On the Farm--in the Middle of History

52ancestors No. 39

On the Farm — in the Middle of History 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

It was 155 years ago on 20 September 1863 when the Battle of Chickamauga ended. About 36,000 were killed in that event — 20,000 Confederates and 16,000 Union men, and it was the costliest battle in the war’s western theater. On their small farms nearby in Walker County, Georgia, my large Fricks family struggled to survive the Civil War and then to pick up the pieces when it was over. 

Fricks Gap, Walker County, Georgia ca 1864

Several of their young men, including two brothers (Francis Marion “Frank” Fricks and William Henry Harrison “Harrison” Fricks), sons of S. Davis Fricks (1813-98) and Nancy Riggs (1815-1912) served in Co. E. of 39th Regiment, Georgia Infantry (called the Walker[County] Light Guards), CSA and were in the thick of the fighting. “Harrison” Fricks was killed 23 November 1863 at the Missionary Ridge Battle — not far from his family’s farm at Pond Springs. He was 22 years old.

 In the summer of 1863, my great-grandfather (Napoleon B. Fricks), then only 17 years old, joined 6th Battalion Georgia Cavalry (State Guards). In the same unit was Charles W. Connally, 46, who would become his father-in-law soon after the war was over. Researching the military records pertaining to this family more thoroughly provided an extra bonus when I learned that my great-grandfather was not the only one of that rather unusual name. His uncle, also named Napoleon Bonaparte Fricks, was born in 1820. He was a private in Co. B, 21st Regiment, Georgia Infantry, CSA, and died during the war of typhoid fever while serving in Virginia. Finally, I was able to untangle some mixed-up branches because of this same-name problem. 

S. Davis Fricks  (1813-1898)

Stories were passed down to my grandfather, a son of Napoleon B. Fricks, about the war and the battles near their homes. Most of my Fricks family remained in Walker County until the path of the railroad split their farm (according to family lore) and they sold out their farms and headed west. In the autumn of 1891, great-grandfather Napoleon B. Fricks took his family to the Creek Nation of Indian Territory, but the year before several of his relatives, including his parents, removed to McGregor, McLennan County, Texas. They both purchased farms in their new localities. 

Putting it to a Vote

#52ancestors No. 38
 Unusual Source (Voting Registers)

Putting it to a Vote 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018

The California Great Registers are available from 1867 through 1944, albeit not for every county for every year; plus there are some available even later for a few counties. The voting registers are quite helpful in identifying Anglo and Hispanic males over the age of 21, since they were required by law to register. Although African-Americans were granted the right to vote in 1870, many were disenfranchised on account of literacy. Women received the right to vote in California in 1911 and appear in the registers after that date. There were other exclusionary acts that precluded individuals from appearing on the lists at times, for example, Indians until 1924 and natives of China from 1879 to 1926. 

Using several of these records I was able to trace my Forty-niner, Jonathan Lewis, who lived in California from 1849 until late in 1900. While I believe he is listed in 1850 in El Dorado County, his name is such a common one that I’ve never been sure the John Lewis listed was him, even though everything seems to “fit.” In the California state census of 1852, there’s a J. Lewis in Yuba County, California. I suspect this is Jonathan, but it is impossible to prove.

 By the 1860 federal census, there’s a John Lewis recorded in Placer County which is probably him, although the state of birth listed (Virginia) differs. However, he appears 18 June 1867 on a voter registration, listed as a farmer in Crane Valley, age 36, and born in North Carolina. That information all matches the known facts about him. Later voter registrations also show him in Madera County. These records reveal he was 5-foot-8, fair completion, blue-eyed and by 1896 his hair was gray. 

He had two sons — Benjamin F. and Daniel — by his first Indian wife, whose name was Cee-au-na, and she is believed to have been a native of the Gashowu (Cassons) Yokuit tribe. The sons were born ca 1862 and 1864, and using the 1884 and 1896 voting registers I was able to better identify them. Tracing men with a common surname such as Lewis is challenge, and you need all the records you can find to help sort them out. An 1896 registers provided height, color of eyes, hair and complexion, plus indicated that Daniel had a scar on his left hand.

 If you have any California ancestors, especially those who arrived before 1900, you may find some gold as I did in these records. They are available at: Ancestry® (www.ancestry.com). This website provides both digitized images and indexes, divided into two separate databases.

Blowing out the Candles

#52ancestors—No. 37
Closest to your birthday

Blowing out the candles 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

Only one ancestor and I share the same February birthday — albeit it about 364 years apart. I had gathered some information about my Duchy of Brabant families and was doing historical exploration of the 16th century and early 17th century to better understand how my Maria wound up marrying Johannes de Hooges in 1608 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It appears that she was born the same year of the “Sack of Antwerp.” 

According to Wikipedia, “At the time Antwerp, in modern Belgium, was not only the largest Dutch city, but was also the cultural, economic and financial centre of the Seventeen Provinces and of north-western Europe. On 4 November 1576, unpaid Spanish soldiery mutinied: they plundered and burnt the city during what was called the Spanish Fury. Thousands of citizens were massacred and hundreds of houses were burnt down. As a result, Antwerp became even more engaged in the rebellion against the rule of Habsburg Spain. The city joined the Union of Utrecht (1579) and became the capital of the Dutch Revolt, which no longer was merely a Protestant rebellion but had become a revolt of all Dutch provinces.” 

Her name was Maria Tijron and purportedly she was born in Antwerp, the daughter of Anthoni Tijron and his second wife, Catharina Daneels. Research on my early Dutch and Flemish families has long been on the back burner — one of those “going to tackle it later” projects that genealogist are infamous for having — so many branches, so little time. 

It had been a long time since I had looked at my meager notes and sources for this line. It is a good thing that I did because I find no primary source for Maria’s birth, and as I examined the birth records of her eight children (all baptized in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands), I realized that if she was born in 1576, as some online genealogies claim, she would have been 32 years old when she married and about 44 years old when her youngest child (and my ancestor), Anthony de Hooges, was born. While not impossible, certainly not the norm. It is much more likely that she was about 22 years of age when she married, which would make her born about 1586 or so. And, now, I don’t know if her actual day of birth is correct. Where did that information come from? I have only a reference that has no original or trustworthy secondary sources. At least, I had so noted that..

I learned from The Memorandum Book of Anthony de Hooges (translated by Dirk Mouw; a publication of the New Netherland Research Center and the New Netherland Institute, 2012) that: "Tragedy struck the De Hooges family during Anthony's first few years of life. Indeed, tragedy struck repeatedly. His mother [Marion Tijron] died when he was very young, probably before this 3rd birthday and shortly after his 4th, his father died as well. 

“The absence of references to any siblings in surviving documents of a later date, written to, by or about the orphaned Anthony suggests that all of his seven siblings also died early in his life. It is likely that at least some of the members of his immediate family succumbed to the plague which is estimated to have claimed 11 percent or more of Amsterdam's population in 1624 and to have taken a smaller but still a devastating human toll the following year." 

So, it is back to genealogical digging before I even attempt to put this family’s story together. As it stands now, Maria Tijron and I may or may not share a common birthdate.

Searching for a U.S. Marshal

#52 ancestors No. 36 --Work

Grandpa Vanderpool: U.S. Marshal?

 By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

It is not surprising that some, perhaps many, of our family legends turn out to be less than accurate. And, that’s being kind. 

My paternal grandmother told the story about grandfather being a U.S. Marshal in Indian Territory and how in the early days of their marriage, which took place in 1906, she would ride with him when he went to deliver warrants. I never thought to ask her what else he did in his job. 

Imagine my surprise when I found him in 1900 Creek Nation of Indian Territory census listed as a 23-year-old livery stable hand. Of course, he was still single and living with his parents, so I reasoned the marshal job must have come a bit later. 

However, the 1910 federal enumeration, showing him with grandmother, their eldest daughter and my father, lists his occupation as “night watch” [sic] and the industry given as “night watch” [sic]. In 1910, they were living in the State of Oklahoma, which no longer was Indian Territory. Oklahoma having become a state on November 16, 1907. However, a “night watch[man]” was certainly no U.S. Marshal. 

Did grandmother lie? 

Grandpa registered for the World War I draft on 12 September 1918, still living in Eufaula, McIntosh County, Oklahoma where he and grandmother had resided since 1906. He gave his occupation as: “Eng. Tender” and employer as Osage Cotton Oil Co. He died less than a year later from heart problems and the Spanish flu.

 I called my sister, who as a few years older, often knew or remembered stories I didn’t. She said grandmother had always claimed that he was a marshal. Sis dug out a 1970 newspaper story in which grandmother told the same story about grandfather being a “United States Marshal, and that she rode with him in a one-horse buggy to different places to serve papers.”

 I checked all the sources available in an attempt to prove his occupation, but they all turned out negative. Indian Territory was a pretty wild place in the early 1900s and there were many deputy U.S. marshals, but none of them were my grandfather and he was not listed as a U.S. Marshal either. 

Reluctantly, I gave up the quest, thinking my grandmother, who didn’t know where she was born in Tennessee, just might have been confused — to be polite. 

John R. Vanderpool and wife,

 Molly Kimbro and two oldest children, 

Edna and John. 

ca 1910

Then one day while searching old newspapers online I found a listing of the “United States Officials” in the Eufaula (Creek Nation, Indian Territory) Directory of May 10, 1907. There was my grandfather: John Vanderpool, Constable. It finally made sense. The city’s constable was under the U.S. government at that time because since 1 March 1889, the U.S. District Court for Indian Territory had had jurisdiction. While a small-town constable is not the same as a U.S. marshal or deputy marshal, his job, would have been similar — in a much smaller jurisdiction in Indian Territory. 

Constable Vanderpool is mentioned in a small newspaper story in 1907 when Newman Boone, who had shot and killed Jackson McGilbra, surrendered to him. Boone was brought to Eufaula and then taken on to Muskogee to await a hearing. 

I thought I had solved the mystery about grandpa’s occupation — finally. Then I found a notice in newspaper, dated 22 May 1908, wherein grandpa opened an “up-to-date skating rink in the Mills Building, lower floor, on Foley Avenue” in Eufaula. The town’s former constable was now a “skating rink proprietor.” 

I wonder why there are no family legends about that?