Before I Forget

Found yet another mention of my ancestor Welcome Wilhelm. He and his victim, Willie Berry, are in the fourth paragraph:

I couldn't crop just the paragraph about my mother's great-grandfather. Had to share the whole article.

It is so verrrry Texas, amirite?

My mother had a faint memory of hearing her elders discussing this event.

She thought her grandfather Edgar might have witnessed the shooting.

Or that Welk's family may have seen the killing. She wasn't certain. 

I hope not! Edgar would have been 13 years old, and the eldest of Welk and Mary's seven children. No child should witness that.

Do you know more about that sad day in November 1882?


--  New Orleans' Times-Picayune, published November 13, 1882, on page 2. 

Front page of The Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, on November 9, 1882.  

Highlighted in yellow on page 4 of this paper is a brief account of Willie Berry's death at the hand of my maternal 2x Great-Grandfather, Welcome Wilhelm.


Other articles have mentioned different locations for the murder scene (as posted elsewhere on this blog) and used initials only for the given names of the two men. Dear editors, please do not use initials. Ever.

I have since made acquaintance with many Texas records in search of Mr. "W. Berry." #manyverymany

So on this lovely April day of pandemic shelter-in-place I am HAPPY to have learned Mr. Willie Berry's full name.

With a name and possible birth location, I hope to learn more of William or Willie Berry's past. Did he have family in Texas? If married, was his wife pregnant with their eighth child when he was killed, as was my GG-Grandmother Mary Wilhelm? I hope to find him in a Kentucky census. Let's hope "Willie" wasn't a nickname. 

How on earth did he get crosswise with Welk Wilhelm?

Let me re-phrase that.

What on earth provoked Welk to shoot Willie Berry?


Source:  The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 199, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 9, 1882, newspaper, November 9, 1882; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth462323/m1/4/: accessed April 2, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; .

Published September 7, 1911 in a Texas newspaper, the Georgetown Williamson County Sun, page 6, via NewspaperArchive.com/

NOTE:  Keyword search "welk" on this blog to see prior articles about my 2xGGrandfather, Welcome "Welk" Willhelm.

          Finding proof that supports a family mystery? That's what I call a great day! But learning that your ancestor murdered a man? It's a sobering feeling.

          Read what The Galveston Daily News reported on June 2, 1893 about Welcome Wilhelm:

          Just a few days earlier, this paper reported that the perpetrator had been captured. Wait, who was the poor fellow who was wrongly accused of murder. What a fright he had! 

          In her Willhelm Family Record, my Great-Aunt Beatrice Willhelm Steeves wrote this about Welcome's flight from Texas:

My grandfather, William Welcome Willhelm, at about the age of 18 joined the war between the States in Co. C, 15th Northwest Arkansas Infantry.  In one of the battles the flag bearer was shot and grandfather rescued the flag before it hit the ground and carried it through the battle.  A bullet aimed at him, hit a coin in his pocket and made it look like a thimble.  He was captured in the battle of Vicksburg, when on July 3, 1865, General John C. Pemberton, commanding the 50,000 Confederate troops around Vicksburg forced to surrender 37,000 men and 172 cannons to U.S. Grant Commander of the Union Army.  After the war, grandfather went to Texas, married and had a family of 3 boys and 5 girls.  Just before the birth of his youngest child in 1883, some trouble came up and grandfather's life was threatened.  Due to the lack of law and order on the Texas frontier, grandfather was advised, for his sake and the sake of the family, to move his family.  He left to look for a place to move to and then returned to await the birth of his daughter.  When the baby was born, he left again and went to Arkansas to his father's place.  In December of that year he sent grandmother some money.  That was the last the family ever heard of him.

           Welk's parents, Pleasant and Jane (Lockmiller) Willhelm, were living in the Boston Mountains in Madison County, Arkansas. (near Fayetteville)  A pretty but rugged place. I would think it a good place to hide. But it would also be the first choice of the Williamson County Sheriff should he care to send in "the law."

          I saw True Grit. Did any Texas Rangers try tracking my ancestor?


WHAT WILHELM LEFT BEHIND:

          William Welcome Wilhelm married Mary Elizabeth Cowan in Florence, Williamson County, Texas just before Christmas in 1866. Having grown up in Arkansas, Mary and Welk were new Texas residents. Both had many relatives living in the same counties in Texas and Arkansas. Did they know each other as children or meet after Welk's service in the War? Perhaps their families knew each other from Tennessee before the Wilhelms had moved to Arkansas in the late 1840s?

          Mary had eight children with Welk in Texas:  

                    Addie Martha "Mattie" born 19 Oct 1867 in Bell County, 

                    William Edgar born  28 Aug 1869 in Bell County, 

                    James Arthur born 15 Oct 1872 in Granger, Williamson County, 

                    Mary Virginia "Jennie" born 26 Feb 1875 in Bell County, 

                    Grace Idena born 8 July 1877 Circleville, Williamson County, 

                    Joseph Flemon born 4 Jan 1879 Williamson County, 

                    Ollie Josephine born 30 March 1881 Williamson County, 

                    and Alice Emily born 20 April 1883 in Williamson County.

          The 1880 Federal Census records Welcome and Mary's young family living in Precinct No. 6 in rural Williamson County, Texas. Welk is working as a blacksmith. Their oldest "Mattie" is 12, and little Joseph is two years old. 

          As of this writing I do not find a "W. Berry" in the 1880 Census for Williamson County or surrounding counties. There ARE several families with the surname Berry. But none named "Barry." Knowing names and dates are often incorrect in newspapers, I look for variations. Among the many archived newspapers from that time, I've not found any mention of Mr. Berry's untimely death. I will update here when I learn more of Mr. Berry at Donahue Creek.

          Imagine Mary's horror when Welk left her five months before the birth of their last child. My heart goes out to her!

          To the best of anyone's recollection from elders now long gone, Mary last heard from Welk a few months after he had fled to Arkansas in 1883. She had the support of her parents and siblings, but to our knowledge did not remarry.

          She died June 1, 1894 at the age of 51. She is buried in the Katemcy Cemetery in Mason County, Texas near her father, William Flemon Cowan. I've long wondered how her family coped after losing Welcome. My great-grandfather, Welk's son, grew to be a stern, exacting man who was later estranged from his brothers and sisters. He was but 13 when his dad had left home.

          How did that event shape Edgar's history--and ours? 


UPDATE:  Found a similar article in a Dallas, Texas newspaper. This account has a different year for the murder:

Sources: 

--  The Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, published June 2, 1893, Fri., p. 7  from The Portal to Texas History via https://texashistory.unt.edu/ 

--  Citation: Year: 1880; Census Place: Precinct 6, Williamson, Texas; Roll: 1333; Family History Film: 1255333; Page: 541A; Enumeration District: 161.

--  Steeves, Beatrice Willhelm Reiswig, 1907-1995. Willhelm Family Record & Hurley Family Record. 1973. Raw data.fdfdrf St. Helena, Napa, California, USA.  A family history and genealogy of Tobias Willhelm (1760-1834) and Daniel Hurley (1817- 1859) and their descendants

--  The Dallas Morning News (Dallas, Texas), published Sat., 27 May 1893, p. 5

          FIRST: On Fold3, a popular military site, I found some records of family who had fought for the Confederacy. Attached are two images George Freeman Hurley's military file. My mother's great-grandfather, G. F. Hurley, of Company K, 34th North Carolina Regiment, was captured April 2, 1865 in Virginia and sent to a prison in New York Harbor. After swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States, he was released from Hart's Island on June 17, 1865. Researchers are happy to learn physical descriptions of ancestors, as shown here on the second page of my red-headed ancestor's record:

HART's ISLAND: In 1865, as the Civil War was ending, the Federal government used the Island as a prison camp for Confederate soldiers. Hart Island was a prisoner of war camp for four months in 1865. 3,413 captured Confederate soldiers were housed. 235 died. Their remains were relocated to Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn in 1941. It was the final prison established by the Union...and  it quickly evolved into the city's most horrible site. Located in Long Island Sound about twenty miles north of the city and just a few miles south of David's Island, Hart Island wasn't even used until April 1865, the month the Civil War came to an end. Within three weeks of its opening, 3,413 POWs are crammed into the post's tiny enclosed area Hart does not become completely cleared of prisoners until July. Within the four months of its operation, nearly 7 percent of all the camp's POWs died, mostly from illnesses brought with them, such as chronic diarrhea and pneumonia.

Green beef shoes? 2d Lt. T. D. Lattimore wrote:  "During this winter, which was so rigorous, even to those in comfort, many of the soldiers, for want of shoes for their frost-bitten feet, covered their feet with green beef hides."  From The Histories Of The Several Regiments And Battalions From North Carolina, In The Great War 1861-'65, wonderfully shared online at URL:  https://archive.org/details/01300611.3315.emory.edu


          SECOND:  My 2nd Great-Grandfather Welk Wilhelm saw many battles with and a few captures by the Union Army. This image shows Welcome "took the oath" so as to save his hide from having to spend further time in some hellish POW camp. Soldiers who signed the oath were then released, and very often rejoined their regiments to continue the fight elsewhere. I have no idea if this is his actual signature. If so, it is yet another variation of what I believe to be his legal name: William Welcome Wilhelm. Cousins might want to see the 18 images from Welk's military file that I shared back in April 2014. (Type the name  Wilhelm in this blog's Search menu on the left). May I also suggest you google the Battle of Vicksburg and its siege? Nasty business, that. 

          THIRD: Who are these Wiser-named gents? Might we be related? This is all I found on them from one collection. Clerks often hastily spelled surnames by HOW names sounded. Weisser, Weyser? Among the many variations of my surname, I will now add WEYSER to my search. Perhaps someone reading this post from a google search might know more?


          FOURTH:  Richard Childers, a 29 year old farmer, who claims Native American ethnicity, fought for Arkansas in this undated and FADED document. I thought I knew all the many Dick Childers in a four-state area. 



          FIFTH:  TOBIAS WILHELM: Another maternal ancestor, a first cousin--five times removed, born February 26, 1827, and now interred in Scottsboro, Alabama. He fought with Wade's Cavalry, and is the grandson of our earliest known Wilhelm, also named Tobias:


See his lovely tombstone: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=23386801&PIpi=51494568  (I haven't permission so I will not be posting the tombstone photo here.) 


          SIXTH: Meet Sam Coffee, a maternal 2nd great-uncle. His Irish grandfather fought with Daniel Boone at Fort Boonesborough and settled on Slate Creek in Montgomery County, Kentucky. By 1860 Sam's parents and nine siblings had moved to Morgan County, Missouri. After the War, Sam and Harriett moved to Sherman, Texas. His sons later settled in Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations in southern Oklahoma. I've tracked this family for a couple of generations, and hope to meet their descendants one day. Please excuse my poor attempt to brighten these faded docs contained in the gallery below:



We have many Union Army ancestors whose military papers I hope to share, but I know better than to combine vets from two opposing armies in one post. They didn't all forgive and forget as did these two old veterans who met at one of the last Gettysburg reunions held in the early 20th century. Isn't this a marvelous picture:

                Just pulled military records from Fold3.com  regarding your 2xG-Grandfather, William Welcome Wilhelm, and his brother, Archey. Arch's birth name was very likely John Archibald Wilhelm. One doc pictured below shows "Archible," for goodness' sake. Both the 1850 and 1860 censuses indicate a birth year of 1845--which made him 17 when he enlisted at Horse Head, Arkansas. Google the locations mentioned to learn the many places their unit walked and fought. Where Welcome fought, that is. I'm not sure Arch made it out of state. I've found no record of when Archey died or where he is buried. He had allegedly become seriously ill and was released from service. Sent home, he never recovered. As you know, more Civil War soldiers died from sickness than from injury in battle. Below are Archey's records. Click on the four images within each gallery:

          Here are 18 images from Welcome Wilhelm's military records. Sadly, I am inept at getting these pictures to appear consecutively--starting with the first page. My apologies. Please click and scroll over to the right and begin reading the LAST pic. As a reminder, Welk Wilhelm was born September 14, 1843 in Hamilton County, Tennessee. Shortly before 1850, his parents migrated to northwest Arkansas. He was 18 years old when he enlisted September 26, 1861 at Camp Jackson in Arkansas. Welk survived the War and married Mary Cowan in Florence, Texas in 1866. Together they had eight children before Welcome left his family in 1882 for parts unknown. (UPDATE: As of August 2017, I've changed the year 1883 to 1882 as to when Welk fled for parts unknown. Why? Because a newspaper article said so.)  Some say he left after killing another man in self defense. I call it abandoning your family. 

          It was in the late 1990s that I first found info on our Wilhelm ancestors' service with Company C, 15th Northwest Arkansas Infantry. I am grateful to the late Edward G. Gerdes for sharing his research:  http://www.couchgenweb.com/civilwar/15infcoc.html

          The National Park Service has a brief summary of this unit's service:

 https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CAR0015RI04

__________

Researchers Beatrice Willhelm Steeves (1907-1995) and Ola Irene Johnson (1914-1988) also have 1845 as Archey Wilhelm's birth year, along with 1843 for Welcome.