A Field of Dreams – Dr. Henry Noble Willis (1865-1926)

Dr. Archibald W. “Moonlight” Graham of “Field of Dreams” fame did not play a half-inning of baseball for the Pocomoke City Salamanders of the Eastern Shore amateur league. And neither did Dr. Henry Noble Willis. But Doc Willis was the team manager in 1892, maybe longer. During his tenure, he was not involved in any time travel that we know of. His trips with the team seem to have been limited to neighboring towns in Worcester and surrounding  counties. However, that travel just might have helped him find a second wife after the mother of his two young children died unexpectedly. But I am ahead of myself.

Back to the Beginning

Henry Noble Willis was born in Preston, Caroline County, Maryland on 23 Dec 1865.[1] He was baptized at age 20 months on 16 Aug 1867 at Hubbard Farm a few miles north of Preston.[2] The occasion was likely a Methodist revival or encampment of some sort. Ten children from several families were baptized at the event. Henry was the fourth child and only son of Dr. Henry F. Willis  (1831-1890) and Emily Rumbold Patton (1836-1921). Two of his sisters died young — Cora (1857-1875) and Emma (1862-1863). Only Mary (1860-1941) lived well into adulthood.

The Noble Name

As noted in an earlier article Henry’s middle name seems to have been borrowed from a family highly regarded by the elder Dr. Willis rather than coming from a marriage between the two families. The most likely person is Twiford S. Noble.[3] Mr. Noble was a decade older than Henry F. Willis. Was he a  mentor? Both were trustees of Bethesda Methodist Episcopal (now United Methodist) Church in Preston and were possibly friends before that.[4] When Twiford’s son Jacob graduated from medical school in 1876, Dr. Willis took him into his practice for a while before Jacob moved to Dorchester County and established his own practice.[5] Whatever the reason for its adoption, the Willis family has used Noble as a first or middle name for five generations of men beginning with Henry Noble Willis.[6]

Little is known of Henry’s early life in Preston. He attended local public schools and then Williamsport College (now Lycoming College) in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. He then went to the University of Maryland College of Medicine in Baltimore, graduating in 1888 as a medical doctor.[7]

He had an obvious sense of humor. He wrote on the back of a photo taken while in medical school, “When you get sick, go have your picture taken. Be sure you are ugly a ton and break the camera at each sitting.”[8]

Moving On

Like his father, young Henry looked outside Caroline County to begin his medical practice. He went further south on the Delmarva Peninsula to Pocomoke City in Worcester County. At the time, Pocomoke City was more than ten times the size of Preston.[9] It makes sense that he opted for a location with more potential patients. The young doctor may have been invited to Pocomoke by Dr. John T. B. McMaster (1828-1889). He had graduated in 1850 from the same medical school and had become a prominent citizen of the region.[10] However, Dr. McMaster was apparently not in good health at the time. He died about a year after Henry arrived in Pocomoke City.[11] It is possible that Henry took over the elder doctor’s practice. Henry definitely was close to the McMasters. He and Mary E. McMaster, the youngest daughter of the family, married on 28 Oct 1890 at Beaver Dam Presbyterian Church in Pocomoke City.[12]

Henry and Mary had two children – Mary Catherine born 9 Jul 1891 and Harry McMaster born 27 Jul 1893.[13] Like Dr. McMaster, Henry’s father did not live to see the wedding or his grandchildren. The elder Dr. Willis died six months before the wedding. Young Henry went back to Preston to help administer his father’s estate along with his brother-in-law Joshua B. Clark.[14] (See this link). The elder Henry Willis had died intestate. Son Henry and his sister were each entitled to half the estate after their mother’s right to one third. Shortly thereafter, Henry purchased a house and lot on Second Street in Pocomoke City.[15] Mary McMaster Willis was also the beneficiary of an inheritance. Her father devised his half-acre homestead lot in Pocomoke City to his wife, who gifted the property to her four surviving children.[16] In 1893, the four divided the property with Mary and Henry Willis receiving a small part that contained an office building.[17]Henry may have established a drug store in the building. In 1896, he purchased soda fountain equipment of the type common in ice cream parlors or at drug store counters.[18]

Baseball

In addition to his medical practice and possibly running a drug store, Dr. Henry N. Willis managed the town’s amateur baseball team. An 1892 photo of the Pocomoke City baseball team with Dr. Willis as manager appeared in the local newspaper.[19] Some team members appear to be high school students, others young adults. This was typical of the era – think “Field of Dreams” – when towns fielded amateur teams for friendly competition.[20] Other towns with teams in the Eastern Shore League included those nearby, such as Crisfield in Somerset County, and others some distance away, such as Cambridge in Dorchester County.[21] As the competition grew more intense, some towns employed “ringers” – semipro or college athletes – to bolster their teams. We do not know if Henry cheated in this manner. Had he managed long enough and were so inclined, however, he might have gotten help from “Moonlight” Graham. You see, Archie Graham also went to medical school at the University of Maryland graduating in 1905. He played several sports including baseball.[22] We can imagine that for a few bucks he might have caught a train from Baltimore to help out the Pocomoke City team, especially if asked by a doctor from the same school.

Tragedy Followed by Good Fortune

The family suffered a devastating blow in 1898 when Henry’s wife died, leaving two children ages seven and five.[23] They were not without a mother for long. Henry remarried on 7 Sep 1899, less than a year after Mary’s death.[24] His bride was Jessie Sensor, the eighteen year-old daughter of Rev. George Guyer Sensor (1852-1913) and Julia Frances Mendenhall 1857-1941). The reverend was the Methodist minister of several churches in the region, conducting services in Pocomoke City and Crisfield in Maryland and Accomack in Virginia. We do not know how Henry and Jessie met. Possibly Jessie accompanied her father on his Sunday visits to Pocomoke. However, Henry’s affiliation through the McMaster family had been with local Presbyterian churches rather than Methodists. I like to think that they met because of his travels to Crisfield with the baseball team. In any event, they were married in Somerset County, so we can assume it was at the Crisfield Methodist Church with her father officiating.

It must have been quite a challenge for Jessie becoming the stepmother of two children, especially being only eleven years older than her stepdaughter! But that will have to wait for the second part of this story.

_____

[1] There is no birth certificate for Henry Noble Willis, and other evidence of his birth date is inconsistent. State of Delaware, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death #1274 states his birth date as 23 Dec 1866 and date of death as 11 Apr 1926. However, the 1900 Federal Census shows his birth as Dec 1865. That month and year is supported by his baptism on 16 Aug 1867 at age 20 months. His tombstone indicates birth in 1865.

[2] Methodist Episcopal Church Records, Dorchester District, 16 Aug 1867, Henry Noble Willis, parents Henry and Emily Willis, age 20 months, lived near Preston, by E.G. Irwin, at Hubbard Camp, http://www.collinsfactor.com/church/mec1866baptisms.htm

[3] Another Noble family, Isaac L. and his wife Mary E Noble, was a Willis neighbor in the 1870 census. I have not found any relationship between the Willises and Isaac Noble.

[4] Email 13 Jun 2012 with Dr. Eric Cheezum, historian at Bethesda Methodist.

[5] Jensen, Dr. Christian E., MD, Lives of Caroline County Maryland Physicians, 1774 – 1984, Printed by Baker Printing Company, Denton, Maryland, 1986, 118.

[6] They are Henry Noble Willis’s son Noble Sensor Willis, grandson Gary Noble Willis, great grandson Noble Sutherland Willis, and great-great grandson Christopher Noble Willis.

[7] U.S. College Student Lists, 1763-1924 on Ancestry, University of Maryland, 1891. At p 228, H. N. Willis, 1888, MD.

[8] Photo printed on front, Richard Walzh, 205 West Balto. Street, Baltimore, 477 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC

[9] https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1900/bulletins/demographic/28-population-md.pdf. Pocomoke City population in 1900 was 2,124 versus 192 for Preston.

[10] U.S. College Student Lists, 1763-1924 on Ancestry, University of Maryland, 1891. At p 212, John T. B. McMaster, 1850, MD

[11] McMaster died 27 Aug 1889 per Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/160117722/john_thomas_bayly_mcmaster

[12] Dryden, Ruth T., Lower Eastern Shore Maryland Marriages (including the counties of Somerset, Worcester, Wicomico) 1865-1906; Compiler and Publisher: Ruth T. Dryden, San Diego, CA, 1991, 527. Willis, Henry N, 24, McMasters, Mary E., 23, 28 Oct 1890, Wor.

[13] Social Security Death Index provides the birth date for each.

[14] Caroline County Administrations Key, online at Family Search, 169. Widow Emily P. Willis and daughter Mary W. Clark renounced their right of administration of the estate of Henry F. Willis. Letters of Administration granted to son Henry N. Willis and son-in-law Joshua B. Clark with bond of $5,000 and securities Jeremiah B. Fletcher and Robert Patton [GNW Note: Robert Patton is Emily’s brother]

[15] https://mdlandrec.net/main/. Worcester County, Maryland Deed Book FHP 1:116. 28 Sep 1890, Henry N Willis purchased for $350 from Samuel F Farlow et al a lot on the west side of Second Street with all improvements.

[16] https://mdlandrec.net/main/. Worcester County, Maryland Deed Book FHP 1:202. 25 Dec 1890, Elizabeth Grace McMaster (widow) conveys to her four named children for love and affection and $1.00 the McMaster Homestead lot, about a half-acre, between Market Street and Vine Street while retaining during her lifetime the right of use the property, including the right to lease but not mortgage it.

[17] https://mdlandrec.net/main/. Worcester County, Maryland Deed Book FHP 4:524. 1 Dec 1893, Harriet McMaster King and husband Herbert H. King of Pocomoke City, John S. McMaster of Jersey City, New Jersey, and Samuel B. McMaster of New York City sell to Mary E. Willis wife of Henry N. Willis for $1.00 the southwest part of the McMaster Homestead with 30 feet fronting on Market Street by about 100 feet deep. The lot contains an office building referred to in the boundary description of a lease recorded at FHP 8:548.

[18] https://mdlandrec.net/main/. Worcester County, Maryland Deed Book FHP 7:511, 1 May 1896, Henry N Willis purchased soda fountain equipment for $166.50 from Robert M Green & Sons of Baltimore.

[19] The photo appeared in the 1955 Anniversary Edition of the local newspaper, the “Worcester Democrat,” copy of the clipping in possession of the author.

[20] See, e.g., https://libapps.salisbury.edu/nabb-online/exhibits/show/friends-rivals-baseball-delmar/early-days-of-baseball-on-the-

[21] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Shore_League. The amateur competition grew into a professional minor league in 1922.

[22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_Graham

[23] Dryden, Ruth T., Cemetery Records of Worcester County, Maryland, reprint by Heritage Books, 2013, p. 202. Mary E. McMaster Willis died 19 May 1898 with burial in Pitt’s Creek Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Pocomoke City, Maryland.

[24] Dryden, Ruth T., Lower Eastern Shore Maryland Marriages (including the counties of Somerset, Worcester, Wicomico) 1865-1906; San Diego, CA, 1991, 527. Willis, Henry, 34 w(idower), Senser, Jessie, 18, 7 Sep 1899, Somerset.

Drill Down Penny and Stinky

You meet a lot of nice, capable, and interesting people in this hobby, primarily online. You also meet some memorable characters. “Drill Down” Penny Rankin (not her real given name) is one of my favorites. “Stinky” Burke (fake surname) is at least notable.

Drill Down Penny

Like a lot of people, Drill Down Penny traced her Rankin family back to the Adam Rankin who died in 1747 in what was then Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, now Franklin County. His wife was Mary Steele Alexander, widow of James “the Carpenter” Alexander. They had sons named James, William, and Jeremiah.

There are a number of good reasons for us amateur researchers to glom onto Adam’s line. First, a fabulous Scottish oral family history has been attached to his name, almost certainly incorrectly. It is probably mostly fiction in any event, although nobody much cares. Second, there are a lot of cool people in the line. Two professional baseball players, my personal weakness. A Rankin who, inter alia, argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court, another favorite. Brigadier General Adam Rankin “Stovepipe” Johnson, a Confederate who earned his nickname by capturing an Ohio town without a shot, using a fake cannon consisting of a stovepipe mounted on a wagon. Third, the family also boasts several Revolutionary War veterans, attracting family history researchers who lust after membership in the DAR or SAR. Adam’s son William served in the Revolution. Every Rankin family in the late 1700s and early 1800s had a son named William, and many were searching for a Pennsylvania ancestor. Adam’s family was a prime target.

Drill Down Penny was the daughter of a William Rankin. Her Rankin grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on, back to and including her last conclusively proved Rankin ancestor, were all named William. Her earliest proved Rankin ancestor was a William who died in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.

She needed to find Indiana County William’s father. Naturally, Drill Down Penny identified Rev. War William’s son William (a grandson of Adam) as the same man as her ancestor William of Indiana County. The line gained her admission into both the DAR and, on behalf of a nephew, the SAR. It turns out that it is very easy to prove via traditional paper research that Indiana County William was definitely not the same man as William, son of Rev. War William and grandson of Adam. That William was a doctor who died in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. But Drill Down Penny didn’t know that.

I met her back in the days before Y-DNA 111-marker tests and Big Y tests. One of her Rankin nephews was a perfect 37-marker match with my Rankin first cousin. I was therefore interested in that line: I had been beating my head against a Rankin brick wall for some time.

We exchanged information. Drill Down Penny didn’t do email, so we communicated via snail mail. She sent me some, uh, interesting stuff. One thing was a hand-drawn map of a Pennsylvania cemetery where some people from Adam’s line were buried. There were several unmarked Rankin graves there. She noted the location of such graves with little drawings of coffins, something like this (except this one, drawn by Gary, is three-dimensional with handles; hers were just the one-dimensional shape of the lid):

Her map also had drawings of appropriately located hand drills that looked something like this (except less sophisticated, since this one was also drawn by Gary and, he says, is called a “brace and bit”):

Her idea was to “drill down into some of the coffins to extract DNA.” Thus her nickname. She died not long thereafter, apparently not having succeeded with her DNA recovery project. If she had, any human DNA would undoubtedly have been mixed with pine tree DNA. Not sure if FTDNA could handle that.

I spent a lot of time identifying male Rankin descendants of Adam via paper research and trying to recruit them for Y-DNA testing. There are now two men in the Rankin DNA Project participants from Adam’s line, identified as Lineage 3B.

Guess what? Adam’s descendants are NOT a Y-DNA match to either Drill Down Penny’s line or to mine. I’m glad she wasn’t around to hear that bad news.

I recently “met” another Rankin who claims descent from Adam by inventing a nonexistent son named Alexander for Rev. War William Rankin and his wife Mary Huston. There is no end to ways to claim descent from Adam’s line, usually involving Adam’s son William.

Stinky Burke

I published a version of this story years ago. It bears repeating with an explanation for his nickname, which I previously omitted. I’m going to use phony names and locations for reasons which will become obvious.

Some time ago, I received this email, verbatim, in toto:

 “Whatever prompted you to demote my grandfather from Captain to Sergeant?”

Huh?

I had no clue what he was talking about. I should have ignored the email, because the underlying anger is obvious. Unfortunately, I was curious, and the sender’s surname was one of my lines. Let’s call him Mr. Burke. I was hopeful that I might have found another recruit for Y-DNA testing: I am always on the lookout for living male Burkes, Rankins, Lindseys, et al. who might be willing to test. Consequently, I responded.

Turned out that I had been researching a Burke family who migrated from Tennessee to Missouri. I ran across a Missouri Find-a-Grave listing for a Civil War soldier named Thomas Burke. Find-a-Grave had him listed as a Captain, but I had seen convincing evidence he was a Sergeant. I provided the evidence to Find-a-Grave without requesting any change to the post. Find-a-Grave nevertheless changed his rank to Sergeant. This infuriated my correspondent.

I told Mr. Burke I would ask Find-a-Grave to revise the entry if I were wrong. However, a graves registration form filled out by the soldier’s son gave his rank as Sergeant. Also, a listing of his company roster identified him as a sergeant in Captain Chamberlain’s company of Union soldiers.

I duly reported the evidence to Mr. Burke and suggested he provide his contrary evidence to Find-a-Grave. He declined to do so. He didn’t care about results, unless I made the changes – he just wanted to harass me. His proof was a family heirloom Civil War pistol engraved “Captain” on the handle. His emails expressed outrage that (1) I did not immediately recall providing the evidence to Find-a-Grave, (2) it took me some time to relocate the evidence, and (3) I was “messing with” someone else’s “family tree,” which he found reprehensible. Oh, and he had “no intention” of DNA testing.

The exchange ended with this email from him:

“In the impending civil war, I will keep you tight on my rank and my confirmed kills.”

One of my friends who has dealt with such situations deems that a death threat. I do not, because bullies are almost always cowards. Her concern nevertheless inspired me to research Mr. Burke to determine whether he was sufficiently nearby to make it easy to add me to his list of confirmed kills even before his (probably longed-for) civil war commences.

Sergeant Burke was his great-great grandfather rather than his grandfather. After the Civil War, the Sergeant lived in a medium-sized community in a midwestern state. His son and grandson were attorneys in the same county. His great-grandson was an attorney and a judge there.

My correspondent, a son of the judge, left home for a small town (population less than 300) in a western state that is a hotbed of militia activity. The town apparently consists primarily of house trailers, dilapidated late model pickups, propane tanks, one bar, one liquor store, and a church. He commented multiple times in a local online discussion string, making anti-semitic comments, using the “C” word, referring to “faggot liberals,” and inviting people to fight. Another person on the string implied that he was a meth addict. A real charmer.

In response to his email saying that he would keep me informed about his rank and confirmed kills, my initial impulse was to reply as follows, tongue planted firmly in cheek:

“In the impending civil war, you need to watch your six — because there is a descendant of Captain Chamberlain out there looking for a descendant of the sonuvabitch who stole his service pistol.”

My better angels vetoed the idea. Instead, I told my friend Lynne about the exchange. She has a fabulous imagination and writes clever stories. She sent this:

Mr. Burke lives in a trailer with broken widows covered by sheet plastic. It is located at the end of a dirt road  that is always muddy. Every other day, he goes to the library looking for an email from his friend Robin. She is his only friend. The librarian calls him Stinky, I don’t know why. She had him banned from the library when she found out he was using a library computer to harass women, Jews, and others in chat groups.

He was once briefly married but was divorced so soon his ex-wife gave birth to a child whom he has never seen. He blames Communist Libruls for this because they invented divorce. That drove him to join a militia group, which meets monthly to practice drills and brag about how much ammunition they have accumulated. Stinky has 5,000 rounds, but he had to hock the gun that uses them to pay for his, uh, medication.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

See you on down the road.

Robin

The Man Who Killed Jane Campbell

Here is the latest contribution from my friend Spade. Good stuff, as usual. Enjoy!

_________________

I was in my office on Powell Street when I heard a noise at the door. I got up and looked out. Nobody there. Down at my feet I saw a piece of paper. It was a page torn from a manuscript about a family named “Spear”.[i]  From what I could make out, it was about a guy named Andrew Spear who was a member of the Upper West Conococheague Presbyterian Church in Franklin County, PA. The words “He married Jane Campbell” were circled with a Sharpie and somebody had written “I just killed your sixth great-grandmother!” I stuck my head out the window. There was nobody but a bunch of out-of-towners jumping on and off the cable car. I sniffed. “Not likely,” I thought, “And what kind of idiot writes with a Sharpie anyway?”

The name’s Spade. Like the tool you use for digging up dead relatives. I’m a Rankin — a descendant of Adam Rankin,[ii] to be precise. Adam left Ulster for Maryland sometime before 1720, married Mary Steele, widow of James “The Carpenter” Alexander, and had three sons and a daughter. He died in 1747, and left his eldest son James a tract of land that backed on Two Top Mountain at a spot called “The Corner,” a little south of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.

James Rankin, not Andrew Spear, was married to Jane Campbell. Or so the evidence suggested. William Campbell, a close neighbor of James, had made a will in 1776 naming his daughter “Jane Rankin”.[iii] James’s 1788 will named his wife “Jean Rankin”,[iv] but “Jane” and “Jean” were just alternate spellings of the same name back in those days. After James died sometime before 1794, Jane took a warrant in the name “Jane Rankin” on the tract back up the side of Two Top Mountain.[v] No doubt about it: Jane Campbell was James Rankin’s wife. They had six kids between about 1750 and 1762, four boys and two girls, one named James who was my ancestor. They all spent Sundays over at the Upper West Conococheague Presbyterian Church.

Still… there was something about that Andrew Spear story that nagged at me. William Campbell’s will had also named three grandchildren named Speer (as he spelled it): Edward, William and Frances. I’d figured they were the children of some unnamed daughter who died before William did. Now I felt like I had to prove it. I poured myself a stiff shot of Cutty Sark and rolled up my sleeves. It was time to go Spear fishing.

When I’m looking for a mystery spouse, I always like to check around the neighborhood.[vi] Sure enough, a guy named Edward Spear had been granted a warrant in 1755 for a tract kitty-corner from James Rankin.[vii] When I found his will,[viii] though, I realized he couldn’t be the right guy. He’d died not two years later leaving his estate to his children Benjamin, Andrew and Eleanor.

I kept flipping through the will book and found Benjamin Spear’s will a few pages on.[ix] It was dated 6 Mar 1764 with letters testamentary issued 8 Nov 1764. The will was witnessed by James Rankin. Dougal Campbell, brother of Jane Campbell, was named as executor, along with another neighbor named John Kyle. Benjy had no wife or kids, so he’d left his property to brother Andrew and sister Eleanor, and five pounds to his nephew, Edward Spear. That had to be the same Edward Spear named as a grandson by William Campbell. Andrew was the father of those three grandchildren alright. Now who was the mother?

I couldn’t find a will for Andrew, but it turned out I didn’t need one. He’d died intestate and letters of administration had been granted to his widow.[x] I cursed when I saw her name: Jane Spear. But maybe this was a different Andrew Spear and that was a different Jane? “Andrew Spear” couldn’t have been that uncommon a name. Then I noticed the date the letters were issued: 8 Nov 1764. The same date letters testamentary were issued for Benjamin Spear. Jane and Dougal must have gone to court together and killed two birds with one stone.

Damn. Jane Campbell really had married Andrew Spear. She couldn’t have married James Rankin until after 1764, which was after all of his kids were already born. James’s first wife must have died not that long before, and he was Johnny-on-the-spot to console the grieving widow.

That joker with the Sharpie really had killed off my sixth great-grandmother. It left a hole the size of the Stockton tunnel in my family tree. It was going to take some time to fill that hole. I needed another shot of Cutty.

* * * * * 

[i] See chart  here.. The source has numerous errors and should be used only for evidence that even bad genealogy sometimes contains a grain of truth.

[ii] A descendancy chart for Adam Rankin can be found  at this link. The author has attempted to catalog all descendants who bore the name “Rankin” and their spouses, and to connect spouses to their parents and other spouses to the extent possible. Sources have been attached to support vital dates and relationships whenever possible. Records without sources, as well as names and dates more precise than supported by the sources, are not endorsed by the author, but were left in place in hope that supporting evidence may turn up in the future. The tree at FamilySearch is essentially a wiki: a single tree shared by all users and subject to frequent error and alteration. Accordingly, all personal records and relationships there should be treated with skepticism when not supported by primary sources.

[iii] Franklin County, PA, Will Book A, p. 108. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/sources/viewedit/QPRR-N8J?context.

[iv] Franklin County, PA, Will Book A, p. 345. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/sources/viewedit/QPRL-2TC?context.

[v] Franklin County warrants R46 to Jane Rankin dated 1 Apr 1794. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/sources/viewedit/7NJS-WG3?context.

[vi] The best way to check out the neighborhood of Montgomery Township is a Google Earth project called “Early Land Surveys of Montgomery Township.” https://earth.google.com/web/@39.78528401,-77.9018602,183.73397146a,33386.66955467d,30y,0h,0t,0r/data=CgRCAggBMikKJwolCiExdXc2aWlUdDBTTVlGYUUzMWlfZzZvSmE0aG1ubU1jZXIgAUICCABKCAijrpruAhAB. This is a virtual plat map showing the name of each landholder with links to land surveys.

[vii] Cumberland County warrants S51 to Edward Speer dated 3 Feb 1755. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/GWM6-YMC. Franklin County was created from Cumberland County in 1784.

[viii] Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Will Book A, Page 27.  https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/sources/viewedit/7NWH-C7D?context.

[ix] Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Will Book A, Page 80. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/sources/viewedit/7NW8-TGS?context.

[x] Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Administrators Book, Vol. A, Page 60. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/sources/viewedit/7NW6-ZFP?context.

Family Names and Stories

Every genealogist knows that names can be reliable pointers to ancestral lines. And that pursuing your family tree inevitably produces some good stories. I’m sharing some of both here.

Burke

Our first son’s name is William Burke Willis. William is downright generic, but Burke is a solid clue. In fact, my mother’s birth surname was Burke. Her father was William Logan Burke (“WLB”). Thus, our son was obviously named for my grandfather, known as W. L. or “Billy” Burke. That name persisted: Gramps was one of at least five William Logan Burkes in the family.

The first WLB was born in 1860 in Wilson County, Tennessee. He migrated to Waco, Texas, where he became an early Sheriff and U. S. Marshall of McLennan County. The Sheriff’s father was Esom Logan Burke — thus the “L” in those five middle names. I haven’t proved a Logan on the Burke tree, but I’ll wager there is one.

Here are two Burke stories.

My earliest proved Burke ancestor was John Burke of Jackson County, Tennessee. John owned a fair amount of land on White’s Bend of the Cumberland River. Beautiful county, that is. He had a ferry there, owned enslaved persons, and ultimately fathered sixteen children in two marriages. Some of the sons turned out to be what my grandmother would call “no account,” but Esom Logan was a solid citizen, a Wilson County farmer.

John was born in Virginia during 1780-1790. He has accounted for a fair share of my gray hair: I cannot prove his parents. An early family history undoubtedly contains a great deal of truth, but is likely wrong about John’s parents. Y-DNA has not yet helped.

Desperate, I consulted the Draper Manuscripts. This is a vast trove of historical records, including letters, genealogical and historical notes, land records, newspaper clippings, and interview notes, all collected by Lyman Copeland Draper, a Wisconsin historian. The collection focuses on the frontier history and settlement of the old Northwest and Southwest Territories of the US from the 1740s to 1830. Draper’s papers are assembled in 491 volumes.  To describe the collection as labyrinthine would be a massive understatement.

When you are looking for info in Tennessee around 1800 or so and are in a masochistic mood, head for the microfilms of the Draper Manuscripts. First, though, consult a book titled Guide to the Draper Manuscripts or something along those lines.

Lo and behold, I found a John Burke in a Tennessee volume! Draper described him as a renowned teller of fabulous tall tales. The example recounted by Draper: a near neighbor, let’s call him Thomas, was riding home one day and saw John out in the field. Thomas called out to him.

John, said Thomas, how about if you tell me one of your famous tall tales?

John didn’t miss a beat. You don’t have time for such foolishness, he said. I just saw one of your cows loose in your cabbage patch having a fine meal.

The neighbor headed home at a brisk trot. There was no cow in the cabbage patch, of course.

I am not certain that the above John Burke was the same man as my ancestor John Burke of Jackson County. I have not been able to find that story again, hoping it might identify the county where John the storyteller lived. That probably says something about the accessibility of the Draper Manuscripts. However, I definitely know that my grandfather, the second WLB, was also a fabulous storyteller. My grandmother tore out a clipping from one of the Houston newspapers one day and mailed it to my mother, writing on it, “your daddy in print with a big one.” Here is a transcription of  the clipping, a column by Bill Walker titled “The Outdoor Sportsman.”

“A roaring gas flame in the big brick fireplace in the Cinco Ranch clubhouse warmed the spacious room and the several members of the Gulf Coast Field Trial Club who gathered there for coffee Saturday morning before the first cast in the shooting dog stake.

“Usually when veteran field trial followers get together the conversation turns to great dogs of yesteryears and this group was no exception.

“W. L. “BILLY” BURKE related one about an all-time favorite of ours — Navasota Shoals Jake.

“Burke and the late W. V. Bowles, owner of Ten Brock’s Bennett and Navasota Shoals Jake, were hunting quail in the Valley on one of those rare hot and sultry winter mornings. Jake pointed a covey several hundred yards from the two men and out in the open.

“BOWLES suggested they take their time approaching the pointing dog, since he was known to be very trustworthy. When the two hunters did not immediately move to Jake, the dog broke his point, backed away to the cool shade of a nearby tree and again pointed the birds.

“THE COVEY was still hovering in a briar thicket when Bowles and Burke arrived. Navasota Shoals Jake was still on point.”

Lindsey

OK, moving on. Our second son is named Ryan Lindsey Willis. Yep, there are Lindseys on my tree — one of my favorite lines. My nearest Lindsey ancestor’s name was Amanda Adieanna Lindsey Rankin. I loved her as soon as I learned the name; I wish I had her picture. She answered a knock on the front door of her father’s Monticello, Arkansas house one night in 1863, and immediately fell in love (according to her recounting) with “the handsomest soldier you ever saw.”

That was John Allen Rankin, wearing an almost brand-new uniform. The last battle in which he had fought was Champion’s Hill, east of Vicksburg, where the Confederates were soundly beaten. They were out-generaled. The Confederate in charge, General Stephen Lee (no relation to Robert E.), marched his soldiers piecemeal into Grant’s entrenched position.[1] About 4,300 Confederate soldiers and 2,500 Union soldiers were casualties. It was considered a Union victory and a decisive battle in the Vicksburg campaign.

On 19 May 1863, whatever was left of John Allen’s division after Champion’s Hill arrived at Jackson, Mississippi. He was in the 1st Mississippi CSA Hospital in Jackson from May 31 to June 13, 1863. The diagnosis: “diarrhea, acute.” That was near the end of the second year of his one-year enlistment.

On September 1, 1863, now in Selma, Alabama, the army issued John Allen a new pair of pants, a jacket and a shirt, all valued on the voucher at $31.00. Good wool and cotton stuff, presumably. Probably the best suit of clothes John Allen ever owned. That was the last the Rebel army ever saw of him. He was shortly declared AWOL and placed under arrest in absentia.

The next thing you know, he was in Monticello, making Amanda Lindsey swoon.

My earliest conclusively proved Lindsey ancestor was a William who died in 1817 in Nash County, North Carolina.[2]He left a charming will instructing his eldest son John Wesley Lindsey to “see that thay [the younger children] mind thare Stepmother and thare larning bisness and are kept out of all dissepated cumpaney and also to have sum chance of schoolling at least to know how to read the word of God.”[3]

William’s youngest son, Edward Buxton Lindsey — my ancestor — is also a story. When he was sixteen, he attended an auction of a deceased brother’s estate. Undoubtedly under the watchful eye of his brother John Wesley, Edward acquired almost everything he needed to start adult life and continue his larning bisness: a bedstead and linens, a pocket knife, a man’s saddle, a razor, an arithmetic book, a cyphering book, and an ink stand.

Edward married four times, which was a serious disgrace in the eyes of his daughter Amanda. He wound up old and widowed in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana in 1880, raising a young son from his last marriage. I felt sorry for him and tried fruitlessly to find his grave, hoping to pay my respect. I don’t think he got much of that from anyone else, except for two of those four wives: two wives divorced him and two died, including Elizabeth Odom Lindsey, his first wife and Amanda’s mother. I wish I had a picture of him, too. He must have been a charmer.

Estes

Family names are usually a blessing (see Burke, above). Sometimes they create chaos. Case in point: my ancestor Lyddal Bacon Estes (“LBE”). My irreverent husband calls him Little Sizzler.

When I identified LBE as the father of Mary F. Estes who married Samuel Rankin (parents of John Allen, the Confederate deserter), I rubbed my hands in glee. With those three surnames, I reasoned, finding his parents would be a piece of cake. Hahahaha …

The genealogy gods apparently do not like cockiness.

Turned out there were three men named Lyddal Bacon Estes whose lifetimes overlapped (not counting my LBE’s namesake son). One of them probably did not have the middle name Bacon, or at least he left no record of either a name or middle initial, notwithstanding appearances in county records.

All three LBEs trace are from the same Estes line of Virginia. And those three surnames don’t lie: there are both Bacon and Lyddall ancestors on my tree. As it turned out, I had to sift through hundreds of Estes records in Lunenburg County, Virginia, searching for LBE’s parents. Conclusive proof  nevertheless eluded me. I finally proved them to my satisfaction by the process of elimination: there was only one male Estes in the huge Lunenburg Estes family who could reasonably have been LBE’s father. And only one female, also an Estes, who could reasonably have been his mother.[4]

I like the Estes line, too. The original immigrant to the Colonies was an Abraham Estes, a fine given name for the first of the line to arrive here. The Estes family traces back nicely to Kent, England in the late 1400s. They lived on the east coast and were fisherman and linen weavers.

Broadnax

Also in Kent were my Broadnax family ancestors, a set of certifiable bluebloods. The original immigrant to the Colonies was John Broadnax,  a Cavalier, who was undoubtedly fleeing from Cromwell’s. He left his family behind in England. He appeared in Virginia just long enough to have his inventory recorded in  York County.

I don’t much care for the Broadnax line because (1) it has been so thoroughly researched it is not challenging (and is therefore no fun) and (2) my view of my father’s mother, Emma Leona Broadnax “Ma” Rankin is my most recent Broadnax ancestor. Ma was, uh, how shall I say this? Not exactly warm and fuzzy. She was an unsmiling, bigoted, tea-totaling Southern Baptist who kept her house in Gibsland, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, heated to about 90 degrees. No mechanical assistance was necessary to achieve that temperature in the summer, it being Louisiana and all. But the heating bills in winter must have been spectacular, especially considering the high ceilings in that old house.

Ma’s husband, John Marvin “Daddy Jack” Rankin, son of the Rebel deserter, was poor as a church mouse. I once asked my favorite Rankin cousin — Butch, we called him as a kid, so he is stuck with that moniker for life — what Daddy Jack did for a living. All of my Rankin cousins were or are considerably older than I, my father being the youngest of the four Rankin siblings and not becoming a father until the ripe old age of 39. So they all know more than I did about the Gibsland Rankins.

Butch’s succinct response: Anything he could, hon. Anything he could. He was a driver of a dray wagon in one census and a waiter in a restaurant in another. A certificate among my father’s records proves he was Bienville Parish sheriff for one term, another non-lucrative profession.

The cousins once showed me an old popcorn wagon stored under the rear of the Rankins’ Gibsland house, which was built on a steep slope. We all figure Daddy Jack sold popcorn from time to time, perhaps turning a profit when Bonnie and Clyde were killed and their corpses displayed in GIbsland. Ma Rankin took in mending to help make ends meet, although they often did not. The Rankin fortunes didn’t revive until their kids, or at least their three sons, escaped rural North Louisiana.

At the first Rankin Cousins reunion at Butch’s house in 1995-ish, my cousin Diane, a child psychiatrist, asked me why in hell Ma Rankin, from the still-wealthy Broadnax family despite a serious setback after the Civil War, married penniless Daddy Jack.

Are you kidding me, Diane? You remember her, uh, personality? She cannot possibly have had many prospects.

One of the cousins, Ellis Leigh Jordan, brought a movie camera to the reunion. He trained it on each of the seven cousins individually and made us tell something about Ma. The word “strict” was grotesquely overused. All four of Ma’s children turned out to be atheists, not surprising in light of Ma’s relentless proselytizing. Furthermore, a fondness for alcohol persisted in the  family. Nobody knows where any genetic propensity came from. I think being raised by Ma would drive anyone to drink.

I never knew Daddy Jack, who died in 1932 at age 56. But I knew Ma well enough. Gibsland is sufficiently close to Shreveport, where I grew up, to allow for monthly Sunday visits. I hated those visits with a passion. To describe Ma as merely humorless would prove that either my imagination or my vocabulary is failing me. “Strict” isn’t adequate, either. She once stopped a desultory conversation dead in its tracks, a bullet through its brain, like so …

The setting was her hot-as-hades living room at a Thanksgiving get-together. At least three and perhaps all four of Ma’s children were in attendance. Grandchildren were there as well, restlessly squirming in our seats. At least I was squirming: this was 1957, and I was only eleven. My cousin Marvin, the next youngest, was 15 or 16; Butch and Diane were 18. Ma’s favorite conversational topic was usually other people’s gall bladders, her own still being intact. Thankfully, that topic died quickly for lack of subjects.

Uncle Louie, Diane’s father, finally tried to break one of the prolonged silences by commenting on Sputnik, the satellite launched by the USSR the previous May.

Pretty soon someone will put a man on the moon, Louie opined.

Ma, arms crossed over her chest, fired her conversation-ending bullet: If God had meant for man to be on the moon, he would’ve put him there.

My cousins and I fled to the yard, where we pelted each other with pecans. The frigid cold was a respite.

… And now I have gone on too long. It was fun writing this.

See you on down the road. I’m happy to say that another contribution from Spade is in the works.

Robin

 * * * * * * * * * *

                  [1] General Stephen Lee used exactly the same awful strategy at the Battle of Ezra Church, west of Atlanta, and got Allen W. Estes, brother of Mary Estes Rankin, killed.

                  [2] Although I cannot conclusively prove his parents, William Lindsey’s grandfather — was a William of Brunswick Co., VA and Edgecombe Co., NC. William had three proved sons: William, Joseph, and John. Y-DNA establishes that one of them was my William’s father, but I can only prove that it wasn’t Joseph. I suspect it was the other William.

                  [3] North Carolina State Library and Archives, CR069.801.6, “Nash Co. Wills 1778 – 1922, Keith – Owen,” file folder for William Lindsey dated 1817, containing a handwritten will of William Lindsey dated 16 Feb 1817 and proved May 1817.

            [4] LBE’s parents were first cousins: John Estes, son of Elisha Estes and Mary Henderson, and Mary Estes, daughter of Benjamin Estes and Frances Bacon. Elisha and Benjamin were sons of the Lunenburg Estes patriarch, Robert Estes Sr. Robert Sr. was a son of Abraham the immigrant. In yet another illustration of the value of names, LBE’s first son was named Benjamin Henderson Estes. His first daughter, my ancestress, was Mary Frances.

 

Whatever happened to Rhoda Craig, Part 2

Spade actually wrote this article. Attribution of authorship to R. Willis by WordPress is a bug I can’t figure out how to fix. Spade also wrote Part I. Please also note that accessing the links in some of the footnotes requires a free and worthwhile membership at FamilySearch.org.

And now, on to Spade.

_________________

I took another swig of Cutty. I’d been hired to dig up the dirt on Rhoda Craig, wife of the Jeremiah Rankin who died in an “accident” at his mill in 1760. Following clues left in a letter written by her grandson, John Mason Rankin, I’d learned that she’d married a man named Andrew English and ended up in Greene County, Tennessee. Her daughter Rhoda English had married a man named John Kincaid, and her daughter Elizabeth had married a Joseph Walker. After Elizabeth died, Joseph Walker had married the widow of Andrew English Jr, also named Elizabeth. They’d all lived in Bath County, Kentucky, the next county east from Fayette County where Rhoda and Jeremiah’s sons Adam and Jeremiah were living; William and Thomas lived in Woodford, the next county over.

But there were still some missing pieces. John Mason Rankin had said that one of Rhoda’s daughters had married a Faris, so who was he? And how did Rhoda and Andrew English end up in Tennessee?

The phone rang. “Spade here… Yeah, I’ve been looking into Andrew English. What’s it to you?… Well, I guess news travels fast…  Is that so?… Caswell County, North Carolina? That doesn’t make much sense… DNA?… Faris too, eh?… It doesn’t surprise me… Well, thanks for the tip!” I put down the receiver.

It was a guy named Jacob Walker, a descendant of Joseph Walker.[i] He’d been trying to trace his family history using DNA and had found a slew of matches to descendants of Andrew English. He said the only way that could happen would be if Joseph Walker’s wife was an English. The matches were too strong to be from anywhere further up the family tree. He said he also had matches to descendants of a pair of brothers named Faris: Alexander and Isaac.

So here was Alexander Faris again, the man who was surety for Joseph Walker when he married the widow of Andrew English Jr.[ii] I started looking for his will and found it in Maury County, Tennessee, dated 1820 and proved in 1824.[iii] He had a long list of children, some with telling names: Thomas C Faris, whose middle name turned out to be Craig, Mary Ann Faris “now Walker”, Adam Faris, whose middle initial turned out to be “R” for Rankin, no doubt… But the kicker was the baby of the family: Rody E Faris — and if that “E” didn’t stand for “English”, I swore I’d eat my fedora. The only hitch was that Alexander Faris’s will said that his wife’s name was Elizabeth. She couldn’t be Elizabeth English because that woman had married Joseph Walker. I had to figure her for a second wife. Whatever the name of his first wife, she must have been a daughter of Andrew English and Rhoda Craig. I decided to name her “Sarah” just for convenience… It takes way too long to say “daughter of Andrew English whose name remains unknown”.[iv]

And how about Isaac Faris, the other Faris brother that Jacob Walker had DNA matches to? A grandson of Isaac’s named Cecil Whiteside left a nice little story about how Isaac went to Maury County, Tennessee, getting there a few years before Alexander moved down from Bath County, Kentucky:

On March 19, 1806, Isaac R Feris and his family arrived at Bell Bend on Duck River across from where Cathey’s Creek flows into the river. His wife died that night. At this place there is a shoal of solid rock making an excellent crossing. As the river was at flood stage, they floated the body across in a wagon bed and buried her on the high bank of Cathey’s Creek on land that was to be part of his farm. Her name is unknown. But this unfortunate event gives us a date when the settlers from North Carolina arrived in the area. Their children were Elizabeth, Cynthia, Rebecca, Isaac Jr., Rhoda and Ann (twins), Alexander and Mary.[v]

Here was another Rhoda. That name was like a fingerprint. Outside of Rhoda Craig, I’d barely encountered it, but it was clearly a favorite for her descendants.

Cecil Whiteside said the Faris family came from North Carolina, but a quick check of the 1850 census for children of Alexander and Isaac showed that they had all been born in South Carolina with the exception of Alexander’s youngest daughter who was born in Kentucky. Alexander and Isaac Faris both showed up in census records for York County, SC,[vi] and there was a 1784 marriage record from there naming Isaac’s wife as “Jane”, no surname, but dollars to donuts it was “Jane English”.[vii] Jane’s first kid came in October 1784, so she might have had a bun in the oven. “Sarah” had her first in 1787, so must have married not long after Jane. The girls wouldn’t have gone to South Carolina on their own, so the rest of the English family, including mother Rhoda Craig, was probably there with them.

But now came another twist in the story:  Rhoda’s oldest daughter, Mary English had married a guy named Thomas Robertson in Caswell County, North Carolina, according to Thomas’s Revolutionary War pension application.[viii] As it turned out, Jacob Walker had traced his ancestor Joseph to Caswell County as well, and it’s possible he and Elizabeth English were also married there. Mary’s and Elizabeth’s first children were both born about 1783, so it made sense if they would have been married in the same place about the same time, probably around 1782.

I tried to pin down when Andrew English had arrived in Greene County, Tennessee from land records. He’d obtained a warrant for a tract land on Lick Creek in 1783, but hadn’t entered it until 1787.[ix] There were a lot of earlier records for “Andrew English” too. The problem was that there were too damned many men named Andrew English living there. Andrew had two brothers, John and James, who had moved to Greene County, as early as 1779 when it was still part of Washington County,[x] and they each had a son named Andrew. It was impossible to sort what record went with which Andrew.

But all those Andrews gave me a clue: Andrew’s daddy must have been named Andrew too! Sure enough, I found a Pennsylvania will naming sons John, James and Andrew that started “In the name of God Amen the sixteen day of March in the year of our Lord God 1749 I Andrew English of New London in the County of Chester…”[xi] I stopped right there.

New London is the first township north of New Munster, a tract of land on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border where Jeremiah Rankin was probably born. His mother, Mary Steele, had it from her first husband James “The Carpenter” Alexander,[xii] and the family continued to live there after she married Adam Rankin, Jeremiah’s father.  There was also a Craig family in New London, though there are Craigs pretty much everywhere, and I couldn’t find a connection to Rhoda.

The word from Faris researchers was that Alexander and Isaac’s father, John Faries, had moved down to South Carolina in about 1763 from Delaware with several of his brothers. The progenitor was a fellow named Alexander Faries “the elder” because he lived to nearly 90. I dug out his 1783 will and read “In the name of God Amen I Alexander Faries of Pencader Hundred and County of New Castle…”.[xiii] I stopped again.

Pencader Township was right on the border with Marland and Pennsylvania. That’s barely a mile east of New Munster.  So there it was: The Rankins, Englishes and Farises all lived within a one-mile radius, two at the most. There was no way they could not have known each other. Hell, they probably all congregated at the same Presbyterian meetinghouse. I could picture Adam Rankin, Andrew English the elder and Alexander Faries the elder hunkering down after church smoking their pipes and talking land deals while their kids Jeremiah Rankin, Andrew English and John Faries wrestled in the dirt with little Rhoda Craig looking on and sticking out her tongue at them.

All the pieces fit neatly together now. After Jeremiah Rankin’s demise, Rhoda Craig probably took her four boys and went home to mommy and daddy in New London, where she married Andrew English. She was still in Pennsylvania as late as 1776, now with seven more kids by her second husband. I already knew that her sons Adam and William Rankin were in Augusta County, Virginia, during the Revolutionary War, but whether mom and the English kids went with them, I couldn’t tell.

Adam was ordained and married in Augusta County in 1782,[xiv] but by that time the rest of the family was already in Caswell County, North Carolina, where Rhoda married off daughter Mary English to Thomas Robertson and Elizabeth English to Joseph Walker. By 1783, Andrew English was making plans to join his brothers in Greene County, Tennessee, and Joseph Walker and wife were already on their way there.

For some reason the English family took a detour to York County, South Carolina where their old friends the Faris family were living.  Next thing you know, Jane English gets married to Isaac Faris, possibly with her daddy standing by with a shotgun, and “Sarah” gets hitched to Isaac’s brother Alexander. Once the dust had settled around 1787, Rhoda, her husband Andrew and the littlest English kids packed up, left Jane and “Sarah” behind with their Faris husbands, and headed to Tennessee.

Rhoda shuffled off the mortal coil in 1798, but by that time, most of the English kids had already joined their half-siblings the Rankins in Kentucky.

I emptied the bottle of Cutty and sat back in my chair. I’d earned my fee, but there were still some nagging holes. Why wouldn’t John Mason Rankin have remembered that one of his half-aunts had married a Kincaid if they were living right next to his Rankin cousins in Indiana? Why wouldn’t he remember that not one but two English daughters had married Faris boys, especially if they were living near him in Maury County, Tennessee? Why couldn’t I find any record of Andrew English in any of the places I figured the family ought to have been living before they got to Tennessee? Why wouldn’t he have mentioned his Faris daughters in his will?

I drained my glass. In this business, you have to take what you can get, and some mysteries just stay mysteries.

__________

[i] Much of the evidence presented in this article and the preceding was collected by Jacob Walker. Spade’s creator is himself an extremely lazy researcher, whose primary methodology consists in stealing the work of others. I am much indebted to Jacob’s meticulous research skills.

[ii] Bath County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds 1786-1965.

[iii] Maury County, Tennessee, Wills, 1807-1899.

[iv] I know, I know… It’s not good to make up names. If we ever do find out what her name really was, I’m sure I’ll regret it… unless of course it turns out to be “Sarah”. (RRW note: if her actual name isn’t Sarah, then someone can write several emails, comments, and articles explaining that there was no such person).

[v] “Family History” manuscript by Cecil Whiteside, p. 3.

[vi] United States Census, 1800, York County, SC, pp. 5, 7.

[vii]  “Hunting for Bears,” South Carolina Marriage Index, 1641-1965.

[viii] I have been unable to locate the original pension application, but it is referred to in English-Robertson Families in America, by Arthur Leslie Keith, p. 2.

[ix] Land Warrants, Greene County, Tennessee, no. 488-747, No. 506.

[x] English-Robertson Families in America, by Arthur Leslie Keith,  p. 1.

[xi] Chester County, Pennsylvania, Will Book B, p. 119.

[xii] New Castle County, Delaware, Will Book C, p. 103.   Mary Steele Alexander Rankin’s tract was bisected when the Mason-Dixon line was drawn, and about 1 mile west of the border with Delaware.

[xiii] New Castle County, Delaware, Will Book M, p. 145.

[xiv] John Mason Rankin letter to Henry Newton Rankin dated 13 Sep 1854. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/LDQ5-C3P

Whatever Happened to Rhoda Craig? Part 1 of 2

Spade strikes again: John Mason Rankin’s information

The caller ID said “Spade.” It was 5:30 p.m. Good. By now, Spade would have had a shot of his favorite cheap scotch. Enough to take the edge off his sometimes fractious personality, while leaving his faculties intact.

I accepted the call. “Hello, doll,” he said. “What are you doing?”

Just so you know, “doll” is not a term of affection. Spade has several women friends who do genealogical detective work, and he calls us all “doll.” I don’t think he can remember which of us is which.

I rolled my eyes. “You know perfectly well what I’m doing! You’re the one who called me at 3 a.m. and dropped this mess in my lap.”

“I just want to bounce my theory off you,” he said, clearly aggrieved. “Namely, how do you assess the credibility of the Mt. Horeb legend, the John Mason Rankin letters, and the John Mason Bible? What’s real, and what smells fishy? Most importantly, what do we really believe about Adam Rankin?”

“That’s a pot load of information, Spade. We’ll need to lay it out in pieces to do it justice.”

“Go for it, doll,” he said. Naturally, he gave me the tough job. I heard ice clinking in his highball glass. I pictured him leaning back in his wooden swivel chair and putting his feet on his desk.

I sighed. “OK, let’s take them one at a time. See if we can boil each one down to essential facts.”

I pulled out my summary of all this stuff. I started with a bit of Rankin lore known to every Rankin researcher: the so-called Mt. Horeb legend. This story is literally cast in bronze on a memorial in the Mt. Horeb Presbyterian cemetery in Jefferson County, Tennessee. It is a colorful tale featuring two Rankin brothers, unnamed, who were supposedly martyrs to their Presbyterianism in Scotland. One allegedly died in a smokehouse, the other murdered on a road. This was presumably during the 1680s Killing Times. A third brother, William, allegedly escaped to County Derry, Ireland, as did their father Alexander. The legend claims William and Alexander were in Londonderry during the 1689 Siege.

William had three sons, according to the legend: Adam, John, and Hugh. Adam was allegedly born in Scotland in 1699; John and Hugh in Ulster. The three sons came to Chester County, Pennsylvania — Adam and Hugh in 1721 and John in 1727. Adam’s wife, Elizabeth May, died shortly after their arrival; he then married Mary Steele. Hugh died in a mill accident. John married Jane McElwee and had two sons, Richard and Thomas, and eight daughters. Richard settled in Augusta County, Virginia; Thomas went to East Tennessee.

“Let’s take stock, Spade. Which of these Mt. Horeb claims do we know to be true?”

“Easy,” he said, slurping. “Virtually nothing. That story has more holes than a fishnet.”

“Gee, thanks,” I replied. Spade’s colorful way with words is not always helpful. “OK,” I said, “here are the few facts supported by documentary evidence:

(1) there was in fact an Alexander Rankin who was present during the Siege of Londonderry;

(2) an Adam Rankin did marry Mary Steele, widow of James Alexander, in Pennsylvania or Maryland (Adam died in Lancaster County. Pennsylvania);

(3) a John Rankin of Lancaster County did have sons Thomas and Richard and eight daughters; and

(4) John’s son Richard did settle in Augusta County, Virginia; Thomas in fact went to east Tennessee.”

“Mm-hmmm,” Spade graciously agreed, pouring himself another shot. I clearly needed to move this along before he pulled his usual move: abruptly hanging up.

I continued. “And here’s what cannot possibly be true:

(1) The Adam Rankin who married Mary Steele Alexander and the John Rankin who had sons Thomas and Richard and 8 daughters were NOT brothers. They weren’t genetic kin of any sort, according to Y-DNA, and DNA doesn’t lie. Nevertheless, the legend persists.

(2) If Adam Rankin was born in Scotland in 1699, then he wasn’t a son of William, who was allegedly at the Siege of Londonderry in 1689. Alternatively, if William was Adam’s father in 1699, then William wasn’t in Ireland during the Siege.”

“Mm-hmmm,” said Spade, again. He was being uncharacteristically agreeable. I wondered if he had upgraded his Scotch to a single malt.

“You’re batting a thousand so far, doll. And what in the legend has no documentary evidence one way or the other?”

“I’m not painting that fence, Tom Sawyer!” I said, drawing a line in the sand. “The short answer is everything else. Everything. But I’m not going into that level of detail, Spade, it would take us forever. Also, I’ve written about it on my blog ad infinitum. Just look it up.”

“Relax, doll. You’re too uptight. Why don’t you go get yourself a glass of your wussy chardonnay?”

“Because I want to get this over with before Christmas, you old reprobate! Let’s move on to the John Mason Rankin letter and what it says about Adam. And how about you take a shot at it? I want to know what you think.”

There was silence for a few moments while Spade considered this.

“That’s a really long letter,” he said. “In fact, there are two letters, plus John Mason Rankin’s Bible.”

“You’re right. And that’s not all: the current location of those documents is an issue. One online claim is that it they are owned by Robert Rankin of McAllister, Texas. However, there is no such place as McAllister, Texas. That probably refers to McAllen, an actual town in the Valley. Another claim is that a woman identified as KHULSM — her Ancestry name, perhaps? — posted the 2 letters and the Bible on Ancestry in 2008, asserting that she had received them during the 1990s. I found a website years ago where KHULSM posted these items and tried unsuccessfully to contact her more than once. I have no reason to believe she ever had her hands on those documents, because she does not claim descent from that line (or did not at one time).”

I continued: “Striking out so far, I eventually traded emails with Susan F., another Rankin researcher, who said she found a Robert Rankin in McAllen. He was a descendant of John Mason Rankin descendant the original owner of the documents. He told Susan he had transcribed them and that they are now in a museum in San Augustine, Texas. Unfortunately, there is no museum in that little East Texas town. That is, however, where John Mason Rankin lived.”

No response. I wondered whether Spade had fallen asleep. This sometimes happens when I get too prolix.

I persisted, with some asperity. “All of that made me wonder if one or more of those documents might be a fraud. You should probably address that question, Spade. After all, you’re the famous private eye.”

“OK, OK! Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I have some issues with the Bible, but I think the John Mason Rankin letters are the real McCoy. Some of the info checks out for which he would have had no evidentiary basis. Also, what fraudster has the patience to spend all that time and effort inventing facts about corn and cotton yields and other bucolic economic crap?”

“OK, then,” I said mildly — the ball now solidly in Spade’s court — “what do you think about John Mason Rankin’s statement of his early family history, specifically, about his ancestor Adam Rankin?”

“I think the long letter from September 1854 is a gold mine,” said Spade, “both for what it says and — even more importantly — for what it doesn’t say. It’s probably the closest we will ever get to Adam Rankin’s actual oral family history. And as close as we will come to the truth.”

“O-kay,” I said, “now we’re getting somewhere! What does John Mason say that caught your eye?”

“He is responding to a request from a relative for information about their family. He begins with this, providing his source:”

‘I will take pleasure in doing as far as known to me and will commence as far back as I find recorded in my father’s family bible.’

“Wow,” I said. “I had not realized that John Mason’s source for early information was the Bible of Reverend Adam Rankin, a son of Jeremiah and Rhoda Craig Rankin and a grandson of Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin. You’re right, that provides instant credibility.”

“OK, here comes the history:

‘Adam Rankin moved from Scotland to Ireland had three sons – Adam, John and Hugh and one daughter named Jane.’ “

Spade paused to top up his glass and savor the impact of his analysis. “Note two very important distinctions with the Mt. Horeb legend: first, he names Adam’s father as Adam rather than William of the Mt. Horeb version. John Mason, a man who made a living by loaning money and made careful notes on crop yields, is definitely not the kind of person to make an error on such an important matter. If he said Adam’s father was named Adam, then … Adam’s father was named Adam, not William. The only issue is whether the person who transcribed the letter made an error.”

A brief silence ensued. “Once again,” I said, “we find ourselves needing to look at the original. If we can find it. Ergh.”

“But that’s almost not the best part,” Spade continued. He left me in suspense for a moment, one of his favorite ploys.

“The best part is what John Mason (and therefore Rev. Adam’s Bible) did NOT say … there is no story of Rankin martyrs during the Killing Times; no mention of the Siege of Londonderry. I take that as compelling evidence that those events were not part of Rev. Adam’s oral history, or they would have been included in his Bible.”

“For a change, Spade, I’m with you 100%. No caveats or minor disagreements. That means the Killing Times and Londonderry stories, to the extent they actually happened, belong to the line of the John Rankin with sons Thomas and Richard and eight daughters, who wasn’t kin to Adam’s family.”

“But wait … there’s more!” teased Spaded. “Rev. Adam’s Bible provides names and dates:”

“In 1720 Adam and Hugh came to America. Adam was married to Elizabeth May in Ireland. She died soon after her arrival in America. He then married Mrs. Steel, by her he had three sons James, William, and Jeremiah and died 1750.”

Spade elaborated. “Adam’s marriage to Mary Steele Alexander and the fact that he had three sons is conclusively proved, as everyone knows. And Adam’s death date as recorded in the Bible is close enough for oral family history: he actually died and left a will in 1747, not 1750, in Lancaster County. Finally, this probably settles the lingering controversy over whether Elizabeth May or Mary Steele was the mother of James. Or at least provides the only credible evidence on that issue.”

“OK, Spade, you’ve outdone yourself. While you are on a roll, why don’t you evaluate John Mason Rankin’s Bible?”

“I have a problem with the Bible, but only because it has entries dated after John Mason died. It also claims that William, not Adam, was the father of Adam m. Mary Steele Alexander. I strongly suspect that entry — which echoes the well-known Mt. Horeb legend — was added by a well-meaning descendant who had done some cursory family history research. Rev. Adam’s Bible is better than John Mason’s, especially if those entries are relatively contemporaneous.”

A long silence ensued, during which I considered that chardonnay.

“OK, Spade, how ’bout you join me for a trip to San Augustine, Texas, and let’s see what we can find in a local library or genealogical society? We obviously need to see that Bible to assess whether William’s name was in different handwriting than the original Bible entries. And to see whether John Mason’s letter identified Adam’s father as Adam.”

“Nope. You’re on your own, Doll. Texas is too far away from California, and I need to earn a living. Also, I think there may be an extant arrest warrant for yours truly somewhere in East Texas.”

With that, he hung up. I headed for the kitchen, hoping that chardonnay was already chilled.

See you on down the road.

Robin

Take Your Pick: a Testate or an Intestate Ancestor?

I’ve been looking for a subject of general interest rather than a topic concerning one of my ancestral lines. Two friends had similar questions about an ancestor’s estate administration that led me to this topic. It should be short and sweet.

Let’s start with a definition. An “intestate” is someone who dies without leaving a will. On the other hand, someone who leaves a will has died “testate,” and, as you might guess, is called a “testator.”

Which would you prefer? My choice any old day is for a man to die without leaving a will — provided, that is, that he owns property. If he does not, he is unlikely to leave significant records behind. Or to have left a will.

The problem with wills? I imagine we have all seen one in which the testator leaves his entire estate to be divided equally “among all my children,” without naming them. Or the testator names only his “son Joseph,” his “other children” (not named, and number of kids not stated) already provided for. That was Daniel Winn’s will (Lunenburg Co., Virginia Will Book 4:264). Turned out there were nine other children, and proving them was not by any means a cakewalk. Or the testator mentions a wife, without stating her name. ‘Nuf said.

I am not being sexist by referring to intestate men, above. Since we are usually dealing in this hobby with persons living prior to the twentieth century, a property-owning female was rare as hen’s teeth. That is because married women in English common law (i.e., in every state but Louisiana, which is sui generis and beyond my ken) were subject to the disability of “coverture.” In short, that meant a married woman had no legal existence apart from her husband. Absent a prenuptial agreement, she could not own property, even if she inherited it. Her husband inherited any property left to her “in right of his wife,” a phrase you may have run across in court records. A married woman could not even bid at an estate auction, because she lacked the legal capacity to enter into a contract — which is what a winning bid at auction produces.

Nor am I kvetching, although coverture is obviously a fertile field for righteous indignation. Coverture produces valuable genealogical information from time to time. For example, when you find a woman who has purchased something at an estate auction, you can be sure she was single. Likewise, when a man named Edmund Bacon is a party to a lawsuit concerning the estate of Washington Winn, it is a red flag that Edmund Bacon’s wife was one of Washington’s heirs, and possibly née Winn.

Time for another definition: “heir.” We genealogists are prone to conflate heirs, beneficiaries, and devisees. Even clerks of court confuse these terms from time to time.

….. a “beneficiary” is someone who receives a gift (“bequest”) of personal property in a will. Prior to the Civil War Amendments, personal property included enslaved persons.[1]

….. a “devisee” is someone who receives a gift (“devise”) of real property — land– in a will. Any property that is not real estate is personal property. Stocks, intellectual property rights, cars and boats, furniture, you name it.

….. an “heir” is someone who receives real or personal property (or both) under a state’s law of intestate descent and distribution. If a state had no such law, then the English common law system of descent and distribution applied.[2] Among other things, this means you might need to learn about the relevant jurisdiction’s law of intestate descent and distribution if you have an intestate ancestor.

Here are a few reasons why heirs — which exist only in connection with an intestate’s estate — are such wonderful treasures for genealogists.

  • If there is a lawsuit concerning the estate of an intestate, all the heirs must be added as parties. They will be identified in the “style” — title, in effect — of the lawsuit.[3] In the lawsuit’s original filing, usually called a petition or complaint, the residence of each of the parties is usually stated. That is so notice of the lawsuit can be given to each party.
  • If the intestate decedent owned land, a request to the court for permission to sell or divide it must also include all of the heirs.
  • Better yet, “heirs” don’t just include children. If the child of an intestate decedent has died, the child’s heirs must be made parties to a lawsuit or request concerning land. If the intestate decedent had no children (depending on the law of the relevant jurisdiction), his siblings must be parties.
  • But wait, there’s more! In Virginia, for example, the law of intestate descent and distribution treated half-siblings differently than siblings “of the whole blood.” This can reveal which children were the offspring of which wife if the decedent was married more than once.

If you really want to get into the weeds on this, there is an article on this blog about a lawsuit concerning the estate of a young, unmarried, and very wealthy man who had both siblings and half-siblings, as well as a mother who survived him. That lawsuit is a veritable goldmine. See it at this link.  If you have a Winn, Bacon, Hix, or Hardy ancestor in Lunenburg County, Virginia circa 1800, it should be required reading.

That’s enough from me today. I haven’t practiced law in a long darn time, and I can only spend so much time withBlack’s Law Dictionary before it’s time to take a break.

See you on down the road.

Robin

[1] Just typing that gives me the creeps.

 [2] We will stay out of the primogeniture morass. I have argued in vain with people who refuse to believe that one could leave a will ignoring the primogeniture rules.

 [3] E.g., the style of a case might be Bush v. Gore. I don’t know why that was the first thing that popped into my mind.

The Fastest Post Ever Written

The speed of this article will be a function of how fast I can type, since I’m not going to be encumbered by a time-consuming evidentiary trail. This is coming straight out of memory. Here’s why I’m writing it …

I exchanged a few texts with one of our sons a few days ago. He sent a picture of a statue from a city he is visiting. He said it reminded him of “James Rankin.”

– Did autocorrect change “Jim” to “James,” I asked?

No response. I continued.

–  If you are thinking of your grandfather, his full legal name was Jim Leigh Rankin.

I gave it some more thought.

– “Leigh” is pronounced “LAY,” not “LEE.”

– “Right!” he responded.

This gave me a jolt: perhaps I have not kept my genealogical eye on the ball. I have written a ton of articles about Rankins. However, I have evidently failed to tell my sons much about their Rankins — to the point that one son didn’t know his Rankin grandfather’s actual name.

Perhaps I have not written about my father because it is so personal. I adored him, as will soon become obvious. Whatever. Here is his story, and I will strive not to libel too many of his relatives.

 *  *  *  *  *  *

Jim Leigh Rankin about 1955

If I just stick to the facts, his story will be short and sweet. He was born in rural north Louisiana, grew up poor, went to work, married, had one child, was successful, retired, and died.

Well, perhaps that is a bit spare, since it applies to a great many people. As I consider it, though, his life to me was a series of vignettes. A very quiet man, he said little. I can count on my digits the number of long-ish talks I had with him, and I wouldn’t be in any danger of running out of fingers. I learned about him mostly from observation and stories from other people.

Here’s a better outline. He was born in 1907 in Cotton Valley, Webster Parish, Louisiana. He grew up in Gibsland, Bienville Parish, which is famous only for being near the place where Bonnie and Clyde were shot. That part of North Louisiana probably hasn’t changed much since the Depression. It was still pretty grim the last time I drove through the area.

He was the youngest of four siblings. The family was poor as church mice. His father, John Marvin Rankin (“Daddy Jack,” my cousins said he was called) was not a successful provider. He was briefly the Sheriff of Webster Parish, a waiter, and the driver of a dray wagon. Their home was rented. His wife, Emma Leona Brodnax Rankin (“Ma Rankin,” or just “Ma”) took in mending to help supplement whatever he earned.

I once asked Butch, my favorite Rankin cousin, what Daddy Jack did for a living. Butch had a quick answer: “Anything he could, hon. Anything he could.” There was an old popcorn cart stored under the rear of their house, which was built on a fairly steep slope. Daddy Jack undoubtedly peddled popcorn at one time, perhaps turning a profit when all the tourists came to gawk at the corpses of Bonnie and Clyde, laid out in the coroner’s office in Gibsland.

Prior to my father’s generation, our branch of the Rankin family hadn’t had more than two nickels to scratch together since my great-great-great-great grandfather Samuel “Old One-Eyed Sam” Rankin, a wealthy owner of land and enslaved persons, died circa 1816 in Lincoln Co., NC. My line didn’t share any of the estate’s largesse. Sam’s son Richard, from whom we descend, died in serious debt before his father.

See, this is how I go off the rails about family history. Our sons go MEGO (“my eyes glaze over”) when I spout this stuff.  I will try to stay on track.

Ma Rankin was a grim, tea-totaling, Southern Baptist, charitably described by my much older cousins as “strict.” I avoided her and her stultifying, overheated house to the extent I could get away with it. She once stopped a desultory conversation dead in its tracks, a bullet through its brain, with three of her four children and several grandchildren trapped in her living room. My Uncle Louie attempted to break yet another long silence:

– well, the Russians have launched a satellite. Next they will be sending a man to the moon.

– If God had intended for man to be on the moon, pronounced Ma, He would have put him there.

Her arms were crossed. She was dead serious. My cousins and I fled to the yard, where we pelted each other with pecans. Perhaps not surprisingly, Ma’s children all turned out to be nonbelievers.

Ma Rankin was born into a wealthy family which survived losses of impressive fortunes during what some Southerners just called “the War.” Her Brodnax ancestors in this country stretch back to a couple buried in the Travis Family burying ground on Jamestown Island. In England, her line goes back to landed gentry in Kent. The Bushes also descend from the Jamestown Brodnaxes.

One of Ma Rankin’s brothers, Uncle Joe Brodnax, had the sense to acquire a bunch of mineral rights in north Louisiana. The land was located over a prolific oil and gas play. He evidently left a nice legacy to his sister Emma “Ma” Rankin. Among other things, they finally owned a house.

Daddy’s three older siblings all had college degrees. He didn’t go to college because, he explained, “the money ran out.” Presumably, he was referring to Uncle Joe’s legacy. Instead, he started playing what he called “semi-pro ball” after he graduated from high school. I took that to mean what would now be minor league professional baseball. (I wasn’t adept at the art of cross-examination when I heard these stories.) A lefty himself, he was released after a game when a left-handed pitcher struck him out in four at-bats.

He then went to work in the gas fields as a “chart changer’s helper” for a natural gas transmission company. It didn’t take someone too long to notice he was smarter than everyone else and had a prodigious, and I mean remarkable, memory. Also a marked ability for math. In the wink of an eye, he ascended the field ranks to become the Monroe area gas dispatcher. That meant he went out to the field when and as needed, 24/7/365, to open or close valves on the company’s gas transmission system.

Soon thereafter, he was transferred to the company’s headquarters in Houston, where he became the national expert on gas proration. I won’t explain what that is, because it would cause serious MEGO. Instead, I will just say that a man who worked for him for a quarter-century told me Daddy “wrote the gas proration laws for Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.” That was clearly an exaggeration, since he wasn’t a lawyer. But that statement contains a large element of truth. He was a regular witness testifying about gas proration before legislative committees and regulatory commissions in those states. His questioners must have been patient, because he spoke slowly and quietly, using as few words as possible.

He met my mother in Houston at the natural gas transmission company where they both worked. She was a typist/secretary in the stenography department. From time to time, she would go take dictation from him and type it up. He chewed tobacco. My mother, unaccountably, thought that was cute. They were relatively old when they married in 1936: 26 and 29. They were a decade older when they became parents for the first and only time.

Jim and Ida in Southside Place, Houston, circa 1937

His work brings a couple of vignettes to mind. I remember his frequent trips out of town. My mother and I  would go see him off at the Shreveport airport — United Gas moved its headquarters there in 1940. This story is set in 1951. Eisenhower, still aglow with his WWII success, was running for President. He was making a stop in Shreveport for a campaign appearance, and the airport was packed by the time my parents and I arrived. Daddy was flying on a DC-3, a two-engine affair which had a folding door containing steps for boarding.

At the top of the boarding steps, Daddy turned to face the crowd, lifted his hat with his left hand, and flashed the “V” for “Victory” sign with his right. The crowd roared its approval.

Another vignette: after Texas passed its gas proration laws, producers had to calculate something called “allowables,” the amount of gas which they could legally produce. Daddy went to Austin frequently to testify in rate cases or whatever the current issue may have been. He stayed in the Driskill, still a lovely old hotel with a fabulous bar. Those oil and gas guys would head to the bar at the end of the day. Every evening, at least one producer would accost him with, “Hey, Jimmie, I’ll buy you a drink if you’ll calculate my allowables for me.” I seriously doubt that he ever paid for a drink.

Another vignette from before I was born, related by my mother. He returned home early one morning from a train trip to Baton Rouge. My mother found a metal door plaque identifying a men’s restroom under the bathroom mat. She accosted him with the evidence, with some asperity.

–  Jimmie, what on earth is this doing here?

–  I don’t know … we were having a pretty good time, and I didn’t know where else to put it when I got home.

Train car bars weren’t as classy as the Driskill, but the bourbon probably tasted the same. I wish she had saved the damn sign.

Here are a couple more vignettes, featuring the sense of humor he displayed as a pretend celebrity at the airport in 1951.

We were having our weekly dinner at Morrison’s Cafeteria in Shreveport. Daddy turned to me conspiratorially.

–  There were a bunch of bees flying down a highway. They needed to stop. They passed by a Gulf station, a Texaco station, and a Shell station. They finally turned in to an Esso Station.

(That was Standard Oil of Ohio at one time. I think).

–  Why do you think they passed up the first three stations for the Esso station, my father asked me, a perfect 14-year-old straight man.

–  I don’t know, Daddy.

–  Because they were SOBs, he chuckled.

–  Jimmie! my mother said reprovingly, suppressing a grin.

Another family meal, but this time I was 18 or 19, home from school for a holiday. It was the three of us in a local Mexican restaurant, plus my maternal grandmother Ida Burke.

Granny examined me with a mildly disapproving look and pronounced her verdict.

–  Robin looks just like her father.

I can understand some disappointment: my mother was a world-class beauty.

Without missing a beat, Daddy turned to me and patted me on the arm.

–  Of course she does!!! That’s why she’s so pretty!!!

He did enjoy rattling a Burke cage from time to time. I dearly loved my Burke relatives, but they were outmatched.

In his family, he was always characterized as a man who was too kind to swat a fly. He was the family caretaker. Needed a will probated? He was your man. Taking care of his mother when she reached the age of frequent doctor’s visit? Selling her house after she died? Ditto. Helping with whatever? Just ask.

He was bitten with what he called “the genealogy bug” after he retired in the late 1960s. My husband Gary was in pilot training at Craig AFB, Selma, AL. He and I were too poor for long distance calls (and Daddy was too frugal, and naturally disinclined to talk). Instead, we wrote letters. His regular salutation was “Dear Robin Baby.” Or perhaps it was “Dearest Robin Baby,” my memory is unclear. He and his sister Louise, who lived in Heflin, Bienville Parish — the only one of the four Rankin siblings who didn’t have the sense to get the hell out of rural north Louisiana — drove all over the area visiting relatives, collecting family stories.

They found a good love story and a mystery about their Grandfather, John Allen Rankin. Turns out John Allen met his future wife Amanda Lindsey in 1863, when he knocked on the door of her father’s house in Monticello, Arkansas. He was reportedly looking for a sister who lived in the area. Amanda later said that she “opened the door to the handsomest soldier you ever saw and fell in love on the spot.” The mystery was why he was “already out of the War in 1863,” as Daddy put it. So he sent off for John Allen’s military records, writing to me that he would keep it a secret if there was “a skeleton in the attic.”

There was, but it’s not a secret because I’ve written about it on this blog. My Confederate great-grandfather, displaying what I consider imminent good sense after being in a losing battle near Vicksburg and approaching the second year of his 6-month enlistment, deserted. He had just been issued a new uniform and several months back pay in Selma, Alabama. He evidently walked to Monticello, where he made Amanda Lindsey swoon.

What else about Daddy? He was a sentimental sweetie who carefully saved every scrap  that was important to him. I found among his keepsakes an envelope labeled “Burke’s baby tooth,” with one of our son’s teeth carefully wrapped in folded tissue paper. There was also every report card, piano recital program, dance recital program, and twice-yearly reports from the private school I attended through the third grade.

He taught me how to play baseball, of course. Better yet, he taught me how to keep score. He and I would occasionally go (just the two of us!) to a  Shreveport Sports game. He encouraged me to join him in booing lustily when an umpire made a bad call, defined as most anything unfavorable to the home team. He told me that a batter would hit a foul ball 5 out of 7 times when facing a full count. One of these days I’m going to test that theory.

He had a table saw and other carpentry tools in the garage. He made a back yard high jump for me. It consisted of two upright 2″x 2″ boards on wooden stands, with nails in each upright marked at one-inch increments for height. A bamboo pole served as the horizontal piece.

He also made a fancy cage for one of my Burke grandfather’s fabulous gifts: a pair of quail. Gramps also brought me baby ducks, baby chicks, and other wildlife. Also a B-B gun and a small rod and reel.

–  I swear he will bring her an elephant one of these days, said Daddy.

He was 5’7″ and 140 pounds soaking wet, but nevertheless a fine athlete. He excelled at pretty much anything he tried. As an adult, he was a good golfer and above-average bowler, as evidenced by a “250” coffee mug from Brunswick. In high school, he was on the tennis and baseball teams. He was voted “Most Handsome.” He was the editor of the high school yearbook. I suspect he took that job to make sure his name appeared therein as JIM, not JAMES. My son wasn’t the first person who made that mistake. The engraver who did my wedding invitations didn’t believe that my mother, who had been married to him for a mere 31 years in 1967, actually knew his first name was Jim. He appeared on those wedding invites as “James.”

One of my high school best friends died in Vietnam. At his 1970 Shreveport funeral, Daddy (who loved my friend) cried like a baby. He wrote to one of his genealogy correspondents — Mildred Ezell, the woman who published the definitive books on the Brodnax family — that he never wanted to hear “Taps” played again.

Roughly a quarter-century later, I exchanged emails with Mrs. Ezell. She had posted a query online asking for information about my Brodnax great-great- grandfather. I replied, identifying myself as Robin Rankin Willis. She asked me in the next email if I knew whatever had happened to Jim Rankin. He clearly made an impression.

I’m going to omit the part where he got cancer and died. I don’t think I can stand to write about it.

And that is all for now. See you on down the road.

Robin

Some Virginia Winn families: a Holland connection

I’ve been organizing my files, a project I undertake whenever I’m overcome by guilt re: the mess I will leave behind if I’m hit by a bus. I persevere at this Sisyphean task until something mercifully diverts me.

Sorting through random paper yesterday, I ran across information I had collected on a colonial Holland family of Goochland, Hanover, and Amelia Counties, Virginia. My cryptic and somewhat snarky note about them implied that Winn researchers had not noticed the connection between these Hollands and the well-known Winn families of Hanover/Amelia/Lunenburg. I penned that note a couple of decades ago and it is probably no longer true, if it ever was. But it got me out of organizing my files to write this post, for which I am grateful.

The Winn context here is provided by Richard and Phoebe Wilkes Pledger Winn of Hanover County, Virginia. Richard’s family of origin is the subject of much speculation but no apparent evidence. He died about 1750. There is no extant will for him in Hanover, although he probably had one.[1] He did, however, own land and enslaved people located in Amelia which provided an essential link to establishing Richard and Phoebe’s family. Five children — there might be others — are established by excellent circumstantial evidence. I consider them all proved, although you might disagree.[2] I described the evidence in this article, so you may judge for yourself:

Here is a refresher on Richard and Phoebe’s five proved children, birth order unknown, just in case you’re new to them or have forgotten:

  1. Col. John Winn of Amelia County, whose wife was Susannah Irby, daughter of Charles Irby Senior. Col. John died in Amelia in 1781, leaving a will naming his children Richard, Jane, Charles, John, and Susannah.[3]
  1. Col. Thomas Winn of Lunenburg County, who was married twice. His first wife is usually identified as a Miss Bannister, although the only evidence I know is that the couple named a son Bannister Winn. Col. Thomas’s second wife and widow was Sarah, a genuine character who was almost certainly née Bacon.[4] Col. Thomas died in Lunenburg, also in 1781. His eleven children — including which ones were Miss Bannister’s and which were Sarah’s — are conclusively proved by a fabulous chancery lawsuit in Lunenburg.[5] I explained the lawsuit in this article.
  1. Daniel Winn, also of Lunenburg. His wife was probably Sarah Tench, about whom I know nothing except that she was a daughter of Henry Tench. Daniel died in Lunenburg in 1799 leaving nine sons and one daughter. His will named only his son Joseph, although his other children are established by gift deeds and a web of other convincing evidence.[6] His children are identified and the evidence concerning them described in this post.
  1. Susanna Winn, who married John Irby (also a child of Charles Irby Sr.) in Amelia in 1757. John Irby died in 1763, and his will identifies their young children as Charles, Lucey, and John Irby.[7] Susannah and two of the Irby children witnessed her brother Col. Thomas’s Lunenburg will.
  1. Phoebe Winn. And here, at last, is the Winn-Holland connection. Phoebe’s husband was Michael Holland Jr., son of Michael Holland Sr. of Hanover and Goochland Counties. Michael Jr. died in Amelia County in late 1762 or early 1763. Their only proved children were Joseph and Mary Holland. Both were established by a deposition concerning Michael’s estate.[8] Joseph is also proved in a deed in which he sold some of his father’s land. His mother Phoebe, identified as such in the deed, released her dower interest.[9]

And with that, I will add a brief chart for the family of Michael Holland Sr. of Hanover and Goochland, along with a few notes which (I hope) will help you track these guys if you wish.

See you on down the road.

Robin

1 Michael Holland Sr., wife Judith _______. They apparently lived in Hanover, although a will was probated in Goochland.[10] He amassed an enormous amount of land in Louisa, Goochland, and Hanover Counties, much of it on Licking Hole or Lickinghole Swamp or Creek. He died in early 1746/47.

2 John Holland, inherited 800 acres on Lickinghole. Died in 1773. Wife Martha _______. Seven children are named in his Goochland will.[11]

3 John Holland, b. by Oct 1746

3 Judith Holland Parish

3 Hezekiah Holland

3 Martha Holland Graves

3 Nathaniel Holland, inherited land on Little Bird Cr. in Goochland.

3 Lucy Holland

3 Alice Holland Nash

2 Michael Holland Jr., inherited 400 acres in Louisa Co. Born about 1695. Was in Goochland Co. in Aug 1752 when he bought 865 acres from Philip Pledger. Was in Nottoway Parish, Amelia Co., by 28 Mar 1755, when he sold some of that tract. Died in the 4th quarter of 1762 in Amelia County. His wife was Phoebe Winn, sister of Col. John of Amelia, Col. Thomas of Lunenburg, Daniel Winn of Lunenburg, and Susannah Winn Irby of Amelia.

3 Joseph Holland

3 Mary Holland

2 Elizabeth Holland m. Pouncy Anderson; he inherited several tracts from his father-in-law.

2 Richard Holland, inherited a plantation in Louisa Co. and “Meridith’s Branch” in Henrico, where he lived as of Oct 1746, probably 500 acres and 450 acres, respectively.

2 George Holland, inherited 700 acres in Louisa Co., plus another 650 acres, location uncertain. Wife Sarah Ford, daughter of William Ford. Michael Sr. had to leave this large legacy to George Holland to assure that Mr. Ford would give Sarah a legacy.

2 Judith Holland m. Henry Martin, inherited 520 acres on Lickinghole plus 50 acres in Hanover a half-mile below the plantation where Michael Holland Sr. lived.

2 Anne Holland, under age in Oct 1746.

2 Susannah Holland, under age in Oct 1746.

2 Mercy Holland, under age in Oct 1746.

                  [1] There are few Hanover Co. records prior to 1865.

                  [2] Professional genealogical proof standards are relaxed somewhat when burned records result in the loss of primary conclusive evidence, such as Hanover County wills.

                  [3] Amelia Co., VA Will Book 2: 360. Will of John Winn of Amelia County dated 3 Mar 1780, proved 25 Jan 1781. Daughter Susanna when she reaches age 18 or marries, 7 slaves of equal value to those given daughter Jane Epes before her marriage. Son Richard Winn, 2 years after my death, 2 slaves (for support of wife until delivery). Wife Susanna, possession of dwelling house and sufficient maintenance out of my estate. Sons John and Charles Winn, remainder of my estate divided equally 1 year after death. Wife Susanna Winn, executrix, and Truman Epes and Charles Winn, executors. Witnesses: Giles Nance, John Irby, William Gooch, Elisha Winn, Joseph Winn, and Jane Epes. Charles and John qualified as executors.

            [4] Lunenburg Co., VA Deed Book 25: 82, agreement dated 16 Mar 1820 between Edmund Winn (son and executor of Col. Thomas), Sarah Winn (Col. Thomas’s widow), and John Winn Jr. providing that Edmund would build a house for John Jr. on land where Edmund lives. The land belonged to Edmund’s mother Sarah for her lifetime, then descended to Bannister Winn, a son of Col. Thomas. However, John Jr. had bought the remainder interest in the land from Bannister Winn’s heirs. Edmund and his mother Sarah agreed not to deprive John Jr. of use of a certain part of the said tract. Edmund was expressly not bound for his mother’s conduct, only his own. I’m not sure who “John Jr.” is, probably either the son of John Winn m. Ann Stone or the son of Daniel.

            [5] Col. Thomas Winn’s children by his first wife were Mourning, Elizabeth, Thomas, Richard, William, Bannister, and John Winn (who predeceased his father). His children by Sarah Bacon were Keturah, Henrietta Maria (AKA Marie), Edmund, and Washington.

                  [6] Lunenburg Co., VA Will Book 4: 264, will of Daniel Winn dated 23 Apr 1789, proved 14 Feb 1799. After payment of debts, remaining estate to son Joseph, other children already provided for. Daniel’s children were Marticia (wife of Cornelius Crenshaw Jr.), Joseph, John, Thomas, Elisha, Alexander, Orsamus, William, James, and Galanus.

            [7] Amelia Co., VA Will Book 2X: 45, will of John Irby dated 28 Jan and proved 27 Oct 1763. Witnesses Thomas Wilkinson, William Fitzgerald, Mary Irby, and Henrietta Maria Irby. Executors Susannah Irby, “her brother John Winn,” and my brother Charles Irby. Wife Susanna Irby, 15 slaves and personal estate until the eldest child is 21 or wife remarries, then an equal division between my wife and children Charles Irby, Lucey Irby, and John Irby. Sons John and Charles, 560-acre tract where I live divided equally when son Charles comes of age or marries. Wife to have manor house and 1/3rd of land for life.

            [8] The deposition suggests that Michael Holland may have had more than two children, although I can only prove two.Amelia Co., VA Deed Book 8: 314, deposition signed 3 Jan 1764 by John Nance repeating Michael Holland’s stated intent to give his daughter Mary two enslaved women and his son Joseph two enslaved men, and identifying Michael Holland’s wife’s brother as Mr. Winn. Holland also said his family was so large that he “wished his children could go for themselves.”

                  [9] Amelia Co., VA Deed Book 9: 105, deed dated 26 Feb 1767 from Joseph Holland of Nottoway Parish, Amelia, to Charles Irby, same, 118 acres in Raleigh Parish adjacent Winn’s line et al. Phoebe, the mother of Joseph Holland, released dower.

            [10] Michael Sr.’s Hanover will, if any, is probably lost. Benjamin B. Weisiger, III, Goochland County, Virginia Wills and Deeds 1742-1749 (Richmond: 1984) 222, will of Michael Holland dated 10 Oct 1746, proved 17 Mar 1746/47. Wife Judith, 800 acres in Louisa County and 800 acres on Lickinghole Cr. Son John Holland, 800 acres on Lickinghole. Son Michael, 400 acres in Louisa bought from Craddock. Son-in-law Pouncy Anderson, 900 acres on Lickinghole and 200A bought from William Owen and other land. Son Richard, the plantation in Louisa County and “Meridith’s Branch” in Henrico where he now lives, 500 acres and 450 acres. Son George, 700 acres in Louisa County and other land. Son-in-law Henry Martin, 520 acres on Lickinghole plus 50 acres in Hanover, 1/2 mile below the plantation where Michael Sr. lived. Daughters Anne, Susannah and Mercy when of age or married. Daughters Elizabeth Anderson and Judith Martin. Grandson John Holland, the son of John, 500 acres in Orange County.  Executors Henry Martin, Pouncy Anderson and Richard Holland. Witness John Martin, John Parrish, John Sandland.

            [11] Goochland Deed & Will Book 10: 378, will of John Holland dated 7 Jun and proved Sep 1773. Wife Martha. Children John Holland, Judith Parish, Hezikiah Holland (female), Martha Graves, Nathaniel Holland, Lucy Holland, and Alice Nash. Son Nathaniel inherited land on Little Bird Cr.