William Penn Deane & His Book

John Greenleaf Whittier ... when I saw the photograph, I paused because something about the name was familiar, and I don't read much poetry.  I looked behind me, on the bookshelf, and there it was; old, tattered and so well read it was hard to make out the title anymore,  an 1871 copy of Whittier’s Poetical Works.

I’d found it in a second hand shop in the San Francisco Bay Area, 15 - 20 years ago.   Before it belonged to me, it belonged to William Penn Deane.

Several pages in, on the leaf just before the first poem, Mogg Megone … an obituary is glued in.

It reads …
“Mrs. Olive W., wife of Wm Penn Dean, passed from earthly suffering to heavenly rest April 21, 1895.  Mrs. Dean was born in Wilton, Me., March 10, 1852, being the daughter of the late Gardiner Chase, and the youngest of a family of four sons and three daughters.  She was united in marriage with Mr. Dean Sept. 14, 1870, and for eighteen years they resided in Temple, after which they removed to Farmington.  Mrs.  Dean was a lady of rare sweetness of spirit, possessing in a marked degree the happy faculty of making many lasting friends wherever she went.  It seemed the habit of her life to look on the bright side of things, and many have been blessed by her cheerful spirit, kindly words and loving helpful deeds.  She was always ready to assist in every possible way those about her, and she strove to make home the most delightful spot on earth to her dear ones.

Last August she suffered an attack of la grippe, from which she never fully recovered and which resulted in consumption.  Her sufferings, which have often been extreme, have been borne with remarkable patience and resignation, and the constant presence of her Saviour was her joy and support.  As the hour of her departure drew near she was ready for the call of the Master, and commending her loved ones to the Comforter, she passed in holy triumph to be with Jesus.  The funeral services were held at the residence and were attended by a large number of sympathizing neighbors and friends.

A faithful husband, an affectionate son and a daughter, three brothers and a wide circle of friends are saddened by the calling away in the midst of her usefulness one who was very dear to them, but they are assured that their present loss is her eternal gain.”

******

And on the very last page, Mr. Deane has glued another poem in.  It is a poem I haven’t been able to find anywhere else but it is vaguely reminiscent of To Everything There is a Season.

The Reception Poem

The good Book says there’s a time for all things -

A time to keep silent, a time to sing.

A time to weep when friendships sever,

    When you are sad and I am sad, 

    And we all are sad together.

But of all the time I never miss,

I enjoy most a time like this.

When words and smiles are like summer wreaths,

    When you are glad and I am glad.

    And we all are glad together.

Congratulations are in the air, 

They lightly fall upon yonder pair - 

Bride and bridegroom, one forever,

    You wish them joy, I wish them joy

    We all wish them joy together.  

The bride on the schoolroom has turned her back,

Though success as a teacher she never did lack.

To instruct one pupil henceforth she’ll endeavor.

    You wish them success.  I wish them success.

    We all wish them success together.

In their childhood homes they were joy and light,

With their voices of cheer and their smiles all bright

O, there are ties it is hard to sever!

    You bless them, I bless them,

    We all bless the together.

May their home be all that’s meant by the word,

Where love abides and children are heard.

May peace and contentment forsake them never.

    Thus you pray, thus I pray,

    Thus we all pray together.  

May the hand of industry supply every need,

May all these friends prove true friends indeed.

Leaving them now in the hand of Our Father.

    You say good-night, I say good-night,

    We all say good-night together.

ERA.

Years ago I traced Wm. Penn Deane’s line back to his great great grandparents in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  When I was finished, I folded the chart up and put it in the book.  It's faded now and needs to be redone.

I searched to see, if all these years later, I could find anything more about Mr. Deane, but his first and middle name tend to complicate things by bringing up the wrong results.  I do think he might be …
a school supervisor - William P. Deane in Temple, Maine in 1883.

I find the name of a teacher on one document curious; she is Grace Whittier.  There is that name again.

The father of William Penn Deane (1842) was William Deane (1801); all I have been able to find out about him was he was a farmer, but the father of William Deane (1801) is Cyrus Deane (1766) and I did find something interesting about him in an article about gravestone carvers.

“Cyrus Deane was born in 1766 and died in 1856. He lived and worked in Taunton, Massachusetts. Deane may have learned to carve from an in-law, Ebenezer Winslow of Berkley, Massachusetts. He cross fertilized two completely different schools of carving as had Barney Leonard: Taunton River Basin and Plymouth County, producing very interesting winged effigies in the seventeen eighties. He was a skilled letterer. Upon his marriage in 1791, he moved to Maine where he lived and died. It is not known if he carved there.”
Source: Walker - Blake's Backgrounds of Identified Gravestone Carvers

There is a story here ... very possibly more than one.  For now the cdv of John Greenleaf Whitter will go with the book and I will keep searching; hoping one day I’ll stumble across a photograph of
William Penn Deane
or
Olive Woodman Chase
And some well meaning soul will have written their names on the back.

William Henry Wallace - Postmaster

Reverse:

W. H. Wallace Sr. 

in his 86th year of age

in his easy chair a 

Christmas present from 

his dear friend Mrs. J. N. McCullough 

for the high esteem 

in which he held her 

departed husband 

and who was his teacher 

when a little boy in 1830.  

 A date, December 1897, is also written on the back.  This is either a mistake or perhaps it is the date the note was written.  It is not the date the photograph was taken because W. H.  Wallace wasn't alive in December of 1897; he died in September.

~ Steubenville Morning Star, Sept. 11, 1897

W. H. WALLACE DEAD
The oldest Postmaster in the United States Expires Yesterday Morning

Appointed Assistant P.M by Gen. Jackson in 1830 and served under thirty-four Postmaster Generals including the Present Incumbent - the end of a busy life.  William Henry Wallace, Sr., of Hammondsville, this county, who claimed the distinction of having held the position of postmaster continuously longer than any other official in the United States, died yesterday, aged 86 years.

**********

William Henry Wallace was born in Frelighsburg, in the Province of Quebec, Canada, December 2, 1811. His mother’s people originated in Germany and his father’s people in the land of William Wallace. His maternal grandfather laid out the town where William H. Wallace was born, and called it after his own name.  He was a surgeon in the British Navy and descended from the same stock as Victoria.  Mr. Wallace’s father (Sir George Wallace) was a prosperous merchant and manufacturer in Canada.  When the War of 1812 broke out, being an American, born in Massachusetts, and having never sworn allegiance to the Crown, he closed up his business and left for the United States, eventually settling in Baltimore, Maryland.
Source: Ohio's Oldest Postmaster Biographies

This paragraph seems so full of possibilities yet it creates more questions than answers for me …

Question 1 - William Henry Wallace was born in Frelighsburg … his maternal grandfather laid out the town where W. H. Wallace was born … called it after his own name … so does that mean his grandfather was Dr. Abram Freligh?

Question 2 -“his father’s people came from the land of William Wallace.” … is this a reference to Scotland?

And finally
Question 3 - there is a reference to being “descended from the same stock as Victoria.” …  QUEEN Victoria? 

~ W. H Wallace (1892)
“Just 73 years ago (1819) in the city of Baltimore, I witnessed the hanging , for robbing the United States mail, of the noted Haire and his co-worker, then the greatest robbers of mail.  Then it was a death penalty to rob the United States mail.  Shortly after was another hanging in the same city that I witnessed.  Hutton and Hull robbed the mail not far out of the city, and murdered the driver, Heaps.  Heaps and his family lived in the city, and his children were my playmates.  There were no express lines, the mail being the only public mode to send money.  The villains stopped the mail coach in the night with none but the driver aboard.  He was ordered to give up the mail.  This he did; but it was concluded, fearing detection and arrest, to take the driver’s life by shooting and stabbing, each taking a hand.  Then they tied the two horses by the lines to a tree, and made off with the mail.  They visited the city next day and were arrested.  Hutton was an old offender, and young Hull inveighed as an accomplice.  He was only about 20 years old; had studied medicine in Utica where his father, who was a druggist, lived.”

I think what surprised me the most about the above paragraph was the realization that William Henry Wallace would have been about 8 years old when he witnessed the first hanging … and a year later at age 9 he was headed over the Alleghenies.  

“My first trip over the Alleghenies from Baltimore to Brownsville was in the month of August 1820 in my bare head and bare feet.  The sun was hot, and so was the pike road.”

In 1821, when he was 10 years old, W. H. Wallace came with his parents to Jefferson County, Ohio.

In 1825, at age 14, Wallace was placed in a store on Yellow Creek and later that same year he went to New Lisbon where he remained for 3 years.  At the end of that time he returned home and during the winter he taught school on Hollow Rock.  One of his pupils was J. N. McCullough, who became First Vice President of the Pennsylvania railroad and whose wife, many years later would present Mr. Wallace with the gift of an easy chair.

At the close of the school Mr. Wallace accepted a position in the general store and shipping house of A. G. Richardson, of Wellsville. In June, 1830, A. G. Richardson was postmaster at Wellsville, Columbiana County, Ohio, and W. H. Wallace was his assistant.

The village of Linton, at the mouth of Yellow Creek was a small hamlet for several years prior to 1831.  A man named Jacob Groff kept a small store there and  in 1831, William H. Wallace, then 20 years of age, entered into a partnership with Mr. Jacob Groff.  Upon his application a post office was established there.  Mr. Groff was made postmaster and Mr. Wallace, his assistant; their partnership continued for 3 years.

William Wallace:
“My first trip on business to Philadelphia was 61 years ago (1831) by mail stage, and I returned home via the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as far as it was built.  The road was made to Ellicott’s Mills, thirteen miles; with strap rail; two horses tandem; capacity of coach twelve or fifteen; rate of speed ten miles per hour.  This mode was continued until finished to Frederick, when I was again a passenger; next, pony sized locomotives from Baltimore to Cumberland, thence by mail stage to Brownsville, PA. I crossed the Alleghenies twenty-six times before the railroad traversed them.  The robbery of the mail stage was common and for safety at times postillions (someone riding the left front horse in a team) were brought into requisition.  The common way of carrying money by person was to encase it in a leather belt, or silk bandanna handkerchief and placing it around the body next to the bare hide.  Stockton and Stokes of Baltimore were the fist stage owners that I have any recollection of more than seventy years ago, the next Reside and Slaymaker over the Baltimore route.”

“I visited Washington 58 years ago; was formally introduced to General Jackson at the White House by a member of Congress, and had a good little talk.  He had in his hand a two-cent clay pipe, which he had been smoking.  I also had a good talk with Henry Clay. One day when the House was not in session my member of Congress seated me on the speaker’s chair, saying, Now you can say you have sat in the speaker’s chair.”

While living in Yellow Creek, William Henry Wallace married Miss Matilda Nessly, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Nessly.  They were married April 9, 1835 and would have 5 children; 3 sons (Rodney G., Homer N. and W. H. Jr.) and 2 daughters whose names I have yet to discover.

William Wallace stayed at Yellow Creek 8 ½ years.  In 1839, he moved 3 miles further down the river and in honor of his son Homer, called this new place “Port Homer.”

W. H. Wallace was appointed postmaster of Port Homer by Postmaster General Granger in 1841.

Port Homer grew into a prominent shipping point for the products of the numerous distilleries, flour mills and salt wells in the area. Although steamboats were in operation, flatboats were less expensive and were the favored carriers for down river shipments. Boat building, milling, salt boiling and distilling employed a large force of men, and the river warehouses were filled, the products providing employment to hundreds of men.

In 1851 Mr. Wallace sold out his Port Homer business interests and moved again, this time to a small settlement laid out on the property of Thomas Hammond.  Here Wallace opened a store.

At some point Mr. and Mrs. Wallace went to New York to purchase merchandise and on the trip, they were faced with the problem of where to have the supplies shipped since the town had no name.  It was Mrs. Wallace who suggested the name, Hammondsville; gave the location as four miles above Yellow Creek, and Hammondsville it has remained.

Rich deposits of coal and clay were discovered on the Hammond land. W.H. Wallace and his sons, Rodney and William developed these interests. I presume through the Hammondsville Mining and Coal Company, of which William Wallace was the manager. When the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad was built through town in 1852, they mined and shipped large quantities of coal along with coke and brick.

In 1864, W.H. Wallace purchased the Hammond House, and moved his family into it. The family then consisted of W.H. Wallace and his wife, his son, Homer, and his wife, son Rodney and wife and daughters, and son W.H. Jr.

The panic of 1873 seriously affected the town , but the effects were mitigated by the four large stores of W. H. Wallace and Sons, which carried on trade in every branch of business in a fashion seen in the department stores in cities today.  In addition, Wallace and his sons published a newspaper whose main objective was to advertise their business.

And of course W. H. Wallace was again appointed postmaster in Hammondsville, this time by Judge Hall.

According to W. H. Wallace …
Old time rates of postage were figured thus:  for a single letter carried 30 miles, 6 ¼ cents, called then a fip; up to 80 miles, 10 cents; up to 150 miles, eleven pence (12 ½ cents), up to 400 miles, three fips (18 ¾ cents); 400 miles or to any part of the United States, 25 cents.  Storekeepers in those early days were in the habit of taking all kinds of country or farm trade for goods, and where a post office was connected with the store, it was common to take produce for letters and papers, as for goods.  The prices of produce varied some seasons, but butter and eggs were always low in summer, the prevailing price being 6 ¼ cents a pound for butter and 5 cents per dozen for the eggs.

To illustrate: to pay postage on a 25 cent letter it required the amount of the following articles separately:  4 pounds of butter, 5 dozen of eggs, 2 bushels of oats, 2 bushels of potatoes, 1 1/3 pounds of common coarse wool, a little over 2/3 bushels of wheat, and other articles in proportion.

To illustrate the cost of the expense of correspondence: Suppose a farmer and family communicated with a New York correspondent and had to receive 32 unpaid letters, he must sell a good milch cow to foot the postage bill, for $8 would buy a good cow.  It made it obligatory upon the postmaster, as far as it was possible for him to scrutinize every letter, and if it consisted of two pieces of paper, then double the postage was charged.

“I have traveled in the stage when it took three days and three nights to reach Philadelphia from Pittsburg.  One newspaper of small dimensions in the county town for the whole county was a rule, and many in the county never scanned its columns; and if they did, the general or far off news did not come under their eye.  Then farmers and farmers’ sons were dubbed clodhoppers.  Ask them the governor’s name and they could not tell it.  I know of families of some prominence in the county when I was a boy that never saw a newspaper.”

Mr. Wallace continued to be postmaster until his death, September 10, 1897, having served sixty-seven years in the three offices for a longer period than any other postmaster in the United States.

Jesse Taylor (1791 - 1860)

When I found these photographs I thought all the information on the back would make them easy to trace.  I didn’t take two things into consideration, (1) Taylor is a common last name, and (2) I had no location.

It took me 3 years to find a Jesse Taylor that fit the information on the reverse, and even then there is still one “major” discrepancy.

I can find no evidence that Jesse Taylor (2) was a major.  He did fight in the War of 1812.  He did have a son who was known and buried as Major Jesse Taylor.

I believe the first photo is Jesse Taylor (2) (1791 - 1860), taken shortly before his death, and not Major Jesse Taylor (3) (1831 - 1903).

Two reasons …

I think the photograph of Jesse Taylor was taken circa 1860.  Jesse (2) would have been 69, his son, Jesse (3) would have been 29.

And “Major” is written by a different hand and appears on both photographs as if it were added later.

The information written on the reverse fits Jesse Taylor (2), the father.  His son, Major Jesse Taylor, didn't have any children.

It has been an interesting journey.  Its taken me from the Civil War to the War of 1812, and into the world of the southern elite, a world where wealthy planters formally presented their daughters to potential suitors at debutante balls.

A world where slavery existed.  Records indicate Jesse Taylor (1768), Jesse Taylor (1791) and Asa Watson were all slave holders, but the records are too vague, the names too numerous, and so I have included mention of only one slave; one I found specific reference to.

This is the story of Jesse Taylor (2), the son of Jesse Taylor (1) and Phoebe Moody / step son of Charles Campbell … grandson of Kichen Taylor and Elizabeth Ridley Browne … great grandson of Etheldred Taylor and Patience Kinchen.

Jesse Taylor (2) was a Virginian by birth, the only child of Phoebe and Jesse Taylor (1) who married June 17, 1789.  Jesse (2) would never know his father.  On Sept. 5, 1791 when he executes his will Jesse (1) is just 23 years old.  He has been married just over two years, and his wife Phoebe is pregnant with their first child.

In his will, it is written,  “I lend unto my loving wife Phebe Taylor One Negro Man Named Cattoe During her Natural life and I leave it in the power of My Executors if they think it proper to Sell the said Negro and to buy another with the Same Money that will Sute [suit] her Better to do it and after her Death I Do Give unto her Child that She is now pregnant with, the said Negro and all the profits that arises from the Estate to it [the child] and its heirs for ever …”

Jesse Taylor (2) was born the following month, on Oct. 26, 1791.

On Sept. 23, 1793, shortly before his 3rd birthday, Jesse’s mother Phoebe marries a second time to Charles Campbell in Lincoln County, KY.

As a young man Jesse fought in the War of 1812, seeing action in the Battle of New Orleans under Gen. Jackson.

In 1819, at the time of his marriage to Lydia Harris Williams, the daughter of Marmaduke Williams and Ede Harris, Jesse was living in Spring Creek, Madison Co., TN

Jesse’s wife, Lydia died Nov. 16, 1831, age 31 in Madison Co., TN

In 1834 Jesse Taylor (2) became a resident of Henderson County. The following year he became clerk of the county court, a position he held until 1859.

Jesse Taylor (2) was married twice; his second marriage on Aug. 15, 1835 was to Mrs. Mary May Newsom, a widow with a young daughter.

All of Jesse’s children that survived to adulthood appear to have married and married well.  The children of Jesse Taylor are …

• Elizabeth Ridley Brown Taylor, eldest daughter of Jesse and Lydia, born 1822, died Dec. 28, 1827 in Lexington, TN, at age 5.

• Ede Tennessee Taylor (1824-88), daughter of Jesse and Lydia, married Dec. 5, 1842, Asa Watson (1812-86), a wealthy Mississippi delta planter and world traveler.  Formerly a merchant in New York, Asa came south, married Ede Taylor, a cultivated, refined Southern lady and became a planter who identified himself thoroughly with the people of the South.  In the 1850s Asa bought 3,840 acres including the Sulphur Springs tract and built the famed Seven Gables Hotel at Montvale Springs in Tennessee.  Seven Gables was a two-hundred-foot-long, three-story frame structure with 125 rooms, and porches that ran the full length of each floor.  In addition there were 60 cottages, and throughout the property he planted trees that he collected in his travels.   Known as the "Saratoga of the South," the hotel attracted a clientele of southern planters and urban elites who sought to escape the malarial lowlands during summer.  London newspapers touted the Seven Gables as having an atmosphere pure and invigorating, scenery that was romantic and picturesque, and one of the most magnificent views in the United States.

• (Major) Jesse Taylor (1831 - 1903), son of Jesse and Lydia.  A Confederate soldier, Capt. Jesse Taylor, commanded the heavy artillery at Fort Henry during the bombardment February 1862, and was surrendered at that place.  He married Lucy Browning of Kentucky.  Lucy, a teacher, had nursed soldiers during the war.  After the war she resumed teaching near Mifflin, Tennessee.  She married Major Taylor in 1864.  In the 1870’s Jesse and Lucy Taylor founded the Springdale Institute, a school for young ladies.  Lucy’s pupils came from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and she was said to have instructed some of the first ladies of the old commonwealth of Kentucky.

• Mary Leticia Taylor (July 18, 1836 - July 28, 1913), daughter of Jesse and Mary. She married Nathaniel Terry Buckley (June 25, 1834 - July 17, 1892).   In 1880 I find Nathaniel Buckley with 233 acres /100 tillable / total value $3500.

John May Taylor

• (Judge) John May Taylor (1838 - 1911), son of Jesse and Mary. He was described as 5’6”, with a fair complexion and blue eyes.   He was a Confederate soldier, judge, and politician.   John M. was educated at Lexington Academy and Union University at Murfreesboro. He enlisted Aug. 7, 1861 at age 23.  In the same year he took part in the organization of Henderson County Sharpshooters, Company K., 27th Tennessee Regiment of infantry and was elected First Lieutenant and upon the organization of the Regiment was made Captain.  He was wounded three times, including the shattering of his right thigh bone, an injury that left him with a limp.  He surrendered with Gen. Richard Taylor’s command May 12, 1865.

• Catherine Ann Taylor, daughter of Jesse and Mary,  (June 8, 1842 - July 12, 1925) married Dr. Patrick H. Mallory (1837 - 1873) and moved to Bell Co. TX.  She was widowed at age 30, in 1873.  Dr. and Mrs. Mallory had 2 sons who survived to adulthood;  Patrick and Jesse T. Mallory. In 1908 both of her adult sons and her two grandsons died.   Her youngest son Jesse died of typhoid in September of 1908.  Shortly after Jesse’s death, Patrick’s 2 young sons, Pat Jr. 8, and his younger brother, Marcus, also died of typhoid.  It was said to be typhoid fever of the most violent form. And that “the poison got into their systems through the drinking water, surface drainage having likely seeped into the well.”  Ann’s oldest son, Patrick died 2 months later in November, 1908.  His cause of death is listed as exhaustion / paresis.  Patrick was survived by his wife, Jeanette.  Catherine Ann died July, 1925, at age 82 after being hit by an automobile while crossing the road near her home in Denton, TX.  Her physician (who was also a  friend), Dr. Batte  filled out her death certificate and across it he wrote in heavy script, “Murdered by a driver.”

Charles Campbell Taylor

• Charles Campbell Taylor (named for Jesse’s stepfather), born 1845, was the youngest son of Jesse and Mary.  Charles was a Confederate soldier.  He served with Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.  He was married Nov. 30, 1875 to Mary Penn, a sister of Baptist evangelist William Penn.  After their marriage they moved to Temple, TX and in 1892 to Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  They had one daughter, Corrie.

• (step-daughter) Nancy Tennessee Newsom (Sept. 7, 1828 - May 25, 1911), daughter of Mary and her 1st husband Nesbitt Newsom married Rev. Benjamin Allison Hayes Dec. 22, 1847. In 1870 B. A. Hayes is found married to T. Hayes, with 3 servants, $20,000 in real estate and $2000 in personal property.

Jesse Taylor died of heart dropsy at age 69.  At the time of his death in 1860 he was considered one of the town’s worthiest and most esteemed men. He and his wife Mary, their son, John M. Taylor, and other members of the John May Taylor family are buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Lexington.

Florence Powers Smith

Florence Powers Smith

J. P. Moore

F. J. Moore, Manager

West Meriden

Conn.

Florence J. Powers was born in Meriden, Connecticut, October 31, 1856.

According to the Lineage Book from the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Vol. 8, 1895), Florence Powers was a descendant of Capt. Enos Hawley of Connecticut; she was the daughter of Luther A. Powers and his wife, Elizabeth “Libbie” J. Clark; granddaughter of Harvey Clark and wife, Jane Andrews; great granddaughter of Elijah Andrews and Hannah Hawley and great great granddaughter of Enos Hawley, who in 1776 was lieutenant of minute men and in 1779, commanded a company in defense of New Haven.

Florence married Frank Daniel Smith on October 12, 1875.

In the 1900 census she is shown to have had two children, but only one living; a daughter Edna W., born in December of 1882.

I have found very little mention of Florence, but a bit more about her husband and the Smith line she married into.

Frank Daniel Smith was a descendant of James Smith, born in England, who came to Massachusetts Bay Colony before 1639.  The line of decent is through his son, Nathaniel Smith, born in Weymouth in 1639; his son, Nathaniel (2) Smith, who moved to Hartford, Connecticut, and was one of the early settlers of Litchfield; his son Jacob Smith, a lieutenant of the Revolution; his son, David Smith, born at the Litchfield homestead; his son, David (2) Smith, father of Frank Daniel Smith.

Frank was born July 22, 1852, at Litchfield, CT., the son of David and Fedilia (Parker) Smith. He was about 2 years old when his parents moved to Meriden.  The public schools furnished him with an education, and when he was sixteen he set out to make his way in the world.  His first employment was with the firm of Bowditch and Company, furniture dealers in Meriden, and there he remained nearly 10 years during which time he was able to learn the business.

In 1878 the firm was dissolved and Mr. Smith and Mr. J. C. Twitchell took over the business under the name of F. D. Smith and Company. After several successful years the name of the firm was changed to Smith and Twitchell, and the two continued in partnership for 20 years.  

In 1898 Mr. Smith purchased the interest of his partner, and continued the business under his own name until he retired in 1913, at which point he turned the family business over to his son-in-law, William E. Graham.  Mr. Smith was president of the Smith, Tompkins Company, house furnishers in Torrington, Connecticut; director of the Puritan Trust Company, and a trustee of the Meriden Savings Bank.

He married (1) October 12, 1875, Florence J. Powers, and (2) June 25, 1911, Mrs. Ida Booth Wilcox.

~ Meriden Morning Record - Sept. 30, 1909

F.D. Smith’s Wife Dies In Minnesota

End Wednesday morning at Great Sanatorium of Drs. Mayo in Rochester

Mrs. Florence Powers Smith, wife of Frank D. Smith the well known furniture dealer, died Wednesday morning at the widely known sanatorium of the Mayo brothers in Rochester, Minnesota where she was undergoing treatment.  The body will be brought here on the 11:30 train, Friday morning; the arrangements for the funeral will be made upon the arrival of Mr. Smith and Dr. E. W. Smith, his brother, who accompanied Mrs. Smith to the sanatorium last week.

Mrs. Smith has not been in good health for some time and treatment at the famous sanatorium was deemed advisable.  The late Governor Johnson of Minnesota underwent treatment at the same place.

Besides her husband, Mrs. Smith is survived by a daughter, Mrs. W. E. Graham, and a brother, Charles C. Powers.

George Greer - Out in a Blizzard

I found this cabinet card at a flea market in Tulsa.

A young man with an extra bit of hair and a moustache drawn in.

The photographer is N. A. Voss who arrived in Kansas and set up shop in 1878.

The town the photograph was taken in could be a bit of a challenge to pin down …
Hays City or Ellis or Wa-Keeney.

What interested me the most was a portion of the faded penciled writing I could make out on the reverse.

It said the photograph was of George Greer but it didn't look like him because he’d been in a blizzard.

A few scenarios came to mind … all involving frostbite.

But even after I had the photograph home, and under better lighting, and had spent considerable time playing with letters; I could still, only get as far as …

“Geo. Greer but it don’t look like him as he had the misfortune to be out in the blizzard and it …”

AND IT WHAT!!!

And it froze? … “froze” was what should have been next.

But it wasn’t.

I took a break from trying to read the handwriting and read a few stories of blizzards in that area and around that time.

The winter of 1885 - 1886 was a rough one.  I found two blizzards that hit western Kansas in the first week of January 1886, killing 100 people and 100,000 cattle.

When I returned to deciphering the handwriting, it didn't take long to make sense of the words … and when I did, all I could do was laugh.

“Geo. Greer but it don’t look like him as he had the misfortune to be out in the blizzard and it blew his moustache off.”