A Multi-Talented Man

52 Ancestors Week 25 – Artistic

I am late to get this week’s post written. I just got home from a big family vacation. Five of my six siblings and step-siblings on my stepdad’s side all got together for nearly a week in the Caribbean.

It was a wonderful visit, but tinged with sorry since my sixth step-sibling, my stepsister Rain Reglin McDermott died from cancer shortly before the trip. She was the founder of Dallas Caramel Company, the best caramel that you will ever eat. She ran the company for over ten years, receiving several prestigious awards for her products, until her health made it impossible for her to continue. She came down with breast cancer that moved its way around her body, to her organs, bones, and eventually her brain and lungs. We will miss her.

But that’s not what this post is about. It’s just my reasons for being slow to get this out.

I came across a lot of interesting things in my great-grandfather, Charles Council Bailey’s, papers. First, there are dozens and dozens of pages of verse, mostly written down before his marriage in 1895 while he was living in the eastern part of Indian Territory. Second, there were several small painted notes that he did as greetings to people (mostly to Viola Tennison, his soon to be wife).

Viola (Tennison) Bailey and Charles Council Bailey, Hackett, Arkansas

I also knew from stories I heard as a child that he played the fiddle and loved music. That would go along with the several books of songs and sheet music from the late 19th and early 20th century (much of it not appropriate for today’s ears and sensibilities!).

All of this has always given me the impression that he was kind of an artistic sort of person. No, I don’t have any records of big exhibitions. I don’t have any grand works passed down through the family. But these little things give an impression that these little bits of creativity and artistic appreciation made a difference in his hardscrabble life out in eastern Indian Territory and western Arkansas.

Charles Council Bailey was born 26 Jul 1868 in Hackett, Sebastian County, Arkansas on a farm that had been in his family since 1840. He was the eldest son of Hume Field Bailey and Sarah Louise Council. Both Hume and Sarah had been married and had children previously. Sarah lost her husband to disease in the Civil War and Hume lost his wife not long after their last child was born. That meant that in this blended family, Charles was the first of Hume and Sarah’s children, but the sixth overall. And it didn’t stop there! Hume and Sarah had five additional children after Charles.

One of my favorite little bits of Charles’ artistic side is a little birthday card he sent to Viola in July of 1895.

Milton, Indian Territory
July 17, 1895

Miss Viola Tennison
at home

My darling little sweetheart
I have painted you this Birthday card. It is very poorly done as my paint is so bad and my skill is much worse. The paint is so oily and thin that the oil has run over the card and spoiled it but it will evaporate after a while and I think all go out
The cherries and also the leaves are of poor paint and the paper is poor. I give you this tonight because I will not likely have a chance to do so on friday when read. Put this back and seal up. That will keep it straight.

I am as ever yours truly in love. xxxxxxxxxxx

Chas

Charlie Council made by himself a pretty little card for his sweetheart. He may not have thought it was good, but apparently, she thought it was good enough to keep for her whole life. It was in her papers when she died in 1970 at the age of 95. Apparently, his artistic ability was good enough for her.

All of the poems and verses in Charles’ papers are a little more confusing. In Charles’ trunk, there were dozens of sheets where a lyric or a verse was written. None have been familiar to me, so I did not know what to make of them. They could be songs or they could be poems. All of them have a date and a place on them, generally Hackett, Arkansas or Milton, Indian Territory, and all within the year preceding Charles & Viola’s marriage. They could have been things he wrote or they could have been things he wrote down to remember.

I do have a poem that Charles’ grandmother Evalina (Hill) Bailey either wrote or transcribed in 1819 as she was leaving home after her marriage. I have generally thought it was original, but it could be one of her favorites as well. I have never found any indication that it was not original. Additionally, after having various AI platforms analyze it, they all said that based on the fact that they were unable to find any matches and based on its internal simplicity and faults, they believed it to be original. So, my thought has been, if Grandma wrote poems, so could grandson.

I thought this might be a great opportunity to use AI to help me understand the verses. So, I uploaded images of the verses and asked Perplexity.ai, Claude.ai, and ChatGPT to first, transcribe the verses, and then compare them to any known verses or lyrics or poems from the late 19th century. Perplexity and Claude assured me that these were certainly originals! I thought I had hit the mother lode for my ancestor’s artistic expression. ChatGPT had other ideas. It pointed out that the verse titled “Lady Elgin” was, in fact, a popular song from that time and was available on sheet music.

A few more targeted Google searches showed that many of the others could be found as published sheet music of the day. I only spot checked some of the pages. But I think this tells me these are all songs that were copied. The ones that could not be easily found probably were still published songs, just not ones that are still easy to find today.

But, that was not a disappointment at all. I now knew that Charles collected songs that he liked. He probably sang them and played them on his fiddle. I think that still gives a picture of him and what he and his sweetheart might light to do on a summer weekend evening, sitting outside their house in Milton.

I guess I didn’t find a lost Rembrandt or find the lost works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. But I did find a really fun glimpse into my great-grandfather and a peek into his love for his sweetheart, Viola. They were a tough pair, but they were tender toward each other and the loved each other very much.

He carried them in his saddlebags

52 Ancestors Week 23 – Wedding Bells

It’s June and that’s a time when there are often wedding bells ringing. This is a story about a February wedding.

What are some of the things you think of at a wedding? Certainly, there are the bride and the groom and the vows. Maybe you think about where the wedding happened or the officiant. And maybe there was a reception or a party afterward. Often, in addition to all of this, there are gifts. Friends and loved ones give gifts to the newly married, often to help them set up a new home. And often the bride and groom give gifts to each other.

Last week, I talked about the Wren Reunion, where the descendants of Dr. Alonzo Dossey Wren of Arkansas and his brother George Lovick Pierce Wren of Louisiana have met every year since 1948. This week, I want to talk about Sam Scott Wren, and his wife Pearl Hudson. Sam was born 11 February 1879 in Nevada County, Arkansas, the youngest son of Dr. Alonzo Dossey Wren and Georgia (Vickers) Wren. Sam grew up to be a farmer and ran his farm for his entire life. He loved his family and his family loved him.

In the neighborhood, John Wesley Hudson and his wife Millie Lucinda (Almand) Hudson lived nearby. Her parents had come to Nevada County in 1870 with a number of other families from the area around Atlanta, Georgia. Pearl Hudson, daughter of John and Cindy, was born 15 December 1884. Apparently, Sam and Pearl got to know each other and fell in love, even though he was several years older than she was. A date was set for their wedding in February 1900. I know that Sam, Pearl, and their families were excited and looking forward to this wedding.

Sam and Pearl were married 21 Feb 1900 in Laneburg, Nevada County, Arkansas. They immediately set out to build their family, having four children over the next six years.

Sam and Pearl Wren, Norvelle, Marion, Mildred. Pearl is pregnant with Hudson.

I want to tell you about three gifts that were shared for this wedding that have been passed down in our family through the generations ever since. The first is a gift from Sam to Pearl. The second is a gift from Sam’s father to his new daughter-in-law, Pearl. And the last is a from Sam’s parents to Sam and Pearl for their new home.

The family story goes that before Sam and Pearl were married, he brought her a special gift for their engagement. Remember that for a farmer, cash might not be easy to come by. Southwest Arkansas has never been a wealthy area and Sam was just getting started as a farmer. He saved and was able to purchase a pair of beautiful glass vases for Pearl. He put them in his saddlebags and rode his mule to Pearl’s house to give them to her.

These two vases were on the mantle over the fireplace in the home that Sam and Pearl built for their entire life together. Sam and Pearl had a daughter, Norvelle Wren, who never married and lived for her entire life in that house. When she died and her possessions were broken up, one vase went to each of her grand-nieces. Now they have been reunited in the next generation and the story of that wedding won’t be lost.

Dr. A. D. Wren wanted to welcome his new daughter-in-law into the family properly. Some years earlier, he had received a beautiful, small, gold pocket watch as payment from a customer. He gave this watch to Pearl as a “welcome to the family” gift.

Years after Pearl and Sam had died, their granddaughter had the watch restored and her dad, Hudson Wren, son of Sam and Pearl kept it prominently displayed in his home until his death.

Now, my little brother has it on display in his home and the story of that wedding will not be lost.

Lastly, Dr. Wren and his wife Georgia gave a Welch kitchen clock to Sam and Pearl as a wedding gift for their new home together. That was in 1900 and now 125 years later, after being restored and rebuilt by my uncle and aunt years ago, that clock graces my home. It keeps perfect time. I wind it each Sunday and look forward to hearing its tick tick tick and its bong on the hour and the half. So, in my house, the story of that wedding won’t be lost.

Now, our job is to find who can take over the job of caring for these objects and making sure that the story of Sam and Pearl, of Granny and Pop, and of Dr. A. D. Wren and Georgia don’t get lost.

Sam and Pearl (Hudson) Wren, 1933

Wren Reunion

25 Ancestors Week 22 – Reunion

George Washington Wren was born in 1802 in the Waxhaw area of Lancaster County, South Carolina, right in the same neighborhood where Andrew Jackson was born some thirty-five years earlier. By the late 1820s, he had moved on to Putnam County, Georgia. I don’t know what led him to leave South Carolina since neither his parents or any of his siblings came with him on the move. Apparently, Georgia agreed with him. In 1828, he married Sarah Bridges in Putnam County. She was born in 1813 in nearby Greene County.

George Washington Wren
Sarah Bridges Wren

George and Sarah were on their way to creating a comfortable life for themselves in Georgia. They had amassed a fair amount of property and were building their family. Sometime shortly after the census-taker came to town in September 1850, the Wrens picked up and moved to Bienville Parish, Louisiana. By September 1851, G.W. Wren had begun to purchase land and establish himself in northwest Louisiana.

By the end of the 1850s, the family was doing well enough that two of their sons, George Lovick Pierce Wren and Alonzo Dossey Wren (GLP and AD Wren), returned to Georgia to attend Emory College at Oxford, Georgia.

These two brothers stories both served during the Civil War. After the war, they both returned home and started their adult lives. GLP Wren married Ellen Carr in 1869. AD Wren married Georgia Vickers in 1866. Both were successful planters who also had significant outside careers.

George Lovick Pierce Wren
Dr. Alonzo Dossey Wren

In addition to his farming enterprises, GLP Wren taught school and spent six terms in the Louisiana State Legislature – 4 terms in the House and 2 terms in the Senate. He and Ellen had nine children:

  1. Margaret Wren
  2. Robert Lee Wren, born 1869
  3. Lovick Pierce Wren, born 1871
  4. Herbert Benjamin Wren, born 1872
  5. Atticus Asbury Wren, born 1874
  6. Marcus D. Wren, born 1876
  7. Floyd Carr Wren, born 1883
  8. Ernest S. Wren, born 1883
  9. Ava Gertrude Wren, born 1885

AD Wren studied medicine at the Medical Department of the University of Louisiana. Though the genealogy of the institution is somewhat confusing, this eventually became the Tulane University School of Medicine.

AD and Georgia moved north from Bienville, Louisiana to the southwest corner of Arkansas, into what is now Nevada County. There, Dr. Wren practiced medicine and was a successful planter as well. Dr. Wren and Georgia also had nine children:

  1. Savannah Wren, born 1867, died as an infant
  2. Alonzo George “Lonnie” Wren, born 1868
  3. Edgar E. Wren, born 1870, died as a young boy
  4. Willard Watson Wren, born 1873
  5. Maggie May Wren, born 1877
  6. Sam Scott Wren, born 1879
  7. Carrie Camilla Wren, born 1882
  8. Alline Arneta Wren, born 1884, died as an infant
  9. Mattie Fred Wren, born 1887, died as an infant

These two brothers were the progenitors of the “Louisiana Wrens” and the “Arkansas Wrens”. As the years went by, Alonzo Dossey Wren died in 1916; Georgia Vickers Wren died in 1941. George Lovick Pierce Wren died in 1901; Ellen Carr Wren died in 1941.

A few years after all GLP, Ellen, AD, and Georgia had died, the children and grandchildren started a tradition that continues today. The descendants of these two brothers, the Louisiana Wrens and the Arkansas Wrens, started an annual family reunion. The first was held in 1948 at Caney Lake in northwest Louisiana, near Minden. The first to be held in Arkansas was held in August 1949.

Shreveport Journal (L), 23 Jun3 1948
Shreveport Times (R), 22 June 1948

1949 Wren Reunion
Prescott, Arkansas

  1. Floyd Wren (son of GLP)
  2. Ava Wren (daughter of GLP)
  3. Marcus D. Wren (son of GLP)
  4. Carrie Wren Woodul (dau. of AD)
  5. Lovick Wren (son of GLP)

Reunions have alternated each year between Louisiana and Arkansas even until today. The 2025 Wren Reunion was just held the first weekend of June in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

For the early reunions, some of the children of GLP and AD Wren were in attendance. But over time, this generation passed on. “Aunt Carrie” Wren Woodul, the last surviving child of Dr. Wren, died in 1977. Dr. Floyd Wren, the last surviving child of GLP Wren, died in 1967. When I was a child, a number of grandchildren of GLP and AD Wren were in attendance, but today, even they are all gone. But the next generations continue to meet every year for fun and fellowship and to remember the stories.

I think the Wren Reunion is pretty typical of other families. There is a short program where each branch of the family recounts their history and connection, along with births and deaths and marriages since the last meeting. Attendees will all introduce themselves and share how they fit in. Then we eat! The spread at a family reunion always brings out the best! And then we settle in to visit. Genealogists among us share discoveries. But mostly we connect as family.

Truthfully, I had not realized that the Wren Reunion was still going on until a few years ago. I think I last attended in the early 1970s, just over fifty years ago. As an adult, I completely lost track. But a cousin, one of the Louisiana Wrens, who is the keeper of the records for that family contacted me. These last two years I have not been able to attend, but I really hope to attend this next reunion, to renew the connections with the rest of this family. I am so excited and looking forward to that!

Family reunions can be such a powerful way to remember who we are and to remember our history. They are a great way to continue the connections with the family. After being the part of a number of reunions that have withered away, I know that it’s hard to keep up the connections and requires a lot of work. Some core group has to make the reunion and keeping in touch with family a priority. But for a reunion to continue, there have to be more than organizers. There have to be people of all generations – from the oldest to the youngest – to attend. And that is so hard when people move away and migrate all around the country and the world. Life gets in the way. It gets expensive to travel. Time off of work is very limited. So, for many, the decision to travel for the reunion is hard.

I think it’s worth it, though. Look around the branches of your tree. Even if it’s a link to great-great-grandparents, try to find a reunion and invite yourself if you have to. I bet you will be warmly welcomed and treated like the “long-lost family” that you really are.

P.S. I am hoping that my Wren cousins will fact-check this post and share more photos and details with me. My information on the GLP Wren line is sketchy. I do have a lot of Wren photos I can share, including many from past reunions. Toss a comment on this blog or email me and we can connect.

As Gomer would say, “Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!”

52 Ancestors Week 21 – Military

Well, this week certainly didn’t pan out like I expected! I started out thinking I would ask you all questions about how to track the military service and whether I had adequately researched it for my ancestors. I was just frustrated when I had no service listed not knowing whether they never served or I had never looked. Likewise when I found a draft card but had no service recorded. Did they get drafted or enlist or not?

So, to get ready for that, I collected a list of the male direct line ancestors (I have not found any female direct line ancestors who have served to date) and started looking at their service.

Then, it occurred to me that this is Memorial Day weekend, a date where we commemorate all fallen military members. But it began with honoring those who died in the Civil War.

That lead me to focus on my Civil War-era ancestors. Many of them served the entire war. Growing up and living in the south, as did my parents and their parents, and their parents, for generations, almost all of my ancestors who served in the Civil War enlisted in the Confederate Army. I don’t plan to talk about the good or the bad of that right now. As some say, “It is what it is.” There a few, especially in Arkansas, that enlisted in the US Army once they were able.

I have also been finding that AI tools are really useful for summarizing data and collecting information about social context.

I decided to ask Perplexity.ai about this. I get a free account through my cable provider and I have made great use of it. One by one, I started asking Perplexity about the actions of the units my ancestors served in. It told me all sorts of things about the major and minor battles that each would have participated in. Absolutely fascinating!

I expanded my list to include collateral ancestors as well – the brothers and brothers-in-law of my direct ancestors. That was even more interesting. Below is a table that Perplexity created for me.

I asked Perplexity, “Below is a list my direct and collateral ancestors who served in the Civil War with their name, relationship to me, unit, enlistment date, and end of service date. Can you produce a table of key actions of each of their units along with which participated and for which side? I envision this to show the battle or action, when it was, which ancestors participated for the north, and which participated for the south.” And in return, I got the following table:

Civil War Ancestor Unit Engagements

Battle/ActionDateConfederate AncestorsUnion Ancestors
First Manassas (Bull Run)July 21, 1861Thomas Jefferson Garner (5th SC),
John W. Hudson (7th GA),
John William Gann (7th GA),
George Lovick Pierce Wren (8th LA)		–
ShilohApril 6–7, 1862Alonzo Dossey Wren (19th LA), John Frederick Patterson (1st MS Artillery)–
Seven Days BattlesJune–July 1862John W. Hudson (7th GA),
John William Gann (7th GA),
George Lovick Pierce Wren (8th LA)		–
AntietamSeptember 17, 1862John W. Hudson (7th GA)–
CorinthOctober 1862John H. Dickson (33rd MS),
John Walker Deshazo (33rd MS),
Robert B. Dickson (2nd MS)		–
FredericksburgDecember 13, 1862Welcome Ussery Almand (15th GA), Wilson C. Carter (42nd GA)–
ChancellorsvilleMay 1–4, 1863Welcome Ussery Almand (15th GA), Wilson C. Carter (42nd GA)–
Vicksburg CampaignMay–July 1863Bennett S. Almand (56th GA) – captured/paroled July 1863;
John Frederick Patterson (1st MS Artillery)		–
GettysburgJuly 1–3, 1863John W. Hudson (7th GA)–
ChickamaugaSeptember 19–20, 1863Alonzo Dossey Wren (19th LA)–
Prairie D’Ane (Moscow)April 9–13, 1864–Milton A. Hames (3rd AR Cavalry), Rufus Alexander Bailey (3rd AR Cavalry), John Richard Page (3rd AR Cavalry)
Atlanta CampaignMay–July 1864John H. Dickson (33rd MS),
John Walker Deshazo (33rd MS),
Alonzo Dossey Wren (19th LA),
Wilson C. Carter (42nd GA),
Berry Tillman Lane (40th GA)		Faver Cason (5th TN Cavalry), James Isaac Council (1st AR Cavalry)
Peachtree CreekJuly 20, 1864John H. Dickson (33rd MS),
John Walker Deshazo (33rd MS)		–
FranklinNovember 30, 1864John H. Dickson (33rd MS),
John Walker Deshazo (33rd MS)		–
NashvilleDecember 15–16, 1864John H. Dickson (33rd MS),
John Walker Deshazo (33rd MS)		–
Appomattox SurrenderApril 9, 1865John W. Hudson (7th GA),
Thomas Jefferson Garner (5th SC), George Lovick Pierce Wren (8th LA)		–
Carolinas CampaignFebruary–April 1865John H. Dickson (33rd MS),
John Walker Deshazo (33rd MS)		–
Civil War Ancestors and their Battles

On its surface, this is fascinating. It would have taken me a long time to collect and correlate all of that data. But there were a couple of things that particularly jumped out to me.

Milton A. Hames, my great-great-grandfather, enlisted in the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry of the U.S. Army in November 1863. When I asked Perplexity about his unit’s actions, it told me that he was part of the Red River Campaign and specifically in the Camden Expedition into southwest Arkansas in the spring of 1864.

That action included a relatively minor and unknown battle called the Battle of Prairie D’Ane (Union name) or the Battle of Moscow Church (Confederate name) that took place April 9-12, 1864. This battle took place in what is now Nevada County, Arkansas. In fact, it took place on the land where my mother’s father grew up and where I roamed the pastures (when the scary cows were not there) and the fields many, many times through the years.

I was absolutely gobsmacked to hear about this!

Milton A. Hames was born in 1839 in Union County, South Carolina. By the time he was about 12, his family had moved to Yell County, Arkansas. In 1861, he married Eliza Lavona Huckaby and they had perhaps as many as fifteen children, including Florence Magdalene Hames, my great-great-grandmother.

Isaac “Ike” G. Garner, Florence Magdalene Hames, and two grandsons

In November 1863, Milton Hames enlisted in the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry. Arkansas was a tough place to be during the Civil War. There were Confederate raiders and guerilla activity through out the state. There were also strong pro-Union sentiments that led to many civilians being caught in the crossfire of the conflicts. When this unit was organized, 300 men from Yell County answered the call and joined up. This unit was tasked with putting down the guerilla raids, protecting pro-Union citizens, protecting their property, patrolling and securing the region. They also were called for broader action with their parent units eventually.

By April of 1864, Milton’s unit had been called into the broader war and was a part of General Steele’s campaign through the Red River region. The Red River forms the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas, flows through southwest Arkansas, and ultimately into northwest Louisiana. Steele was making his way across this part of Arkansas with Camden as his destination. For three days, Confederate forces and General Steele’s forces maneuvered around each other and fired artillery at each other. Ultimately, the Confederates were forced to withdraw and Steele continued is way to Camden.

Someone left stuff behind, though. Like I said, this battlefield became the farm where my grandfather and his family lived. I have a Confederate Cavalry saber that was plowed up around the turn of the 20th century. I used to have (until my brother borrowed it) a cannon shell from the battle. And I have a number of minnie balls from the battle. I also have a Civil War-era penny that my grandfather found on the battlefield when he was a child.

It’s really fascinating that my father’s ancestor fought a battle on a piece of land that would be part of my mother’s family property years later, and that we all loved to visit.

By as Ron Popeil would say, “That’s not all!”

In the table that Perplexity gave me, one of the few places where I had ancestors on both sides of the battle was in the Atlanta Campaign. Now, we just moved to South Carolina after living in the Atlanta area for 28 years, so this hit close to home. I asked Perplexity to tell me more. I asked Perplexity, “I wonder if you could go a little deeper specifically into the actions of these units in the Atlanta campaign and whether any of these ancestors would have opposed each other. Also were any of these ancestors involved in actions around present day Roswell, Georgia?”

And it told me a lot. But the really key part was what it said about Roswell.

3rd Arkansas Cavalry (Milton A. Hames, Rufus Alexander Bailey, John Richard Page)

  • Role: Conducted raids on Confederate supply lines in northern Georgia. Supported Sherman’s flanking maneuvers during the Atlanta Campaign.
  • Roswell, GA: Part of General Kenner Garrard’s cavalry, which occupied Roswell on July 5, 1864, and destroyed its mills. The unit likely participated in the deportation of Roswell mill workers to Marietta

Say what?! Milton Hames, Ruf Bailey, and John Page were part of the Roswell Mills Deportation?!

Our 28 years in the Atlanta area were in Roswell. We have heard of the deportation for years. We drove past the Roswell Mill site multiple times per week. This is amazing.

Ruins of the Roswell Mills

During the Civil War, Roswell and the Roswell Mills were one of the key production sites for fabric needed for the war effort – especially the Confederate gray uniforms. In July 1864, Union forces, including the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry, participated in the occupation of Roswell. When the owners and operators of the mills refused to surrender, Sherman ordered the mills to be burned and deported the 400+ mill workers (mostly women and children) to the north. The details of this are legendary. They say that they took them by wagon to Marietta and put them on the train, telling the engineer to take them north and essentially abandon them in Indiana. You can find out more in the Georgia Encyclopedia and this great post in Lost History: The Roswell Mill Workers 1

So, Milton Hames (my great-great-great-grandfather), Rufus Bailey (brother of my great-great-grandfather Hume Field Bailey), and John Richard Page (brother of my great-great-great-grandmother Lucina Page Garner) were all intricately tied to places and actions that were important to my life some 160 years later is fascinating. That’s the kind of connection that makes it so valuable to know your family and know your history, so that you can have a better idea how you fit into it and how you are just one more step in a long line of people and lives.

It makes me want to go do some more research!

  1. Dillman, Caroline. “Deportation of Roswell Mill Women.” New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Aug 20, 2013. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/deportation-of-roswell-mill-women/ and
    Mercer, Gordon. “Lost History: The Roswell Mill Workers.” https://patch.com/georgia/peachtreecorners/bp–lost-history-the-roswell-mill-workers-65bedd03
    ↩︎

Robert at the Wheel

52 Ancestors Week 20 – Wheel

Robert Harrison Dickson was a street car motorman, guiding street car #21 of the Fort Smith Light & Traction company along his route for sixteen years. He started with the street car line in 1917 and continued until it made its final run in 1933. I guess you could say that he was “at the wheel” this whole time, but it was more like he was “at the stick”. In any case, his work as a motorman was something I heard about frequently from both my granddad and my dad.

Fort Smith, Arkansas was on the edge of the real Wild West. It sat on the western edge of Arkansas. Beyond it was the Indian Territory. It was the land of Judge Isaac Parker, the Hanging Judge during the 1800s. By 1883, though, the city had grown to the point that people needed reliable public transportation and mule-drawn streetcar service began. Electric street cars began operation in 1893, but these were open cars that could be cold in the winter, wet in the rain, and not the best way to travel, especially for the motorman who was always exposed to the weather.

The two main streetcar companies in Fort Smith combined in 1903. By 1911, enclosed streetcars under the logo of Fort Smith Light & Traction Company (FSL&T) were able to deliver year-round service. Starting in 1920, the Birney Safety Car, which was lighter and safer with better control than its predecessors, was introduced to Fort Smith.

Robert H. Dickson, Sr., Motorman, FSL&T

At the peak of its business, the FSL&T ran more than 30 miles of track around Fort Smith and even across the Arkansas River bridge to Van Buren, Arkansas and across a different Arkansas River bridge to a ballpark in Arkoma, Oklahoma. But between the explosive growth of the car culture and the Great Depression, the street car was doomed. By the end of 1933, the FSL&T had closed its doors and liquidated all of its rolling stock. The rails were pulled up and there was no turning back.

That seems to be the case in a lot of cities where people ask “Why don’t we have streetcars anymore?” The same story played out all over the country. Buses and cars took over, rails were pulled up, power lines were removed. And it’s not practical to bring all of that back.

What about being at the wheel, though? I never really thought much about what it took to be a motorman on a streetcar. Most of these cars, even after unionization, eventually became one-man cars, where the motorman acted as driver and as conductor. That meant he had to manage passengers, make sure they paid, keep folks in line, and get the streetcar safely from place to place. And that wasn’t that simple.

The streetcars were electrical, supplied with power by overhead wires carrying high-voltage direct current, generally at 600V DC. The streetcar would have a pole on its roof that could be raised and lowered to make contact with the overhead wire. When the boom connected with the power, the circuit would be grounded through the metal wheels on metal rails making it safe to board and exit the car.

Think back to shop class, or to physics class, to recall how electrical motors and devices can work and how they are wired. The system was built so that banks of resistors could be engaged or disengaged from the circuit to determine how much current was directed to the motors, and therefore how much power it would generate. Additionally, controls could switch from having the motors wired in series (to provide more torque for starting or to run at lower speed and help with braking) or in parallel for increased speed and efficiency, at the expense of torque.

The motorman had a control with a large handle that could be moved through several positions, each one bypassing more of the resistors and allowing more current to the motor and increasing the speed. Additionally, he could switch from series to parallel wiring for the motors. He had a separate control for the air brakes so that he could stop the car safely.

So, while steering might not have been a big requirement of driving a streetcar, power management was. He had to make sure he had enough speed and power for hills, but not so much to make curves dangerous. He had to manage power to the motors and control the brakes to make it through his route safely and on time. All of that while taking fares, starting, stopping, watching signals, operating switches, and keeping everyone on the car in order.

So, there was a lot going on. By the start of the 1920s, given the level of skill required to be a good motorman, it was generally regarded as a skilled job and was a stable, desirable, well-paying position. Unionization had helped this to a great degree. Motormen for the FSL&T were represented by the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America. Why does it seem like unions always have such long names?

Granddad (Robert Harrison Dickson, Jr.) said that his dad was a good and respected motorman. He had worked on the railroad before coming to the streetcar and knew the seriousness of working around heavy equipment and high-voltage power. So, he did not allow monkey-business on his car.

Robert ran his car on the Eleventh Street and Van Buren Line. His run would take him from “Texas Corner” at the foot of Garrison Avenue and 11th St, pretty much out Midland Blvd., across the bridge to Van Buren, down Main Street, and ending near the zinc smelter about a mile and a half east of downtown Van Buren. The whole route was about 6 3/4 miles each way.

Granddad said that even though he often rode along with his dad, he was never allowed to touch the controls. That is, until the last run on November 15, 1933, the day Fort Smith Light & Traction Company closed its doors. On that last run, heading back to the streetcar barn, Granddad said that his dad let him drive the streetcar through the main streets of Fort Smith. He said, “What are they going to do? Fire me?” And with that, Robert’s time at the wheel as a motorman came to an end. The last streetcars ran on 15 November 1933. On 16 November 1933, the Twin City Coach Company began bus service along many of the former streetcar lines.

Motormen and Conductors, Fort Smith Light & Traction Company

What came next for Robert? He opened a shoe repair store, but that’s another story altogether.

My First Research Trip

52 Ancestors Week 19 – At the Library

I know this is cheating, but I am going to share a rerun this week plus a quick story about a trip to the big Library.

A couple of years ago, we had this same prompt and even then I didn’t have a great story to tell. So, here’s a summer rerun of my At the Library story from a few years back. You can find it at At the Library – 2019.

I do want to share another quick story about the library. I am late getting this written down. This prompt came the week of Mother’s Day. My Mom died in October 2023, so I was naturally thinking about her during that week.

Mom and I used to sort of collaborate on research. She refused to work on her own family because I started research years before she really did. She said I had already done everything in her family that wasn’t next to impossible. I think she was right since I’ve made little progress in her family in years. So she focused on my stepdad’s family. As far as I was concerned, she took the harder path. His father’s family was from Germany, Prussia, and reputedly Switzerland and is really hard. Her family was all early colonial settlers to the American Colonies, so records were all here and all in English (if they existed).

Anyway, it must have been thirty years ago. I don’t really even recall when we did this. I know it was before I was married. These were the days of paper notebooks, ordering films to be sent to your local Family History Center, writing letters, and generally doing everything the old fashioned, hard way.

Mom and I decided to take a vacation and go out to Salt Lake City and spend a week researching in the Family History Library, as it was called then. We booked our flights. We booked a hotel and rented a car. We made research plans, scouring the FHL catalog for what films and books we needed to access.

Back in those days, you had to use a CDROM version of the library catalog. You could use this at a Family History Center or you could purchase your own. I had a laptop from work, so I bought my own to use at home.

So, the big day for the trip comes and we were ready. I can’t recall whether we flew together or whether we just met in SLC, but we got there. We went out for a nice dinner and made our plans for the next day, our first real research day at the Family History Center. The largest genealogical library in the world. The place where we could find “all the answers”. The place where you did not have to wait two weeks between films or pay $3 each to get them.

That’s when we discovered we had different expectations, so to speak, about our week. Mom suggested we get together the next morning for breakfast, head over to the library for a while, have a nice lunch, work for a few more hours after lunch, and have a nice evening.

I had other assumptions. I assumed that since the library was open from 7:00am until 9:00pm (or later on some days), that that was where we ought to be. We came all this way to research, so let’s get cracking! There were vending machines in the break room with a fine assortment of crackers and week-old tuna sandwiches, so we were set!

We had a little compromising to do in order to have a fun trip. So, we spent some long days. But we also took time to just do fun stuff with the two of us.

We heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing in the Tabernacle (I think it was an open rehearsal). We drove out to see the mountains. We saw a huge open-pit copper mine.

And we knocked out a lot of research. I still think I was able to go through enough microfilm reels to more than make up for the cost of the trip, so I was satisfied. Mom made a bit of progress but also helped me.

And we had a fantastic trip together. We had special time with just the two of us.

I can’t recall doing many other trips with just Mom and me. But Dad and I do them pretty regularly. I really think this is a great thing. We did stuff with just the two of us when I was young and now that neither of us is young any more, we keep doing it. We do different sorts of things than he does with my little brother since we have different interests and different intersections of interests. But it’s always special time.

At The Library time doesn’t always have to be about research. After all, this whole point of what we do is about family. And that kind of time is more special than any other.

Retired Sailors on the Beach

52 Ancestors Week 18 – Institutions

Pappy Frazer was practically an institution, himself. He had been in Memphis forever and his family had been there even longer. His grandfather was the attorney general for Memphis before the Civil War. His family was intertwined with the leading families of the city.

Favre Cason Frazer was born on 29 September 1896 in Alma, Crawford County, Arkansas. His mother, Mary Faver Cason, was the sister to my great-grandmother, Lida Cason. As it turns out, the two sisters and their families both lived in Alma at the same time. Before too long, Mary and her family moved to Memphis and became a real part of the community.

The only photo I have of Favre Frazer. Lida Higgs Lee, Favre Cason Frazer, Tom Finney, Bettie Higgs Finney

Growing up in northwest Arkansas, it was only natural for Favre to dream of going to sea, especially give his daily experience of the ocean. So, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1914 at the age of 18 and set out to proudly serve his country. Truthfully, I have no idea what drew him to the Navy. I recently heard a radio show talking about President James A. Garfield and the fact that he went to sea from his home in Ohio after reading pirate stories. So, who knows.

Favre sailed the world and served through all of World War I. After the war, he re-enlisted and the Navy became his career. He sailed the world and had souvenirs of far away posts like Manila and Shanghai in the 1910s and 1920s.

He finished out the last few years of his enlistment as Chief Pharmacist Mate attached to the Marine hospital in Shanghai, China. A Chief Pharmacist Mate was the same grade as a Chief Warrant Officer was responsible for the orderly operation of the hospital. In 1937, after twenty-three years, he retired back to his family’s home town of Memphis.

But that didn’t last long. In 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland, he re-enlisted in the Navy, feeling certain that it was only a matter of time before the U.S. was drawn into the war. He served throughout World War II until he finally retired in 1946, again, to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

Favre loved to tell stories. Stories about his time traveling the world. Stories about his sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews. Stories about his ancestors. Stories about just about anything at all. I have two cassettes recorded in the early 1970s when my grandparents (he was my grandmother’s first cousin) invited him over and hoped he would tell some good family stories about the ancestors. But that day, he was mostly talking about his sisters.

Interview with Favre C. Frazer, Commercial Appeal, 11 Dec 19751

I never got to meet Favre. By the time I came around and would have been able to sit still to listen to his stories, he had moved to the institution that is really the subject of this little story.

After living on his own in his apartment since his retirement, never having married, I am sure it took a lot for Favre to decide it was time to move to somewhere that could provide him a bit more support as he got older. So, he moved to the U.S. Naval Home in Gulfport, Mississippi.

The U.S. Naval Home in Gulfport had origins all the way back to the earliest days of this country’s founding, when legislation was passed to establish a home for sailors who needed a place when they got older or were disabled.2 Originally located on an estate near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the home moved to Gulfport, Mississippi in 1976.3 For most of its history, funding for the Naval Home came from a small contribution from the paychecks of every active sailor in the Navy, as well as from fines and forfeitures from sailors’ disciplinary actions. Proceeds from the sales of prizes of war also went into this Pension Fund. Now, funding also includes monthly payments from the residents.4

This new location was a beautiful place. A new, 11-story tower with over 500 apartments providing independent-living for sailors was built on 44 oceanfront acres previously occupied by the Gulf Coast Military Academy. If you were to drive along the beachfront in Gulfport, you could hardly miss this institution. There were plenty of amenities – a swimming pool, a greenhouse, on-site medical care, entertainment, and plenty of green space.

And then, right across the street was the Gulf of Mexico and the beach. What a beautiful view! The lawn had an unobstructed view of the wide sugar-sand beach. I have driven past the home and it’s in a prime location. These old sailors could hardly have wanted a better location.5

Rather than catering to the higher ranks of the military, the U.S. Naval Home and its successors focused on the enlisted ranks. Career military personnel have priority. Enlisted, Warrant Officers, and Limited Duty Officers with a minimum of twenty years of service at age 60, veterans incapable of earning a livelihood because of a service-connected disability incurred in the line of duty, veterans who served in a War Zone or Hostile Fire Zone and are later found to be incapable of earning a livelihood, and women veterans who served before 12 June 1948, may be eligible.6

All of this led to the Naval Home being exactly the sort of place where Pappy would want to live out his years, among people with whom he reminisce, share stories, experiences, and tall tales of all the places they had been and things they had seen.

Pappy died 6 Nov 1987. After a memorial at the Naval Home, he was returned to Memphis for his funeral and burial in the Elmwood Cemetery.7

But that was not the end of the story for the U.S. Naval Home. In 1990, Congress created a new institution, the Armed Forces Retirement Home, which combined the Naval Home in Gulfport with the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C. into a single agency.8

In August 2005, the U.S. Naval Home was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Residents had been evacuated but the building felt the destructive power of the hurricane in its oceanfront location. In 2007, after studies into what the fate of the institution should be, it was determined that it would be more cost effective to demolish and rebuild a new Naval Home than to repair and update the building to modern standards. (The 1976 facility, for example, had shared bathroom facilities and very small rooms. The new facility provided a sitting area and private bath for each resident.)9

The new Armed Forces Retirement Home – Gulfport (AFRH-G) opened its doors in October 2010 and continues today as an institution that Pappy would be proud of.

  1. “Navy Experience Served Him Well,” The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee), 11 December 1975, interview with F.C. Frazer; Newspapers.com (http://newspapers.com : accessed 2 May 2025). ↩︎
  2. https://www.afrh.gov/locations/afrh-g-history ↩︎
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_Retirement_Home ↩︎
  4. https://web.archive.org/web/20061029202733/http://www.gulfcoastnews.com/GCNnewsAFRHtobeDemolished.htm ↩︎
  5. https://www.afrh.gov/gulfport ↩︎
  6. “Welcome to Armed Forces Retirement Homes”. Armed Forces Retirement Home. Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. Retrieved October 30, 2012. ↩︎
  7. “Obituaries,” obituary, Sun Herald (Gulfport, Mississippi), 10 November 1987, obituary of Favre C. Frazer; Newspapers.com (http://newspapers.com : accessed 2 May 2025). ↩︎
  8. https://www.afrh.gov/sites/default/files/Gulfport-Resident-Guide-2023-Final-Draft.pdf ↩︎
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20061029203344/http://www.gulfcoastnews.com/GCNspecialReportNavalHome.htm ↩︎

All That Glitters Might Be Mud

52 Ancestors Week 15 – Big Mistake

“Go West, young man!”, urged Horace Greeley. Able-bodied, ambitious, brave, adventurous young men were encouraged to head west to find adventure, riches, and to help America meet its destiny in the settlement of the West.

I am certain that my great-grandfather, Hume Field Bailey’s, younger brother, Sam, heard of the discovery of GOLD in California on the American River in 1848 and caught the fever. But, he was only 13 years old and not able to head west from his home in Pope County, Arkansas.

Samuel W. Bailey was born 17 February 1835 in Kentucky, not long before his family headed to Arkansas. By February 1837, the Bailey family was living in Galla Rock in Pope County, Arkansas – Francis Baker Bailey and his wife Evalina Belmont (Hill) Bailey and most of their twelve children. Sam was the ninth of the twelve children, all but one of whom amazingly lived to adulthood.

Adventure must have been in the Bailey blood. The two oldest sons, John H. Bailey and Robert M. Bailey, appear to have paused in Arkansas only long enough to rest a spell before continuing on to Texas, where they received headright grants in the Republic of Texas. Not too many years later, they were joined in Texas (by now a State) by their brothers Richard A. Bailey and Otway Licepious Bailey.

I suspect that as his brothers were heading to Texas, Sam kept thinking about the gold in California. Around the time he turned eighteen, he headed west himself, to the gold fields of California. He had saved up enough money to get him there and to get the supplies he thought he would need. And when the time was right, west he went.

I don’t know anything about his trip. I don’t know if he took the overland route or whether he took a ship. I suspect it was overland, beginning his journey in Arkansas. I don’t know how long it took, when he left, when he got to California or any of the other details. I just know that he set out and was apparently excited and filled with an appetite for adventure and searching for easy riches.

What I do know is that it did not turn out like he expected.

In my trove of Bailey ephemera, I have three letters that he wrote home from the gold fields. Unlike most of my original Bailey documents, these are photocopies of letters held by other parts of the family. Nonetheless, they are fascinating and I want to share them here:

Bear River, May the 28, 1858

Bear River Cal. May the 28. 1858 

Dear Brother I am happy to  say that I am well and have bin except a rising on my left hand which give me great pain I was not able to do any work with it for two months I had to pay six dollars a week for board which set me back very mutch but I have a good place to work know and have a little a head again I receive a letter from Tom a few days since for the second and I have rote a dozen It apiers like you all have forgot me intirely I dont want you to think I am so takeing with the Country that I will never come back for I had rather be at Home to day if I was fixed like I was when I left I can make money hear but it is hard to ceap any I did not stay with Mr Williamson but two months He conclude he could get along without me as the cattle was not hard to ceap I am almost a man I have gained ten pouns since I left home Times is very dull for a gold Country but thar is a grea excitement up about Frazors river on vancouvers ylant thar is hundreds a leaving every Steamer but I think it is all al humbug Stock is a good prise except horses  good cows is 75 dollars sheep 4 dollars beef twenty five cts bacon 25 cts I have not heard any thing from Robert yet if you find out whare his Postofis is you must let me no Tom said in his letter that you was dissatisfied and trying to sell out to move if you hant I think you had better not althou you ought to no best but I think you are mistaken this time tell Roof and Frank Whitney to write to me and give me the perticlars about the Girls and things in general I cant write again you all this will do you both you must let me hear from that boy of yours often direct your leter Nicolaus Suter Co I will be at home next Spring I would like to see you al very mutch for it appiers like I have bin gon five long years now 

       your affectionate Brother 

           S. W. Bailey 

Bear River Cal June the 18th 1858

Bear River Cal June 18 1858 

Dear Brother I had the pleasure of reading your letter to day which give me the most sattisfaction of any that I have received yet I could not help shedding tears when I was reading it for it made me think of oldtimes I am well and getting along tolerable well at this time I can make more here than I could thar if I could only have good negro luck but thar is something to keep it near bout as fast as I can make it I found out that old pope was the best place before now it would of bin better for me if I had never come I hope you will not be so foolish as I have bin if you run after excitement you will never have any thing you are well off now if you only new it and be satisfied in it the good place is ahead of yet New gold have bin found twelve hundred miles north of California on Frasiers river it is said to be better than California ever was but we have no correct news yet but men are going every day it is said there is hundreds at the mouth of the river that ant got money to go on nor com back and have to live on mussels and clams Times is pretty good here now crops are very good and there is a great deal of harvesting to do the weather is very warm but I can set and look around at the tops of the mountains white with snow I have not heard any thing from Robert Henderson was well the last I heard from him he is living about a hundred miles a bove me Miller and Jack is with him I will be at home earley next spring if I only have anuf to fetch me I would give any thing to be with you all one night I no it would be a great satisfaction to us all give my love to all at home and to all the Girls and the boys around 

address your letter to Nicolaus Suter Co 

your affectionate Brothe 
Sam W Bailey 

Nicolaus Can August 28 1858

Nicolaus Cal August 28 1858 

Dear Brother I received your letter of May the 20 a few days since which give me new life to hear from sweet old Pope and know that you all was getting along so well I am well and in good spirits as any one Could be to be in such a wild and lonsom Cuntry as I am I do not want you to think that I am never Coming home thar is no place like home but I cant come as I should like so I will tuf it out a while longer Crops are only tolable good flour is worth five dollars a hundred bacon twenty five cts pr pown eggs fifty cts a dozen chickens fifty cts I would give you a full discription of this Cuntry if I thought you could understan it to be any satisfaction I have seen all nations of people hear and can hear from all parts of the world and I believe that Arkansas is the best of all I have not heard any thing from Robert yet if you will ask Mrs Menasco whare Elisha postofis is and let me no I will write to him and find out whar Robert is I have wrote to Dock three times and no answer yet I hate to send blank paper so far but I no nothing that would be interesting I sometimes amagin that I can see you all I have not forgot how the old place looks and the old river Give my love to all and except the same from your affectionate Brother 

Sam W Bailey 

address your letter to Nicolaus Sutter Co 

It sounds like Sam didn’t find what he was looking for. Through the summer of 1858, Sam Bailey sounded more and more homesick. I don’t know for sure when he headed west, but in August, he talks about it being five years since he was home in Arkansas. It seems like the trip to the gold fields was, for him, a big mistake and something that he regretted.

Was that because he was lonely and having a hard time in the moment or was that the culmination of five years of hard work with nothing to show for it? The telling passage to me was

old pope was the best place before now it would of bin better for me if I had never come I hope you will not be so foolish as I have bin if you run after excitement you will never have any thing you are well off now if you only new it

Sam W. Bailey

I suppose he must have saved up “anuf to fetch me.” I don’t know if he made it by the spring of 1859 like he hoped, but he made it home by the spring of 1860. In June of 1860, we find Sam at home with his brother, Hume, and his wife Amanda, working on their farm.

I am not so certain, though, that Sam learned from his mistakes. I have not been able to find any other signs of him after that 1860 Census. I recall, though I have not found again, a reference in another letter to him heading to Colorado in search of silver years later. I don’t know whether he did nor not. That’s the trouble with the adventurers – they are really hard to track down. If he did go, I hope he didn’t regret that, too. If he didn’t go, I hope he didn’t regret not taking another shot at adventure.

Two Quick Family Stories

52 Ancestors Week 14 – Language

This week, I want to share two little stories about my great-great-grandparents, Rev. Jeremiah H. Cason and Bettie (Cooper) Cason. You may recall other stories about them. They were early Baptist missionaries to the Yoruba Country in Africa and lived and interesting life.

In 1856, Jere and Bettie traveled from Wilson County, Tennessee to the Yoruba Country, today’s Nigeria, as missionaries with the Baptist Foreign Missions Board. They hoped to spend at least two years in the field, but Bettie’s health failed and they had to come home early. On their return, they stayed in Tennessee for a few years and then moved on west, across Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and ultimately to Texas, where Bettie died in 1901.

The late 19th century was the era of the traveling circus. They would arrive in town on a special train with cars set aside for the tents, the seats, and all of the exotic animals. There were also strange and exotic people and things to see as a part of the circus. The times being what they were, the sideshows would always have amazing and unusual people and animals that you could see if you stepped up and bought a ticket. You could see the tallest man, the fattest person, the world’s biggest alligator. People might amaze you with the things they could to: the strongest man, the sword swallower, the glass eater, and many others.

There were also people from exotic places that might be on display. You could see “strange and savage tribes” from around the world..

Once, when Jere and Bettie were living in west Texas, so my grandmother told me, the circus came to town. Bettie and Jere went to see the sight since it was *the* thing to do in their small town.

Apparently, Bettie caused quite a stir in that small town and caused a lot of shocked looks, raise eyebrows, and surprised faces when she headed to the sideshow tent and started talking to the “Savages from Darkest Africa” in their own language. Little did her neighbors know that she had been a missionary and had lived among the Yoruba people and came to know and love them.

Long after she returned home, she had a chance to dig deep and recall a language that she had not heard in years and to share a few minutes of conversation with people from a place she knew. And I am sure she had a gleam in her eye as she watched people’s surprise at what she was doing.

My second little story is about Jere Cason, her husband. Jere was a Baptist preacher. He started preaching at 19 and preached for over 60 years until his death in 1915. He was a scholar and dug deeply to understand the Scriptures.

I have been teaching adult Sunday School for years. Once, I was preparing my lesson and thought that perhaps I might find some inspiration in the margins in Jere’s old Bible. I have the Bible that he had at his death. His daughter, Lida (Cason) Higgs, saved it and passed it to her daughter, who passed it to me. So, I went to take a look.

Many people underline passages in their Bible that are meaningful to them. Or they may add notes to help to recall a particular thought about a passage. Jere was not one to do a lot of writing in his Bible, at least not in the one that i have. I am sure he wore out a lot of Bibles that may have had more notes. But this one has very few.

Now and again, he would mark a passage not with an underline or an arrow, but by drawing a small hand pointing at the verse. But even these are few and far between. I knew that there were not a lot of notes in his Bible, but I hoped that perhaps there might be one

Sure enough, in the verse I was looking for was one of the few notes that I have found in his Bible. I was thrilled! What might I get from across the years to help me with my lesson?

Well, not as much as I had hoped. Looking more closely at the notation, the writing looked odd and hard to make out. Then I realized that my scholar-preacher great-great-grandfather’s note in this Bible was a word study in Greek! The note was literally in Greek! There are not a lot of notes in this Bible, but a lot of them are in Greek.

Language is funny. We find out in funny ways that our ancestors are more sophisticated and surprising than we might expect. From a “simple preacher’s wife” conversing with Yoruban tribes-people in their own language to an old-fashioned, fire and brimstone Baptist preacher making notes to himself in Greek in the margins of his Bible, we learn a lot about those before us. Just from this little bit, we can guess how important learning and education were to this family. And even to this day, education continues to be important in this family, making our living with writing in different ways.

I can’t speak or write in Greek and I can’t speak tribal languages of Africa. But I can certainly be excited to find out about my family who can!

Hoping for No Surprises

52 Ancestors Week 13 – Home Sweet Home

Years ago, when my wife and I purchased our first home, we bought a wonderful house in the Wexford subdivision in Roswell, GA. One of the cool things (to me, at least) about the house was that it was immediately adjacent to what appeared to be an old family cemetery. Now some folks would be put off by that, but not the family historian! Cemeteries are meant for researching.

The cemetery was enclosed in a wooden picket fence in the neighborhood common area and was about thirty feet square.

There was only a single stone, a large double stone. All that was legible on the stone were the words “Sacred to the Memory of Daniel and Ann Butler”. But my spidey senses were tingling. There is rarely “just one grave” in a cemetery like this, just because there is only one stone.

Since I had plans for some landscaping work along our driveway, the closest point to the cemetery, I thought it might be in my best interest to look into this a bit. I would hate to have any “surprises” as I set about planting shrubs or installing a fence!

The Wexford Subdivision is located in the northern part of Roswell, Georgia, in Fulton County. It is bounded on more or less its eastern side by Etris Rd, on the south by Hardscrabble Rd., and on the north by Kent Rd. Our home was located at the entrance to the neighborhood on Etris Rd. So, the cemetery was immediately at the corner of Etris Rd. and Magnolia Crescent Dr., behind a large, brick entry way that shielded it from view for most people. Few people in the neighborhood even realized that it was there.

So, starting with the names on the tombstone, I set out to find out more. I found that an older woman in my church was a granddaughter of William S. Etris of Etris Road, where the cemetery was located. She said that the Butlers farmed that land for a long time and that even after it was sold to its next owners, it was used as a family cemetery. She told me that when she was a young girl in the 1930s, there were about a dozen stones and around twenty graves, but that to the best of her memory, all of them were within the fenced area. That was good news! No landscape surprises for me!

She also said that the reason that there was only one stone now is that later owners took the grave stones and used them as weights in their plows, not having any attachment to the families buried there. That’s just cold! The remaining stone was too large to move or to use, I guess.

Still wanting to know more, off to the Archives I went (not much was actually on-line at that point.) I was able to find a bit about this family, when they came and when they went.

Daniel Butler, named on the tombstone1, does not appear in the 1880 or 1870 US Census of Milton Co, GA, however, he does appear in the 1860 and 1850 census. In 1860, Daniel is shown to be 63 years old and married to Elizabeth Butler, aged 66. He was born in GA, she in SC. Also in the house are Elizabeth Edwards, age 40, James J. Bradford, age 14, and Alice J. Bradford, aged 9.

Next door is the family of John Butler, age 35, born in GA, his wife Mary, aged 27, and children Robert, 11, Daniel, 8, John, 2, Prominius, 1, and Cornelius, 1.

In the 1850 Census of Cherokee Co (the county boundaries changed in the 1850’s), we find the same two families: Daniel Butler, age 50, and his wife Elizabeth Ann, age 54, and a Daniel, aged 12. Next door is John Butler, aged 29, wife Mary E., aged 18, and Robert M., aged 2.

Digging into county records at the GA State Department of Archives and History, I found a lot of land records and estate records for this couple. Searching first for estate records in Milton County sometime after 1860, but before 1900, I found the records of the settlement of the estate of Daniel Butler. In these records, we find that Daniel Butler died 6 Sept. 1878 and that John Butler was appointed temporary administrator of the estate. Later, a permanent administrator was appointed. Since we do not find John in the 1880 census, perhaps he has moved from the immediate area prior to or shortly following the death of Daniel.

We also find four instances of John Butler or his wife Mary E. Butler suing someone. From the plaintiffs of these suits, we might be able to guess a date of his death. Had John been alive, probably he would have brought suit rather than his wife. However, the records of the cases merely list the plaintiffs, defendants, and outcomes. This would be a place for further research.

Land records tell us a lot about the family. Daniel Butler drew lot 132, 2nd section, 23rd district of Cherokee Co in the 1832 GA Cherokee Land Lottery. Georgia, as you may recall, used a lottery system to distribute newly opened land to its citizens. Participants in the lottery would be entitled to a number of entries based on their status – male, female, single, married, with or without children, orphans, Revolutionary War veterans, etc.

Daniel Butler was a fortunate drawer and was able to purchase a land lot in the 1832 Cherokee Land Lottery. He went on to purchase additional lots in the area. Land lots in this district were 40 acre parcels. However, he did buy or sell in the following land transactions:

  • 1832 – Bought lot 132, 2nd section, 23rd district, Cherokee Co, 1832 Cherokee land lottery
  • 1835 – Bought lot 834, 2nd section, 15th district, Cherokee Co, Joel L. Terrell of Newton Co.
  • 1836 – Bought lot 1285, 2nd section, 2nd district, Cherokee Co, Hugh Pearce of Hall Co.
  • 1836 – Bought lot 205, 2nd section, 5th district, Gilmer Co, John Farmer. Drawn and granted to Elizabeth Farmer, 1832 Cherokee land lottery
  • 1836 – Bought lot 1236, 2nd section, Cherokee Co, John Farmer. Drawn and granted to Elizabeth Farmer, 1832 Cherokee land lottery
  • 1837 – Bought lot 1237, 2nd section, 2nd district, Cherokee Co, Jesse Hanson of Morgan Co
  • 1837 – Bought lot 753, 2nd section, 15th district, Cherokee Co, Elsberry Roberson of Upson Co.
  • 1836 – Bought lot 1286, 2nd section, 2nd district, Cherokee Co., James Ramsey
  • 1835 – Bought lot 762, 2nd section, 15th district, Cherokee Co, Crud M. Jennings of Walton Co.
  • 1835 – Sold lot 762 and lot 834 to Elisa Carley
  • 1837 – Sold lot 132 (Cherokee land lottery) to Joseph C. Pearson of Cass Co.
  • 1839 – Sold lot 753 to Benjamin F. Simpson of Cherokee Co.
  • 1880 – Daniel’s estate sold lots 1236, 1284, 1285

Lots 1236, 1237, 1284, 1285, 1286 make up most of the Wexford neighborhood and part of the adjacent Edenwilde neighborhood. Lot 834 is nearby, just a short distance down the road.

From this little bit of research, based on a single stone with no dates, we can surmise that Daniel Butler and his wife Ann bought this land as they were raising a young family. They grew their farm from its original 40 acres to close to 300 acres. Since the children do not appear in the area, we might guess that they moved elsewhere with their families for one reason or another. The Butlers held this land until their deaths. Daniel apparently died without a will since an Administrator was assigned for his estate. His son, acting as administrator, sold the land and the Butlers disappear from the local records.

A new family purchased this land. It passed through several hands until it was developed as a neighborhood starting in the 1980s. Finally, a nice home was built in 1992 adjacent to the little family cemetery where Daniel & Ann were remembered. In 1998, we made it our first Home, Sweet Home and lived there for 18 years. Ultimately, we moved on and a new young family moved in and started their family. Now, it’s Alex and Andi’s Home, Sweet Home.

And I guess that’s the way it goes with homes. There’s a story from before we got there and there’s a story after we are gone. While we are here, we do the best we can to make the next chapter a good one for ourselves and for those who come after us.

  1. Images from Find A Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39329579/daniel-butler ↩︎

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