52/52 and 53/53 respectively. H. Cross is in #54 and Wash Stephens holds the record at 55/55.
56/56...I don't know.
But 57/57 is Jonathon Delana who is a 55 year old farmer with a real estate value of 1200. His Eliza, Alfred, and Jane are illiterate like Massi and Rode but William is fifteen and in school. Their matilda is eleven.
In 58/58 is ABRAHAM Delana. He can't read or write either but has a house full of children in school. Susannah is close in age to Abraham. But Sharlotte is 23 years younger at thirteen. They have a John Delana (11), a Samuel Delana (9) and a bright young in school Sarah Delana (she's only seven). There's also Persey who is a five year old boy and "Mg" a three year old girl. The newborn in here (family #58) is about five months old since this is still October. And these folks live with Sarah Lemley who is almost eighty. LEMLEY.
Its Headley in 61/61 and B. Fordice in #60.
LEMLEY (59/59)...Samuel, Margaret, Jacob, Morris or Moses, Sarah, Samuel and Jeremiah (he's FOUR).
__ __ __ __ __ __ --Lara Lynn Lane, 15 JUNE 2013
In 1870 old John Fox is on the US Census with wife Clarrissa and Gentle Mary (whose forty). And John's in the County Poorhouse. Oh yeah, right in between two younger men, Frederick Shiveman and Martin Dickens. Shiveman's from Bavaria and he can read and write but not vote. And Dickens was born in Ireland and he's a US Citizen who can vote but he can't read or write. John might be translating for all we know. This is the third page of Poorhouse people the enumerator is tackling. And the enumerator had been to the Lancaster County Hospital first. Four and a half pages of various ailments battled through to get population information. The Superintendent and his family start off the list. J.O. Steinheiser is in his fifties and his Lydia keeps the house. Little Ada A Steinheiser is only ten.
Lines 20-40 of the regular US Census 1870 for Lancaster County are listing hospital patients. The next page gives us forty more people. And the next are forty more to boot. There's very little difference between the lists of the Lancaster County Hospital and the Lancaster County Poorhouse. Image 5 gives us sixteen more lines of Hospital. And then we bump into Elain Herr. He's a thirty-six year old "steward." His Anna M is 29 and Thaddeus R. is just two years old. These Herrs take up lines 17, 18, and 19.
Line 20 is a Patricke McGraw, a middle-aged white man. So there's 20 names on this sheet, forty more on the next, and on the third list of forty names we find Juliana. She's sixty. She can't read or write.
It's not until the next page when we come across John. He's number 16 although he's seventy years old.
The names go on for another twenty or so lines until we get to Mary Stoveman. She's only twenty-eight, just about the same age as Martin Dickens.
Then the enumerator is off to the Zimmermans. Isaac, Catharine, and Anna. Isaac's a laborer there in Lancaster.
John Fox is on a big list over in Green County that year too. There's a household in Perry Township that puts him as the head of household with whose named as his wife in the 1880 census of this place. Mary's forty in 1870 and there's a Samuel D. (9), John H. (7), Grant (5), Deford Fox is four years old and little Lindsay is about one year old. And that's just the Fox on the list...there's a bunch of Dyes and a Bogus. Jospeh Dye is 20 and Hope Dye is fifteen. Elizabeth J. and Jasper are 13 & 7. Selden Bogus is seventeen.
And we don't see Selden ten years later in the same place, but we do find Jasper Dye, he's defined as a step-son to old John Fox who is almost eighty in 1880. But we do find a couple Williams (Eliza, 48 and George E. Williams whose a four year old). Gentle Mary is up in her fifties on this list. And Samuel Fox (19) is close in age to Jasper Dye as is John H. Fox (17). But Julius S. Fox is the only fourteen year old because Lindsy Fox is only eleven.
"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal://MM9.1.1/MWFF-G3B: accessed 15 JUNE 2013), John Fox, 1880.
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Eti Fox is sixteen years old. Lives in the household of John Fox whose almost thirty. That household is dwelling # 73 on the enumerator's path, and they're family # 73. On this Census of 1850 for Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania we're looking at the schedule of Free Inhabitants (M432) and we can see that most of the families of free inhabitants had their own dwellings. There are lots of farms with big groups of people and there are laborers who have smaller units of people per dwelling.
Following the Census Taker makes a path through the Township and from this path we can construct a sort of Perry Township (in 1850) directory.
We can access the path by going through a single record on FamilySearch. We picked our Henry Fox's brother Eti Fox because his name is a little more unusual.
"United States Census, 1850," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal://MM9.1.1/M4HJ-H58: accessed 15 JUNE 2013), Eti Fox in entry for John Fox, 1850.
There's Eti, he's about sixteen. In House number 73, Family # 23.
John Fox is twenty-nine and there's a Catharine Fox...she's 49. A Henry Fox who is 18 and only Mary is older at age 22 on the list of young people with John and Catharine. We call her "Gentle Mary" but the enumerator ticked off the column that says Mary's deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict. James is next youngest to Eti on the list, he's fourteen. Luerettia Fox is 12, Mary Ann is ten, and Malissa is six years old. But she's not the kindergarten aged Malissa around here. The enumerator is going to meet some other little girls later on this October day like the little Malissa Fox who hangs around Mary Gump's place to see what's going on. The Malissa's would be sure to point out that Malissa is NOT Matilda. The shoemaker's little girl? That CHRISTINA, she's SEBEN like Sarah DelanA. Sarah goes to school.
So does henry and Eti and James and LuerETTia.
And then the enumerator is off to the Headley farm; one of them. Elias Headley is #74/74. And it's possible that after he makes way for the next stop...wondering which way to go...Elisabeth Headley might have sent someone over to John Fox's place to be sure about this Census taking.
The (70) Causgrangs and (77) William Sunk seem to be not far off. And then there's old Isaac Jackson he's like a hundred at seventy. But he's dwelling #78/family 78). The next family in the next abode is the young couple the Woodruffs...it's William and Elisa. And 80/80 is more Headley. Then Lemley and Abraham Teates and Alexander Henderson (83/83).
But go back, go back...If we were examining these records on microfilm we'd have to slow down the engines before coming to a STOP. Or else we might snap the roll of film.
Eti's Head of House has a valuable property, it's either worth 4000 or 7000, it's hard to tell. Sometimes the Census taker's writing looks slightly different as we follow along on his trail through the page.
We heard from the Cornerstone Genealogical Society that John Fox was "Captain John Fox," but it doesn't say that on the Census list.
#72/72 is Peter Fox. He's a fifty year old laborer with no real estate value. With him is Mary (40 yrs. old), Susanna who is eighteen and Jane who is either 13 or fifteen. In the olden days people called young women who weren't married yet, "maidens" like people did in Europe and in Spain.
There's Causgrang's place, he's...70/70.
But 71/71...that's the OTHER Peter Fox. He's with Sarah. And the three children with them are littles. Catharine is five, Christopher's three and Bassel, he's a boy, he's only one year old if that.
Then it's on to the Coons. James and Rachel and Sophia. Pretty name for a brand new baby newborn. Uh-oh...they get recorded as 70/70 too.
Now we're going east/west/north/south???? The ink blots on the entry for where Benjamin Dulany was born. Might have been VA or it might have been PA. It was twenty-five years before. He's with Sidney and a newborn named Ingraham. He's a boy...in family #69.
George Fox gets listed as 65/65. He's an aging laborer, born in NEW YORK (which was a different shape in 1850 than it was later in time). The Nancy who dwells with him was born in Pennsylvania though, just like the Mary and George in house #65.
Next we come to eight or nine lines of ROSE. Elisha's bunch. They're 66/66.
And at last we get to our GRANDMOTHER MATILDA. She's in dwelling visited number 67 with the long list enumerated as family #67. There's William Fox (age 27), and EliZabeth (23), Jonathon Fox who is three and John Fox who is one like Bassel. AND there's John DELANA, he's eight years older than Metilda who is forty. There's another EliZabeth Delana who is twenty one, Pishna Delana (18), Margaret (17), Thomas is fourteen. The next girl's name is not perfectly clear, it looks like Mesiah, she's 13. When sublings are that close in age they get called "Irish Twins." Sarah DELANA is ELEVEN and William DELANA a nine year old man. John's just 7 years old though so he's not a man yet. Jane-A DelanA is three and Isaac Delana is another one year old.
Sunk's place...that's 77/77.
Woodruff, Headley, Lemley, Teates, and Henderson. Then we've got James King and Mary Gump and Mary Gump and James King. There in #84.
But Mary Gump the third in a row she's 85/85 and sixty-four years old. Lives nearby one of the little Malissa Fox girls in 86/86.
Elizah Fox is a farmer and he's with EliSabeth Fox, she's twenty-three. Martha's seven and Benson is two. Asker Fox is brandy new.
Then David Bare's in 87/87 and Richard and Lydda in 88.
The enumerator goes from 88/88 to 84/84 and then from 84/84 to 40/40. That's George Buffey, farmer at age 25 in 84. And then there's Marion, more Fox in 40/40 with the young in's David (2), William (2) and EliSabeth who is fourteen.
The Census pages are filling up. Busee's in 41/41 and the Evans in 42/42. There's Denley in 43/43 and Magaret Addison is almost eighty in 44/44. There's a George Bare and a James Dunley, a Thomas Griffith in the numbers before another Evens at 88/88.
Phillip Barreck gets 99/99. And Joseph Danley is the hundredth visitation. Hard to believe this all happened on October 19th, 1850. Which may be why the handwriting looks markedly different when the enumerator gets into the twenty/twenty's. More headley and a Whiteland. Daniel Masters and Thomas Wade, he's the farmer at 24/24.
Then we seem to come across a sawmill of one of the Sentees. Might be John (23/23), might be David (22/22) or it might be James (18/18). Presley Wade is a laborer with a family numbered 21. And there's Simon Spitsnagle #20/20. William Clovis comes up on the list just before James Sentee and David Lemley, both farmers.
Then there's Asbury and Rachel LemLA and Jeremiah LEMLA. In 14/14 we find peter Phillips who is a farmer and who lives with a cooper. William's the cooper. And they all live right near David Canada and his clan.
Elizabeth Fuller is in between the two Canadas--David and David.
And Peter Mason is in 10/10.
C. Boydson is listed as a farmer. He's fifty year old but he's #9 today.
John Phillips is after Boydson. And then we get to the Oaks place. Joseph and Abigail are the older couple, and, Joseph Commes and Margaret Oaks the younger. They're all 7/7.
Jean Johnston is the first one on this batch of images of the US Census 1850--Sechedule of Free Inhabitants for Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania. He's dwelling #6/family #6.
The shoemaker? Jean Johnston is a farmer in his twenties. The shoemaker is Ezekel Jenkins and he's in his sixties but he's in dwelling #30 with DorAthe and a younger Ezekel, Charlotte who is twenty-one, a teenge Orlando, Mary and little Christina and a boy named Leroy. They live next to the St. Clair's. Mister St. Clair was born in Virginia and he has a Metilda too.
And in 32/32 is Milly Troy. She can't read or write and she was born in Virginia, but she's with David (18) and Leroy (9) who CAN read and write and were born in Pennsylvania.
Jeremiah Roberts is 33/33 and Levi Anderson is 34/34. It's A.L. Hughes in 35, also born in Virginia. And next to them is the weaver, George Cox. He was born in New York and he's literate but his Nancy is not.
Michaud and Cassina Snider...37/37
John Pyles...38/38
David Right (39/39) and David Amons (40/40)
It's LEWIS Pyles in #41 and Patent Wright in forty-two.
Mary Stonking is 43/43, Joshua Pyles with family 44. Zack Pyles is 45/45. And it's more Headleys in 46. JEREMIAH WRIGHT in 47.
48/48 is Abraham AMENS. Then there's more Lemley; some Grinnage; a John Cowel; and Sarah Stewart and A. Stewart have two different numbers, 52/52 and 53/53 respectively. H. Cross is in #54 and Wash Stephens holds the record at 55/55.
56/56...I don't know.
But 57/57 is Jonathon Delana who is a 55 year old farmer with a real estate value of 1200. His Eliza, Alfred, and Jane are illiterate like Massi and Rode but William is fifteen and in school. Their matilda is eleven.
In 58/58 is ABRAHAM Delana. He can't read or write either but has a house full of children in school. Susannah is close in age to Abraham. But Sharlotte is 23 years younger at thirteen. They have a John Delana (11), a Samuel Delana (9) and a bright young in school Sarah Delana (she's only seven). There's also Persey who is a five year old boy and "Mg" a three year old girl. The newborn in here (family #58) is about five months old since this is still October. And these folks live with Sarah Lemley who is almost eighty. LEMLEY.
Its Headley in 61/61 and B. Fordice in #60.
LEMLEY (59/59)...Samuel, Margaret, Jacob, Morris or Moses, Sarah, Samuel and Jeremiah (he's FOUR).
__ __ __ __ __ __ --Lara Lynn Lane, 15 JUNE 2013
Whoa...
While we do find a Metilda and John Delana (ages 48 and 40) in the household of William and Elizabeth Fox in Perry Township, Green County, Pennsylvania on the Census of 1850...
We also find A John, Matilda, and Malissa Delany in Wayne Township in July of 1870 (#285,232). That's only five years after the Civil War...tumultuous times. John's a laborer and Matilda's keeping house. All born in Pennsylvania. Malissa's fifteen. It appears they're all literate as opposed to the John and Metilda who can't read in 1850.
Unfortunately we found a death record. In the registry of the 1874 Western District Monongalia County West Virginia. It looks like there was nobody there to give the details of the death, even though the death is told of by the informant, Isaac Delany, son.
The man is John Delany, a white male, age 70. Date of death--"squiggly line" Name of parents: just a squiggly line. Occupation, farmer. Name of disease or cause of death: unknown. This man was born in Pennsylvania.
The registry includes columns for colored people--free or slave, and, Name of the owner of the slave.
Place of death, John Delany, Battelle District. Consort of, or unmarried: Delany Matilda.
This is from the County Records. "West Virginia, Deaths, 1853-1970," index, Familysearch (https://familysearch.org/MM9.1.1/NMV1-FSG: accessed 11 JUNE 2013), Matilda Delany in entry for John Delany, 1874.
It's by the US Census 1880 for Battelle that we find our Matilda as head of household with son Isaac (age 28), and daughter Malissa, 23 years old, and granddaughter Adda J.; she's two.
We find her more in our West Virginia site too which we've been working on stocking with records.
We also find A John, Matilda, and Malissa Delany in Wayne Township in July of 1870 (#285,232). That's only five years after the Civil War...tumultuous times. John's a laborer and Matilda's keeping house. All born in Pennsylvania. Malissa's fifteen. It appears they're all literate as opposed to the John and Metilda who can't read in 1850.
Unfortunately we found a death record. In the registry of the 1874 Western District Monongalia County West Virginia. It looks like there was nobody there to give the details of the death, even though the death is told of by the informant, Isaac Delany, son.
The man is John Delany, a white male, age 70. Date of death--"squiggly line" Name of parents: just a squiggly line. Occupation, farmer. Name of disease or cause of death: unknown. This man was born in Pennsylvania.
The registry includes columns for colored people--free or slave, and, Name of the owner of the slave.
Place of death, John Delany, Battelle District. Consort of, or unmarried: Delany Matilda.
This is from the County Records. "West Virginia, Deaths, 1853-1970," index, Familysearch (https://familysearch.org/MM9.1.1/NMV1-FSG: accessed 11 JUNE 2013), Matilda Delany in entry for John Delany, 1874.
It's by the US Census 1880 for Battelle that we find our Matilda as head of household with son Isaac (age 28), and daughter Malissa, 23 years old, and granddaughter Adda J.; she's two.
We find her more in our West Virginia site too which we've been working on stocking with records.
OUR Grandmother Matilda...
Pretty sure we've found out for sure that Matilda was Ida Mae's grandmother!
Ida Mae's father is listed as Isaac Delana on the Census of 1910. From there we went back to the Census of 1880 and found Isaac at age 28. At that time he was living with his mother Matilda (already widowed) and his sister Malissa. We also find a granddaughter, Adda J. Delana, with them and she's only 2 years old.
Adda Jane is Ida Mae's sister.
This had us scouring even older records and we were looking in Greene County, Pennsylvania since that's where many of the West Virginian Foxes and Dulaneys hailed from.
We'd found Isaac at age 11, born in Pennsylvania and still in Perry Township at that time, 1860.
But Isaac is NOT Ida and Adda's father. For a minute we were confounded by the conflict of information.
Their father is John Delaney who married Rebecca Blaker...we'd gleaned from vital records such as Ida and Adda Jane's death certificates.
We were actually looking at some Fox families searching for Grandfather Henry's origins, and, we found our Matilda and her husband John DELANA, with a mess of kids--living WITH some Foxes! If we hadn't read into the records around the family we were looking at, we wouldn't have found them because they weren't landowners.
We are so excited.
THERE they are in 1850!
AND, we can put this information together with some other stuff we've been reading, like...
Historical papers. We were very lucky to find some genealogical work done by John Conklin in the late 1880's. He was an actual grandson of John and Matilda Delaney! John Conklin's mother was MALISSA DULANEY! Isaac's SISTER!
This is incredible to find such a confirmation.
In some letters about John Conklin's genealogy we find another list of John and Matilda's children.
AND, we find out that Matilda was a Calvert! That was her maiden name, Matilda Calvert. She was actually born (not in 1810 as the estimation reads, but) on the 9th of March 1811. And she married John Delaney born in 1804.
We have a lot more reading to do now. But here we go again grounding around our elders to understand our whole story. Mama's ECSTATIC of course. She's a devout Catholic and nothing is as exciting to her than learning about anything Catholic. To find a Calvert in our family tree, well that opens up an exciting chapter in our family tree. And brings forth a lot of questions like...If our Calvert was related to Lord Baltimore what was she doing so far from Maryland? How exactly does a grandmother born in Kentucky tie up with some people getting off a ship and having a first mass?
Mama waits patiently for us to do all our textbook reading AND family tree rendering.
These papers of John Conklin, they are filed with the Cornerstone Genealogy Society and they are technically named, "The Descent and Ancestry of Isaac Calvert of Greene County, Pennsylvania."
Malissa wasn't born until 1857 so she wasn't on the Census of 1850.
That Census of 1850 also tells us that Sarah was attending school but she was "dumb." Maybe she was just really quiet and shy or maybe she was autistic but nobody knew that word way back then.
It's John Delaney, the younger on John and Matilda's household list who is one of our grandfathers! So that makes Matilda one of our grandmothers!
Reading Censuses we came up with another question for our list of questions....
What was Matilda Delany doing in St. Louis, Missouri (7th ward of St. Louis City) in 1860?
Could've been, the fire at the Fox homestead could've burned up our family documents. The good news about most documents is that they are rarely singular items. There are usually copies or at least notations about SOMEWHERE.
We don't have money to drop on this project, so we're taking the long way to compile our information.
A closer reading of A BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY, PA by Samuel Penniman Bates gives us some information. Even more than what's on Family Search although an entry on Adeline Mestrezat there is tied to that very book.
Family search only lists three children whereas Bates' material gives us six children when it tells us about William Long, the eldest son of Adeline (Mestrezat) and Samuel Long. Our G-something grandmother Clarissa's memorial tells us that Clarissa was one of several children connected to Samuel Long.
So according to what we're piecing together...William Long was the older brother of our Clarissa Long. Clarissa went on to marry Henry Fox (born abt 1832) and they had a bunch of children among whom was our Pappy--Elias Fox. See, there we go tumbling about in the family tree soon as we get a clue.
William Long, the Biographical History tells us, was a farmer and stock grower. And he wasn't the only one in the area listed as either a stock grower/stock dealer. Leads us to wonder more about stock tending in Greene County as a historical place where people were dealing in agriculture and labor. Reading through the biographies in Bates' book en masse gives us a sense of place. Large acreage, stock supply. We can imagine a bird's eye view at the time of William's birth in 1831. And look back on that in hindsight after the Civil War.
In general we see that the longer people stayed in place the more real estate value they accumulated either by purchase or by being positioned in a family to be the asset manager.
We also see that William and his son, Merritt Leonard Long were listed as Democrats and this book of Bates' came out in 1888. We might deduce that the Longs who'd lived through the Civil War and Reconstruction were anti-Union and so may have been racists or even old school "masters." But we don't know that by simply reading some evidence written in the available language of the day like political party labels.
Genealogically, the sketches give us William Long as son of Samuel (born 1801) and who died in 1886. And there is a reference to Samuel Long's parents both being born in Ireland. Samuel Long and his second wife, Adeline (maiden name: Mestrezat) were "natives of Greene County and residents therein until their death, which occurred in Perry Township" (Bates). The information tells us that the children of Samuel Long were from this second marriage.
Elsewhere [insert familysearch citation] we found the name Jemima as his first wife. And we have in our heads a cloudy mix of cultural creations that have us somewhat daunted here. What if our relatives were slave holders? And mean and nasty people? What if they were the ones having sex with captives? What if there was that kind of stuff going on? Can't make apologies for the people of the past. And can't go back and change things. So we have to brave on and try to see what was what with our people in the past. Finding out about ancestors is kind of like knowing famous people. What is it exactly a third party is trying to see? Trying to say? What's the point of a claim to fame when that claim is not much more than witnessing somebody else actually being famous?!
We're not out to plug our Southern kin into the dead horse position here. We're just trying to piece together our Quilt which is a very human understanding of very human humans. It's got good stuff in it and it's got hard stuff in it. If it's got bad stuff in it, there's not much we can do about other peoples' doings. That's a way to try and take an objective perspective. Of course, there's no telling what kinds of reactions contemporary people will have to the past. Something that seems like water under the bridge to one person might be an emotional hot button for somebody else. Just "plain old facts" might string together to make a story people don't want to know about. And what about matching facts to actions and philosophies? It's people, afterall, who stack the facts about our lives and these make our stories. Some facts seem to happen to people while other facts are made by hand by individuals and groups of people. And some "facts" turn out to be more temporal than others. Somebody's convictions, for example, are like personal facts on top of vital statistics and other numerical data.
William Long was born near Garard's Fort but came to own 400 acres near Mount Morris. At the time of his birth Greene County was more pioneer-like than urbane. He was reared on a farm in Whiteley Township.
As was, presumably, Clarissa. Unlike the children of itinerant preachers and military men, farmers' children were more settled down from the get go. When we find Clarissa on the Census of 1880 (already married to Henry Fox) she's 46 years old, so we believe she was born in 1834. That's about three years younger than brother William.
William received his early education in subscription schools. We're able to learn more about that online these days.
Family Search only lists three children of Samuel and Adeline. William, Harriet, and MaryAnn. On that list Clarissa would've come in between William and Harriet (who was born in December of 1843). MaryAnn's birth year is listed as 1854. That's 23 years after William!
Bates also mentions Allena.
Harriet grew up to marry David L. Cowell in 1864. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
And in the sketches we also see Lemleys and Headlees. You remember them?! We met some of their kin in West Virginia.
Of course, we have to understand that biographical sketch books were a phenomena of nearing the 20th century. Like marketing plotting a region's phonebooks in the later days of the 20th century...there was some generalizing. Elsewhere in our family tree we had creative types who wrote the entries for this type of biographical sketching! But you can imagine that not every family had someone to pitch in a sketch to these broad projects.
By way of saying that date disparities between biographical sketches and census information are quit common. This is why people have the most luck in research when they give space on either side of their dates. Adding five years on either side of a window, for example, helps open up the possibilities.
And we have this rare photograph of a "Grandma Fox" compliments of the collection of Sherry Candy Lane which we believe is that Clarissa Long who married Henry Fox (born abt 1832).
I know, it's kind of terrible when people don't have their photographs taken at various times in their lives. In some lovely way, she definitely rivals the tobacco smoking granny in the Black family as pictured in O'Brien's book At Home in the Heart of Appalachia.
A cursory browse at the Long-Mestrezat connection on Ancestry.com seems confusing! For example, they list a Samuel Long who married Adeline Mestrezat but that Samuel Long was purportedly born in 1793.
Guess I'm not surprised. I'm not a member of that website so I don't feel I can trust the freebie info, like maybe members get the real information and the freebie stuff there is scraps and leftovers. 'Sides, the other day a colleague was telling me that Ancestry.com had her connected to just about every famous person that's ever existed. I know it's a small world, but some of this technology that's cramming stories together is TOO small. Crammed together like that the boundaries blur and the details tend to get shaved and shoved into packages which may or may not be the truth.
We took our clues to our Census readings...
MESTREZAT! The maiden name of the biological mother of Clarissa Long. That's a huge piece of information for our family tree. And knowing that her first name was ADALINE helps us identify her in the household of Samuel Long on the US CENSUS 1880. That is where we learn that our Samuel Long's parents were both born in Ireland.
Knowing that Clarissa's mother's name was ADALINE also explains why Henry and Clarissa named their first child, ADALINE (Elias's big sister).
On that Census of 1880 are also listed WILLIAM LONG and his son Merritt Leonard Long whom we'd heard about in the entry of Bates' HISTORY. That history tells us that William's father died only six years after that 1880 census and that Adaline Long had died in 1880 although we found that she was recorded on the 1880 census as being 80 years old. So Adaline (Mestrezat) Long was born in 1800. And Samuel was a year younger having been born in 1801 according to the 1880 Census.
The US CENSUS 1850 has him seemingly born in 1800 since he's recorded as being a solid 50 years old. In that year we find Samuel not in Perry Township, but in Whiteley Township (house #146, family #146) and he is married to "Jemima Long." I am not sure that this clarifies for me the confusion about his marriages. But his household list tells us that William and Clarissa Long were connected in 1850.
There they are...William is 18 years old and Claressa sixteen. Allena is 12 and Harriet is eight years old. There is also a 63 year old woman who lives with them and her name is Nancy Freeland. Either they were ALL "white" or the census recorder just didn't bother to record any other "color" on the sheets for Whiteley Township. Jamima is aged 45 on this 1850 Census so she would've been born in about 1805. And we can read further in the Census to see that the Freelands are neighbors. Alfred and Rachel Freeland and more children.
Claressa is our direct relative in that Census snapshot. And there she is at 16 years old.
The townships in the area saw some rearrangement from 1781 onward. And from 1775-1780 Greene County PENNSYLVANIA was part of Virginia!
I think we can see Samuel and Adeline's homestead on Historic Map Works' 1876 Atlas map...
Click here to view the map in a separate window!
Like I said, I seem to find him there along the edge of Perry Township. And if Clarissa Long was the neighbor of her husband Henry Fox (as it says in her memorial article) then we might consider that the JOHN FOX listed there near Samuel Long was the home of Henry's parents: "Captain John" and Catharine Fox.
What we find in the census readings is that Captain John and Catharine lived in Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania so as far as locating them on one of these HISTORIC MAP WORKS panels we may have other options...like finding them in closer proximity to Catharine's parents: Peter and Mary (Thomas) Fox whom we seem to find in the central area of this map.
We learned in our correspondence with the Cornerstone Genealogical Society that Henry's folks, Captain John and Catharine were cousins.
Catharine was the daughter of Peter Fox and Mary Thomas, and "Captain John" was the son of Joseph Fox and Jane "Jennie" Wilson. Without more detailed information I cannot be certain that this couple had children of their own. Even with reports of births that did not happen in hospitals with blood work and members of communities present for the affair we cannot be 100% sure about biological connections.
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Have a look at the Census via family search...
Samuel Long's family in 1850
In this post place we'll also put "a newspaper article that was written in memory of Clarissa Long a year after her death" (correspondence 13 JUNE 2011, Yeager to Lane) which we obtained from Cornerstone Genealogical Society.
The correspondence tells us that Claressa "married to Henry Fox at the age of 18, and after their marriage they moved to Miracle Run" (later in West Virginia).
We look more at Henry and Clarissa in our Miracle Run website too which you can get to by clicking the link below on this website.
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The Mestrezats which Bates gives us in the History came to Greene County among the earliest settlers about 1795. These were natives of France and had lived briefly in Carmichaels (in Cumberland Township) then settled in Mapletown. These were Charles Alexander Mestrezat and Louisa Dufresne. Dufresne may be confused in some family histories with old Hollanders like Depues but that's drifting. Charles and Louisa are said to have had eleven children including Jean Louis Guillaume Mestrezat whom people called William. Jean Louis was born 11 MAY 1809 in Mapletown. And that was only six years before his father Charles Alexander died.
Jean Louis (William) Mestrezat was reared in Mapletown, learned the gunsmith trade, some farming, and carried on a mercantile business. At the time the Bates History was written he owned 330 acres, was a Democrat, and had been a school director for fifteen years. He'd married MaryAnn Hartley and they had five children...C.A. Harriet married Samuel Hudson; S.L. was an attorney at Uniontown, PN; Charlotte Amanda married the Honorable M. John of Colorado; and J.L.G. was a cattle-dealer in the West.
William's mother Louisa had died in 1849 but she was alive at the time of William's marriage to MaryAnn Hartley (in 1843) whose parents were of Irish lineage (Hannah Leslie and Mathias Hartley).
Two years before Jean Louis (William) was born to Louisa and Charles Alexander, Frederic Mestrzat had been born in the September of '07. The biographical sketch of William shows a discrepancy in the year in which Louisa and Charles came to North America from France. Frederic's says 1793 while William's reports 1795. Frederic was the sixth child and the second son of the eleven children. He attended the subscription schools taught by teachers hired by parents by the year and a half. This "select" education influenced Frederic to be involved in securing good educational advantages for his Township as an adult.
You can read the book The Hoosier Schoolmaster by Edward Eggleston to gather a sense of schoolmastering in the day. It's a "classic."
Frederic Mestrezat learned the hatter's trade and dealt exclusively in wools and furs. And he, too, had married before his mother died. In the April of 1833 Frederic married Miss Martha Hull. Miss Martha's people were of Delaware and of Scotch-Irish and German origin. Her mother was Sarah Grove and her father Lemuel Hall or Hull). Frederic and Martha had six children (four of whom were still living in 1888ish). John A. was a carpenter; Mary A. married B.F. Mercer; Aline A. married Wm. W. Shaffer; and there was Caroline A. Frederic and Martha's eldest son was educated at Morgantown, West Virginia and was in the 14th Pennsylvania Calvary, Company E. But he was captured in a battle at Sulphur Springs on the 27 of August 1863 and he was taken to Belle Isle, Richmond. From there he was removed to Hospital No. 21 in Richmond where he died on the 27th of March 1864. Frederic was Republican in politics. He was a worker in the Sabbath-school and for his church. He joined his wife in her lifelong congregation later in his life--the Presbyterian Church of Greensboro.
Born in the first decade of the 1800's sure does make for a big age difference between Clarissa Long and Frederic and Jean Louis. Clarissa wasn't born until 1835. Which is one more clue suggesting that Adaline Mestrezat was a sibling on Charles Alexander and Louisa's list of eleven children.
We don't have money to drop on this project, so we're taking the long way to compile our information.
A closer reading of A BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY, PA by Samuel Penniman Bates gives us some information. Even more than what's on Family Search although an entry on Adeline Mestrezat there is tied to that very book.
Family search only lists three children whereas Bates' material gives us six children when it tells us about William Long, the eldest son of Adeline (Mestrezat) and Samuel Long. Our G-something grandmother Clarissa's memorial tells us that Clarissa was one of several children connected to Samuel Long.
So according to what we're piecing together...William Long was the older brother of our Clarissa Long. Clarissa went on to marry Henry Fox (born abt 1832) and they had a bunch of children among whom was our Pappy--Elias Fox. See, there we go tumbling about in the family tree soon as we get a clue.
William Long, the Biographical History tells us, was a farmer and stock grower. And he wasn't the only one in the area listed as either a stock grower/stock dealer. Leads us to wonder more about stock tending in Greene County as a historical place where people were dealing in agriculture and labor. Reading through the biographies in Bates' book en masse gives us a sense of place. Large acreage, stock supply. We can imagine a bird's eye view at the time of William's birth in 1831. And look back on that in hindsight after the Civil War.
In general we see that the longer people stayed in place the more real estate value they accumulated either by purchase or by being positioned in a family to be the asset manager.
We also see that William and his son, Merritt Leonard Long were listed as Democrats and this book of Bates' came out in 1888. We might deduce that the Longs who'd lived through the Civil War and Reconstruction were anti-Union and so may have been racists or even old school "masters." But we don't know that by simply reading some evidence written in the available language of the day like political party labels.
Genealogically, the sketches give us William Long as son of Samuel (born 1801) and who died in 1886. And there is a reference to Samuel Long's parents both being born in Ireland. Samuel Long and his second wife, Adeline (maiden name: Mestrezat) were "natives of Greene County and residents therein until their death, which occurred in Perry Township" (Bates). The information tells us that the children of Samuel Long were from this second marriage.
Elsewhere [insert familysearch citation] we found the name Jemima as his first wife. And we have in our heads a cloudy mix of cultural creations that have us somewhat daunted here. What if our relatives were slave holders? And mean and nasty people? What if they were the ones having sex with captives? What if there was that kind of stuff going on? Can't make apologies for the people of the past. And can't go back and change things. So we have to brave on and try to see what was what with our people in the past. Finding out about ancestors is kind of like knowing famous people. What is it exactly a third party is trying to see? Trying to say? What's the point of a claim to fame when that claim is not much more than witnessing somebody else actually being famous?!
We're not out to plug our Southern kin into the dead horse position here. We're just trying to piece together our Quilt which is a very human understanding of very human humans. It's got good stuff in it and it's got hard stuff in it. If it's got bad stuff in it, there's not much we can do about other peoples' doings. That's a way to try and take an objective perspective. Of course, there's no telling what kinds of reactions contemporary people will have to the past. Something that seems like water under the bridge to one person might be an emotional hot button for somebody else. Just "plain old facts" might string together to make a story people don't want to know about. And what about matching facts to actions and philosophies? It's people, afterall, who stack the facts about our lives and these make our stories. Some facts seem to happen to people while other facts are made by hand by individuals and groups of people. And some "facts" turn out to be more temporal than others. Somebody's convictions, for example, are like personal facts on top of vital statistics and other numerical data.
William Long was born near Garard's Fort but came to own 400 acres near Mount Morris. At the time of his birth Greene County was more pioneer-like than urbane. He was reared on a farm in Whiteley Township.
As was, presumably, Clarissa. Unlike the children of itinerant preachers and military men, farmers' children were more settled down from the get go. When we find Clarissa on the Census of 1880 (already married to Henry Fox) she's 46 years old, so we believe she was born in 1834. That's about three years younger than brother William.
William received his early education in subscription schools. We're able to learn more about that online these days.
Family Search only lists three children of Samuel and Adeline. William, Harriet, and MaryAnn. On that list Clarissa would've come in between William and Harriet (who was born in December of 1843). MaryAnn's birth year is listed as 1854. That's 23 years after William!
Bates also mentions Allena.
Harriet grew up to marry David L. Cowell in 1864. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
And in the sketches we also see Lemleys and Headlees. You remember them?! We met some of their kin in West Virginia.
Of course, we have to understand that biographical sketch books were a phenomena of nearing the 20th century. Like marketing plotting a region's phonebooks in the later days of the 20th century...there was some generalizing. Elsewhere in our family tree we had creative types who wrote the entries for this type of biographical sketching! But you can imagine that not every family had someone to pitch in a sketch to these broad projects.
By way of saying that date disparities between biographical sketches and census information are quit common. This is why people have the most luck in research when they give space on either side of their dates. Adding five years on either side of a window, for example, helps open up the possibilities.
And we have this rare photograph of a "Grandma Fox" compliments of the collection of Sherry Candy Lane which we believe is that Clarissa Long who married Henry Fox (born abt 1832).
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| Believed to be Clarissa (Long) Fox married to Henry Fox |
A cursory browse at the Long-Mestrezat connection on Ancestry.com seems confusing! For example, they list a Samuel Long who married Adeline Mestrezat but that Samuel Long was purportedly born in 1793.
Guess I'm not surprised. I'm not a member of that website so I don't feel I can trust the freebie info, like maybe members get the real information and the freebie stuff there is scraps and leftovers. 'Sides, the other day a colleague was telling me that Ancestry.com had her connected to just about every famous person that's ever existed. I know it's a small world, but some of this technology that's cramming stories together is TOO small. Crammed together like that the boundaries blur and the details tend to get shaved and shoved into packages which may or may not be the truth.
We took our clues to our Census readings...
MESTREZAT! The maiden name of the biological mother of Clarissa Long. That's a huge piece of information for our family tree. And knowing that her first name was ADALINE helps us identify her in the household of Samuel Long on the US CENSUS 1880. That is where we learn that our Samuel Long's parents were both born in Ireland.
Knowing that Clarissa's mother's name was ADALINE also explains why Henry and Clarissa named their first child, ADALINE (Elias's big sister).
On that Census of 1880 are also listed WILLIAM LONG and his son Merritt Leonard Long whom we'd heard about in the entry of Bates' HISTORY. That history tells us that William's father died only six years after that 1880 census and that Adaline Long had died in 1880 although we found that she was recorded on the 1880 census as being 80 years old. So Adaline (Mestrezat) Long was born in 1800. And Samuel was a year younger having been born in 1801 according to the 1880 Census.
The US CENSUS 1850 has him seemingly born in 1800 since he's recorded as being a solid 50 years old. In that year we find Samuel not in Perry Township, but in Whiteley Township (house #146, family #146) and he is married to "Jemima Long." I am not sure that this clarifies for me the confusion about his marriages. But his household list tells us that William and Clarissa Long were connected in 1850.
There they are...William is 18 years old and Claressa sixteen. Allena is 12 and Harriet is eight years old. There is also a 63 year old woman who lives with them and her name is Nancy Freeland. Either they were ALL "white" or the census recorder just didn't bother to record any other "color" on the sheets for Whiteley Township. Jamima is aged 45 on this 1850 Census so she would've been born in about 1805. And we can read further in the Census to see that the Freelands are neighbors. Alfred and Rachel Freeland and more children.
Claressa is our direct relative in that Census snapshot. And there she is at 16 years old.
The townships in the area saw some rearrangement from 1781 onward. And from 1775-1780 Greene County PENNSYLVANIA was part of Virginia!
I think we can see Samuel and Adeline's homestead on Historic Map Works' 1876 Atlas map...
Click here to view the map in a separate window!
Like I said, I seem to find him there along the edge of Perry Township. And if Clarissa Long was the neighbor of her husband Henry Fox (as it says in her memorial article) then we might consider that the JOHN FOX listed there near Samuel Long was the home of Henry's parents: "Captain John" and Catharine Fox.
What we find in the census readings is that Captain John and Catharine lived in Perry Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania so as far as locating them on one of these HISTORIC MAP WORKS panels we may have other options...like finding them in closer proximity to Catharine's parents: Peter and Mary (Thomas) Fox whom we seem to find in the central area of this map.
We learned in our correspondence with the Cornerstone Genealogical Society that Henry's folks, Captain John and Catharine were cousins.
Catharine was the daughter of Peter Fox and Mary Thomas, and "Captain John" was the son of Joseph Fox and Jane "Jennie" Wilson. Without more detailed information I cannot be certain that this couple had children of their own. Even with reports of births that did not happen in hospitals with blood work and members of communities present for the affair we cannot be 100% sure about biological connections.
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Have a look at the Census via family search...
Samuel Long's family in 1850
In this post place we'll also put "a newspaper article that was written in memory of Clarissa Long a year after her death" (correspondence 13 JUNE 2011, Yeager to Lane) which we obtained from Cornerstone Genealogical Society.
The correspondence tells us that Claressa "married to Henry Fox at the age of 18, and after their marriage they moved to Miracle Run" (later in West Virginia).
We look more at Henry and Clarissa in our Miracle Run website too which you can get to by clicking the link below on this website.
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The Mestrezats which Bates gives us in the History came to Greene County among the earliest settlers about 1795. These were natives of France and had lived briefly in Carmichaels (in Cumberland Township) then settled in Mapletown. These were Charles Alexander Mestrezat and Louisa Dufresne. Dufresne may be confused in some family histories with old Hollanders like Depues but that's drifting. Charles and Louisa are said to have had eleven children including Jean Louis Guillaume Mestrezat whom people called William. Jean Louis was born 11 MAY 1809 in Mapletown. And that was only six years before his father Charles Alexander died.
Jean Louis (William) Mestrezat was reared in Mapletown, learned the gunsmith trade, some farming, and carried on a mercantile business. At the time the Bates History was written he owned 330 acres, was a Democrat, and had been a school director for fifteen years. He'd married MaryAnn Hartley and they had five children...C.A. Harriet married Samuel Hudson; S.L. was an attorney at Uniontown, PN; Charlotte Amanda married the Honorable M. John of Colorado; and J.L.G. was a cattle-dealer in the West.
William's mother Louisa had died in 1849 but she was alive at the time of William's marriage to MaryAnn Hartley (in 1843) whose parents were of Irish lineage (Hannah Leslie and Mathias Hartley).
Two years before Jean Louis (William) was born to Louisa and Charles Alexander, Frederic Mestrzat had been born in the September of '07. The biographical sketch of William shows a discrepancy in the year in which Louisa and Charles came to North America from France. Frederic's says 1793 while William's reports 1795. Frederic was the sixth child and the second son of the eleven children. He attended the subscription schools taught by teachers hired by parents by the year and a half. This "select" education influenced Frederic to be involved in securing good educational advantages for his Township as an adult.
You can read the book The Hoosier Schoolmaster by Edward Eggleston to gather a sense of schoolmastering in the day. It's a "classic."
Frederic Mestrezat learned the hatter's trade and dealt exclusively in wools and furs. And he, too, had married before his mother died. In the April of 1833 Frederic married Miss Martha Hull. Miss Martha's people were of Delaware and of Scotch-Irish and German origin. Her mother was Sarah Grove and her father Lemuel Hall or Hull). Frederic and Martha had six children (four of whom were still living in 1888ish). John A. was a carpenter; Mary A. married B.F. Mercer; Aline A. married Wm. W. Shaffer; and there was Caroline A. Frederic and Martha's eldest son was educated at Morgantown, West Virginia and was in the 14th Pennsylvania Calvary, Company E. But he was captured in a battle at Sulphur Springs on the 27 of August 1863 and he was taken to Belle Isle, Richmond. From there he was removed to Hospital No. 21 in Richmond where he died on the 27th of March 1864. Frederic was Republican in politics. He was a worker in the Sabbath-school and for his church. He joined his wife in her lifelong congregation later in his life--the Presbyterian Church of Greensboro.
Born in the first decade of the 1800's sure does make for a big age difference between Clarissa Long and Frederic and Jean Louis. Clarissa wasn't born until 1835. Which is one more clue suggesting that Adaline Mestrezat was a sibling on Charles Alexander and Louisa's list of eleven children.
Many people have been working diligently to upload old newspapers and other printed matter onto computering.
Findings From Fordyce’s Work:
Stray Bull
Came to the plantation of the subscriber, living in Centre township about the last of October, a Brown Bull about three years old, marked with an underbit out of the right ear and the lope of his horns sawed off, a small white spot in the forehead. Entered on the township clerk's book according to law. The owner is desired to come forward, prove property, pay charges and take it away.
--Joseph Ankrom
Centre township
Saturday, November 30, 1822
Waynesburg Messenger
Twenty Dollars REWARD
Absconded from the subscriber on Friday night, the 11th inst. and indented apprentice to the Printing business, named William Allinder. He is between 19 and 20 years of age, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high - fair complexiond and thin visaged and [unreadable] his disposition, and generally speaks in a muttering kind of tone. He had on when he went away a roram hat nearly new, a blue broadcloth coat and vest and green linen pantaloons. The above reward with all reasonable charges, will be paid for apprehending and securing him in any jail so that I may get him again. All persons are cautioned against harboring him.
--Robert Fee
Editor of the Western Register
Brownsville, (Pa.) Oct. 24, 1822
APPRENTICE WANTED
A smart, active boy, from 10 to 14 years of age, who wishes to learn the Tailoring Business, will meet with good encouragement by applying immediately to the subscriber, in Greensburgh.
--John Salvards
August 27, 1825.
Saturday, October 15, 1825
Waynesburg Messenger
DIED
On Friday morning the 1st of February, at his residence in Whitely township, of extreme old age and debility, Mr. JOHN STANLEY, long an inhabitant of this county. It is doing the deceased but bare justice to state that he was known and remarked by all his acquaintance as an "honest man." He came from his native country (England) some years before the Revolutionary war, and it is not known that he has a blood relation in the U. States. In Jefferson, on Wednesday last, Mr. FRANCIS DRUMMOND. On the following day his remains
were interred with Military Honors, by the Jefferson Blues - the deceased being a respectable member of that company.
Saturday, March 8, 1828
Waynesburg Messenger
MARRIED
Lately, by the Rev. John Fordyce, Lieutenant William Johnson, of Wayne township, to Miss -----, daughter of Mr. John Lantz, of Monongalia County, Virginia.
On Monday evening last, by James Seals, Esq. Mr. Jacob Odenbaugh, to Mrs. Catharine, widow of Mr. Arthur Hook, deceased.
Saturday, April 19, 1828
Waynesburg Messenger
Dr. Brown RESPECTFULLY offers his PROFESSIONAL SERVICES to the citizens of Waynesburg and vicinity. He may be consulted at the Office, lately in the occupancy of DR. MORGAN.
Waynesburg, August 4, 1834.
Tuesday, October 28, 1834.
Waynesburg Messenger
LAND FOR SALE
IN pursuance of the Last Will and Testament of the late Judge Minor, we will sell that WELL KNOWN AND VALUABLE TRACT OF LAND, late the Estate of said deceased. It is situated on Bid Whitely creek, about two miles from Greensburg and New Geneva, and is supposed to contain about 700 Acres. Few Farms in Western Pennsylvania present greater attractions than this one. About Four Hundred Acres are cleared and in a good state of cultivation. A comfortable MANSION, a valuable Grist and Saw-Mill, and four Tenant Houses, are erected thereon. There are also a number of ORCHARDS. If the entire Tract cannot be sold to advantage soon, the Tract will be divided into three or four parts, and sold separately. Persons desirous of purchasing will leave their proposals with either of the undersigned.
--WM. G. HAWKINS,
--L. L. MINOR,
Executors.
June 16, 1834.
Tuesday, October 28, 1834
Waynesburg Messenger
October Election.
We are authorized to announce Dr. J. V. BOUGHNER, of Perry township, as a candidate to represent the people of Greene County in the next Legislature of Pennsylvania. (Subject to the
decision of the Democratic Convention.) We are authorized to announce WASHINGTON PIPES as a candidate for Sheriff at the next October election.
May 1, 1845
Waynesburg Messenger
Information Wanted.
Whereas my wife left my home on the 2d inst. in a deranged state of mind, and I have not been able to learn any thing of her since. - This is therefore to request any person who may have any knowledge of where she is, to give me information, either by mail or otherwise. She is something over forty years old, rather of a slender build, quite a strait, delicate shaped
woman, with dark eyes and dark hair, not very large in stature. She took with her a plaid flannel dress, a blue and white calico, and a gingham dress, a sun Bonnet of red and brown calico with square spots, a long shawl, light colored, also a large reticue made of brown sercassion. It is supposed that she may have started for Greene county, Pennsylvania, as she has friends residing there.
--JACOB ADDLEMAN,
Centerburg, Knox county, Ohio,
April 11, '46
May 5, 1846
Waynesburg Messenger
CAUTION.
Whereas my husband, George Trussell has left my bed and board without any just cause or provocation, this is to warn all women from harboring him at their peril, as he is my lawful
husband, and if he returns to me by the 4th of July, he will be made welcome.
--Hannah Trussell,
formerly Hannah Tittle,
May 12, 1846.
Waynesburg Messenger
Lieut. Stewart Speers, of the Fayette County Volunteers, has returned from Mexico, and paid a visit to Waynesburg, last week. We had not the pleasure of seeing him, but those of our citizens who did, were highly pleased with him, and if he did not tell them everything it was not for the want of questions being asked. He spoke in the highest terms of the Volunteers from this place, and says that the "Coon Killer" alias Andrew Ferguson, was quite a favorite with the whole regiment. Mr.
Speers is a gentleman and a soldier, and would not have returned at this time but for a shot through his hand from his revolver.
May 25, 1847
Waynesburg Messenger
On Tuesday, the 8th inst, by the Rev. P. Axtell, Mr. ASA B. McFANN to Miss AMANDA MARTIN, all of Waynesburg.
In the hurry of making up our paper last week we entirely forgot the above notice. We were really sorry for this, as the happy couple were far from forgetting us amid their joy. We were remembered with a most beautiful poundcake for which the young pair have our sincere wishes for a long life of
uninterrupted happiness and prosperity. We can't write poetry but we do tell the truth, which is far better.
February 22, 1848
Waynesburg Messenger
Serious Accident.
We regret to learn that Mr. Isaac Lacock, of Morris township, was considerably injured, on Thursday of last week, whilst engaged in blowing rocks, near the residence of Mr. James Ringland, in that township. His right eye was blown out, both hands greatly mangled, and the face much lacerated. He is a son of Mr. Ira Lacock, of Morris township, and by all who know him is esteemed as a worthy and industrious young man. We are glad to be informed that he is rapidly improving.
Washington Examiner picked up by the Waynesburg MessengerJuly 6, 1847
Measles Death
Infant Samuel Cleavenger
27 July 1847
To read more interesting items taken from the pages of the Waynesburg Messenger transcribed by James Fordyce in 2001, click here.
We also heard wind of a small newspaper called the Mount Morris Tidings put out of the print shop of a Mr. Hood but we haven't been able to find its pages yet.
YIKES! A snippet from a Home Guide produced by the Ladies Aid Society of the M.E. Church...1906
"To clean white hoods or woolen shawls: Saturate with flour, let lay overnight, rub well with the hands, shake out thoroughly and they will look like new. --Nora Rush"
THE LATE RAID!! ALL QUIET ON BORDER!!
"The excitement consequent the threatened Rebel Raid on Greene and adjoining counties has almost entirely subsided. The Rebels have disappeared from Morgantown, but are said to be still in the vicinity of Fairmont or Warren. On Thursday last, Major Showalter, in command of some 700 Union troops and a section of Artillery at Morgantown, expecting to open communications with the Railroad someplace west of Fairmont, sent a dispatch to Waynesburg for help. Our Committee of Safety immediately got our home forces in readiness and our Washington friends sent us a fine Company of Infantry under command of the gallant Captain Wishart. Before their arrival, however, news reached us that Major Showalter had evacuated Morgantown and was on his way to Wheeling via Uniontown. On Saturday morning, all imminent danger of a Rebel incursion having passed away, the Washington lads returned to their homes and our own people resumed their usual business occupations. At present, all is quiet, and all alarm allayed."
--from the Waynesburg Messenger, 6 MAY 1863
We are also very interested in learning more about this...
Findings From Fordyce’s Work:
Stray Bull
Came to the plantation of the subscriber, living in Centre township about the last of October, a Brown Bull about three years old, marked with an underbit out of the right ear and the lope of his horns sawed off, a small white spot in the forehead. Entered on the township clerk's book according to law. The owner is desired to come forward, prove property, pay charges and take it away.
--Joseph Ankrom
Centre township
Saturday, November 30, 1822
Waynesburg Messenger
Twenty Dollars REWARD
Absconded from the subscriber on Friday night, the 11th inst. and indented apprentice to the Printing business, named William Allinder. He is between 19 and 20 years of age, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high - fair complexiond and thin visaged and [unreadable] his disposition, and generally speaks in a muttering kind of tone. He had on when he went away a roram hat nearly new, a blue broadcloth coat and vest and green linen pantaloons. The above reward with all reasonable charges, will be paid for apprehending and securing him in any jail so that I may get him again. All persons are cautioned against harboring him.
--Robert Fee
Editor of the Western Register
Brownsville, (Pa.) Oct. 24, 1822
APPRENTICE WANTED
A smart, active boy, from 10 to 14 years of age, who wishes to learn the Tailoring Business, will meet with good encouragement by applying immediately to the subscriber, in Greensburgh.
--John Salvards
August 27, 1825.
Saturday, October 15, 1825
Waynesburg Messenger
DIED
On Friday morning the 1st of February, at his residence in Whitely township, of extreme old age and debility, Mr. JOHN STANLEY, long an inhabitant of this county. It is doing the deceased but bare justice to state that he was known and remarked by all his acquaintance as an "honest man." He came from his native country (England) some years before the Revolutionary war, and it is not known that he has a blood relation in the U. States. In Jefferson, on Wednesday last, Mr. FRANCIS DRUMMOND. On the following day his remains
were interred with Military Honors, by the Jefferson Blues - the deceased being a respectable member of that company.
Saturday, March 8, 1828
Waynesburg Messenger
MARRIED
Lately, by the Rev. John Fordyce, Lieutenant William Johnson, of Wayne township, to Miss -----, daughter of Mr. John Lantz, of Monongalia County, Virginia.
On Monday evening last, by James Seals, Esq. Mr. Jacob Odenbaugh, to Mrs. Catharine, widow of Mr. Arthur Hook, deceased.
Saturday, April 19, 1828
Waynesburg Messenger
Dr. Brown RESPECTFULLY offers his PROFESSIONAL SERVICES to the citizens of Waynesburg and vicinity. He may be consulted at the Office, lately in the occupancy of DR. MORGAN.
Waynesburg, August 4, 1834.
Tuesday, October 28, 1834.
Waynesburg Messenger
LAND FOR SALE
IN pursuance of the Last Will and Testament of the late Judge Minor, we will sell that WELL KNOWN AND VALUABLE TRACT OF LAND, late the Estate of said deceased. It is situated on Bid Whitely creek, about two miles from Greensburg and New Geneva, and is supposed to contain about 700 Acres. Few Farms in Western Pennsylvania present greater attractions than this one. About Four Hundred Acres are cleared and in a good state of cultivation. A comfortable MANSION, a valuable Grist and Saw-Mill, and four Tenant Houses, are erected thereon. There are also a number of ORCHARDS. If the entire Tract cannot be sold to advantage soon, the Tract will be divided into three or four parts, and sold separately. Persons desirous of purchasing will leave their proposals with either of the undersigned.
--WM. G. HAWKINS,
--L. L. MINOR,
Executors.
June 16, 1834.
Tuesday, October 28, 1834
Waynesburg Messenger
October Election.
We are authorized to announce Dr. J. V. BOUGHNER, of Perry township, as a candidate to represent the people of Greene County in the next Legislature of Pennsylvania. (Subject to the
decision of the Democratic Convention.) We are authorized to announce WASHINGTON PIPES as a candidate for Sheriff at the next October election.
May 1, 1845
Waynesburg Messenger
Information Wanted.
Whereas my wife left my home on the 2d inst. in a deranged state of mind, and I have not been able to learn any thing of her since. - This is therefore to request any person who may have any knowledge of where she is, to give me information, either by mail or otherwise. She is something over forty years old, rather of a slender build, quite a strait, delicate shaped
woman, with dark eyes and dark hair, not very large in stature. She took with her a plaid flannel dress, a blue and white calico, and a gingham dress, a sun Bonnet of red and brown calico with square spots, a long shawl, light colored, also a large reticue made of brown sercassion. It is supposed that she may have started for Greene county, Pennsylvania, as she has friends residing there.
--JACOB ADDLEMAN,
Centerburg, Knox county, Ohio,
April 11, '46
May 5, 1846
Waynesburg Messenger
CAUTION.
Whereas my husband, George Trussell has left my bed and board without any just cause or provocation, this is to warn all women from harboring him at their peril, as he is my lawful
husband, and if he returns to me by the 4th of July, he will be made welcome.
--Hannah Trussell,
formerly Hannah Tittle,
May 12, 1846.
Waynesburg Messenger
Lieut. Stewart Speers, of the Fayette County Volunteers, has returned from Mexico, and paid a visit to Waynesburg, last week. We had not the pleasure of seeing him, but those of our citizens who did, were highly pleased with him, and if he did not tell them everything it was not for the want of questions being asked. He spoke in the highest terms of the Volunteers from this place, and says that the "Coon Killer" alias Andrew Ferguson, was quite a favorite with the whole regiment. Mr.
Speers is a gentleman and a soldier, and would not have returned at this time but for a shot through his hand from his revolver.
May 25, 1847
Waynesburg Messenger
On Tuesday, the 8th inst, by the Rev. P. Axtell, Mr. ASA B. McFANN to Miss AMANDA MARTIN, all of Waynesburg.
In the hurry of making up our paper last week we entirely forgot the above notice. We were really sorry for this, as the happy couple were far from forgetting us amid their joy. We were remembered with a most beautiful poundcake for which the young pair have our sincere wishes for a long life of
uninterrupted happiness and prosperity. We can't write poetry but we do tell the truth, which is far better.
February 22, 1848
Waynesburg Messenger
Serious Accident.
We regret to learn that Mr. Isaac Lacock, of Morris township, was considerably injured, on Thursday of last week, whilst engaged in blowing rocks, near the residence of Mr. James Ringland, in that township. His right eye was blown out, both hands greatly mangled, and the face much lacerated. He is a son of Mr. Ira Lacock, of Morris township, and by all who know him is esteemed as a worthy and industrious young man. We are glad to be informed that he is rapidly improving.
Washington Examiner picked up by the Waynesburg MessengerJuly 6, 1847
Measles Death
Infant Samuel Cleavenger
27 July 1847
To read more interesting items taken from the pages of the Waynesburg Messenger transcribed by James Fordyce in 2001, click here.
We also heard wind of a small newspaper called the Mount Morris Tidings put out of the print shop of a Mr. Hood but we haven't been able to find its pages yet.
YIKES! A snippet from a Home Guide produced by the Ladies Aid Society of the M.E. Church...1906
"To clean white hoods or woolen shawls: Saturate with flour, let lay overnight, rub well with the hands, shake out thoroughly and they will look like new. --Nora Rush"
THE LATE RAID!! ALL QUIET ON BORDER!!
"The excitement consequent the threatened Rebel Raid on Greene and adjoining counties has almost entirely subsided. The Rebels have disappeared from Morgantown, but are said to be still in the vicinity of Fairmont or Warren. On Thursday last, Major Showalter, in command of some 700 Union troops and a section of Artillery at Morgantown, expecting to open communications with the Railroad someplace west of Fairmont, sent a dispatch to Waynesburg for help. Our Committee of Safety immediately got our home forces in readiness and our Washington friends sent us a fine Company of Infantry under command of the gallant Captain Wishart. Before their arrival, however, news reached us that Major Showalter had evacuated Morgantown and was on his way to Wheeling via Uniontown. On Saturday morning, all imminent danger of a Rebel incursion having passed away, the Washington lads returned to their homes and our own people resumed their usual business occupations. At present, all is quiet, and all alarm allayed."
--from the Waynesburg Messenger, 6 MAY 1863
We are also very interested in learning more about this...
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