Ellen Nugent Miller - Epitaphs In Stone

The photographer was Albert Anthony, a traveling photographer. 

On the front is written:

Epitaph - “If she was not what she might have been, hers the sorry, mine the sin” 

The stone that marks her grave reads:

“If she was not what she might have been, hers the sorrow, mine the sin”  

On the reverse is written:

Ellen (Nugent) Miller 

age 16 b. 12 - 5 - 48

d. 2 - 9 - 79

Her full name was Rachel Ellen (Nugent) Miller and she didn't die on Feb. 9th.  That was the day she gave birth to twin boys; one who did die that day.  Ellen died the following day, on Feb. 10, 1879, aged 31 years, 1 month, 2 days.

▒

Rachel Ellen Nugent was born Dec. 5, 1848 in Steubenville, Ohio, the daughter of John Hutchinson Nugent and Ruth Eckles.

In this photograph she is 16.  Two years later, one week after her 18th birthday, she married Elihu Lovejoy Miller (27) on Dec. 13, 1866.

Elihu Miller, the son of Joseph Baughman Miller and Elizabeth Conrad, was born in Bollinger County, Missouri on July 26, 1839.

During the Civil War he served in Co. K of the 10th Missouri Cavalry and Co. I, 2nd Missouri Cavalry.   His record of battles and marches included much of Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and also Kansas and Arkansas.  He listed his soldier’s pay at $156 per year.

After he returned from the war Elihu married Ellen Nugent and they had 8 children; 6 sons and 2 daughters.

Edwin Howard Miller       b. Nov. 1867            d. July 17, 1877
Wilburn W. Miller             b. Mar. 20, 1869      d. July 17, 1877
Clara Belle Miller             b. Feb. 02, 1871      d. April 6, 1954
Anna Elizabeth Miller       b. Mar. 17, 1873      d. 1904.
Eugene Aldrew Miller       b. Nov. 21, 1874      d. Mar. 29, 1967
Ira Albertus Miller           b. Dec. 15, 1876      d. Sept. 18, 1958
Twin Infant Miller             b. Feb. 09, 1879      d. Feb. 09, 1879
Joseph Hutchinson Miller b. Feb. 09, 1879      d. Sept. 06, 1951

Their first two sons, Eddie (10) and Willie (8) were killed July 17, 1877 in Schumer Springs, Missouri, when the team they were driving with a load of hay became frightened by a hornets nest.

Eddie and Willie were buried together.  Their stone reads …

Eddie and Willie

were killed

July 17, 1877

Aged 

10 and 8 years

Children of E. L. and

Ellen Miller

Together in life, together in death, together in heaven

On Feb. 9, 1879, Ellen gave birth to twin boys.  One of the boys died. Ellen died the following day.

And so it was written in stone …

Ellen

wife of Elihu L. Miller 

died Feb. 10, 1879

aged 31 yrs. 1 mo's. 2 days

If she was not what she might have been, 

hers the sorrow, mine the sin.  

Elihu Miller was left a widower with 5 children, all under the age of 8. The surviving twin, Joseph Hutchinson Miller, was primarily raised by his grandmother and his Aunt Sara.  There is an account of his early life given by his son, Ralph Connor Miller, in the book The Last Wagon.

After Ellen’s death, Elihu married Elizabeth Lee Nations, the widow of George Nations.  Elizabeth had a small daughter, and she and Elihu had four children ...

Quintin Octavius Miller   b. 24 Nov 1882   d. 20 Mar 1972
Flora Ellen Miller            b.  6 Apr 1886    d. 15 Aug 1886
Ruth Viola Miller            b. 17 Dec 1889   d. 14 Mar 1979
Noble Lovejoy Miller      b.  2 Oct 1891    d. 17 Apr 1988

Elihu died Jan. 9, 1914 after being thrown from a wagon.

(unknown) Newspaper Obituary:
Elihu Miller, Dead

He was killed by his team or in other words, was so badly hurt that he died the following morning. Mr. Miller had driven over to Hilderbrand to get some material for repairing his house, and on the way home and near the house he missed his purse. He was standing up in the wagon looking for it and in some way the horses became frightened and ran away, throwing him out with the above stated results. The subject of this sketch was born July 26, 1839, and died Jan. 9, 1914, making him at the time of his death, 74 years, 4 months and 14 days old.

At the breaking out of the Civil War, he enlisted in the Home Guards and afterwards in the State Militia at Cape Girardeau, Mo. He re-enlisted in Company K, 10th Reg. and I, 2. Regiment for three years. He leaves to mourn his death, seven children; 5 boys and 2 girls, 2 brothers, 1 sister and 22 grand.

His life and death, in their beauty, emphasized a great truth, and that truth is, that no one can be truly great unless that greatness is used to advance that which is truly good, wish that all would properly realize and appreciate that truth.

We, the neighbors, with our united hearts of sympathy, offer condolence to the bereaved family and would comfort them with the thought: Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. From henceforth yea saith the spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them. He rests from his labors, but his work still lives, they follow him and they are good. We laid his body away in the White Water cemetery to await the Judgement morning. A large crowd followed the remains to its last resting place. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. Miller, of Sedgwickville.

Pease to his ashes.
A Friend.

Elihu Lovejoy Miller and his first wife Ellen are buried together at Whitewater Cemetery.

On Elihu’s stone is written:

I have fought a good fight.

I have finished my course.

I have kept the faith.

******

There is nothing to identify this second photograph; no name, no date, no location.  The seller merely said he thought it was a photo of a confederate soldier, the family name was Miller and both of the photographs came from the same estate sale.

I don’t know if this is a photograph of a confederate soldier or if it even dates to the right time period.  The photo is small (2 ½ x 3 ½) and crudely cut.  But they were found together and so they will stay together.


Update: I am leaning more towards the 2nd photograph dating from the time around the Spanish American War (1898).

Sources:
familytreemaker source1
familytreemaker source2
findagrave

Mary Orvis Marbury - Author & Fly Tier

Mrs. Mary Orvis Marbury

Charles Frederick Orvis and Laura Ellen Walker were married on April 25, 1855. Their first child, Mary Ellen Orvis was born March 6, 1856 in Manchester, Vermont; the same year her father opened his tackle shop in a small stone building next to his brother’s hotel, the Equinox House.

Mary had 3 younger brothers; Frederick Charles born April 26,1858, who died when he was just 2 years old; Robert Judson born July 16, 1861 and Albert Charles born Aug. 7, 1863.

Their father, Charles Orvis established his company before the Civil War.  After the war, as the railroad brought more tourists and anglers in to fish the Batten kill, his company prospered and orders for his rods and fishing tackle grew.

As the company grew, one of the challenges he faced was finding an adequate supply of the flies his customers ordered.  Even when he tried other dealers, he found no consistency of pattern and was, he said, “continually disappointed.”

It was a problem that would ultimately be solved by his daughter’s interest in fly tying.

Mary Orvis grew up exploring the Batten kill and meeting many of the great anglers of the day.  When she expressed an interest in learning to tie flies, her father employed one of the best fly tiers in the city, John Haily, to train her.  

Mary became an expert at making flies and in 1876 she began supervising the Orvis fly tying staff.  Her workforce, generally from 5 - 7 girls was small compared to other fly tying operations. These flies helped drive the sales of her father’s invention, the lightweight fly reel.

Mary held great influence over the family business. Her brothers became prominent Manchester citizens but it was Mary who contributed the most to her father’s business.  Anglers often placed orders for flies by name but there was no way they could know that the fly they ordered would be the pattern they thought it would be, and what they received was often different from what they were expecting.  Charles and his daughter recognized the need to standardize fly patterns by name and type.

Charles Orvis surveyed anglers from fly fishing areas across North America, soliciting information on the finest flies and how they were made and used.  Mary undertook the task of compiling the responses and editing the book.  Much of her book, Favorite Flies and Their Histories, consisted of the replies her father received from anglers.

Favorite Flies and Their Histories (1892) contained 32 color plates and 290 illustrations of regional patterns. It was an immediate best seller and became the standard reference for identifying flies, dressings and patterns. The acclaim Mary’s book and fly tying brought her surpassed that of any of her contemporaries. She was an expert fly tying artist, a successful author, and a recognized authority in her field, and much has been written about her contribution to fly fishing, but precious little about the woman herself.

The quote below is indicative of what I found describing her personality …

“Her moods were said to be unpredictable; at times she was ill mannered but one acquaintance recalled her as a delightful woman.”

I imagine being a successful woman in the 19th century,  in a business dominated by men, had its challenges.

That Mary’s marriage in 1877 was brief is evidenced by the fact that no one seems to have known her husband’s name.  That being said. I am not convinced that the general assumption that their brief marriage was unhappy is correct.  I think it may have been brief because he died.

There is not one census, from 1860 when Mary is 4 years old, to the one before her death, when Mary is not living in her father’s household.

In the 1880 census, the first after her marriage, Mary Marbury, 24, is found in her father’s household with her 3 year old son John Morton Marbury.  Her marital status is listed as single, which is doubtful.  In all succeeding censuses her marital status is “widowed.”

I wondered just when Mary Marbury became a widow, but the date of her husband’s birth and death, like so much of Mary Marbury’s life, remains a mystery.

Whenever I found mention of Mary‘s husband, he was referred to as John Morton Marbury born 1876. Which is impossible since he could not possibly have been born in 1876 and fathered a child in 1877. As it turns out her husband’s name wasn’t John Morton Marbury.

Yet, I found this particular bit of misinformation going as far back as 1922.

According to the death certificate of Mary’s son, who died as a young man;  his father’s name was William C. Marbury,  born in New York, NY.  Which unfortunately for me, didn’t make him any easier to find.

John M. Marbury, the son,  was born November 20, 1877. Some records show his birthplace as Manchester, VT.; in others it is recorded as Greenwich, NY.

He attended school at Burr and Burton Seminary (VT), St. John’s Military Academy and Norwich University (NY).  After 1895 he was involved in the newspaper business in Machester.  The 1900 census lists his profession as journalist.

His mother, Mary remained an active participant in the family business, assuming more responsibilities as her father grew older. She turned the fly operation over to her sister in law, Mrs. Robert Orvis in 1904, the same year her son died.

John M. Marbury died at age 27 on Sept. 5, 1904.  His cause of death was “uremia.” (kidney failure).

His stone is marked …

"He loved his fellow men"

"Warm, summer sun
Shine Kindly here
Warm, southern wind
Blow softly here
Green sod above
Lie light, lie light
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night"

Mary Ellen Orvis Marbury died November 8, 1914 at age 58.  After her death she was compared with the legendary Dame Juliana Berners, another mysterious woman who was thought to have written the first book on angling in 1496.

Mary‘s father, Charles Orvis, famed American tackle maker and author of  Fishing with the Fly (1883) died a few months later on March 24, 1915, at age 84.

A Piece of Fly-Fishing History: A Letter from Charles F. Orvis

Margaret Ella Winslow née Givens - Plymouth, MA

On the reverse is written:

18 years ?

Margaret Ella Winslow 

ne Givens

Photographed by Benj. Whiting 

Nos. 6 and 33 Main St., 

Plymouth, Mass.

******  

Margaret Ella Givens was born in Nobleboro, Maine about Dec. 23, 1844* to Benjamin Hall Givens, a seaman, and his wife Mary Ann (Hussey).

Margaret Ella Givens

On April 13, 1862, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 17 year old, Margaret Ella Givens married Charles Fuller, a 45 year old trader/merchant, 28 years her senior.  It was Margaret’s first marriage and Charles’ second.  Charles Fuller had been married previously to Susan Pope and together they had 3 children:

1. Ada A. born Nov. 30, 1852
2. Charles F. born May 8, 1855
3. Susan A. born Sept. 26, 1857

Susan, the baby, is 8 days old on Oct. 5, 1857, when her mother dies at age 36. I wasn't able to determine if the two older siblings survived childhood. In April, 1858 there is a record of the youngest child dying at age 6 months. Her cause of death is listed as “cachexia,” a wasting syndrome. But the only record of the two older children I find is the record of their birth and one census, then they simply disappear.

When Margaret married Charles Fuller in 1862, the record of their marriage shows both of them fudged a bit on their ages; Margaret added 7 years to hers, making her 24; Charles subtracted 5 from his, making him 40.

On Jan. 22, 1863, 9 months after their marriage, Margaret gives birth to a daughter, Ella Margaret Fuller.  Six weeks later, on March 8, 1863, her husband, Charles Fuller dies at age 46 of typhoid pneumonia.

Margaret has gone from wife to mother to widow in less than a year.

After the death of her husband, Margaret and her infant daughter move into the home of her older sister, Hannah (Givens) McDuffie, and her husband, John McDuffie, who'd been appointed Postmaster of Cambridge by President Lincoln in 1861.

Margaret doesn't appear to have been in any hurry to remarry or to leave her sister’s home.  In 1870, she and 6 year old Ella, still reside in the McDuffie household.

But she does marry again, in 1874 she marries Henry Winslow, a young lawyer.

Henry Hedden Winslow was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, May 5, 1847.  He was the son of Joshua Baker Winslow, a sea captain and Mary Dehart (Bruen), who made their home in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where their son was educated.  Henry Winslow graduated high school May, 1864 at age 17.  One week later he shipped out on board the whaler “James Arnold,” sailing the Atlantic until Nov. 4, 1865.  In 1866 he shipped out again on the same vessel, and sailed around the world on a trip that took over 3 years.  The trip was considered a success, the catch being about 3,000 barrels of sperm oil.

In 1870 Henry Winslow commenced to read law with the firm of Chandler, Thayer and Hudson.  He graduated Harvard Law School in 1872.

Henry H. Winslow

On Feb. 4, 1874 Henry Hedden Winslow married Margaret Ella Fuller in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1876 they moved to Cambridge where their three children were born:

1. Mary H. Winslow born Feb. 11, 1876
2. Edith Baker Winslow (Stearns) born Aug. 10, 1878
3. Henry Joshua Winslow  born June 27, 1880

Margaret Ella (Givens) (Fuller) Winslow lived to be 54 years, 7 months, and 13 days.  She died from a cerebral hemorrhage in Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 5, 1899.

Mary H. Winslow
daughter of Margaret and Henry Winslow

Edith Baker Winslow Stearns &
Margaret "Peggy" Winslow Stearns
1907

*I came up with the approximate date of birth for Margaret Ella Givens by taking the date of death, July 5, 1899, and subtracting her age; 54 yrs. 7 mos. and 13 days.

William & Helen LaPoint - Ottumwa, Iowa

In my search for William and Helen La Point, I didn't find much information … but I do have lots of pictures.

William La Point was born March 24, 1860 in Hampton, Rock Island County, Illinois.  His father, Peter La Point was French Canadian; his mother, Emeline Lee was born in Connecticut.

On Dec. 23, 1880 William La Point married Helen Freed, the daughter of Benjamin Olson and Johanna Anderson (North) Freed, in Moline, Rock Island Co., IL.

Helen Freed was born Oct. 6, 1861 in Geneseo, Henry County, Illinois.

In 1887 Mrs. William La Point opened the Paris Millinery Store at 319 E. Main Street in Ottumwa, Iowa.

And had 3 children …

1. Verona Dell La Point (Peters) born Sept. 13, 1890 Ottumwa, Wapello, Iowa
2. Juanita Rene La Point (Burgess) born  Apr. 6, 1893 Ottumwa, Wapello, Iowa
3. Euphrates “Tate” La Point born Sept. 22, 1895 Ottumwa, Wapello, Iowa

These little booklets; Historical Evolution of Woman's Head Wear, were souvenirs for patrons.

This one, published by Mrs. Wm La Point, Ottumwa, Iowa. © 1895 by Rand, McNally and Co., seems to indicate that Mrs. La Point had her shop open until at least 1895.

Helen La Point died Dec. 14, 1940 in Hedrick, Keokuk Co., Iowa at age 79.

William La Point lived to be 92; he died Feb. 27, 1953 in Ottumwa, Wapello Co., Iowa.

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.