Before I Forget

I had an "ahh-HAA" moment upon finding a splendid site containing a much-sought after marriage record. This link  http://www.ksgennet.org/ks/cq/index.html#search  leads to the Chautauqua County, Kansas history site containing a wealth of data: vital records, military histories, photos, biographies, land records, etc. A genealogist's dream page! It is easy to navigate, clearly marked, and has had hundreds of hours of input from terrific volunteers. (clapping, here) 

My project du jour involves Elbert Franklin Wantland who appears as a neighbor to or living with others I'm researching. But I don't know who his parents are. He was born after the 1880 Federal Census. The 1890 Federal Census burned, and so he first appears on the 1900 census living in northern Missouri with another Wantland, a Juliett, age 39, who is married to Jesse Ruben Thomlinson. This couple and their young daughter, Minnie, live with their "laborer/hired hand" Elbert on a farm in Daviess County. The census indicates Elbert's parents' birthplace was Illinois. Another clue. A brief timeline of Mr. Wantland:

In December 1903 in Chautauqua County, Kansas, Elbert married Alice Jennie Oakley. Here his name is misspelled Wautland:
http://www.ksgennet.org/ks/cq/marr/cqmarrh.html 

          I've spent this evening learning of my paternal 2xGrandmother's father-in-law. Matilda never met him, as she married his son, James A. Price (her third husband), in 1900 long after Linsey was killed in the war between the states.

          Several databases are uploading military records which is a boon for family historians. I especially like learning the physical descriptions of my ancestors. Why, unless you committed a horrendous crime and had your face splashed across a newspaper's front page, few documents from the 19th century describe a person's coloring, height, and weight as do military enlistment docs. The Union Army's records offer more detail than do those of the Confederacy.

          Linsey Price enlisted June 5, 1863 and served with Company F of the 11th Regiment Cavalry. While Price may have been born and bred in Kentucky, he joined a Missouri unit with the Union Army. Many researchers spell his name "Lindsey." But I only find his signature showing a spelling of Linsey. See for yourself in these splendid actual docs:

          Did you see Pvt. Price was "5 foot 7 inches high," fair complected, hazel eyes, with dark hair. And his health record, word! The detailed questions. I've not seen that before in Civil War records. 

          Alas, this "regiment lost during service 2 Officers and 28 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 5 Officers and 181 Enlisted men by disease. Total 216." Including our Linsey Price, who allegedly was slain by bushwhackers at Duvall's Bluff, Arkansas on July 6, 1864. He was survived by his wife Emma (Talley) Price and their infant son James. She gave birth to his second son five months later. Imagine the heartbreak in that young family.

Additional Sites With Price And/Or Military Records:

Descendant Peter Castro's Marriage Records: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~modavies/marriages.htm

Describes operations of the 11th Missouri Cavalry in northeast Arkansas in January 1864:  http://cdm16795.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/CivilWar/searchterm/purpose!11th%20Cavalry/field/all!all/mode/all!all/conn/and!and/order/subjec/ad/desc

http://home.usmo.com/~momollus/MOREG/C027.htm

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/11th-missouri-volunteer-calvary.80435/

http://www.civilwarbuff.org/Places/Lonoke/ashley-jones-05232014101052.pdf 

From the September 18, 1910 newspaper, The Daily Oklahoman, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma:

George Margaretich was a colorful character who met a violent end in New Orleans in 1913. He had been a well known mining operator in Arizona Territory, ran a saloon in Flagstaff in the early 1890s, and prospected and developed gold and copper mines in both Nevada and Arizona. 

A brief bio on www.croatians.org/ indicates he was a native of Dalmatia, Croatia and immigrated to the United States in 1857. If you are unfamiliar with Croatia, one of its famous natives, Nikola Tesla, was an infant when George left Buffalo, New York, and "rode horseback across the plains" to California arriving in 1858. That in itself is a story I would like to have heard from him! Imagine the adventures he encountered. Google tells me author Robert Badovinac published a book in 2000: George Margaretich in the West. AbeBooks has agreed to look for a copy.

George married the recently widowed Mrs. Rebecca Clem in Yavapai, Arizona Territory in 1889. The 1900 Federal Census shows their family (misspelled) as: George Marguart, age 55; Rebecca Marguart, age 49; with teenagers, Elmer Clem, Clara Clem, and Eula Clem. George is listed as the owner of a stage coach line. 

Because I know little of my great uncle Johnny Margaretich's heritage, I keep an eye open for items related to his surname. His own father farmed in central California 100 years ago. Naturalization papers from 1901 in Juneau, Alaska indicate John's dad came from "Yugoslavia." While I know of no relation to George Margaretich, genealogy has taught me to keep the puzzle pieces of data spread out on the table, so to speak, as connections might be made. Or not. But what fun looking through old archives! Why, two articles from Louisiana newspapers raise interesting questions: 

"Charges By Trazivuk. Declares Margaretich Has Been Swindling Fisher Folk" - headline from Times-Picayune, New Orleans, June 17, 1913, p. 2:

Read of the trial of George's killer in the New Orleans Item newspaper from June 17, 1913. 

The whole page show some attention-grabbing headlines, with a second snippet about a British suffragette:

Tonight I found several mentions of my family in area newspapers from over 100 years ago. Simple chatty sentences in papers with a circulation of a few hundred readers. Small rural communities writing unnoteworthy topics such as my great-grandfather having sold some chickens, his attendance at an I.O.O.F. meeting, and his purchase of two stoves in preparation for his wedding. Another great uncle wrote to the editor of his trip to Raton, New Mexico from Keystone, Oklahoma Territory. It was also noted when this same uncle and his father came into town. From where and for what purpose? Further details were not given. 

But one headline grabbed my attention: Southern Women And The Negro Question. Women's suffrage must have been a hot topic "back in the day." I can well imagine the concerns held by the opposite sex, as old white guys disliked relinquishing control. African American men had been given the vote only a few decades prior:

• The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1870, stipulates: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

The writer of this article below asks why, if former slaves could now vote, shouldn't the good white women of Oklahoma be afforded the same opportunity? I've read this piece several times and am both horrified at the presumptions made and confused by its reference to setting men on fire for what, I do not know. In what world is torture/death by flame acceptable? Was the author trying to inflame his readers or titillate? I hope someone called out this sick puppy passing for an editor. Did he even exercise his own right to vote?  

Source: The Appalachia Out-Look newspaper, (Pawnee County, Okla.), Vol. 2, No. 45, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 17, 1907, p. 1. via the most excellent and awesome http://www.okhistory.org/

As a reminder, women didn't get the 'ballot' until 1920. Just a couple of years after ten to fifteen thousand citizens near Waco, Texas convened to watch and cheer as a caged African American named Jesse Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered onto a fire for nearly two hours. Source: Billmoyers.com/

Today is the 110th anniversary of my maternal grandfather's birth near the middle of Texas. Cattle country. In the very small town of Tuscola. In a county which today has Abilene as its seat. His parents were from rural Bell and Red River Counties and lived in several Texas and New Mexico towns with their eight children.

As a boy, Grandpa met several of that dying breed of storytellers called cowboys. He saw the end of a fabled time soon to be memorialized by Hollywood. But Art didn't need a silent movie or a "talkie" film to get him excited about the Old West. He learned to love it early on. This is a favorite photo of Art as a teenager. I'm told he had red hair. I hope to see a color photo of young Art someday. 

In later years I recall well-wishers giving him birthday gifts of vinyl records of "The Sons of the Pioneers" and other cowboy musicians. Art had a fine voice, and I remember (as a small ankle-biter) walking in on him singing a western ballad. Join me in wishing Art a Happy Birthday by listening to Roy Rogers and the Pioneers:

Always nice to find an ancestor in an archived newspaper! Especially one with whom I've happy memories of swinging me around and around the garden when I was a small giggly child. 

Grandpa was 36 in this photo that appeared in the Fort Worth, Texas Star-Telegram newspaper

I have little proof that my ancestor, Richard "Dick" Childers, once existed. No birth or death records are known. The cemetery where he was buried has been repeatedly vandalized, and his tombstone long gone. There is no one alive today who knows his parents' history. When I was five years old I saw his son, the only person I've met who actually knew Dick Childers. But his son, Henry Sam, was orphaned at age nine when his father died in February 1891. I am told Henry Sam was asked many times about his parents over the years. He remembered little. No known letter about Dick's family tree exists by anyone who talked with him. There are a few recorded memories from family who talked with those who once knew him. 

My Great Aunt Lois, our Childers' family historian, once showed me a copy of a marriage record for Lucy Ackley and Richard Childers. A marriage performed by Robert McGill Loughridge on June 18, 1879 in Creek Nation, Indian Territory at the Tallahassee Mission, several miles from what is now Muskogee, Oklahoma. Sometimes called "Tullahassee," this mission served as a Creek Nation boarding school. Dr. Loughridge was both school superintendent and a popular ordained minister who performed many marriages.

The mission building later burned. Here is a photograph:

Lucy and Richard do not appear in the Federal Census for 1880 because they were not living in the USA, but instead living in what was then called Indian Territory. Neither do their names appear on any of the 30+ tribal censuses or rolls.

Their first-known child, Henry Samuel Childers, was born May 19, 1881 near Fort Gibson, Creek Nation--now in Muskogee County, Oklahoma.

Daughter Sara Anna was born July 2, 1883 near Fort Gibson, Sara lived but two years, dying in nearby Catoosa, Cherokee Nation, on July 19th. Her mother died nearly five years later in Catoosa, in February 1888. I've spent many hours reading archived newspapers for a mention of their passing. Death notices were not a paper's regular feature as is found today. Nor do I know in whose home they were living shortly before their deaths. One might assume it was Lucy and Richard's home. However, I was told by my Great-Aunt Lois Childers that the young couple had separated a short time before Lucy became ill. Perhaps she was living with a brother's family?

I next find a "Dick Childers" in an 1890 census for Cherokee Nation residents. He is not listed with tribal members, but is shown with other white people who are "living under permit" in the Cooweescoowee District. His home is near his wife's brother's family, Henry Wilson Ackley, in what I believe to be present-day Mayes County, specifically the Hogan Township.

Assuming this is my ancestor, the second person in Childers' household would have been his young son, Henry Sam. The 1890 Cherokee Nation shows cousin Henry and his brother-in-law Dick as:

1.  H.W. ACKLEY, age 31, five (5) in household, arrived in I.T. in 1878, --census page 119

2.  Dick CHILDERS, age 33, two (2) in household, arrived in I.T. in 1874, --census page 120

One of the brick walls in my research has been with my Childers ancestry. My family knows very little of our oldest-known Childers ancestor.

Richard died in early 1891 outside of Pryor Creek, Oklahoma. We know nothing of his parents or siblings. My long hunt over the years has taught me quite a bit about the other Childers families in Indian Territory. (See posts elsewhere on this blog). 

It would be easy to merge MY ancestor into one of these other families, as the name Richard is common. Ancestry daily waves its green leafy hints urging me to click and add. 

But it would be incorrect, as I've no proof. No sources to substantiate such a claim.

My ancestor's name appears on two Indian Territory censuses--both listed on pages for whites living in Cherokee Nation "by permission" of the tribe. He was a neighbor to his wife's family, the Ackleys, who also appear on the same censuses. The term used for non-natives then was "intruders." Intruders were outsiders who had moved into a sovereign nation. Indian Territory had several tribal nations. Those nations exist today--in Oklahoma. 

The 1890 Indian Territory Census specifically asked whites what year they had first moved into Indian Territory. "Dick Childers" answered and it is recorded as: 1874. 

Recently widowed and with a small child, Dick became ill with typhoid. He died within days of his brother-in-law Henry. My Great-Aunt Lois Childers told me this, as she had questioned her father-in-law, Sam, who was the only son of Dick and his wife, Lucy Ackley Childers. 

We know Henry Ackley died in early February 1891. Both men were buried at the Alberty Cemetery in what is today Mayes County., Oklahoma. At that time Mayes County was a part of the Cooweescoowee District of Cherokee Nation. I believe Henry and Sam lived in the Hogan Township of Cooweescoowee. 

Among the many Childers living in Indian Territory 130 years ago is a family whose home was just over the border from Fort Smith, Arkansas, then known as the gateway to the wild frontier. In what is now Sequoyah County. You've seen both of the True Grit movies, right? 

These Childers had a son named Richard. I've been asked many times if my family descends from that Richard Childers from the Sequoyah District, Cherokee Nation. After much research into his family, I do not find similar names or event dates. No connection. That Richard Childers died in 1893--two years after my ancestor--Dick Childers. The two men had wives and children with different names. Again, I find no connection. 

As proof, please see the attached pages from a 1905 application for the Dawes allotment regarding this Richard, plus a page from the 1880 Cherokee Census. Click the images within this gallery:


Free links to Cherokee rolls:

https://accessgenealogy.com/native/cherokee-indian-research.htm

and 

https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/rolls/wallace.html

and 

https://www.allthingscherokee.com/articles/

and

http://www.okgenweb.net/~itgenweb/


Ancestry has digitized the applications for the Dawes rolls, both with names of those who were accepted and denied. I enjoy reading these applications as I now live in Creek Nation (Tulsa) and see familiar surnames. The questions and answers in these applications are often wonderfully detailed. 

There are others named Richard Childers living in both western Arkansas and Indian Territory in the late 19th century. I've not found any who lived in the Cooweescoowee District of Cherokee Nation, I.T. or whose children associated with relatives of my Dick Childers' in-laws--Sam and Sarah Ackley. 

There is a well-known outlaw from Cherokee Nation who has the distinction of being the first man Judge Parker sentenced to hanging in Fort Smith. John Childers' Cherokee mother and sister lived in what is now eastern Oklahoma. Another Richard Childers was a member of Creek Nation and lived in what is today Tulsa County. His ancestors were William Childers (a Scotsman) and Maria Shoe Boots (mixed Cherokee). William Childers was a trusted clerk to Cherokee leader Major Ridge, and moved from Georgia to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) with the Ridge family in 1837.