A May December Romance

     Many hours have been devoted to uncovering the identity of the second wife of my fourth-great-grandfather Thomas Garner.  I’m descended from Thomas and his first wife Prudence Lamphere, so why do I why spend so much time on number two?  Several reasons: for one, you never know what will turn up in the records of your ancestor's associates and secondly, I enjoy a challenge. Some people like to solve crossword puzzles, I like to solve genealogy puzzles.

     Back in 2019 I wrote a blog about Thomas in which I questioned who that Laney Garner person living with Grandpa Thomas was, and if she was really his wife or had the census taker made a mistake?  She was a good twenty years younger than Thomas, who was an elderly, chronically ill man without much money, though he did have a War of 1812 pension which may have made him more attractive to Laney.  Today I decided to find all I could about her, which when you’re taking about a female in the early to mid-1800’s is indeed a challenge.

      I already had the 1855 New York State census of Summerhill in Cayuga County showing Thomas Garner age 84, born in Massachusetts and his wife Laney Garner age 59, born in Canada.  Thomas was really 82, but still much older than Laney.  Immediately above them in the census was David Robertson 50 and his wife Catherine 34, both born in New York.

      I knew Thomas had passed away in the spring of 1857 but Laney being twenty years his junior was likely still alive for the next census.  Ancestry has an annoying habit of sending hints for something called, “NY Compiled Census and Census Substitutes…”, containing scant information with no image, when they could just as easily show you the 1860 census.  I have no idea why they do this, but when you see it, it’s time to open another window and do a search of the 1860 census at Family Search.  Which is what I did when they sent me a hint for "Lana" Garner in that odd database.  I found Lana Garner living alone in 1860, still right next to David and Catherine Robertson/Robinson.  In fact, she seemed to be living with them at that point.

1859 map of Summerhill, Mrs. Garner is the 4th name down on the far left D. Robinson is right below her.

     The next logical step was the 1850 census but that presented a problem.  There was no Lana or Laney Garner listed, nor a Thomas Garner for that matter.  He was in Summerhill in 1840 with his first wife but seemed to have vanished by 1850.  Prudence died in 1848 so perhaps Thomas hadn’t yet remarried in 1850?  Since I didn’t know Laney’s surname before her marriage to Thomas, I tried looking up David Robertson to see who was living next to him in Summerhill that year.  His neighbor was Laura Wallace, age 54, born in Canada!  The age was right, the birthplace was right, and the name was very close, could it be that Laney Garner was the former Laura Wallace?

     Going further back in census records was not productive. There were many Wallace families in the area, but only heads of households were named in 1840 and Laney wasn’t one of them, so I struck out there.  Ditto with newspapers and cemetery records.  Reading through Thomas’ pension documents I found that his original pension certificate was destroyed in 1856 by a fire at the establishment where he had left it for safekeeping, forcing him to apply for a replacement.  One of the witnesses to his signature, actually his X, on that application was Laney Garner but it contained no further information about her.  There were still New York land records to be checked at Family Search, if I could find Thomas in 1850 that might hold a clue.  After forty-five minutes of finding nothing for Thomas Garner or Thomas Gardner or other variations I was about to give up.  Discouraged, on a whim I typed “Laney Wallace” into the search box. Bingo!  In 1840 Seth Runnells “demised”, (leased), twenty-two acres in the town of Summerhill to Laney Wallace for the remainder of her life…adjacent to Catherine Robertson!  Laura Wallace was Laney Wallace was Laney Garner.

Seth Runnells to Laney Wallace, Lot 16 Summerhill

     I’m still not sure of Laney’s maiden name, it may or may not have been Wallace.  A marriage record would probably clear this up, but Summerhill was located behind the back of beyond and there were several nearby villages where her marriage to Thomas could have taken place, none of which have online records.  Nonetheless, I'm getting closer all the time...

What Can Be Found in Old Newspapers

      

     Each week I check the genealogy news for Ireland, and each week I'm disappointed. No new records means no new discoveries, so no new blogs. I'm currently considering purchasing a month's subscription to a newspaper site in the hopes something interesting may turn up, but in the meantime I'm posting an excerpt from the narrative I wrote long ago about my family in Counties Carlow and Kildare, the McGarrs and O'Horas; drawn in part from contemporary newspaper accounts to show what wonderful stories can be found even if one's ancestors didn't make it into print by name...

     Although Ireland was overwhelmingly Catholic everyone who worked the land was required by law to pay a tithe to the protestant Church of Ireland. This presented a real hardship for tenant farmers already hard pressed to clothe and feed their families. To add insult to injury, protestant landlords who did not farm the land but instead devoted it to pasture for livestock were exempt. After winning emancipation, an organized campaign of resistance to the tithe began and spread rapidly. In 1831 a list of tithe defaulters was drawn up by the government with orders to seize their goods and chattel. With the signing of that order, the opening salvo of the Tithe War had been fired. Over the following years robberies, murders, cattle maiming, riots and arsons became commonplace.

     The defaulter lists for Ricketstown and Ballyraggan no longer exist, so it is impossible to say if Michael Hore and Daniel McGarr refused to pay their tithes, but resistance in their area was high. In County Carlow, the protestant minister Rev. John Whitty, who was the beneficiary of the tithes collected locally was especially disliked by Rathvilly Catholics. Years earlier he had ordered the seizure and sale of the cattle of a tithe defaulter, so enraging Catholics that 5,000 of them stormed the sale and carried off the cattle.

     This time around, the residents of Rathvilly Parish were no less determined to protect their property. The following excerpt from The Pilot, a Dublin newspaper, details how they outwitted the troops sent to distrain the livestock of defaulters--

August 1834-- Mr. Whitty has a tremendous force at present…they have been out every day this week and were not able to effect a single seizure in the entire parish. The moment the troops are drawn out in marching order, a person on top of a hill lights a faggot of furze, and two minutes after, every person in the parish is out and not a four-footed animal is to be found in it by the time the troops arrive. When the troops come up, they are always received with, ‘three cheers for the King and the British Army.

     The situation had not changed a great deal when two years later this headline appeared in a less sympathetic newspaper, The Wexford Conservative—

Desperate Attack On Sheriff Police And Military At Rathvilly By Mob

Yesterday, the Sub-Sheriff, chief constables Fitzgibbon and Traunt, forty of the constabulary and twenty of the 23rd Fusileers proceeded to post tithe notices on church and chapel doors. At Rathvilly, large masses of men lined the walls enclosing the chapel yard, armed with pitchforks, scythes, bludgeons and stones while the women had a plentiful supply of boiling water. Finding the gates locked the sheriff proceeded to the house of Priest Gahan for the key, but he was not to be found. The Sheriff next ordered the police to scale the walls to post the notices on the chapel, upon which the party were assailed by a general volley of stones and missiles.

     Both Rathvilly and Baltinglass parishes were blessed with what would today be termed activist priests. Father Gahan in Rathvilly, as we have seen, made himself unavailable when the British came looking for the churchyard key, and Father Lalor in Baltinglass was just as supportive of his parishioners. When Daniel O’Connell came to Baltinglass in 1843 for one of his public anti-tithe meetings, it was Father Lalor’s curate Rev. John Nolan himself who helped arrange the details.

     In 1836 Father Gahan delivered a report to the local Poor Law Commissioners declaring it unrealistic to expect disturbances related to the tithe to halt as long as such was demanded. He added his belief that the condition of the “poorer classes” had greatly deteriorated over the past two decades as to their food and raiment, with most of his parishioners being poor farmers who lived in houses of mud or sod. In about twenty instances in the parish two or more families shared a cabin.

     When it was finally realized that the costs associated with collecting the tithe were far greater than the benefits it brought -- one officer noting, “It cost a shilling to collect tuppence” -- the collection was suspended. From then on, the rate was reduced and included in rent payments, bringing at least partial relief to the long-suffering Catholic population.

A Tale of Two Cemeteries

     

Entrance to Saint Anne's in Palmyra, NY

     Thursday afternoon the Rochester, New York area broke the record with a daytime temperature of 65 balmy degrees!  It's doubtful we'll see that sort of warmth again for a very long time, so I took advantage of the day to visit the Catholic cemetery in Palmyra.  Besides being good exercise, it's enjoyable to get out of the house and visit some old, (deceased), relatives.  I recently read a blog by Irish genealogist John Grenholm in which he observed, in speaking of the Irish, "Apparently we find it very hard to let go. Maybe that’s the reason we have such a thing about graveyards. Because we certainly do have a thing about graveyards".  If I'm any yardstick, that is an indisputable truism. 

     Being such a nice day, I was loathe to leave after making my usual rounds so I decided to take a stroll through the much larger village cemetery that abuts Saint Anne's as well.  The village cemetery has some very old and unique graves while Saint Anne's cemetery, being created sometime after 1850, lacks really old burials.  Come take a walk with me...

   

     Entering Saint Anne's, one is greeted by a life-sized angel.  The gravestone behind her left wing is that of my 2nd great-aunt Ellen Power from County Waterford and her husband Thomas Mahoney born in County Kerry. 

     The shot below is no man's land, the road dividing the Catholics from everyone else. Saint Anne's is on the left.

     As I left Saint Anne's and walked on into the village cemetery, I saw on a rise what looked from a distance to be palm trees on the side of a large monument.  That was odd, palm trees are definitely not native to New York but there they were.  On viewing the front of the marker, the explanation for the presence of palm trees became clear.  It read, "Dr. Henry Pebbine born Brooklyn 1797 Killed by the Seminole Indians at the massacre of Indian Key Fla. Aug 7 1840 Aged 43".  I had never heard of this massacre nor the doctor before, and I was somewhat doubtful he had been brought from Florida to New York for burial, (in August yet), so I googled it.  One website that came up contained an article written in 1912 that described the terrible events of that summer's day and mentioned a Dr. Henry, but his last name was Perrine.  A closer look at the picture I had taken of the stone showed it was indeed Perrine, not Pebbine as I had first thought.  The article concluded by noting Dr. Perrine's remains were recovered from Florida many years after the tragedy and interred in the family plot at Palmyra.  Another site claims the doctor's remains could not be located in Florida, making the monument in Palmyra a cenotaph.  I tend to believe the second site.

     In the photo below is one of the several zinc markers that dot the village cemetery.  Erected in 1886 this monument looks as though it could have been put up yesterday, the inscription is that clear.  I wish all my ancestor's markers were made of this blueish grey metal.  Their production began in 1875 and being hollow, they were actually an inexpensive option.  Unfortunately, they never gained in popularity with some cemeteries banning zinc markers on the grounds maintaining them would be costly and they might not hold up... the opposite has proven true.

     

Charles H. Kingman M.D.

     

     The marker on the right below is exactly what it looks like, a boulder set on a base memorializing the Chase family.  The other is erected entirely from cobblestones for the De Chard family.

Left, De Chard - Albert 1842-1933 and Cordelia 1842-1923

     The small oval stone below struck me as unusual, I haven't seen many of these but there are a few in the village cemetery; none are found in Saint Anne's. This one was placed in remembrance of Little Cornelia who passed away in 1836 at the age of three.

 

     While Saint Anne's Cemetery is all on level ground, the village cemetery behind it contains both level and hilly sections. One prominence is pictured below.  There are some uneven, timeworn steps placed at intervals on the hillside, but it's still steeper than it appears in the photo.  From the top it does offer a panoramic view of the two cemeteries though...

     

     Looking down from the top of the hill, Saint Anne's cemetery is the farthest section seen in the above photo.

     Three hours have slipped by, the temperature is beginning to drop now and the clouds are lowering; rain is expected before sunset.  It's time to get back to my car parked at the end of that far road.  I hope you enjoyed this brief look at Palmyra where I spend a good deal of my free time.  To be continued...  

(In May)

The Mystery Couple

  

     Shortly before an older cousin of mine died a few years ago, he entrusted to me a stack of old photos. His reasoning was his daughter, who had no interest in family history, would merely discard them upon his passing. Especially since a few of them were older and the persons in them unidentified.  I expect he was correct in his assumption; I fear the same for my genealogy efforts which is why I’m posting all I can to Ancestry.  An imperfect solution to be sure, but until a budding family historian appears in my clan will have to suffice.

    The photograph above has intrigued me since it first came into my keeping. The young lady on the right is my teen-aged grandmother, Mary O’Hora. The names of the couple holding the poodles are unknown to me, (as are those of the poodles). They are in one or two other pictures I have from approximately the same time, so I believe they are most likely relatives, but who they are continues to confound me. The obvious first step was to date the photograph. Grandma was born in 1912, it appears to me she looks to be about 16 years old in this picture give or take. That suggests it was taken around 1928.

     If they are indeed family members, I’ve narrowed the obvious possibilities as to their identities.  My grandmother’s father, Edward O’Hora, died in 1920 when Grandma was eight years old. Edward’s oldest sister Mary passed in 1907 as did his sister Anna; his brother James died in 1881. The next, Michael, never married, and Sarah Jane died in 1902. That left Winifred, who lived until 1939, and her husband Andrew Fitzpatrick who survived until 1928 and lastly, Edward’s brother Daniel who lived until 1951 and his possibly common-law wife who passed in 1937.  I tend to discount Daniel as there was some bad blood between him and the family and too, the gentleman in the photo seems shorter than what the O’Hora’s were from I’ve seen, but Winifred and Andrew are a real possibility. 

    On the other hand, the photo may be of relatives of Edward’s wife Ellen White. Ellen survived Edward and lived at the family farm until the mid-1930’s. Her siblings Margaret, William, and Julia were all deceased by 1923. Of those remaining, her brother Thomas never married, Cornelius disappeared, and John lived in California, leaving Mary, who lived until 1939 and her husband William Stevenson who survived until about 1937. 

    Census records show the Stevenson's living at 17 West 11th Street on Long Island in 1925, but they did visit Ellen on the farm occasionally.  In fact, the local newspaper published this line the first week in October of 1928, “Mr. and Mrs. William E. Stevenson of Long Island are visiting Mrs. Nellie O’Hora and family!” That’s quite interesting, I had forgotten the date of that short notice in the paper until I was looking at my notes for Mary while writing this blog. It certainly places her at the farm in 1928.  I don’t know if they would have brought their pets all the way from Long Island but they were childless...who can say? 

     So which couple could it be, Winifred and Andrew or Mary and William?  I dug out the other photos I had of the possible Mary and William and gasped, the lady who appeared in the photo was seated on the front steps of, get this, number 17!

     Here is "William" in front of the same house.  The two appear younger here than in the picture at the top of this blog, but I'm sure it's the same couple.  I may just have answered my question!  This is why I blog, I figured this whole thing out just now, while blogging.  It makes me focus and think things through like nothing else, I highly recommend it.

Of Immigrant Ships and Shell Games

 

The Barque Star Queen

      Looking around the net today I stumbled across an article titled, "How To Find Your Australian Ancestors". It wasn’t particularly helpful and linked to mostly pay sites, but it got me thinking about my cousin Alice Dwyer/O’Dwyer who left Tipperary in the spring of 1875 to begin a new life in Queensland. I wrote about Alice earlier, and reading through that blog I remembered I still hadn’t figured out who in Australia had paid her fare. I didn’t figure that out today either, but I did find the incredible details of her journey.

Alice O'Dwyer

     One free site I found useful was that of the State Library of Queensland, where I ran a search for Alice’s ship, Star Queen. Among the first hits was this manuscript-- "Isaiah de Zouche Diary, 1875". Hoping it was digitized, I opened the description to find that this man was the ship’s surgeon in 1875! While not digitized, it apparently could be borrowed. The cost for an international interlibrary loan was $45, not bad but I had my doubts the library in Australia would just ship an almost 150-year-old manuscript to New York. Maybe there were excerpts online? I tried a google search which didn’t produce the diary, but something almost as good did come up. That something was the website, Trove, a free Australian newspaper site that is very easy to search. I typed in, Isaiah de Zouche 1875, and flung open the door of the rabbit hole.

Dr. de Zouche

     One of the first hits began with news that on September 14th officials had signaled the Star Queen to stop at Cape Moreton, Australia, short of its destination of Maryborough, but its Captain Downing had refused to comply!  It went on to say the Colonial Secretary’s Department in Australia had received a telegram from Dr. de Zouche and as a result of its contents had ordered the ship brought to Moreton Bay.  Part of what Dr. de Zouche had written:

There should have been provisions on board for 140 days. Our biscuits were exhausted on the eighty-ninth day, when in longitude 65 E., with the exception of three and a half bags reserved for the crew. On the 31st, of August the date of our arrival, [at Melbourne] having been out 110 days from Gravesend, we had no biscuits, no preserved fresh meat, no potatoes, no molasses, and only six day's supply of salt meat and eight day's flour for passengers and crew. The passengers have conducted themselves throughout the voyage in the most exemplary manner.

     No wonder Captain Downing didn't want to stop in Moreton.  At the time Alice left Tipperary a program was in place to aid emigrants relocating to Australia, with the Colonial Office there and its counterpart in England sharing the cost. A look at the passenger manifest of the Star Queen shows that only twenty-six of its 322 passengers paid their own way, the rest were assisted or free. The Star Queen had left England on May 13th, supposedly stocked as required for 140 days at sea. That is where the trouble began. A fraud was hatched between the ship’s captain, the purser and the third mate to line their pockets using supplies intended for their passengers. 

     Conditions became so bad that on August 31st the Star Queen was forced to put in at Hobson’s Bay in Melbourne to take on provisions, this must have been when Dr. Z was able to send his incriminating telegram to officials.  In his testimony at the later enquiry, Dr. Z added that the captain was intemperate and had used threatening language in addressing him. The press had a field day with the story, Trove found far too many articles to read them all, but a common theme came through. Only a single newspaper, The Age, attempted to downplay the incident asserting the ship had, “merely put in to replenish supplies then continued on its way”, but that was early on before all the facts had come to light.

     Further testified to at the enquiry, and indeed verified by Australian officials, was the existence of barrels marked bread on one side and split peas on the other in order to deceive inspectors in England into believing the proper number of stores were onboard. Mr. Bellamy, the third mate, testified that before sailing, biscuits that had been counted and stowed were surreptitiously brought back on deck by him to be counted a second time. It was further found that Mr. Wright, the purser, had weighted the scales on the ship, the buckets supposedly holding 30 pints of water in fact held only 20, the ship was “disgustingly dirty”, there was insufficient deck space for the number of passengers, and incredibly, nineteen men from Wales and County Clare had emigrated under assumed names provided to them by crew members. The skullduggery didn’t end there, as supplies dwindled the captain ordered provisions intended for the assisted passengers be diverted to cabin passengers.

     Nor did Mrs. Currie, the ship's matron, have anything good to say for the Captain, accusing him of not supporting her in the performance of her duties and complaining of the short rations that left all the "girls" hungry, as well as the lack of water for them.

     Captain Downing was found culpable and given the choice of paying a fine of 211 pounds or spending three months in prison for breaches of the Passenger’s Act. He chose the fine. Oddly, no mention was made in the newspapers of any charges against the purser or third mate being pursued. After slogging through more articles, it came to light Dr. Z had promised to request immunity for the pair if they revealed to him all they knew of the scheme, which the Colonial Secretary agreed to.  As a result, they were never charged. It’s well known that this sort of embezzlement went on during the years of famine immigration, but with the passage of various passenger acts such flagrant violations became thankfully, not as common. The outrage over the events on the Star Queen was universal, inspiring the song below within months:

     The writer of this amusing ditty, cursing the Star Queen’s beams, would get his wish a few years later when at the end of July in 1878, the ship ran aground on the treacherous Murray Reefs located off the coast of southwestern Australia and was wrecked, fortunately with no loss of life.  I would imagine Alice and her fellow immigrants, who were unfortunate enough to have been passengers on the horrendous voyage of 1875 aboard the Star Queen, shed  few tears.  As for Captain Downs, his name appeared on the passenger list of the ship Ramsey, bound for London on the 12th of November in 1875.  A few names away from his in second cabin was that of Mrs. Currie. That must have been an interesting trip.

End of the Line Part Deux, in Which Facts Are Twisted and a Scandal Comes to Light

 

     As we saw yesterday, Edward S. Wheat Jr. was the last surviving child of Emma Spence Wheat.  Edward's grandfather had brutally murdered his father, shooting him in the back on a Nashville street, and his two brothers were deceased.  The last days of Edward Jr.’s life have been reconstructed here using mainly contemporary newspaper articles -- not an ideal source, but other than dry vital records, are all that’s available.  

     It should be kept in mind that journalistic standards in the 19^th century were basically nonexistent. The primary goal of papers then was not to impart the facts, but to titillate readers and make money. If that could be achieved by altering a story, reporters had no qualms about doing so.  As an example, another of my ancestors who died during this era was linked, in a fanciful newspaper account, to a US senator of the same name when in fact no such connection existed. The articles in Edward Jr.’s case  are full of false assertions, some possibilities and, I assume, a few facts.  Bearing that in mind, this is the story of Edward’s demise.

     The first I learned of Edward’s death came in the form of a short notice in a Nashville newspaper informing its readers Edward had died the previous day in St. Louis and his remains were expected in Nashville for burial.  Missouri death records and a burial permit added the bare-boned facts such as his place of death, 814 South Fourteenth Street in St. Louis, the date, 14 June 1892, and the cause, gastroenteritis accompanied by heart failure.  That scant information left the St. Louis newspapers to reveal the sordid story behind those facts which they were happy to do:

    

     There are some obviously false claims in the above story.  For one, it alleges Edward’s father was killed “about a year ago in a fight", when in fact he had died eight years earlier and certainly not in a fight.  It also states that Edward Jr. was living in St. Louis for the two years before his death but no trace of him is found in city directories and the line on his burial permit for length of residence in St. Louis was left blank. Further, he was arrested in Nashville the month before his death after a fist fight with another young man, and an obituary in a Nashville paper noted he was visiting St. Louis at the time of his death. The part about Sallie Chamberlain knowing him in Nashville is also false. With a bit of sleuthing I found "Sallie" was in fact Clara Mayer, the daughter of immigrants, who was born about 1870 right there in St. Louis.  In the year 1887 Clara married a man named Charles Allen from whom she separated three months later and afterwards divorced.

     The wording of the article is also curious in that it does not say Edward Jr. died at the residence of Sallie Chamberlain, but that he passed at, “a house kept by Mme. Sallie Chamberlain”.  That and her alias immediately aroused my suspicions.  Also, how strange is it that the doctor who attended Edward refused to certify his death but shortly after relented and did so?  Were I a cynical woman, I might suppose some form of persuasion may have been deployed.

     My doubts about Sallie, aka Clara, were confirmed by another death notice published in a rival newspaper that read, “Edward S. Wheat, a wealthy and well-connected young Tennessean, died yesterday morning in a disreputable house, No. 814 South Fourteenth Street…”.  It went on to invent his last words as, “Allie, the disgrace is all over”.  The part about Edward being an alumnus of the Keeley Institute, an early center for the treatment of alcoholism, may be true though I've found nothing more to support that and no further articles about Edward's time in the city. 

     The St. Louis newspapers are however, filled with stories about Clara Allen.  They mention her handsomely furnished parlors there at number 814, the elaborate funeral she provided for Darling, her beloved Scottish Terrier whom she had buried in Pickett's Cemetery in a custom made white coffin, along with accounts of dances and robberies that took place at her home over the years.  Clara Allen was only about aged thirty when she died in 1899, leaving a sizeable estate to her sister’s family.  Interestingly, that sister, Emma Mayer Fairham, lived for a time on Chamberlain Street in St. Louis, quite possibly the inspiration for Clara's nom de guerre.  When Clara’s home was listed for rent after her death, it was not only identified by its address, as were other listings in the real estate section, but also as, “the former home of Clara Allen”.  The inventory of her estate makes fascinating reading, a music box worth over $700 in today's money, a piano valued at over $1,600 today, and an expensive gold bracelet, along with five beds, (one brass), assorted rugs, draperies, and decorative objects.

     The heartbreaking truth seems to be that Edward S. Wheat Jr. developed a fondness for alcohol and died in a St. Louis bordello. It's unclear how much his mother knew of the details surrounding her son's death, but scandal spreads quickly and only 300 miles lie between Nashville and St. Louis.  Emma, her family now gone, must have at least had an inkling of the circumstances.  According to her obituary, she died at her home in Pensacola, Florida in 1920 and was taken to Nashville for burial.  Thus ends the story of this once promising family.

The End of Edward S. Wheat's Line

     

     Moses Wheat of England was among the first settlers of Concord, Massachusetts, arriving there in about 1695.  Moses along with his wife Tamzen Brooks, was the founder of the American branch of the family and they were fruitful, multiplied, and scattered far and wide.  In the summer of 1795, my line left Massachusetts and relocated to the Town of Phelps, New York where they began the back breaking work of clearing a homestead from the dense forest and undergrowth.  A grandson of those original Phelps pioneers, Benjamin F. Wheat, left New York in 1896 for Michigan.  It was there he met and married Mary Hermance, beginning a family of his own in Branch County.  Their daughter Luany was born there in 1840, followed in 1841 by a son, Edward S. Wheat.

   When the American Civil War erupted in 1861, Edward Wheat enlisted in the Union Army as a sergeant in the 1st Michigan Light Artillery, rapidly advancing through the ranks.  While stationed in Murfreesboro, Tennessee near war's end he met a local girl named Emma Spence.  Her father William Spence had been a resident of Murfreesboro for many years, but was born in Ireland, in the north I strongly suspect.  A few months after hostilities ended, Edward and Emma were married, beginning their new life there in Murfreesboro near her parents.  Had Emma possessed a crystal ball and caught a glimpse of the tragedies that lay in store, she likely would have declined Edward's proposal.

      I found at Google Books, a biographical album of the sort so popular in the late 19th century.  It contained a short biography about Edward and another about his father Benjamin and his early life in New York State, but what really caught my eye was the next to last sentence, "Edward S. Wheat came to his death by violence in the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, being shot on March 11, 1884."

     My mind raced with questions; who would have killed Edward and for what reason?  Foremost in my thoughts was the animosity that existed in the south towards the north after the war.  The book mentioned that after leaving the military Edward had been appointed Revenue Assessor and later, US Marshall for the Middle District of Tennessee.  None of those jobs would have endeared him to the locals.  The possibility that Edward was murdered by one of them seemed reinforced by the Freedman's Bureau records at Ancestry.  Among their papers was a report mentioning Edward once being threatened by an angry rebel with a loaded, cocked, pistol, "pointed in his face".  A newspaper at the Library of Congress site told a much different story however:

     Col. Edward S. Wheat was murdered by his father-in-law Col. William Spence in Nashville Tuesday morning at the corner of Church and College streets.  Spence was crossing the street behind Wheat and shot him in the back, the ball passing through the heart.  He then ran up to his victim placed the pistol at his side, and fired the second shot.  Wheat was about 43 years old and Spence 65.  The difficulty grew out of a disagreement about business transactions and had been of long standing.

     After picking my jaw up off the floor I began looking into this shocking crime.  I found Edward and his young family, along with his in-laws, had moved to Nashville after Edward was appointed US Marshal.  He and Emma were the parents of three boys, William F. born in 1868 died of typhoid fever in 1884, nine months after his father's murder; Edward S. Jr. was born in 1870 and passed away in 1892.  The youngest was Harry Elliott, born in 1873 who died in 1875 at age two from tuberculosis of the abdominal lymph glands contracted by drinking milk from an infected cow, not uncommon in those days before pasteurization.

     And what of William Spence?  He mounted an insanity defense but was found guilty of murder at his trial and sentenced, "to be hanged in the jail yard on the 18th of July".  His family sprang into action, petitioning Tennessee Governor Bate for leniency.  Bate reduced William's sentence to a life term, but the family filed another petition with the new governor of the state, the first signature on that document was that of Edward's widow Emma!  The second was his son Edward Jr.  Their petition was warmly received and on February 5, 1887 Governor Robert Taylor granted William a full pardon. Soon afterwards, William, his wife Matilda, and their daughter Emma Wheat along with her one surviving son, Edward Jr., all moved to Pensacola Florida.  William died there in November of 1892, followed by Matilda in 1894.

     As a young man, Edward Jr. became involved in the grain business, a fitting occupation for one bearing the Wheat surname.  He passed away in St. Louis at the age of 22, from gastroenteritis and heart failure, on the 14th of June in 1892.  His death came five months prior to that of his grandfather William's.  Edward's burial permit, issued in St. Louis, noted that his remains were transported to Nashville for interment in the family plot at Mount Olivet Cemetery in that city.  It should be noted, the dates for Harry Elliott Wheat are incorrect at Find A Grave as well as on his marker.  State death records have the right dates, and interment records of Mount Olivet show that Harry was buried there in October of 1875, then reinterred with his father when he was killed in 1884.  That may be the year the monument was erected and Harry's dates were not remembered correctly.

     I was about to post this blog when I decided to do one more newspaper search for Edward Jr.'s obituary in the St. Louis papers and was I in for a surprise!  The circumstances surrounding the death of the young grain merchant from a good family were not at all what I had believed them to be!

More tomorrow...