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? 

Is There a Doctor in the House?

#52ancestors—week 35
 Back-to-School

Is There a Doctor in the House?

 By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

Dr. James Monroe Vanderpool (1859-1916) was what the family called a “country doctor” — in the traditional sense of being a small-town, old-fashioned doctor. The family also called him by his middle name, but most records show him as James M. 

He was born near the tiny town of Jasper (county seat of Newton County) Arkansas in the autumn of 1859. His family, part of the pro-Union faction in the Ozarks, removed to northern Missouri during the Civil War to escape bushwhackers, Confederate raids and the general violence of that time. His father, Capt. James R. Vanderpool, was a Union Army officer. The family returned to Newton County after the war. 

Monroe married young, when he was about 18, to Cumi Palestine Johnson, and in 1880, when his parents died a few months apart, he became the guardian of his baby brother, Levi Franklin Vanderpool, who was born 16 August 1880. Initially, I wondered why Monroe was named, since he was the third-eldest child of the family. However, a closer look at the 1880 census reveals that the two older children of the family — William (my ancestor) and Sarah (wife of William Treat) already had three and four children, respectively. Monroe and Cumi only had a two-year-old son at the time. Without any other evidence, it appears guardianship and care of the baby brother went to Monroe and his wife, probably because of economic and perhaps space factors. The other underage children of Capt. James R. Vanderpool were taken in by various family members, and they had a court-appointed guardian for their portions of the estate. 

Dr. James Monroe Vanderpool

So how did Monroe become a doctor? Obviously, he needed education and/or an apprenticeship, if such was the custom in those days. The medical education requirements of the 19th century are a bit murky and vary from place to place. Possibly he used the small inheritance from his parents to finance his education. 

However, the 20-year-gap between the 10th and 12th federal censuses (1880 and 1900) creates problems for research of this sort. In 1880, Monroe and his family are in Arkansas; in 1900, they are enumerated in the Creek Nation of Indian Territory, and he is listed as a physician. In 1910, he and his family resided in the small town of Calvin in Hughes County, Oklahoma. At the time of his death, his residence was given as Wetumka (Hughes County), Oklahoma. 

His 1916 obituary in the Checotah [McIntosh County, Oklahoma] Times does not mention his education, but indicates he and his family were in the process of removing to California. 

A search at Ancestry.com in the “Directory of Deceased American Physicians, 1804-1929,” provided some answers: Death Date: 29 July 1916 in Wellington, (Sumner County) Kansas. Type Practice: Allopath. Medical School: Barnes Medical College, St. Louis, 1899, (G) Education: Common school, Jasper, Arkansas; Academy, Yellville (Marion County), Arkansas; and Fayetteville State University, Arkansas (probably meaning the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville). Licenses: Arkansas, 1888; Oklahoma, 1899; and last listed was 19 September 1913 in Calvin, (Hughes County) Oklahoma. 

Armed with this educational information, perhaps I will find additional records, even photographs, of Dr. James Monroe Vanderpool. Just what I need — another project for my copious spare time. 

Filling in the Blanks

#52ancestors Week 34, Aug. 20-26 

Filling in the Blanks: Non-population schedules 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

It’s easy to overlook certain records, like Mortality Schedules, but a mistake to do so, I’ve learned. My ancestor, James R. Vanderpool, died in 1880, and I had found his 1879 will and also located his widow and children in the 1880 census. Plus, I had compiled a great deal of information about him. 

Capt. James Vanderpool, Anna and 6 of their children, Arkansas, ca 1878

He had been a Union officer in a Confederate State and was a local hero in Newton County, Arkansas, for among other things, his role in leading a wagon train of civilians out of the Ozarks to northern Missouri to escape the bushwhackers and Confederates. According to the county’s history, on that trip he shot a Confederate lady’s cow that had had the audacity to “moo” at their wagon train, and the Union families ate the beef for dinner. 

His military service and pension records are rich in details and historical notes. He served in the Arkansas State Legislature briefly during Reconstruction. Then he returned to Newton County, ran a mercantile store, farmed, and once was sued for illegal imprisonment. I obtained copies of his Homestead papers wherein he explained why he had not lived on that property since 1 September 1875: "I was compelled to remove to Yellville, Arkansas to carry on a daily mail contract which was awarded to me in 1875 from Yellville to Fayetteville, Ark."

 Additionally, family letters revealed that his wife Anna (née Henderson) and her sister, Sarah, got into a fight over something pertaining to their children and Sarah slapped Anna. Then Capt. James and Sarah's husband (Greenberry Kelley) got into a fight and Capt. James threatened to shoot him. Sarah and her husband left Arkansas for California shortly thereafter and the two sisters never saw each other again. 

I knew when and where Capt. James Vanderpool died and was buried and as a result almost overlooked checking the 1880 Mortality Schedule for Arkansas. Because of the lack of state or county death records for Arkansas before 1914, this schedule can be an important genealogical document. 

While there are several errors in it pertaining to my ancestor, I learned that he died from Bright’s Disease (nephritis) — inflammation of the kidney — something I never knew until I found this schedule. 

For those who are working on one-name databases, a check of the 1850-1880 Mortality Schedules may be the records that will provide some answers as to whatever happened to those “lost” ancestors and enable you to untangle the three or four Johns and Marys. Of course, you run the risk of finding someone whose place in the family tree is a big mystery and then you’ll have another project to work on. 

Ah, such is the joy of genealogy.

Dusting off family legends

#52ancestors Week 33
Aug. 13-19 Family Legend

Dusting off family legends

 By Myra Vanderpool Gormley ©2018 

One of the favorite American genealogy legends — 3 brothers came to America — is not found in my family. At least I’ve never heard it. I suspect that is because our multi-ethnic family has been in this country longer than our family’s memories about who the gateway ancestors were. 

There are no “stowaways” or “they changed our name at Ellis Island” tales either. Since Ellis Island didn’t open until 1892 and all of our known ancestors arrived in the 1600s and early 1700s, that legend would have been easy to disprove. However, like so many American families, ours has its shares of the popular genealogical legends, which include:

 • Horse thief

 • Indian heritage

 • Fortune left in “old country”

 • Name “change” (because of family disagreement)

 • Claim to fame via Daniel Boone, Jesse James, etc.

 • Wrong ethnic background 

Proving the horse thief was fairly easy since I started out knowing his name (Cole Shoemake), where he lived (Oklahoma) and the time period (early 20th century). It helped that his escapades were written up in several newspapers and that the Leavenworth, Kansas prison had records (and a picture) of him. It took a bit of digging to figure out the exact relationship, which turned out to be half 1C2R. Half first cousins are still family, of course. Does that mean I have a half black sheep relative? 

The Cherokee legends were handed down in several different lines — just to confuse us, I think. Great-grandpa’s Guion Miller application is so higgledy-piggledy that I wonder if the old Baptist preacher might have been imbibing when he filled it out. A number of family tales fell apart in the cold daylight of historical accuracies and basic genealogical research, but one line did prove to be Cherokee, but it was not among any of the passed-along legends. It was found almost by accident. 

My maternal grandfather believed the “inheritance in the old country” story and I never determined how he learned about it, but suspect it might have been one of those 1920s or 1930s inheritance scams stories that often appeared in U.S. newspapers. What threw cold water on this legend for me was the claim that the family fortune was in England. My grandfather’s family were primarily Swiss, German and Irish. If there’s any English in his line, it must be back in the 1500s and not yet identified. 

This family also has the proverbial family dispute tale in which two brothers had a disagreement and split up their business (and what that was varies from storyteller to storyteller) and one of them “changed” their name from Fricks to Frix. Changing the spelling doesn’t change the name, but you can’t tell my family that. Many years of research into this Southern line has failed to turn up the feuding brothers and the nearest I’ve come to finding anything is when my great-grandaunt Julia Fricks married her first cousin once removed (1C1R) Alexander Frix, but they both descend from the same ancestor of a Rowan County, North Carolina Germanic Swiss Fricks (Frick) family — no matter how they spell it. 

Many Jesse James (the outlaw) stories and kinship tales to him abound in families, especially those with roots in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas. I was able to disprove one of the legends about our grandfather catching Jesse James burying train robber loot on his Oklahoma farm with just one trip to the library (this, of course, was many years before Wikipedia). Jesse James was killed on 2 April 1882 in Missouri. My grandpa was an 8.5-year-old boy in Georgia when that happened — long before he removed to Oklahoma and purchased a farm. Nevertheless, I have some cousins who can’t see the flaw in this legend and are passing it on to their grandchildren. 

Oops. Wrong ethnic group. When I was growing up I wondered why dad always emphasized that we were “Holland Dutch.” Didn’t all Dutch come from Holland (or more properly, The Netherlands)? Evidently this is how his ethnic origins had been related to him, along with the family legend of coming from New York. Apparently Holland Dutch was to distinguish them from the German Dutch (Deutsche). 

My maternal grandmother would rattle off the various ethnic combinations in her family as French, Black Dutch, Irish, Scotch-Irish, Welsh and English — way back there (whatever that meant). She didn’t know what Black Dutch meant either, but that’s another story. Eventually, I learned the distinction between Irish and Scotch-Irish (the latter is an Americanism). 

My paternal grandmother wasn’t sure what ethnicity her family roots were and it took years to discover her mother’s maiden name (Lee). However, her paternal line, with a very English-sounding surname (Kimbro/Kimbrough), turned out to be German. According to family legend, our Kelly line was “originally O’Kelly” and Irish. Appears this legend may bite the dust also as research continues. Another purportedly English line turned out to be Swedish (Bankston); and the jury is still out on whether the Andersons on the family tree are Scottish, Swedish or Norwegian. My numerous lines known as Pennsylvania Dutch are not Dutch at all. They are German. 

I am such a mixed bag of ethnic mixtures and I have learned to keep an open mind about the validity of any of my family legends. Recently, I found a potential ancestor of yet another ethnic group to add to the mixture — she’s Italian. Mama Mia.

Youngest Twig

#52ancestors
Week 32 Aug. 6-12
Youngest

Exploring Ancestry of Youngest Twig

 By Myra Vanderpool Gormley ©2018 

You know you’re getting old when the grandchildren start marrying and are threatening to make you great-grandparents. 

During a recent visit with the youngest grandson and his bride, the conversation turned to my favorite subject — genealogy. I whipped out some blank charts and began getting information about the newest member of the family’s ancestors. She was able to provide some names, dates and places, and after a few chats with her mother, via phone, added more and some critical details.

 “I’m half Polish,” she told us. 

After the young people headed back to their Midwest home, I began to do some research. I’m faced with a brand-new world to explore. My husband and I descend from old American families — back to the early Colonial period. Our newest family addition brings much more recent lines into the mix. It appears that her families emigrated from Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in the late 19th century and early 20th, and I’ve just scratched the surface.

Public Domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/

 I have no idea where this genealogical adventure is going to take me, but I probably will need to dust off several language guides and locate maps showing the complex and changing borders of those European countries. I stashed them around here — somewhere. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve read ship passenger lists and looked for naturalization papers. This will be fun and a challenge. 

I can hear the accordions playing polkas already. 

Oldest Mother

#52ancestors Week 31 — Oldest

Oldest Mother in my Family Tree

 By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018

 Genealogy is filled with conundrums. Sometimes just when you think you’ve wrapped up the research on a particular branch of your family, you discover a glaring improbability that sends you back to dig some more. 

One I’ve encountered a few times is what I call the “old” mothers problem — women having children way past their child-bearing years. I have seen many of them in online trees. The task is figuring out whether the basic birth and marriage information about the mother is incorrect, or is without valid evidence, or if there are just plain old typing or transcription problems. 

However, not only are the “old” mothers a problem, but the number of the children it is claimed they produced always turns on the alert signal for me. Did my Polly really have 16 children over a span of 32 years? Were they all single births? Might some of them have been her grandchildren? Where did any and all of the information come from about her and these children? Ah, that is where the basic problems usually lie. The information may all be from secondary sources or has been gathered from references unknown, unverified, uncited, and thus is unreliable. 

My Polly Price purportedly married Thomas Connally, about 1765, but as I searched through old notes, I discovered several conflicting places for this marriage — none of which I can verify. Was it in Virginia or North Carolina? Older genealogies (compiled by her descendants in the early 1900s) give both places. But they vary on the date. So far, I have not found a marriage record in either place. If, and that’s always the big IF, their eldest child was John William Connally, and if he was born 5 December 1765 in North Carolina, then an estimate of his parents’ marriage of 1764 or early 1765 is logical, but . . .

 Thomas Connally, the father, was bp. 12 September 1738 in Richmond County, Virginia (“Registers of North Farnham Parish [Virginia] 1663-1814 and Lunenburg Parish, 1783-1814”), but we don’t know when or where Polly was born. If she was born ca, 1740 (say, a couple of years younger than her husband), then she would have been about 57 years old when she had her 16th child in 1797. I don’t think so. 

In order to be the mother of 16 children as everyone claims, she would have had to been having children for 30 or more years, unless there were some multiple births, which none has been claimed, so a birthdate for the youngest child of this couple might well have been ca 1797 as determined from censuses. But Polly, must have been a young bride of about 14, because even stretching her age to be 45 when she had the youngest child, she must have been born ca 1752, not ca 1740, and thus would have been about 14 years younger than her husband. That’s possible, of course. But, I have no proof. 

My ancestor, David Connally, was No. 8 — the middle child of Tom and Polly. He was born 31 October 1776 and died 17 June 1848. His birth and date deaths are from his tombstone in East Point, (now Fulton County) Georgia and were recorded by Atlanta historian, Franklin M. Garrett, on 4 November 1930. In attempting to ascertain the birth years of the other 15 children, I’ve also searched for their final resting places in hopes their tombstones would provide additional information. Most members of this large family died before the 1850 census, which adds to the difficulty of sifting out all the Connallys, especially in northern Georgia. It appears that only Abner, William L., Christopher “Kit,” and Samuel W. Connally lived long enough to be enumerated in 1850 and thus provide estimations of their ages.

As best I can determine with the meager records found so far, Polly was having children for 32 years, starting in 1765 and ending in 1797. I find no indication that any of them were multiple births. Another possibility raises its head — maybe she is the second or even third wife and these 16 children are not all hers? However, no other wives for Thomas Connally have been claimed. If Thomas was married previously, that record has not been uncovered by researchers.

 Polly may be the oldest mother in my family tree, but I can’t accept the premise that she was having children in her 50s and as late as age 57 — not in the late 18th century. The only logical answer to this puzzle is that she married at a much younger age than has been assumed. 

If all 16 children are hers, as it appears they are, she certainly was a remarkable and obviously a strong woman. Yet, we know little about her — only the name of her husband, names of her parents (John Edward Price and Jane Prescott) and her children, and approximately when she died in Georgia (early 1820s). But when and where she is buried is not known. 

How sad. Polly, my 4-great-grandmother, I hardly know you.

Peach of a Guy

#52ancestors Week 24 

June 11-17 Father’s day

Peach of a Guy 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley ©2018 

Dad and me and my first puppy. Ca 1945.

He could smell a ripe peach 30 miles away. And nothing could stop him from getting a bushel or two of his favorite fruit. In his 75 years on this earth, he must have eaten 100s of bushels. No peach was safe around him. 

Growing up in Oklahoma with a father whose finely honed sense of smell for food — especially fresh fruit and vegetables provided me with an early incentive to learn to cook well and to distinguish fine products from the so-so. He also taught me PG — practical geography — because he knew every back road with 100 miles of Muskogee, Oklahoma and which farmer had the best peaches, apples, apricots, cantaloupe, watermelons, onions, tomatoes, corn, carrots and okra.

 And, did I mention he was fisherman? Watch out crappies, bass and catfish. He had a hook with your name on it. 

His favorite food spot was a place called Porter, Oklahoma. A wide spot in the road, but famous (at least locally) for its peaches. Conveniently, his and mom’s best friends lived there. They also had a huge garden, which Dad helped them to cultivate. So a trip to Porter was the best of all worlds — see old friends, get a bushel of peaches, and come home loaded with garden-fresh onions, okra, corn and tomatoes, and pig out. 

Dad never had a weight problem. He was a big man, but not fat. He worked hard as an automobile mechanic and burned extra calories foraging for the best fresh food in the country. 

When we moved to Seattle, life in a large city was a new experience for him, plus he had Saturdays off for the first time in his life. He came from background where most people worked six days a week. And, so it was that far from the farms he knew and loved, his nose led him to downtown Seattle and its Pike Place Market. 

There he discovered a food lover’s paradise. He was the proverbial kid in a candy store, sampling and buying to his heart’s content. He’d come home to Ballard via the city bus loaded down with sacks of produce, fresh fish, nuts and bakery goods. When mom’s cupboards and refrigerator overflowed, he’d bring the rest to my house. It was like having my personal shopper.

 It seemed appropriate back in 1985, the year after Dad died, when the Pike Place Market had a renovation campaign that I purchased a tile in his honor. Located at 444-4 near the produce, fish and day tables is a tile with his name — John O. Vanderpool — on it.

 I was — as Dad use to jokingly say — his favorite baby daughter, but my twin brothers were extra-special. After all, they were sons of a peach. 

Groan, if you wish, but my Dad, the punster, would love it.

My Oft-Married Ancestor

#52ancestors No. 23 

June 4-10 

Going to the Chapel 

My Oft-Married Ancestor

 By Mya Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

J. H. Kimbro (top, with whip) and his cotton-picking helpers

 -- mostly his children and grandchildren. ca 1905 Eufaula, I. T.

Great-grandpa Jefferson Hezekiah (what a mouthful) Kimbro’s many trips to the wedding chapel, or more correctly, to the county courthouses, created a puzzle for a couple of young family historians — way back when. 

My sis and I, long before the 1900 U.S. census was available, let alone online, began our quest to figure out which children belonged to which wife of our great-grandpa. We weren’t even sure how many times he had been married. 

She, being older, recalled more family stories passed down via our maternal grandmother — a daughter of J. H. Kimbro — but the stories were so scrambled and contradictory when we began to put information on charts we finally had to throw up our hands. We were like deer caught in headlights. We had many names, dates, and places, but nothing matched, or could be verified. Our grandmother didn’t even know, for sure, in which Tennessee county she was born.

 Since she was born after the 1880 census, I was unable to find her family in that record because I did not have enough information to go on or to be able sort out the hundreds of Kimbros who lived in various counties in Tennessee. However, hoping to find great-grandpa (born 1856) in that enumeration, I made several trips to the National Archives in Seattle to scroll through microfilm. I extracted data until my fingers grew numb and my eyes crossed. 

At that time, the 1880 census did not have an every-name index. It had what was called a Soundex — a coded surname index based on the way a surname sounds rather than the way it is spelled. It had been developed by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) in the 1930s for the Social Security Administration. The latter needed to identify individuals, few of whom had birth records, who would be eligible to apply for old-age benefits, meaning those born in the 1870s; thus only households with children 10 years of age and under were included in that 1880 index. I found one couple, but the given names didn’t match what little information we had.

 “We have to have more information,” I told sis. “There are way too many Kimbros and Kimbroughs in Tennessee. 

Finally, I obtained a copy of great-grandpa’s 1926 Oklahoma death certificate and found his obituary. The informant for his death certificate was his “last” wife, and it was riddled with “unknowns.” The local newspaper carried his obituary, but it was not particularly helpful. It read: “Besides his widow, deceased leaves a brother, John Allen Kimbro, and a number of children and a number of nephews and nieces to mourn his death.” 

Sis and I knew he had a number of children, but we were not sure how many, who they were, or who their mothers were. We were spinning our wheels. Our father and aunts provided additional information, mostly from their memories, but nothing fit. Nobody was sure of the maiden name of his first wife (purportedly the mother of our maternal grandmother) though several claimed there was a Family Bible — somewhere. 

Sis went to Oklahoma to visit and vowed to search the cemeteries. She found great-grandpa’s final resting place and his stone. It also mentioned Ida, his last wife, who outlived him. She died in 1945. That didn’t help us much. The family stories claimed his other wives probably were buried in a small settlement near Eufaula. But, as our luck would have it, that graveyard had been moved when Lake Eufaula was created in the 1960s. 

Finally, we found re-interment information that had been produced by the Army Corps of Engineers for the New Mellette Cemetery — the final resting place of several Kimbros. All we had to do was figure out who they were.

 • Kimbro, Bessie ---- 15 Sep 1895

 • Kimbro, Cassa ---- 15 Mar 1896

 • Kimbro, Flora 1 Mar 1889 16 Jun 1901

 • Kimbro, Ida 8 Jul 1897 15 Aug 1897

 • Kimbro, (Infant) 8 Feb 1900 10 Feb 1900

 • Kimbro, (Infant) 30 Jun 1902 3 Jul 1902 

 • Kimbro, Lemmie 9 Feb 1892 10 Sep 1892

 • Kimbro, Lochy ---- 15 Oct 1896

 • Kimbro, Martha I. 11 Jun 1865 24 Feb 1900

 • Kimbro, R. J. 6 Mar 1881 21 Jan 1899

 • Kimbro, Tennessee D. 28 Jul 1862 11 Jul 1902

 • Kimbro, Tully ---- 5 Mar 1896 

One family story maintained that our grandmother, Mollie, and our grand-aunt Cora were daughters of J. H. Kimbro and that their mothers were sisters. We tracked down Cora’s Texas death certificate. It listed her mother as “Mattie Lee,” and revealed that Cora was born 31 August 1891 in Winnsboro, Tennessee. At last, we had a maiden name for the first two wives of J. H. Kimbro. We determined there was no Winnsboro in Tennessee but there was a Waynesboro, located in Wayne County. Armed with this information and a better timeline to pinpoint the date of the migration from Tennessee to Indian Territory, we finally began to make headway. 

We eventually (don’t ask how many years) learned that J. H. Kimbro “went to the chapel” four times: • He married first Amarintha “Celie” Lee 22 September 1875 in Wayne County, Tennessee. She died there about 1890. They had six children, including our grandmother, born in 1889.

 • He married secondly Martha E. “Mattie” Lee (sister to “Celie”) 4 December 1890 in Wayne County, Tennessee. They had three daughters, including a set of twins, one of whom did not survive). Mattie died 24 February 1900 in Indian Territory and is the Martha I. Kimbro listed in the New Mellette Cemetery record.

 • He married thirdly Lucinda Jane (her maiden name is believed to be Evans) Chastain, 11 February 1901 in Indian Territory. They had one daughter. Lucinda died 11 January 1906 in Eufaula, Creek Nation, Indian Territory. 

• He married fourthly Ida Etta Gordon-McCracken (her maiden name not determined) 16 March 1906 in Muskogee, Creek Nation, Indian Territory. They did not have any issue. She died 8 May 1945 in Henryetta, Okmulgee County, Oklahoma. 

Our oft-married great-grandpa was a fairly successful farmer and businessman, and as a result, his name frequently appeared in the local newspaper. But it was a 1913 article about him that grabbed my attention. The newspaper article says he built a home in Eufaula (Oklahoma) with the profits realized from one crop of watermelons. Well, that’s one claim to fame I haven’t seen in any other genealogies. 

I’m happy to share genealogical information, pictures and sources pertaining to my Kimbro family. It is a German line that settled in Orange County, North Carolina in the 18th century. Contact me by e-mail.

Minute Men: A Family Affair

#52ancestors No. 27
July 2-July 8 Independence

 Minute Men: A Family Affair

 By Mya Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 

Samuel Pierson was a private in Spencer’s Regiment of the Continental Troops. Capt. William Brittin’s Company, 5th New Jersey, Reg’t of Foot, commanded by Oliver Spencer. He enlisted “for the war” according to his military papers. Because he did not live long enough to receive a Revolutionary War pension (and none has been found for his widow) scant original records, other than some military company pay rolls, exist to tell the story of his participation in America’s struggle to be independent. 

However, a Morris County (New Jersey) history provides noteworthy material about him. It says, "Of the famous company of lifeguards which accompanied (George) Washington through all his movements during the war, four, at least, are known to have been residents of Bottle Hill, their names being Samuel Pierson, Benjamin Bonnel, Nathaniel Crane and Daniel Vreeland, all of whom lived several years after the war in this vicinity." (Bottle Hill was the original name of what’s now Madison Borough in Morris County, New Jersey).

 “Of these men, Samuel Pierson was a fine horseman, and a man of great courage and strength, whom Washington intrusted [sic] with several important and perilous commissions. In carrying out one of these during the Battle of Monmouth, Pierson was compelled to ride right in front of the enemy's line of battle, and in full range of their guns; two horses were shot under him, one of which in falling injured the rider's leg, but he was mounted on a third horse, and carried out the commander's orders. Washington warmly commended him, and said, ‘I feared when you set out with the orders that I should never see you again.’" [History of Morris County, New Jersey, 1882, p. 193.]

 For years, life in Morris County was in flux. “There was continual excitement and solicitude. The alarm gun was firing, or the beacon light was burning, or the sounds of the fife and drum were heard, or companies of soldiers were passing and repassing, or the minute men of the vicinity were hurrying back and forth, or the commander-in-chief and his suite and life-guards were going from or returning to headquarters, or some general parade was taking place upon the campground . . . or other things were occurring to keep those who resided here in a state of excitement and fear.” 

Valley Forge, located 25 miles west of Philadelphia, was the campground of about 11,000 troops of George Washington’s Continental Army from 19 December 1777 to 19 June 1778 and Samuel Pierson was one of them. In 1777, General George Washington and the Continental Army marched from the victories at Trenton and Princeton to encamp near Morristown from January to May. “Washington had his headquarters during that first encampment at Jacob Arnold's Tavern located at the Morristown Green in the center of the town. Morristown was selected for its extremely strategic location. It was between Philadelphia and New York and near New England while being protected from British forces behind the Watchung Mountains. The churches were used for inoculations for smallpox. 

From December 1779 to June 1780 the Continental Army's second encampment at Morristown was at Jockey Hollow. The winter of 1780 was the worst winter of the Revolutionary War. The starvation was complicated by extreme inflation of money and lack of pay for the army . . . It was during Washington's second stay, in March 1780, that he declared St. Patrick's Day a holiday to honor his many Irish troops and the Marquis de Lafayette came to Washington in Morristown to inform him that France would be sending ships and trained soldiers to aid the Continental Army.”

Born in 1748 in New Jersey, Samuel Pierson Sr. married Rebecca Garrigues 22 May 1769. They had nine children between 1770 and 1787. Their lives were constantly disrupted by the war and his service in the Army. Rebecca was the daughter of Jacob Garrigues (1716-1798), who, along with all four of his sons — David, Jacob Jr., John and Isaac — also fought during the war. Jacob Garrigues was the son of Huguenot immigrants, Matthew Garrigues and Susanna Rochet, who arrived in Philadelphia ca 1712 from the West Indies. 

Rebecca’s brother, John Garrigues, participated in the Battle of Monmouth (28 June 1778), where so many of the British died of sunstroke. Wikipedia notes, “According to some accounts, an American soldier's wife, Mary Hays, brought water to thirsty soldiers in the June heat, and became one of several women associated with the legend of Molly Pitcher. By the second phase of the battle the temperature remained almost consistently above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and heat stroke was said to have claimed more lives than musket fire throughout the battle.” John Garrigues lived to be about 90, and his sword, which he carried at Monmouth, purportedly now is in possession of the Washington Park Association of Morristown, New Jersey. 

Samuel Pierson appears on a number of company muster rolls (microfilmed by the National Archives) but three in 1778 are of especial value to the family history. He appears on the Company Muster Roll for March 1778, roll dated Valley Forge, April 1, 1778; and for April, dated Camp Valley Forge, May 5, 1778; and for May 1778, roll dated Camp Valley Forge, June 15, 1778 — the latter shows the term of his enlistment (for the war).

 On several company muster rolls, dated in September, October, and November of 1780 they state he was wounded and in hospital. On one dated 24 December, it notes he was “sick, general hospital.” His company’s Muster Roll dated 7 April 1780 at Mendham (New Jersey) notes he was “prisoner—camp guard.” But provides no explanation. 

For most of 1782, Samuel Pierson is listed as sick and in a hospital in Philadelphia. The war was officially over on 3 September 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed. Apparently Samuel then went home to Morris County, New Jersey, but he did not live long to enjoy America’s newly won freedom that he and his brothers-in-law helped to attain. He died in 1790 of tuberculosis. 

Which Hue Are You?

#52ancestors week 30 July 23-29
 Colorful

Which Hue Are You? 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley (c) 2018

In the first U.S. census –- taken in 1790 – are found several colorful surnames: Green, Red, Ruby, Pink, Purple, Seagray, Lavender, Blue, Orange, Olive, Carmine and Scarlet, along with Black, White, Gray, Brown and Tan. 

Nicknames calling attention to our ancestors’ complexion and hair color are commonly found among the surnames that have been passed down through the ages. Blondell, Biano, Le Blanc, Lichter, Weiss, Bialas and White all refer to nicknames for ancestors with white or pale-colored skin and/or hair. Dark-complexioned people were nicknamed by words in various languages meaning brown, dark or black. From these evolved surnames of Brown, Brun, Braun, Black, Schwartz, Morin and Cherney. 

Red, under its many variant forms, is a common family name in many countries. You find Reid, Reed, and Read in England, as well as Ruff, Russ, Russell, Roussel, and Ruddy. In France, the name is Rousseau, Rouse or Larouse; in Italy it is Rossi, Rossini, Rossa, Rosso and Purpura; in Germany, Roth; and in Ireland, it is Flynn. Blue, Bluett or Bluitt are English surnames that come from a reference to one with a livid complexion or perhaps one who dressed in blue. In German, it was Blau or Blauer. However, the Scottish surname of Blue is an English version of the Argyllshire surname of MacGhilleghuirm, meaning “son of the blue lad.” 

However, not all of our surnames that appear to be colors actually are. For example, Green is not necessarily derived from the color of ancestor’s skin or hair, but from his place of residence. It means dweller at or near the village green or grassy ground. Many of the Green names probably come from references to ancestors who once lived or worked in a building identified by a pictorial sign, such as Greenbaum (dweller at the sign of the green tree) or Greenfogel (dweller at the sign of the green bird). 

The surname of Pink is derived from ancestors who either had some quality of a chaffinch or were dwellers at the sign of the chaffinch (a common finch of the Old World, often kept as a pet). If you have some Oranges on your family tree (names, not fruit), that surname may be traceable to ancestors who once lived in or near the ancient town of Orange in France which dates back to an earldom probably founded by Charlemagne. 

Do you have Lavender progenitors? They were English ancestors who washed or bleached flax, wool and various kinds of cloth. Those Lilywhite relatives were English dwellers in, or near, a little meadow, or the name might have been acquired from a nickname for one thought to be white as a lily; or ironically, to a chimney sweep.

 Tracing the family tree is not only fun, but can be a colorful adventure, too.