Persistence...Yes It Pays Off

    

 Google defines persistence as --
firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty...

   Merriam-Webster calls it--
the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something, even though it is difficult...

     Sound like anyone you know?  Us, of course!  You and me-- if we didn't have persistence we'd never get anywhere with our never-ending search for ancestors.  Awhile back I promised to lay off Milo for a bit, but here at Ellie's Ancestors, we are drawn to Milo like a moth to a flame.  Though I haven't been blogging about him, my staff, (read my husband), and I have been hot on his trail.  

    One of the things I frequently do is run searches for Milo and the other Galloways, because new bits of information are constantly being added to the net. Yesterday I visited one of my favorite sites,  NYS Historic Newspapers.  This site is part of a larger one-- RRLC, Rochester Regional Library Council, and features digital images of newspapers from Rochester and it's surrounding counties.  The site is free, searchable, and easy to use. You can limit the search by town or county, and/or by years, it even has an advanced search function.  Luckily for me, they have digitized the Newark, NY newspapers, the nearest town to where Milo once lived in the wee hamlet of Hydesville.  

     Although the Newark papers on the site only go back to the 1870's and Milo passed away in 1857, all is not lost.  Fairly often these small, home-towny papers did interviews with older citizens asking them to recall what the town was like back in the day.  They gave these articles cute names like, "Looking Back", and the  interviews can be quite useful to family historians whose stock in trade is "looking back".  For instance, I found descriptions of several of my Irish ancestors in the "Shortsville Enterprise", a paper published in the O'Hora's area of New York, (not available on the website), and yesterday I found an interview mentioning Milo.

     I'd been doing a general search on, "Galloway", when this came up--
    I recall that in my boyhood days, old residents were wont to tell how the pioneers came up Mud Creek in boats and settled along the banks of that stream and of course such water power privileges as at Mud Mills, and that about a mile west of Hydesville, early known as Galloway's Mills, were the first appropriated for saw milling purposes, and afterwards grist mills and woolen mills were added.
    Mr. Galloway was at a later period, a prominent enterprising citizen of Newark, living upon the north side of what you now call the Park, but which in early days was known as the Public Square, and was devoted to ball games, militia and general trainings and other gatherings of a public nature.  Quite a manufacturing era was inaugurated when Galloway Mills added a woolen roll carding machine to their outfit...

     If I had not bothered to look at newspapers published after Milo's death, I would have missed this.  You notice, his forename is mentioned nowhere in the article, which is why I didn't find it when I searched for "Milo Galloway".  I know it's him however, he was the only Galloway in Newark, and the only one who owned saw, grist and woolen mills near Hydesville.  This remembrance of an old gentleman named Dagget, published in 1909, confirms that Milo was well known and well off, and even gives me the general area where he lived after amassing his fortune.  Sadly, it offers no clues about how he lost his money or what caused his demise.  But that's OK, I will find that information, 'cause I have persistence.