It's all relative…
THE FLOOD
1828 versus 1875
Destruction and Devastation
“Water, water everywhere! There are few of our citizens who do not know of the extent to which the classic Wabash has, in past years, risen, and but few who have not felt the effects of it in a greater or lesser degree; but such an occurrence as the present rise – the magnitude of which has never been witnessed by any one living – claims more than just a passing notice. January and June freshets used to be looked for in times past, as regularly as those months came round, but for such a rise as the present to pour down upon us in August, is unprecedented and will probably never again be witnessed. The well-remembered rise of 1828 is no longer a data, as the rise of August, 1875, which reached its highest point last Tuesday, saw it and went twelve inches better. The flood of 1828 can now step down and out, and those old citizens who boasted of having seen the Wabash at such height as has never been reached since, and probably never before, will have to keep in the shade and yield to their descendants the “glory” they have themselves so long enjoyed. At this writing, Wednesday evening, or town is surrounded with water…”
Thomas John Hackathorn, my great-grandfather, was a boy of ten years old when his family was caught in the midst of this flood. You can read more about the family’s experience here in the week three posting of the 52 Ancestors Challenge. I am trying to imagine the destruction of the flood through the eyes of a boy and wonder if he was scared, or if he found it exciting, or perhaps a bit of both? It is a little difficult reconstructing Thomas’ life after the flood. We know that his father, Jacob, contracted smallpox and died within ten months of the flood. The oral history account of this time given by Thomas’ younger sibling, and only sister, Jennie, states that they were able to keep the family together after the flood, but what happened after the death of their father in June of 1876 is pretty much unknown.
As was mentioned in week three, Christian had remained in Kansas when the family started their journey back East after successive years of crop failures. James married the Ickes neighbor, Lyde in 1879. At the time of the 1880 census, we find James and Lyde living not too far from James’ mother, Mary, in Vigo County, Indiana. We also find Mary with two of her sons, Jacob and William. Silas is working as a farm hand and boarding there, also in Vigo County. But where are the three youngest children, including Thomas? Thomas, Crawford, and Elizabeth Jane (Jennie) are nowhere to be found. I have searched the 1880 census for years looking for some clue to where they might be. I looked for those children in the households of grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins in Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, West Virginia, and Ohio. I’ve undertaken what amounts to a door-to-door search in Vigo County, Indiana thinking that they might have been farmed out to neighbors. I’ve searched orphanages and asylums without finding a trace. I don’t know if, perhaps, they had been placed under some sort of guardianship after the death of their father or not because I have not found any documents or newspaper articles to that note. They just…disappeared.
This is not the first time that I’ve had problems finding this particular family. I have yet to find them in the 1870 census. After searching for many variants of the Hackathorn surname, including, but not limited to, Heckathorne, Hagglehorn, Hickenhorn, Hackleborn, Hakeltorn, and Headstrom (yes, indeed, Headstrom), I have convinced myself that the family was probably traveling in their covered wagon somewhere in Missouri or Kansas at the time of the census in 1870. What we have are about 30 years where we know almost nothing about where the family was living and what they were up to.
Thomas John Hackathorn was born on Sunday morning, 16 April 1865. It was Easter day and the nation was still in shock at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Just the week before, Lee had surrendered to Grant, the Civil War was winding down, and Jacob and Mary were itching to leave Ohio and try their fortune out West. In 1866 they began their westward trek with their older sons and year old Thomas in tow.
Until we can fill in the missing years after the flood in Indiana, we can pick up the siblings’ lives again when they have all reappeared back in Ohio – with the exception of James, who remained in Indiana. We know that, at least, William was back in Ohio when he married in 1884. Silas married in 1886. Widowed Christian was back in Ohio from Kansas and married in July of 1893. Jennie married in 1893 also, followed by Crawford in 1895, and Jacob in 1898. Thomas’ mother, Mary, passed away in Bergholz in December of 1896. Thomas John married Florence D. Paisley on 18 June 1893 in Jefferson County, Ohio.
Thomas and “Flora” were married just weeks shy of 24 years when Florence died in childbirth with her 15th child, who was born premature. Of their children, only nine survived to adulthood. After his wife’s death, their oldest daughter, Mary, 23 and a teacher, assumed the role of caring for the eight younger children. His entire adult life, Thomas had been a coal miner and, apparently, a moonshiner and bootlegger. Perhaps the rest of the family knew this fact, but I did not until a few years before my grandmother died. One Saturday we were at Grandma’s apartment because my son had to interview someone for a project at school. He chose his great-grandmother. I was sitting on a footstool glancing at a book and listening with half an ear (because I had already heard a lot of the stories) when my son asked what her father did and she revealed this little tidbit. Surprised is not the word for my reaction. I jumped up and said “Grandma, why haven’t you ever told us this before?” And she replied that it wasn’t something that you usually mention in polite company and how did we think that her father fed nine kids? Not from the coal mines…
It appears from talking with various cousins that the production of whiskey was something of a family affair and that there was most certainly a connection to the Whiskey Rebellion in Western, Pennsylvania. (But, that…is another story.)
Thomas died 25 April 1949 of a cerebral hemorrhage at 84 years of age. He is buried in the Bergholz Cemetery.
This is my Week #10 post for Amy Johnson Crow’s
52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Challenge.
The optional theme for this week was “Stormy Weather”.
SOURCES:
“Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1953,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-12456-7689-20?cc=1307272 : accessed 11 March 2015), 1949 > 22101-25300 > image 2399 of 3533
http://www.ushistory.org/us/34f.asp
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/appomattox-courthouse/appomattox-court-house-history/surrender.html
Year: 1880; Census Place: Sugar Creek, Vigo, Indiana; Roll: 318; Family History Film: 1254318; Page: 184A; Enumeration District: 199; Image: 0370
“The Flood.” New Harmony Register 14 Aug. 1875: 3. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
“Pleads Not Guilty.” Zanesville Times Recorder 29 May 1939: 6. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
“Several Plead Guilty Before Federal Judge.” Elyria Chronicle Telegram 13 June 1939: 1. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
David Moore was born on 07 April 1903 [1] in Wattsville, a little unincorporated town in Fox Township in Carroll County, Ohio to William Grant Moore and Nancy Jane Hale. He was the sixth of seven children born to William and Nancy. Dave had four sisters; Lula, Effa, Sadie, and Nettie and two brothers; William and John. All four of the girls were born before any of the boys.
In 1910, the family was living in Salineville [2] in Washington Township in Columbiana County, Ohio with the four youngest children, along with married daughter Sadie and her husband, Homer Beadnell. We also find the family still living in Salineville by the time of the 1920 census [3] where William and Nancy are enumerated along with their 3 sons William, David, and John. The boys had Moore cousins who lived in Bergholz and David, especially, spent a lot of time visiting them. This is how he met my grandmother, Elsie Marcella Hackathorn. The cousins lived nearby the Hackathorns. David and Elsie were married on 12 April 1923 in Wellsburg, Brooke County, West Virginia. It appears that the certificate has been lost somehow because even my grandmother had a hard time trying to obtain a copy when she retired from the S.S. Kresge Company. [4]
David and Elsie were living in Springfield Township, Jefferson County, Ohio (near Bergholz) by the time of the 1930 census [5] with their first 3 children of nine, two daughters and a son. David was working in the coal mines at that time. At some point, they lived for a stint in Canton, Stark County, Ohio as it was noted on the 1940 census as the place they were living in 1935 [6]. In between the censuses, another daughter and two sons were born to them. The next move was to Hanover Township in Columbiana County, near Bayard, where my mother was born and started to school. [7] Two more sons were born to David and Elsie after my mother was born in 1942. David continued his work in the coal mines and worked for a time for a window washing company. Along about the time that my mother would be entering the sixth grade, David got a job with the City of Canton that necessitated a move back up to Canton to live, where they rented several houses before buying the house that I knew.
David Moore was, of course, my maternal grandfather. Others might have quite different memories of him, but I have only the fondest of memories of him from when I was a small, somewhat precocious, child. For a time after I was born, my mom and dad and I lived at the house with Grandma and Grandpa. My dad’s mother lived right across the alley.
One of my uncles (or perhaps two of them, more about those uncles at another time) owned a riding academy by the name of Town and Country out on Perry Drive in Canton and it was there that the family spent a lot of time, including my grandfather. David had come from “horse people” and his father William, had always owned fine horses. My grandmother always said that he had the finest horses around and when there was a need for horses to pull the hearse at funerals and to the cemetery, that William was always called on to come with his horses.
My mom tells me that they kept my bassinet in the barn office with a curtain draped over it to keep off the flies. My grandfather bought me a grey Shetland pony before I was even close to being able to ride – but my mom says that he used to sit me on top of it all the time and hold me there. The pony’s name was Smokey, but not being able to say my S’s, he was Mokey to me.
As a young child, I spent a lot of time at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I asked my mom a couple of days ago if it was really all that much time or if it was a false memory, but she assured me that I was there quite often because my grandpa wanted me there. My grandma and grandpa’s bedroom was in a room right off the kitchen and I loved being in there. There were bridles and reins hanging from the walls, and a framed picture of a horse, and a calendar that had a photo of Dale Evans on it (I decided that I didn’t care for Dale Evans after I found out that she was married to Roy Rogers – I kind of had it in my head that I was going to grow up to marry Roy Rogers). My grandpa had bought me a stuffed penguin that was probably about 11” high and he used to put his fingers under the wings so that the wings would flap (although I didn’t know he was doing that at the time). Whenever I’d come to stay for a few days, he’d take me down to Lawson’s and get two cardboard boxes, one a little smaller than the other, and placed on their sides they would become my dresser into which he’d place a round mirror in the top one and a Big Ben alarm clock and my penguin into the bottom one. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Grandpa sitting on his lap, or on the table, or walking around entertaining him with my Groucho Marx imitations. These are some of the fond memories that I have of him.
He loved baseball and the Cleveland Indians, in particular. The television was placed in the living room so that he could watch from the kitchen. He loved Polka music and was crazy about a young honky tonk piano player on Lawrence Welk by the name of JoAnn Castle [8]. He’d say, “Listen to that babe pound that piana!” Somehow he convinced me that if I didn’t put my tongue in the hole of my gums where I’d lost a tooth, that my tooth would grow in gold like his. Of course, that is impossible and I was disappointed to not be able to grow any gold teeth. Yes, my grandfather was a character and he also loved his whiskey.
At some point before I started second grade, my grandfather and grandmother split up. She went to live with a Wyckoff cousin and he went to live with his sister. Our family moved into Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I lost touch with my grandpa until I was in high school, at which time I walked past his little house, catty-cornered across the street from his sister’s house, and I would stop and chat with him a little while if I saw him sitting outside. After graduation, I lost touch with him again. I was out of state for a while, was working, got married and had my children… He passed away 13 November 1988.
This is my Week #8 post for Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Challenge.
The optional theme for this week was “Close to Home”.
SOURCES:
[1] Savage, Arnold Hegy. Guide to Carroll County, Ohio Birth Records, 1867-1908. Carrollton, OH: Carroll County Genealogical Society, 2000. 350. Print.
[2] Database online. Year: 1910; Census Place: Salineville, Columbiana, Ohio; Roll: T624_1162; Page: 14A; Enumeration District: 0058; Image: 364; FHL microfilm: 1375175.
[3] Database online. Year: 1920; Census Place: Salineville, Columbiana, Ohio; Roll: T625_1356; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 145; Image: 604.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._S._Kresge
[5] Database online. Year: 1930; Census Place: Springfield, Jefferson, Ohio; Roll: 1824; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 27; Image: 844.0.
[6] Database online. Year: 1940; Census Place: Hanover, Columbiana, Ohio; Roll: T627_3043; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 15-15.
[7]http://www.oldohioschools.com/columbiana_county_files/Columbiana%20Bayard%20School%20(Medium).jpg
[8] http://www.welkgirls.com/joanncastle.html
Happy Birthday, Uncle Dean!
Elsie Marcella Hackathorn taken in Bergholz, Ohio probably circa 1916.
In keeping with the optional themes in Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Challenge, as soon as I read that this week’s suggestion was “Tough Woman”, I thought of my maternal 2nd great-grandmother Mary Amna MYERS. I have long been more than a little obsessed with pioneer women and have read scads of books and diaries of, and authored by, pioneer women. You can probably imagine my delight at having a copy of an oral history that was dictated by Elizabeth Jane (Jennie) HACKATHORN BROTHERS, daughter of Mary MYERS, to a third cousin of mine, Susan MORGAN ACERBI. Susan has graciously allowed me to quote from that history for this blog post.
Mary Amna MYERS was born 29 December 1831, first-born daughter to Lambert L. MYERS and Susannah CRAWFORD. Although no proof has been found to the place that she was born, it is reasonable to believe that she was born in or near what is now East Township of Carroll County, Ohio since both the MYERS and CRAWFORD families lived in this area during that time. At the time of her birth, this area would have been Columbiana County.
Mary married Jacob A. HACKATHORN on 27 October 1849 in Norristown, Carroll County, Ohio. He was the son of Christian HACKATHORN and Catherine PHILLIS, early residents to this area from Beaver County, Pennsylvania. At the time of the 1850 census, Mary was enumerated twice. First, with her husband, Jacob, and six month old first born, Susannah F., on September 18th in Tallmadge, Summit County, living nearby Jacob’s brother James, and then in the home of her parents, Lambert and Susannah, in East Township of Carroll County on September 24th. Mary’s young daughter is not enumerated with her in the home of her parents. We know that Susannah died in infancy and although the death date has not been found as of yet, it is reasonable to assume that it could have been in this time period. Mary, herself, was pregnant again at the time of the census and due to give birth in December. These two things could have been a reason for her to show up in her parents’ household at the end of September. There would be 12 children born to Mary and Jacob. Besides Susannah, a son also died in infancy, and their youngest born son, George, died at the age of two. The other children were Christian Charles, Jacob P., James L., Silas Myers, William A., Thomas John, Crawford Matthew, Elizabeth Jane, and Katherine Amanda. Although I did find an entry on the 1900 census in Medina County, Ohio listing a Mary HACKATHORN living with her daughter, Amanda of the correct ages, I really have no information about Amanda and am not sure if these are my Hackathorns. I do know that she is not present in the following photograph of those siblings.
At the time of the next census in June of 1860, we can find Mary and Jacob living in Liverpool Township of Columbiana County with their four young sons; Christian, James, Jacob, and Silas. “Jacob seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades. He farmed, mined coal, did some blacksmithing and various other work. Jacob and Mary thought with their family of growing boys they could do better in the west. So in 1866 they travelled west.” The thought was probably on their minds because of The Homestead Act of 1862 that was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. Because of their near proximity to The National Road and the areas where we find them along their journey, it’s safe to assume that this is the route that they took in their covered wagons.
We know that Crawford Matthew was born 21 May 1868 near Batavia, Jefferson County, Iowa and that Jane was also born in Iowa 29 November 1871 so they must have moved to Kansas sometime between the end of 1871 and 1873. “In ’73 and ’74 the hot winds and the grasshoppers took all of the crops, so they decided that was enough of the West and they started back East in covered wagons. They got as far as Indiana and met an old farmer who needed help on his farm. He made them a good proposition and Jacob, with his sons James, Jacob, and Silas; the three who were large enough to work (Christian having married and stayed in Kansas) decided to work for the farmer.”
Back in Kansas, Christian had married Harriet GLENN on 16 April 1874 in Greenwood County. On the 1875 State Census of Kansas, we find Christian and his young family living in Osage County, Kansas. I don’t know if this is the area in which the Hackathorn family originally settled in Kansas, but in all probability it was.
“Their big difficulty was no house to live in. With the help of the good neighbors, they built a two room house, one room up and one room down. They cut the logs and went to work on the house and in the meantime they lived in the two covered wagons. Luckily, it was summertime. This farm was in the Wabash bottom and they burned dry toadstools to smoke the mosquitos away. On their way back East, Jane being between three and four years old, has a vivid recollection of seeing a large herd of buffalo. She said they looked like a large body of waving water. They (the buffalo) were crossing the trail and the wagons had to wait until they had passed. Jane said they could not see either end of the herd. They did not see any Indians, but were always on the lookout for them. Water was very scarce, but when they came to the Mississippi River, Jane thought that was too much water. They had to cross on a ferry boat and the noise of the engines frightened the team of mules and the boys jumped from the wagons to hold the mules and, in doing so, had to pay extra fares. They got as far as Indiana where they built the log house. The crops were doing nicely and everything was going fine, when in August they had a torrential downpour. The levee broke and that lowland was soon flooded and everything was washed away. They had no time to rescue the animals so waded to the stable and loosened them so they could take care of themselves as best they could. The family moved everything to the second floor and waited to be rescued. They were taken out in a john boat and traveled at least seven miles before they hit dry land. Then they stayed in a blacksmith shop overnight and were chased from there before daylight as the water was still rising. Jane does not remember just how they got out of the predicament, but she does remember that after the water went down, the men folks went to look for the animals. They found the team of mules, one on each side of the river. They found the horses, one was dead, but they still had one team left. This seemed like the end of everything for they had lost three crops three years in succession and they were still destined for still more bad luck.”
The Hackathorns were probably living just west of Terre Haute, Indiana at the time of this flooding of the Wabash River in August of 1875. This area is convenient to The National Road and we find them in this area for a few years. The newspapers of that time are full of reports of the flooding and I did find this article that mentions a destructive tornado that went through a county just north of this area at that same time.
“They then found a place to live near Saline City and still kept the family together. Jacob and the boys worked at whatever they could find to do until June of 1876 when Jacob, the father, contracted smallpox and died.” Historic Note: This is the same month and year of Custer’s Last Stand. “They all had smallpox except for James who was working away from home. Mother Mary and the children were vaccinated as soon as they knew the father had the disease and, of course, it was not so severe with them. There was at this time a real epidemic of smallpox in that territory and no one would go near a house that had sickness, for everyone was afraid of the dreaded disease. This made a hardship on the family for no one would give them work even after the quarantine was lifted. Jane remembers that while they were sick they lived on tea and crackers which the county sent them. One family of good neighbors by the name of ICKES gave them milk but would not go near the house. One of the boys would set a pail out in a field and the neighbors would pour milk into the pail and then raise a flag to let them know it was there. The neighbors dug the grave for father Jacob and the casket was brought to the yard and left there. The boys then carried it into the house and Mother Mary and the boys placed him in it and took him to a county cemetery they called the Skee Cemetery and buried him. The daughter of the ICKES family afterward married James HACKATHORN. Her name was Lyde.”
In the 1880 census, we find Mary and her sons, Jacob and William, living in Sugar Creek, Vigo County, Indiana, west of Terre Haute. Not so far away, is the farm of James SKEE and family. I have not found a cemetery by the name of Skee Cemetery in searches and in letters written to historical societies in Indiana. It is reasonable to assume that Jacob was buried in a family cemetery on James SKEE’s farm. I have no idea where the younger children are on the 1880 census since they were not enumerated with Mary and the two boys and I have not found them living with known family members, nor could they be found with neighbors; however, the family eventually migrates down to and meet in Bergholz in Jefferson County, Ohio where the children marry and start families. This includes Christian, who left Kansas and brought his young son along with him after his wife died in 1887. This did not include James who remained in Indiana with his wife and daughter, Lillian. Mary died in Bergholz on 30 December 1896 at the age of 65 years old and is buried in the Bergholz Cemetery. A pioneer woman in every sense.
Sources:
Special thanks to Susan Acerbi who had the forethought to record this oral history of the Hackathorn journey to the west with Elizabeth Jane Hackathorn (Jennie Brothers) and for giving me permission to reproduce parts of it. Thanks, Susan!
Year: 1860; Census Place: Liverpool, Columbiana, Ohio; Roll: M653_948; Page: 161; Image: 326; Family History Library Film: 803948
Year: 1850; Census Place: Tallmadge, Summit, Ohio; Roll: M432_732; Page: 483B; Image: 439
Database online. Year: 1850; Census Place: East, Carroll, Ohio; Roll: M432_664; Page: 154B; Image: .
Year: 1880; Census Place: Sugar Creek, Vigo, Indiana; Roll: 318; Family History Film: 1254318; Page: 184A; Enumeration District: 199; Image: 0370
com, Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925, (Provo, Utah, USA)
“Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-1997,” index and images,FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-18084-100791-52?cc=1614804 : accessed 18 January 2015), Jefferson > Marriage index and records 1896-1899 vol 14 > image 293 of 432; county courthouses, Ohio
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Conestoga_wagon_on_Oregon_Trail_-_NARA_-_286056_crop.jpgBy Conestoga_wagon_on_Oregon_Trail_-_NARA_-_286056.jpg: Department of the Interior. National Park Service. Scotts Bluffs National Monument. derivative work: Crisco 1492 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/settlement-in-kansas/14546
http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/homestead-act/15142
http://www.connerprairie.org/Learn-And-Do/Indiana-History/America-1800-1860/The-National-Road.aspx
http://www.historynet.com/1874-the-year-of-the-locust.htm
The Indiana State Sentinel., August 05, 1875, Page 6, Image 6
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